Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection) (20 page)

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ I wailed. ‘Andrew didn’t die when he should have, and you can’t change that.’

The expression on his face was grim. ‘Oh
, yes I can,’ he replied.

I followed him, cutting through the trees until we reached the lane beyond Mr Rees’s house. Metal glinted dully and I was surprised to find a motor bike hidden under the overhanging hedge.

Roman kicked the stand and wheeled it onto the road. It was a Honda, all black and gleaming silver, and to my inexperienced eye, a goodly part of its engine appeared to be exposed. Exhausts curved from the front, slanting down and across each wheel, like double metal tusks. It reminded me of a hornet, angry and dangerous.

He swung a long leg over the saddle, keeping one foot strategically on the ground.

‘Get on.’

I eyed it with caution. I didn’t like bikes, for all my love of machinery. If a person wasn’t careful
, they could run a real risk of becoming road kill. Ianto had owned one, until he came off, and my mother put her foot down and made him sell it. He’d bought a VW Golf, instead, and mum would have had kittens if she’d seen the way he drove it. Still, she was happier Ianto had a metal cage to protect him, and keeping her happy meant she was off his back. I could see his point.

‘Get on.’ He was becoming impatient.

I thought about asking him for a helmet, but didn’t bother. He certainly wasn’t going to use one – he had no need to – and I would bet my last penny that he thought he didn’t need one. He was most certainly right, but I would have felt safer if I had a hard hat between me and the road.

I got on, cuddling snugly against his broad back
, and circled my arms around him, gripping tightly. It felt good. Maybe there was something to be said about riding tandem…

I shrieked as the bike took off in a spray of loose stones, the G force nearly propelling me off the back of the growling monster.

‘Slow down!’ I shouted in his ear.

‘What?’

‘Slow down!’

‘Can’t hear you.’

I held on and closed my eyes, knowing he could hear me perfectly, but was choosing to ignore me, the bastard. I kept them shut until the bike slid to a halt, before I climbed off gingerly, with old-lady care. My legs shook a little and I hoped the incredible noise the hornet had made hadn’t damaged my eardrums. I vowed never to get back on it.

Roman sniggered at me. ‘You fly planes, yet you’re scared of a little bike?’

I stuck my tongue out and he laughed harder.

‘I hate you,’ I said.

He caught me up in his arms. ‘No you don’t.’ He was very sure of himself. I suppose he had reason to be.

He lowered his head and kissed me deeply. I responded
, as I always did, because I couldn’t help it, but I still hadn’t forgiven him for interfering. We had some talking to do.

I broke away and lifted my chin defiantly, making sure he knew we had unfinished business, and he sighed, letting me go reluctantly.

‘I’ll show you around,’ he said, retrieving a bunch of keys from his jeans pocket, and I followed him as he strode towards a pair of glass doors. I stared at his bottom as he walked. It was a very nice bottom, especially encased in denim. A black t-shirt hung off his shoulders. I squinted, trying to make out the logo in the orange street lights. Was that really
Deep Purple
? My lover was becoming a vampire cliché – dressed in black (apart from the faded jeans), riding a bitch of a bike, and liking rock bands. Next, he’d be wearing leather, and sunglasses indoors. I couldn’t help the giggle.

He glared at me as he jiggled the key in the lock. For some reason, the sight of a vampire struggling with a set of keys was hilarious and I had to stuff my hand in my mouth not to laugh out loud. He glared again. Wow – fierce. My eyes were starting to water and I was glad it was dark because I was sure my face was turning purple. Purple! Deep purple? Then I really couldn’t hold back any longer and I doubled over for the second time that night, this time with laughter.

He didn’t get the joke. I wasn’t sure whether vampires lost most of their sense of humour when they were resurrected or whether Roman never had much of a one to start with, and his deadpan expression set me off again.

‘Finished?’ he asked, holding the door open for me. I swiped away tears with the back of a hand and edged around him. He looked mean enough to bite. At least my little episode had driven the amorous thoughts from his mind.

He locked the door behind us and stalked off, past a reception area (was that really orange pattered carpet tiles on the floor?) and headed down a corridor. Gradually, the décor changed from office to laboratory as ceramic tiles replaced carpet and the doors changed from pine coloured to white.

‘Do you want to look around?’

I nodded.

‘You’ll have to suit up.’

He led me into a locker room and handed me a pair of white trousers, a white jacket, and a puffy hat. I must have looked really silly in mine, but he looked utterly ridiculous, especially with his pale face. He ignored me.

‘Beyond this room is where the research into human blood takes place.’

Yet another key in yet another door. I guessed they hadn’t invented number pads yet, or swipe cards, which would explain the huge bunch of jangling keys.

I was fascinated as he explained the process of analysing blood samples, and separating the fluid into its component parts. His company also worked on DNA and inherited diseases, though the emphasis was on disorders of the blood. At least, that was the public profile of the company; privately
, a handful of scientists were more concerned with the relationship between human blood and vampire blood.

Roman ushered me down into the basement, and I was surprised to see three people, all ‘suited up’ working underneath a canopy of fluorescent lights.  They turned as one and I immediately knew them for what they were. They knew I knew.

I smiled a sorry little smile.

‘It’s
alright,’ Roman said, but I wasn’t totally reassured until he added, ‘they know about you and they won’t hurt you.’ Then his teeth gleamed white and sharp. ‘I wouldn’t let them.’

