Just then, she heard a scratching at the door. Sighing, she rose to open it and Madoc pushed in.
“Why? We go through this every night, dog.”
The large puppy ignored her; then he walked over to the heather-green sweater that was draped over the chair in the corner and pulled it. It fell on the floor where Madoc promptly turned in a circle and laid on top of it. Brigid rushed over and pulled at the sweater as the dog whined.
“Don’t! You beast, you’ll get fur all over it. That’s not yours.”
It wasn’t hers, either. Carwyn had left it in the library, and she’d found it after he’d left. She was just keeping it for him. She pulled up and the dog released the sweater with a whine.
“No. You can’t have it. I’ve told you before.” She held it in both hands and sat on the edge of the bed, fingering a frayed edge along the collar. She wondered if Anne could teach her how to fix it. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have time to learn a new hobby. Plus, knitting needles were sharp and could double as a handy weapon, should the need arise. The wolfhound came over and put his chin in her lap, looking up with mournful black eyes. Reluctantly, she lifted a hand and put it on his head, rubbing the coarse grey fur between her fingers. “I know,” she whispered. “I miss him, too.”
“Brigid!” She heard Cathy’s call from across the castle.
She set Carwyn’s sweater on her bed and gave Madoc one last pat before she stood.
“Time to eat, drink, and…” She looked down at the dog, who really was becoming alarmingly big. “Drink some more.”
The wolfhound huffed and walked to the door.
“Well, I don’t see you offering, dog.”
Madoc barked and sat back on his haunches as she locked her door and pocketed the old key. Then the small woman and the giant dog set off down the hall.
“I was just joking, you know. The way you smell, I can’t imagine your blood tastes very good.”
“Again!”
She built the fire up along her arms, then snuffed it out, and the flames appeared to sink into her skin. Every time she did it, there was a sharp tingling sensation that reminded her of needles. She looked up into the full moon and took a deep breath, calming the race of her heart.
“Again.”
“Shit,” she muttered. It wasn’t painful in the way that she remembered pain as a human, but it was still uncomfortable, and she’d been repeating the exercise for over an hour while Anne and Cathy chatted near the lake’s edge. She built the fire again. Then snuffed it out. Again. Cathy claimed that learning to put out the flames was just as important, if not more, than learning how to control them.
“Once more.”
Brigid locked her jaw and felt her fangs slide down, but she did it again.
“Okay, one more time.”
“Are you fecking kidding me?” she finally exploded. “I’ve been doing this for over an hour!”
Cathy rose and rushed to her. “Are you questioning me?” The spicy smoke of the other fire vampire tingled in her nose, but she did not back down.
“Yes, I’m questioning you. I’m questioning the idiocy of going over and over the same drill for an hour when I’ve obviously mastered it.”
Anne said quietly, “Calm down, both of you.”
Cathy leaned down, growling in Brigid’s face. “You’ve mastered it when I say you’ve mastered it, little girl. Do it again.”
“No.”
Cathy’s hand shot out and gripped her neck, lifting her feet off the ground as Brigid tugged at her hands.
“I can’t—”
“Do it.” Cathy growled with bared fangs. “Again.”
Brigid tried to ignore the instinctual panic, knowing she didn’t need to breathe, but for a brief second, she was a small girl again, hiding in a closet with stifling hot air. She tried to build up the fire along her arms, but it swirled and sparked completely out of control. Cathy dropped her and she tumbled to the ground.
“You’re weak and immature. Do it again.”
Brigid felt the flames erupt from her hands just as Anne sent a cool mist over her. It sizzled against smooth skin. She’d burned off all the soft hair on her arms. Again. She lifted a hand to check her head and Cathy saw her.
“Don’t worry about your fucking hair!”
She shot to her feet. “Don’t tell me what to do!”
Cathy roared in her face. “You’re an idiot, Brigid. Don’t you realize? It’s not going to be when you’re in some controlled place that you have to worry. It’s going to be when you’re angry or afraid. That’s when all of this is going to have to be like second nature. That’s when you’re going to have to control yourself.”
