Between the Waters (Symphony of Light) (13 page)

“Humble too?”

“Truthful.”

So he had a point. “Go on.”

“While playing at the baron’s summer home, I met a beautiful young woman named Gillette. It didn’t take long to figure out that Gillette was only ever invited to the home when the baron’s wife was away. Gillette was a highly sought after courtesan from Paris. She was so good at her craft that she could command a price from the wealthiest of men. She took a fancy to me, and we soon became lovers.”

“Did she stop…selling herself?” I took a sip of wine.

“No. She had clients she couldn’t stop servicing, powerful rulers. I started traveling with her, and one evening convinced her to marry me—our secret. We were in love. Her connections brought me patronage, but I would have sacrificed all for her.

“One evening her business led us to France. She often talked about her teacher, the one who taught her in the ways of lovemaking. She said he always returned to her after his long travels and she looked forward to her time with him, but she said she never knew what he looked liked since he insisted she be blindfolded.”

“Cyril?”

“Yes.”

“Of course, that’s how he got around the curse.”

“Yes, that’s one way.” This time he took a large gulp of wine. “I played that evening, and when he arrived there was no ignoring him. Cyril was a force. Impressed with my compositions, he invited me to be his personal artist. All of my expenses were paid, but with one stipulation—I allow Gillette to see to his needs. He also extended an offer for us to stay in the manor on his estate and that he would see that her other clients no longer had need of her services. Impossible for us to do alone, but a man of his importance, it was only a few favors. Can you imagine how that felt?

“I can see why that would be appealing.”

He used the small knife to slice off a sliver of cheese and spread it on a tiny cracker. He popped it into his mouth and chewed it. He brought the napkin draped across his lap to his mouth and replaced it. “Her profession never bothered me, because I never saw her at work, but late one night, I was in the main keep and I heard her screams. I ran to her. When I threw open the door, Gillette was naked and blindfolded, Cyril was taking her from behind. Jealousy should have surfaced but instead, it was awe. You’ve seen Cyril. He is sex. He is the master of his art. All I could do was stare. When he beckoned me to join them, I went without a thought.

The cracker that I had just begun to chew lodged in my throat, and I started to choke. My voice was garbled from the crumbs still peppering my throat. “Cyril’s gay?”

“No. Of course not.”

“So he only had sex with your wife?” That was a statement I never imagined I’d utter.

He cleared his throat. “No. I was his lover too.”

Oh, boy. This was unexpected.

“Linden, modern American views of bisexuality are political. You are still naïve to the world. It was quite common, even though it only now is talked about openly and is still somewhat taboo. Sex is sex, Linden. His preference is women, and admittedly we spent most nights lavishing attention on Gillette, but from time to time, we’d indulge each other. But even that was for her pleasure. She liked to watch. I don’t think he was capable of refusing a woman’s desire in the throes of passion.”

“I’m sorry, I guess I just never thought…I mean I…” Wow, the things I didn’t consider before I entered my relationship with Cyril were vast. Was it even a relationship? I couldn’t exactly marry a sex god, could I? And how do I explain Overton? Just when I thought my fucked-up mess of a life couldn’t get any more complex…

“It’s OK, perhaps one day you’ll get to experience the pure delight a woman can have when she takes two lovers?”

Raising an eyebrow, I glared at him. Even though I hadn’t experienced it in reality, a dream resurfaced. It was Thor’s dream. His dream was always the same. They were all my lovers, including Cyril. Cyril directed, allowing the others to assist. He was always the first and the last to take me. To say it wasn’t enjoyable was a lie. Heat flooded my cheeks at the thought. I took a large swig of wine. “Is there any more of this?” I pointed to the glass.

He chuckled. “Certainly is.” He signaled to the waiter on the other side of the room. A few seconds later, the young man filled my glass.

“Where were we? Oh yes, the revelation that you and I both slept with the same man.”

“There’s got to be more to the story than that.”

“Oh, there is. You see. The three of us grew close. We never understood the real reason he wouldn’t allow her to look at him, but she had many clients with strange requests so she simply accepted. She was happy, I was happy for the first time, and Cyril seemed relaxed for once.”

“Why do I get the impression, there isn’t a storybook ending?”

