The Vampire's Angel (47 page)

“I haven’t changed what I believe. But I know that I can do that and take care of myself at the same time. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I suppose this means that you intend to disappear with that heathen Thomas.”

This hostility from Maria, his friend, shocked Xavier. Maria and he had never obeyed every edict of the Catholic Church or even believed its theology. So why this anger? Unable to keep his frustration inside, Xavier yanked her into a nearby parlor and slammed the door.

“How dare you? How dare you question my commitment to helping people?”

“I’m not the one who ran away.”

“Who are you to judge? Did they make you bishop of Paris recently?”

“We made promises to each other, and to everyone. We made vows. There are rules to follow and standards. You can’t just throw them out the window on a whim.”

“For the love of God, Maria, listen to yourself and then look at your own life. You run around with a pack of nuns as lovers. How is that different? You act like a dog that thinks no one knows what it’s done unless they witness the act. You even pretend that Catherine doesn’t know. And don’t preach to me about it being different because you keep it in the church.”

Maria turned bright red, but whether out of anger or embarrassment he didn’t know. “And don’t tell me about my responsibility to that dying church. Why do you cling to something that so many people question? As the Catholic Church collapses in its blind hierarchy, why do you still hide behind it?”

“You’re such an elitist,” she snapped. “Of course you can’t understand, with all of your wealth and manhood to protect you. I don’t have the resources to just take up whatever fancies me at a particular moment. And did you forget that we’re single women? What, pray tell, did you think our options were if we left the nunnery? Marriage to a man? Spinsterhood? Think about it. This was the only option that offered some independence. We did it because it was safe.”

“Why does that condemn me for leaving?” Xavier asked, baffled.

“Because—oh, forget it and go lead your selfish life and leave me alone.”

The two fell silent.

“Maria,” Xavier said quietly and walked toward her.

“No. You can’t choose to have everything exactly as you want it,” she said and left the room.

29 July 1793

FINALLY THIS MORNING the screaming mobs stopped startling Xavier. He sat in complete darkness on the porch, watching the occasional passerby and wondering when this latest rioting would stop. He had tried to search for Thomas last night but the uprisings made it too dangerous, so he waited on the porch, hoping Thomas might chance by. But another name plagued Xavier’s mind.

Maximillan Robespierre. The very name sent shudders through him. Two days ago the man took control of the Committee on Public Safety and transformed it into a private police force that seemed intent on initiating a reign of terror. How he had seized such power baffled Xavier, but since his rise he had further attacked the church, and any peasant or citizen who dared question him found themselves on the guillotine. Robespierre first went quietly about his business until Parisians had had enough and, in the fashion of the day, rioted in protest, which engulfed Paris in total chaos.

Xavier usually disliked sitting on the porch without candlelight. He had feared the dark since childhood. But tonight it offered relief. He had the perfect vantage point for observing people without detection. He sat in shadows when a small group of about ten people approached the door. The guards blocked their way because Catherine and Jérémie had ordered tighter security until the rioting subsided, but they patiently explained their purpose.

“Please sir,” an elderly woman begged, “we must see our abbé.”

Xavier could not resist the soft pleading of this woman who had supported him earnestly in his old parish. He walked to the ledge and looked down.

“Good evening.” Each of their faces lit up at his voice.

“Abbé, we’ve a request of you,” the elderly woman began.

“What is it?” Xavier asked.

This time, a well-respected carpenter in his late fifties responded.

“Abbé, they burned our church to the ground. All the priests refuse to come to our neighborhood. But, abbé, can you do one thing for us?”

Xavier marveled that word of his decision spread so quickly, and though he had left the church, he still desperately loved these people and would honor whatever request they had.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We just—well, we need someone to ring the bells.”

