CHAPTER SEVEN
Michael took a long time showering. Several times Selene heard him hit the wall. Wisely, she left him to his anger and grief. She didn't enter the room until she heard the water stop. She stood in the doorway and watched him shave. His expression was terrible and his eyes were rimmed in red but his hands were steady. It broke her heart to realize yet again how young and how vulnerable he seemed. But, there was something in his eyes that had not been there before: a quiet determination. He set the razor down on the sink and turned to her. "I want to get some things from my apartment if the bastards haven't seized it all for evidence."
"Do you think that is a good idea?"
"I don't see why not. Who or what could stop me?" He didn't sound bitter or ironic, only matter of fact. He glanced at her clothing and asked cautiously, "Um, what are you wearing?"
She looked down and then back up at him and said through her teeth, "The only thing you haven't ripped apart yet, Michael."
He gave her a crooked smile. "You look beautiful. I'm going to have to come back and leave some money for the mess and for anything we take."
Selene snorted and said sarcastically, "You're like the thief who leaves an apology letter after he ransacks the house."
He frowned and said sharply, "You said I don't have to change. Well, this is me not changing." Naked, he walked past her, rubbing his hair with a towel. "I'm going to find some paper and a pen."
An hour later, a cab driver who spoke no Hungarian, English, or German, picked them up. They took nothing with them from their five day refuge except the clothes they rummaged together from his cousin's closets. Michael left behind a note and money Selene gave him, a resigned look on his face. He directed the driver to his apartment building across the Danube, mostly through gestures. "Rákóczi? Rákóczi út?" the driver asked several times as he sped across the Chain Bridge at an alarming speed. Michael finally just nodded and held on for the ride.
After several confusing turns and driving down the same boulevard three times, the cab stopped and Michael helped Selene out. "I'd give just about anything for a car," she said wistfully as she paid the driver.
"Stop," Michael said. "We are not stealing one."
Whatever he had been planning to say next died in his throat as they entered the building. The hallway was blocked; the elevator door crisscrossed several times with yellow tape. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and deeply scored with what he assumed were lycan claw marks. There was a heavy astringent smell in the air. It had taken a large quantity of disinfectant to clean up the gore left behind the night both Selene and Lucian had come for him. He shook his head; already it seemed as if it had happened years ago. He reached for Selene's hand and they took the stairs up to his flat.
There was a new bolt on the door. Absently, Michael pulled it off without effort. He seemed to be more accustomed to his strength or maybe it was that he was in shock. He stopped in the doorway and didn't move until Selene quietly pushed him inside and shut the door behind him.
Michael looked up at the ceiling. In his mind's eye, he could still see huge pieces of plaster falling onto the floor as the lycans crashed through the windows of the apartment above his. He slowly walked to his desk and picked up a textbook. He thumbed through the pages, not saying anything. Every drawer of his desk was missing, the contents gone. There were no other books left on his bookshelves, discarded papers lay in piles on the floor. Upholstery hung in shreds from the chairs. He set the book down and walked into the small room where he had slept. Clothing was strewn on the floor and the bed was stripped. Broken glass covered the rug. Selene started to say something when Michael made a strange sound. He sat down on the bare mattress and reached for a crumpled photograph wedged against the wall. It was one of the only ones left of Samantha. He'd brought nothing from their life together, saved nothing except a few photographs. When he left the States, he'd brought one bag, his entire life condensed down into what he could carry and stow above his head on an airplane. Selene came to him and stroked his hair. He set the picture down and pulled her onto his lap. He kissed her and she could taste his sorrow.
In the end, he decided to take no more than was necessary. He took off his cousin's too-small boots. He changed into a wrinkled shirt that he picked up from the bedroom floor and a pair of pants with one of his own belts. He found a jacket draped across a chair in the kitchenette and a pair of his boots sitting inside the pantry. He stopped to put these on. He picked up a worn pack sitting beside the kitchen table, stuffed a change of clothing into it and walked into the lavatory. He selected several things from the tiny cabinet over the sink and dropped them into the backpack, which he then slung over his shoulder. He paused to take a small blue bowl out of the kitchen cupboard and walked back into his bedroom. He set it on the bedside table and reverently kissed Sam's photograph. Selene started to protest when he touched a match to it but stopped when she saw the look on his face. He dropped the burning picture into the bowl and walked out of the room. He picked up his grandfather's St. Stephen medal where someone had left it lying beside his answering machine. He dropped the silver chain over his head, tucked the medal beneath his shirt and joined Selene at the door.
They were almost back to the stairs when they heard someone call his name. Michael turned, a hand out, almost as if he were about to raise it in greeting. Selene shoved him aside and before his neighbor could speak, she struck him. He fell to the floor.
