Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr) (15 page)

He sighed. “
It’s not as easy as that, you know? Think about it, Tan. He spent three long days and nights with one of the most sadistic vampires ever known to exist.”

“
And your point is?” I stood up. If he wasn’t going to tell me, then I’d get a nurse. And if a nurse wouldn’t tell me, then I’d break down every goddamned door in this fucking building until I found Jamison.

“
For Christ’s Sake, sit your fucking ass down and listen to me!” He shouted in exasperation and a young mother turned shocked eyes toward us and clamped her hands over her son’s ears, who was staring at us with eyes the size of a halfdollar piece.

I did as he told me. For now.

“Now, what is so important you’ve got to keep me from going to Jamison?” I asked, not bothering to hide how irritated I’d grown. Mitch was my friend, one of my closest friends, someone I could always count on, but sometimes, his thoughtful ways made me want to tear my head out. He’d always been “thought first, action second” while I was the direct opposite. Occasionally, I had to ask myself how we became friends in the first place.

He cleared his throat, and there was an uncomfortable silence that filled the space between us.

“Mitch? Are you going to tell me or just sit there like a wart on a frog?”

He si
ghed and leaned his head back against the wall. “Look, like I said, it’s just not easy talking about this. But, to put things bluntly, I don’t think you should go see him right now.”

My heart lurched in the most painful way.

“What? Why not?”

“
Just leave him be, Tan. He’s been through a lot of trauma and he needs to be around…normal people. No vampires.”

Maybe I
’d unknowingly breathed in stupid gas or something, but I had absolutely no idea what he was getting at. “Would you please clarify that for me? What do you mean, no vampires?”

He reached out for my hands and it felt good, sharing physical contact with someone.

“Raylene really fucked him up. He just needs some time away from anything that reminds him of her. Just give him some time. Take it slow. Let him heal and he’ll come back to you.”

Always, Mitch had been the wise man in my circle of companions.

But I couldn’t accept his words this time.

Not when I felt so responsible.

I pulled away from him and stood back up. Damn what Mitch thought. He couldn’t possibly understand the turmoil that was brewing inside of me. The only way to ease the storm, would be seeing Jamison and seeing his smile again. Everything would be all right.

I didn
’t know, at that point, just how wrong I would be.

Mitch stared
up at me, looking every one of his thirtyeight years. “You’re still going to see him?”

“
Are you going to stop me?” I asked, quietly and he shook his head.

“
No, I’d be a dead man if I tried. His room number is 714, on the seventh floor and room 14. Mind you, I’m only telling you because you’d end up tearing the place up, and that’s not going to make anyone happy.”

Mitch really knew me too well, and I bent down, kissing him gently on the forehead.

“Thank you. For everything.” I said, even though words seemed terribly inadequate.

He smiled softly. “
Yeah, whatever. Go to him if you absolutely have to. Maybe you can save him.”

I didn
’t know about saving him, but as I half jogged, half powerwalked to the elevators, I couldn’t help but feel as though Mitch had been the one to save everyone today.

Once in the elevators, I tried to ignore the way everyone was surreptitiously gawking at the enormous sunglasses. They really were huge and covered half my face. I probably looked like a person whose head was half
ant, and the thought of that made me afraid to look in a mirror.

The doors slid open on the seventh floor and I slipped out, grateful I no longer had a nurse, an old man with a cast around his middle, and a child with bandages running from his torso to h
is neck, eyeballing me as if they suddenly expected me to sprout antennas.

Room 17 was a solitary room, and through the square window set into the heavy door, I saw Jamison, his lovely red hair cut to his shoulders. They probably had to do that for his va
rious treatments, but it still hurt. His hair had been his glory and I loved to run my fingers through it. Even though his hair was still longer than conventional standards, there was an air of shorn dignity surrounding him, and I was a bit apprehensive about walking in, scared that more had changed about him than just his hair. His arm was in a cast, and his temple bandaged.

He was staring out the window, the morning sunlight streaming in, bathing his features in a perfect symmetry of dark and light, and
I took a deep breath. Gathering my frightfully low supply of fortitude, I placed a hand around the doorknob and turned it.

Jamison turned to the door, and I found myself unable to meet his eyes as I walked in, closing the door firmly behind me.

The air smelled sterile, as if it had come from a bottle, not from nature. There was no smell of redwood in the room, no smell of him.

He was silent and when I managed to look him in the jewel eyes that had captivated me all the time, I couldn
’t help but call out his name in distress.

“
Oh God, Jamison…”

His eyes had lost their spark, the inner fire that had made them look like jewels. Now they were just like glass marbles, and I felt like I was staring into the face of a mannequin.

He smiled ruefully and then turned his face away from me, presenting me with a stoic profile. “I look like hell, don’t I?”

He did, quite frankly, but I didn
’t have it in me to say so.

I walked toward the bed, my steps sounded unsteady, off
beat against the hard linoleum floor.

“
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jamison.”

I was biting my lips hard, trying not to let my eyes cloud with tears, because I knew I couldn
’t do something as selfish as that. The person who really needed to have a good cry was Jamison. He’d been the one who went through hell. I couldn’t possibly imagine what it must have been like to be under the care of Raylene.

