Carine sat beside me in the backseat of the Cayenne, where the upper half of Beau's body lay across my lap, my hands supporting his head. His splinted leg stretched out across Eleanor's thighs on the other side of me. She wasn't breathing. She stared out the window, trying not to think about the blood drying all over Beau, Carine, and me. Trying not to think about what I had just done. The impossibility of it. The strength she knew she didn't have.
Beau continued to scream and writhe in agony, though his voice was almost totally gone now. He thrashed involuntarily, but we easily kept him contained.
Every time he tried to scream, I apologized over and over again. There was no release, no relief from it, I knew. There was nothing Carine or I could do to counter the blazing fire that ripped its way through his body now.
I remembered the heat of my own transformation all too well. It had begun in the one point of entry where Carine had slashed my hand with her teeth. Like grabbing the end of a white hot branding iron—my automatic response was to drop the scorching thing in my hand. But there was nothing there in my empty palm. The burning grew from there, rose and peaked again as it raced its way up my arm.
When I'd felt the flames reach my chest, finding their way into the chambers of my heart, I'd wanted to claw my chest open and rip it out of me—anything to get rid of the torture.
I'd begged Carine to make it stop just as Beau had. I screamed at her to let me die. The flames burst their way outward from my heart, spreading impossibly hot to my shoulders and stomach, scalding their way up my throat, licking my face.
All I had wanted was to die, to have never been born. The whole of my existence did not outweigh the pain, wasn't worth living through it for one more agonizing second—and that was exactly how I felt now, watching it all happen to Beau.
This was my fault. I had condemned him to my underworld for all eternity. I'd sealed his fate and destroyed his life forever.
I tried to focus on something else while I wallowed.
Eleanor's thoughts were currently distracted as well as she mulled over her dissatisfaction with the fight. Because, honestly. She'd had the tracker. Totally contained, though the tracker fought and squirmed and thrashed to avoid Eleanor's crushing arms. There was no chance any of this struggle could have helped her, and Eleanor was already breaking her when Jessamine lunged into the blood-drenched room.
Jessamine, mangled and ferocious, eyes sharp and empty at the same time, looking like some forgotten goddess or incarnation of war, projecting an aura of pure violence. And the tracker had stopped trying. In that fraction of a second when she saw Jessamine (for the first time, but Eleanor didn't know that), she'd surrendered to her fate. No matter that her fate was sealed once Eleanor had gotten her hands on her, this was what demoralized her.
It was driving Eleanor crazy.
Someday soon I would have to describe to Eleanor what she'd looked like in the clearing and why. I doubted anything else would soothe the sting.
Jessamine was in the driver's seat, her window cracked to the hot, dry outside air, though like Eleanor, she wasn't breathing. Archie sat beside her, directing everything—the turns, the lanes to travel in, the highest speed she could go without attracting unwanted attention. He had her at sixty-seven miles per hour now. I would have pushed that, but Archie was confident that he would get us home as fast as possible.
Although Archie was monitoring every facet of this drive, his mind was in a dozen different places, finding ways through the necessary errands in front of him, working through the consequences of every choice available.
A few things he was sure of.
Beau's death would have to be staged. The only viable option was for his parents to believe he was dead. He would never be able to see his mother or father again. The craze of newborn the frenzy the first few months of this life entailed made him dangerous to anyone and everyone. His loved ones' own safety prevented them from remaining in his life.
He couldn't go to his father's house and let him see the eyes that would be bright crimson. He couldn't drive to Florida and hug his mother to let her know that he was okay. He wouldn't even be able to call and explain the confusing message he had left on her answering machine.
There would be no grand farewells, no last goodbyes—apart from the harsh words he had left his father with.
Archie saw the contingency plans ahead as clearly as if it were happening, and I saw it all, too. His methodical planning was better than my useless wallowing.
First, we would return home to Forks within the next few hours. Archie and Eleanor would head to the morgue in Port Angeles in search of an appropriate stand-in. After searching the records, he would realize there was no corpse that was roughly Beau's size to take.