The group fell silent and cast their eyes to the ground, as if they knew they implored him to do something he disdained. The peasants had long believed that ringing church bells warded off evil spirits. When Xavier had first arrived in his parish, they instructed that all previous priests rang the bells once a week and expected him to do the same, but he shunned the practice and had refused from the first. Though some feared he was wrong, they had acquiesced and that was the last he heard of it until tonight.

“You know how I feel about this.”

“Abbé, how can you call it superstition? Look what’s occurred since we stopped.”

“God doesn’t work that way.”

The elderly woman started weeping.

“I’ll do it, but where?”

As they all smiled with delight, the elderly woman recited the rosary and cried out with joy. Xavier hurried to join them after grabbing his cloak and repeated his question.

“A chapel near the edge of town is abandoned. Come,” the carpenter said.

Xavier followed as the throng moved into the street and hurried along, a couple of times changing directions to avoid angry mobs that blockaded the streets, and wound their way through Paris at a brisk pace. They arrived together at a small, abandoned church unknown to Xavier at the edge of Paris, away from residences and near a row of workshops. The darkened, broken windows gave it a foreboding feel, but they pushed forward and soon stood inside the sanctuary.

Its inside mirrored the outside: black, dirty, and desolate. Xavier protested but their earnest faces urged him on, so he slowly started up the bell tower alone, hearing each step creak, his own breathing sounding louder than usual. His flock stayed behind, but he heard them reciting the rosary. Xavier would ring these bells but a few times and run back home. This was hardly a night to assert the Catholic Church’s authority.

Near the top, Xavier almost toppled backward when cobwebs hit his face. He rushed into action and grappled for the rope, barely able to see because just a glint of moonlight came from small openings only big enough to release the bell sounds.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

The chiming gongs suddenly filled the quiet night. Xavier rang them for but a minute and then descended the stairs, frightened out of his mind. He neared the bottom but heard a commotion and stopped when he heard cries of pain and the pounding of fists. Xavier ran back up the narrow passage, but not before seeing five or six men beating even the poor old woman.

“There he is!” Two men came after Xavier. “You a priest? Are you an agent of Rome? You’re in violation of the laws of Robespierre.”

Xavier was trapped. They blocked his only exit. He thought of jumping, but the windows were too small and his pursuers too close behind, so he turned around to plead for his life when the first burly man reached the top. Looking at the dark eyes and menacing face, Xavier changed his mind and tried to run around the large bell toward the stairs, but the two men had each gone a different direction and had him surrounded. Instead of fighting, Xavier prayed and shook uncontrollably, certain that death had found him at last.

Then, without warning, something inhuman crashed through the ceiling, an impossible yet miraculous answer to Xavier’s prayer—divine intervention. Just before one of the thugs was able to hit Xavier over the head with a board, the roof caved in and some force threw the man across the room. As he thudded against the wall, the savior, a man, snapped the neck of the other man. Before the first regained his senses, this force smashed his skull on the bell, causing Xavier to wince as his brains splattered about. This took just seconds, but Xavier heard other men charging up the stairs.

Before Xavier had time to worry, his savior grabbed him by the waist, leaped onto the roof, then onto the roof of the nearest building. They sped through Paris in an instant, away from the danger and farther and farther from humanity.

Though it took a while, Xavier slowly figured out what had happened. He had buried his head in the chest of this man and clung tightly, too afraid to look, relieved at being saved and terrified at the stranger’s strength and quickness. Xavier fought to rationalize but this was extraordinary, not humanly possible. How could someone crash through a roof four stories high? How could one man fend off those muscular attackers?

Frightened but curious, after they had arrived at some unknown building and entered a room unfamiliar to Xavier, the man gently laid him on a bed. Xavier glanced up. When he saw the man sitting near the bottom of the bed, Xavier nearly burst into tears.

