CHAPTER 8
Alain
Three weeks later
Three weeks have sped by like time decided to accelerate just to screw with me.
Between dinners and lunches, activities, and simple hours spent with my fake-girlfriend, my work has suffered, but I’m not sure I care.
I don’t even care how the paparazzi are lapping up our appearances.
They’ve started spinning tales about Bunny being a princess from a tiny island nation since they can’t find much on her background (of course, they can’t.
I’d have to take issue with her parents and her tutelary if they could.
Slayers don’t dance about headlines, not if they want to remain among the living).
But all I care about is how few hours are left to me.
Which can only mean one thing: my fake girlfriend has become real to me.
And I don’t know when it happened. Was it when she spilled her glass of champagne down the President’s front, before turning and winking at me, causing me to cover up my laughter with a nasty cough?
Was it while she made me sit through nights of decorating and cooking shows on television, where I discovered that yelling at the hosts can release something twisted inside me?
Especially when the one guy said, “This recipe is so simple, even a child could make it,” and then proceeded to lay out a fifty-point plan of attack?
Or maybe it was during those hours every night when I gave up on all my good intentions, knocked on our connecting door, and was welcomed between her thighs. Just my tongue, lips, and hands so far, but I swear, making her come is all that’s kept me going.
Not that she hasn’t offered to reciprocate, but I’m aware of our power dynamic. I don’t want to take advantage of her. Besides, curling up around her every night has healed some part of me I didn’t know was bruised. When she’s wrapped close to me, I feel peace.
Merde, I think I love her.
No, I don’t think. I know. And I’m doomed.
Not only is she human with a short shelf life, not to mention a different Kind so that the creating of children is forbidden, but I’ve got my life to get back to.
The summons might come from the cathedral at any moment.
They’re still rebuilding the small pieces, but once they’re done, they’ll surely notice they’re down a few gargoyles.
They’ll chat with the angels, who will then point me back to my destiny.
A destiny that isn’t Bunny. That can never be Bunny.
“How’s your world domination plan going?” she asks, huffing as we hike up the mountain behind my home. The leaves have begun to turn. She won’t be here in October when the full breadth of the riotous colors bloom, but at least I can give her the beginning.
That’s all we have. Beginnings. And too soon, an ending.
“Global banking initiative where currency is controlled by each individual user, backed by precious metal reserves so that when the computers go down…”
“If they go down.” She sends me a smile.
“When they go down, people will still have assets upon which they might rely. Even if there’s a run on the vaults, which we’ll set up in each country, gold will be available for those who need tangible lucre. No more fiat currency, and all of it anonymous.”
She stops, and when I come up next to her, she wraps her arm around mine and leans her head into my bicep. “You’re so cute when you’re being all billionairey.”
“I don’t think that’s a word.” But I preen anyway because she thinks I’m cute.
“I like you all gray like this. That makeup you wear flattens your features and makes you look a little detached.”
“I am detached.” But is it normal to feel such delight that I’m half-afraid butterflies will spring from me into flight?
“You’re a pussy cat.” She separates from me and we continue trudging up the small path that my endless walking journeys have made through the forest. Flight is convenient, but before Bunny, I required a lot of marching to ease the tension in my veins. I can’t imagine what I’ll do afterward.
For a while we walk in silence, but when we crest the hill, I take her to the wooden log bench I had installed some feet from the edge of the cliff. “I like to sit here and look out over the valley.” When I sink down, she follows.
“It’s gorgeous.”
It is, but I’m not looking at the fall leaves. I’m looking at her—her flushed cheeks, the slight sheen of perspiration, the way her golden hair glitters in the late-September sunlight.
Suddenly, she turns to me. “What are you going to do after you succeed at world domination?”
“Global currency isn’t… never mind.” I hesitate, but I know her well enough now that I trust her. I might as well tell her what I’m thinking. “I’m waiting to be called back to duty.”
Her blue eyes widen and then shutter. It’s as if she’s pulled curtains over her emotions. “Oh.” She looks back at the beautiful vista spread before us. “France.”
“Yes. Paris.” But when the silence grows between us, I add, “You were right about me being away when the cathedral burned. You were right that I feel guilty for not being destroyed along with some of my family and friends. But none of that matters. I’ve got a destiny to fulfill.
” Even if the work will occupy me forever.
Even if I can’t imagine just sitting there again, letting pigeons poop on me, watchful from an interior distance.
I’ve done so much living since Notre Dame burned.
I don’t know how I’m going to manage turning back into stone for decades at a time.
She shuffles her feet. “I’ve got a destiny, too. Which is weird, when you think about it.”
“Why weird?”
Her shoulders ripple. “Just, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I have the personality for slaying, not really.”
“You jumped on that vamp a few weeks ago. Raced right towards danger without a thought in your head. And what about that demon you sent back to Hell yesterday?”
“He really shouldn’t have been shopping at the mall. Did you see the way he looked at those girls?”
“I saw. Good move with the holy water.”
She smirks. “Sent him packing, didn’t I? And he never even saw me coming. Confused all this,” she adds, gesturing to her pretty face and beautiful curves, “with girlie.”
