The Vampire's Angel (43 page)

“I’m so sorry—”

Catherine put her hand up. “No, don’t feel bad. The salon runs only because Jérémie does most of the work from London, and Maria manages daily affairs. I helped when necessary, but otherwise I looked for you.”

Xavier shook his head wonderingly and their tears stopped gradually, to be replaced by enormous grins on each of their faces.

“So you fled to Anne. Thomas predicted as much. ”Catherine flinched, realizing what she’d said.

“It’s all right,” Xavier said. “I should’ve guessed.”

“Well, we were just talking about how you used to hide in the church, and then we realized that you took your theological quandaries to Anne, and—” Catherine stopped again, afraid.

Anne, however, chortled. “Such a predictable one, our abbé,” she said.

Xavier smiled and waved his hand in the air. “You may continue silently cooking.”

“Yes, master,“ she shot back at him.

“It’s true,” Xavier said. “I went to her. In a drunken stupor, I told her of my lifelong struggle to find meaning and of my fight with the feelings that I tried to keep locked deep inside. I blamed myself for everything. Anne allowed me to rant and drink for as long as I needed. She hardly said a word, never scolded, but just let me talk. Mind you, I’m speaking about months. Months of my drinking and blabbering went on before I finally stopped. Anne dragged me all over Paris to a million hiding places. She made me help earn money. I had to set up the tables when the aristocracy paid her to contact dead relatives. We went all over, even to the ocean. She took me throughout France and eventually we returned to this bridge and waited for you to find us because I was ready.”

Catherine’s cheeks hurt from smiling. “What changed?” she asked. “Can you tell me?”

“I’ll tell you everything.”

“Before you do, I need to know. Was it my fault?” She choked on her words and started crying again. “I was wrong, after Michel died. I never meant to chase you away or insinuate that I didn’t care.”

“Catherine.” Xavier hugged her. “It wasn’t you, or anyone. Let me tell you what happened.”

Xavier’s words comforted her more and more.

“I was in a drunken daze and hardly believed everything that had happened. The revolution, the destruction of my church, the changes in my life, and then Michel’s death.” He paused, and Catherine assessed his demeanor. At least he did not repeat his accusation against Marcel.

“When you and Maria came to me that night, I felt like a failure and burden, so I fled to relieve you of the responsibility. No—” Xavier cut Catherine off, “don’t explain. It was me, not you. My world was in turmoil and nothing made sense. So I sought Anne, and she helped me through a very dark period.”

Anne laughed and winked at Xavier.

“In May, I finally decided that the wine had failed me. I stopped drinking heavily, almost overnight, and then Anne and I started really talking. I never had any profound revelations. I didn’t change my outlook on life. Anne just helped me focus. She took my previous ideas that relied on Catholicism and showed me how they applied whether or not guided by some grand theological scheme. Does this make sense?”

Catherine nodded. Then Xavier addressed her one doubt without prompting, though he spoke more softly and held her hand.

“I know nothing will make you feel better about my disappearance or the fact that I didn’t come to you. I thought I was protecting you, as strange as it sounds. And, I said that I returned to Paris to come back to all of you, yet here I sit under a bridge, away from home. I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Catherine asked. “You knew that we’d take you back.”

“No, I didn’t. I was afraid that you’d be angry.”

“About what?”

“For leaving and being so selfish.”

“No, Xavier. I love you. You did what you needed to.” Catherine cupped Xavier’s cheeks. “I don’t understand completely. It makes me sad. But I hope you’ll return, because I do love you.”

Xavier smiled broadly and jumped up, grabbed two glasses, and then a bottle of wine. He poured each of them a glass and then laughed loudly.

“Get that frightened look off your face. ‘Tis merely a toast, and I didn’t stop drinking altogether, I only stopped drinking myself into oblivion.”

Catherine laughed, too, her face had betrayed her, so she lifted her glass to Xavier’s.

“To you.”

“No, to us.” He touched his glass to hers.

They each drank, and Anne smiled in agreement, but Catherine wanted to know more and urged Xavier on.

