The Keeper's Vow (41 page)

“What are
mom bombs
?” he said,
watching her and telling her to add shadow to a tree that was
really an accidental blotch. He was using his father tone again,
but she had grown used to it. He did that without knowing it.

“You just mention my mom but you never talk
about her. Like how you knew her.”

“You know. You’re really not so good at
painting,” he said, shaking his head. A laugh caught in her throat.
“I met her in Germany.”

Katie put another black glob on the canvas.
Careful to pretend she wasn’t paying attention so he’d talk
freely.

“I think she was twenty at the time. She had
a big reputation in the underground city there. I never imagined
she’d stroll right threw the door of my house and chastise me for
not punishing the members of my brotherhood that sometimes
went—astray,” Lawrence laughed, “I can still hear some of them
screaming out “injustice” in their thick dutch language. I fell in
love with her that day. Love at first sight sounds silly, like
something from Shakespeare’s plays, but it happened to me.

“She didn’t make dating easy. I followed her
to New York where she lived and she avoided me at all cost. I spent
countless hours thinking of ways to win her. It wasn’t easy. She
came from a pure untouchable family and she was the only child to
be a guardian. She had a twin sister who choose to have her memory
erased, and I think she felt she had to make up for it. Her father
was a purist, and he was ashamed by her lame sister. When I found
out, I tried to stop seeing her. I was on my way back to Europe
when she showed up at my front door.

“During the time your mother and I had our
affair, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life. We met
together for ten years or so and no one ever knew. Eshmael—he found
out about us. The day it all changed was the day she got attacked
by a pack of werewolves.”

Larry stopped. He started a new canvas.
There was a lot of red.

“I was on my way to see her—I killed them
all before they took her.” More red. “But—I had to change her.
She’d lost too much blood. If I knew she was pregnant—anyway, she
cursed me when she awoke as a vampire. She’d lost everything that
made her who she was. ‘
You killed me Lawrence. You killed
me.’
” Larry picked up another brush and spread black across
the canvas. “That was the last thing she ever said to me. But when
you think about it, if I hadn’t changed her, you would have died in
the womb or days after your birth. One life for another.”

Katie stared at her canvas. She couldn’t
bring herself to look anywhere else.

“I’m sorry, Katie. I’m all out of stories
for today.” They didn’t talk after that. Just painted as the light
outside grew dimmer.

It was official now. He was her biological
father. A man who loved her mother.

She packed her things to leave. “I’m going
to head home now,” Katie said still not really comfortable making
eye contact.

“You can call me Lawrence. I never liked the
name Larry much, but it seemed to fit with the ice cream shop.”

Katie nodded.

“Do you mind coming with me to the shop
first. I have something to tell you.”

Larry—or Lawrence—led her to his shop and
unlocked the door. He left the lights off and disappeared to the
back room. He came back with a glass in hand and a packet of
blood.

Katie swallowed hard.

“You need to be regular with drinking. I
watch you go into withdrawals and that’s dangerous. It can mess
with your mind. You can go mad and become a fallen.” He opened the
packet and poured it into the glass.

“A fallen?”

“Your people call them D-ranges. The fallen
get trapped in their shadow form and search to fill their blood
lust. You’ve seen them in the shadows of Gray City. They can never
change back and the only way to free them is to kill them by
exposing them to sun light.”

“That’s cruel.” Katie said, shivering from
the the visions she’d had of Tristan doing just that.

“It’s crueler to let the shadow consume
their souls. Some of them don’t have a chance. They are created
recklessly and are left to starve when they are reborn. But you,
you have a choice. Now that you’ve started drinking, you can’t go
back.”

Katie remembered the silver glinting eyes
from the night she’d been with Allison in Gray City.

“Drink.”

Katie’s stomach turned. She started to make
an excuse but Larry wouldn’t hear any of it. She drank it. It was
just as violent as the last time.

“It’s strange. To you, my brother, and all
other halfborns, it’s unpleasant. To me, it’s like eating rainbow
sherbet ice cream every Friday.” He smiled, but Katie didn’t return
it. Not while her stomach still threatening to bring it back up. As
always, it was only a matter of seconds before she started to feel
better.

