The Blood: A Denouement

Coda:

Now let us go in peace

“So, if you had never gone to the Strausses,” Laurie began, “then you would never have found the treasures you were looking for. And you would never have become the Maid?”

“Yes,” Loreal said. “It is very much something like that.”

“Hum,” Laurie said from the chair where he sat across from Loreal. A large window was between them, and it looked out onto the garden of 4848 Brummel Street.

“Still,” Loreal said, “I don’t see how we would never have known them. In time I would have known Myron, at least, through Dan. And then, if you remember, Dan stumbled upon this house long ago when he was just a boy. The house revealed itself to him one Halloween. If it had not, he would never have escaped Rosamunde.”

“Are you saying all things have a reason?”

“No,” Loreal said. “I’m saying all things are linked, the way some vines come together and plants grow toward each other. Only very often we get in their way. If we get out of their way, they will, in time, come together again.”

“There’s something about that in the Bible, I think.”

Lewis, who had been reading a book in the other room, but could not help but hear, and did not wish to help interrupting, said, “All good things come together for those who love God, those called according to his purpose. Do not ask me which epistle it comes from.”

Marabeth had flirted with not telling Myron the truth about his parentage, but in the end decided it was wrong for everyone to know but him. He took it with the usual grace and s playful smile, but Jim, who knew all about hiding feelings said, “Your parents are still your parents, and you’re still one of us.”

“You’re almost more one of us,” Kris said.

Myron had nodded grimly, but in the end it was Dan he’d gone to, Dan who understood him best.

“Go sit down,” Dan had said, “with the parents who love you.

“And with Anne,” he added.

“Anne?”

“She’s the most sensible thing I know, undead, dead or alive, and we all know you love her.”

In that same room, Chris and Sunny had been playing a very silent and very intense game of chess, and they both looked up for a moment. Tanitha, who was talking to Anne and Myron, did not.

Laurie looked a little silly. He laughed and rolled his tongue in his mouth.

“Are we, the witches and the vampires, those who love God and are called according to his purpose?”

“You would have to understand that we know so little of what the word God means, and you would have to believe love is much bigger and much wilder than most understand in order to believe that,” Lewis said. “And I do.”

The large front door opened, and Dan Rawlinson came in, still in his leather jacket, and swept his brown hair out of his face.

“What have I missed?”

“You’ve missed theology,” Laurie said as Dan bent down and kissed him, and then bent down and kissed Loreal as well, sitting at her feet like a child while she placed her hands in his hair.

“Ouch. I did twelve years of Catholic school. No theology for now.”

He was too glad to return to her, and sometimes Loreal wondered if he loved her more than Laurie did. That night of his surprise return to Long Lees, while she could feel love being made all around her, Loreal, who had spent so much of her time a virgin and careless of the boys around her, opened up like a flower and welcomed Dan in. They moved together all night like a wordless song or like the oldest dance and she clung to him as he strove in her. Even now, stroking his hair, the heat of his body thrummed into her fingers, throbbed deep in very pussy, and she knew soon they would repeat the old dance again.

“But what I still don’t get,” Laurie said, “and maybe there is nothing to get, is why Evangeline wanted to take those treasures, and why Rosamunde the vampire had the same name as the other Rosamunde. Rosamunda? What have you.”

Lewis almost opened his mouth, but it was Chris Ashby who said, “You weren’t listening to Lewis. He already said it. When we were down south at Long Lees. The treasures in and of themselves have no power—”

“Except to the witch and they are then as great as the witch,” Laurie said.

“But you must read into that,” Chris said, and Lewis looked up at him delighted and surprised.

Chris sat down on the arm of Lewis’s chair.

“The objects have power for the witch. They can’t do anything on their own. They must have used, especially the Cup when Hagano drank from it, a powerful substance. Had you wondered what was in the cup Hagano drank, so that even though he was killed, he could still take corporeal form. He could still be a wolf. He could live forever?”

“Vampire blood!” Dan said.

“Yes!” Chris said and Lewis looked at him.

“I’m sure you figured it out,” Chris said to him, “but your baby’s a smart blood drinker, and I can figure our things too.”

Lewis looked up at his pale blond lover who was giving him a cheesy grin, and asked, “But, my love, have you figured out why there were two Rosamundes?”

“That I have not. I don’t know what you know now, or what the sorcerer you once were knew, but if, long ago, the witches made us, and if, as Augustus said, long ago witches could do the Change, then surely you would have known some way to… alchemize?”

“Alchemize is a good word,” Lewis said and could not help touching Chris’s hand.

“Alchemize drinker blood to do for Hagano, and I guess for Rosamunda in a way, what was not done for any other werewolf, make them able to have substance and be alive as long as they had descendants who could see them.”

“Yes,” Lewis said, “and tie the Gift to their lives.”

“So,” Loreal said, now, “if you could really destroy Hagano—”

“The Strausses would cease being wolves,” Lewis said. “But they were not looking to destroy him, and I do not think he was looking to be destroyed.”

“And now Jason is one too,” Dan said.

