An Immortal in London: Corruption (8 page)

             
I ran my hand along my left arm and shrugged, “I guess.”

             
He took my hand and ran his thumb soothingly across the back of it. “I won’t let anyone else hurt you. I’ll fix this I promise.”

             
“I know,” I said quietly, returning that age old smile of painted on reassurance that meant little more than a poor man’s promise of gold.

“What you’re doing is really creepy,” I said, my eyes still closed as I l
ay in my bed facing away from the door.

             
Levi laughed as I turned around to sit up in his first guest bed.

             
I stretched up and his eyes moved around my naked body. I bowed my head hiding a smile as I walked across the room and shrugged on my dressing gown. “What’s up?”

             
He pushed his right hand through his hair and cleared his throat before he shook his head with a lost boy’s smile playing on his lips. “I wanted to make sure that the bogey man hadn’t taken you in the night.”

             
“Still here,” I said quietly as I walked over to him. I frowned and pulled at his shirt, “Yellow?”

             
He took my hand and intertwined his fingers through mine.

“Clarence,” he muttered. With a sigh he pulled me to my bed and sat beside me. “Are you ok?”

              I closed my eyes and bit my bottom lip, letting out a breath I raised my left shoulder and a lopsided smile fell onto my face, “I don’t really know.” I looked across to the window and pictured Gabriel’s broken face. “What’s wrong with Gabriel?”

             
Levi shrugged carelessly and looked down to me, “Where do I start?”

             
“No, I mean, what did
you
do to him that made him so…”

             
“Bitter?” When I didn’t make any noise about his comment he smiled down to me and gently pushed my chin up to look at him. “You,” he said quietly, “you are the reason why he hates me. Gabriel is no more to me than an obligation, and never was, I was led to him by whatever you wish to believe and that is why he shared my immortal blood. We detested each other from the start, I only put up with him because my better judgement told me that he would best serve me
alive
. It wasn’t until 1803 when I was in London that things started to become
clearer
. I had reluctantly followed Katelyn so that she could visit the old man, I never did see why she bothered with him. Anyway, whilst they were off doing whatever it was that they did I went for a walk around the city. A woman stumbled around a corner and instinctively I caught her how no mortal man ever could, luckily she didn’t question me, rather she was extremely grateful, it wasn’t until I saw her hands move to her stomach strangely protectively that I realised that her true relief wasn’t for herself, but for her baby.”

             
“My mother?” I asked with my voice barely above a whisper.

             
Levi put his hand onto my cheek and graced his fingers around my face, nodding slowly. “I had never felt such an impulse to follow anyone, I insisted that I walk her home, and she gladly took my arm and walked me to your father’s town house that was quite a walk away for a woman of her condition. She told me about the doctor’s warnings, but after Sophie’s birth she had placed her life and yours in the hands of
God
. I don’t suppose they ever told you that she almost passed when your sister was born?”

             
I shook my head slowly, unable to truly believe what I was hearing.

             
“I could see it in her eyes that she knew, yet all she cared about was you. She took me to her garden, she told me that it was her haven; she would come alone to sit amongst the flowers and she would sing to you. She had the most beautiful voice, the only trait of hers that you didn’t take.”

             
I elbowed him and he laughed, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.

             
“Whilst we were sat out there she told me that she hoped for another daughter, she wanted Sophie to have a friend, someone to explore the world with. She told me that if she was to have another daughter she was to call her…”

             
“Roseanna?” I asked breathlessly.

             
He met my eyes, clouded with tears, and pushed my hair from my face. “That’s why Gabriel detests me Rose.”

             
“You were always there?” I asked, my voice mumbled against his chest.

             
“Not always, but when I came back and you and your family where gone I heard rumours.”

             
I tensed in his arms and he kissed my hair lightly before he said, “But I don’t like to speculate.”

             
I relaxed. The secret of our departure from London was a secret for a reason. No one was ever to know. I had a new life, an immortal, eternal life, and I wouldn’t let my past, that
accident
, follow me here.

             
“After your mother’s death I swore an oath to protect you. Gabriel knew of you, but it wasn’t until his mess with Francis that he began to piece together the puzzle. It was after his first meeting with you, that day in the woods,” he laughed and pulled me closer, “it was then that he became the bitter old man that you see today.”

             
“He thinks that he was just a prop or a tool or something?” I asked.

             
“I suppose you could say that. I took his mortal life from him and after a lifetime of hating me, along came you. He thought that by taking you with him he was somehow getting one over on me, but he never did really have you, did he?” he asked, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure himself.

             
I looked up to him and pulled away from his steadily rising and falling chest. “You and Katelyn… the day that we met for the first time, you knew that I would follow you. That’s what you told her isn’t it?” The memory shimmered in the back of my mind, playing softly like an old VCR. Levi’s mischievous smile…. Katelyn taking my hand in hers…
magnificent
… Levi whispering to Katelyn and the look that they shared… Levi’s smile as I came to him…

             
“She knew,” he said softly, “she knew everything. She had a way of making me talk, making me
want
to talk.”

             
“Why have you never told me this before?”

             
“You never asked,” he said simply.             

             
“I should go to him. Make sure that he’s ok.”

             
“Give him time. His feelings can wait until we have the world’s balance back in the right hands.”