He spread some soft cheese on to a toastette and set it on his plate. “One of the reasons Gillette had been ideal for her profession, beyond her beauty and skill, was that she was sterile. No risk of fathering a bastard. Or so we thought. She grew ill one day. When her illness did not improve, she started to show signs of pregnancy. We were baffled. I was angry at first because I was certain the child had to be Cyril’s. I wanted to be the one to be the source of her joy. I confronted him, but he assured me that he is incapable of having children. At the time he told me it was a rare fever, but I now know the truth.”

Children. I knew he couldn’t have children. But it didn’t stop the tightness that formed in my chest—grief. But for what? I didn’t want children, did I? I didn’t have the time to analyze why this news set me on the verge of a panic attack.

“Are you OK?” He stroked his hand up and down my arm.

“Ahhh…yes…sorry. I should probably have another cracker.” He lifted the toastette from his plate and brought it to my lips. I was too discombobulated to fight him. I opened my mouth and bit off a chunk. He ran his finger across my top lip.

“You are so beautiful. Perhaps God is real after all.”

“I’m hardly heaven-sent. Please continue.”

“Yes, of course. Since it wasn’t Cyril’s child and we hadn’t left Gillette alone long enough to think of another man, plus she had no reason to lie, the child was mine. I was overjoyed, and she mumbled about how God must have forgiven her. I had never seen a smile so bright. Even Cyril was thrilled. As most humans do, I wanted to celebrate, so I grabbed my coat and headed to a popular tavern in parish where fellow musicians frequented. I wanted to boast and drink my fill of wine. Gillette stayed home with Cyril, so I knew she couldn’t be safer. I trusted him.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cyril ‘thrilled.’”

“You’ve only known him a short time.”

“You speak of him so positively, but I’m told you had your issues with him.” It was hard to talk about Cyril in the past tense. I refused to consider him lost, but I couldn’t allow Moreaux to know about my connection to him.

“I’m getting to that. That night I was pissed when I left the bar. I remember very little of how I ended up in the West End of the city other than I was certain someone followed me. I turned down a dark alley, attempting to hide from my follower when he charged me with his knife. I didn’t have the wits about me to be prepared, and the blow was fatal. The face of Darius Marquis came into focus—one of Gillette’s clients who didn’t take kindly to her retirement. Cyril assured me that all was fine.”

“So you think Cyril is responsible for your death? Isn’t this better than dying?”

He wrapped his finger around my hand and raised it to his lips. He pressed his lips to it and smiled.

“You are such a delight. So innocent. So easily fooled.”

“Excuse me.”

“It’s a compliment.”

“Sure doesn’t feel like one.” I yanked my hand back and picked up another cracker and popped it in my mouth, mashing my teeth in exaggerated frustration.

“Linden, if that were all that went wrong you are quite right, I’d be a fool to harbor resentment. But some things can never be undone.”

The waiter arrived with our meal—white fish, with elegant garnish and wild rice. I turned slightly to partake of my meal and to keep him from seeing my frustration. He hadn’t asked what I wanted to eat. What century did he think we were in?

“Cyril found me as I lay dying in the street. Gillette insisted he come find me since I was late getting home. I asked him to take care of her, to help raise our child, and he refused. Said his place was not in a home with children, that he could never be what Gillette needed because he was promised to another. That is the moment my hatred began to blossom. I was giving him the greatest gift, my family, and he refused. But he countered my offer…”

He pierced the fish with his fork and slid it into his mouth. Chewed for a moment. “You know what he offered me, right? This.” He pointed to his chest. “All of this. Life eternal. If he would not care for my family, how could I refuse?”

I dabbed at my mouth with my napkin. “It is a hard situation to be in.”

“Do you know what my first thought was? I can’t watch her die. She’ll grow old and so will my child, but I will not. That thought occurred even before I tried to come to terms with Cyril being supernatural. Reluctantly, I agreed.”

“I’m sorry you had to watch them die. That must have been awful. But he was just trying to help you.”

The hysterical laugh that left him sent chills down my spine. “Linden, if you were having a heart attack and someone offered to perform open heart surgery on you, but he had only ever done it successful on rodents, would you agree? Or better yet, what if he suspected it might not work, but he tortured you anyway? How noble is that?”