Her heart was pounding. Her breath came hot and fast. “I always control myself.”
“You didn’t just now, did you?”
Brigid’s fangs were long in her mouth. She felt the blood drip over her lower lip where they pierced the skin. “You were deliberately provoking me.”
“I know!”
She and Cathy began to circle each other like two animals spoiling for a fight. The amnis washed over her. Hot. Angry. She could feel the air shimmer around her.
“Brigid.” Anne’s soft voice drifted to her, piercing the red haze that fell over her eyes. “Brigid, what are you really angry about?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Why are you angry with Cathy? She’s your teacher. She’s only trying to help.”
“She’s treating me like a child.”
Cathy scoffed. “You are a child.”
“I am not!” She tasted more blood in her mouth, and her throat burned as she glared at Cathy. “Children are weak. I’m not weak!”
“Brigid,” Anne’s voice came again, even as her eyes were locked on Cathy’s. Circling. Growing closer. Closer… “Why do you say children are weak? They’re not weak. They’re children.”
“They snivel and cry and need too much attention.”
“But they’re children, Brigid.”
Brigid and Cathy circled each other in the meadow, both staring at each other as Anne continued to ask her maddening questions. Sparks lit between them. Brigid balanced on the knife-edge of control and chaos. Part of her, she realized with a sick twist in her stomach, was enjoying it.
She growled through bared fangs. “I never cried.”
“Of course you cried when you were a babe, Brigid. It’s natural. There’s nothing weak about that.”
“No.” The flames licked down her arms. Over her fingertips, dying to reach out.
“Everyone cries. It’s a perfectly healthy response to stress or grief.” Brigid listened to Anne, but her eyes were locked with Cathy’s. The other fire vampire sauntered slowly around her, eyeing her like a plaything. “When was the last time you cried, Brigid? Did you cry when Ioan died?”
“No.”
Cathy sneered. “Typical self-centered human.”
The fire leapt out from her arms. “Shut up! You don’t know anything.”
“I know you’re a frigid bitch who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but herself. I know that.”
Brigid snarled and flung herself at Cathy, but the older vampire only batted her back with one hand.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed and jumped up.
“Brigid, you loved Ioan. Why didn’t you cry?” Anne’s voice was still soft, but closer.
She shook her head, looking back and forth between Cathy’s sneering face and Anne’s soft, concerned eyes. “I… I can’t cry.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t, Anne!”
“Why?”
The fire reached out, circling around her. “You know why!”
“Tell me.”
“Because she would hear me!” The flames shot toward a clump of nearby gorse, which exploded in the still night air. Cathy grew still, watching as Brigid turned her focus on Anne. A terrible burning started in her chest.
Her counselor’s voice was almost a whisper. “Who would hear you?”
“Mum would hear me. I’d get in trouble. He told me.”
“Brigid—”
She paced back and forth as the grass singed under her bare feet. “Why don’t you understand? It’s too ugly. I know what you’re trying to do, dammit! But if I let one thing out, it will all come out and there’ll be no end to it!” Anne and Cathy backed away slowly as Brigid came to a halt, burning alive in the desolate meadow. “It’ll swallow me up! I’d never be myself again. There’s too…”
“Too what?”
A sob she didn’t recognize tore from her throat. “Too much!”
Anne’s eyes bled tears. “Too much what?”
“Everything!”
“Let yourself feel it, Brigid.”
“No! That’s what everyone says, but what does that do for you? You only lose control of the one thing that’s yours. And then, you have nothing. They’ve taken everything from you, and there’s nothing left. Nothing will be safe.”
Cathy spoke up. “Brigid, you have people who love you. Who want to help—”
She spun on her. “That’s a lie.”
Anne looked confused. “Brigid, you know we want to—”
“No one will take care of you but yourself. That’s the only person you can depend on.”
Cathy snorted and Brigid’s ire spiked. “Well, that’s horse shit.”
Brigid’s eyes narrowed. “No, it’s not.”
