Chapter 21. William
william
Weeks pass, and colder air blows in, heralding winter’s imminent approach.
William has spent September and October reading his way through the manor, alternating between fiction and nonfiction. He feels like he knows so much more about the world already.
He has discovered what happened in (human) history, including advances in science, medicine, technology, transportation, and entertainment.
He learned who Einstein was and his theory of relativity.
He also learned about Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind and Nash’s theory of equilibrium.
He read about airplanes, space shuttles, UFOs.
Taxes, mortgages, car insurance. Television shows, podcasts, audiobooks.
Tomorrow marks eight weeks since he last tasted blood. He has no idea how he has managed it.
At one point, he started exploring nearby towns at night, and there were a few occasions when he came close to attacking a stranger.
Yet the crime books he has read paint a picture of a different kind of law enforcement than the one he knew.
What if he should be captured on one of those hidden surveillance cameras?
What if the Legion still has eyes everywhere?
Somehow, his discipline has proved stronger than his desire. His reward will come tomorrow, when he breaks his fast with Lorena’s blood.
His fangs tingle in his gums as he enters the dining hall, and he has to cut off his breathing. The scent of this much blood is overwhelming. Even if tomorrow did not mark the end of the eighth week, he would not be able to restrain himself any longer.
“It’s almost Halloween!” says Salma. “I wonder what Minaro’s big surprise is.”
The excitement in the halls about All Hallows’ Eve has been tangible, and William is mildly amazed that this day continues to be celebrated.
Director Minaro promised to reveal the school’s special plans at dinner tonight, so once most students have finished eating, she rises to make her announcement.
“You have all been patient enough! We will celebrate Halloween this Sunday by hosting a costume ball in this very hall!”
The teenagers titter with delight, and even though more than two centuries have passed, William still feels a twinge of the old thrill at hearing the word ball.
“Where will we get the costumes?” a student calls out.
“An excellent question!” says Director Minaro, and the noise tamps down. “Costume materials will be provided starting tomorrow evening in the grand hall. You will spend the weekend designing your looks, and the ball-plus-dinner will be held at six PM on Sunday.”
“I wonder what kind of fabrics we’ll have to work with,” muses Salma as talking breaks out at every table.
“We can’t pull up any references,” complains Tiffany.
“Oh, one more thing!” says Minaro, and the room quiets again. “We challenge you and your date to come in coordinated costumes—but fear not, you will not be graded!”
Nobody laughs, and Zach leans in to the table, frowning. “We have a lot of work to do on the paper this weekend—”
“Heads up, my dynamic duo!” says a student with blue hair who approaches Zach and Tiffany. “We won’t be working on the paper this weekend—which means we’ll be meeting after class every day next week to make up the time.”
“Sounds good to me, Fran!” says Tiffany, but Zach looks crestfallen. “What could we dress up as?” she asks Salma.
“You could be Wednesday,” Trevor says to Salma.
“And that would be a costume how?” she asks.
Trevor smirks. “Barbie then?”
“Ooh, yes!” says Tiffany. “I’ll be Reporter Barbie and you—”
“Goth Barbie?” interjects Trevor, then he ducks to dodge a barrage of fries from Salma.
A few hours later, William meets them at the LUB as usual.
They have not made any new discoveries in here since the invisible timeline.
By now, Lorena and the others have finished going through all the books, and just as he anticipated, they found no ink on any pages.
They use the place only as a hangout for getting their homework done—and to come up with ideas for history club.
Yet tonight, they are all still talking about the ball.
“What if we’re each a different Avenger?” asks Zach.
William has no idea what that means.
“I believe William is a hard pass on Marvel,” says Salma, grinning at whatever she sees in his expression. “Are you a DC guy?”
“I am a … Boston guy.”
Salma frowns, and Trevor snorts with laughter. “What the hell is that? Superheroes with Boston accents?”
“What about One Piece characters?” asks Zach.
“I want something less obvious,” says Tiffany.
“And Minaro made it sound like the challenge was to come in pairs, not groups,” adds Salma. She glances at Trevor, then looks away.