             
He kissed my forehead quickly and left my room. I sat where I was for a while thinking, just thinking. No one had ever spoken about my mother apart from Sophie who couldn’t really remember her anyway. Hearing that she loved me, something so obvious, made me feel for the first time in my life a connection the woman who I never had a chance to meet.

             
I decided not to visit Gabriel just yet. As Levi said, with time he would calm down and would be more susceptible to forgiving me I hoped. However as the day encroached upon me Gabriel was the last person on my mind to my dismay. It was Victor’s shadow that followed me around Levi’s house, and each time I closed my eyes I felt the bitter warmth of his embrace.

I tried to find Jesse to take my mind off of my
detestable shadow but he was nowhere to be found. I had left him four voicemails before I went to his hotel to discover that he had checked out the night before.

I didn’t see Levi until later that day. He told me rather sharply that Roberta, his prophet, wanted to see me.
From our earlier conversation the softness and love that he showed to me had gone. It was instead a marble statue of a man that accompanied me across the city.

The stars were out and the sky was blacker than coal. As we stood in front of the warehouse I could feel the darkness and taste the death.

“Do you not feel that?” I asked Levi, noticing how cool he looked, so calm and normal as if it was an every day trip to an old friend’s home.

He shook his head and looked up at the warehouse, “Her darkness no longer affects me.”

As my mind began to wander Levi rested his hand onto my shoulder and we walked into the building. The walls had been covered with sketches of dark eyes. My eyes played games with my mind and the images followed me. Menacing smiles promised blood and crooked brows swore vows of death. Our footsteps echoed throughout the building and the broken glass beneath our feet crunched announcing our presence to whoever was listening. I brushed a cobweb from my hair as we passed under a collapsed beam.

             
Her laugh was intoxicating and the eyes around us seemed to smile with her, “Victoria Roseanna, a face as beautiful as the name. Our beloved Levi does not lie.”

I could hear movement within the darkness before a long bare pale leg emerged in the light, followed by the rest of her stunning body.  She wore a black cloth around her middle and smudged charcoal around her eyes. Her shocking red hair framed her
perfect face. The darkness oozed from her and shadows were formed from her every breath.

“Good evening,” she said, her darkness moved to Levi and wound around his arms and legs, feeling and tasting. She looked to me and smiled, “You have many questions Roseanna.”

I pushed my hands into my pockets and looked up into her eyes, “Do you have the answers?”

“Some.”

“Why did you call for me?” I asked, my hands aching to feel her heart.

Levi took my hand in his and a cool calm flush of light rushed through my body.

Roberta laughed, “Victoria, it is a precious name, do you not agree Levi?”

He smiled and bowed his head.

She raised her brows and as her eyes delved deeper into mine I could feel her shade running through my body, revealing my every desire and secret. She took a sharp breath and when she span around her shadows followed her and called me to follow them.

Levi, with his hand in mine, followed me and watched with me as Roberta began to scribble over a piece of paper in a dark shadow filled corner. She looked up at the ceiling blankly for a second before smiling to herself and scrawling over the paper one last time. She folded the paper in half and walked to me. Her chest was almost close enough to touch mine and my heart was racing. She pushed the paper into my jean pocket and simultaneously handed Levi another
piece of paper. Levi looked at the image and handed it to me; all the while the picture in my pocket threatened to burn through my jeans.

The paper that Levi handed to me was horrifying. I instantly knew what it depicted. Levi seemed to understand too as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I looked into Francis’s charcoal eyes and tried to see past the death that surrounded her, but I couldn’t.

“This could mean anything Rose,” Levi said.

I saw the chains that held her sickly thin body and pushed the paper back to Roberta. “What does this mean?”

“I only see what you do. Your friend looks to be in great trouble.” The way in which her eyes rested on mine told me that I was the only one who could offer her any chance of salvation from whatever she had gotten into. She closed her eyes and turned away from us. Levi’s hand moved to my lower back and he began to walk to the door.

“Can you help us?” I asked quickly and quietly.

Levi paused and looked patiently up to Roberta.

She walked back to me and plucked my necklace up off of my chest and twirled it between her long pale fingers.

“I will help
you
, but no others.”

“Thank you,” I said in a breath, she dropped the pendant and I stepped backwards.

“Victoria,” her eyes flicked to my pocket before she dismissed me, Levi turned to leave too but she called out to him, “Levi, I would like for you to stay for a while.”

I left the warehouse and stood beneath the orange flickering light of a street lamp. I scanned the street before I took out the paper which she had slipped into my pocket. I was at the centre of the image and my back was turned, but the two men either side of me were facing forwards, their eyes peering off of the page and deep into mine. Levi one side, Victor was on the other.

There was a scribbled message on the lower right hand corner, ‘
He’s waiting’
. I looked around and suddenly felt it. I began to run before I realised that I had moved from my spotlight of shimmering orange.

“It’s funny how I still find myself alive,” Victor said, as he looked down at my trembling hands. I had run across the entire city to find myself with my hand knocking against a large black door with a grand chrome knocker, and there I stood in his equally grand hallway.

I held my hands behind my back and met his cool dark eyes with my own shadowing pair, “I didn’t think that you would
find me.”

“But you hoped that I would.”

I rolled my eyes and looked upon his features, his arrogant yet fragile stance, his thin white shirt so lazily protecting the fair flesh beneath and the steady beating heart beneath that. His frame was so similar to Levi’s; both were warriors, the gladiators of their times.