Chapter 47. William
william
“Hi, I’m William’s aunt Fabiana,” William hears the vampire saying to Minaro. “Allow me to speak with him in private.”
She is compelling the director.
“Of course,” says Minaro. “Shall I get him for you?”
“No need,” says Fabiana, turning away from her and locking eyes with him. As she approaches his table, every conversation shifts to the same subject.
“Who is that?”
“She looks like a supermodel.”
“I think William knows her.”
“Look how he watches her! He’s not even blinking.”
“Lorena has some major competition.”
Fabiana is drawing too much attention. William wishes she had just stayed outside, hidden from view, until he picked up her scent. Why did she have to announce herself this way?
“Hi, I’m William’s aunt,” she says, surveying his tablemates, her gaze snagging on Lorena, probably since they are sitting very close together.
“Hi, I’m Trevor—”
“Come with me, please,” Fabiana says to William. Beyond the impatient parental authority in her voice, he can hear her disapproval.
“I will be back,” he says to a worried Lorena, then William follows Fabiana out of the dining hall. They move at mortal speed through the school.
“What are you doing here?” he murmurs once they have put a good distance between themselves and the dining hall.
“I came to warn you,” she says in an equally low voice. They do not say anything else, and he stops walking once they reach the game room.
“This is far enough,” he says. “Has something happened?”
“No. Not. Yet.” Her fragmented speech makes it seem like she is not speaking freely. “Someone is listening,” she says in a volume inaudible to humans.
“Come here, Lorena,” says William.
The woman he loves enters the room slowly, like she is embarrassed to be caught. She is still breathing heavily from the exertion of chasing after them. William turns to Fabiana to make an introduction, but the professor is glowering at Lorena with open distaste.
“Fabiana, this is my girlfriend, Lorena.”
Both women snap their gazes to him in surprise. Then a smile illuminates Lorena’s features, while Fabiana’s only hardens.
“Girlfriend?” Fabiana steps closer to William, her shoulders inching forward, as if she were going to challenge him to a fight. “This is why you wanted some time to yourself? So you could fuck around with human girls—?”
“I am going to give you the opportunity to stop now, before you say something I cannot forgive.”
He can see the rage swirling in Fabiana’s tigereye gaze, and he knows this is a true test of his power as the sole Stoker. If she does not fall in line now, the others will not later.
When her lips stay sealed, he says, “Lorena is my Familiar.”
Fabiana shakes her head. “We’re not allowed—”
“A lot of things, yet all our rules do not seem to apply to Leonardo the Bloody,” he says.
“Lorena’s blood awoke me from death-sleep.
At first, as I tried to understand this new world and what happened to our kind, she was my source of blood and information.
Yet over time, when it became clear I no longer needed her and she posed a potential threat, I still could not kill her or let her be killed.
Nor could I stand to be apart from her. I… ”
“You love her,” says Fabiana, awe softening her voice.
“I do.”
Fabiana looks at Lorena again, and though her expression does not lighten, she is no longer frowning or curling her lip. She might disapprove, but she is not intolerant.
“Hi, Lorena,” she says at last. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m fond of humans and hold nothing against your kind. I’m only sorry you got pulled into this, and I hope it doesn’t get you killed.”
Her words hit William unexpectedly hard, which is probably why he sounds so menacing when he asks her, “Why did you come here?”
Fabiana stares at him, and he has grown so used to humans’ blinking that her fixed gaze strikes him as particularly focused.
“What did you do to Nate and Cisco?”
He hopes this is all her visit is about: Two vampires vanished, and others are asking questions. “I put them to sleep and hid them,” he says matter-of-factly.
Shock jolts across Fabiana’s face. “But—why?”
“They found me here and threatened to kill Lorena.”
If Fabiana was wondering how serious he is about his human girlfriend, she should have a clear sense now. “I cannot tell you where they are,” he goes on, “because I cannot risk them awakening and telling Lenny about this school.”
“Too late for that,” says Fabiana, and something deep inside William breaks. “They told Lenny before coming here.”
He hears Lorena’s gasp, and even though he pulls her in to his side, this is the first time her sunny warmth does not penetrate his skin.
Fabiana moves in until William cannot look anywhere but her eyes. He feels a plunging sensation in his chest, like a boat dropping anchor and chaining him to his dark destiny.
“Every single vampire will be here before dawn on Friday. Including Leonardo the Bloody.”