Blood and Lace: Chapter 19

 Time was too short to waste on this irrational conversation. Della needed to turn her thoughts to Roger Sharp and the news he would share, not courting…dating…kissing. These were human concepts, and none of them applied to her anymore.

I cannot kiss him.

By a strict definition, she could acknowledge—reluctantly—that calling this talk a “waste of time” wasn't entirely accurate. Nicholas's persistence in the belief that their mutual infatuation could become something more was irrational, but it held, perhaps, a faint allure. It’s not like she had no interest.

Am I so eager to be humiliated again?

The strange man sitting next to her had a maddening way of enticing her towards flights of fancy, but he didn't understand…he didn't know about her prior failures. And in her present state she could ill afford false hope.

If he did kiss me he would comprehend. Perhaps…that means he should? Would it be for the best?

A tiny ball of tension settled in her stomach. “Go on,” she said aloud. Nicholas’s heartbeat jumped up another notch. It was gratifying to think she was the cause, but it also added more strain on her nerves.

“You said vampires don't experience physical attraction,” he began.

“It’s true.” Damnably, frustratingly true. “I recall…desire…from my time under the sun, but it’s distant. Hard to remember. When I feed, I suppose I still retain a preference for men—even handsome men—but that’s all that remains of those impulses.”

“Oh. So do I, uh, count as your type?”

He couldn't meet her gaze, which made it easier to consider the question. Della studied his well-shaped chin, firm but expressive lips, and the aristocratic cheekbones balanced by a strong brow. Even looking away from her, his rich brown eyes seemed to brim with warmth. Taken together, his features were an excellent combination of rugged and refined. He was very handsome.

“I suppose…yes,” she admitted.

Nicholas looked more relieved than pleased, like he’d passed a difficult test. He cleared his throat. “Noted. And you’ve never tried anything before? Like kissing, I mean?”

Della looked away, her posture instinctively growing stiff. A flash of heat pulsed along the sides of her face. He had to have seen that. “Yes,” she said, “almost a century ago.”

“Almost a century…” He spoke with wonder instead of the discomfort she anticipated, before giving a rueful smile. “Sorry, got distracted thinking about the awesome things you must have seen.”

Did nothing unsettle him? Well…he would quickly find his enthusiasm turning to disgust if he kept pressing for details—assuming she could bring herself to share them.

“Nicholas…”

His brow furrowed. “Right, sorry. Okay, so you tried kissing a hundred years ago, and never since then?”

“Once was enough.” 

Nicholas winced at the bitterness in her voice, but then his wariness turned to concern, which was almost worse. “Want to tell me about it?”

“Be careful what you ask for.”

He hesitated. “Tell me,” he said more firmly, meeting her narrow-eyed scowl with impressive stoicism. “Please.”

“Instead of what I have seen, does it not scare you to think about the things I may have done?”

He lowered his gaze.

Will you run, Nicholas? When I confirm every dark truth you think you know about us?

His shoulders rose and fell on a sigh, and then he looked back up, gaze steady. “I still want to know.”

Don’t risk it. Don’t.

“I…once lived in Baltimore,” she began, surprising herself. And then the words flowed swiftly, like a backed-up stream clearing a blockage. “When Prohibition was only a few years old. Maryland never had the slightest interest in enforcing the Volstead Act, and the Treasury Department was floundering. Baltimore became the wettest city in the Union, and some of us found a…lucrative use for our abilities.” She shrugged.

Nicholas’s jaw dropped. “You were a bootlegger?”

A sad, wistful smile came unbidden. “I prefer ’rum-runner’…more romantic. It turned out I have a talent for smuggling. We built an entire network—warehouses, trucks, drivers and loaders—running all along the Chesapeake. For about four years we were responsible for a sizable portion of all ‘hooch’ smuggled into the city.”

“We?” The question on his face was obvious.

“Yes…I was with someone then. A vampire named Drus.” She was relieved his name came out so calmly. This moment between them wasn't about Drus, not really. Nicholas didn't need to know that Drus was here in the city. That he had been the one who…

“Della, what's wrong?” 

She blinked and looked at him. Nicholas was half off the couch, his face taut with worry and one hand awkwardly extended as if to touch her. When had he moved? “I'm fine.”

“You kind of went blank. For several seconds,” he explained, then his eyes flicked down. “Except for that.”

Della realized she was rubbing her wrist, her fingers circling the rough scar tissue of Drus’s disfigured brand. She often did it unconsciously, reassuring herself that it was irrevocably dead. She pulled her hand away and let her arms drop into her lap. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “I was just…thinking.”

“All right.” He reluctantly leaned back. She could tell his curiosity was ablaze regarding the scar, but he seemed to sense that she wanted to avoid the subject. Simple gratitude—for both his care and restraint—gave her the impetus to continue.

“Modern depictions can go a bit overboard, but Prohibition was a time of excess,” she said in a low voice, “for man and vampire alike. I threw myself into the frivolity with…I don't know…a kind of desperation. I had lost my father some years before and I was adrift.”