William cannot stand this banal ball chatter and would much rather discuss his and Lorena’s plans for tomorrow. “We should get some reading done for Shakespeare club,” he says to her, and they head to the other end of the room, far from the others.
As they sit down by the wall, she retrieves her copy of Twelfth Night from her bag. They finished Romeo and Juliet long ago and decided to just keep reading and discussing other plays. “Should we … talk about it?” she asks softly, sounding embarrassed.
“About what?”
“The dance,” she says, like it should be obvious.
“Please, no—”
“But we need to figure out our costumes,” she says without meeting his gaze.
“Costumes?” he repeats. “What for? I am not attending.”
“What do you mean?” She narrows her gaze at him like he has said something wrong.
“Exactly what I said.”
“So what will you do instead?”
“Read.”
“But the whole school is going! You have to be there.”
“Why?”
“To … to keep up appearances.” She sounds unconvinced by her own argument.
“If anyone asks, just say I am unwell.”
“But they’ll be suspicious if we don’t at least work on our costumes. Just pretend you’re going with me, then you can stand me up if you want.”
He is surprised by how much she wants to attend with him, but as he is in a good mood at the prospect of blood, he decides to let this go. “Okay, I shall pretend. Now, may we move on to our plans for tomorrow—?”
“No,” she blurts, and he knits his brow in confusion. “After the dance. You can feed on me”—her voice drops a few registers as she says it—“after the dance.”
“No.”
The word sounds like a growl.
William feels his shoulders lurching forward like he is preparing for an attack. His throat begins to burn with the strength of his craving, and the only thing that will soothe it is blood.
He will drain every single human in this room if he does not get his way.
“You said eight weeks,” he reminds her, his voice still coming off more beast than man.
“It’s only a difference of two days—”
“Why is it so important to you that we attend this dance together?” he demands, his volume rising just enough that the others stop speaking, and the room goes silent.
Lorena looks stricken by the question.
“I just—I’ve-never-been-to-a-school-dance-before.” She whispers the sentence like it is a multihyphenated word. “Especially with a date, and I think it could be a fun social experience. You did have fun back in the 1700s, right?”
He cannot fathom being eighteen and never having attended a ball. “Why have you never been to one before?”
She shakes her head like it is not important. “If waiting eight weeks didn’t kill you, you can wait forty-eight hours.” She crosses her arms, but the tremble in her voice undermines her defiance.
How dare she think she can order him around?
William’s arms quiver, and he feels the lines of his frown digging into his face. She will cave to him, or she will not live through the night.
“I will remind you,” he says menacingly, his mouth inching closer to her, “that we have an agreement—”
“And I will remind you,” she says without shrinking back, “that I have a video—”
“Which could be artificial intelligence or faked.” Her mouth opens, and he takes satisfaction in surprising her. “I have been reading all about the advances in technology that you neglected to mention. Somehow, your recording does not seem as big a threat as you made it out to be.”
Yet her expression looks far from defeated. She sits up like she does in English class when they are debating. “Well, fake or not,” she says, “the Legion will still be moved to investigate it, won’t they?”
“Then it is a good thing I learned about the internet and the cloud. It turns out that as there is no connection here, that video is saved locally to your phone. I could simply crush the device, and it will be gone.”
Edging closer, he stares at the vein in her neck. He can almost feel her soft warmth and taste her blood.
“Except…” she whispers.
His lips are a sliver away from her skin. “Except?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“I took my phone to Harvard, and it automatically syncs to my cloud.” Her breath tickles his ear. “Which means the video is very much accessible to anyone who comes poking around about my death or disappearance.”
He already considered this, of course. It is why he has kept to her eight-week blood embargo.
“Hey … Lorena?”
The two of them look up at the sound of the new voice. Trevor freezes upon seeing them. “Oh—shit. Sorry, I didn’t know you were hooking up—”
“We’re not,” says Lorena hurriedly. She jumps to her feet and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her zip-up sweater. “What’s up?”
She looks beyond him toward the others. “Wait, where is everyone?”