He sighed. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m still bitter about Michel. I should have saved him. There are things you can’t know about that day. I’m still angry with the church. More than that, I’m angry with myself for believing that its theology could change the world. I hate that I hid from my true feelings for so long behind some created theology that oppresses people. But, I still hope and love people. I still think that good can come out of anything. You have always disliked the church, which worried me. Yet here we sit, and it’s I that came to see things your way. I still think that religion, even Catholicism, must play a role in this world. It’s important. But I’m not convinced that any one religion has it right or wrong. This new idea, being talked about in Paris, about a Supreme Being or some such thing. Why, it’s as valid as Christianity so long as it aids people.”

The old Xavier had returned, but Catherine detected a new maturity. His tone rang the familiar song of wanting to do good, yet he sounded more cautious and confident, not looking for outside answers from false authorities. His theology was more sophisticated. Had he at last applied his rhetoric of inclusiveness and acceptance to himself?

Catherine and Xavier chatted a long while about where he had gone, about his beliefs, and she caught him up on her life. She avoided, however, mentioning the person who had become more important to her than any other, fearful of Xavier’s reaction.

Thankfully, during a lull, Anne came over and sat between them, laughing as usual.

“There is my little abbé again. All we talked about, why he told everything but one small detail, Catherine. We snapped him out of his drunkenness, we got him thinking right about that silly Catholic Church, and we even managed to save his faith in humanity. But there’s one other thing, isn’t there, abbé?”

Xavier smiled sheepishly then played with the buttons on his shirt.

“There’s my shy little one, he accepts it but is worried about what you might think. I told him many a time that you already know.”

“Anne, please,” Xavier said.

“Well, go on, you find out which of us is right. Remember the pact we made? You said yourself not to let you get scared, and so I promised you that I’d be telling others if you failed to do it.”

“Maybe we should wait.”

“Catherine, part of Xavier’s journey, part of what he needs to do, is accept all the feelings inside. He loved another man and wants to pursue it. I told him you already knew, but he’s afraid you’ll be upset.”

Anne finally got it into the open. But, just as relief spread through her, Catherine tensed at the thought of the quagmire Thomas’s and Xavier’s love would yet create. Could she trust Thomas again? And how had Xavier dealt with that awful event?

8 June 1793

“ANNE, THIS IS embarrassing,” Xavier said as he continued to squirm on the log. Catherine warmed her hands by the fire and glanced up at the bridge under which they sat, noticing for the first time that it was no longer used.

After Xavier finally admitted what Anne had said, and after Catherine comforted him and revealed that she had, indeed, always suspected, the conversation drifted away because neither felt comfortable with it—Catherine because this inevitably led to Thomas. How much would she tell Xavier? Could she even admit knowing that Thomas had beaten him, let alone Thomas’s situation? She shuddered to think what that might do to Xavier’s new-found serenity.

“Xavier, do you think that we might invite our guest to a meager dinner? Not much, mind you, but we spice it up a little with some remedies I learned in New Orleans. Now, go fetch the meat.”

“Catherine,” Xavier said, “if you’d rather not eat here—” Xavier motioned to the dirt and stones around them, “you won’t offend us.”

“I’d love to join you.”

“See, always making airs about you. Now get the meat. We keep it a ways out, in the river, so as not to let it spoil. Occasionally some animal gets it, but we keep it in boxes to prevent that. I suppose that you’ve noticed no one else comes into these parts.”

“It sounds like you scared them away,” Catherine offered.

“I did.” Anne deliberately watched Xavier walk away and turned quickly to Catherine. “I imagine we don’t have a lot of time, but I’m glad you finally came. He’s been waiting for you, afraid you were angry. He’s ready, I think, to move back into the world. He told you the truth, I’ll testify to it. But you and I have one other thing dwelling.”

“I know. I was afraid to mention Thomas. I’ve seen him.”

“That’s fine. But you need to know
he
don’t know about him.” Anne pointed toward Xavier. “Through all this, he’s still the innocent one. Thomas doesn’t act any more human than that toad over there if you ask me, but Xavier hasn’t a notion about it. And I didn’t tell him. It just didn’t seem right. He’s still delicate. He came around, he did. He admits wanting to sleep with men. He did a lot of talking about it. But to tell him the man of his dreams walks around dead, well, you can imagine that conversation would’ve sent him right back to the wine.”

