22. Pavel
Pavel
“ A nother whiskey?”
The ancient composer jiggled an empty glass in front of Pavel’s eyes enticingly. At some point, Henry had purchased a case of Pavel’s favorite, a lovely and complex spirit distilled in the mountains of Tennessee. After forty years of friendship, Henry knew what he liked.
Pavel grunted in affirmation, and the old man laughed and hobbled over to the nearby liquor cabinet.
Henry was in his eighties now, still spry for his age, although his diminutive frame had grown even slighter in the last decade. Sporting a sparse white beard, the human did not have protection from the ravages of time, unlike Pavel. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“What’s gotten into you?” Henry asked as he pulled out a bottle of the elixir. “Gargoyle problems?”
Pavel groaned and sank further into the cushy velvet upholstery.
Henry had lived in Chelsea for most of his adult life, managing to score a rent-stabilized apartment in his twenties.
It had the lived-in feel of an artist’s home: books about art and music piled everywhere, eclectic antiques crammed into the tiny space, a baby grand piano taking up the entire living room.
Pavel’s friend was a creature of the city, and the man planned to die where he had lived.
He was also the only human Pavel had revealed himself to in the last five hundred years.
“Did I hit the nail on the head, my friend?” Henry’s voice had grown scratchier as he aged, only enhancing the impression he gave of being an acerbic academic.
“It will be a relief when you die, old man,” Pavel grumbled. “Then there won’t be anyone left to call me on my shit.”
Henry cackled as he crossed to Pavel, setting down the crystal tumbler of brown liquid on a table within the gargoyle’s reach.
“My funeral service better be a fucking masterpiece,” Henry said, his eyes bright with amusement.
“And don’t you dare play anything of mine.
I want the good stuff, the funeral classics.
Gounod’s Ave Maria . Barber’s Adagio for Strings .
Fuck it, do all of the Verdi Requiem . Send me off with a bang. ”
“You don’t believe in God,” Pavel retorted. “Doing a requiem mass would be sacrilegious, don’t you think?”
“My god is the music. That’s good enough.” Henry squinted at Pavel, his bushy white eyebrows set off by the amber light. “And don’t avoid the question. We’re both too old for that. You are far too old for that.”
Pavel sighed. “I’m coming to the end, old friend.”
Henry cocked his head, a confused look on his face. “That’s a good thing, right? You’ve been ready to wind down for a while now. How long do you have? ”
“Maybe two or three years? I suppose it could be shorter. It depends on how much I exert myself.”
Henry shrugged. “I better beat you out. You’re in charge of my funeral. If you’re gone, it’ll be my niece, and she’s liable to make it all twelve-tone or something.”
“She would never,” Pavel replied with a smile. “She knows you would haunt her house in Provincetown.”
“I fucking would.” Henry leaned over and tapped Pavel’s knee in a grandfatherly way, which the gargoyle found a little ridiculous. He had a few thousand years on the human.
“Be honest, friend,” Henry continued. “What’s going on?”
“It’s ridiculous this would happen now. It’s cruel. I’ve been around for more than three thousand years, but the universe waits until the end.” Pavel took a hefty swig of whiskey, the sweet familiar burn comforting him, even if his gargoyle constitution meant it wouldn’t get him drunk.
“That what ’s happened? You are being willfully obtuse.”
“That I would find my mates!” The end table’s spindly wooden legs shook as Pavel slammed down the glass with more force than he’d intended. “I gave up hope centuries ago. For them to come now is enraging.”
“Ah.” Henry leaned back, crossing his arms, comprehension dawning on his face. He was the only human Pavel had ever been completely open with, and he knew everything about Pavel’s life. It had taken thirty years to build that trust.
“It feels like a punishment.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Henry said, sipping on his own glass of whiskey. He was still on his first. “Why not enjoy the time you have left with them?”
Pavel felt as if he’d been stabbed in the gut. Even his friend didn’t understand.
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?” Confusion flashed across Henry’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a frustrated understanding. “Ah. You are being a self-sacrificing twit once again.”
“I am not!”
“Are you not?” The old composer crossed his arms, looking down on Pavel with an expression he normally saved for unruly pupils. Pavel hated when Henry got like this.
“No!”
“So you aren’t trying to be noble and self-sacrificing and depriving yourself of even a morsel of joy while making decisions for everyone around you in the controlling way you always do?”
That wasn’t fair. He should never have allowed the stupid human to get to know him so well.
“That’s not what I do!” Pavel’s words came out louder than he intended. The human had touched a nerve.
“Isn’t it?” Henry’s voice was soft and calming now, and his smile was kind. “Have you asked your mates what they want? Have you listened to what they said?”
Pavel’s throat squeezed shut with unshed tears. “I don’t want to be a burden to them. I can’t be.”
Henry sighed and reached out, grabbing Pavel’s hand and squeezing his fingers. The old man’s skin was wrinkled with age, but it was soft against his own, and compassion emanated from him.
“You may be a gargoyle, friend, and you may be a protector, but you deserve a modicum of happiness. You deserve something , in whatever time you have left. And your mates deserve the chance to stand by you. They deserve that choice.”
Pavel didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure Henry was right, but arguing would do no good. And maybe a tiny part of Pavel, a grain of sand at the center of his stony bulwark, thought he might have a point.
When Monday morning came, and Pavel exited the elevator onto his floor of the opera house, Yasmin was at the desk rather than Justin. She made some excuse for him, saying he was doing a big project for her in the office, but he couldn’t help thinking the vampire was avoiding him.
Then again, what balancing act had Pavel been trying to pull with his two mates? He couldn’t blame Justin. It must have been infuriating.
Sebastian was also nowhere to be found. As the morning session began, he was noticeably absent from the group.
It didn’t sit well with Pavel. He didn’t want the witch’s career to suffer on his account.
Of course, maybe his absence had nothing to do with what had happened between them, but he doubted it.
By Tuesday morning, he was worried. Sebastian was still missing, and rehearsals for Don Giovanni would begin the following week.
This wasn’t a small concert for the program, some kind of educational opportunity; this was a full production on the main stage of the Manhattan Lyric, the most important opera house in the US.
Sebastian was playing a principal role. If he abandoned it, his career would suffer.
At the end of the day on Tuesday, Pavel was more than worried.
Sebastian’s career aside, Pavel’s chest was tingling.
He believed it was the nascent mating bond.
Even without cementing the connection between them, things could still get through, especially for him.
Gargoyles didn’t have much in the way of innate power beyond their different forms, but they were natural magic enhancers.
The feeling of unease was growing, and he wasn’t going to wait any longer. As he was leaving for the house in Bayonne, the phone in his pocket vibrated.
It was Justin.
*Sebastian is in trouble.*