Chapter 23 Peter #2
“Theo! Cover your face and eyes!” Peter yelled before going after Bernard.
Really, Peter should’ve stayed with Theo to shield him, but the best way to stop this was to get to Bernard and pluck something of his out. Now there’s an idea.
Despite his complexion, Peter knew he could hide in the underbrush, especially from one who’d never tasted battle. He caught up to Bernard, and just before Bernard turned to look over his shoulder, Peter went up a tree.
“Come out, you rich fucker,” Bernard said without raising his voice.
Peter didn’t see why he should let Bernard ask twice, so he jumped. That was slightly risky, but he needed to break Bernard’s concentration; Theo was back on the grass, and the birds were flocking.
Bernard, unfortunately, turned at just the right moment to see Peter descend, and while he didn’t manage a full block, he still brought his arm up.
Peter held on to that limb, no problem, and used the momentum of his own body to land in a graceful roll.
Bernard came down along with him, far less gracefully and with a lot more screaming on account of that arm breaking so badly the splintered pieces of bone split the skin wide open.
It’s the small things that bring you joy, like an open fracture for your lover’s stalker.
Peter was smiling the moment he pushed to his feet, and because he still had the momentum, he made a neat little turn, twisted Bernard’s ouchie arm, and tore that sucker off, just below the elbow.
This is nice. Ah, I haven’t done this in too long. Some things really are like riding a bike.
There was more screaming. Peter assumed the birds were no longer an issue, and Theo was safe from beak and claw for the time being.
“Couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could you?” Peter tossed the piece of arm into the underbrush. It hit a tree with a wet thunk, which made the whole thing less dramatic. Oh, the bother.
“My arm!” Bernard was on his knees, holding his stump with one hand and staring wide-eyed at where his meaty fist had been.
“You abused Theodore, so shut it, and suck it up.” Peter leaned forward. In a low voice, he said, “If I had my way, we’d be at this for hours, but I have to get back to him. You matter not, in the grand scheme of things. I assure you, the world will be a nicer place without you.”
Besides, he’s being very dramatic over just one arm. They reattach pretty well.
Bernard got to his feet, fury making spittle spray out of the corners of his mouth. Disgusting.
“That little slut belongs to me! I marked him, and I was whoring him out long before he did it himself. He’s mine, but you could have had a piece of him, for the right—”
Peter dashed forward, plunged his fingers into Bernard’s left eye socket, twisted, and moved back out of the vampire’s reach as fast as he’d gotten in.
“Brown, the color of shit,” Peter said over Bernard’s screams. He dropped the eyeball and stepped on it, grinding it to a pulp under his heel. “Means I’ll have to clean my shoes. The bother.”
A twig broke under a soft foot. “P-Peter?”
Theo had found them in the trees, and he looked scared out of his mind. He was also wet and smelled like the lake, which was why Peter had only just noticed him now.
Bernard had calmed down, and unfortunately, his remaining eye still worked fine.
“Perfect timing, fuck boy.” Bernard sneered, and then he attacked.
Peter hated how close he came to touching Theodore. He had no right to ever lay hands on Theodore ever again, and Peter knew it was his duty to see to that.
Full speed came easily enough to Peter though, and with it came the perfect, single-minded focus of the hunter.
He grabbed Bernard’s head, twisted, and tore. The crack of bone and gristle was loud, and the sound of skin and flesh and blood parting company was resonant and deeply satisfying.
Peter’s maker had been a warrior herself, and she had trained him in the art of combat from his first day as a vampire. Bernard had clearly never had any such training, and an overblown sense of self-importance really didn’t make up for it.
So Bernard’s headless body hit the grass with a squishy thud not two seconds after his fatal error.
Among the trees, it was too dark for Theo to really see all of what had happened, but he would have heard some of it, maybe seen flashes.
Peter dropped Bernard’s head and slowly walked over to Theodore, who stared at the heap of dead vampire at his feet.
“It’s over now, Theodore. Good and done. Why are you so wet?”
He held both hands out at his sides and walked toward Theodore slowly, but Theo’s eyes were fixed on headless, one-armed Bernard. He was starting to tremble.
Because of the involuntary bath, hopefully, and not the dead vampire.
“I didn’t remember.” Theo spoke almost too quietly for Peter to hear.
“You don’t remember, dearest?”
Theo shook his head, his eyes finding Peter’s in the dark. “I don’t remember…anyone else. I don’t remember sleeping with anyone—”
Theo threw up right next to Bernard, some of the bile splashing onto the dead vampire.
Peter reached for Theo and held him tight to make sure he stayed upright. “It’s all right, you’re all right now. You’re safe. None of that is ever going to happen again.”
“Ah, fuck. Sorry. Sorry, I just…”
“Theodore.” Peter said it in his most commanding voice, and it got Theo to look at him. “Vampires do this and have done it throughout the ages. Compelling a human to forget they’ve slept with them and taken their blood. Compelling them to forget worse offenses.”
“Are you saying this is normal? Making excuses for him?”
Theo’s voice didn’t have the bite Peter was hoping for. He’s too shaken still.