“They left,” says Trevor. “We wanted to give you two some privacy if you were talking about the dance.”
“Then why are you still here?” asks William from his spot on the floor.
“I wanted to talk to you alone for a second,” Trevor says to Lorena, ignoring the vampire.
“Sure,” she says, leaning down to stuff her book back in her bag. “Walk me out?” she asks Trevor, and the two of them head toward the tunnel.
Even though William could easily eavesdrop from here, irritation is still drilling a hole in his head. So he hastens to their side, eager to pick a fight and release his anger.
“Whoa—that was fucking fast,” says Trevor, jumping at the sight of William. “Can you back off? I want to talk to Lorena alone.”
“Why?” asks the vampire, relishing Lorena’s hard exhale of frustration.
“I’m not stepping on your toes, man.”
William looks down at his feet. He has no idea what Trevor is talking about.
“Just give us some space,” says Lorena, glowering at him.
Yet when she and Trevor start walking again, William follows.
Trevor spins around and spits out, “Fine! Stay if you want.” Then he turns his back to William, blocking him from the conversation.
“I want to ask Salma to be my date, but I know she doesn’t want anything serious.
So what do you think? Should I ask her?”
A wide grin overtakes Lorena’s face. “I think—”
“No,” says William, and Trevor grunts in annoyance. “You are not right for her.”
“Forget it,” says Trevor.
“Don’t listen to him!” calls Lorena as the boy storms down the tunnel.
When she spins around to look at him, William takes great pleasure in having dislodged the smile from her face.
“What’s wrong with you? You don’t even care about them.
What does it matter to you what they do?
” Her pulse is as loud as her voice. “Just because you’re forced to be a monster doesn’t mean you have to choose to be an asshole! ”
Lorena begins her own indignant march down the tunnel. Yet William is done letting her think she is in charge.
He yanks her out by the arm and pins her against the wall. She breathes in sharply, and her eyes grow unfocused, like her head is spinning. But he does not care.
He kept his word. He waited eight weeks minus a day, and that is good enough.
The girl agreed to be his Familiar. He is only taking from her what is owed to him. His fangs drop, and now her vision seems to focus because her eyes grow wide with fear.
Except it is not the same horror as the first time they met.
The pain in her expression is now personal. She looks the way he felt when he was betrayed by the vampire he admired above all others.
“Just—go,” he says, turning his back to her.
Without hesitation, Lorena runs.
WILLIAM TRACKS Trevor’s scent to the fourth tower common room.
As he approaches the stairs, the boy keeps looking back, like he can sense that he is being followed.
This confirms the vampire’s suspicions that there is something different about him. William is determined to find out what it is.
When he climbs the first step, Trevor looks behind him again—and this time, he sees William.
The mortal stumbles.
“What—what are you doing here?” he asks.
The vampire can hear the boom of Trevor’s heartbeat. He eyes the thick artery in the boy’s throat. He is so hungry.
Yet he cannot trust Trevor enough to make him his Familiar.
If he starts drinking, he will have to finish.
“Why were you so convinced we would find ink in one of the blank books?”
“Because I found a drawing,” says Trevor, then he cups his throat like he wants to stop himself from speaking.
“Show me,” William compels him.
Trevor reaches into his bag and pulls out a green book. Then he opens it to one of the pages near the end and reveals a drawing that makes William’s hand shake as he takes the text.
A black fire with red smoke.
The Legion of Fire.
William stares deeply into Trevor’s shiny brown-green eyes. The boy looks petrified by his lack of self-control.
“What does this mean to you?”
“It’s my father’s family crest.”
Then Trevor’s family are or once were members of the Legion. William feels a modicum of relief that his hatred of the boy is justified. “Why have you been holding on to this book?”
“I think it might be the reason I was drawn to this school. Maybe the LUB can help me find the purpose for my life.”
William has no intention of returning the text to Trevor. “Forget this interaction ever happened. Forget the book and what you saw in it.”
“Yes,” says Trevor, and his gaze drifts as the compulsion works through his mind.
“And forget about asking Salma to the dance.”