Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
JADEON
Hope shines with a fierce brilliance, made even more tragic by the ache of its inevitable risk.
Yet, I left the church inspired.
All that I had hoped for was spiritual solace, and I had gotten so much more. I reasoned that the splinter group might have knowledge pertaining to the Alchemist’s whereabouts. The ring’s inscription was significant, and I was eager to know its meaning.
Father Jake had promised to contact me as soon as he had deciphered the cuneiform. With a few hours remaining before I would have to find shelter, my thoughts turned to Ingrid. I wanted to check up on her and ensure Orpheus was leaving her alone.
I lingered at her doorway, wondering if such a visit would be a welcome one.
Sensing she was home, I knocked and waited patiently for her to appear.
The security chain jangled, then the door opened.
Ingrid stood before me wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
She looked even more beautiful, if such a thing were possible.
For a brief moment, she appeared pleased to see me.
Ingrid stepped backward into her flat, allowing me to follow her in.
I closed the door behind me.
“I wanted to offer you an apology, for leaving you at the castle.”
“Oh, not awkward in the slightest,” she murmured, voice silky. “I’d say I’m used to it—but frankly, it’s all a bit too tedious to be charming.” She frowned to prove she didn’t mean it.
“Maybe I should have brought wine?”
“Maybe answers.”
It was agony, this unbearable closeness, and yet I could not touch her. We had been entangled in the most intimate way. Still, despite the chemistry that lingered between us, this aching distance, pressing us apart even as desire drew us closer.
I want you.
I wished I could tell her this.
Despite every tortured reason clawing at my mind, I leaned in, drawn not by logic, but by the gravity of her. My lips brushed hers, certain, and in that fleeting collision, the world dissolved.
“We can’t,” she whispered it against my lips.
Even now I wanted to protect her, even from me. “Would you rather I leave?”
“Where is he?” she asked.
“How are you, Ingrid?”
“Alex. I need to ask him a few more questions.”
“It’s good to see you.”
She glared at me with a fierce undoing.
I sensed her wariness. “Perhaps a cup of tea?”
“Perhaps, or perhaps you wouldn’t actually drink it.”
Her remark made me even more nervous. “I have the time. If you do—”
“Why are you here?”
I sighed. “To see you, to check up on how you are—”
“Check on the case, perhaps?” Her tone was accusing.
“I left you in the castle. I had to dash off.”
“You believed your brother was dead. What’s going on?”
“You misunderstood me,” I said.
“No, I didn’t. Where is Orpheus?”
“He is of no importance.”
“Is Alex hiding with him?”
I stared at her, trying to figure out how much she knew.
“What was Alex planning on doing with that blood?” she asked.
“Blood?”
“Who are you? What are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re part of a cult, aren’t you?”
I smiled. “Come on, Ingrid, be real.”
“Deny it!” she shouted.
“I just did.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” I said.
“But you did, so let’s talk about the facts.”
“The facts are you are way off.”
“Stop screwing with me,” she said.
“Ingrid, I stood in that art gallery, alone, wanting my life to stay that way. You approached me. What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me you had nothing to do with the murder of those girls. Tell me you’re innocent. That you are not evil and unnatural,” she shrieked.
“Evil and . . . what are these words you use for me? When have I ever given you any need to say such things?”
“Did you murder those women?”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“I did not kill those girls. Neither did Alex.”
“Do you know who did?”
“You have got to back off,” I urged.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a policewoman!”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“Then tell me the truth!”
“It’s complicated.”
“You seduced me,” she said. “For what purpose, I haven’t discovered yet.”
“Ingrid, I merely spent an evening with you—”
“No, don’t come any closer.”
“What evidence do you have that I am anything other than what I have shown you?”
Her lip quivered.
“Ingrid?”
The truth stung like fire.
“I formed the puzzle, and all clues lead to you,” she said.
“What clues?”
“Evidence that places you at the scene of the crimes.”
“There is no such evidence,” I said. “I’m going.”
She was bluffing, but terrifyingly good at it.
“You wait right there. Who is Orpheus? What kind of place is Belshazzar’s?”
“You must forget I ever mentioned that name.”
“Yeah, right. You want me to ignore where the truth leads?”
“If you value your life—”
“So you threaten me now.”
