Chapter 2
I opened the door only as wide as necessary to slip my body through, then closed and locked it. “All clear.”
By the time I turned, Virgil was pulling me against his chest with this arms circling me.
I sucked in a quick breath that I hoped he wouldn’t comment on.
With everything going on in my life, my brain was getting more and more crossed.
For half a moment, Virgil’s comforting hug had reminded me of Derrick’s.
Guilt and grief were twin stabs to my heart, and I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed them away, planting my hands on his wide back.
“Have I mentioned lately how much I hate summer?” Virgil murmured near my ear.
He let go of me and stepped away. “Once or twice.” He’d bemoaned the long days every time I’d seen him for the last month.
“Well, we’re almost on the other side. Days will start getting shorter again.” He sighed and played with my hair. “What’s wrong?”
That was the worst part of being around vampires. There was no hiding anything from them. Virgil, at least, would let obvious signs of distress go after asking once, but Fenton would wear me down if he knew something was on my mind that I was holding back from him.
I likely shouldn’t have been so worried to tell Virgil I’d be going away to the Hunter Land, but it might not have been easy news for him to swallow, considering his brand-new girlfriend, who happened to be a vampire hunter, would be disappearing for an unknown length of time so that I could gain divine powers that would make me even more effective at killing vampires.
Virgil may not have been a typical vampire, but even if he’d been a human, that story might have been too much to swallow.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I assured Virgil, taking his hand and meeting his eyes to prove it. “I just have some news to tell you about. It can wait, though.”
He had a good, clean, dopey smile while he nodded along.
With his hours working at the police station reduced for the summer, he was lonely.
He was still working from home and able to venture out at night, but it was hard, and I wasn’t sure how he’d survived this time of year on his own in the past.
“News, huh? I like the sound of that. We’ll circle around to it, then?
Can I get you something to drink?” He got me a glass of water while I found my usual spot at the end of his couch.
With all his curtains drawn, it felt just like night in his home, which was a welcome relief from the oppressive heat of the New Mexico summer.
“I have some interesting news myself, actually.” Virgil sat in his plush chair, rocking it back once before angling his body towards me.
“Oh, really? Do you want to go first, then?” I was all too eager to push my own confession off.
He set his mug down on the side table between us, and I glanced at the contents.
Black tea. I always expected to find blood, but he had yet to drink it in front of me.
Virgil moved to the couch, and I angled my body to face him.
He cupped my face in his hands and leaned closer.
“Can we start with this?” Virgil pressed his lips to mine softly before pulling an inch away.
I wrapped my fingers around his forearms and followed him, deepening the kiss, making my own pent-up desperation his problem.
I might not have been the best at relationships, but this, I could do.
I’d have done more, even, but Virgil was setting the pace.
He broke away from me just as my thoughts were starting to quiet.
“Fallon,” he sighed. “You make me feel…” I was silent, nearly holding my breath while I waited, but he just smiled and shook his head. “How was your day?”
It had already been several days since I’d put in my two weeks’ notice at Sandia blood lab, and I had to tell Virgil. However, I went off on boring details instead, skipping over it all as quickly as possible so I could listen to his day instead.
“Any vampire activity?” I asked when he didn’t go into the kind of details I was hoping for.
Virgil’s eyes flashed with amusement. “Fallon, I gotta say, it feels weird telling a professional vampire hunter about my cases. Sometimes I find the vampires I tell you about never pop up again.” There was a thick layer of unspoken warning.
I was being way too obvious. His sudden reticence sent a grating annoyance through my bones, though.
What was with these vampires withholding information from me all of a sudden?
“That’s the life cycle of young vampires. Most don’t last a month.”
“True,” Virgil said simply, but he continued to study me. He must not have liked what he saw, because he changed the subject. “So, which of us goes first with our news?”
“You go first,” I said before he even finished his sentence. He took my hands, and his smile betrayed just how excited he was.
“I heard back from the county clerk’s office.
Finally.” A little laugh escaped. “There aren’t any rules barring me from running for city council.
So, 200 dollars later, and I’m an official candidate.
