A Fall of Silver (29 page)

She cut him off.
“And you absolve me from my sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen?”

“If you’re looking for pity
, or absolution, you’re talking to the wrong man.”

She
studied him, her eyes burning with dreadful expectation, as if she waited for a sign that he saw her as a pathetic object worthy only of contempt, or worse, pity.

His face felt frozen as h
e struggled to keep his expression neutral. Pity would do neither of them any good, though it was difficult not to react to the horror of her story. She sat quietly next to him, waiting and watching him while she decided what more, if anything, to say.

“
They taught me a valuable lesson,” she said in a hoarse voice. “They taught me that only fools trust a vampire’s word. You can’t negotiate with the undead; they have no souls, no honor. They just agree and rip your neck out anyway while they laugh at your stupidity.”

“There are good
people and bad ones everywhere—”

“Don’t hand me
excuses and that feel-good crap! There are no good vampires. That’s an oxymoron. They’re evil, pure evil, all of them. That’s why you have to eliminate them. You can’t discuss it. You just have to kill them and be done with it.”

“They deserve a second chance
. Everyone deserves that much. What of those who only became a vampire by mistake? An error in judgment—”

“
Like my error? Is that the kind of error you mean?” she asked bitterly.

“No—”

“Then I was right, wasn’t I? You think I murdered them for no reason, wouldn’t give them the chance they deserved! Isn’t that it? I should never have tried to defend myself. I should’ve just lain back and enjoyed it! That’s what a nice girl would do, isn’t it?” Her voice rose in near-hysterical anger as her burning eyes challenged him to deny the truth of her words.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not blaming you.”

“Isn’t that big of you! You don’t blame me for trying to survive. Nice. Thanks.”

“I wasn’t speaking of the two vampires who hurt you. But there are others who may have made a simple error—”

“Yeah, right. The only error in judgment a vampire ever makes is their decision to go to Hell and drag everyone down there with them.” Her voice cracked and she gulped to hold back a sob.

The ache
in his gut increased. If she honestly felt that way, how would she react when she discovered what he’d been? How would she feel about his bad decisions and the mistakes he made four hundred years ago?

Could he honestly have a relationship
with her
without telling her who he really was? What he’d been for hundreds of years? Given her background, he could not continue to hide his past from her, despite the promises he had made. Bitterly, he realized he’d already been breaking vows right and left. First he left the priesthood, and now he was preparing to reveal a secret he was sworn to protect.

“No.
I’ve known some who made the decision rashly, foolishly, when they were too young to know what they were doing,” he said slowly. “Perhaps they later regretted their decision, or became vampires by accident.”

“And I know the tooth fairy
personally. Oh, and she became a fairy by accident, too. Just one of those weird things that seems to happen for no reason.”

“It
does happen,” he ground out. “And under some circumstances, it’s possible to get a second chance—”

She tore away from him and jumped to her feet.
“It’s not possible to get a second chance! There’s only death and pain and betrayal until you can’t take it anymore, until you have to kill everyone just to make it stop! There are no second chances.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. Her face twisted as if in pain as she massaged the back of her neck.

“Are you all right?”
he asked.

“
Peachy-keen. I can’t believe you’re so blind. You don’t understand anything!”

“
I know this: I know I had a second chance.” His guts liquefied. He’d said it.

“You!
What? You didn’t like being a priest, so you decided to quit? To have a second chance at fucking some woman before your dick shrivels up? That kind of a second chance?” Her fury flowed around him, incinerating everything it touched.

Instinctively, he
knew most of her anger was focused inward, but her words still cut him like so many small razors. She couldn’t forgive herself for her perceived naivety in trusting a pair of vampires, and she’d never forgive someone like him.

He
laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and forced her to sit. She tried to shrug him off but her knees wobbled and finally she collapsed next to him. The terrible pain and vulnerability she tried so desperately to hide was agonizingly clear on her face.

“No
.” He coughed to clear his throat. “You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes. I was young once, four hundred years ago. Young and stupid enough to want to be young forever.”

“
What?” She turned toward him, her eyes wide and tormented. “What? Four hundred years? You—you’re a fucking vampire?”

“I
was
a vampire. I gave it up. For Lent.” His mouth quirked.

She stared at him, clearly wanting to rip his face off.
Then his words sunk in. He could see her expression morph through confusion and anger. She choked on a sound that started as a scream of rage and metamorphosed into a laugh. Emotions rippled over her features in uncontrollable waves: another half-scream, half-laugh caught in her throat.

“You gave it up?
You can’t—”

“Perhaps not for Lent, per se
. Although I only missed it by a few days as it turned out. And you’ll be pleased to know the experience was painful. Very painful. Even you would’ve been delighted at the amount of pain involved.”

“What pain?
How….” Clearly suspicious, she let her sentence dangle, too confused to finish.

“I
saved Father Donatello’s life.” He flushed, embarrassed by the claim. “He was visiting a friend at the National Cathedral in D.C. and they invited him to join them, ringing the changes—”

“The what?”

