Chapter 18 A Vampire Walks Into a Church
This time, running from one place to another isn’t as bad. The wind is blowing in against Gray’s back, and I’m actually wearing clothes under my coat as opposed to being half-naked. Major improvement.
“Here we are,” Gray says after we stop moving. He sets me down on my feet, one hand pressed against the small of my back as if to steady me. I appreciate the gesture. The run has me a little disoriented.
“Yup. Here we are,” I repeat. Seeing the structure again so soon, with it just steps away, makes me shiver. Unwanted panic stirs in my chest, but I can’t let it get the better of me. I’m not alone and I’m not running from anything. And Gray is with me.
“Let’s head in, shall we?” He starts for the front doors, but I stop him.
“Not that way.” I shake my head, and point to my left. If we go around the corner, we can find the window I fell through instead.
“No?” he asks, one brow raised.
“Just trust me.” Gray doesn’t argue, though he does appear skeptical.
The last thing I want to do is cause more structural damage and risk a nosy local reporting it for vandalism.
We might be discreet creatures of the night, but that doesn’t mean people don’t come here during the day.
My worst fear is that the police department catches wind and sends in their best detectives to investigate the secret room that leads to the tower.
There isn’t a single doubt in my mind that they would find blood—mine and my attacker’s—splattered all over the place.
Maybe it’s paranoia, but I’ve watched enough shows to know my way around a crime scene. Doesn’t hurt that my ex is also a fucking bloodhound. Ronnie would be number one at the scene. She loves a good murder case.
“I came in this way,” I tell Gray when we get to the broken window around the back.
His eyes widen comically. “Gods, woman, how did you manage to make it through there?”
“It’s not that high.” Then again, he has a point. Looking at it now with fresh eyes, I realize it’s more than high enough from the ground to cause a struggle. I shrug. Must have been the adrenaline that got me up and over.
“Help me up,” I tell him. Gray steps forward and lifts me over the sill.
I straddle it, waiting for him to go through so he can help me down from the other side.
It’s a tight fit, and as he goes through, he grazes my body with his everything.
I shudder, hoping that I can behave myself while we’re here.
Changing the terms of our deal is sounding extra fucking good after earlier.
Focus, Millie. Focus!
“I can’t believe you did this on your own,” he remarks, helping me down from the window. I land with much more grace this time, thanks to him.
“Honestly? Neither can I.” Especially not in my eight-inch heeled boots, may they rest in peace.
“And in that flimsy little costume, too,” he adds, as if reading my mind.
A nervous laugh escapes me. “Yeah, that too.”
Gray follows me down the hall to the priest’s office.
Retracing my steps isn’t as hard as I expected, and it isn’t giving me a massive anxiety attack.
I was sure the minute that I stepped foot inside this place, I would lose my cool and have to wait outside while I ran through all of my favorite grounding techniques.
But here I am, confident with every step I take.
Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the further in we go, the less assured Gray feels.
He’s quiet and hangs back a few paces. I might have been the one attacked here, but he was the one who was bound to it for a lifetime.
“Are you okay?” I stop to ask before we enter the office. The door is wide open, and I can see the wardrobe behind the desk is, too.
Gray closes his eyes at the threshold of the door. He’s still as a statue. “I’m… struggling.”
My mouth gapes. “Is it the church? Aren’t vampires sensitive to holy stuff?”
“Perhaps if it was still consecrated.” He gives a mirthful laugh and passes a hand over his face. “But it isn’t the divine, Millie. It’s the… memories.”
I can see the wrinkles between his brows are pulled taut. He looks afraid. What the hell happened to him here? What did they do to him that he’s terrified of going into a room? Closing the distance between us, I seek his hand with mind and twine them together.
“If it helps, you can hold my hand.”
“I’m not a child.” He frowns, but he doesn’t pull away or take his hand back. I contain my smile and pull him along behind me.
“When I found the secret door, I thought the priest might have had a hidden sex room.” We’re standing in front of the wardrobe, and I only let him go to climb through. Gray follows, sticking close. Once inside the little room, I pull out my phone and chase away the darkness with the flashlight.
“That would have been far more interesting,” Gray says, amused. “But Father Bane was a bore.”
