"Why did you do that?"
"So you'd know what you were getting when you offered yourself to me." He turns to face me, wiping his lips with a hand. "Not quite as beautiful and dreamlike as you imagined."
"I don't want you to kill me."
"But I could. Another vampire would have by now because there's nothing we like more than draining a human to the point of death. Nothing else satisfies quite as much." He looks away and shakes his head, an expression of dismay on his face. "You think this is some kind of psychotic episode – a delusion – and you can say and do anything because it won't matter. It's all just a dream. You offered yourself to me, offered to let me make you my pet, my blood slave. You can't imagine how much license that gives me. Once given you can't take it back. I just want you to know what you're getting."
"What am I getting?"
"Me."
Michel, black wings, bloody fangs, red eyes. A killer.
Numbness descends over me and the glib feeling I had back at the loft dissipates completely – shocked out of me when Michel tormented Alan the way a cat plays with a mouse. Terrifying the poor creature as it fought for its life then killing it in a most inhumane manner. I remember the manuscript and the description of him chasing down the two girls, killing them in front of each other.
"Is this another kill outside the treaty?"
He nods and stares at me from under a frown.
"I'm beyond that now."
"What do you mean?"
He doesn't answer. Instead, he folds his wings until they disappear, and opens the door on the passenger side of the car, motioning for me to get in. We drive back to the warehouse with only the sound of the engine to accompany us. Once back, I run up the stairs before him, waiting for him to open the door. I go to the door to the bedroom without looking at him.
"Not going to invite me into your bed now, are you?" he says from the hallway.
I turn to him, tears in my eyes.
"Why did you do that?"
He comes to me, leaning down so he's just inches from my face. He traces my bottom lip with a finger but the touch of his hand imparts nothing of his emotions.
"When you give yourself to me," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't want it to be because you think you're insane or that it doesn't matter. I want it to be because you mean it. I want you to know that it matters." He turns and walks away, leaving me alone in the darkness.
I spend the next day in a funk, wrapped in a blanket on my bed. Not even the bright sun shining on the Charles River can please me. I was so certain that this was all a psychotic delusion, but the sight of Michel torturing the man destroyed that belief. Why did he treat the man so heartlessly? I imagine it's a form of punishment. He found someone he felt deserved death and killed him to show me what a monster he is. I know that in my own little fantasy world, he would have been kind, he wouldn't have been a vampire or fallen angel or demon – whatever he is. He would have been a priest. He would have shown mercy.
I rise from bed late in the afternoon and other than looking over the daily papers and watching some afternoon news on television, I keep to myself in my bedroom, licking my emotional wounds. In the evening, I sit alone in the library and stare out at the cityscape as the sun sets. Soon, the lights from the buildings across the Charles River flicker into view like so many stars in the growing night sky.
Indecision about my situation nags me – should I just give in to Michel and let him have me as he wants? Or should I hold out until I know more? All I know is that he hasn't come to me the way he promised when he left and so I know something's changed.
These thoughts occupy my mind during the evening and I begin to wonder if Michel stayed somewhere else. Maybe with Kate. Only much later does Michel appear as I'm deep into a book that I found on the Council tucked away in the shelves. A history written in the 18th century, the book ancient, the binding threadbare from much use.
I close it when he enters the living area. He looks like the old Michel I remember, his hair a bit wild, tucked behind his ears, dressed in black.
"I was wondering if you'd gone away."
"I've been busy," he says. "Planning, getting ready for an operation."
"Consolidating your grip on power?" I say, with only a tiny hint of humor in my voice.
He glances at me. "Something like that." He stands and just looks at me.
"I wanted to talk to you," I say finally, debating with myself over whether to bring it up now or later.
"And I you, but right now, I don't have time."
I sigh. He'll be out all night and I'll be alone once more.