“I also heard you guys saved the world… again,” he said with a tired grin. “That you’re a hero among the Sanguinists.”
“I have never wanted to be considered a hero by the Sanguinists,” she answered.
He frowned. “But I thought you were one of them now.”
“I have taken their vows, yes.”
“Good.”
She stiffened. “Why is this good?”
“I don’t know,” he answered with a shrug. “You can make friends with other Sanguinists. You won’t have to be alone all the time. You won’t even have to hunt.”
His concern for her touched her heart. “I have found another way.”
She told him what she had discovered in France — that there was another way to live outside the bounds of the Church, without falling prey to one’s own feral nature.
“But won’t the Sanguinists hunt you down if you try to leave?” he asked.
“They have been hunting me for many long years, but I am still here.”
He grew quiet, his hands fiddled with his quilt, and he would not meet her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“When are you leaving?”
She had not finalized such plans and said so. “I’ve not decided as of yet.”
“Then will you at least stay… until I go?” He looked at the crucifix on the wall, the door, the window, everywhere but at her. “It won’t take long, I don’t think.”
“I will stay with you,” she promised. “Not to watch you die. But to help you to live.”
Tommy covered his neck with his hand, plainly knowing what she meant. “No.”
“No?”
“I don’t want to become a monster.”
“But you need not be a monster.” Apparently she had not made herself clear enough. “I told you about France, about the Himalayas, about another way.”
He shook his head violently. “I’m ready to die. I should have died in Masada with my parents.”
“There is always time to die,” she said. “It must not be so soon.”
“No,” he repeated, collapsing against the pillows. The effort of disagreeing with her had cost him much. “I don’t want to be immortal. I don’t want to live on blood or wine. I’ve seen that life, and I don’t want it.”
She touched his hand. It was warmer than hers, but colder than it should have been. She could take him. It would be easy. She was stronger. She had killed and changed more humans than she could count. Hundreds. But he would be the first that she killed out of love.
Tommy squeezed her hand. “Please, let me go.”
“You do not know of what you speak.”
“I do,” he said. “I watched Rasputin and Bernard and Rhun and the others. I know how they live. They’re not happy, and I wouldn’t be either.”
What did he know of happiness or of life? He was fourteen years old, and he’d spent two of those years dying of this disease. She could turn him. With time, he might forgive her, and even if he did not, he would still be alive. She could not bear the thought of him dying.
Those brown eyes stared into hers. They had seen much in their few short years, and yet they still reflected innocence and kindness. They were dark, like Rhun’s, but she had never seen simple happiness or innocence in Rhun’s eyes. Immortality had been thrust upon Rhun, too, and it had not suited him. He was not a killer. He had truly been meant to be a priest — someone who served others. Becoming a strigoi was a perversion of his nature.
Just as it would be a perversion of Tommy’s.
How can I force my will on him and pervert that innocence?
It would be a selfish act. She would be taking his soul to spare herself the grief of losing another child. She could not hurt him to spare herself. Not ever.
Tommy must have seen the change in her eyes, because he relaxed and smiled at her. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She looked away and blinked back tears. He would suffer, and he would die, and she would not save him. She rose from the chair, walked to the window, and faced the shutters so that he would not see her cry. She would bear up silently and stay with him until the end. She took a deep breath and reached inside herself for strength.
“Perhaps we should go outside, for a walk in the sunshine?” she suggested. She would help him enjoy the time he had left.
Before he could answer, a sharp rap sounded on the door. Without waiting for permission, Rhun burst inside, with the lion cub close on his heels.
“Forgive the intrusion.” He looked between Elizabeth and Tommy. “I heard that you were here, Sister Elizabeth, and I…”
She scowled at him, knowing what had drawn him here so brusquely. Rhun had feared she would turn the boy.
“I’m fine,” Tommy said.
She smiled down at his pale face. “This is the truth.”
The lion bounded past Rhun and jumped up onto the bed. His golden eyes locked on to Tommy’s, and the two stared at each other with rapt attention.
