“Listen, Alexei, you don’t have to stay with that dude if you don’t want to,” Jason said. “You can stay with me or Sookie, if Eric won’t put you up. Nobody’s gonna make you stay with someone you don’t want to be with.” Bless Jason’s heart, he sure didn’t know what he was talking about.
Alexei smiled, a faint smile that was simply heart-piercing. “Really, he is not so bad. He is a good man, I believe, but from a time you can’t imagine. I think you are used to knowing vampires who are trying to. mainstream. Master, he is not trying to do this. He is much happier in the shadows. And I must stay with him. Please don’t trouble yourselves, but I thank you for your concern. I’m feeling better already now that I’m with my brother. I don’t feel as if I’ll suddenly do something. regrettable.”
Jason and I looked at each other. That was enough to make us both worried.
Alexei was looking around the kitchen as if he seldom saw one. I figured that was probably true.
I took the warm bottles out of the microwave and shook them. I put some napkins on the tray with the bottles. Jason got himself a Coke from the refrigerator.
I didn’t know what to think about Alexei. He apologized for Ocella like the Roman was his grumpy grandpa, but it was apparent that he was in Ocella’s sway. Of course he was; he was Ocella’s child in a very real sense.
It was an awfully strange situation, having a figure out of history sitting in your living room. I thought of the horrors he’d experienced, both before and after his death. I thought of his childhood as the tsarevitch, and I knew that despite his hemophilia, that childhood must have contained some glorious moments. I didn’t know whether the boy often longed for the love, devotion, and luxury that had surrounded him from birth until the rebellion, or (considering he’d been executed along with his whole immediate family) whether it was possible he saw being a vampire as an improvement over being buried in a pit in the woods in Russia.
Though with the hemophilia, his life expectancy in those days would have been pretty damn short anyway.
Jason added ice to his glass and looked in the cookie jar. I didn’t keep cookies anymore, because if I did, I’d eat ’em. He closed the jar sadly. Alexei was watching everything Jason did as if he were observing an animal he’d never seen before.
He noticed me looking at him. “Two men took care of me, two sailors,” he said, as though he could read the questions in my mind. “They carried me around when the pain was bad. After the world turned upside down, one of them abused me when he had the chance. But the other died, simply because he was still kind to me. Your brother reminds me a little of that one.”
“Sorry about your family,” I said awkwardly, since I felt compelled to say something.
He shrugged. “I was glad when they found them and gave the burial,” he said. But when I saw his eyes, I knew that his words were a thin layer of ice over a pit of pain.
“Who was that in your coffin?” I asked. Was I being tacky? What on earth else was there to talk about? Jason was looking from Alexei to me, mystified. Jason’s idea of history was remembering Jimmy Carter’s embarrassing brother.
“When the big grave was found, Master knew they would find my sister and me soon. We overestimated the searchers, perhaps. It took sixteen more years. But in the meantime, we revisited the place where I was buried.”
I felt my eyes fill with tears. The place where I was buried.
He continued, “We had to provide some of my bones for it, because we had learned about DNA by then. Otherwise, of course, we could have found a boy about the right age. ”
I really couldn’t think of anything remotely normal to say. “So you cut out some of your own bones to put in the grave,” I said, my voice clogged and shaky.
“In steps, over time. Everything grew back,” he said reassuringly. “We had to burn my bones a little. They had burned Maria and me, and poured acid on us, too.”
Finally, I managed, “Why was that necessary? To put your bones there?”
“Master wanted me to be at rest,” he said. “He didn’t want any sightings. He reasoned that if my bones were found, there would be no more controversy. Of course, by now no one would expect me to be alive anyway, much less looking like I did then. Perhaps we weren’t thinking clearly. When you’ve been out of the world so long. And in the first five years after the revolution, I was seen by a couple of people who did recognize me. Master had to take care of them.”
That, too, took a minute to sink in. Jason looked nauseated. I wasn’t far behind him. But this little chitchat had already taken long enough. I didn’t want “Master” to think we were plotting against him.
“Alexei,” Appius Livius called in a sharp voice. “Is all well with you?”
“Yes, sir,” Alexei said, and hurried back to the Roman.
“Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea,” I said, and turned to carry the tray of bottles into the living room. Jason was clearly unhappy, but he followed me.
Eric was fixed on Appius Livius Ocella like a 7-Eleven clerk watches a customer who may have a gun. But he seemed to have relaxed a smidgen, now that he’d had a little time to recover from the shock of his maker’s appearance. Through the bond, I felt a wash of overwhelming relief from Eric. After I thought about that, I believed I understood. Eric was relieved beyond measure that the older vampire had brought a bedmate with him. Eric, who had given a pretty good impression of indifference about his many years as Ocella’s sexual companion, had had a moment of crazed unwillingness when he actually saw his maker again. Eric was reassembling and rearming himself. He was returning to being Eric, the sheriff, from his abrupt reversion to Eric, the new vampire and love slave.
The way I perceived Eric would never be quite the same again. I knew now what he feared. What I was getting from Eric was that it wasn’t so much the physical aspect as the mental; above all else, Eric did not want to be under the control of his maker.
I served each of the vampires a bottle, carefully placing it on a napkin. At least I didn’t have to worry about serving an accompanying snack. unless Ocella decided all three of them would feed from me. In which case, I had no hope I would survive, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it. This should have made me the model of discretion. I should have determined to sit there with my ankles crossed and not let butter melt in my mouth.
But it just pissed me off.
Eric’s hand twitched, and I knew he was reading my mood. He wanted to tell me to tone it down, to cool off, to come in under the radar. He might not want to be under Ocella’s sway again, but he loved the vampire, too. I made myself back down. I hadn’t given the Roman a chance. I didn’t really know him. I only knew some things I didn’t like about him, and there must be some other things I would like or admire. If he’d been Eric’s for-real father, I’d have given him lots of chances to prove his worth.
I wondered how clearly Ocella could sense my emotions. He was still tuned in to Eric and always would be, and Eric and I were bonded. But it seemed my feelings didn’t carry over; the Roman didn’t so much as glance my way. I cast my eyes down. I would have to learn how to be stealthier, and in a hurry. Normally, I was good at hiding what I felt, but the nearness of the ancient vampire and his new protégé, their blood so like Eric’s, had thrown me for a loop.
“I’m not sure what to call you,” I said, meeting the Roman’s eyes. I was trying to mimic my grandmother’s best company voice.
“You may call me Appius Livius,” he said, “since you are Eric’s wife. It took Eric a hundred years to earn the right to call me Appius, rather than Master. Then centuries to be able to call me Ocella.”