Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (10 page)

             
Cardew’s pleased smile was showing me that he was appreciating my willingness to fight more than he would relish the victory in the argument.

             
“If you weren’t so beautiful, I would have agreed on six and wouldn’t have come at all,” he smiled without implying more than the usual amount of evil satisfaction in that gesture.

             
“But under the current circumstances you would agree even on six in the morning if I had chosen it,” I smirked and compensated him with a generous smile.

             
“Don’t hurt my self-esteem like that, lovely,” Cardew joked with his temporary defeat and I laughed together with him, not letting any triumphant notes absorb in my tone.

             
“It suits you high as usual,” my fingers lightly brushed his shoulder without a real reason before I pulled a bit back. “See you at six o’clock –”

             
“Think of me till then –” he gave me a meaningful wink and I waved and turned back, thrilled to still feel his eyes fixed on me with fierce thirst while I was walking away with purposeful negligence.

             
I couldn’t but follow his advice, however much I was trying to concentrate on what I was studying, and time felt as though it was crawling unbearable slowly so as only to delay the moment in which I was to see him again.

             
‘That’s not love,’ I tried to reassure myself but my inner voice itself didn’t sound confident enough to really urge me into believing it. ‘I have no idea why we spend so much time together, but this is simply not love!’

             
‘Yeah, rivalry, the desire for dominance over someone equally strong, right –’ my rationality mocked me ironically. ‘This is the reason why you are dressed like that – but of course it’s because you don’t want to have any flaws, any weaknesses in front of your enemy – not that you want to impress him or anything, no –’

             
I cast a quick critical look at the dress I had just slipped myself in and couldn’t immediately find a way to defend myself from the righteous accusation. Not that my outfit was fussy or overly provocative – it was neither too short and flowing, nor revealing too much, just that the intensity of its brisk vivid scarlet colour was classically associated with something I was desperately trying to convince myself that I had nothing to do with, at least when it was coming to Cardew.

             
“That’s not fair!” I pronounced aloud and burst into sincere laughter, having perceived how ridiculous it was indeed. “I won’t make myself ugly on purpose just because otherwise he’d think I care for him!”

             
‘Not that it’s not true –’

             
I suppressed a chuckle not to feel too guilty, and walked out of the room after a glance in the mirror proving that everything was fine.

             
Alright, I admit it: after several glances…

             
It was six o’clock sharp when I got to the place where Cardew and I would meet – he was already waiting for me there, and it obviously didn’t take him long to make the classic scarlet association, as he greeted me with a mischievous smile.

             
“I’m charmed that you came.”

             
“You didn’t expect me to?” I supposed so as to win him enough time to have a more prolonged pleased and pleasing look at me, so he could after that be able to concentrate enough so as to recall that the large bouquet of at least a dozen crimson roses he was holding was for me.

             
“I... had doubts about what I could expect,” he smiled the questions away, and offered me the fragrant luxurious flowers with a majestic gesture.

             
“I’ll tell you a secret –” my fingers fixed around the stems of the roses, too, but neither of us let go, so we found ourselves closer to each other than before, both bending above the satiny petals of the bouquet slightly caressed by the warm breath of the almost still air stirred only by our shared mock-hidden excitement. “I would have come at six in the morning, too, if you had insisted so much upon it.”

             
Cardew smiled cunningly and the two of us walked together in the direction he had chosen – I didn’t protest that time not to turn the slight teasing into a real nuisance for him.

             
I had never before been in the cafe he took me to, but it was a place I couldn’t help liking – not in the last place because when we entered, they were playing a song by a band I loved.

             
“So, apart from casting runes, what other hobbies do you have?” I leant my chin on my hand and stared directly at Cardew who was sitting just across the table. “Forbidden rituals, human sacrifices, torturing? –”

             
“Lovely, lovely,” he shook his head with an – almost – innocent smile. “Don’t ask such direct questions – be a good girl and leave me a way out if I want to keep the secret –”

             
I laughed in response, although I didn’t feel like doing it at all; with a kind smile, the waiter brought us the order, and I reached for the fortune on the saucer before even putting sugar in the coffee.

             
However, Cardew had been faster and his fortune was already unrolled in his hands.

             
“‘Accept the next thing you’re being offered!’” he read aloud and his eyes, black in the scarce light, sent me an enchantingly dark smile. “Now it’s your turn, lovely.”

