Revenant

THIRTY-FOUR

Quinton had been at my side in moments, pulling me to him and away from the terrible scene in front of me. My clothes were soaked in blood, my legs red with it and my arms smeared in gore to the elbow. I looked more like a murderer than Eladio, who turned white and sank to his knees, huddling in silence and shivering as we waited for the police.

We were up until midnight. Everyone who had come to dinner and some who had joined the scene later to fetch their families or employees were forced to stay until the territorial police allowed them to go. The crime was so obvious and pathetic that the police barely questioned anyone after Eladio confessed, his voice calm with quiet mortification. Nelia raged at him at first and then sank into weeping grief so profound she couldn’t stand. One of the family—a burly man with cowlicked hair—carried her away. The family seemed to have agreed she shouldn’t stay at the house.

As for Quinton and me, we followed the police back to Estremoz when they removed Carlos’s body to the mortuary. As the night grew deeper, I kept expecting him to sit up, but he never did.

The police officer who’d accompanied us back to town knew where we could find a guest room even at such a late hour, and it wasn’t until I was standing in the bathroom, seeing the dried red-brown stains of blood on my body, that I started to fall apart. I had noticed and cataloged everything as it had happened, but it was a blur now, a nightmare of gore-soaked fragments that played over and over as I blinked in the light of the washroom: Carlos standing calmly, turning to me; the knife; Eladio’s furious face seen over Carlos’s shoulder; the shock of the blade stabbing into flesh; the touch of death, and the heart that beat only because of what I’d done at Carmo pumping blood onto the stones around the pool; Carlos’s lips moving without sound; his hands twitching in the rushing tide of blood from his body; Nelia screaming; and then the stillness; Carlos’s eyes turning to mine a moment before life ceased.

I sank to the floor, shaking and gasping, my throat closing around my horror and grief. Quinton had to help me up and into the shower, wash me off, and put me to bed—there was even blood in my hair and covering my feet. Only the still-healing demands of my body and copious amounts of a bittersweet/sour cherry liquor called ginja let me sleep at last.

I woke up feeling drained and sick—I preferred to blame the ginja for the latter, but the malaise was more emotional than it was a hangover.

When Quinton and I quit the hotel, there were hours yet to kill until darkness would fall. Once again I was in his spare clothes since mine were unsalvageable. I didn’t want to look in any mirrors to see whether I appeared as wretched as I felt, but Quinton pointed out that I needed clothes. Even if we left Portugal that day, I still would have to dress in something other than his shirt and trousers, eventually.

I despise shopping at the best of times, but this chore at least took my mind off half the problem. I still winced and choked in horror every time I saw myself in the mirror, reviewing grisly flashes of the night before with every piece of clothing I donned, seeing it for a moment clinging to my body, soaked in blood.

After that, I found it almost a relief to discuss the rest of the problem with Quinton, sitting in the sunshine on a café’s patio while picking at necessary food and wanting only coffee.

“Can we?” I asked.

“We can’t not try.”

“I don’t know if we can pull it off without Carlos. . . .”

“We have a plan and we’ll do our best with it. If that won’t work . . . we’ll improvise.”

“I can’t hear the notes. You know that.”

“Yeah, but I can. We’ll work together. My role was basically to protect the two of you and that’s less complicated if I only have the one of you to guard. I can do more than one job, but it’s simpler if it’s all centered on one person. It won’t be easier, but it will be simpler.”

“What if we fail?”

“Not an option.”

Panicked, I grabbed his hand and looked at him, imploring. “Seriously. What if?”

He put his hands over mine and returned a steady gaze. “I don’t know. Whatever happens, we’ll find another way. I’m not kidding when I say ‘improvise.’ You’re good at it. So am I. It’s our strength. Dad and Rui have to have a plan. They don’t have the option of winging it. If we can’t make the plan we have work, we’ll force them into their weakest play and make the best of it.”

“I’m not sure. . . .”

He slipped his hands under mine and closed his fingers gently, pulling my hands to him across the small table. He kissed each hand and looked back to my face. “I would never lie to you. I believe we can do this. What’s breaking you up so badly? Are you worried we can’t make it work without Carlos or is it that he’s dead?”

I had to close my eyes, shutting my lids over the wet heat of tears before they could escape down my cheeks. I swallowed with difficulty and tried to reply without my voice wavering and cracking, “Is it crazy to feel . . . bereft over a vampire?”

“There’s nothing crazy about mourning the passing of a friend. Monster, mage, murderer—those things are what, not who he was.”

“How do you know?”

Quinton glanced away, nervous. “We talked a few times lately.”

“About me.”

“Every time. Some of the things he revealed weren’t pleasant; some of them were hard—” He returned his gaze to mine. “He told me off plenty and didn’t let me off any hooks in that regard. But what he said about you . . . I was not his biggest fan, I admit, but he never hurt you. And he could have at any time. You said you respected him, that it was mutual, but he went you one better—he admired you. I think, in some weird, twisted, Carlos way, he almost loved you, and that made it harder for me. I wanted to keep on despising him, but I couldn’t. Well . . . except for the Nelia thing, which still creeps me out. But he supported you when you needed help and made you work things out for yourself when you didn’t. He cared what happened to you, even though he didn’t have to, and he told you things you didn’t want to hear when you needed to hear them. Sounds like a friend to me. And you were a friend to him, which I think was very rare.”

“But for friendship . . . He wouldn’t have died like that if I hadn’t given him blood at Carmo. It changed him and that change killed him.”

“No. An angry, jealous man killed him. You saved him—at least twice. You’re not guilty of what another person did in destroying your gift. And . . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head as if throwing something aside. He looked back to me, his gaze clear and certain. “And I am not guilty of what my father does just because I didn’t ruin our lives by taking his. I know that what he’s doing is wrong and since no one else believes me, the task of doing the right thing in stopping him and his magical thugs falls upon me. And upon you if you choose to come with me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s not your fight. You didn’t let this happen and the Guardian Beast hasn’t been around pushing you to fix this, so . . . I guess it’s not the apocalypse I fear it is and it’s not your responsibility in that particular sphere.”

I found myself shaking my head, convinced he was wrong. My uncertainty and tears dried up like water in the Alentejo sun. “No. That’s not why the Guardian hasn’t been around. I’ve seen it nearby—it’s concerned in this. But, I think . . . I think it’s decided I’m not a child anymore who needs to be taught her responsibilities. It expects me to make my own evaluations. It didn’t push me into the possession case last year, though I heard it at a distance and it helped me when I really needed it, but it didn’t interfere. It was watching, but it wasn’t directing. It’s up to me, now. It’s my road to walk and screw up or not, just like Marsden and every other Greywalker. Hands of the Guardian, not a pawn.”

Quinton smiled and glanced down at my big hands. “Maybe Paws of the Guardian in your case.”

I laughed, surprising myself. “Well, it is a guardian beast, after all. And even if this weren’t my job, on that account, it’s still my job on your account.”

Quinton’s eyebrows rose. “Mine?”

“Because I love you. And I won’t leave your side. Ever.”

He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh, all the energy around him going a soft blue, like clean water. I knew he was still thinking about the question he’d asked and I should have given him my answer again—the last time seemed to have gotten lost in the chaos of Amélia—but part of me didn’t want to promise something death might negate if we didn’t meet our goals tonight.