Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1) (8 page)

Lilith stepped back and watched him in the shadows.

Michel’s eyes snapped open. “What are you doing?” His eyes widened while Gabriel gave him a wry smile. “Giving you the gift of eternal life,” he replied.

“But,” Michel started, beginning to struggle.

“Be still,” he commanded, “your mortal neck is so delicate. It would be a pity if it snapped.”

The pianist gasped, but didn’t move.

Gabriel smirked. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you. Much.”

The man swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

He bit into his neck. In the span of three heartbeats, he felt Michel struggle beneath his fingers. He drank and drank until he could drink no more. He rose from the pianist’s limp body. He slit a thin gash in his own wrist, and fed Michel the blood that flowed from it.

Michel’s blue eyes snapped open wide—wide with fear and something else—before rolling back into his head. His limbs loosened, falling limp. Only his mind would remain alert. Then, the dreams would begin.

He turned to Lilith. She stared at him with a feral look in her black eyes. Her unreadable expression, yet intense and threatening, like a tiger’s before it pounces onto its prey, didn’t deter him from scowling at her. Lifting his head, he stared her down. He wouldn’t let her break him. Not completely.

“It’s amazing what someone will do,” Gabriel said, “under torture.”

Lilith had the sense to look shocked. “Torture. Whatever do you mean?”

“You tortured me. You forced me to do this. And what more—he thinks that I’m responsible for Genevieve’s death. He’ll hate me. I did what you asked, and I get no benefit from it. A Principality isn’t made up of enemies. Am I to have subjects who hate me?”

Lilith gave a small bow of her head. “He may have some animosity toward you for a while, but you’ll have an eternity to get rid of it.” Then she laughed. “Besides, this man if he’s like any other human, will rejoice. All humans would choose to live forever.”

Gabriel fell silent. He glanced at Michel and wondered what creatures lurked in his dreams. Did he attempt to flee from them, or did he succumb to them? He remembered the first time he fell into Dreaming. He could see himself as if he were looking from above. Darkness surrounded him, and within that womb-like darkness, came forth a white, glowing star. The star grew larger and larger until it transformed into a winged “man,” resembling the Visitor of Nathaniel’s tale from his white hair to his bare feet. For three days, Gabriel remained inside the chrysalis of his body to learn what only the mind could master. Strange and wonderful things he had only dreamed of doing before, like flying, fire-letting, charming others into doing his will with just his voice . . .

. . . oh, how these gifts tantalized his spirit.

Michel, too, would awaken three days later unchanged on the outside—but from within, he would be transformed. “Your soul and body are one,” the Visitor would tell him during his slumber. “Nothing can be withheld from you now.”

A new creature free from death. But Gabriel asked himself, how does one run when death is at his heels? When merely mortal, he had dashed as fast as the wind, knowing the effort was futile, when he saw Abigail hanging from a tree. But when death came in the guise of a beautiful woman, he hadn’t fled.

He glanced at Lilith sideways. What did she feed off?

Fear? The Lilith of legend fed off fear, so it could be possible.

Energy? That would explain what she had done to him. Weakened him. He opened his mouth to ask her, but the double doors to the parlor opened, and Lilith vanished. He stepped away from Michel, considering what the intruders would see and think. Adele entered the room with two servants. Immediately, her eyes fell upon Michel.

“What is the meaning of this?” she murmured in a soft, almost calm voice. The calm before the storm.

“
Allez
,” she said, pointing to the servants, who rushed to Michel’s side.

“The master appears to be bleeding—” began the one closest to him.

“Michel is drunk,” Gabriel said.

“He has just lost his wife! How else can a man drown his woes?” Adele spat at him.

“And you have lost your sister. Perhaps you’ve come to comfort one another.”

Adele paled. “How dare you imply such a thing. If it wasn’t for you and your damned advances, my sister would still be alive.” Her composure crumbled. “When I heard that Michel had sent everyone away, I came as quickly as I could. I feared—what do you care what I fear, you bastard! Heaven knows I didn’t expect to find
you
here.” She stood her ground, staring up into his face. “Please leave, Monsieur Lennox.”

Gabriel sighed. Monsieur Lennox. Formal name basis—not a good sign. “I can’t leave, Adele. Forgive me, but there’s something I must do.”

For several minutes, no one made a move. Finally, Adele gestured to one of the servants. “Go. Send for the police.”