“No. I’m telling you so you can make some sense of what happened to you. He may have planned to hurt you this way since the day he met you, and he may have done it to others before you. In fact, I would bet that he did. Men like Bernard don’t just wake up one day and start this kind of abuse.”
The humans who came before Theodore are likely dead in a ditch somewhere. He doesn’t need to know that though, not yet.
Peter had not prayed or sacrificed in a few hundred years, but having Theo here, alive, when he’d been so close to near-certain death at Bernard’s hands? Peter wanted to feed a bonfire for nine days and nights to let Odin know how grateful he was for that.
Theo stumbled backward a step, and Peter caught him, carefully reeling him back in.
“How don’t I remember? I remember I woke up next to a guy… That was when I ran away. How don’t I remember anything else?”
Theo’s cold hands dug into the fabric of Peter’s shirt.
“Compulsion and cruelty combined make a powerful tool, but ultimately, they cannot beat down compassion or break a fierce heart, Theodore. You are not what happened to you. You are whoever you want to be.”
There was a part of Peter that thought Theo might be better off not remembering what he’d been made to forget, but he would keep that to himself. That wasn’t his decision to make.
After a few moments, during which Peter feared what Theo’s next reaction would be, Theo calmed and straightened in Peter’s arms. He pulled out of the hug and looked at the mess of blood and limbs.
“He’s really dead? No coming back from this?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s good. I want to see his head. Where is it?”
Peter wasn’t about to deny Theo this, and the corpse was fresh, so there was no reason it should cause more vomiting.
Picking up the head by the hair was the kind of thing that made Peter sympathize with hand sanitizer lovers, but he did it and held it up for Theo to see.
“You pulled his eye out.”
“I crushed it under my shoe.”
“I…I think I love you for that. What happens now?”
“I call an old friend to take care of the corpse and the cleanup, we go home and change into something dry and not bloody, and then I’m taking you to dinner. After you brush your teeth, perhaps.”
“Sorry. Didn’t throw up on you, did I?”
“No, but some of it hit the corpse, so well done.”
Theo shrugged. “I jumped in the lake because of the birds. Take it away now.”
Peter dropped the head between the body’s legs so Bernard’s nose was pressed against his own groin. Fitting.
“Do you always go have dinner after you murder people? You have done this before, right?”
Peter took Theo by the hand and was glad when Theo let himself be led back out of the thicket.
“No, I don’t go out to dinner after murder because I do not eat. I do find willing blood donors sometimes though. And yes, I have done this before.”
“If…any of the people that he… The people he sold me to. Would you do this to them if they came to find me?”
Peter liked the forethought the question showed, but he didn’t like that Theo’s mind had gone there. But it speaks to how much he values me that he asks this favor of me.
“Yes.”
Theo nodded, and Peter could feel another quiet spell coming on. He pulled out his phone and called a couple who he knew could handle the kind of mess in the trees.
“Why would I want three cuts of vampire meat?” said Simon, the kelpie half of the often-hungry couple.
“The liver is still good,” Peter assured him.
Theo gave Peter a look, but quickly turned his attention back to the light installation of oversized, glowing amphibian eggs.
“Liver, pah.”
“And tell Pryce he can deal with the rest.” Pryce was a ghoul, and he would appreciate vampire. They kept quite nicely.
“Okay, fine, but you take care of the parking tickets I got the other day.”
“Ah, Simon, you drive a relentless bargain.”
“Take it or leave it, Peter.”
“All right, all right, I shall pay your fine.”
“Deal.” Simon hung up.
Peter texted him the details of where the meat was, and then he and Theo walked back to the car.
A small group of tourists had found the beach installation, and they were taking photos, each of them sitting in the beach chair in turn.
“I used to be like that,” Theo mumbled.
Peter squeezed Theo’s hand. “Should I chase them off so you can have a go?”
Theo snorted. “Nah. You’re not a monster, remember?”
“If you say so.”
Theo kept mostly quiet on the drive back home, but halfway there, he reached over and held Peter’s hand. Once they walked through the door, Theo turned toward him.
“I don’t want to go out. Can we order in and watch a movie? Not a horror movie. Something fluffy.”
Peter nodded. “Something supercalifragilistic?”
Theo smiled, but it was as weak as milky tea. “Sounds expialidocious.”
He turned toward the stairs, but Peter reached for his wrist.
“Look at me.” As soon as Theo did, Peter slipped his compulsion off him, the one that kept him from running away. “No more compulsion on you now, although you did lap up a bit of my blood earlier. Nothing I can do about that.”
“I wanted to do that.”
“So you did.” Peter smiled at him and couldn’t resist the pull of Theo’s lips. The kiss was sweet—butterfly wings and moth wings meeting in twilight. Peter didn’t even care that Theo had ejected the contents of his stomach not that long ago. “Am I ordering pizza for you?”
Theo nodded. “Yup. Can I move in here?”
“Yup.”
Theo nodded. “Cool. I’ll go shower.”
“Cool.”
Theo walked away while Peter stood there, admiring him. Not the way he looked or walked, but the way he moved forward, unbroken.