Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) (8 page)

I held the glass doors open for them.

Paige glared at me as she entered.

I pointed over to the counter. “I distinctly
recall you saying ‘bar.’ This has the best coffee and bagel bar in
town.”

“
You’re such a lame-butt,”
she said, plopping onto the seat of a nearby booth. “Just you wait.
I’ll have my revenge.”

“
Promises, promises,” I
said.

“
Nice place,” Ethan
said.

“
Oh, don’t encourage him,”
she said, propping her chin on one upturned palm with a dejected
expression.

“
Drinks are on me,” I
said.

“
Yep,” she said. “Just as
quickly as I can pour one over your head.”

I purchased French vanilla cappuccinos for
Paige and Ethan and Earl Grey tea and a chicken salad sandwich for
me.

“
That’s all you’re
eating?” Paige asked.

“
I’m not that
hungry.”

She stared at me. “You’re normally a stomach
with legs.”

I ignored her.

“
Sorry you have to leave
tonight, Ethan,” I said. “You’ll be missed.”

Paige leaned against him as he wrapped his
arm around her. “Ditto,” she said.

“
Paige is going to need a
fresh supply of batteries after you leave,” I said, trying to keep
a straight face.

Paige stabbed the end of her forefinger in
my face. “I’m gonna beat your ass.”

“
Yeah, I’m sorry I can’t
stay longer,” Ethan said with a rueful look. “I’ll try to make it
back up here again soon…before any battery shortages.”

I actually think that Paige was
blushing.

It was easy to see how great a couple the
two of them had become, and I felt very happy for them.

But I still felt guilty about my presence in
New Haven causing Paige to be separated from him.

“
When’s your flight?” I
asked.

“
I’ve got a red-eye at
one-thirty in the morning,” he said. “I figured since it’s only a
short nighttime hop to Atlanta, I’d fly ordinary
commercial.”

That made sense. Sunset Air had excellent
vampire-friendly service, but their prices were definitely the top
end of premium, based upon the invoices I’d seen.

“
How’s your research
coming?” he asked.

Paige groaned. “Oh, no. Snore-time. You had
to ask, didn’t you?”

Ethan chuckled. “Sorry about that.”

She stood up. “No, no, you history buffs
have your little nerd chat. I’m going to find something
chocolaty.”

He handed her some cash and she gave him a
quick kiss on the cheek before heading toward the bakery
counter.

I told Ethan about the book I had checked
out, as well as some other information I had learned. He even asked
to look at the book in question.

After a few minutes of rapid leafing and
scanning, he laid the tome down before him.

“
Interesting. It’s an odd
specialty for that time period,” he said. “You’ll want to
investigate any of his European connections. That’s where all the
cutting-edge studies were taking place, anyway.”

His insights were definitely helpful.

“
Thanks. I will,” I said.
“Was that a former interest of yours, too?”

He smiled. “Me? No. I was too preoccupied
with myself at the time. But I remember having occasional
discussions with colleagues.”

It occurred to me that I knew very little
about Ethan’s past.

“
Where you human or
vampire then?”

“
Vampire,” he said,
lowering his voice. “Though only recently turned.”

Wow, cool.

“
Do tell,” I
said.

“
You’re really
interested?” he asked.

“
Oh, very,” I said. “I’m a
history sponge, remember?”

He leaned across the table toward me, so I
met him halfway.

“
Stop me if this gets
boring.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, right. Not
likely.”

“
So, I was turned in—” he
said.

I held up my hand. “Hey, no human
backstory?”

“
Even less noteworthy for
that period, I’m afraid,” he said.

“
Try me,” I
said.

He paused for a moment, as if in silent
reflection.

"I was born and raised in central
Connecticut, just outside of Middleton. My father was a member of
the Middleton council and my mother a midwife,” he said. “Oh, how I
loved it there. I knew from the time I was a boy that’s where I
wanted to live out the rest of my life. Of course, life had other
plans.”

“
Siblings?” I
asked.

“
Two younger brothers,” he
said. “They took after my father, each becoming farmers in their
own right when they were grown.”

“
But not you?” I
asked.

He shook his head. “Me? Nope. I was
fascinated by my mother’s midwifery skills. I even helped with
deliveries by the time I had turned eight, though social modesty
precluded more active participation in the advanced activities.

“
As such, I spent far more
time helping my father and brothers in the fields than that,” he
said. “Still, I never developed an appreciation for
farming.”

“
Was your father
disappointed?”

“
Maybe at first,” he said.
“But even back then physicians were highly regarded, and they
earned a great deal of respect in their communities. When I
expressed an interest in pursuing medicine, such as it was, my
father encouraged me.

“
My father used his
contacts with regional clergy and managed to collect the attention
of a competent physician in a neighboring county who was willing to
take on an assistant,” he said. “However, it was expected that I
attend college. Fortunately, Doctor Sedgwick was a kind man. He not
only tutored me on basic knowledge in physiology, but sponsored my
entry into medical school. Between some of my father’s savings and
Doctor Sedgwick’s influence, I was accepted to Harvard.”

“
Very cool,” I said.
“You’re a Harvard man.”

“
Snob,” Paige said as she
sat down before what had to be the largest chocolate muffin I’d
ever seen.

Both Ethan and I stared at it.

“
Hey, stop sizing up my
muffin,” she said.

He and I simultaneously broke into
laughter.

At first, she frowned. Then she scowled.

“
Oh, very funny, you
pervs,” she said. “Get back to yammerin’ before I fang you
both.”

Ethan stretched his arm across her shoulders
and she snuggled beside him before delving into her snack.

“
Anyway, by 1856, the year
I turned twenty, I had graduated from Harvard and had fallen for a
lovely young local woman named Deidre, who I’d met while attending
college,” he said.

