The Last Keeper (25 page)

My thoughts were spinning in circles, trying to think of something, anything to explain what had gone wrong.

Could he really be gone? Did my gift, so useless for so many centuries, mean I had to spend eternity knowing what love felt like only to have it ripped away?
 

Time ceased to exist as I lay on the bed.

Minutes passed with excruciating slowness. They turned, slowly, into hours. Those hours turned into days. Helen tried to talk to me so many times, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer her. Life went on in the house; I heard everything, yet it was as if I was no longer there. Just a ghost listening to life pass by.
 

Helen received word that the London Seat had relocated due to issues in Spain. She was checking all of my mail, not that I cared what was in it. When that piece of news came, however, I felt my hope return.
 

I lay in the bed, waiting. Hoping. Yet the seconds passed. The minutes came and went. The hours dragged on and on. Night turned to day. Day drifted back to night. And nothing changed, not even the nightly bombardments. There was no call. No letter. No anything. The only words I spoke were urging Helen to leave, but she refused.
 

Part of me hoped he
had
found it all too much and decided to run when the dangers of my life became all too apparent. He deserved so much more. Could I deny him that?

Yes.

I’d never deny him the freedom to choose. I’d have let him go if he’d asked.
Had he asked
 . . . But he didn’t. He hadn’t given me any indication he wanted to leave. He’d asked me to
marry
him! He’d said he wanted to know everything. That he understood.

How could anyone ever understand?

What we were went beyond the realms of anything that was known. I was a creature of myth and legend . . .
No,
I wasn’t even that. I was just . . . a creature. A being trying to protect those weaker than me. Someone hoping to find love, yet hoping that day never came. My day had come.
 

And now it was gone.

Yet, as I thought of all the things I could have done wrong, the persistent voice in the back of my mind told me to stop being so stupid.
 

He wasn’t alive somewhere, waiting for me. How could he be?
 

But as my mind cleared and began accepting that perhaps my gift had a use, all I could see was a future knowing the pain of losing my partner.
 

Every unneeded breath I took reminded me of it. Every time I inhaled Ray’s fading scent from my sheets it stabbed me again, sharp as a knife, deep as an arrow.
 

I stopped counting as the days passed. I stopped thinking about what I could’ve done differently. I stopped hoping I’d ever see him again. I stopped thinking about him. I didn’t wallow. I didn’t mope. I wasn’t miserable. I wasn’t inconsolable. I didn’t speak. I didn’t eat. I didn’t do
anything.

Christmas was fast approaching, and yet I cared not. Not about presents for my family or dinner in front of a roaring fire. I knew I needed to move on. There was no one else to keep the peace anymore.
 

What was the point?
It would make little difference in the end.
 

I had a duty to fulfil. I
knew
I needed to drag myself out of bed and get things done, but I couldn’t.

Was there a point to protecting the human race when it could be so unbearably cruel?

“Aunt Sere?” a small voice asked from the door.

It was Jayne, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer her. I didn’t know if my voice would work.

Instead of leaving, as everyone else did, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. She clambered onto the bed and lay facing me. Looking into my eyes, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “I miss Uncle Ray, too.”

That was all it took for me to lose control. One sentence. Five little words. The tears I’d been holding back since I first returned broke through. Every emotion I’d buried in an effort to stop the pain came roaring back to life, taking me, overwhelming me, forcing me to feel everything. Pain. Fear. Anger. Loss. Love.
 

I cried so hard I thought I’d never stop.
 

Through all of it, Jayne held me, never saying anything. She just held me, her tiny arms wrapped tightly around my neck. It felt like hours before I realised she was crying with me.
 

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, wiping her tears away.
 

“I just want my Aunt Sere back.”
 

“I’m not sure if I can come back,” I told her, unable to offer even the smallest of smiles.

“We can help,” someone said from the doorway.

“I don’t know if I can do it.” Helen was standing there with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

“Let us help.”

“Thank you.” I opened my arms to them both. “I miss him so much.”

“We all do,” Helen said, hugging me.
 

“What am I supposed to do without him?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Serenity. I can’t answer that question.”

“Will you come down for dinner, Aunt Sere?” Jayne asked, sniffling.

“I will, sweetheart.”

Having my family with me made me realise something. I had to be strong. Not for me.
 

For everyone else 
. . .
 

1974

“You be careful with that, young lady,” Helen said from her seat by the front door.
 

   
“Yes, Nana.” Lizzy rolled her eyes as she passed me, gingerly carrying the box containing her grandmother’s picture frames.

“I saw that!”

I smiled, but it was merely a fraction of the smiles I once wore.
 