“Your father…does that mean you were born at the start of the twentieth century?”

She raised an eyebrow. “One tale at a time, Nicholas.”

“Sorry.” He gave a sheepish smile and looked at her from beneath a golden-brown forelock. It was an irritatingly appealing mannerism.

“I was not born in the twentieth century,” she allowed gently. “Nor the nineteenth. My father was also a vampire—but let’s speak no more of it tonight. This is already difficult.”

“Of course. Sorry again. So…you roared into the roaring twenties,” Nicholas prompted.

“Yes. There were parties, altercations with the police, dancing and violence in equal measure. The blood flowed like wine from a bottle. And little by little, I began to transgress the rules I had set myself before I became of the blood. It was as if…as if I were eager to sever the remaining threads to my humanity, both to dampen my grief, and…” She faltered, embarrassed.

“What?”

“I suppose…to earn the regard of Drus.” Gods, it sounded as pathetic as it felt.

You were always just…too damn weak, you know?

His words seared her thoughts as they always did, and like always, she couldn't separate her fury at Drus for his vile definition of “weakness” from the self-hatred she felt for still reacting to his judgement.

“Thinking again?” Nicholas said.

Della knew she should end this now. Her memories had carried them far past the subject of kissing. The telling had somehow twisted out of her control, become something dangerously close to a confession. Nicholas hadn’t asked her to lay herself bare. It was too much to expect—

“Hey.” Nicholas’s hand gently came to rest on her knee.

She grew very still. The feeling of his hand through her jeans seemed impossibly warm.

“It’s okay to stop here.” His voice was as soft as his touch. “I want to know about your life, but only when you’re ready. I'm done with being pushy.” His smile was purposely light, trying to set her at ease. He squeezed her knee and removed his hand.

She swallowed and nodded. She should stop. But she didn't.

“When Drus started to…kill…the humans we fed upon—usually rival smugglers—I did nothing to stop it. It was the age of Al Capone, and violence was in the air. That's what I told myself. Eventually…I also began to kill.”

Nicholas expression tightened, and for just an instant Della saw grief and disappointment before he managed to assume a neutral expression. She had anticipated his reaction, but not the nauseating surge of shame that came over her in response. How had his opinion become so important to her in such a short span of time?

“How many?” Nicholas's voice was gruff.

“Eleven in all,” she said. “Four by my hand alone. Most of them criminals, but not all of them. Even if they had been…it would excuse nothing. She passed a hand briefly over her face and sank back against the couch.

“Was he…” Nicholas paused, choosing his words with care. “Drus sounds almost like a pusher. A dealer who got you hooked on his drug of choice.” He made an uncertain gesture. “And if you were…close, it would have made his influence even more powerful.”

Della turned to regard him, leaving her head on the cushion. “You’re kind to try and see me in the best light. Drus was a bad influence. But the responsibility for the evils I did are my own. My killing wasn't for survival or even pleasure, but self-destruction. I thank the gods there remained a part of me that didn't fully succumb. The best part, I suppose.”

“How did you stop?” he asked.

“A chance encounter. Someone I only met once,” she said. “He was the captain of a smuggling ship.” She laid her arm along the back of the couch and traced the fabric idly. “They had brought in a large shipment of Canadian whiskey, but our trucks had encountered an unforeseen delay. I was alone, as it was Drus’s habit to remain in the city, and I chose to wait by sheltering in the dockside warehouse.” Her lip quirked up. “I was more reckless then. To avoid revealing my true nature, I told the humans that the authorities had my description and that it was too risky to be seen in daylight.”

Nicholas nodded thoughtfully. “Simple and plausible.”

“They had already offloaded the cargo, but the captain stayed anyway, even though he endangered his vessel by doing so.”

“That doesn't sound like typical smuggler behavior,” Nicholas said.

“It wasn’t. He told me he wanted to ‘keep an eye out,’ and even insisted on making sure my room was secure. He went so far as to have one of his men guard the shipping office door.”

“Did you suspect a trap?”

Della shook her head. “No. Isn't that strange? But he seemed so kind…and sad,” she murmured. She could still picture his soft eyes, the brown beard going to gray, and his thin black sweater with a seam opening along one shoulder. “Then, before he returned to his ship, he told me I reminded him of his daughter, who he’d lost to the Spanish flu not a decade before. We began talking. And slowly I grew to understand that he was asking—not in so many words—if I was well. Perhaps he thought I’d been forced into smuggling. Or maybe he sensed my heartsickness.” Her brow knit. “Nicholas…I seem to have poked a hole in the back of your couch.”

“What? Oh. Well, one more won't make a difference.” He smiled at her, and she knew his sympathetic gaze had nothing to do with the furniture. “What happened next?”

“The transport trucks arrived the following evening. The captain stopped by a final time to tell me the ship was casting off. ‘Forgive me, Miss,’ he said, ‘but would you grant a sentimental old man a hug?’ As you know, we are not sentimental by nature, but I agreed. I’m not sure why.”

“Probably because you needed it,” he replied softly. Della looked at him…and all at once she realized her hand had moved until her fingers were mere inches from his. Had she done that on purpose?

