Page 57 of Eternal Devotion

I didn’t have to ask why he was sorry. The fate of our kind was in jeopardy. If left unchecked, Valerius would unknowingly destroy us in his quest for power. It was up to me to return Iulian to the throne.

Ensley was a kink in that plan. Unless I was willing to bring him into our world, I would eventually need to let him go, and there was no better time than the present. Before he got hurt.

I let Cristofer go and wandered the rows of tombstones as sheet lightning filled the sky at intervals. Wet and miserable, I considered our conversation. The sharp tang of ozone filled my nose.

I’d spent an hour at the cemetery before making the call home. Iulian was not in the mausoleum. Like the cement room beneath the dam, it was empty.

Over the following hours, I took an aerial view of the city, noting secluded locations and venturing close enough to get a read of the land. I stopped at warehouses, the grain elevator, and several parks with structures that piqued my interest. For a time, I watched a few people, out on the town for one reason or another in the middle of the night, and eavesdropped on their conversations.

Was I avoiding the inevitable? Absolutely.

At three, mood sufficiently deflated, I stood on the empty street outside Ensley’s flat, peering at the dark windows above the comic book store. It shouldn’t be this hard. I’d only known him a week. A week more than any other man in four centuries. Yet, he had sucked me into his orbit, and I yearned for more, more, more.

Enough was enough.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I climbed the stairs and slipped through the thin crack between the locked door and the frame into his living space. It smelled of chamomile tea and missed opportunities. I wandered around, taking in the pieces of Ensley’s life and building the framework for a story I could take with me.

A battered laptop with gaming stickers situated on the coffee table. A pad of paper beside it, the top page full of scribbled notes and roughly sketched diagrams I could only assume were part of a quest.

A ceramic mug with a puddle of tea inside. A partly eaten bag of crisps. Headphones.

Sports socks, balled and discarded.

A pile of toppled brown folders sat askew on the high-top table, each containing a paper-clipped photograph of a house in the corner. Another notepad. Same scratchy scrawl, only that time pertaining to his work.

Dirty dishes in the sink: an assortment of cutlery, a bowl with residual milk and a few lone Cheerios, several mugs, and a plate with what looked like a smear of ketchup.

Empty cans of bubly, strawberry flavored, lined the counter beside a few empty cardboard food containers. For recycling?

A Japanese-style teapot on the back element of the stove. I lifted the lid, finding the dregs of already steeped leaves in the fine mesh strainer. Chamomile.

The fridge held several magnets and a calendar. Appointment slots for a dozen or more house showings, penned on specific dates. A circle around the thirty-first. Dad’s memorial service, it read in the center.

Beside the calendar, a photograph of two people. An older man and a much younger Ensley. The man had graying hair and laugh lines. His youthful eyes shone bright, despite being roughly in his fifties. The boy carried a petulance that went with his age. Despite the attitude, teenage Ensley leaned against his father, suffering the side hug with grace.

They shared many similarities.

I thought of my family. My father and mother, the brothers and sisters who didn’t live past childhood. Of Abeta who did, only to die bringing life into the world. I thought of grit under fingernails after a hard day’s work. Of the rich scent of stewed meat cooking over the fire. Of Mother’s silent concentration as she darned socks. The crack of an axe cutting wood. Sweat in my eyes. Dad collecting the pieces and lining them up at the back of the barn. Robust stacks that would take us through another winter. The bleat of sheep. The cluck of chickens. The snuffling grunts of Fat Lizzy, Father’s cherished pig—Mother hated the beast.

Wind in the grass and the clop of horses down the lane.

My father’s hand on my shoulder. Give me a hand loading the cart before you go?

Sure thing, Pops.

All of it gone.

I wanted to wake Ensley and tell him that missing your loved ones got easier with time, but did it?

Some days the pain was a fresh beesting.

I stood in Ensley’s flat, taking in the aspects of his life, imagining things that could never be.

Over the years, I’d seen many of my kind take human lovers without changing them, but I’d also seen the devastation it left behind. The humans aged and eventually died, leaving the cursed one to suffer for an eternity.

That would not be me.

I abandoned the kitchen and headed for the ladder to the loft where Ensley slept. His soft breathing remained even and deep as I crested the landing. The low ceiling turned the space into a private alcove. Intimate.