ventured away from his chair. His legs gave out from under him, and he fell back down. His hands clutched the arms of the chair as he saw his sister for the first time in three hundred years. She looked as innocent and beautiful as she did in the dreams that had never ceased to haunt him.
With Ruby’s body frozen behind her, Rhoswen kept walking toward David, and with each step she took she moved further away from apparition and closer to resembling the woman she used to be. Her long, straight black hair was parted in the middle and flowed down her back, stopping only when it reached her waist. On top of her head she wore a crown of white roses, robust, grand flowers that were in full bloom, each petal soft and the color of unblemished snow. It was the same color as her skin.
As she moved the gown she wore rippled at her feet as if she were walking on wind. The floor-length dress was made of two different kinds of material, one underneath the other. On top the cloth was chiffon in a green color that resembled a flower’s stem; under that was white silk that fell closer to her small frame. Around her waist she wore a belt made out of more white roses, but these were miniature, delicate, each petal bending inward toward the center, not yet ready to open up and greet the world. She resembled a living, breathing garden.
David gasped at the sight, at the visual manifestation of his memory, as he realized she was wearing the same dress she had worn the night she died, the night he sacrificed her soul to Zachariel in exchange for his own immortality. It was his own mad desire for supremacy over God, his own amazement that in Zachariel’s promises he had found the key that could unlock his fantastic vision that led him to commit an unspeakable act, the murder of his own flesh and blood. But what choice did he have? It had had to be done if he wanted his bloodless flesh to live on forever. Zachariel had proclaimed that the only way for Brother Dahey to be transformed from monk into vampire was for Rhoswen’s life to be sacrificed in a circle of his own blood. He wished it had been a harder decision to make.
Rhoswen was moving closer toward David, and the night she had died was replaying in his mind more vividly than ever before. He remembered thinking about how she looked that night, pure, youthful, unsuspecting. He remembered thinking how for the first time in his life he was thankful she was blind so she wouldn’t question why he was cutting the vein in his arm and filling the silver goblet with his own blood. With her heightened sense of hearing she heard the blood pour from the goblet onto the floor of the building that was now St. Joshua’s Library, and she had asked what he was doing.
Instinctively he had lied. He had told her he was preparing a game that he wanted to play with her, and as always Rhoswen believed what her brother told her. She had never had any reason to doubt him before; she never thought she had any reason to that night. Only when she felt the knife plunge into her body, when she felt the ridged blade sever the flesh between her shoulders, when the world all around her went white did she think that she had misjudged her brother. But then it was too late. She was dead before her body hit the floor, directly in the center of the circle of her brother’s blood.
“Get away from me!” David screamed. “Don’t come any closer!”
David rose from the chair too quickly, and he felt light-headed. He stumbled and had to hold on to the fireplace mantel for support.
“Are you feeling remorse, brother?” Rhoswen asked. “Are you feeling guilty for killing me like a coward, stabbing me in the back in exchange for becoming a creature of the night?”
Racing toward the door, David didn’t care how cowardly he appeared. He wanted to leave the room; he needed to escape, breathe fresh, uncontaminated air, but Rhoswen was not going to allow her reunion to be cut short. Just as David reached Ruby’s motionless body, the door slammed shut. The last things he saw before the door closed were Zachariel’s red, flaming eyes staring at him, filled with utter disappointment. When he turned around he saw Rhoswen holding the book with the marble rose on it, her blind eyes looking at him the same way they used to when she was alive, filled with hope.
It was too much to bear. Over the centuries David had pushed the memory of his sister from his mind, altered the way his brain remembered things to convince himself that he was an only child and had become a vampire without sacrificing the life of the only person he had ever loved. With Rhoswen standing before him he could no longer hide from the truth. “What do you want from me?” David begged, his voice breaking like a scared child’s.
The only sound in the room was the crackling fire. It filled up the space while Rhoswen decided how she wanted to answer her brother’s question. Did she want revenge or did she want comfort? It was such a difficult decision to make.
“For now, Dahey,” she said, holding out the book to him, “I want you to read to me like you used to.”
Vision after vision bombarded David’s mind, all of them the same, all of him sitting in a chair, reading to Rhoswen. In every memory her head gently rested on his knee, her blind eyes staring into nothingness as her mind conjured up images of the stories David told her. Looking at Rhoswen now as she sat on the floor next to his chair and held her favorite book in her hands made David feel both ashamed and exhilarated. It was both his greatest fear and his greatest wish come true.
“Read to me like you did in the place that you now call St. Joshua’s,” Rhoswen said. “Where I let the white roses bloom in honor and remembrance of my name.”
David took the book from her, and his hands were remarkably steady; it was a positive omen.
Rhoswen’s return did not have to mean misfortune; it could mean a chance to reconnect with his long lost sibling. Yes! Maybe all he needed to do was read her one story and she would leave and they would both have closure, both be able to move on. Maybe he would then be able to look at the white roses that grew outside of St. Joshua’s and not be haunted by Rhoswen’s memory. Maybe he could see them as a happy reminder of the blind girl whose only happiness in life had been hearing her brother read stories to her.
“Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess,” David said, his voice tentative as he read the opening line of Rhoswen’s favorite story. He felt her head lying on his knee, and he could sense her delight at being in his presence once again after so many years. Three centuries later and she was still a child, still his sister, still his Rhoswen. He was so moved that the words of the next sentence caught in his throat, and he had to swallow hard in order to speak. And he was so lost in the wonder of the present and the familiarity of the past that he didn’t notice Michael and Ronan looking into his office from the open window.
He didn’t see their stunned expressions. He didn’t know that they had overheard him and Rhoswen speak and had uncovered his greatest secret: that David was far from all-powerful, far from indestructible; he was vulnerable and weak. As Michael and Ronan held on to each other, unable to tear themselves away from the unbelievable sight, they both knew that at some point very soon they were going to use the information they had learned about David to their advantage.
chapter 24
Outside, the earth was alive. Anticipation hung in the air, as vibrant and as lush as the landscape.
The end of May was always a lively time at Double A. The end of the school year meant that the students were frantically studying for final exams and preparing for their summer vacations. The end of spring always meant that the campus grounds were in full bloom and brimming with a jumble of colors and smells. But this year the school was crackling with more excitement than ever before. The euphoria of hosting the National Swim Team Competition, the unofficial start of the Tri-Centennial Celebration, was about to be realized; the day had finally arrived. For some it had arrived earlier than expected.
“When I signed up for this experiment, I didn’t think we’d have to be here at the crack of bloody dawn,” Saoirse said, finishing off her protest with a yawn.
“Blame Blakeley,” Ciaran replied, checking his bag for the third time to make sure that he had brought an extra syringe and backup test tubes. “Yesterday he called for an early morning warm-up session before the first