Gabriel walked close to her. “I think not,” he whispered in a firm tone. He held her eyes with his own and cupped her face in his hands. “Michel will come with me. We’ll leave quietly, and you will let us.”

She nodded slowly, unnaturally, a puppet being pulled by strings.

Gabriel’s voice, like Nathaniel’s, held a power, a will that could not be refused. The servants backed away from Michel, inches at a time, as if they feared to stay, but were afraid to leave their master at the same time. Vexed, Gabriel made his way toward them. They turned and fled through the door. He faced Adele again and told her to take a long nap on one of the couches and that when she woke up, she would tell the authorities that Michel had gone on a well-deserved trip to the Orient and would never return. She nodded and lay down on one of the couches, and he knew she’d do as he had told her.

He turned around, walked back toward the balcony, and opened its door to the garden of flowers and statues several feet below. Gabriel lifted Michel into his arms and stepped up on the ledge.

“Now, what do I do with you?” Michel’s head rested against his chest, like a slumbering child’s. Deep in sleep, the musician seemed oblivious to everything. If Gabriel wanted to, he could drop him from this height. What would happen? He pushed the thought aside. He wasn’t fool enough to find out.

The serene night invited him to do something he had not enjoyed in a long time. A raven flew past, its beak open in a silent cry.

He imagined himself flying in the blue-black sky garlanded at the horizon with white clouds. A sudden, rose-scented breeze pulled him and twirled him round, as if he had been swept into a whirlwind. He was lifted off his feet into midair, vanishing.

TWO DAYS
PASSED
. Every once in a while, Gabriel would wander up the stairs to the bedroom that Colin had prepared for Michel. The boy only left Michel’s side to eat or use the lavatory. This time around, when he entered, Colin sat in a highbacked chair an inch or two from the bed. On the other side of the bed, a row of candles burned on a mahogany nightstand dispersing the darkness.

Colin had draped the bed with a dark blue canopy and a nest of lacy, white pillows. He had dusted the shelves along the walls and polished them with citrus oils, giving the room a fresh, clean smell. The drapes along the windows had been washed, dried, and replaced. Shining like an onyx, a black concert piano crouched in front of the open window overlooking a garden. Colin must’ve listened to Nathaniel’s comments about Michel’s talent. So, he had used the money Nathaniel had given him and bought a piano. Obviously, Colin wore many hats: thief, prostitute, murderer, and decorator. A bloody Jackof-All-Trades. Gabriel hoped that he wouldn’t master any that would draw unwelcome attention.

Colin stared at Michel in awe. “He sleeps like the dead. His heart is barely beating, but sometimes, his eyes move madly under the lids. Fantastic.”

Nathaniel came to the door and glanced inside. “Colin,” he said, ignoring Gabriel, “you haven’t eaten much lately. I insist that you go downstairs and fix yourself a meal. What was the point in buying all of that food if it’s going to go to waste?”

Colin gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m not hungry right now.”

“Don’t cry to me if you make yourself sick,” Nathaniel warned in his sing-song voice. He used that tone whenever he tried to hide his angry, threatening side. Gabriel didn’t think Colin noticed though.

The boy gave Nathaniel a pleasant smile. “I want to watch him,” he said without lifting his eyes from Michel.

With a dismissive shrug, Nathaniel turned to Gabriel. “Tomorrow night, Lilith is having a party in your honor for your first Chosen. You’ll meet others, and you’ll understand why Enlightening more and making them favor you is a grand idea. A necessary one. I see trouble on the horizon, and if you’re not tactful, it might swallow you up.”

“Lilith? Who’s Lilith?” Colin asked.

“She is our Lady,” Nathaniel replied. “Our Matriarch.”

“Our Matriarch?” Gabriel whispered. “Is that all she is?”
All goddesses imitate her
. Sevien’s words were becoming something more. He leaned against the piano and stared out the window. A subtle wind blew through the garden, stirring the roses. Nathaniel’s comment didn’t tell Colin anything. Gabriel thought to give the boy a description of what Lilith looked like and how she could make him feel, but then he worried that Colin might make a joke, thinking that he loved Lilith, had feelings for her. He could never love her. She wanted to
own
him.

“No, Patriarch, then. So Satan isn’t the lord of the damned?” Colin mocked.

Nathaniel chuckled. “Very funny. A good sense of humor is quite virtuous, but you must take Lilith and her kind seriously. Tell me, would you ever consider becoming one of us?”

Gabriel turned around and looked at the boy, waiting for his response.

Colin narrowed his eyes in deep thought.

