A Chance for Charity (The Immortal Ones) (12 page)

I took out my phone and
sent a text to both of them. “
Semi-bad
news. Need 2 talk. Come home NOW pls.
” Then
I seized the photo album and we walked out his apartment door. As
Link drove me home, not another word was spoken. But my mind was
racing.

Link and I sat in the kitchen, waiting for
Catherine and James. My fingers were rhythmically drumming on the
granite countertop, my foot bobbing up and down, my nerves getting
the best of me. Link reached over and placed his calm hand on top
of my fidgeting one.

“
Relax, what is the worst
that can happen?” he said. “They can’t kill you,
apparently.”

“
They could cut my head
off. They could burn my body,” was my monotone response.

“
Really, would that do it?”
His eyes widened.

“
Yep, Catherine told me
that’s how it was done during the witch hunts in Scotland,” I
answered, my eyes solemn.

“
Did she see it? Was it
someone she knew?”

“
Catherine knew about it by
legend. Then later, James and Catherine witnessed it together, here
in America. It was a stranger,” I answered.

“
Well they aren’t going to
do that to you, why would you say that,” he looked disappointed in
me.

“
They won’t, but someone
else might. If you found me then someone else could too,” I
worried.

“
I had a family photograph
of you. Grandpa had shown your picture to me since I was a kid. I
think I was meant to find you,” he said as he wrapped his arms
around me.

I still couldn’t get over his ease with this
situation. Most children are taught not to believe in the
unnatural. There are no boogey-men in the closet, no ghosts in the
attic, no witches flying on Halloween, and nobody can live forever.
I’m sure he was raised this way too. Yet here he was, in my
kitchen, holding onto me – a woman suspended in time... whose body
could heal itself, who would never grow old, and may never die.

“
Catherine’s here,” I
stated as my ears registered the sound of her car pulling into the
drive.

“
How do you know,” he
asked.

“
I hear her car
outside.”

“
How?”

“
Another mystery,” I
shrugged.

“
What is the ‘semi-bad
news’?” Catherine called out as she walked through the side door.
She entered the kitchen and then came to a halt, “Hello, Link. I
wasn’t expecting to see you here. What is going on?” She asked as
she surveyed our expressions.

Unable to speak, I slid the open photo album
across the counter to her.

“
Where did this come from?”
she asked, her voice calm and steady. Catherine, as always, was a
pillar of strength.

“
Link showed it to me
today,” I whispered.

“
And how did Link come by
these photographs?” She was being vague, not wanting to admit that
the young woman in the pictures was clearly me.

“
That little boy,” I
pointed at the photo, “is Roger’s little brother. That’s Lincoln’s
grandfather,” I answered. “Link remembered the photograph when he
saw me dressed this way,” I said looking down at my
outfit.

“
James is here,” Catherine
breathed. “Let’s continue this when he gets inside.”

“
That super hearing thing
is kinda creepy,” Link said.

Catherine froze, realizing she’d let her
guard down.

“
I told him, he knows,” I
admitted.

“
What is the ‘semi-bad
news’?” James echoed Catherine’s greeting as he walked into the
kitchen. “And why is Link’s vehicle in the drive?” he’d obviously
caught what Catherine had missed.

I pointed to the photo album. “Link knows,
he figured out who I was - am. Roger’s little brother was Link’s
grandpa,” I repeated the semi-bad news again. It got less semi-bad
the more I said it out loud. Now it was becoming just a simple
fact.

James stared at the photograph for a few
seconds. It seemed like an eternity as I waited for his
reaction.

“
Well kid, it looks like
you didn’t destroy all evidence of your past when you torched that
scrapbook after Roger died. I’m glad you have something to remember
him by now.” His smile was comforting and he reached out to stroke
my cheek. James shifted his gaze to Link. His eyes narrowed and his
expression hardened, “Can you be trusted?” he asked.

“
Absolutely, I wouldn’t
tell a soul. I knew there had to be a reason all this was happening
to me, why I chose to come to Telluride and why I just couldn’t
stay away from Emily, I mean Charity, from the moment I spotted
her,” he smiled at me and pulled me tighter into his embrace. “Now
I know why I was so drawn to her. I want nothing but her safety.
But I don’t understand the alarm,” he told James, his expression
puzzled.

“
The alarm, as you put it,
comes from our fear of discovery. There are those who want to kill
us because they believe our kind to be an abomination, something
evil. There are others who would love to capture us and make us
their little science experiments. I cannot have either of those
groups of people knowing our whereabouts. I’ve worked very hard to
cover our tracks and make us disappear each time we relocate and
start over,” James explained.

“
When you say ‘those’ do
you actually know who ‘they’ are?” Link asked.

“
The Lords, an aptly named,
family of religious zealots who kill in the name of God, have been
on the hunt for Immortals since before the Civil War. They have
passed down tales of our kind through each generation. Another
threat comes in the form of Adrien Beauvais. He is a European
billionaire, obsessed with immortality. A decade ago he placed an
underground bounty out for anything that will make him live longer,
or perhaps forever. Those are just two of the ones that I am aware
of at the present time. There is no doubt in my mind that there are
many others out there. So, there
are
seekers, and we do not wish to be
found,” James finished and waited for Link’s reaction.

“
You have my word, that I
will keep your secret safe. I will do everything in my power to
protect it, and your family.” Link immediately gave his fervent
promise to James. “Is there an immediate threat?”

“
We relocated to Telluride
because the Lord brothers began snooping around the last hospital
where James was working. They were posing as corporate risk
assessors and began making inquiries. They questioned every
department head in the hospital about unconventional methods of
practice, doctors with unusual traits, and unexplained healings. We
were not aware of their presence until one of the nurses felt
harassed and complained to James,” Catherine spoke quietly, not
completely at ease revealing this kind of information to an
outsider.

