Even though Michael’s fingers felt so good tracing the veins in Ronan’s arms, he still felt uncomfortable. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about that.”
Michael didn’t think his blue eyes ever looked more sincere. “I know why you did; I get it. You wanted to protect me.”
“Funny thing is, you don’t need my protection,” Ronan whispered. “Which doesn’t mean I won’t always have your back.”
Facing his boyfriend, Michael wrapped his hand around Ronan’s neck, ran his fingers through his hair. “Tell you what, you can be Harold and I’ll be Kumar.”
“What?”
“The buddy movie,” Michael explained. “The one me and Saoirse were watching.”
“Oh, that one,” Ronan said, rolling his eyes. “You were laughing so hard you couldn’t even hear what they were saying.”
Shaking his head, Michael realized there was a lot Ronan still needed to learn. “That, Mr. Fuddy Duddy, is how you watch Harold and Kumar. Maybe if you’re lucky, one night me and the kid’ll teach you.”
Even in a cemetery, among shadowy relics of the past, Ronan was struck by how Michael’s lighthearted nature shone through. I want to be more like that, he thought. But a shift in personality would have to wait. Right now, Ronan had to make amends. Brushing Michael’s cheek softly with his thumb, Ronan said, “I may take you and the kid up on that, but first I need to show you something.”
Smiling devilishly, Michael leaned in close. “Come on, Rone, I’ve already seen you naked.”
Delightfully shocked, Ronan didn’t have a good comeback, so he just grabbed Michael’s hand and seconds later, they were standing in the middle of a different past. Graves and tombstones were replaced with books and portraits; they were in the anteroom of St. Joshua’s Library. “What are we doing here?” Michael asked.
Ronan started to speak and then realized the anteroom and the library proper were filled with students studying, reading, lounging, eavesdropping. Any one of them could overhear what Ronan might say, and these days, during these uncertain times, he knew it was better to err on the side of caution. He sat on the velvet couch and telepathically instructed Michael to sit next to him. But Michael’s mind was so confused, he didn’t hear him.
Forced to use more pedestrian means of communication, Ronan patted the cushion next to him and Michael finally got the hint. Sitting next to Ronan, Michael felt a bit dizzy having traveled so fast from Weeping Water and he had to blink several times so the brown and gold paisley pattern of the sofa would stop swirling, stop threatening to come alive and suffocate him. If he knew what was coming up next, he probably would’ve gotten up from the couch and fled the room.
“I need you to listen.” This time when Ronan spoke to Michael telepathically, he was heard. “I want you to look at the portrait.”
Michael looked up over the fireplace to the portrait of Brother Dahey, the monk who was one of the founders of Archangel Academy. “Why?” Michael responded quietly. “We look at it practically every day.”
“Telepathically!”
“Sorry,” Michael said. “I mean, sorry.”
“I need you to look at it differently,” Ronan replied. “I need you to look at it with a vampire’s eyes.”
Glancing around the room to make sure that no one was close enough to see his face, Michael allowed his eyes to narrow, to become truly vampiric so he could receive the full benefit of his preternatural vision. Adjusting himself on the couch so he was looking directly at the painting, Michael looked at the monk and tried to see beyond the brushstrokes, past the drab colors and patina, but all he saw was a fifteenth-century face with a really bad haircut, staring back at him. “All I see is the same old picture,” Michael said, his frustration resonating loudly even though his words were silent.
Staring at the portrait, Ronan said, “Look into the eyes, look at the mouth.”
This time when Michael stared at the monk’s face, he remembered waking up right here on this couch a while ago and sensing that the monk was staring at him. It had been only for a fleeting moment, but he knew there was something strange about the way the eyes in the painting were glowering, how they were fixated upon him, and now he knew why. The face didn’t belong to a monk, it didn’t belong to a student of religion or a defender of Christ. It did, however, have everything to do with eternal life.
“He’s a vampire!” Michael said out loud.
Ronan’s eyes bulged out and he put a finger up to his lips to remind Michael that they needed to be quiet. “Keep looking.”
Straining to push himself further into the portrait, to the truth that lay behind the canvas, Michael started to get lightheaded. He was still a novice at these vampire skills, but he could tell by Ronan’s attitude that it was imperative that he keep trying. With his eyes acting like laser beams, he saw that the monk’s teeth were actually fangs, his eyes pools of blackness, the rest of his features malformed and distorted. This was definitely the portrait of a vampire. But then the colors of the painting started to shift, brighten, the fangs receded, the eyes turned more human, and another image appeared on the canvas. At one time, Brother Dahey may have been a monk, but today he was a headmaster. “Oh my God! David Zachary is Brother Dahey?”
Whipping his head around, Ronan didn’t think anyone heard Michael, but he couldn’t be sure. He understood this news was shocking, but he needed Michael to understand how important it was to keep this information a secret. “Not out loud,” Ronan shushed.
“I’m sorry,” Michael replied, then continued on in silence. “This is crazy! How is it possible?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Ronan told Michael the truth, which was that he didn’t really know. “I know I’ve been a vampire a little longer than you, but there’s a lot about them that I don’t know,” Ronan explained. “And I know even less about Them, you know, the ones with the capital T.”
As wild as it sounded, it all made sense. David and Brother Dahey both had red hair, a commanding stare, and a link to Double A. It also explained why David so effortlessly and immediately gained the respect and admiration of the entire student body. Hawksbry was beloved, sure, but he had been there for years, he’d earned the trust of the students one term after the other. Zachary used his vampire skills to cast a spell and hypnotize them into thinking he was some sort of academic god, which, Michael surmised, in a way he was. “But what’s he doing here?” Michael asked. “A powerful vampire like that has got to have better things to do than spend his days cooped up in a boarding school.”
“Well, I have a feeling it might have something to do with the fact that David is also Brania’s father.”
Seriously?! Michael did some quick genealogy in his head. Brania is David’s daughter, David once lived with Edwige, Edwige is Ronan’s mother, which could only mean one thing: “David is, like, your stepfather!”
“Michael!” Ronan shouted, then corrected himself and told Michael telepathically that he had to stop talking out loud.
“I’m sorry, you know I’m not used to this mental thing,” Michael responded silently. “And FYI this news is really blowing my mind!”
Ronan couldn’t argue with that. Learning he had a familial connection to David was indeed mind-blowing. Nevertheless, it needed to remain secret. “You’re right. But David was never officially my stepfather,” Ronan said. “We didn’t live with him and Brania for very long and he never married my mother. In fact, the day she got her inheritance, we left. I never saw David again until he walked into St. Sebastian’s announcing that he was our new headmaster.”
Michael sank back into the cushion and shook his head. The more truth he uncovered, the more confused he got. “So you really think he’s taken this position just to be close to Brania?” Michael asked. “She, um, isn’t all that pleasant to be around, you know.”
Phaedra is right; Michael really does find humor in most every situation. “I don’t know why he’s here,” Ronan replied. “But I know he never does anything without a self-serving reason.”
Suddenly, Michael got very excited and started waving his hands and pointing first to the portrait and then to his chest. If anyone was watching them, they would have thought they were playing a game of charades. “I think I know why he’s come back,” Michael said. “He wants to separate us.” Ronan’s forehead wrinkled. He wasn’t following Michael’s logic. “It’s like my dream, Ronan, and when we were at The Well and separated by darkness. The face I saw in The Well must have been David’s.”
As tidy an explanation as that might be, Ronan knew it wasn’t plausible. Only water vamps could connect with The Well physically or spiritually. It was impossible for David or any of his kind to infiltrate such a holy place.
