Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (34 page)

I found Lucius in the cramped garage bathroom. He was shirtless, bending over the sink, washing his face. He heard me enter but didn't turn around. "Go away."

"Lucius, what is it?"

He remained bent over. "Leave me alone."

I edged closer. "No. Turn around."

"No."

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Mom padded up behind me. She patted my arm, then moved toward Lucius in the same quiet, nonthreatening way I'd moved toward Hell's Belle on that awful day.

"Lucius," she soothed, placing a hand on his back. I recognized that gesture from when I was a child throwing up. Lucius's muscles rippled, shuddering.

It struck me that maybe, just maybe, he was crying. Or trying not to. Really hard.

My mom bent down near Lucius, pushing back his black hair. She straightened, addressing me. "Jess, go get the first aid kit, under the kitchen sink."

"Mom ... is he okay?"

"Just go, Jess," she said calmly.

I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay with Lucius.

"Now," she urged.

"Yes, Mom." I paused at the door, looking back, and saw that my mom had folded Lucius to herself, her arms wrapped around him. He was shaking. Convulsing. She was stroking his hair, talking to him softly. That's why my mom had sent me. She knew Lucius wouldn't want me to see him breaking down, perhaps under the pressure of the first motherly touch he'd ever known. Closing the door quietly, I obeyed her and ran back to the house.

I returned with the first aid kit, followed by my groggy father, who was still struggling to tie his robe around his waist, even as he was halfway up the stairs.

By this time, Lucius was lying on his bed, my mom sitting beside him. She snapped on the bedside lamp as I handed her the first aid kit. Lucius turned his face to the wall, but I could see that he was badly battered. His lip was split, and dark bruises were forming beneath his eye and across his cheek. His nose looked a little crooked.

"I'll get a cold washcloth," Dad offered, making himself useful.

"I'm fine," Lucius insisted. But he winced when Mom dabbed at his broken lip with alcohol.

"You are not fine," Mom said.

"Not my best year, eh?" Lucius joked bitterly. "At least the horse didn't know what she was doing."

Dad sat down, too, at the foot of the bed. He absently clutched the washcloth like he didn't know what to do with it now that he'd brought it. "Lucius, what happened?"

Lucius didn't respond.

"Lucius," Dad prompted again. "Tell us."

"Jessica should go to bed," Lucius finally said, face still to the wall. "It's late."

"I want to stay."

"You're a child," Lucius said. His voice was rough. Distant. "You don't need to be privy to all this."

My parents glanced at each other, and I realized that at that very moment, they would judge whether I really was still a child.

"Jess can stay if she likes," Dad finally said. "This affects her, too."

"I'll be gone in the morning," Lucius promised. "It won't affect any of you any longer."

"You will not go anywhere," Mom said, taking the washcloth from Dad and cleaning some blood from Lucius's cheek. She gently turned his face toward her, and I saw the damage full-on, for the first time. Although the room was dim, I could tell that the horse had spared the rod, to use Lucius's term, compared to his "uncles." My stomach tightened with anger and sadness.

"This is between me and my family," Lucius said. He sat up a little. He still hadn't looked at me. "I shall go home and deal with it."

We all knew what that meant. More pain. More scars.

"This is your home now," Dad said, voice firm. "You'll stay here."

As Dad extended that invitation, and as I watched my mother tend to Lucius's wounds, I saw, finally, the people who had stolen a child away from Romania, saving her life. It occurred to me, suddenly, that they had no doubt risked their own lives for me. It seemed odd and selfish that I'd never realized that before. Of course, they'd always downplayed their own risks.

"Home." Lucius spat the word with contempt.

"Yes. Home," Mom said.

"In fact," Dad added, placing his hand on Lucius's arm. "You've been out here in this garage for too long. I never realized how cold it is out here. Tonight you'll move back into the house. Permanently. We'll make room."

"I could not impose more than I have." Lucius addressed Dad. "And you need not fear for me. The Elders do not plan to stay. Trust me. They are confident that their message has been delivered. That I will obey."

"Still, I want you to move inside," Dad said, overriding Lucius. "Can you get up?"

Lucius seemed too battered, too exhausted to protest further. He swung his legs around, slowly, and paused on the edge of the bed. "Damn," he said, clutching his ribs. "They memorize every place that has been broken in me—the better to break me again, more efficiently."

Mom put her arm around Lucius's bare shoulders, comforting him, and I wished it could have been me in her place. Lucius leaned into her, again allowing to some weakness, and she held him for a moment, looking at my dad over Lucius's bowed head. There was a deep, deep sadness in her eyes.

"Try to stand," Dad said, taking Lucius by the arm.

"Thank you," Lucius replied. Even badly beaten, he retained a regal air once on his feet. "Thank you for everything. I'm sorry to be such trouble."