“Protect you from things you should never have to face,” I said, hoping she’d listen.
“Protect me from what?”
I lost it. “From vampires.”
“Pseudo . . .”
“No, Ingrid. No.” I unbuttoned my jacket and threw it over the back of a nearby chair.
How does one shield the one they have fallen so devastatingly for, when the truth is twisted and defies all comprehension, all belief? How do you offer safety when the very essence of what you are might shatter them?
Ingrid’s eyes wandered over my crumpled shirt, not sure what to make of my scruffy appearance. “Does this involve drugs?”
“You crave honesty, but you can’t comprehend it. You have seen proof of what I really am when I invited you into my home. I permitted you to wander our castle, with all its secrets that reveal who and what I am. Perhaps some part of me hoped to connect, or at least have a sense of belonging.”
“What are you saying?”
“I was made into this. I was changed. This transformation was done to me, and then to Alex. Do you think we would have asked for such a life?” I neared her.
“Stay back. Stay right there.”
Ignoring her, I drew closer.
It was too much and yet not nearly enough. This maddening proximity, this wanting her, this exquisite craving for her in every sinful way. I wanted to pull her into me, erase the space between us and lose myself in a kiss.
She felt this yearning too. It was there in the delicate parting of her lips, the way they puckered ever so slightly, as if already tasting my kiss yet to come. Her eyes fluttered closed, lashes trembling in an invitation, unspoken and entranced, as if she stood on the edge of surrender.
“Maybe it’s best you go into another room,” I whispered, praying she would remove herself from my presence.
Ingrid backed away, still focused on me. “I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t make me prove it.”
“Because then, there would be no us?”
“No, because once you know the truth, there is no turning back. It sears itself into your mind.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Have you any idea what it is to be transformed into something like me? This is why I live an isolated life. What do you know of such things? At least you have a choice, and you choose to stay away, to hide yourself from mortals even though you are one.”
“Immortal?” she scoffed.
“I am.”
“Please.”
“I have lived for over two hundred years.”
“Jadeon, I need you to sit down on my couch. I’ll make us some tea, okay?”
“Now you offer tea?” After I’d shared that. Still. “And let you phone your colleagues?”
“You have to trust me. For the sake of those girls, for the sake of other women who may be in danger.”
“Not from me,” I said.
“Please, after all you and I have been through.”
“I am peaceful and kind and have witnessed things that you can only read about. I have seen things that even the history books cannot accurately convey. You have touched my life as I have touched yours. In your world, you would have me locked away or worse. And in my world, you are but nourishment.
“Orpheus brought us together for his own amusement and gain. He means to destroy me, after two hundred years of me chasing him. He has tired of the game. How do you think you can possibly challenge such a creature? He would easily kill you. Of that I am certain.”
“What then? I turn a blind eye and allow these events to go unpunished. I will not!”
“Go back to your world. Turn away from mine. I will leave here tonight, and you will never see or speak of me again. No one would believe you anyway.”
A glint of something silver—a shiny object held at Ingrid’s side—distracted me.
“Ingrid, what is that for?”
She waved the long blade at me and stepped forward, her confidence returned. She had regained control. “It’s time to face justice, Jadeon. Or if you are innocent like you say, you’ll be vindicated, and then you’ll lead me to the one who is responsible.”
I leapt forward and grabbed her hand in mine, grasping her fingers tightly around the knife’s handle and thrust it into my abdomen. The sharp blade embedded, and I let out a howl.
Ingrid shrieked, her hand still clenched firmly.
Blood poured from my wound and onto her, seeping from around the gash onto my clothes. I removed the knife, dropping it to the floor.
“Oh, Jadeon, no! Please, no, what have you done?” she cried, pushing against the wound, stemming the bleeding. “I’ll get an ambulance.”
“Is this what you want for me, Ingrid, to see me dead?” I ignored the pain.
“What have I done?” Her thoughts scrambled as she felt her world implode, her life as she knew it slip away.
No one would see her as innocent in this—her thoughts struggling for reason as she realized the implications.
My own pain was agony, drawn not from self-preservation,, but from the quiet despair of knowing she feared the wrong thing.
What haunted her was a whisper of the truth, and the truth itself was far more terrible.
Because once she laid eyes upon the proof she had desperately longed for, she would be changed.