He had wondered before about Thomas’s nature, the first time when Thomas fended off the would-be robber in the garden. Why else had his love only come at night? Why else the mystery about his life? And there was the night that he had assaulted Xavier. The emotional pain had blinded Xavier from the reality of broken bones in his face. With the mere slap of his hand, with no more effort than it took to swat a mouse across the room, Thomas had inflicted that damage. Xavier had blocked all this from his mind, ridiculous to think that the supernatural existed. But tonight proved otherwise.

Xavier had so desperately wanted to find Thomas, and here was the man of his dreams— protecting and nurturing him as he desired. Yet he drew his knees to his chin and hugged them for protection and stared at Thomas with exhilaration and fear.

“Xavier, I never meant for you to find out like this. I was waiting for you, but they—”

Tears rolled down Xavier’s face as he searched for a reaction.

29 July 1793 11:58 p.m.

THOMAS WANTED TO smother Xavier in a hug and protect him from the world, dreading what might have happened had he not been late this evening. He usually rose and went immediately to see Xavier, but an urgent financial matter demanded his attention, and a messenger waited to take this packet to a departing ship. So Thomas left late and arrived just as Xavier led a small contingent away, otherwise Thomas might have visited and already been gone for the night. Instead, he followed.

Though concerned, he never imagined such brutality from a small band of idiots, shouting that they represented Robespierre and attacking everyone simply for believing that the Catholic Church bells protected them. Thomas had to act when they came after Xavier, so he sprang into action without considering the consequences.

Running through Paris as Xavier desperately clung to him was exhilarating. To touch him, to smell his soft hair, it was everything that Thomas wanted. He feared only the aftermath when they were safely in his rooms, knowing this had revealed his vampirism. Unnerved by the silence, Thomas spoke first.

“Xavier, I never meant for you to find out like this. I was waiting for you but they attacked. I had to get you out of there. I won’t harm you.” Thomas hoped that Xavier could believe him, though he would understand if Xavier shied away with that the reminder. Xavier’s crying pained Thomas. Was he miserable, happy, or just confused? “I wanted to tell you since we met, but I was always afraid that you’d hate me. I’m lost.”

Xavier chuckled, though he still clutched his knees. “You never did know how to handle delicate moments.”

“I hate thinking that I hurt you.”

Xavier wiped away his tears while Thomas waited, then he released his legs, sat up, and moved closer to Thomas, looking at him intently with a hint of their former love and perhaps fear. “What are you?”

“Will you believe? It sounds fanciful.”

“I’d believe anything at this point. You couldn’t have saved me otherwise.”

“Despite everything that the Enlightenment revealed, despite the Catholic Church’s teachings, there are unexplained things in this world that people won’t accept as either possibilities or natural. I don’t have all of the answers. I know very little. But I can never die. Fire and the sun alone can doom me, but otherwise I’ll walk the earth forever.”

“A vampire?” Xavier’s eyes widened. “But that’s impossible.”

“You have to believe me. There’s nothing evil about it. I’m not an agent of the devil. I’m still the man you fell in love with.”

Xavier moved back and leaned against the wall, drawing his feet up again and hugging himself. “I love you. I don’t suppose that this is the time to say it, and I don’t even know what it means any more. But after I left with Anne, I knew that I’d never be able to return to the church because I’d fallen madly in love. I came back to Paris for you because I wanted to hide in your arms for real this time. I wanted your protection and to shower you with the love I’d always been afraid to reveal.”

Now Thomas wept. He had waited for too long to hear these words.

“If I’d been honest with you from the beginning, if I could have been, I’d have told you so differently. The irony was that the more I got to know you, and the deeper that my love became, the more that I tried to hide my nature, the more I dreaded your finding out. You were so wedded to the church.” Thomas waited for Xavier to respond as his love rocked back and forth, his eyes glistening with tears.

“I know I was wrong to keep it from you,” Thomas said. “I’m ashamed of a lot that I did, especially when I—”

“No, Thomas, don’t mention it. Eventually we’ll have to discuss it, but not yet. Not now. We don’t need to revisit the issue.”

“I punish myself every day for what I did.”