"It's not a problem, son," Dad promised, helping to steady Lucius with an arm around the waist. "No trouble at all."

Lucius flinched again as Mom slipped her arm around his waist, too. They began to walk, slowly, but Lucius stopped after a few steps. "Dr. Packwood . . . Mr. Packwood ... in the past, I have not always been kind. I fear that I may have called you . . . weak. You are so different from my family, you know."

"It's okay, Lucius," Mom promised, urging him along. "You don't have to say more."

"No," he objected. "No, I do. I was wrong to insult you, and not only because you are my hosts. I am afraid that I mistook kindness for weakness. My apologies. I stand—only with your aid—profoundly corrected."

"Come on, Lucius." Dad patted Lucius's back. "Apology accepted. Now let's get you to bed."

We made a pathetic, slow, shuffling little parade through the frozen yard, Mom, Dad, and Lucius trudging together through the snow with me trailing behind. My mom made up a bed for Lucius in her office, a little cubby of a room between our two bedrooms, and pretended to go to bed herself. But I knew my parents would be alert all night. I knew they wouldn't trust Lucius's assertion that his brutal relatives were headed home. And they would worry that he would disappear into the darkness. I was worried, too. Soon, though, I heard Lucius's deep, steady breathing from next door. He had to be sleeping. Certainly he was exhausted. As I pulled up the covers, back in my warm bed, I recalled that it was New Year's Eve, and realized that the new year had already begun. I would be eighteen soon. Technically old enough to marry.

In the room next to mine, the man I'd been engaged to practically since birth, right up until just a few days ago, turned over and gave a muffled grunt of pain. How many times, I wondered, had he been "efficiently" broken and cried out like that, suffering even in his sleep? And did he carry other injuries deep inside? Pain even worse than broken bones and cuts and bruises?

Chapter 44

I APPROACHED THE GAZEBO in the park at "tenish," as the note had advised, and the vampire waiting there waved, clutching his coat around his throat with his other hand. It was a bitterly cold day, with the threat of snow.

“
I
was afraid you wouldn't come," he said, smiling.

In spite of the smile, I approached warily. "Lucius said you'd all gone home."

"Indeed," he confirmed. "The rest have already returned to Romania. I linger behind in hopes of helping the situation."

I relaxed a little, glad to hear that most of Lucius s uncles had departed. The farther away, the better.

"I'm Dorin," he added, holding out a gloved hand. Actually, it was a mittened hand. He must have seen me staring at the bright wool. Yellow and orange stripes. "Nifty, huh?" he said, flipping his hands back and forth. "I got them at the mall."

I shook his hand. "You shopped at the mall?"

"Oh, sure. American culture. It's all about the fun here. I was so jealous when Lucius was dispatched here for several months' stay. Of course, it was good to get him away from old Vasile for a while." He sucked in his cheeks, making them cadaverous, in imitation. "Seemed a healthy move."

I studied Dorin's face. His cheeks were rosy in the cold, and his eyes were black, like I'd come to expect from vampires, but they had a merry little crinkle around the edges. "Sit, sit," he said, gesturing to a bench, brushing off a dusting of snow.

The seat still didn't look very inviting. "Do you think we could go to a coffee shop or something?" I suggested, blowing on my hands. I cast a longing glance at his mittens.

Dorin mused on this, head waggling back and forth. "Sure. Why not? I suppose I got a little cloak-and-dagger with the whole empty park. I'm a fan of the spy novel, you know."

"Me, too," I said, smiling.

"Well, I'm not surprised," he said, ushering me out of the gazebo. "Being related and all. We probably have lots in common."

"We're related?"

"Yes, yes. I should have put that in the note. Less scary for you then, maybe."

"How?"

"I'm your uncle," he informed me. "Your mother's brother."

I stopped short and stared at him, searching for anything familiar in his face. Any resemblance to my birth mother or me. "You don't look quite like her ... or me."

Dorin's rosy cheeks blanched a little. "Well, I'm more of a half brother, really. Your grandfather had a dalliance out of wedlock . . ." He grinned sheepishly. "I'm the product!"

"But you can tell me about my birth parents, right?"

"Of course, of course," he promised. "But first, let's get you inside. You're shivering."

Yes, I was. From the cold and from anticipation. The vampire at my side was my uncle. He had known my birth parents. . . . Finally, after nearly eighteen years, I was about to learn who they really were. Finally I was ready.

Dorin offered me his arm, and I tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow. "Come along then, Antanasia. We have much to discuss."

Together we strolled across the frozen park toward The Bean Counter, the closest coffee shop. Dorin paused before entering, reading the sign. A smile broke across his face. "I get it. I really do. Funny stuff. Americans and their puns. In Bucharest, it would be called 'Coffee Shop.' The communists messed up everything."