“
She was a fellow
student?” I asked.

“
No,” Paige said. “They
first saw each other on Sundays at the local church.”

I stared at her.

“
What?” she asked.
“Spoiler. I’ve heard this already.”

He looked at her with an endearing
expression.

“
Within a year, Deidre and
I were married. We had a wonderful year together before she became
pregnant,” he said.

“
Unfortunately, and as
often was the case back then, she died giving birth to our son, who
subsequently died within hours of delivery. Though the midwife was
experienced, there’d been birthing complications, and neither
Sedgwick nor I were able to stem her internal
hemorrhaging.”

He paused to take a drink of his cappuccino
and I could see his eyes turn glassy. Paige reached over to hold
his free hand.

“
I’m so sorry, Ethan,” I
said.

What a tragic event.

I thought back to Katrina’s own story of
having lost her husband and children to disease within a short time
of one another.

Throughout the ages, life seemed to be rife
with senseless tragedy.

“
I was devastated, and
felt lost for months afterwards,” Ethan said. “Nothing stemmed my
intense feelings of loss and sadness. I think the only thing that
propelled me onward was my work in medicine. In the years that
followed, as I deprived Death of each potential victim, it seemed
like a series of small victories, of sorts.”

That was an interesting notion to me.

“
Of course, you can’t
cheat Death forever,” he said. “He always seems to get his due in
the end.”

I stared at him. “So, is that why you still
practice medicine as a vampire today? To keep cheating Death?”

“
Now? No,” he said. “I do
it because I thoroughly enjoy medicine and helping others. Although
there may be a small component of penance for what I am now, as
well.”

I looked into his eyes, wondering why he
felt that way.

“
Penance?” I
asked.

The edges of his mouth upturned slightly,
though in a bitter fashion.

“
By the time the Civil War
started in 1861, I had been actively practicing medicine
itinerantly from town to town. Naturally, the Union Army
aggressively recruited doctors, and I volunteered my services,” he
said. “I was commissioned a Captain, and spent most of my time in
field hospitals.”

“
Wow,” I said. “I can only
imagine what you saw during the Civil War.”

“
You’re a historian, so
you’ve read about how brutal it was,” he said. “Still, to
experience it was something else entirely.”

“
Hey, I’m eating here,”
Paige said.

I gave her a wan look. “Oh, please. You eat,
sleep, and dream blood.”

“
Yeah, true.”

Ethan shook his head.

“
The field hospitals were
horrible places, and I still remember the stench and foulness that
accompanied sounds of pure human misery. For all of the carnage on
the battlefields, the carnage in the field hospitals was much
worse,” he said. “For every person I managed to save, three or more
died. I felt the loss of Deidre all over again with each human soul
that passed, but took some solace in the few that I managed to
help.”

One of the baristas stopped by our
booth.

“
Can I get anybody
anything?” she asked.

“
Maybe another Earl Grey?”
I asked.

“
You got it,” she
said.

Ethan paused for a moment before continuing
his story.

“
In May of 1864, I was
assigned to a smaller brigade during the Wilderness Campaign in
Virginia. In truth, it was really just a series of uncoordinated
skirmishes, rather than a formalized campaign, but no less bloody
than any of the other major battles that I had seen,” he said. “By
then, everyone was so tired of the war. It all seemed so
pointless…seemingly endless, really.”

“
Hey, wasn’t that was the
first time U.S. Grant engaged Lee’s own Confederate forces?” I
asked.

Paige held up one hand. “Down boy. Sit now.
Sit.”

I gave her my best deadpan expression.

Ethan remained silent until the barista
delivered my fresh cup of tea. Then he scanned the dining room.

“
Getting sort of busy in
here all of a sudden,” he said. “I’ll talk more on our walk back
home.”

I could barely wait for us to exit the
place.

Fortunately, it was a cold night and there
were scarcely any pedestrians to share the sidewalk with.

Not long after we began walking, Ethan
continued his story.

“
One night, two soldiers
conveyed a severely injured man to the surgeon’s tent, which at the
time struck me as odd because most engagements ended by sundown,”
he said. “The man’s body had been so riddled with musket balls I
was amazed he was still alive. Apparently, he was the sole survivor
from some bloodbath of a skirmish that had occurred a couple of
miles outside of camp.

“
I feverishly worked to
remove the musket rounds from the man's body, and was amazed that
he had held on as long as he had. By the time I had finished, it
was nearly midnight, and I dismissed the two orderlies who had been
helping me,” he said. “Given the man’s ragged breathing, I figured
he had only hours to live. Not wanting him to die alone, I pulled
up a chair and dozed as I sat vigil at his bedside.”

“
He was the vampire,”
Paige said.

I gave her a dirty look. “Spoilers,
remember?”

She winked at me. “Oops, sorry.”

“
Okay, so the man woke
within an hour or so, and seemed remarkably recuperated despite his
overly pale skin color. He told me that his name was Noah, and that
he was grateful to me for saving him. Though in reality, it wasn’t
anything that I hadn’t already heard from others whose lives I’d
saved,” Ethan said.

“
Noah?” I asked. “Hey, he
wasn’t—”

“
The legendary flood guy
with the animals? Nah, different Noah,” Ethan
interrupted.

“
Oh,” I said. “Go on
then.”

“
He rested in one of the
recovery tents for another day, and then reappeared in my tent the
following night. I was amazed that he could even stand,” he said.
“It was when he told me that he’d lived for over two hundred years
that I doubted his sanity, much less his constitution. As if that
wasn’t enough, he offered me immortality as a parting
gift.”

“
Man, that’s surreal,” I
said. “What’d you do then?”