My hand shook as I reached out to touch his beautiful face, to reassure myself he really
was
all right.

He flinched and I stopped, a mere inch away from the p
orcelain of his cheeks.

“
Don’t. Please. Don’t touch me.” He pulled away, put more distance between us, as much distance as the hospital bed would allow him and this time, I could not stop the tears that flowed down my cheeks and splattered onto the floor. “Please leave me alone. I want to be by myself.”

There were no words in the English language that could have possibly described what I felt. Bereft? Lost? Wretchedness? Demoralized? This was everything I felt, and so much more.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw my head back and cry. Cry for my faults, for causing such pain to the one man who meant most in this world to me.

I swayed on my feet, knowing I had to remain strong, but also knowing the minute I stepped out of this room, I
’d became a quivering mass of despair.

He was not going to forgive me. When I cast him away from me four days ago, I had unwittingly thrown him out to the wolves.

“Forgive me, Jamison. I am so sorry. I was wrong. Please, I would do anything for your forgiveness. Don’t do this to us.” My voice trembled, no matter how steady I tried to make it, and he stared down at his lap.

“
Just go, Tanith.”

“
Why?” My heart beat painfully against my chest and I was helpless. Hopeless. Pinioned by the invisible weights of guilt and remorse, I could not move. For the life of me, I could not move. Neither forward, nor backward, I stood by his bedside, and waited for an answer that would feel like a physical blow to my soul.

“
Because when I see you, I see her. When I hear your voice, her voice whispers in the shadows. When I think of you, she appears.” His broad shoulders trembled briefly and his voice grew thick with emotion that he dared not release in front of me. “Don’t you see? She tainted everything in me. She made everything that had once been beautiful, the things I loved, she turned them into things I can't stand to look at.”

"Jamison, don't say that."

He turned those blank eyes to me. “I will never be the same again. I’m not the Jamison you knew. I will never go back to the Jamison you knew.”

I could think of nothing to say. Those empty eyes were enough to rebuff any arguments I could have thought of.

“Now please leave before I call one of the orderlies to escort you out.”

He turned back to the window, and I stood there for a minu
te, staring at him, praying desperately that this was just all a horrible, terrifying dream. But he never looked at me, and there was little I could do, but walk out.

I closed the door, and the sound of his weeping reached my ears.

I couldn’t stay there anymore.

Not bothering to stop by the waiting room, knowing Mitch would say “
I told you so”, I walked out of the hospital and headed toward the one place I knew I could find peace and solace.

Saint Paul Cathedral.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

None but the brave deserved the fair

-John Dryden “
Alexander’s Feast”

“
Hm. That is quite a dilemma. I can understand how you feel, but on the other hand, I think I can see how your friend feels about this whole mess. You must think of the horrible experience he’s gone through.”

Father Hernandez looked up from polishing one of the pews, although it seemed completely unnecessary. The whole place shone, as if it had just been newly built, but that wasn
’t quite so true. The place had been erected on deconsecrated ground about ten years ago, so, technically, the place wasn’t really what anyone would call a holy place.

But it was holy enough for the ones who couldn
’t enter most other “places of God.” And that was good enough of us. After all, we weren’t exactly in a position to complain.

Most humans got the wrong idea about us burning up into smoke and turning into ash when we walk into a church. A church is just a building. The reason we are turned away is because the building was on holy ground, blesse
d ground. But take away the special earth and there wasn’t really anything special about the building.

I liked it here. It was calm, peaceful, a retreat from the crazy life that I led. But when I really needed peace, it did not come to me. I felt complete
ly hopeless, and that was a feeling completely foreign to me.

“
I just…I don’t know what to do anymore. I thought if I went and brought him back from Raylene, then everything would be peachy, you know?”

“
Things don’t work out the way we want them to, Tanith. You, of all people, should have already known that.”

Father Jeffery Hernandez wasn
’t an ordinary clergyman. For one thing, he’d been excommunicated by the Vatican when word got out he was a Were. He should’ve just folded up his stole and thrown away his rosary, but he didn’t. He told me only God had the right to turn people away from the Faith, and no mortal man, Pope or no, had the power to make him quit worshipping the Holy Father. I admired his courage and will. In fact, I admired just about everything about him. If vampires, if I was allowed to have a hero to look up to, then Father Hernandez would have been mine.

“
I know. I know.” The church was empty, and the silence echoing from the cold stone walls only made things worse. “I just didn’t know. About Jamison. He was my friend, my best friend. And now, suddenly this close to losing him, let’s not even talk about me taking his blood, everything just feels like it’s totally out of control.”

Father Hernandez sat down next to me with a sigh. “
My dear, Tanith. It seems like just yesterday when you staggered through those doors, bleeding and crying for death.”

I remembered that and couldn
’t help but wince. I had not been at my finest, then.

“
Just yesterday, but already it has been more than five years. And during those five years, I have seen you change in ways I can only deem as miraculous. I do not think you are aware of just how different and lucky you are from the rest of your brethren.”