“Meet Rhun’s lion,” she said by way of introduction.
Tommy seemed deaf to her, lost in the beast’s gaze, as if they knew each other.
Rhun watched and whispered quietly, “The cub reacted in such a manner when he first met Jordan. I think it’s because of the angelic blood they once shared. All three of them carried the angelic essence of the Archangel Michael at one time or another.”
The cub leaned forward and rubbed his head against the boy’s cheek, breaking the spell and raising a bright laugh.
Her heart ached at the sound, knowing how much she would miss it.
Rhun crossed to the window and opened the shutters. Sunlight flooded the room, but it did not bother her as much as it had even a few days before.
The lion basked under that morning sun, stretching out next to Tommy. A low purr rumbled from that furry chest. The sound was full of love, contentment, and simple pleasures.
As she listened, Elizabeth felt a strange warmth pass through her and away, leaving her slightly swooning. She leaned against a bedpost until it passed.
Maybe I’m not as accustomed to sunlight as I imagined.
Tommy lifted a pale hand and stroked the cub’s snowy fur, a wistful smile on his lips.
If nothing else, it was good to see the boy happy. Even his heartbeat sounded stronger, his blood flowing more richly through his veins.
Then she stepped back in shock, staring at Tommy’s pale skin. “Your arm,” she said.
Tommy looked down, confused, then wearing a matching expression of surprise. “My lesions…”
“They’re gone,” Elizabeth said.
The lion raised his head at the commotion and drowsily opened his eyes. The snowy cub’s eyes were no longer golden. They were a simple brown, like Tommy’s own.
“Rhun…” She turned to him for some explanation.
He lowered to a knee, touched his silver pectoral cross, then gently examined both the lion and Tommy’s skin.
“I feel better,” Tommy said, his eyes large, as if surprised to be speaking those words.
Elizabeth smiled. She tried to stop it, but hope crept into her long-cold heart. “Is he cured?”
Rhun stood. “I do not know. But it appears the cub’s angelic essence is gone. Jordan returned from Nepal with no evidence of that spirit in his blood. Perhaps this trace that persisted in the cat needed to perform this one last miracle.”
Elizabeth remembered the strange warmth rising with the cat’s purring. Was that what had happened? Ultimately, she cared little for the mechanism of the cure, only that it was so.
“We’ll have the doctors look at him,” Rhun promised. “But I think he’s just an ordinary boy, one cured of his disease, but still a boy.”
Tommy’s smile broadened.
Elizabeth reached over and tousled his warm, thick hair. That was what he had always wanted — to be an ordinary boy.
After a few pleasantries and promises, Elizabeth followed Rhun out into the hall, trailed by the cub.
“I am glad that you did not turn him,” Rhun said, once they were out of earshot.
“You thought that I would?” Elizabeth widened her eyes in a show of innocence that she knew he did not believe.
“I feared that you might,” he answered.
“I am stronger than you think,” she said.
“What will become of the boy?”
“He must be returned to his aunt and uncle, and I will see that done,” Elizabeth said. “One such as I will not be fit to mother him.”
“Can you simply give him up, then?”
“It will not be simple.” She lifted her chin. “And I shall not give him up entirely. I shall watch over him, come when he needs me, and leave him alone when he does not.”
“I doubt the order will allow you to have further contact with him.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I am not their chattel. I will come and go as I like.”
“You would leave the order, then?” He swallowed. “And me?”
“I cannot stay bound to the Church. You must know this better than any other. So long as you remain here, we can never be together.”
“Then we should say our good-byes soon,” Rhun said, touching her on the arm, drawing her to a stop. She turned to him. “I’ve been given permission to enter Solitude, to begin a period of seclusion and reflection within the order’s Sanctuary.”
She wanted to scoff at him, deride him for turning his back upon the world, but upon hearing the true joy in his voice, she could only look sadly upon him.
“Go then, Rhun, find your peace.”