Chapter 15
For someone used to a more metropolitan concept of a bar, the Seafront was a tame affair. The music was generic pop and the cocktail selection very limited.
I chose a table in the middle of the room, which wasn’t an issue because there were only a few locals here, eating fries and drinking beer.
There was a pool table off in one corner, and two women who looked like their husbands were back home with the kids were playing and laughing while they gossiped.
Polaroids lined the wall behind the bar, all of smiling locals and tourists, and a ship’s wheel was mounted above them.
The two priests had a corner table. Unlike the locals, they spoke quietly, and clearly weren’t there to have fun. They looked in their thirties, definitely not the type of people you’d normally run into at a cocktail bar.
“What’ll it be?” said the server at my right shoulder, her mask muffling her voice. The two guys were already eyeing me.
“Gin and tonic.” I forced myself to smile at her and pushed my hair back behind my ears.
With my hands on the table, I looked out through the dark windows behind which the ocean was churning away, while at the same time trying to take in everything that was happening inside the bar.
I hoped I looked brainwashed enough for the two of them to approach me.
For some reason, thinking that reminded me of my first time at a gay bar, when I’d hoped I looked both sexy and bi enough for someone to hit on me.
I barely managed to stifle a nervous giggle.
The service was fast, and the cocktail with the mint green umbrella gave me something to hold on to. I’d never been served a G&T with an umbrella in it before, but I was fine trying the local concoction. I sipped some, and then the two priests were sitting down at my table.
“Excuse me, would you mind if we joined you?” the left one said. “This is Father Richards, and I’m Father Morgan.” He tapped his priest’s collar.
I really wanted to make a joke about this being a terrible pickup line if they were looking to enjoy an unholy trinity. I resisted the urge.
“Please. Company is good.”
“Are you from around here?” Father Morgan asked.
“I’m from around.” Hopefully that sounded brainwashed to them.
By the way Father Morgan glanced at his colleague, something was sure falling into place in their heads. They had the look of two sharks who’d smelled blood in the water.
“Have you perhaps seen this man?” Father Richards slid a photograph of Auris toward me. It had been taken in a city—Cromere, I assumed—and he was walking along a street wearing one of his nice suits. I could see his dark eyes and his hair flowing out behind him.
I decided to go with what seemed simplest. “He’s out there.” I looked back at the ocean-facing windows, staring into the distance.
The two of them exchanged another look. “Would you show us?” Father Morgan asked.
I turned back to the cocktail, twirling the green umbrella. There were pink flowers printed on it. “I think I need to have some of this first.”
Another look. “Why don’t you go ahead and do that, then?” Father Richards suggested.
I nodded and drank. It was actually a decent drink, but there was no way I was downing a G&T. I worked my way through half of it and left the bill Auris had given me on the table before I got up.
“I can go now,” I told them, then I just walked out the door I’d come in through, hoping it would be enough to lure them after me.
There was a terrible moment when I heard nothing, but then chairs scraped and footfalls echoed behind me.
The skin on the back of my neck prickled.
I was relieved they’d fallen for my spiel despite being anxious about it.
For a moment, with their footsteps closing in on me, I was scared they might just grab me, but they didn’t.
“He’s by the water,” I told them without looking back as I started down to the beach, one hand on the thick rope as I took the sand-covered steps one after another.
I was almost back at the beach when the animal part of my brain made me want to run. I didn’t.
“That was nicely done.” Auris. Close to me, his voice a beautiful whisper.
I looked around but couldn’t see him. The two men were standing on the stairs, maybe three steps up from where I was, frozen in their tracks and with their arms hanging slack.
“I’m here.” Auris put a hand on my shoulder. It made me jump.
“Whoa! You entranced them?”
“I did. I’ll have a longer conversation with them now. It’ll be easier back at the house. Let’s walk back.”
The two of them were already heading down to the beach as if they were just going for a stroll. I shivered when they passed me, when I smelled the traces of their aftershave.
“You’re taking them back to the house?”
“To the porch, at any rate. I’m selfish enough not to want their smell lingering near you any more than it already does. Come along, my sweet. All is well now.”
He took my hand, and we walked back over the sand. Father Richards and Father Morgan followed us like maids follow a bride, like tamed dogs follow their master.
“Are you also—I mean, will you…”
“Suck them dry while I lounge in a deck chair?” Auris laughed.
“Nothing of the kind, if that’s what has you upset.
They will leave Brightam tonight or tomorrow at the latest, will maybe check in with their clerical colleagues before they try the next town, and the next, only to find nothing.
Before they meet with their superiors again, they will shoot themselves in the head. ”
I swallowed. I tingled all over, and my ears were ringing. “Oh.”
“You were expecting me to fall on them like I did the others at the church, I understand that. But I was extremely hungry then because I had been bled. I was also very angry. I don’t take blood like that if I can help it.”
Something fell into place then, something I should have realized long ago. “I took you off that cross. You said you were weak, but you had enough energy left to attack the priests when they got back, but I was closer. You didn’t bite and drain me.”
“Of course I didn’t. I told you that I love you. Why would I drain you?”
“I was just some dude who undid your restraints at that point though.”
He made an undignified noise. “Ethan, I can’t explain this, but you weren’t just some dude.
Not then, not now, not ever. I’ll say it’s a vampire thing, some instinct.
I was hungry, yes, but it never once occurred to me that I should drink from you like a savage.
I’d have scared you, hurt you, and that, I’d never have. ”
“A vampire thing you don’t know about?”
He clicked his tongue. “There isn’t a manual, and there are few of us. Not everyone knows or has experienced everything, and abilities vary, just like they do with humans.”
I nodded. It made sense. It also sounded like a terribly lonely existence. I looked at the two priests.
“You have no part in this, not really, Ethan.”
“I volunteered. It’s okay.”
Auris put his arms around me, hugging me close. “My brave artist. Let’s get you in front of a warming fire, my sweet.”
Hand in hand, we made our way back to the house, followed by the priests.
When we got to the house, the two Fathers obediently sat down in the chairs on the porch, their backs to the ocean. Father Richards looked almost euphoric.
“What’s with him?”
Auris shrugged. “He is someone who’s very easy to entrance. Excuse me.” He went back inside the house.
I walked up to the two priests and waved my hand in front of Father Morgan’s face. “You’re out of it.” He actually nodded.
“My sweet, could you not play with the priests?” Auris put his laptop on the table.
“Are you taking notes?”
“Yes. And recording this, too. Information is a valuable resource. I also stoked the fire for you. Go back inside.”
I pulled up a chair and sat. “I want to stay here and listen.”
Auris cocked his head and opened his laptop. “As you wish.”