Catherine wondered at the world. Here she sat, under a dark bridge during a revolution, and yet she and a voodoo priestess talked of vampires, something the world either disbelieved or condemned as spawn of Satan.

“I think your brother’s on the mend, but it’s a delicate task we have ahead of ourselves.”

“I know. Thomas searched for Xavier, too. He’s still madly in love. I tell myself that it’s not for me to decide. But I know the secret and Xavier doesn’t, which somehow makes it impossible to dismiss so easily.”

“I agree, I agree. Matters of love aren’t to be trifled with by a third party.”

“You’re certain, though, that he understands his attraction to men?”

Anne howled with delight. “Since he sobered up, it’s all he talks about. He’d kill me for telling this, but one of the things that brought him out of the wine was that very topic. Here we were, over on the coast, near Belle Isle. Xavier was still drunk as could be, and he goes wandering around and ends up chatting with a bunch of sailors. Mind you, I’d no idea this was going on, but I finally went to retrieve him and he’s having a grand time. Well, it doesn’t take me long to realize that one of them likes our Xavier. So I let him go on, it being obvious that he wasn’t going to let anyone harm my abbé. This one was tall and well-built with curly blond hair. Before Xavier gets back with the meat, I’ll just tell you that they started something. Xavier even moved into a room with him for a bit, and slowly this one got Xavier to stop drinking.”

“He was in a relationship with someone?” Catherine stared, astonished.

“Yeah, I suppose you could call it that. Didn’t last more than a couple of weeks. And, poor sailor, he helped sober up the abbé but that made Xavier deal with how he felt about Thomas. So, he comes to me, we started talking, and he realizes that he doesn’t really love the sailor. He just likes the protection and being in the arms of another man. So he leaves the poor man, who was devastated, and we had to leave the isle, as well. And from that point on, Xavier either talks about his changed theology or Thomas.

“So, what am I to do? Like you, I think, oh my goodness, he’s in love with a corpse.” Anne burst into laughter. “A dead man, mind you, and yet I can’t say a word. I do figure, though, that I’d better do something. So I start steering the conversation to talking about souls and evil, getting Xavier to shun those Catholic ideas of condemning anyone, trying to get him just to accept things, or people, or situations. Did I succeed?” Anne shrugged. “I think he agrees, as I do, that evil is what a person does, not what makes him up. Man created artificial good and evil, but the real battle is more complex. But Xavier had most of these notions already. Now, mind you, this was never in the context of vampires.” She sighed.

“He agreed with you, then? Even in applying those thoughts to himself? Perhaps, if he overcame demanding such rigid ideals of himself, he can also allow for Thomas to be something that we otherwise can’t explain.”

“Yes, that’s it. I’m hoping that, too. He’s just got to focus on the loving.”

“Did he tell you everything about Thomas?” Catherine asked.

Anne nodded her head and grimaced a bit. “Yeah, he told me everything. I worried when he blamed himself at first, but he explained it well. He wants to talk to Thomas about that, too, and he’ll not allow it to happen again. Nor will I. I know how to handle that one.” Anne said the last sentences through clenched teeth.

“You won’t be alone if we have to do something. But I have been with Thomas all this time, looking for Xavier. I see a real change. He still gets angry, but not in the same way. It’s not as volatile. He hates himself for what he did to Xavier.”

“Good. Xavier deserves a kind, loving relationship.”

“I see that you took the opportunity of my leaving to gossip,” Xavier suddenly said, making both women jump.

“I’ve been telling her all your secrets,” Anne said. “Sorry, abbé. It’s just so nice to see you accepting yourself.”

The laughter halted abruptly when Anne held up her hand and looked around. Catherine saw nothing. Anne slowly turned her head and watched, like a tiger waiting for prey, until, ever so cautiously, she finally let her guard down.

“Must have been the wind,” she said unconvincingly and peered into the darkness as if something stared back.

8 June 1793

IT PAINED HIM deeply to go with Anthony when he knew that Denys had news about Xavier. His gut instinct and Denys’s demeanor hinted that it was positive, which sent him into euphoric dancing.