All three smiled back, but one of them made me look twice. The other two wore polite smiles, with no depth to them: they weren’t interested in me, either as food (they had that glossy, recently-fed look about then), or as a human in general (if I’d worked out anything about vampires, it was
that they considered most humans to be beneath their level when it came to interaction and conversation, unless blood or sex was involved). But the third sparked my interest. He actually looked at me, not through me, or in my general direction. His smile was warm and inviting and it reached his eyes. I wondered if Roman had noticed.

‘Who is the one on the left?’ I asked.

‘Why?’ Instant suspicion from Roman.

‘I only wondered because he seemed friendlier than the other two. Sheesh, don’t bite my head off!’

Roman sharpened his gaze, but the other man had his head bent over a desk, fiddling with a microscope. For a second or two, I thought my lover was going to confront the other vampire, but he finally turned away, his eyes thoughtful.

‘Michael,’ he said.

I waited for a bit more information but it was clear none was forthcoming.

‘Right. My office.’

He gestured me to go ahead of him and I scuttled out, slightly unnerved by the experience, glad to escape into Roman’s well-appointed space. There was the usual assortment of officey things, desk, chairs, phones, conference area and so on, but beyond those I could see a bedroom. Looks like this was one of the places Roman went to ground, so to speak. It was certainly light-tight and secure.

I sat on a small couch.

‘I can’t offer you a drink, sorry. I don’t keep anything for humans down here. In fact, you are the first non-vampire to set foot in the basement since the refurbishment work was completed, and I am fairly certain my human staff are not even aware of its existence.’

I raised my eyebrows
, but said nothing. We had other things that needed to be discussed.

‘Could I take your blood?’

‘What?’

‘Your blood. Could I take some?’

‘You should have fed before we got here,’ I replied, pursing my lips and folding my arms.

He rolled his eyes. ‘I mean with a needle, and not for me to drink.’

‘Oh. Why?’

‘I want to get it analysed.’

‘But Leticia already took some.’ I hated giving blood unless it was combined with a more pleasurable activity, and now was not the time or place.

‘That was in the future.
Is
in the future.’ He frowned: he was as confused as I about this time business.

I thought about it, then rolled up my sleeve.

He was very gentle and didn’t lick his lips once.

‘I’ll just take this up to the lab.’ He held up two vials.

‘Are you going to analyse it now?’

‘Yes and no. I am going to have one analysed in the conventional way, so I’ll leave it for the lab technicians to start testing in the morning. The other, I will see to myself.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes, now. Is that a problem?’

‘Yes and no,’ I replied. Two could play at that game.

He cocked his head to one side and waited me out.

I gave in; I don’t know why I even tried to out-Roman him. ‘Yes, because I don’t know how long I will be here and we need to talk, and no, because I know how hard you are trying to find the difference between an enthrallable human and one that isn’t. You won’t find anything in my blood to explain the time travel, though. If there was something there, I’m sure it would have been noticed by now, what with all the tests I’ve had.’ I grimaced. ‘If they were only checking my reflexes, they’d want blood to back it up. I must have had twenty pints taken out of me over the past eighteen months.’

‘Then I will be sure not to waste this,’ he replied. I ignored the slight mocking tone as he continued to say, ‘you could use the time I am gone to figure out a solution to the Andrew problem.’

Why should I have to come up with a solution – he was the one who caused the problem in the first place, meddling in things he doesn’t understand? I twiddled my fingers, mentally, but could think of nothing that wouldn’t bring grief to the child’s parents, my grandparents; his death was one option, kidnapping, never to be seen again, was another. Neither of those sounded reasonable. Enthralling both of my grandparents and convincing them they didn’t want to emigrate could work, maybe. I wondered why Roman hadn’t thought of that.

I sat for a short while, fiddling with everything on his desk. I was especially enchanted with the phone, dialling the speaking clock repeatedly, wondering if there was a woman
who sat on the other end with a watch in her hand and a bored expression on her face, or was the voice automated? I had a funny feeling it was a real live person, but when I tried to engage her in conversation, she simply repeated the time…’ at the third stroke it will be…’ I hung up in disgust.

I dawdled around the room, picking things up and putting them down, checking for dust (yes, I was bored), and generally becoming increasingly fed up, when I heard him come back. Only, it wasn’t him, it was one of the vampires in the lab. I did a kind of double take when I saw who it was. The man who wasn’t Michael
; it was the other one, the one whose smile had been perfunctory and distant. It wasn’t distant now: it was open and genuine, with not the slightest hint of canines.

I smiled back.

‘My name is Evander. You, I believe, are Grace?’

I nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ I had no idea if this was the correct way to greet a vampire, but considering they had been living alongside us for thousands of years, I was fairly certain they would be used to human greetings.

‘Likewise,’ he replied. ‘I have heard fascinating things about you. If what is said is true, then you are unique, both among –’ He stopped. I guessed he was unused to discussing his nature with a human and, even though he knew that I knew, it was perhaps unnatural to him.

‘I haven’t come across anyone else who can time travel,’ I admitted, ‘but you know what they say, that if you see one of an animal it is logical to assume there are more. Or something like that.’

He laughed. ‘That is certainly true. If you only ever saw one tiger, you would not automatically assume that there was only one tiger in the world. Even if it were the last one of its species, there would have been others before it.’

‘That’s what I think, too. I can’t be the only one this has happened to.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. But you are the only one that we know of. It makes you rather special.’

I blushed a little at his open admiration, and it didn’t stop at his words, or the tone of his voice.
While we had been talking, he had been appraising me with his eyes, and he seemed to like what he saw, if the desire in them was anything to go by. I was just glad he had his fangs under control. A sexually aroused vampire with his, or her, canines in full view was rather like a man with an erection: you knew exactly what was on their mind.