His mind flashed forward, where he began searching through the mortuary's catalog. Ah, there... A twenty-year old man, six-foot two, had just been interred at a local cemetery one week ago. Archie and Eleanor would need no tools to unearth the body. All they needed was the cover of nightfall and a body bag. It was better this way anyhow—his family had already mourned, there was a tombstone with his name on it.
All the necessary identifiers would have be destroyed before they staged the accident—teeth, prints, etc. Then it was only a matter of loading the body into Beau's faded red Chevy and heading back south down his presumed route home to Phoenix.
In the vision, Archie makes sure the tank is filled to the brim with gasoline, maximizing the fuel for the blaze, sets a lighter to the trucks upholstery, and ditches the truck and cadaver off the highway in the middle of the Nevada desert. The truck smashes through brush on the side of the roadway and sails over the edge of a ravine, crashing into the rocky terrain below, horn blaring from the impact. It takes a few moments, and then the whole scene bursts into flames.
The horn goes silent.
And then I was back in the present with him. Archie was satisfied with how that section would play out. He turned his attention to the next parts. None of it as much fun, but all still vital. It would take the authorities several days to trace the accident back to Beau's disappearance. His father's reaction to the news was something I knew I couldn't bear to watch.
There would be a funeral. I didn't think I would be able to watch that, either.
Beau was still breathing in ragged breaths in my arms, and we were all still covered in blood. Eleanor and Jessamine were both still holding their breath. I blinked and tried to reorient myself. When Archie's visions were detailed like this, it was easy to lose track of what was happening in the moment. He was better at acclimatizing back and forth than I was.
When we stopped to fill the tank with gas, something about the change caused Beau to stir. He recoiled from the light when the driver's side door opened.
"We're just stopping to refill the gas tank. We'll be home soon, Beau. You're doing so well. This will be over soon. I am so sorry."
I grabbed his hand and held it to my lips, and I didn't let go as the night fell.
He managed to keep his screams contained for the most part, and I could only imagine he was controlling himself now for my sake. Every so often he would call out my name in a panic. His eyes darted around the darkness of the car frantically.
"I'm right here, Beau. You're not alone. I won't leave you. I will be here. Listen to my voice. I'm here with you..."
His breathing got more shallow, and I could only guess his strength was building, allowing him to to adapt to the pain, keeping the screams at bay.
I decided to talk to him to serve as a distraction, for not only him but also myself. "I never wanted this for you, Beau," I whispered to him. "I would give anything to take this away. I've made so many mistakes. I should have stayed away from you, from the first day. I should never have come back again. I've destroyed your life, I've taken everything from you..." I sobbed into his hair.
"No," he managed to slip through gritted teeth.
"He's probably far enough along that he'll remember this," Archie told me.
"I hope so..."
"I'm just saying, you might use the time more productively. There is so much he doesn't know."
"You're right, you're right." I sighed. "Where do I begin?"
"You could explain about being thirsty," Archie suggested. "That was the hardest part, when I first woke up. And we'll be expecting a lot from him."
I spat the words through my teeth. "I won't hold him to that. He didn't choose this. He's free to become whatever he wants to be."
"Hah," Archie said. "You know him better than that, Edythe. The other way won't be good enough for him. Do you see? He'll be fine."
I didn't want to look at the images Archie forced into my brain. Beau stood next to him, snow white skin, ice hard features... and golden amber eyes.
Beau started panicking again.
"I'm here, Beau, I'm here. Don't be afraid." I took a deep breath. "I'll keep talking. There are so many things to tell you. The first one is that when this passes, when you're... new, you won't be exactly the same as I am, not in the very beginning. Being a young vampire means certain things, and the hardest to ignore is the thirst. You'll be thirsty—all the time. You won't be able to think about much else for a while. Maybe a year, maybe two. It's different for everyone. As soon as this is over, I'll take you hunting. You wanted to see that, didn't you? We'll bring Eleanor so you can see her bear impression—" I tried to force myself to laugh, but it sounded damaged. My breath hitched. "If you decide—if you want to live like us, it will be hard. Especially in the beginning. It might be too hard, and I understand that. We all do. If you want to try it my way, I'll go with you. I can tell you who the human monsters are. There are options. Whatever you want. If... if you don't want me with you, I'll understand that, too, Beau. I swear I won't follow you if you tell me not to—"
"No," Beau gasped. His voice was clearer this time.