“Father Bane?” I ask. Gray starts up the stairs, taking my hand in his as he brushes past.
“He was the former priest of this parish, and my jailer,” Gray explains.
I don’t want to push him for details, but he goes on.
“I don’t remember how he captured me exactly; I only know that he had help.
But from who, I couldn’t say. During that time, there were whispers of priests being trained to kill and capture supernatural creatures of the night. ”
“I’m sorry, did you say supernatural creatures?” I stop on a step, shocked.
“You heard right.” There’s a hint of a smile in his voice as he speaks. “It’s exactly what you think it means. There are more than just humans and vampires, Millie. I’m not the only one out there.”
Okay, that I can wrap my head around.” I start back up the stairs as his feet shuffle ahead. “But you’re telling me that there were vigilante priests out there just hunting you all down?”
He nods, as if this isn’t the craziest thing he’s ever heard. “My cousin and I used to balk at it, of course, until I wound up here. Father Bane’s prized prisoner, bound by silver and chained up like a dog.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Whatever he wanted to do,” Gray says, his voice wavering in its confidence. I can hear the resignation in his tone. “Cut me open, drain my blood—”
“He drained your blood?” I feel my eyes widen.
“Regularly,” Gray murmurs. “He kept me healthy enough to suffer his experiments. Sometimes he would sit me in the sun and see how long it would take for a limb to burst into flame; other times he would starve me for days on end to record the rate of my decay. Bane was nothing if not thorough.”
“That’s awful.” I can feel myself frowning, my heart aching for him.
“It was, but at the time, I told myself I deserved it. After all, I had killed so many mortals like him. What was my blood compared to theirs?” He shrugs, as if it’s no big deal.
I seriously doubt that’s the case, though. He’s facing demons that I can’t see, grappling with whatever emotional turmoil that’s still lingering from his experiences here. I’m not privy to them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to offer some sort of support or comfort.
“You’re still a person,” I say meekly.
Gray shoots me a hard, dark look. “I was a murderer, Millie.”
“You still could have died,” I argue. I don’t want to overlook his past, or try to erase what he’s done, but being what he is can’t be easy. Maybe I’m in the wrong for thinking like that.
“No,” Gray says plainly. He stops at the top of the stairs and I join him. “I wouldn’t have died. I don’t quite understand it myself, but I understand that my blood is no longer my life-source. That’s why we must feed on the living, because your blood is so much more… alive.”
“Right. Makes total sense.” I nod.
“Think about it,” he squeezes my fingers, voice low in the dark, “You thought I was dead, but I could hear everything. See everything. It wasn’t until his blood splattered me that I was able to move again.
That little bit revived me, and as I drank from him, the more life returned to me.
It isn’t just the blood, it’s the essence of it, too. ”
I swallow loudly. “Here I thought you just liked the flavor.”
“That too.” He chuckles, making my stomach flip and ears heat.
Gray releases my hand and ventures deeper into the tower.
He doesn’t have to go far, though. It’s a small, dark space, and there’s nothing I can see with my lame human vision.
Thankfully, my phone has a good charge this time, so I sweep the room with the flashlight.
There’s dust in the air, cobwebs built up along the walls, and the old silver chains and cuffs that once held Gray prisoner. What I don’t see, however, is a body.
It’s gone.
Gray is kneeling over a large, dark stain on the ground, and there’s a definite anger in his expression that snuffs out any true panic I felt before. In its place is fear, because I was right. The man I saw at the club was definitely the man from Halloween.
“I thought he was dead,” I say, sinking to the floor. My phone hangs limply in my hand. All of my willpower has been sapped.
Gray touches the ground, palm flat against the wood slats. “It was my mistake, Millie. I should have ripped his head off.”
I ignore the visual since he spared me the actual act of it.
Head or not, I doubted that I would have escaped tonight without running into Dante.
My stalker was just a fun little bonus, a cherry on top of the fucking sundae.
A sickening dread settles in my stomach as I wonder what will happen next.
There’s a long line of ‘what ifs’ threatening to pull me under.
“How did this happen?” My voice quavers.