Unsettled, she hurried on. “At any rate, this captain, whose real name I never learned, enveloped me in a massive bear hug. I remember he smelled like pipe smoke, and the way he held on…I must have favored his daughter a great deal. And then he said something I've never forgotten. ‘As long as you can move,’ he told me, ‘you can choose.’ Then he left.”

“And you took his advice,” Nicholas said. It was a statement, not a question.

Della swallowed. “I decided I wanted to fight for whatever remained of my soul.”

He let out a long breath. The rigidity of his posture softened, but his face remained tight. “Sounds like a tall order.”

Della nodded. “I was on the edge of an abyss. One cannot step away so easily. To preserve my humanity I would have to let in the emotions I’d been suppressing. Guilt. Despair. Sorrow.” Her eyes cut to his. “I do not speak entirely metaphorically, Nicholas. We are creatures made for survival. For us it is possible to shutter our emotions—a mechanism like the ‘fight or flight’ reflex in humans. Many of my kind rely on it completely. They consider it the natural state of vampires.”

His expression was one of horrified fascination. 

“In truth,” she hastened to add, “choosing that path leads to madness. It hastens the destruction of our species and results in the creation of ferals. When your emotions fade to embers, pure sensation becomes the only thing worth seeking. To vampires of that ilk, depravity is just a word. Taking a life—vampire or human—means nothing. Creatures like that are why hunters like you exist.”

Nicholas digested this in silence.

“So…that night I sent the trucks on to the rendezvous, but I remained behind. I sat on the floor of the warehouse, in the dark, and began to contemplate the things I had done. The details…the sounds…the expressions on the faces of my victims. Over and over. It was…exhausting.”

His bearing had become still and solemn, as if he truly grasped the crucial importance of this moment in her life. She’d tried to explain it before, but no one, not even her friends, had reacted with this level of gravity. Perhaps because they were vampires and he was human—or perhaps because he was Nicholas.

“You had to break through,” he murmured.

“Yes! It was like…I could see everything I’d suppressed on the other side of thick glass. I was aware of those emotions, I knew they were there, but I couldn’t access them. And my instincts were screaming, ‘Leave them alone. Don't break through. Let them wither. Survive.’ That was the essence of my fight, Nicholas. To convince myself that survival without meaning was no better than death.”

He nodded almost unconsciously, his features rapt.

“So I kept trying. I thought of my father, the most disciplined man I had ever met, and what he would say. I imagined how my old self would react if she could see me at my worst: laughing without mirth, my dress soaked in blood”—Della broke off for a moment, and shuddered—“and slowly, I began to feel again. It was excruciating. As if everything I'd held back rushed over me at once.”

“My God, Della…”

“When it was over, I’d shattered crates and smashed all the furniture in the building. But I could feel again. At first, it was just guilt…shame…sadness…”

“But the rest—the good emotions—those came later, right? Joy, wonder, love?” His hopeful expression dimmed. “They had to return. Someone who fought for them as fiercely as you did…”

She smiled and nodded. “They came.” She’d been lucky. There had been countless moments of joy and wonder in the decades since. Love—apart from the bonds of family—had remained elusive. “I admit a few can be difficult to find in the company I keep.”

“I’m so glad for you.” His sincerity was like a bright light she had to look away from.

Staring up at the ceiling, she finished the story. “Ever since that night I’ve fought to hold onto those memories, Nicholas, keep them sharp and fresh in my mind. Not only the lives I took, but who I was when I took them. I know how easy it is to become one of the monsters your kind has dedicated their lives to destroying.”

“Della—”

“I will not die a monster,” she told him, “I swear it. It’s why I do everything in my power to protect the sanctity of life. Even though I fall short in other ways, such as not treating humans with dignity”—her gaze met his for an instant—“I have never abandoned that pledge. I will seek the final death before I lose what virtue remains to me.” She forced herself to meet his eyes once more. “And that is why you frighten me.”

Nicholas blinked, surprised. “I frighten you?”

She nodded. “Becoming so…close…is having a strange effect on me. I’m feeling things, shades of emotion I had thought completely lost. Sometimes so strongly I fear I’ll lose control and do something I can't take back. Nicholas…last night…what if I had—” She clenched her fists tight against her thighs and squeezed her eyes shut.

She had killed three humans in the decades since she’d made her pledge. One was an accident—a loss of control—but the location had been isolated and she’d come back to herself before she could hurt others. The other two were in self-defense. But if something happened to Nicholas now…if she was the cause of his—

A frisson of sensation broke her train of thought. Warm, calloused fingers interlacing with her own. She opened her eyes and stared at their joined hands along the back of the couch. 

“Monsters don't worry about becoming monsters, Della,” he said softly, and gave her hand a squeeze that sent warmth up her arm. “It’s not my place to forgive you, and I can't absolve you…but you don't strike me as a monster. You seem like someone who’s trying very hard not to be one.” She found herself arrested by the absolute conviction etched on his face. “That's why—despite everything—I never stopped trusting you.”