"You don't have to make any more decisions now. There's time for that. Just know that I will respect any decision you make." I took another deep breath. "I should probably warn you about your eyes. They won't be blue anymore." I sobbed at the thought of this. "But don't let them frighten you. They won't stay so bright for long. I suppose that's a very small thing, though... I should focus on the most important things. The hard things—the very worst thing. Oh, I'm so sorry, Beau. You can't see your father or mother again. It's not safe. You would hurt them—you wouldn't be able to help yourself. And... there are rules. Rules that, as your creator, I'm bound by. We'd both be held responsible if you ran out of control. Oh—"
My mind raced with the weight of everything. I felt as though I would be ripped in half again.
"There's so much he doesn't know, Archie!"
"We've got time, Edythe. Just relax. Take it slow."
I inhaled deeply, trying to find where to start.
"The rules... One rule with a thousand different permutations—the reality of vampires must be kept secret. That means newborn vampires must be controlled. I will teach you—I'll keep you safe, I promise..." The words came spilling out of me so quickly now, I worried that he wouldn't be able to comprehend them. "And you can't tell anyone what you are. I broke that rule. I didn't think it could hurt you—that anyone would ever find out. I should have known that just being near you would eventually destroy you. I should have known I would ruin your life—that I was lying to myself about any other path being possible. I've done everything wrong—"
"You're letting self-castigation get in the way of information again, Edythe," Archie cut me off.
"Right, right." I forced myself to hold back the sobbing that kept wanting to break through my chest. "Beau. Do you remember the painting in Carine's study—the nighttime patrons of the arts I told you about? They're called the Volturi— they are... for the lack of a better word, the police of our world. I'll tell you more about them in a bit—you just need to know that they exist, so that I can explain why you can't tell Charlie or your mother where you are. You can't talk to them again, Beau. It's best... we don't have much choice but to let them think you're dead. I'm so sorry. You didn't even get to say goodbye. It's not fair!"
The tearless sobs overtook me again.
"Why don't you go back to the Volturi?" Archie suggested. "Keep emotion out of it."
"You're right. Ready to learn a new world history, Beau?"
I talked all through the night without stopping. I told him the stories of the Volturi from the beginning, the original six, the betrayal, the murders that cut their numbers in half. I detailed the way they overthrew the Romanians who terrorized Europe, the Egyptians who enslaved so many in their empire. I told him the origins of the myths and lore surrounding vampires, all the stories the Volturi made up to keep the existence of vampires a secret.
Next, I moved on the others like us—Taran and his brothers, along with the two Spanish vampires who had joined their coven in Denali. I told him about Carine's friends all over the world: Séan and his clan in Ireland, the nomads of Brazil, the few remaining members of the Egyptian coven.
I told him all the details of life as a vampire, how we lived with Carine, moving from cloudy place to cloudy place. He would never sleep, eat, be sick, or feel tired ever again. He wouldn't need to breathe. His senses would all be magnified a hundred-fold. He would run faster than any race car, have more strength than any other living creature on Earth.
His heart would finish beating tomorrow, or the next day, and it would never beat again.
He would be a vampire.
I'd had plenty of time to process the events of the day, but I hadn't. I'd just stared at Beau and wished fruitlessly that I'd been more, that I'd been better. That I'd found the right thing and stuck to it before this nightmare could have touched him... That I had just been a few minutes faster. Those last few horrific minutes had eternal consequences.
Now I realized there was something more I had to do. I knew it would be painful, but also that it would not be painful enough. I deserved worse. I didn't want to leave Beau in the silence of the car. I would have Archie take a turn telling more stories.