“I don’t understand.”

“For Cyril to save someone he needs three souls. The streets were desolate, and the shops around were empty save for the couple in the alleyway three streets away. Cyril knew he had to act fast because if my heart stopped, it would not work. He also has a code. He’d never sacrifice someone innocent to save another unless he had their consent, but he was flexible when it came to those who embraced evil.”

“I’ve only ever seen him kill the minions that Michael created. He told that they could never be made whole again, so freeing them was the best way.” He didn’t need to know about the body count I owned.

“That’s right, but at certain points in time he played superhero, ridding the streets of injustice, but Stanton got him to stop. On this night, however, in desperation he snatched the souls from the two people in alley and gave me new life.”

“Did he read their minds to know they were bad?”

“He didn’t have to. The woman was innocent, but she was near death. She would have died whether or not Cyril intervened. The man however, was in the middle of raping and murdering her so it left little doubt as to which side of the line he fell on.”

I gasped and covered my mouth. “Wait…you’re telling me he combined your soul with that of a rapist and murderer and a dying woman?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

What the fuck was Cyril thinking? “Thank God you…the composer is the dominant one. If not, oh, wow…”

“Yes, that is very fortunate, but there is more to the story. Again had that been all, I might have forgiven him after two hundred or so years.”

“Why on earth did he think that was a good idea?”

“He was desperate. Power and desperation are a disastrous combination.”

I was the last person he needed to tell that to. I had already started my list of colossal fuck-ups.

He reached out and touched my knee. “Are you OK?”

Usually I had no trouble checking my emotions, but this was so much to take in. “Yes, I’m fine. Continue.”

“I know that he cared for us, and that is probably what fueled his madness that night, but it was the outcome that I can never get over.”

“But he knows it doesn’t work when using women.”

“He learned, yes. I was one of his experiments. Anyway, he was prepared to explain to Gillette that I had hit my head and lost my memory. He was certain that I would fall back in love with her, and was probably right, but when I woke up, I was confused for an hour or so and then it all came back to me. I was so grateful to him.”

I placed my fork on my plate. “You still have to admit he did it for the right reasons. And I’m not quite seeing the downside. Did you want to forget?”

He folded his napkin and placed it back in his lap.

“Later that night the whispers started. Sort of a humming in my head. I figured it was a side effect of nearly dying. The way I saw Gillette started to change. When she went off to be with Cyril, I hated her for it. How dare he fuck my pregnant wife?”

“It’s understandable that you’d become possessive.”

“No, this was different. And every day it grew worse. When she would return I was disgusted. I didn’t want her touching me. When I found my way to Cyril, it was never when she was there. I begged him to fuck me, but he refused. He told me sex wasn’t ever meant to be punishment. He said he understood the lines between pleasure pain, but if I sought pain, it needed to be for pleasure’s sake. He said I was there for the wrong reasons. He was right.”

The wine that slipped down my throat gave a hazy feel to the story—a cloudy frame to a tale that was bound to end tragic.

“Cyril abandoned me, my wife disgusted me, and the headaches and the humming grew stronger. One evening, Cyril stopped by. He brought a bassinet for the child. Gillette was eight months pregnant. I had started hating my wife because I believed her to be nothing but a filthy whore. Before he left, he bent and kissed her on the cheek, the same thing he did every time he made love to her. He hadn’t touched her in months, afraid he might harm the baby and having decided since we were now a family, he would find another way to fulfill his needs. He offered to allow us to stay in the manor for as long as we liked and remain our friend.”

“Well, that was very noble of him.” I rolled my eyes. This was medieval Jerry Springer bullshit.

“After Cyril left that night, something set him off. By him I mean, Lafavre. The killer from the alley. I lost all control and he took over. The instant the change occurred I realized, my hatred and disgust was not my own. It was him. With him in control, I could see his memories and through my own eyes, but was helpless. His mother was a prostitute who sold him to her clients as a child. He hated her. Eventually, he killed her, but it wasn’t enough. Like Jack the Ripper who came later, he found satisfaction in murdering ladies of the night. That was what he was doing when Cyril unraveled him.”