Nathaniel laughed again. “Oh, spare me! Do you really need to think about it? Eternal youth, power, having your wildest dreams come true—living like a god. There’s only one answer, one choice and that is ‘yes.’ ”

“Living like a god?” Gabriel laughed bitterly. “Since when did living like a god entail following orders and quivering in fear?” He glared at Nathaniel, who pretended he wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry, but I’m still having trouble believing this. Y’know the whole drinking blood and making oaths bit.” Colin started laughing, but Nathaniel’s stern expression stopped him. “Well, why don’t you prove it to me? Show me something.” His voice had gone very soft.

Nathaniel’s eyes—pale blue and as hard as sapphires—danced cruelly as he grinned at the boy. “Show you something? Did Gabriel not show you his teeth, which are like wolves’? If you wanted to believe, you would believe whether or not I show you anything.”

He raised an eyebrow, surprised at Nathaniel’s harsh exchange. He had expected him to display his power daringly to a mortal, not lash out at one.

“Sharp teeth? No, no. That’s not what I need to believe or to even understand,” Colin whispered. “I need to know that you can really initiate a change, and that there’s a point–ha, ha, no pun intended—to those achingly sharp teeth.” His voice trailed off.

Colin looked sullen and gray, brooding with characteristics so unlike him that Gabriel felt a desire to give Colin what he wanted. He moved toward the boy, who looked up at him with wide, questioning eyes.

He nudged aside the high collar of Michel’s shirt. “You see those marks. That’s where I bit him.”

Colin gasped. “I
can
see the puncture marks!” He pointed a few inches above Michel’s collarbone.

Gabriel slashed a fine line across his own wrist. “And then I fed him my blood, as sweet and powerful as ambrosia.”

Red blood laced like ribbons against his pale flesh. Colin cried out and looked away.

“No,” Gabriel said, “If you do that, you’ll miss what I want to show you.”

Hesitantly, the boy looked away his lips drawn back in disgust against his white teeth. Gabriel waited, staring at his own flesh. Within seconds, the flesh closed back up again, seamlessly without a scar or blemish before his and Colin’s eyes, the spilt blood faded away like a mist.

Colin drew in his breath sharply. He blinked several times before swallowing some air. “How in the hell did you do that? Your body just healed itself!”

“It’s part of my nature. It’s like the heart beating. It simply does.”

Colin had the grace to shake his head, eyes still wide in awe. He placed a hand on his forehead and released a deep sigh.

He turned his attention to Michel lying on the bed, oblivious to their presence. Dreaming, Changing, Thirsting.

Colin looked at the two immortals. “I wish that you
were
fairy folk instead, because the longer I look at you, the more your beautiful features become inhuman, but you’re both much too tall. And,” he went on, giving Gabriel a side-long smirk that didn’t reach his eyes, “fairies don’t drink you know what.”

Nathaniel tossed his long hair over his shoulders. “Don’t be disappointed that we’re not fairy folk, Colin. We’re something much better. Blood drinking and all. Who knows—you may even like it.”

The boy nibbled on his bottom lip. “So, this one, Michel, will sleep for one more day,” he addressed Gabriel, “and then will he drink blood?”

Gabriel nodded. “Don’t worry. You’re not his food, if that’s what you’re wondering. But yes, he probably will want that kind of sustenance.”

“Then he won’t be quite like you. Since until a couple nights ago, you didn’t drink blood, did you, Master Gabriel?”

“Perhaps.”

Nathaniel smiled. “Gabriel thinks that it’s barbaric and beneath him to do something like that. But secretly I think he rather enjoys . . . the
taste
.”

Colin stared at him. “But if he doesn’t enjoy it, that’s not so bad. No, I should think that’s not bad at all, Master Gabriel.”

Nathaniel laughed again. The candles flickered, red petals in the liquid darkness.

* * *

Sunrise. Gabriel watched the sun’s slow ascent to the horizon, a chestnut ringed with golden fire. The sunlight wouldn’t burn him into ashes, but sometimes, it irritated his eyes if he stared at it for long. That alone wasn’t surprising or unusual. In a few more hours, Michel would awaken. Soon, he would have to face his actions. He wished he could reverse time. He smiled smugly to himself. What was the point of living forever if one couldn’t compose time’s tick-tock melody?

Nathaniel strolled into the room and stood in front of the window blocking the coming of dawn.

“What you said about Lilith is only half of the truth,” Gabriel said to him.