“Who told you that? Your mother? Your step-father?”
“Shut up, you bitch.”
“Because I sure as hell know that Deirdre and Ioan loved you. Especially Ioan. Your Aunt Sinead. Carwyn. So who are you going to believe?”
“Shut up!”
Cathy shook her head. “You’re an idiot.”
Brigid started toward her. “I am not, you miserable cow!”
Cathy didn’t back down. She pointed a finger in Brigid’s furious face. “You’re the one believing the lie, instead of the people who love you.”
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do,” Cathy said. “You just said so. And you’re full of shit. You can’t cry? You’re crying right now. Can’t you feel it?”
Brigid blinked and brought a hand up to her face, starting when her fingertips sizzled on the bloody tears. “I’m… I’m not—”
“I guess you don’t even believe the shit you’re spewing.”
Brigid’s shock dropped away, and a murderous rage took over. She felt the fire building along her skin. It surged from the small of her back, and she felt the cool air as her clothing fell away. The flames covered her. Swirling over her like a living shield.
Cathy still looked unafraid. “It’s a good thing Ioan never knew what a liar you are.”
Brigid let loose a scream as the rage burst out. It exploded away from her, shooting in every direction in one terrifying flood of energy. She held it for a brief moment before she felt her amnis shrink back, curling around her like a warm shroud. Brigid fell to her knees, weeping gut-wrenching sobs that tore her throat. The earth around her was burned black, the grass curled into ash, but she was untouched. She lay frozen in the middle of the scorched earth as a blanket of water fell over her. Anne’s hands sizzled against her back as she pulled Brigid up and embraced her.
“I have you, Brigid. You’re fine. I have you now.”
“Anne—” Brigid choked. “I didn’t… I didn’t lie to Ioan.”
“I know, darling.” She soaked the front of Anne’s shirt with her tears. The water was already steaming off her skin, and she felt a shivering kind of weakness envelop her. She was exposed. Raw.
She tried to pull away from Anne’s embrace. “I… I can’t—”
“Don’t.” Her friend’s arms tightened around her. “You deserve to be heard. And held. This is not weakness.” Anne bent over and whispered in her ear. “Let me hear it. Even the ugly things.”
“There are so many ugly things.”
“Then let them out so you can be rid of them. You don’t need to carry them around for eternity.”
“I didn’t want Ioan and Deirdre to know.”
“Know what?”
“The ugliness. The anger.” She sniffed. “He was better than me. All that he and Deirdre did for me? They didn’t deserve that.”
Anne pulled back and framed Brigid’s face with her hands. “They aren’t better. Or worse. Just different. We all have our demons, Brigid. Let me help you with yours. That way, you don’t keep hurting yourself.”
“Or other people,” Cathy croaked from across the meadow. She crawled toward them with a grin on her face and a curl still smoking over her forehead. “And all emotional revelations aside… that, Brigid Connor, was very fucking interesting.”
Chapter Fifteen
Valle de Cochamó, Chile
February 2011
“Squeal in terror, tiny human.”
“Forget it, old man. You’re going down.”
“You are wildly optimistic for a loser.”
“Keep trash talking. It’ll just make it sweeter when I—what was that?” Ben’s mouth dropped open as he stared at Carwyn’s coin count shoot up.
“Ha!”
“What was that? Where did those coins come from?”
“Catch up now, slowpoke.” Carwyn quickly punched in the cheat code, and his car shot forward.
“You’re cheating at Mario Kart! I thought you were supposed to be a priest!”
“Doesn’t mean I’m a good one.”
The young man was indignant. “Cheater!” Ben furiously pressed buttons to steer around the cars that had bunched up in front of him, but Carwyn only grinned as the checkered flag waved and electronic confetti sprinkled down across the screen. He stood, raising his arms in a victorious pose.
“And I am, again, the undefeated champion of—oof!” Ben tackled him from behind, but Carwyn only laughed and let him knock him to the floor.
“You’re such a cheater! Why do I even play with you?”
“Because I’m the only one here who doesn’t fry the equipment?”