“Ringing bells in a certain pattern—they were bell ringers. The cathedral has one of the few bell towers in the United States. Anyway, he wandered off to take a break and somehow managed to trip and fall through a window. He was never sure how. I saw him fall and got a wild hair, thought I was superman, I guess. So I tried to catch him. Not one of my more graceful moments. I did save his life, but I got impaled on the wrought iron fence for my efforts. Died. Got the T shirt. A scar, too. Want to compare?”

This time, she laughed outright.
“No.” A blush rose over her pale cheeks as she eyed him, her gaze drifting down to his chest. “Well, yes.”

He grinned as he unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his chest.
Just below and to the right of the left nipple was a puckered, white scar. As she examined his flesh, her flush deepened until she glanced away.

“You’re human?
Really?” Her eyes flickered as she looked at the sunshine streaming through the windows behind them.

Well, duh.

“Yes. Again. And not to be too smug about it, in a sort of state of grace. Or as the Cardinal likes to call me, a recidivist.”

“I
sure wouldn’t call it a state of grace. You’re working your way down to Hell for a second time, if you ask me.” Her tone was light enough, but the cold edge made him wonder what she hated most, him or the negotiations he led?

“Then it’s a relief
God is unlikely to be asking you,” he replied, slipping into the lilting, Irish cadence of his childhood.

“Isn’t it
, though?” she asked sweetly before rising to stroll toward the kitchen.

He followed, bemused and unsure if he’d
been the fool this time to admit his deepest secret to a woman who hated vampires. If she decided to reveal it to one of the undead, she could destroy any chances they had to find forgiveness and a second chance. The vampires would be doomed forever without hope of salvation.

His hear
t thudded in a too-tight chest.

What had he done?

Her stomach twisted as
Quicksilver tried to understand Kethan’s story, but her mind kept replaying her own past and the mistakes she had made. After her parents left, she’d never really fit in anywhere, not in school and not now and certainly not after she changed and became Quicksilver.

She was a loner
because she’d always felt alone and now, she seriously wondered if her efforts to survive had pushed her over the edge into madness.

I should’
ve done the world a favor and accepted it all, everything Carlos and Carol did. I should’ve died. I must have deserved it. Maybe that’s why my parents left and stopped writing. They knew I’d grow up to be a psycho who’d put her own survival ahead of everything—and everyone—else.

Her ha
nds clenched, the nails biting into the soft flesh of her palms. The pain didn’t stop her from hearing Kethan’s voice repeating in an endless loop inside her head. If she’d been less selfish, a better person, she’d have talked to the vampire pair and convinced them to let her go. They’d be alive today, basking in the moonlight, and picking at chicken mole,
mole poblano
, in a quaint café in Mexico City as they waited for their next victim.

Kethan was
that
good by comparison, so good that he’d somehow become human again. A fucking, living miracle. How he must despise her, maybe even hate her, knowing that if he’d met her while he was a vampire, she’d have killed him. There’d have been no state of grace, and Father Donatello would have died because there would have been no Kethan Hilliard to save him.

It is what it is
,
she thought
.
All she could do was try to protect Father Donatello now and get away from Kethan before she lost what was left of her soul. And heart.

“How’
re we going to get Father Donatello back?” she asked, trying to work free of the self-loathing quagmire enmeshing her. She could save the priest, she knew it. And if something happened to her, well, perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.

If only Kethan hadn’t told her h
e’d been a vampire…her mind seized up considering the concept, stalling like his useless car.

Good God, how i
s that possible?
He’d been impaled—did that mean he died and had risen again as a human? It was what he said, but the concept seemed unbelievable.

Kethan interrupted her thoughts as he followed her
to the staircase, “We need to meet with Martyn Sutton. This evening, if possible. He may know where to look or give us a lead.”

She
forced herself to concentrate and pushed his admission about his past out of her mind. The unsettling information didn’t make sense. She needed time alone to consider it and Kethan seemed unlikely to grant her that time at the moment. After glancing at him over her shoulder, she focused on Father Donatello’s plight and the possibility that Martyn Sutton had kidnapped him. Those two things at least made sense.

“
But you can’t trust him,” she said.

“We’re going to have to trust someone.
Right now, we’ve got nothing.” His voice grew grim. “And I doubt whoever kidnapped Father Donatello will ask for ransom. I just hope he’s still alive.”

“
You think someone hoped to make Martyn look bad? Another vampire?”

His eyes glinted with cynical amusement.
“You’re learning. Off-hand, I’d say someone wants to make you mad enough to kill Sutton.”

“I
don’t need to be mad to want to do that, although I have the feeling you wouldn’t approve.”

“
And you’d be correct.” He smiled at her, clearly trying to reduce the tension flooding the hallway. “So let’s meet with him and see what he knows.”

“Are
you’re going to give me back my weapons?” She
needed
those whips. She had to have them before she faced another vampire.

The
whips were freedom. Control.
Life
.

“We
’re not going to kill anyone, including Martyn Sutton.”

“Yet.”
If they rescued Father Donatello, she’d kill whoever was responsible, but there was no need to mention that.

“Ever.”

“Even if Sutton asks us to so he can attain this
State of Grace
of yours?”

“He doesn’t know about that
. No one does.” His eyes seemed to stare through her, inspecting every thought stumbling through her mind. “If a vampire learns that it is possible, no salvation can occur. I’m trusting you with that information.”