“You are girlie. You’re just strong, too.”
“Yeah.” A long sigh escapes her. “I still wish…” She sends a furtive glance my way, and then says, “Never mind.”
Bumping her shoulder with mine, I say, “No. Tell me. Please. I want to know.”
For a moment, she bites her lip, but then nods, as if coming to a decision. “It’s just that I’m so tired of trying to be my destiny. I don’t mind saving people and ridding the world of the bad monsters. I like it, even. I just want to do something else, too, you know?”
“Like?”
She shrugs. “I haven’t figured that out yet. I just don’t want my destiny to be the most important thing about me, I guess.”
A ragged grunt escapes me. “Tell me about it.”
“You, too?”
I nod. “Lately, it feels as if I’ve outgrown my purpose, or maybe that it’s somehow escaped from me.
I was so good at guarding the holy site, but then there was the fire and I was left hanging out in the world, and recently…
” Because of her, which I don’t say. “…I realized that I wasn’t who I used to be anymore.
My time away from my destiny has… changed me. ”
She’s quiet a moment before she says in a small voice, “But what will you do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Could you say no to the cathedral?”
Thrilling thought. Terrifying thought. “I don’t…” But maybe… could I make a new destiny? A new way to fulfill my calling? “I wish I could.”
The heresy of my words raises wild panic inside me, but also a kind of unanticipated acceptance.
I’m different from the gargoyle I was before the fire.
I’ve known it for a while, though it took Bunny to make the realization stick.
I don’t think I’m capable of sitting around for decades at a stretch, waiting for evil to strike.
I’m used to active combat now, used to living in the world with all its glories and miseries.
And… if I’m not a cathedral guardian anymore, if I’m no longer suited, then why can’t I be with Bunny? Sure, we won’t be able to mate. And yes, I’m far too old for her. But when she looks at me like she’s looking at me now, does any of that matter?
I can take care of her. I can nurture her soul, and love her body, and…
But she’s standing up and brushing down her corduroy pants that fit her like second skin. They match the suede jacket she wears, both in shades of autumn leaves. “I wish I could, too.”
Once we begin walking, I ask again, “What would you be if not a slayer?”
“Something creative. I miss the rush of acting, though maybe I’m not as good as I think I am.”
“You’ve played an admirable girlfriend these past three weeks.”
“That doesn’t count. It’s easy to pretend to be in love with you because I a…” Her lips smack closed as her eyes widen.
But it’s too late. I heard her. I swing her around to study her face, looking past the tomato color to find the truth. “Bumps, are you saying…?”
Her lips part. Her breath is heavy on the cool air.
And not a part of me can resist.
I lean down and capture her mouth with mine. My first kiss… and I’m lost. She’s holy fire, the kind that can burn me back to nothing. She’s a prayer I never thought to pray, and a chorus no earthly being has ever heard, and I’m so gone, there’s no way back to before.
When she pulls back, she touches her lips. “You—you kissed me. You said you wouldn’t.”
“I know.” But I’m lying. I know nothing except that my entire being has been crumpled up like a soggy ball of socks.
I want to cry tears that I’ve never shed, and scream with an insufferable pain I’ve never felt, because she looks shocked and destroyed, when she should look like I set her on the moon. “You kissed me back.”
She nods, but then her face crumples. “I know. It’s just… I’m a slayer. I can’t be with a gargoyle. And you’re going back to your duties, and I… damn it, this hurts.” She covers her heart with her hand.
I don’t think. I just draw her into me so I can hug away the pain. I’m not sure if I want to rid hers or mine. Both, I guess. “Sshh. It’s okay. Our relationship will work itself out.”
“How?” She looks up at me, her blue eyes shining like sapphires within their veil of tears. “We’ve both got different destinies, even if we’re not sure we want them.”
Pressing her head back into me, I spread kisses along the top of her hair.
I can’t help it. I need her. I need to kiss her.
Finally, I say, “Let’s just play this out.
A few more days like we planned. At the end, we can decide.
Maybe… maybe we go our own ways. Maybe we live our separate lives together.
You could come to Paris. I have a pied-a-terre across from the cathedral.
I bought it a couple hundred years ago. It needs to be renovated, but you could do your slaying thing there as well as here. ”
“You think so?” She pulls back to look at me again.
“Everything I have is yours. You could paint at Montmartre. It’s a large hill in the eighteenth arrondissement where artists gather.
You could be creative and still slay vampires, though I’d prefer it if you call me first. I’ll keep a cell phone on me.
” I really don’t want her near vampires without me.
I’ll tell the cathedral I’ll come back so long as I have time to spend with Bunny. I’m used to negotiation now. I’ll make it work.
“That’s not quite the creative I had in mind, but… thank you. I lo… thank you.”
My heart kicks up again. I think she was about to say that she loves me—again—but I don’t press her. Until I can say the words back to her without feeling guilt so heavy I could better shoulder the entire weight of the cathedral, I can’t hear the full breadth of it.
But as we walk on, hand in hand, one thing is clear: we’re no longer fake anything. The farce has become real even if the future lies just as far away.