Chapter 49. William
william
William leaps up to his window and slips back inside the manor.
It is nighttime, and classes are over by now. Fabiana is on guard while he checks on Lorena. Nate and Cisco got past him before, and he wants to make sure no vampires somehow snuck past his patrol this time.
Centuries have passed, and he still finds himself in the same predicament: Wedged between worlds.
He has no idea what he is going to say or do when he faces Lenny and the others.
He wishes he could grab Lorena and run, but he cannot rip her from her life like that.
Nor can he leave their friends and classmates unprotected.
As he inhales deeply for a whiff of anything ancient, he also casts out with his hearing for any mention of vampires.
“Sir, I’m telling you it’s true.”
Catching Trevor’s voice in his net, William moves toward the administrative wing.
“Please don’t hang up.” William can hear the boy’s heart nearly as clearly as his words. “This is for real. I think I found a vampire!”
The voice on the other end is loud enough that William can easily hear it. “You really think you can keep fucking with me without consequences?” the man asks. “Your mother and I are tired of your juvenile pranks.”
“But Dad—sir—I’m serious—”
“No, I was serious when I told you it was a dumb idea to change schools when you were a promising college recruit. But you were obsessed with going to that ridiculous boarding school that doesn’t even have a football team!
And you want to know why your mother and I said yes?
Because we’re tired. Tired of cleaning up after your messes and putting up with your cries for attention and having to explain to others why—with all the privilege you grew up with—you’re still so goddamn miserable. ”
A long silence spreads, and after a moment, Trevor asks, “Hello? Are you there?”
“He is not.”
Trevor freezes with the receiver to his ear and turns around slowly. William stares at him in the dimly lit hall, no other souls in sight.
“I know what you are,” says Trevor, tensing up like he is anticipating an attack.
“I am not going to fight you,” William assures him. “It would be the equivalent of you beating up a rabbit.”
“What are you going to do then?” Trevor challenges him. “Because I’m not backing down.”
The boy has the guts to step closer, and William cannot help respecting his bravery.
“Why did you apply to this school?” William asks him.
“Why do you care?”
“I can compel you to answer me. Just as I compelled you to forget the green book with the Legion of Fire logo.” Trevor’s eyes glaze over with awe, as if a mystery has just been solved. “And to refrain from asking Salma to the dance.”
Trevor’s eyebrows come crashing down, and he looks like his instinct is to punch William, except that it is a fight he cannot win.
“What book?” he asks instead.
“The logo was there for misdirection. Yet you kept the book to yourself because you thought it was meant for you.”
“Can I see it?”
“Why did you want to come here?” William asks again. “If the next words out of your mouth are not the answer, I will compel you to forget your own name.”
“I don’t know why!” snarls an angry Trevor. “I had everything I needed back home, but something about this place called to me even stronger than football, which has never happened before. That’s why the LUB was important. It felt like confirmation that there was an actual reason I was here.”
“You believe you are here to hunt me?” asks William, matching Trevor’s glower with a cold smirk. “How did you become aware of your family’s legacy?”
Trevor hesitates like he wants to defy the vampire, but he knows better.
“When I was a kid, my great-grandfather used to take me to get ice cream every weekend. He liked to tell me stories about how we descended from a great line of vampire hunters. One day, I repeated one of his stories to my sister, and my parents heard me. That’s when the ice cream trips stopped.
I didn’t know why a few tall tales bothered them so much, until a few years later, my father made my siblings and me sign a confidentiality contract that we would never share our family’s secrets or show anyone our family crest or talk about our father’s business.
In mine, he even included that I could never repeat the stories my great-grandfather told me.
I figured it was some pride thing, and he didn’t want outsiders knowing the family patriarch had deteriorated.
But there was a part of me that wanted to believe it could be more. ”
“Is the Legion still actively hunting vampires?” William compels the boy because he cannot take any chances with this question.
“I don’t know.” Trevor frowns after speaking, like he is not sure where the answer came from.
“As entertaining as it would be to watch you try to live up to your family’s legacy, right now Fabiana and I are the only beings standing between your classmates and the fifty vampires on their way here to kill you all. Still want to hunt me?”