He saw what I would ask for, and was already holding it up to me in his hands, small and black and wrapped in thin cords. He held it as though he wished he could crush his hands together to destroy it. Part of me was surprised he hadn't.
I've had this argument with you over three hundred times, but I could never convince you.
I held my hand out.
Agree to disagree. But here. He shoved the camera toward me, and I could see he was happy to be rid of it. I took it unwillingly. It felt dark and wrong in my hand.
I'll talk to Beau. You wear these.
He handed me a pair of headphones.
"Thank you."
I put them in my ears.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Once I saw this, I would have it in my head forever. There would never be a release from it. That seemed fair. Beau had lived it. I would only have to watch.
I opened my eyes and powered the camera on. The replay screen was just two inches across. I didn't know whether to be grateful for that, or if I deserved to see it on a much larger scale.
The video began on a close-up of the tracker's face. Joss—the name was too benign for what she was. She smiled at me, and I knew that this was what she wanted—to smile at me. This was all for me. What followed would be a conversation between the two of us. One-sided, but for all that would happen, Beau would never be the object. I was.
"Hello," she said in a pleasant tone. "Welcome to the show. I hope you enjoy what I've prepared for you. I'm sorry that it's a little rushed, a little thrown together. Who would have guessed it would only take me a few days to win? Before the curtain goes up, so to speak, I'd like to remind you that this is really your own fault. If you'd stayed out of my way, it would have been quick. This is more fun, though, isn't it? Again, enjoy!"
The video cut to black, and then a new "scene" began. I recognized the angle of the camera. It was in place on top of the TV, pointed across the long wall of mirrors. The tracker was just leaning away. Her speed, as she darted to the far-right side of the shot, was almost invisible to the camera—only a disjointed flicker was recorded. She settled herself there by the emergency exit, freezing in place with one hand extended. In that hand, a black rectangle. A remote control. Her head was cocked slightly to the side, listening. She heard something too low for the recording, and smiled directly at the camera. At me.
Then I could hear him, too. Running, stumbling feet. Strained breathing. A door opened, and then a pause.
The tracker lifted her remote and pressed a button.
Louder than anything else so far, coming through the speakers right under the camera, Beau's mother's voice cried out in panic.
"Beau? Beau?"
In the other room, the footsteps were running again.
"Beau, you scared me!" Renée said.
Beau burst into the room, panicked and searching.
"Don't you ever do that to me again," Renée continued with a laugh.
Beau spun to the sound of his mother's voice, turned to face me now, his eyes focusing just below the camera. I watched as the realization hit. He hadn't entirely processed the trick yet, but I could see the relief beginning. His mother wasn't in danger.
The sound from the speakers went silent. Beau moved reluctantly. He didn't want to see, but he knew she was there. He stiffened when his eyes found her, waiting motionlessly. I could only see the side of his face, but I could see her clearly as she smiled at him.
She approached, and I had to loosen my fingers. It was too soon to crush the recorder. She passed him, continued to the TV to set the remote down. As she did so, she looked into the camera and winked at me. Then she turned to face him. The way she turned her body put her back to me, but I had a perfect view of Beau. The camera was angled so that I couldn't see her in the mirrors. That must have been a mistake on her part. I imagined she wanted me to see her performance.
"Sorry about that, Beau, but isn't it better that your mother didn't really have to be involved in all this?"
Beau looked at her with a strange, almost relaxed expression. "Yes."
"You don't sound angry that I tricked you."
"I'm not." Truth radiated in his tone.
The tracker hesitated for one second. "How odd. You really mean it." Her head cocked to the side, but I could only guess at her expression. "I will give your strange coven this much, you humans can be quite interesting. I guess I can see the draw of observing you. It's amazing—some of you seem to have no sense of your own self-interest at all."
She leaned toward him as though she was expecting an answer, but he stayed silent. His eyes were opaque, giving nothing away.
"I suppose you're going to tell me that your friends will avenge you?" she asked, her voice taunting. The taunt was not for him.