She left Larry at the ice cream shop and her
feet took her to Lucinda’s house. She’d been avoiding this place.
She told herself it was because Tristan was gone, but the truth,
she knew, was because she was avoiding Lucinda. Allison had told
Katie that Will had left her. He never came back from Seattle with
Brian and it didn’t look like he was going to come back.

Katie didn’t believe it. She couldn’t.
Allison was all about divorce now that her parent’s were getting
one. She saw it everywhere it was all she talked about. She had to
be wrong.

Katie rang the bell and Lucinda answered.
“Why do you always ring the bell, Katie? You know where the key
is.”

Katie shrugged.

“Want a sandwich? I was going to make myself
one.”

Katie shook her head. The thought of food
made her feel over stuffed.

“Ah, that’s right. Well, come in. I’m
working on some paperwork in the living room, why don’t you pop a
movie in?”

They watched the movie and talked. And
talked. And talked. When was the last time Lucinda had someone to
talk to? She was alone in this big house.

Lucinda got a phone call and Katie went to
Tristan’s room. It was a pull. She’s been itching to go in there
since she’d stepped into the house, as if maybe she’d open the door
and he’d be in there smiling at her like usual. It never failed.
He’d always know she was coming and she always looked for that
smile.

It wasn’t there this time. Her heart still
sank even though she knew it wouldn’t be.

The room was the way it was before, as if
Tristan had ever come to this house. No. There was one thing
different. The book sitting on the desk. That was never there
before. After all, she’d bought it for him for Christmas. Katie
touched the leather bind remembering the night she gave it to him.
It all seemed so petty now.

It hurt that he left it.

She picked the book up and fanned through
the pages. The pages suddenly stopped, and Katie pulled out the
paper that had stopped it. A picture. Wrinkled and worn over the
years. It was a picture of him and his family. Tristan wasn’t
looking at the camera though, he was looking at his dad.

“Katie?”

Katie put the picture back in the book and
closed it.

“I wondered when you’d come in here.”
Lucinda stood in the door frame. “I haven’t been in here since he
left.”

Katie sat on his bed. It was cold.

This was her fault. This empty room.

“Don’t cry, Katie.” Lucinda sat next to her.
“I know he’ll show up.”

Katie shook her head. Lucinda didn’t know
the things he thought. If she did, she’d know he’d never come
back.

“He doesn’t really hate you, you know. He
was just angry. I can’t blame him. I failed him. I’d be angry too.”
Lucinda sighed. “Those knives you use in practice—he gave them to
you didn’t he?”

Katie felt her waist and nodded. She always
kept them now. She was still too anxious to walk around with a
loaded gun, but the knives she kept with her at all times.

“I’ve seen them before. A long time ago.”
Lucinda stood up and walked over to the window. She ran her fingers
down the curtains softly. “My sister came home with them one day.
We always told each other everything, but she wouldn’t tell me
where she got them.” Lucinda cleared her throat. “We stopped being
friends that day. And by the time I’d found out she was dating
Tristan’s father I was too mad to see how ridiculous I was being.
All I did was spout propaganda at her like she needed saving.”

Katie watched Lucinda pick at lint on the
curtains.

“We wrote each other letters for a little
while, after she left. I thought if I could get her to leave him
and come home everything would be better again.” She rubbed the
fabric. “I found out she was pregnant and—and she had become like
him. I called my own sister a blood-whore.” Lucinda cleared her
throat and opened the window to the room. “I was a terrible sister,
but I can be here for her son.”

It had been a long day, and yet, Katie
didn’t go home. She’d made up her mind. Either she was going to be
there for Tristan and share the burden he’d been carrying, or run
away forever. Being tormented by his memories wasn’t enough. It was
time for her to be the person she was born to be, to grow up and be
brave. She wasn’t going to abandon him. That’s not the person she
wanted to be.