Trevor appears to be speechless, and William appreciates the primal fear that takes over the boy’s expression. At least he is not delusional.
“I’ll … I’ll tell my father to send help.”
“He will not believe you. Besides, I just cut the phone lines.”
Trevor’s eyes narrow with a new realization, and he steps back. “Why are you telling me all this? Aren’t you just going to make me forget this whole conversation?”
William disappears and reappears in a blur of movement. Only this time, he is holding a black bag in his hands.
“I am going to charge you with protecting your friends. Stick to Lorena because she will be the vampires’ main target, but consider that the others could be used as bait, so keep tabs on all four of them.”
William closes most of the space between them, and to his credit, Trevor does not shrink back.
“If a vampire attacks,” says William, handing him the bag, “light them up.”
AFTER LEAVING Trevor with the weapon, William locates Lorena. She is alone in the library stacks.
Sobbing.
“What is it?” he asks, hastening to her side.
“Y-you’re here!” She circles her arms around him. “What happened?”
“Fabiana is patrolling. I only came to make sure you were safe, then I will rejoin her. What is wrong?”
“S-Salma,” she says, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. “She’s very sick.” Her voice fades on the word. “Sh-she wants you to turn her.”
William nods in assent. “I know. I am sorry I did not tell you. I wanted to give you both the space to discuss it on your own.”
“What—what do you think?”
“You know my feelings on the matter,” he says. “I think to be eighteen forever and forced to hide in the shadows is a dreadful future.”
She nods, looking reassured by his answer. Only he is not finished.
“Yet when I inhaled her blood … it was not a healthy scent. I am sorry to say this,” he says, and he feels a tightening in his own chest in anticipation of the pain he is about to cause in hers. “Salma does not seem long for this life.”
“What if,” says Lorena after many sharp breaths, “she gets some kind of treatment? If she … if it’s not a successful outcome, could you just wait and do it then?” She looks at him in hopes of an answer. “So we can buy her more time?”
Buy more time.
The phrase strikes William as supremely innocent. If there is one thing that has become amply clear to him, it is that time truly rules all: It is the ultimate power behind the universe. No one can ever own time, not even immortals. At most, they can lease it.
The only contract time makes with all beings, whether mortal or vampire, is this moment.
The present.
“I will do as you wish,” he says, keenly aware that every second with Lorena is precious.
“Thank you,” she says, and he pulls her into an embrace.
“I am sorry,” he says, lifting her off her feet. “I have brought you only problems.”
He carries her away, and she blinks a few times when he sets her down in his room.
She does not pull away from him. “You’ve also brought me love and adventure and a chance to discover myself. Doesn’t that count?”
“I need you to know that I will never let any harm come to you,” he murmurs. “That means I may have to do some things neither of us would approve of.”
“I don’t accept that. You’re their fucking Stoker.” She says his name as if it were equivalent to king, and it fills him with something like actual pride.
“These vampires have been waiting for you for what probably feels like forever even to them, because there was no guarantee you existed. They’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“I have met some of these vampires,” he says, “and they are far worldlier than I, and savvier, more sophisticated.” He is thinking of Anne as he says this, how she moves through this world and knows exactly what she wants, and how he felt like a child in her presence.
“Why would they trust me to lead them when they have Leonardo the Bloody?”
“The answer is right there, in his name,” says Lorena, who always seems to have an answer for everything. “There is one thing vampires value above all—blood. And you have the blood of a leader. Their leader. Without you, nothing changes.”
“Lenny knows he has all the leverage he needs over me. I will do anything as long as nothing happens to you.”
She reaches up and cups his cheek. “Then you have to show them that simply making more vampires won’t change anything. Let them see what they are lacking is vision—something your grandsire had that you’ve inherited. Don’t just be their Stoker. Be their hope.”
He takes her face in his hands and kisses her deeply because she is his hope. Only now that he sees himself reflected in Lorena does William feel like he is beginning to process what he must do. It is as if everything has only become real in this moment, because he is sharing it with her.
She makes him real.
HOURS LATER, William and Fabiana take a break for some blood. They sit on Huntington’s rooftop, and she has two thermoses. He can smell the warm liquid inside.