"I asked them not to."
"And what did your lover think of that?"
"I don't know. I left her a letter."
Please, please don't come after her, he'd written in that letter. I love you. Forgive me.
His manner was almost casual. This seemed to bother the tracker, because her voice was sharper now, her tone twisting into something ominous.
"How romantic." The sarcasm was palpable. "A last letter. And do you think she will honor it?"
His eyes were still impossible to read, but his face was calm as he said, "I hope so."
Please, this is the only thing I can ask you now, he'd written. For me.
"Hmmm. Well, our hopes differ, then." Her voice turned sour. Beau's composure was disrupting the scene she had planned. "You see, this was all just a little too easy, too quick. To be quite honest, I'm disappointed. I expected a much greater challenge. And, after all, I only needed a little luck."
Beau's expression was patient now, like a parent who knows that his toddler's story is going to be long and rambling but is determined to humor her anyway.
The tracker's voice grew harder in response. "When Victor couldn't get to your father, I had him learn more about you. What's the sense in running all over the planet chasing you down when I could comfortably wait for you in a place of my choosing...?"
The tracker kept going, working to keep her words slow and smug, but I could feel the undercurrent of her frustration. She started talking faster. Beau didn't react. He waited, patient and polite. It was obvious this rattled her.
I'd thought little about how the tracker had found Beau—there hadn't been time for anything besides action—but this all made sense. None of it surprised me. I winced a little when I realized our flight to Phoenix had been the trigger for her last move. But it was only one of a thousand mistakes on my conscience.
She was wrapping up her monologue—I wondered whether she thought I would be impressed?—and I tried to brace myself for what would follow.
"Very easy, you know," she concluded. "Not really up to my standards. So, you see, I'm hoping you're wrong about the girl. Edythe, isn't it?" It was a silly thing, to pretend she'd forgotten my name. She couldn't forget it any more than I would ever forget her.
Beau didn't answer her. He was looking a little confused now. As though he didn't understand the point. He didn't realize the show wasn't for him.
"Would you mind, very much, if I left a little letter of my own for Edythe?"
The tracker walked backward until she was out of the frame. The picture suddenly zoomed tight on only Beau's face.
His expression was perfectly clear to me. He was starting to realize. He'd known she was going to kill him. He had never considered that she would torture him first. Panic touched his eyes for the first time since he'd discovered his mother was safe.
My own fear and horror grew with his. How would I survive this? I didn't know. But he had, so I must.
When the tracker was sure I'd had time to absorb his dawning fear, she widened the frame again, turning the angle slightly so that I could now see her reflection in the mirror over Beau's shoulder.
"I don't think she'll be able to resist hunting me after she watches this." She was satisfied again with her production. Beau's terror was the drama she'd been waiting for, expecting. "I could be wrong about her level of interest. Obviously, you're not important enough for her to decide to keep you. So... I'll have to make this really offensive, won't I?"
She stepped into frame again, moving closer to him. Her smile was twisted in the mirrors. "Before we begin..."
Beau's lips were white.
Archie had shown me the way to make the tracker lose interest. She didn't realize that I'd rejected the idea. She would never have understood why.
She began another monologue, and though I recognized that her need to gloat was the reason Beau had survived long enough for us to get there, I was still grinding my teeth in frustration until she said the words little friend, and I realized this was something more.
"A hundred years earlier he would have been burned at the stake for his visions. In the nineteen-twenties it was the asylum and the shock treatments. Poor boy—he didn't even seem to notice the pain of his transformation," the tracker was explaining. "When he opened his eyes, it was like he'd never seen the sun before. The old vampire made him a strong new vampire, and there was no reason for me to touch him then, no blood to enjoy." She sighed. "I destroyed the old one in vengeance."
"Archie," Beau breathed. The revelation didn't bring any color back into his face. His lips were ever so faintly green now. Would he pass out? I found myself hoping there would be a break, a moment of escape, even though I knew it couldn't last.
There was a lot to think about here, and at some point I would want to know what Archie felt, but not now. Not now.