“Yes,” said Lewis. “It would seem as if he is. Hagano offered, and he gladly took it. I wonder what the children between he and Marabeth will be like. I’m sure they’ll have them.”

“Is Seth coming back with us?” Loreal said. “When and if we go back to Chicago?”

“You are going back to finish college,” Lewis said. “You’ve missed some weeks but you can make up for it, and I’m not having it said that a Dunharrow was a college dropout because she missed her last semester. As for Seth, he has found a partner, and Jim has a good job, a nice place, a large family.”

“And as long as he calls us,” Dan added, “he’s only a vampire’s back ride away from you.”

“But have you,” Kruinh asked Lewis when they were alone, “figured out why there were two Rosamundes?”

“You know?”

“I do now.”

They were in Kruinh’s study. Sunny was silent, but present, and Lewis was enamoured of the surfer boy with the serious expression who reminded him so much and so little of his own Chris as, Lewis imagined, Kruinh was like and unlike him..

Kruinh said, “I was young when I became ruler of my clan. My father died when I was young for, as you know, we can, in time or by violence, die.

“I inherited from my grandfather, Ishamael. He did not die. He simply left. That is another story. But speaking of other stories, he told me once of how he rid himself of a traitor vampire. He spilled his blood and gave it to a witch who was from the southern lands as once we were. A witch who had asked for the blood and a witch who, after some thinking, I believe was you.”

This did surprise Lewis, but Kruinh continued.

“When I came to power, I kept all my sisters by me, Miriamne, my closest sister, Asenath, and the oldest was Magdalene, but she lost her mind for a time and became something strange. We had to lock her away lest she murder indescrimately and bring death on all our heads. But the second oldest was Rhodias. She married Romuald and they went to England—”

“Where they became Court instead of Kertesz.”

“Yes.

“I wanted her far from me and maybe this was a mistake,” Kruinh said. “She married a traitor and the son of a traitor. For Romuald was the son of the drinker my grandfather had killed.”

“So they named their child Rosamunde in…. irony?”

“And doubtless told her the story. She would have told Evangeline the same story in time.”

Lewis sighed and said, “But if only we had known. I guess there’s nothing for it. Evangeline still would have done many of the things she did. She wouldn’t have killed the Strausses, but she would still have killed Lynn Draper.”

Lewis felt, suddenly, as if he’d dropped a pebble down a deep but empty well. There was a great silence, and then Kruinh spoke.

“Did you care for Lynn Draper?”

Here there was a tiny intake of Sunny’s breath. His blue eyes darted to Kruinh, but Kruinh shook his head.

“She was a good woman from what I saw. I liked her. She wasn’t for Laurie. She wasn’t for this world.”

Kruinh nodded. His long finger traced the window ledge and then he said, “Evangeline did not kill Lynn Draper.”

“But she did. Everyone—”

“Evangeline,” Kruinh said, firmly, turning to Lewis, “did not kill Lynn Draper.”

Lewis looked across the room at the drinker and, at last, Kruinh said, “Do you understand me?”

“But why?” Lewis asked.

“She had gone to Laurie and told him not only that she no longer loved him, but that she had cast out his child.”

“For that?”

“No,” Kruinh shook his head, dismissively. “I am not some tiresome Catholic priest. But Laurie is not a man, not in the normal sense, and certainly not a mortal one. Ordinary men reconcile themselves to things because they must, or at least most do. But what of a Drinker who is one hundred seventy years old? Who is full of strength? Who fought in wars and has killed and will kill again? He killed that man working for Eve Moreland, tore off his head. Had he killed another innocent I would have had to banish him, even kill him. Laurie wanted to kill her. He was stopping himself, but the rage grew. As surely as you know what you know, I knew from the moment Lynn told him what she had done she was a dead woman. And so I took things out of Lawrence’s hands that he could have his happiness for once. I could not lose him, and Daniel loves him. Daniel is the light of my eyes. So I made the choice of a ruler, and as a ruler I think you understand.”

“I would have done it,” Sunny said. “I thought you were going to do it. I would have done it for you.”

“No,” Kruinh shook his head. “A ruler must do certain things for himself. If Dan is the son I lost and the light of my eyes, then you are my very heart. The blood had to be on my hands. I could not allow it to be on yours.”

Lewis, who had departed from Long Lees remembering that nearly three hundred years ago, Augustus, Susanna and Octavian, his several times great grandfather, had murdered every white person for miles around in order to gain freedom, Lewis, who had joined himself to a drinker of blood, understood all the Kruinh had done and said:

“In your place, Kruinh, I think I would have ended up doing the same thing.”

“Of course you would have, Lewis,” Sunny said, though Kruinh did not speak. The blond man smiled for once. “You and Kruinh are so alike I keep on forgetting you don’t have fangs.”

In those first few days after they returned to Chicago, Owen said, “We must have brought the Carolinas back with us,” for the frozen winter gave way to a premature spring.

“Don’t worry,” Lewis told his uncle. “I’m sure it won’t last.”