She walked by Larry’s shop expecting him to
nod as she passed by, but the shop was closed.

Odd. But, she couldn’t say she was sad he
wasn’t there. She didn’t want anything to distract her from her
purpose. She passed by the movie theater, Joe’s Coffee, a few
thrift shops, and her feet kept moving. Taking her deeper and
deeper into downtown. Tristan must have been close by. Underneath
her somewhere. Sometimes she’d skip school and let her feet take
her around downtown. She moved until her feet told her to stop.
Start again when they felt like moving. It was him.

She never mustered up the courage to go down
into Gray City. After going through the trouble of pulling out the
elevator passcode from Michael, she’d find herself, countless
times, in front of the Bistro or the Knitting Factory. She wanted
to take the elevator down and follow her feet until she found
Tristan—no doubt sitting at a bar stool.

However, each time was a fail. Maybe today
she could do it.

The Bistro was crowded. A perfect time to
slip in and to the back room. She did what she had done three times
already. It wasn’t hard. She walked between the tables and towards
the bathrooms. When no one was looking, she slipped into the large
room and pushed the button for the elevator.

She had done this already. Even sat inside
it for fifteen minutes once.

Katie pushed in the numbers: 6743256.

Her finger rubbed over the enter button. She
couldn’t stop it from shaking. What was she afraid of? He already
said he hated her. What more could he say that would hurt as bad as
that?

The elevator doors opened and Katie
jumped.

“Er, Hello. K—Ka—I’m sorry I’m not good with
names. But you’re the girl that almost took off my hand.”

It was the werewolf from her evaluation. Mr.
Reynolds. British accent and all. He had a peppered five-o’clock
shadow that made him look younger than he was.

“You’re not supposed to be here are
you?”

Katie moved towards the elevator doors. He
blocked her way and pushed pushed the green enter-button. They
started to move.

He smiled. “I’m not going to tell
anyone.”

Katie gripped the metal bar behind her. She
was moving—down into Gray City.

“What brings you to Gray City?” he said,
tilting his head towards her.

“A friend.”

“Your halfborn friend?” He looked at her. “I
take it they haven’t found out about you yet.”

Katie froze.

“I’m not going to tell anyone about that
either.” He turned to her. “Guardians like to pretend people like
you and your friend don’t exist.”

“H—How did you know?”

“Any good wolf can smell a shadow born. Even
the ones who haven’t drank. But I see that’s changed about you
too—you should be careful. You’re lucky Carver is too dense to
realize why you were able to use your power so quickly. He doesn’t
know the other part of you helps you control it,” he paused. “You
live in the lions den. What you are is like a disease to them. They
don’t like that you’re more powerful than them.”

Katie stared into his dark eyes. They were
warning her. “How do you know so much about how my power
works?”

“My brother was halfborn.” The doors open
and Mr. Reynolds stepped out and into the hotel. “When you find
your friend. Keep him close. He’s the only one who will ever
understand what it means to be what you are.” Mr. Reynolds
winked.

“Yeah,” Katie said. She stood in the hotel
and watched him leave.

He knew. Ever since that day.

What did he mean his brother
was
half? Half what? Vampire? Wolf?

She ran out of the hotel and onto the street
but he was gone. Cars blurred past her and the sound of Gray City
filled her ears.

It didn’t take long for Katie’s feet to find
the right direction. Her heart pounded with every foot step.

8
^th
street. The werewolf district. Maybe he would be with Mercedes.
Maybe she was the one who stood by his side now. Katie shook the
thought from her mind. Her feet stopped, on the corner, not sure
where to go. She looked up and down the street moving out of the
way of a small boy who sneered at her. His mother was close behind
and smiled apologetically. The cross walk blinked green and she
almost crossed the street, when a sign caught her eye.

The Pub.

She stared at the little white sign. It was
The
Pub. She’d seen it before, maybe, but that wasn’t what
bothered her.

The Pub.

Mercedes had said Tristan had stopped coming
to
the pub
. Maybe she meant
The Pub.
An actually
place, not a nondescript bar.