"Yes, your friend. I was so surprised to see him in the clearing. This is why I've told you my story—to bring them comfort. I get you, but they get him. My one lost quarry— quite an honor, actually. I still regret that I never got to taste..."
She walked closer and closer until she was looming over him, then reached out with one hand, and I nearly crushed the camera again. She didn't hurt him yet, she just played with a strand of his hair, drawing out his dread. Milking it.
I clenched my fists tightly together. It was good I had done this. Next the tracker reached out to softly stroke his cheek, and I wondered if I would break my hands.
"I suppose you'll do," the tracker concluded. "But not quite yet. We'll have some fun first, and then I'll call your friends and tell them where to find you—and my little message." She looked at me again, the hint of a smile on her lips. She wanted me to see that she was eager, that she was going to enjoy this.
Beau started to tremble. His face was so ashen I was surprised he was still on his feet. The tracker started to circle him, smiling at me in the mirror. She crouched, her eyes shifted to his face, and that smile turned into an exhibition of teeth.
Her bared teeth shifted into a pleased smile as she leaped in front of him and, with a dismissive backhand, hurled him toward the wall of mirrors.
He was airborne for one fleeting, endless pause, and then with a metallic clang, a crunch of bone, and the shattering of glass, he slammed into the brass ballet barre and the mirror behind it. The barre burst free of its brackets and crashed to the boards below. His body followed, completely limp as he slid to the floor, splinters of glass catching the light like glitter around him. I hoped again that he was unconscious. But then I saw his eyes.
Stunned, helpless, petrified.
My hands ached with the crushing pressure of my grip, but I couldn't relax them.
The tracker sauntered toward him, her eyes focused in the mirror on the lens of the camera, staring at me.
"That's a nice effect, don't you think?" she pointed out to me, hoping I wasn't taking any of her planning for granted. "As soon as I saw this place, I knew it was the right set for my little film. Visually dynamic. And so many angles—I wouldn't want Edythe to miss even one little thing."
I didn't know if Beau was aware of her shift in attention, or if he was just acting on instinct alone, but he twisted painfully to put his hands on the floor and began crawling for the entrance.
The tracker laughed quietly at his pathetic attempt, and then she was standing over him.
Archie had shown me this. I wished I could look away. But I couldn't, and the tracker's foot came down hard against his calf. I heard both snaps as his tibia and his fibula gave way.
His whole body jerked, and then his scream filled the small room, ricocheting off the glass and the polished wood. It felt like a drill boring into my ears through the headphones. His face strained with the agony, and tiny blood vessels burst inside his eyes.
"Now, what I'd like here is a retraction. Can you do that for me? You do me a favor, I speed this up a little. Does that sound fair?" she asked Beau, all her focus on him now. She pointed one toe and pressed it with delicate care into the nexus of the break.
Beau screamed again, the sound scraping and tearing out of his throat.
"Just tell Edythe how much this all hurts," the tracker prompted like a director on the edge of the stage.
The tracker was going to torture him until he begged me to hunt her. He must know that I would understand that his answer was coerced. Surely he would give her what she wanted quickly.
"Tell her that you want vengeance—you deserve it. She brought you into this. In a very real sense, she's the one who's hurting you here. Try to sell it."
His eyes closed.
"Beau," she said softly, like he was sleeping and was trying to wake him. "Beau? You can do this. Tell Edythe to come after me." She shook him lightly. "Beau dear, you have so many bones left—and the big ones can be broken in so many places. Do what I want, please."
He shook his head once.
"It doesn't want to scream," she said in a little singsong voice. "Should we make it scream?"
Then came the moment when she put Beau's right hand to her mouth.
The tracker abruptly disappeared from the frame.
She turned to watch, and in the mirror I saw her expression tighten when she realized what she'd done.
Blood was already seeping through his hair, trickling in crimson threads down the sides of his face, rolling down his neck and pooling in the hollows above his collarbones. Just watching this called fire into my throat, and the memory of the taste of that blood.