“I’m not sure,” Gray muses, observing the stain as if the answers might appear if he looks hard enough.
“Another vampire must have known about this place, or one was nearby to smell the blood. Doesn’t explain why he was turned, though.
A dying man doesn’t draw this much attention without it warranting some kind of benefit to the turner. ”
“You think he was turned to… what? Chase me?”
Gray rises to his feet and wipes his hands off on his pants. “This is pure conjecture, but I wonder if this and Dante’s return are related somehow.”
“You think so?”
Floorboards creak under his steps as he comes to my side, kneeling.
I look into his face, seeing in it the seriousness that reflects in his next words.
“I would be willing to bet that Dante is at the center of this. He likes games, but he likes violence more. Everything he does is calculated and well thought out.”
“But why?” I ask, more confused than ever. “What is he to you?”
Gray sighs, rolling his head to the side with annoyance and exasperation in his expression. “Dante is my ex.”
“Whoa.” The air practically leaves my lungs. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What?!”
“He’s my ex, yes.” Gray pinches the bridge of his nose, looking more tired every second.
“Your ex?”
“Yes, Millie. That’s what I said.” Gray is back on his feet with a groan, towering over where I’m slumped against the wall. He steps over me and starts the descent, with me still gaping at his back.
“Dante? The beautiful, oil-chested behemoth of a man that tore into my neck is your ex?”
Gray snorts a laugh. “Trust me, he’s a beast. A true Machiavelli.”
“And you dated him?” The shock of this truth is like a shot of adrenaline.
I grab my phone and I’m on my feet, dancing as close to his back as possible.
I should be horrified, angry, anything other than fascinated.
My curiosity is too great, though. I suddenly want to know everything, right down to the reason why they broke up.
“I turned him.” He nods.
Holy shit. Not the plot twist I was expecting.
“You turned him and dated him. Then what?” I ask, climbing after him through the other side of the wardrobe.
We’re back in the priest’s office, and I can tell Gray is agitated.
His posture is rigid, shoulders squared, hands flexed out at his side.
I open my mouth to speak when he suddenly turns on me.
With a little lift, and a hard drop against its surface, he has me pinned to the priest’s dusty desk, caged in by his body.
His eyes are so red now, so full of hate and anguish, that I am actually afraid I’ve pushed him over the edge.
“I turned him, I dated him, and I loved him,” Gray sneers, grinding out every single word with sharp exaggeration.
He’s heated. “I was young once, and he fooled me. After centuries of taking lovers, he was the only one that ever nearly destroyed me. He is a carnivorous beast, inside and out, Millie. If he’s here, then he’s here to finish the job. ”
My voice comes out as a whisper. “Is he here to kill you?”
“Worse,” Gray croaks, his anger receding. “He likely wants me back.”
I can’t even begin to comprehend what that means to him, but I can guess. I’ve had my fair share of toxic relationships in the past to know how hard it is to separate love and obsession. If Gray says that being with him is worse than dying, then I’m inclined to believe him without question.
“You don’t have to go back,” I say, reaching up to touch his cheek.
It isn’t meant to be anything more than a gesture of comfort, but my heart doesn’t quite get the message.
It races from the touch, the nearness of our faces.
He’s about an inch away from my lips, and I could easily close the distance.
I don’t understand the breadth of this thing growing between us, but it’s there, and it’s real.
What is wrong with me? I wonder. We literally just met.
The scariest part, outside of not really knowing who he is, is the part of me that doesn’t care either way.
Even now, being here with him feels like the most natural thing in the world.
I want to be close, to feel that fire simmering under my skin, to let it ignite and melt all at once when he kisses me.
It’s been so long since I felt this way about anyone, Ronnie included.
I hate that I still compare everyone to her and what we had, but I don’t do it as much with Gray; or at all, really.
Call me a romantic, but dammit if it doesn’t feel like fate is threading us together in the most unconventional way.
“Millie?” Gray hums, closing his eyes as he turns his lips into the palm of my hand.
“Hm?” My heart thrums as his own hand closes around my wrist, pressing his lips to each pad of my fingers with a delicate little kiss.
“I’m starving,” he rasps.
Without a second’s hesitation, I hear myself say, “So am I.”