“That,” Owen Dunharrow noted, “is most certainly the truth.”

Drusilla had departed from the to do whatever Drusilla did, and the small grey cat, which she saw no need to name, joined her. She would return when needed. There was no pinning such a creature down. Owen knew that he should not be sad that Seth was not coming home right away, and he knew that he should be glad that when he came, he would come with a handsome blond werewolf who was devoted to him.

“Still,” Owen shook his head. “Werewolves. Hummm.”

Chris and Lewis stayed with him and told Owen everything that had happened at Kruinh’s house, and when they were done, Owen said to Levy, “Well, I have lost one nephew, but maybe I have gained another.”

Levy Berringer gave a bow and said, “I am at your service.”

Levy Berringer did contact his mother. He did send her a letter, and in it he told her that he loved her. The truth is troubled Black women who are drug addicts don’t often go to the police demanding their children be found, and if they do they are not taken seriously, and Latavia Berringer could barely care for herself. She took comfort in the fact that her son was safe somewhere in Chicago, and left it at that.

Seth, though family, had never been much of a witch in the time when he lived unde Owen’s roof. Before he had come to Lassador and known Jim, most of the time he was quiet and afraid, not to mention lacking in skill. None of these things was a problem for Levy, and he proved, as Owen said to Lewis, “Even more masterful than you at that age.”

Owen saw school as even more useless than Lewis did, and so it was Lewis’s insistence that he go to school that kept Levy in junior high some of the time until he actually began to like it all of the time.

Lewis liked apartments and had no use for houses, but he liked living near Owen and not making his adopted son travel far between the two homes. So he and Chris moved to the same block, between the sound of the surf and the rattle of the El train, and took out a large flat with a great sunlit porch and hardwood floors in a slightly dilapidated purple brick building just feet from the beach.

But Lewis Dunharrow was wrong in at least one thing. The winter, possibly by magic, but more certainly by the warming of the globe, remained mild, and spring came early that year. One evening, when Levy was staying over at his friend Steve’s, Chris and Lewis had a quiet night to themselves and, as the moon was rising very white in the deep blue sky, went walking toward the Lake.

“We haven’t said a word to each other,” Chris Ashby noted as they walked down Lunt Avenue. On either side of them were the large brick townhouses and apartments, and the moon was just beginning to shine through the thick cover of trees, between houses and on the lawns.

“That’s kind of a good thing,” Lewis said. “Not that I don’t want to talk to you. Just that…” and then Lewis stopped talking, and he looked at the garden of flowers, white gardenias in the night, the roses dark and colorless, but with sweet fragrance rising on the other side of the black gate that was still open, and the path that led up to the lobby door of the old apartment building.

“You know,” Lewis continued after a while, “it’s nice not to have to say things just to fill the space. Not to... have to be entertaining.”

“I am most unentertaining,” Chris said.

“On the contrary,” Lewis said, catching his hand, “I find you a source of endless entertainment.”

Chris smiled down at him.

“Well, that’s to your credit.”

“I doubt that.”

They stood at the end of the street where it made a little cul de sac and led to the park before the beach. Both were nearly empty at this time of night.

“You hear about moonlit nights,” Chris said. “You know, you hear people talk about moonlit beaches. But that right there, all that white light turning the water silver blue, that sky, how it looks like a polished bowl, that’s a moonlit night.”

Lewis’s phone buzzed and he murmured, “Levy.”

He took out the phone and frowned with surprise.

“It’s Erika.”

“I thought she was dead,” Chris said.

“Not dead, just absent.”

“For almost a year.”

“ She left a text.”

Lewis read, “‘Sorry I lost touch. So much going on here! Is there anything new with you?’”

Chris Ashby let out a great laughing, that set Lewis to laughing as well, and the two of them chuckled so hard they could barely keep standing.

Just barely recovering, a smile playing on Chris’s face, he suggested: “Why don’t you text her back and say, ‘Not much’.”

After they had laughed like children a little longer, Lewis motioned to him, and Chris followed him past the park benches and the swing set, and onto the sand, and as Lewis took off his shoes, and Chris took his off as well, Chris took Lewis’s hand in his, and then they started walking along the sand. Only half way toward the beach, where sand began to be wet and firm, Chris looked down at their linked hands. The world was so huge, and the lake the size of a sea, its waves made sucking sounds as they rolled up onto the pebbly sand and pulled what it could away.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get our feet wet. Just a little.”

Lewis walked into the water saying, “I’ll regret this.”

“Being wet? Because there are things far worse than that.”

They stood in the early spring water, Lewis thinking it was all fine and good for a vampire, but this was getting a bit chilly and then Chris Ashby interrupted his thoughts by saying, “I’m going to kiss you, alright?”

“Alright.”

They kissed and Christopher Ashby’s arm wrapped about Lewis’s waist, they looked over the water and then the concave coast with its skyscrapers far to the south, twinkling in the night under the careless moon.

“I suppose I should get you home, Mr. Dunharrow,” Chris said.

“Yes,” Lewis said, “I suppose you should.”

Thank you for reading

THE END