The blood found the floor, dripping in loud splats as it started to puddle around his elbows.
There was so much blood, flowing so quickly. It was overwhelming. I watched, shocked that he'd survived to this point. The tracker watched, too, all her planning and all her conceit fading. Her face turned feral, inhuman. Some small part of her wanted to fight her thirst—I could see that in her eyes—but she wasn't conditioned for control. She could barely remember her audience or her show.
A hunting snarl ripped from between her teeth. Beau raised the camera from the floor and smashed it down into the floor with a crunch.
The sound of another impact, glass breaking, Beau screaming in agony.
The tracker lunged. A pale shape flashed so quickly through the shot that it was impossible to make it out. The tracker vanished from the scene. I saw the crimson mark of her teeth across Beau's finger, and then his hand fell, lifeless, into the lake of blood with a quiet splash.
I watched, entirely numb, as my image on the screen sobbed and Carine's worked to save him. My eyes were pulled to the bottom right corner of the shot, where every now and then, some piece of the tracker would flash through the picture. Eleanor's elbow, the back of Jessamine's head. It was impossible to create any sense of the fight from these little glimpses. Someday, I would have Eleanor or Jessamine remember it for me. I doubted it would soothe any of the rage I felt. Even if I had been the one to rip the tracker apart and burn her, it wouldn't have been enough. Nothing could make this right again.
Eventually, Archie walked toward the lens. A spasm of agony crossed his features, and I knew he was seeing a vision of the recording, and also, I was sure, a vision of me watching it now. He picked up the camera, and the screen went dark.
Then, just as slowly, I methodically crushed it into a pile of metal and plastic dust.
When that was done, I pulled from my shirt pocket the little bottle cap I'd been carrying around with me for weeks. My token of Beau—my talisman, my silly but reassuring physical link to him.
It flashed dully in my hand for a moment, and then I pulverized it between my thumb and index finger and let the fragments of steel fall onto the remains of the camera.
I didn't deserve any link, any claim to him at all.
I sat for a long moment in silence. At one point, music started playing quietly through the speakers, but I did not react. It was the adagio sostenuto from Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto.
I listened, numb and cold, trying to remind myself that Beau was going to be with me. That he would be happy again... someday. That Archie had seen that his new eyes would open in only thirty-six more hours. A day and a night and a day.
None of that seemed relevant now. Because it was my fault, everything he had suffered.
I stared out window, watching the black of night slowly give way to a pale gray sky.
And then I did something I hadn't done in a century.
Sitting there with Beau's head in my lap, quivering with agony... I prayed.
I didn't pray to my God. I'd always instinctively known that there was no deity for my kind. It made no sense for immortals to have a god; we had taken ourselves out of any god's power. We created our lives, and the only power strong enough to take them away again was another like us. Earthquakes couldn't crush us, floods couldn't drown us, fires were too slow to catch us. Sulfur and brimstone were irrelevant. We were the gods of our own alternate universe. Inside the mortal world but over it, never slaves to its laws, only our own.
There was no God that I belonged to. No one for me to supplicate. Carine had different ideas, and maybe, just maybe, an exception could be made for someone like her. But I wasn't like her. I was stained like all the rest of our kind.
Instead, I prayed to his God. Because if there was some higher, benevolent power in his universe, then surely, surely, she or he or it would have to be concerned about this bravest and kindest son. If not, there was really no purpose to any such entity. I had to believe he mattered to that distant God, if one existed at all.
So I prayed to his God to pardon him, to make an exception for becoming what I had condemned him to be—a bloodthirsty monster. This wasn't his fault. I bore full responsibility for the immortal half life I had sentenced him to.
I prayed to his God with all the anguish of my damned, lost soul that she—or he, or it—would send me to the blazing inferno of whatever hell awaited me in the next life, send me there in Beau's place to suffer for all eternity.
One thing I truly knew—knew it in the pit of my stomach, deep within my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it in the center of my empty chest—was that I deserved it. When this life was over I would gladly go to the flames, take it and be grateful.