Ben punched his arm and rolled off the giant vampire. Carwyn was still laughing and gasping for breath.
“Well, I’m not playing with you again unless it’s Resident Evil.”
“Oh,” Carwyn pouted. “You always win at that one.”
“Damn right, I do. I kick your ass at killing zombies.”
Isabel’s voice drifted in from the front porch. “Language, Benjamin.”
Ben Vecchio rolled his eyes at her voice, but Carwyn tapped him on the back of the head, shaking his head and giving the boy a look. Isabel may have been the strictest of his children—and the most devout—but Carwyn wouldn’t put up with any disrespect from Giovanni’s nephew, who was staying with Isabel and Gus while Giovanni took care of Beatrice during her first, most volatile year as a vampire.
The Cochamó Valley had changed little in the previous hundred years. Carwyn’s daughter and her husband still brought most things in by horse or boat. There were no roads and only a few tourists during the busy season, which they happened to be in the middle of. The balmy southern air of the valley brought travelers from the Northern Hemisphere to enjoy the rock-climbing, hiking, and horseback trails that still ran through the mountain valley. It was a pocket of wild in a rapidly changing world, and the perfect refuge for a close-knit clan of earth vampires. Giovanni Vecchio and his new wife, Beatrice De Novo, had become adopted members of their clan.
“Ben!” Isabel’s husband, Gustavo, called from outside. “Time to practice.”
The boy’s head fell back and he groaned. “Not wrestling again.”
Carwyn shoved him up. “Go. Practice. Or you’ll never hear the end of it from your aunt.”
The quick sadness flashed in the boy’s eyes. Ben hadn’t seen Beatrice in months, and Carwyn knew any reunion was still months away as his friend learned to control her bloodlust.
“Okay.” As always, Ben immediately complied when Beatrice was brought up. He dragged himself
off the floor and stomped outside for his jiu jitsu lesson from Gustavo.
Beatrice was a new vampire and far too unpredictable and hungry to be safe around humans, even humans she loved. So Ben spoke to her on the radio phone a few times a week and saw his uncle at Isabel and Gus’s house for lessons. But Carwyn could tell that the boy was still lonely in the strange place. Luckily, he knew the time would fly. For mortals, it always did.
“He’s been better since you’ve come.” Isabel slipped in the house and sat on the couch, watching as Carwyn put away the game controllers and turned off the television. He took off the leather gloves that enabled him to use the video game equipment and tucked them in with the controllers. “He’s a good boy, but he misses Gio and B terribly. He acts out. I’m glad you’re here.”
He nodded. “I’m glad I came, too.” Mostly. His thoughts still turned to Scotland far more than they probably should. “Ben is a good boy.”
“He is. He’s had a hard life, but he’s very resilient.”
Carwyn grimaced. “Pain tolerance seems to be a requirement in our family recently.”
“We’ve been fortunate. Our clan lived a charmed existence until recently.”
He grunted. “It was not without effort.”
“I know your sacrifices. And Ioan’s, too.”
Carwyn turned and looked at his daughter. Like Tavish, Isabel looked older than him, but unlike Tavish, had always treated him with far more respect. She had been born in Spain and lived a full human life before her change. She had been a wife. A mother. A grandmother, even. In some ways, Carwyn thought Isabel understood him more than his other children because of that.
“You’re different,” she said quietly as he sat next to her on the worn couch.
“How?”
“You are… unsettled.”
He studied her face, frozen in time in her mid-forties. “How did you stand it? When your children died? I lost two as babes. The others lived full lives I wasn’t even part of. With Ioan… it is different, isn’t it?”
Isabel’s sons had been taken by plague as adults, along with their wives and children. He found her in the aftermath, bleeding and terrified. Afraid of the fires of hell for giving in to her despair and trying to end her own life. Carwyn had changed her from pity, a rash decision that was unlike him, but one that he had thanked God for many times over. Isabel had lived a happy and peaceful life in the five hundred years since. Her husband, Gustavo, was another welcome addition to his clan.