A million questions rushed through my mind. Where was Bécquer? Had Beatriz killed him and dragged him outside to dispose of his body? But that was impossible. Bécquer was immortal. Yet the pain in his mind when the glass cut his throat had been real. The glass. Glass wounds heal slowly in immortals and the loss of blood leave us vulnerable, Federico had told me. Beatriz knew this, I was sure, and was angry with Bécquer. Angry enough to kill him?
Bécquer and his stupid pride. If only he had told Beatriz I was his descendant, she would have understood his interest in me. But, Federico was right: Bécquer liked to play with people’s feelings and was too proud to explain himself to anyone. And now he was hurt, maybe too hurt to explain. I had to find them. I had to tell Beatriz the truth about Bécquer and me. I had to stop her from harming Bécquer any further because I believed him. I believed Bécquer had not forced Beatriz to give him blood. She had agreed to it willingly. Even if Bécquer’s memories were misleading, and he was in part to blame for taking Beatriz’s blood, her attack on him had been unwarranted.
I took a step and the room erupted into movement and the noise exploded, deafening, in my ears, as if I had just emerged from being underwater in a crowded pool. Even the piano playing, so pleasurable before, pounded in my head. Carefully avoiding the broken glass at my feet, I made it to the door.
The corridor on the other side of the ballroom was empty.
In the diffuse light coming from the iron sconces that hung on the walls I could see several doors on the wall across, all closed, the rooms behind them in darkness. But at the end of the corridor, a rectangle of moonlight escaped through the opening of a heavily carved set of French doors.
I ran to them and slid them open. A piece of cloth lay on the floor. I picked it up. It was the blue shawl Beatriz had worn at the party. The blue shawl stained with blood.
I stepped inside and looked around, taking in the tall bookshelves, the slick wooden table and matching chairs that cast long shadows in the silvery moonlight pouring through the far wall, that was, ironically enough, made out of glass.
A noise to my left caught my attention, a moan maybe, a whisper? Then I heard his voice, Bécquer’s voice inside my head, Leave. But it was weak, too weak to overrule my will. So instead I dashed around the bookshelf that partitioned the floor, toward the sound, then stopped. There was no need for me to go further. I had found them. I had found Bécquer, and he didn’t need me, for he was lying with Beatriz in a sofa set against the wall. Bécquer, his eyes closed, his head resting on the leather armrest had his arms around her body, while Beatriz’s head nested against his chest.
How could I have been so stupid to think Bécquer’s life was in danger? For seeing them now, so closely entangled, I understood that, for all the drama of their exchange and her vicious attack, their whole argument had been nothing more than a lovers’ quarrel. A disagreement already forgotten.
“He always comes back to me,” Beatriz had told me. And so he had.
Please, Carla, leave now. Bécquer’s voice was again in my mind, so weak I could have dismissed it. Except this time I had no reason to. I took a step back.
Stay!
Beatriz’s call, strong and willful, stopped me. I looked up and saw her standing in front of Bécquer, blood on her bodice and a snarl on her face. “I did so hope that you would come,” she said, this time aloud.
Her eyes glowed red. I froze in fear for that could only mean one thing: Beatriz was immortal.
Behind her, Bécquer struggled to get up. “Let her go,” he whispered.
He reached forward and grabbed her arm. But Beatriz pulled away. “Why?” she screamed as Bécquer stumbled back and collapsed on the floor. “Why do you care so much for her?”
“He doesn’t,” I said.
In a flash, Beatriz was at my side. “Don’t lie to me.” With apparent ease, she lifted me from the ground and yanked me back against the bookshelf. “I know him. I know him better than he knows himself, and I know he cares for you.”
“But it is not like that … He cares for me because he is … because I am his descendant.”
Beatriz glared at me, her eyes a burning fire, and I felt the push of her mind entering mine, a harsh, painful thrust, like the prodding of a fingernail in an open wound. Then, she released me suddenly, and I hit the floor so hard my knees gave way and I fell down.
“I see you’re telling the truth,” Beatriz started. “I wonder why — ?”
She halted, and her eyes seemed to withdraw as if they were looking inwards. One moment she was looming over me, the next she was gone, leaving behind the echo of a latch unfastening and her unfinished sentence haunting my mind.
I climbed to my feet and looked around, searching for clues of what had just happened. But for the sliding door opened to the night outside, the room was as it had been.
For a moment, I considered whether Bécquer had stopped time again and left, taking Beatriz with him. But when I looked, I saw him, lying still on the floor. I rushed to his side. His eyes closed, his chiseled features paler than ever in the soft light of the full moon, Bécquer did not answer my frantic callings. Scarier still, he had no pulse.
I panicked, at first, for no pulse meant death in my mind, until I remembered Bécquer was not human. Did immortals have a pulse?
Grateful that Bécquer’s blood had made me immune to my usual blackout reaction at the sight of blood, I opened the collar of his shirt, drenched in blood, and checked his neck. A nasty cut ran from ear to ear. There was something bright inside the wound. A shard of glass.
Just as I pried it loose, two hands grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me back.
“What have you done to him?” Federico roared. His back to me, he bent over Bécquer. Then again, he faced me. “You cut him with a broken glass and took his blood,” he shouted.
For the second time that evening, his strong arms held me in the air. “I told you I would not allow anyone to hurt him.”
I tried to speak but his hands were at my throat. I closed my eyes, certain I was about to die for Federico’s thoughts screamed of murder. But another voice was in his mind, a tenuous presence, like a thought made out of mist, fighting his instincts.
He put me down.
“Leave,” he ordered. Turning his back to me, he knelt by Bécquer.
I didn’t move. “Is he going to be all right?”
Federico didn’t answer.
“Beatriz cut him with a broken glass,” I said. “I never hurt him.”
“I know. I can sense your feelings, remember? I know your hate for him is gone.”
Gently, like a mother cradles her child, Federico lifted Bécquer and set him on the sofa.
“Bécquer is my ancestor,” I talked to his back, simplifying the story. “He’s Ryan’s ancestor too. Not his lover.”
Federico looked at me. “That is why he has his picture.”
I nodded.
“Is he going to be all right?” I asked again.
“Yes. But he needs blood and soon.”
He needs blood. I shivered at the implications of his words. With Beatriz his blood giver gone, I was the obvious choice to replace her.
I could leave, of course, as Federico had urged me to do and for a moment I did consider leaving. But if I left, Federico would force somebody else to feed Bécquer. He had made it clear he would not let him die. I couldn’t let somebody else take my place. Besides, finding this other somebody would take time, and Bécquer didn’t look as if he could waste any more time. I chose to stay.
“But first we must clean his wound,” Federico continued. “Any glass left inside would prevent it from healing.”
I watched as Federico removed the red handkerchief from his neck and used it to clean Bécquer’s cut. After retrieving several shards, he stopped and looked up.