Irrevocably.
No part of her untouched, no part of her heart left whole. I grasped her shoulders, pulling her back. I lifted my blood-soaked shirt, placing her fingers where the knife had penetrated.
“Look,” I said.
The wound healed, the blood seemingly drawn back into my body.
Ingrid’s bloodstained hands fumbled over my stomach, probing the area. “But how?”
“I thought we’d already established that,” I said, smirking with affection as somewhere amid the monstrosity my dark humor shimmered at this absurdity.
“You can’t really be a . . . vampire!”
“Did I miss something?” I wiped my bloody hands on my trousers.
Ingrid’s body was pressed to mine, her wide eyes lifted to me in stunned disbelief, lips parted, as if words had simply abandoned her.
My poise returned, and I became once more the dignified gentleman standing before her, proud and unflinching, my height and stillness ruling the room.
Ingrid looked astonished. “No!”
“Now, please, you’re standing on my foot.”
“Sorry.” She drew back. Ingrid furrowed her brow.
“Don’t ask me, you’re the detective,” I said.
“What?”
“You just wondered what you’re meant to do next,” I said. “I read your mind.”
“Shit!”
I unbuttoned my shirt and removed it. “Can I wash this out? It’s my favorite shirt . . . well, was.”
“You have a favorite shirt! You’re a vampire with a favorite shirt!” She slumped down on her couch. “You can read my mind?”
“Yes.”
She blushed. “That’s how you knew what to say to me and when we were intimate—”
“That does happen to be a vampire trait.”
“No, I can’t believe it . . .”
“Sure. I’d be happy to provide a demonstration.”
“I think you just did.” Ingrid’s eyes wandered.
“Chocolate flavor?” I said.
“Oh, bloody hell! Every thought?”
“Pretty much.”
“Even those thoughts?”
“Particularly those!” I said with a wry smile.
“I hope you can’t put thoughts in my mind as well. Can you?”
“No, those are your thoughts. Even I can’t think that dirty!”
“That’s how you seduced me, isn’t it? You read my every desire. You scanned my mind so that you would know what would work on me?”
“Your desires are those of a normal woman.”
“No one will ever believe me,” she said.
“That’s probably a good thing.”
“This is freaking me out!”
“Me too.”
“This is such a mess.”
“I never meant for any of this to happen. I will go, and you need never see me again.” I backed up, shirt in hand. “This . . . you, me . . . it’s unnatural, not meant to be. I have to go, and you must forget me. I also beg you to forgive me.”
“Jadeon, no! Not like this. You do not come into my life, turn it upside down, then say, Sorry I must be going.”
“We are an impossible match.”
“I couldn’t bear to think I’d never see you again.”
I smiled. “You just stabbed me!”
“Can we forget that bit?”
“Sure.” Didn’t sound convincing.
Walking over to her, I sat beside her and reached out and took her hand and squeezed it, searching for the words I wanted to convey.
“You would never hurt me?” Her eyes reflected a softening fear.
“Never,” I said earnestly.
“I’m ready to learn more about you, about what you are,” she said. “I know that this is fundamental to my case. I must learn everything.”
“Go and wash your hands. My blood’s all over them.” I followed her gaze to the table.
Ingrid saw me looking at the books. “I was hoping they’d help me with my investigation. Oh God, I need a drink!” Ingrid walked over to the cabinet and poured herself a large gin. “Would you like one?” she asked. “Of course not.”
A book title caught my eye: Necromancing the Stones. Something in me recognized its importance, but I kept that knowledge carefully hidden from her.
Ingrid carried her glass to the couch and sat down again.
“Orpheus will always be a threat to you,” I said, “while you are in my world.”
“Well now you have to tell me exactly who he is.”
“He stands as the most dangerous of our kind, a creature who is perilous as much in his beauty as in his cruelty. He will use you to hurt me.”
“You know, that kind of information would have been useful when he came at me in your castle.”
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“You would have protected me.”
Her thoughts betrayed her plan to hunt him down. “Stay away from him. And if he approaches you, run.”
“Would running make a difference?”
I turned my head away not wanting her to give him another thought.
“He needs to be stopped, Jadeon. I’ve seen firsthand what he is capable of.”
“You may not survive him.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said.
I sighed. “But one that I am not.”