Well, as long as I collect the necessary signatures in time.
And that’s barely the first battle of what I know will be a long war, but I’m ready to come out of the shadows and really fight for what I believe in. ”
Virgil had been telling me about his desire to work with the local government for several months now, so it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to me. However, I stared speechless for several moments while I processed the information.
“Wow,” I finally managed to say once his face started to fall. “Well, congratulations, Virgil. I’m so proud of you.”
He kissed my cheek, then scooped me up into another tight hug. “Thank you, Fallon. I’ve been dying all day to tell you. I almost just called and blew it all over the phone, but I wanted to see your reaction. How are you feeling about it?”
How did I feel? That was probably a more difficult question for me to consider than something like “what is the nature of the universe?” I floundered long enough for my answer that he pulled back to look me over with concern.
“I’m still just surprised,” I said. “I’m happy for you, though. You seem really excited.”
“I mean, I had a mental list of reasons why they’d deny my request. Oh, but that’s not the only news, though.
” His rise in enthusiasm was pushing me down into a state of numb shock that I couldn’t shake myself out of.
I stared at him. “I reached out to a local advocacy group once I got the go-ahead — oh, I hope you’re not angry that I told someone else before you — and they invited me to speak at their yearly gala at the end of the month.
A gala!” His laugh was rich and warm, and guilt slapped me in the face when my first thought was about myself.
I’d intended to be gone by then. I couldn’t hide it any longer.
Virgil’s worried eyes searched my face, and he brought his hands up to comfort me, holding me and stroking my hair.
“I promise, I am really happy for you.”
“I’m guessing this clashes with your news?” he asked. “Oh, lord, are you breaking up with me?”
I laughed at the half-joke as much as I could. “No. It’s just…” Oh, Hell, where was I supposed to start? This was my deserved punishment for putting it off so long. “I’m quitting my job. At Sandia. I put in my two weeks.”
“Oh!” he said, pulling his hands back. “What — did something happen?”
I fought Lazaro Reyes and was outmatched to an embarrassing degree, and by all logic, I should have been dead. Instead, I was more obsessed than ever before about hunting vampires.
“Not exactly. It’s just…” I’d practiced this speech, but my mind hadn’t shown up for the big day.
“It’s like I’m awake now. Or like part of me was dead and in the grave with Derrick, and now it’s alive again.
It didn’t happen all at once, but I’m starting to think that all roads really do lead to Rome.
Only instead of Rome, it’s… my home. And I took the really long way to get there. ”
“You’re moving away.” I could have sworn I’d heard Virgil’s heart rip in half, and that kind of power over him didn’t feel particularly good in my hands.
“Not permanently. I’m not even sure it’ll last a day, honestly.” I tried not to fall too deep into that scenario, even if it haunted me every night in my bed. “I told you I was a Hunter.”
“Right.”
“Well, when the time is right, Hunters seek out their powers. I’ll have to go through trials to prove that I’m worthy. And if I am, I’ll become stronger.”
“You’ll become a stronger vampire hunter.
” His tone was academic, lacking in enthusiasm.
The gulf between us felt wider than it had been in months — since I’d first told him who I really was.
And like that night, he stood and paced across the room, gravitating to his bar.
His fingers brushed over the bottles, but he didn’t move to do anything with them.
“This is hard news for me to swallow, Fallon.”
“I understand. I can see why. You believe it’s possible to save vampires.”
Virgil turned to give me a hard look, and I met it.
He could fill in the logical conclusion to the contrast between us.
He’d spent his career and his free time trying to civilize vampires.
I’d spent my life learning to hate and hunt them.
There were uncomfortable truths that spread out between our two stances, and we’d been dodging them for the sake of our relationship.
That was harder for him to do than it was for me.
“With more power,” he began slowly, slumping his shoulders, “you could help me detain more vampires.”
I shrugged. I could in theory, but in practice, that hadn’t happened.
Virgil was rightly set on dealing with vampires by the books, following the rules established by his department in his role as a vampire liaison to the police.