"Fucking Christ!" Michael yelled. "What in the hell did you just do?" He was furious. He spun Selene around and yelled again, "What are you thinking?"
She looked at him with glowing blue eyes, which held no remorse. "I am thinking about keeping you alive," she said without hesitation. "That is what I am thinking." She jerked her arm away from him and stepped over the man at her feet.
Michael crouched down and felt for his pulse.
"I didn't kill him, Michael. Let's get out of here before someone calls the police."
"No," he said as he continued his examination. "As long as we are here, we need to get something straight." He carefully moved his neighbor away from the center of the hallway and straightened up.
"Listen to what I am saying, Selene. No one else dies. Not by your hand or mine. If we end a life, it will be because we were acting in self defense and there were no other options left to us. No more violence, no more death. Do you understand what I am telling you?" His eyes traveled to the unconscious man and then back up to Selene, who was now white with fury.
"I understand that you are determined to die." Selene moved past him and her angry footsteps echoed like cannons. She marched down the stairs without waiting to see if he would follow.
Michael did not join her immediately. If he understood anything at all about women, it was that they seldom, if ever, wanted a man to belabor a point. He allowed her to walk ahead of him out of the building. He did not try to keep pace with her. After several minutes, he took a deep breath and called Selene's name. She did not stop. He increased his pace and said her name again. She stopped but did not turn to him. He stepped around her and was startled by her eyes. They were absolutely burning.
He sighed heavily and inclined his head toward a small park lined with trees. Together they walked across the dry, brown grass. It was bitterly cold. Selene seemed not to notice the biting wind. Michael glanced at her and decided the strange combination she was wearing was even more arousing than her usual black leather. She was wearing a pair of his cousin József's jeans, tightly cinched with a brown belt, a torn tee shirt layered over another one and a coat many sizes too large for her small frame. A scarf was wound around her neck several times, hiding the fading marks left by his teeth and claws. Her sleek hair blew about her in a dark cloud.
"This is one of my favorite places to sort things out. I've spent more than a few hours here." Michael said. He came to a large tree and sat down, leaning against its trunk. Selene stopped, crossed her arms and stood stiffly in front of him. "Oh, for God's sake, sit down!" Michael said in exasperation.
Reluctantly, she joined him. "I caused that man no lasting injury. I was trying to keep him from reaching for a phone. If we bring any attention to ourselves, the lycans and vampires will be around the next corner before we're ready for them." She took an angry breath. "You aren't changing? Well, that was me not changing. I protect those important to me. It's my job. It's what I'm trained for." She knew that sounded patently ridiculous, given their present situation.
Michael laid his head back against the rough bark of the tree. "You know, this 'brave new world' is going to take some time to get used to. Fortunately for me, I have all the time in the world to sort it out." He looked up at the clouds, which were heavy and threatening snow. Several long minutes passed as they sat in silence, intent on their own thoughts. Michael glanced at Selene and wondered why she had not once expressed any kind of emotion or said anything to him about the miracle that she could now share sunlight with him. Was she truly that reserved? Or that numb?
"I've always loved snow," he finally said, very softly. "Let's find somewhere to stay and watch it fall."
"We are not going to find a new place to hide and pretend the world doesn't exist," Selene said in her very precise, measured way.
"If we are going to find what is left of the lycans and vampires and propose peace, I think we need a plan first. No one follows the politician who has no platform, Selene. And as much as I like snow, I am not going to sit on my ass in it while I am thinking. Come on, let's find somewhere to stay." He rose, brushed leaves from his clothes and picked up his backpack.
"Hey," he asked suddenly. "Where did the money from?"
She fell into pace beside him and said tightly, "A safe house. I took all I could find, I suppose we could try another. We could stay the night at least."
"No. No way. I am not sleeping with one eye open. You might like staying up all night, but I don't. I do not want to fight off a horde of vampires at 3 o'clock in the morning. Besides, we have something else to do. We're going to find you something to wear, we're going shopping."
Shopping? Selene hadn't known many Americans. Shopping? Were they all this magnificently self-assured? Since that night in the Metro, she couldn't decide if Michael was insanely brave or simply insane. She had never known anyone like him. The feelings she had about the sensation of sunlight on her skin were somehow part of and somehow tied up in the feelings she had for this crazy American who had braved gunfire to save a complete stranger and spoke Hungarian with an atrocious accent. He was achingly tender, yet he had considerable strength.
Although he was struggling, Michael seemed to be surfacing, reassessing his identity. More than a few humans were driven to madness or suicide after transformation into an immortal. But he would find his way, she could feel it. She would just have to unobtrusively protect him. She shook her head, stuffed the Beretta and extra clips she had taken from the safe house further down into the coat she was wearing and scanned the horizon for lycans. Flakes of white began to dance on the wind.