He gave a small bow of his head. “The truth is like a two-edged sword that defends and cuts the one wielding it. Do you want it even at the cost of bleeding?”

Gabriel sighed. “I already know the truth you only imply,” he replied. “Lilith isn’t one of us. Never was.”

Nathaniel shifted his weight. The sunlight hit him from behind so that he had a full-bodied halo. “On the basis of what?”

Gabriel told him about Michel. About his dead father and Lilith’s threat. And the other man listened in his cold, quiet way, nodding at the appropriate times.

“Legend has it that Lilith and Sevien are the source of our kind. Our primordial parents, if you will,” Nathaniel continued. “Truebloods, they’re called. The
last
of their kind.”

“Truebloods. Yes, I’m familiar with that stupid little tale.” Gabriel frowned. “Descendants of Cain, cursed with immortality and an insatiable desire for blood. Their saliva is said to be a blessing to themselves and a curse to most of their victims. It would stop the victim’s blood from clotting, but the bite proved fatal. Some victims, however, lived to pass on the condition. Blah, blah, blah.” Yes, he knew of the story well, but it is a fiction, a fantasy.

“Legends are like leeches,” he went on, after a long while. “They tend to suck the joy out of life. And Sevien’s own implications contradict them. Lilith is more than a myth. She’s a monster.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “Hmm. Point well stated.” He stared at the floor. “I’ve been having similar fears. No, let us say that we’re merely—uh,
concerned
instead. Yes?” He nodded, his blonde hair falling into his eyes. It’s too soon to be afraid. And what good will fear do us?”

But Gabriel did feel afraid. He had hoped that Nathaniel would push aside the matter in his usual, playful manner, but instead he spoke seriously, even considering his own suspicious thoughts. Gabriel shivered the way people do when they think someone has walked over their grave. He slipped his hand into his pocket to finger his dead sister’s sapphire ring, but it wasn’t there. The ring? Where was the ring? That’s right. He had put it away for safekeeping . . .

He strode to the dresser and opened the drawer that the ring rested in, slowly, as if opening the lid to Pandora’s Box. The ring shimmered and sparkled in the candlelight, glinting tiny stars as he turned it this way and that. Gabriel hesitated before slipping it onto his middle finger. He held his breath, anticipating something magical to happen. For the earth to shake, the sky to crack and start falling. But nothing happened. Nothing.

Holding the ring brought no comfort. Only memories. He remembered the night Abigail had been murdered. The mob had succeeded in crushing her skull with a large stone. But he wouldn’t accept that. Could not! He had stretched out his hand to her, caressed a strand of crimson hair out of her eyes and transferred his own energy, a part of his own life into her. His body had tingled all over, and he felt himself breaking into pieces, floating away, like poppies carried on the wind. And only when he had heard the returned breath whistling through her nostrils, like the sound of a distant flute, he allowed himself to rest.

“Are you well?” Nathaniel asked.

Gabriel blinked hard. He had forgotten that he wasn’t alone. “No. I’m not. It’s strange, but I remember something. About Abigail. She
had
died, Nathaniel! First, the stoning and then the hanging.
Wait
. That doesn’t make sense! Did she die
twice
?” He shook his head, grinning, giggling like a child delirious with terror. “That’s farcical. Utterly ridiculous for me to think such a thing.
No
. Never mind. I’m fine. Fine!”

Nathaniel stared at him, eyes wide and glistening. “What happened to your sister is in the past,” he whispered. “It holds no power over your future,
our
future, unless you allow it to.”

Gabriel ignored him. “She was dead, and I remember bringing her back to life. And you know something, Nathaniel. That’s why,” he swallowed hard, trying to quench the rising thirst in his throat, “that’s why you gave me such a queer look when I had offered resurrecting Genevieve! So you tell me why did she die—
again
? Unless,
unless
her death had something to do with me. Right?
Right
!” He lifted his shaking hands to his temples. He shut his eyes tight, trying not to scream, trying to hold himself together. He remembered. Yes, Abigail had hung herself. But why? He couldn’t recall
why!

Nathaniel rested a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Don’t think about it,” he pleaded. “I forbid you to remember!” His voice sounded thousands of miles away, echoing in the space of Gabriel’s mind until he heard nothing. Felt nothing. He lurched forward, to strike Nathaniel, to stop him from what he was trying to do, and at the rim of his subconscious, he knew that Nathaniel had done this to him many, many times before.

Before he could make the accusation, he had sunken into sleep.