That usually didn’t involve a civilian helping him off hours, and the patrols we’d done together when we’d collected a vampire to take in had only led to headaches and inquiries for him.
With the lack of support or urgency from even the arm of law enforcement that allegedly focused on vampire crimes, I had to do what was necessary to keep Cibola safe.
“You don’t know how long you’ll be gone, then?” he asked when he collapsed back into his chair.
“No. It could be days. Maybe weeks, or even a few months.” I’d been present at the Hunter Land when other Hunters faced their own trials, of course.
But what may have been a few weeks for them might not apply to someone like me who had been out of the fold for so long, and who had several transgressions to account for.
“You won’t be able to go to the gala with me,” he nearly choked, then clenched his jaw and looked away.
“The gala?” I didn’t let myself laugh, despite my shock at that being such a concern of all things.
“It’s at the end of the month? I can wait to leave.
” It was a frustrating compromise when I so badly wanted to get home to demand my Blessing, if only to stop the constant buzz of worry that droned in the background of every day.
Virgil’s eyes sparkled with love and heartache, and I had to divert my gaze to the floor. “You’d do that?”
“No, of course. It’s nothing. I’d be happy to stay.”
A heavy silence weighed over us, choking the air in the room.
I braced myself, expecting him to take the first step into the conversations we likely needed to have, the ones that frightened me more than him simply ending things between us.
The regret of not sticking with my plan to leave in just over a week festered. It would be so much easier.
“Well,” he said, “I guess we’ll cross those future bridges when they come to us.”
My conscience yanked on the leash in my brain.
This didn’t feel right. There was a rushing river for the two of us to cross.
I couldn’t see myself getting to his side, nor him to mine, and how were we ever going to survive in the middle?
I ignored it for the easy path, though. I stood enough to bridge the gap between the couch and Virgil’s lap, where I sat sideways so I could twist to face him.
His hands grasped my waist, and I held onto his shoulders to steady myself.
The tightness like violin strings in my chest hummed as I poured that tension into a kiss.
Virgil was calm and controlled as always, cautious even against my growing hunger.
I twisted my knees up until my feet were off the floor.
His hand came to my neck, and I expected him to use it to move me away, and when he didn’t, another layer of my control gave way.
I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter, and my tongue darted out to taste the victory of the soft moan I’d pulled out of him.
Then, he shoved me roughly a few inches away with two strong hands on my shoulder.
His red eyes were wide, though he wasn’t looking at me.
Only then did I feel the sting on the side of my tongue and the coppery taste of my own blood. I covered my mouth.
“Oh.”
Virgil wasn’t even breathing. His eyes finally found mine, and he forced a smile. “Sorry. So sorry. I…haven’t gotten my fangs properly shaved in a few weeks. I thought…well, with the gala, I didn’t want to show up with shaved fangs. Maybe I’m overthinking it.”
He was still holding me away from him, so I slunk back to the safety of the couch.
He’d had a taste of my blood for the first time, and even that tiny drop had done something to him.
I fought the instinct in the back of my mind screaming at me to run.
Or was it to press my mouth to his again?
I replayed his words again in my distracted head.
“It’s not a one-time thing? You have to get them shaved?” My brain was running slower than normal with the rush of desire that had been doused by this new mood.
Virgil’s nervous hands fidgeted with fixing his hair. “I get it done once a month. I have a tool to maintain them in between. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.” He wasn’t even looking at me anymore, so I put a hand on his knee.
“It’s fine. I hope that wasn’t too much for you.” Mary the Mother. If he wasn’t covered in that wet blanket of brooding, I’d have been in his lap kissing him even deeper right now, sharing a tiny amount of blood between us. What was wrong with me?
“Just a bit of a surprise.” He was trying to return to his usual upbeat self, faking it to make it. “It’s my turn to pick out the movie this week, right?”
He slapped his hands to his knees as he stood.
I accepted his offer of popcorn and a glass of sweet tea, then got comfortable on his couch.
I needed to cool down, anyway. I rubbed my tongue along the roof of my mouth, savoring the ache of the cut while I tried to focus on Virgil’s choice of movie tonight, Casablanca.