“
The Lord boys departed
with few answers, but we knew it was time to move on. To not arouse
suspicions, we waited almost three months before relocating. I
secured the proper documentation for our new identities and we made
a clean, quiet exit,” James continued on, “Telluride is the first
small town that we have resided in since Charity joined our family.
My hope is that the residents here will feel some loyalty to us, as
members of their community, and promptly inform us if anyone starts
snooping again.”

“
Were these Lord brothers
aware of your departure from the hospital?” Link asked James,
wanting to fully understand any possible threat.

“
I’m not completely sure. I
left when a group of interns were moving on. It was my intent to
get lost in their shuffle. We can only hope that the Lords didn’t
unearth any new leads.”

“
Link,” Catherine drew his
attention away from James, “if I may be so bold, what are your
feelings toward Charity?”

“
Catherine,” I protested
loudly, my cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment.

“
It’s a valid question,”
she responded, with genuine curiosity.

“
You don’t have to answer
that, Link,” I turned to him.

“
No, it’s okay, I want to.
To be honest, I have been struggling with my need to be near her
and the conventions that say we should not be together. A high
school girl and a twenty-two year old man - not always completely
acceptable. However, I’d like to ask your permission to
court
her, as you will. I
believe that would be the proper course of action, traditionally
speaking.” He turned to both James and Catherine seeking a sign of
their approval.

“
I am going to assume your
words are sincere. We have no reason, yet, to believe they are not.
Just remember, we know how to disappear. We are quite good at it.
If I feel that you’ve become a hazard to our family, in any way,
you may wake up one day to find that we are gone,” James warned
Link. “That being said, I trust Charity’s judgment. And, the events
that preceded your introduction to each other are too astounding to
be ignored. I firmly believe that there is a reason for
everything.”

“
You have our permission,
as long as Charity is in agreement. You seem to illuminate her.”
Catherine held my eyes with her own as she spoke.

“
Thank you both for coming
home so quickly and being a voice of reason and sanity. I needed to
know I hadn’t disappointed you. Right now I want to catch my
breath, to process all that has happened here. Most of all, I need
a moment alone with Link. We’ll be upstairs for a little while, if
that is alright,” I smiled a weary smile at Catherine.

“
You have done nothing
wrong. Everything will be alright,” she tried to reassure
me.

I hugged them both, took Link’s hand in my
own, and led him up the stairs and into my room. Once the door was
closed behind us, I turned to him. I still wasn’t quite sure what
all this meant for us. I opened my mouth to ask a million questions
that were dancing around in my head, but found myself unable to
utter the first one. My voice held no power, my lips could form no
words.

Link pulled me into his arms, hugging me
tightly. I wilted in his embrace, exhausted from the day. I buried
my face in the hollow of his neck, holding onto him securely, not
wanting to let go. He kissed the top of my head, then loosened his
embrace to pull my chin up so he could look into my eyes. His gaze
was steady, searching my eyes for acceptance, permission, I wasn’t
sure. I stood up on the tips of my toes to raise my lips as he
lowered his. The kiss was tender, his lips brushed lightly against
mine.

I leaned away from the embrace, “This is no
good,” I whispered in despair.

“
It feels good to me,” he
smiled and bent his head to mine again. This time to leave a trail
of kisses from my chin to my ear.

“
That’s not what I meant.
This situation, your mortality, my immortality, we shouldn’t be
doing this.” I shook my head.

Link shook his head, in disagreement. A
mixture of disappointment and determination appeared on his face as
he replied, “No you are wrong. We should be doing this. We were
meant to find each other, and now that we have, I have no
intentions of letting you go.”

“
How can we be together,
when physically I will never change? What will people say?” I
worried.

“
They’ll say ‘Look at that
old coot with his gorgeous arm candy. How’d he get to be so lucky?’
But maybe that’s not really your only concern,” he
stated.

“
You’ll leave me one day.
You won’t have a choice. Time will take you away. I don’t know if I
could handle that again,” I admitted.

“
The advances in medicine
will only continue to improve. It’s more than conceivable that I am
going to live well into my ninety’s. That gives us upwards of
seventy years to be together. Can you handle that?”

I processed the information. Seventy years
was a long time. I could hold onto him for seventy years. He would
grow old, but he could be mine for seventy years. I was pretty sure
that I could handle that.

I pulled his head down to mine again and
pressed my lips to his. Seventy years, I thought, and deepened my
kiss.

“
Yes,” I breathed against
his mouth, “I can handle that.”

He smiled that brilliant smile, the one that
made my heart melt and sent a tingle down to my toes, and kissed me
again.

chapter eight

PRESENTS AND PRESENCE

It was very early, still dark outside when I
was roused, confused by the heaviness across my chest. I reached up
to find an arm, his arm, draped over me. A smile spread across my
face and I slowly turned on my side, careful not to wake him. While
he still slept I studied his face, memorizing all its details and
characteristics. The shape of the mouth, which had mystified me
before, was so clearly a mimic of Roger’s. The structure of Link’s
jaw line was also quite the same. This boy was a link to my
past.

I leaned forward to place a chaste kiss on
his perfect lips. He stirred and pulled me closer to him.

“
Don’t leave,” he whispered
in his sleep.

“
I’m not leaving you,” I
whispered back.

His eyes were a trait from his father, I
thought, recalling the photo I’d seen yesterday. The blonde hair
was the same shade as his mother’s had been. The nose and the
hairline were clearly from his grandpa. I loved this face, I had
from the moment I’d spied it at the Halloween dance. All those
people were gone now, but Link was here. It was a miracle that we
had found each other, a present that I would cherish.