Thirty-four years had passed since I was happy, since I’d smiled and laughed without it being forced. The house was ready, and it was time to move again. Everything had been packed and shipped from our last house in America. All of our descendants had been informed of where we were, just in case. Lizzy was enrolled in the university of her choice, Newcastle, Jayne was content with a receptionist job at a local hotel, and David had decided to stay behind with his newly-found partner. Everything was ready.

Except me.

Either I’d be in this house for a very long time, watching the world pass me by, having known only a glimpse of true happiness. Or my life would end, and the house would be needed. It wasn’t a home; it was a safe house. Somewhere for my race to go if the time came.
 

When
the time came.
 

A lot had happened over the years. My family changed the day we were told Sam had been found buried in the rubble of a demolished building. Helen was the one to stay strong then. I couldn’t, and it had almost destroyed me again. Jayne was never the same.
 

The world around me had changed. I saw no point in growing older. Not that I saw a point in anything I did.
 

I still did what I had to, though I leaned towards killing more vampires than I influenced. I’d earned my name with them of late, though The Seats themselves tended to avoid me more often than not. I filled my days with hours of translations and stories. Jayne and Lizzy were to be left with the records of my race, but neither of them knew our language like I did. Translating it helped me to concentrate on something other than the pain I felt every day. It calmed my thoughts to know that whatever happened, any future generations would know who we were.
 

The years had seen me moving all over the globe. Nigeria. France. America. I’d even spent some time in Siberia. Anywhere, except London. I would never return there, not if I could help it. I preferred sunny places when it came to choosing a new town or city to live in.
 

The sun was something I needed, craved. It put the faint trace of a smile on my face and gave some warmth to my bones.
 

Not even the thought that it could all soon be over could make the pain go away.

The inevitable.
That was what I’d taken to calling it.
My death
was a bit too morbid and melodramatic for my tastes. That was exactly what it was, though, my death. Either I’d die slowly, one day at a time on my own, or my life would come to a sudden end with the death of another.
 

Either way, it would come.

I’m a firm believer that everyone has their time.

Except me,
that little voice in my head added.
 

It was an annoyance at times, that little voice.
 

Lizzy wanted to go to university, and though she could’ve gone to any in the world, she’d chosen Newcastle.
 

Why she was interested in studying history was a mystery. She didn’t talk about her chosen degree often; it was a painful subject for me.
 

Newcastle wasn’t the best option for her, and I’d offered to pay for any costs she would need to go to any university she chose, but she insisted on staying. The thing about Lizzy was that she always got what she wanted. Not in the way a spoiled rich kid would get everything they desired; no one could accuse Lizzy of being spoiled. She had a knack for knowing exactly what to ask for and how to ask. Jayne always said she should go into politics.
 

Still, we hadn’t moved to the north of England for Lizzy. We were here for me. It was one of the places I’d chosen back when I first met . . .
a long time ago.
It was one of the safest places in the world for someone wanting to avoid vampires.
 

Despite the current political situation, Russia had been my first choice. The Wolves there would’ve been ideal, had they not found themselves on the wrong end of a group of upset vampires. The few that were left had fled deep into Siberia in the early sixties. The Great Cats were my next choice. They avoided humans as much as possible, but above all else, the vampires knew little of their existence. The Cats were a myth, even to those who were legends themselves.

And if the time came, the best place to be would be among the myths.
 

In my mind, it was only a matter of time. We’d been fighting a losing battle for centuries as our numbers dwindled. Eight Seats of Power. Eight groups of vampires who needed to be
reminded
every decade or so that it was a good idea to stay hidden. I’d taken to visiting them on a yearly basis. One each year, every year, just to keep my hold over them. It had been a struggle for William and me to maintain our influence. Alone, I was failing.
 

“Leave the heavy ones to me, Jayne,” I said, catching a box as it slipped from her hands. “I’m a little stronger than you.”

“That you are, dear.” She laughed as I sprinted off, box tucked under my arm.
 

Of the four of us, only Jayne, Helen, and I could’ve been identical triplets if not for the “age difference.”

Lizzy, on the other hand, though cursed with the short stature of the family, was lucky enough to avoid the bright red curls, ending up with deep auburn hair that fell straight to her shoulders instead. She did, however, have my eyes. In reality she was the perfect mix of the Cardea bloodline and her father’s.

The box of books was left in the basement, and I went back to grab another one. There were plenty of them. The van we were unpacking was the second of three. The furniture had already been unloaded, mostly by me, and it was in place in the house. The last van, the one Lizzy was working on, held all of our personal belongings. It was the biggest of the three.
 

Without taking note of the box I was picking up, I hefted it into my arms, only to find it was the lightest of them, and the oldest. As I picked it up, the bottom gave way. My breath caught as the contents tumbled to the ground, landing with a clatter.

It was the one box that was never opened, never talked about, and never,
ever,
looked into.