             
“To read or to offer?” I joked and, as the small paper was stubbornly doing its best not to open itself in my fingers, I – to Cardew’s silent amusement – started a furious fight against it to get to my message.

             
But the effect it had on me was expressed in my gasping and staring...

             
“‘Sometimes bravery is the worst adviser –’” Cardew leant towards me above the table and voiced the content of my fortune as I hadn’t. “What do you think about it, lovely?”

             
Danger!

             
The word was repeating in my mind, again and again, and totally blocking my ability to think.

             
Danger!

             
Danger!...

             
What if not bravery had lured me into accepting Cardew’s invitation and go out with him, what – as I had been aware that he would only bring me destruction?

             
Was that fortune another warning?

             
Was I doomed?!?...

             
“I admire bravery,” I shrugged not to reveal to the boy what thoughts had the little daring piece of paper inspired inside me. “And what is best or worst is too subjective, I don’t like making such radical statements as I usually see both sides of the question and the reasons behind them.”

             
He smiled in a mysterious elusive way which erased all rational thoughts out of my mind, and I suddenly felt more at ease, despite the warning I had received.

             
Was he hypnotizing me?...

             
“By the way –” I went on while slowly stirring my coffee and enjoying the flatteringly undivided attention with which he was following all my actions. “How would you prefer me to call you?”

             
“Why not ‘my love’,” Cardew went brutally straightforwardly, and boldly raised an eyebrow. “It will be utterly relevant – if not now, then in some hours –”

             
“Hours?” I burst into disdainful laughter at his certainty in the unlimited abilities of his own charm – not that I was far from believing in it as well. “Hours?! –”

             
“Right, minutes –” unabashed, he corrected himself and shrugged innocently.

             
“Minutes? –” my chuckling rang freely and I tossed my hair back to bare my neck – a movement Cardew followed with his eyes with pleasure, and with which I meant to demonstrate my own abilities as being as irrepressible as his.

             
“What a fool I am –” he discovered jokingly and his hand rested close to mine on the table, dangerously close. “Of course you’ve already fallen for me!”

             
“Me?” I exclaimed dramatically like a demonstratively shocked diva and my fingers quickly moved aside as if I had just decided to play with the scarlet band around the stems of the roses, but actually I was only making it not so easy for Cardew to simply lay his palm over mine – once he had done it, resistance would be doubly hard, both against him and my own instinctive wishes. “Why don’t you stick to the classic way to fall on your knees and promise me eternal love before asking such personal questions?”

             
“This was not a question,” Cardew remarked teasingly and I couldn’t resist bursting into giggling once more, while he gentlemanly went on not to embarrass me too much, “But yes, it’s in my nature to desire to stand out, lovely – boredom is such a nightmare –“

             
A nightmare?! Gods protect me…

             
“Then just be yourself, this will entertain me enough,” ignoring the keyword which made my heart leap uneasily, I raised my eyebrow again without letting him look away from my eyes. “You can be anything but a boring person.”

             
“Thank you,” Cardew chuckled but I felt he really meant it.

             
“I think that it makes no sense not to fulfil your desires just out of spite or some empty rebellion, or just because someone else is craving for the same, too,” I was smiling but he was listening to me carefully, my seriousness pleasing him just as much as my playfulness had. “Thus you are being made to obey outer rules again, and you don’t have your free choice because you stick to the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do – which is predetermined.”

             
“An interesting theory,” he nodded earnestly and took his cup to his lips without taking a sip from it, just gazing at my eyes above it. “Why do they say that logic and beauty are incompatible with each other?”

             
I giggled quietly and he smiled above the edge of the cup before tasting the coffee; the captivating mesmeric manner in which the almost unnoticeable wince of his genuinely tempting lips welcomed the fragile porcelain and gently cuddled it into intoxicating warmth distracted me to the extreme point in which even philosophy felt too plain and distant…

             
“What are you going to tell me about yourself?” I went on with my charming-teasing intonation when we continued our talk, already out of the cafe. “Where does your family live?”

             
“In a graveyard far away,” Cardew shrugged and I didn’t sense much sorrow in his tone. “They moved there so long ago that I even forgot what missing them felt like.”

             
“Oh –” supposing that the lack of grief in his tone was only due to his brilliant acting skills, I bit my lips. “I’m sorry I asked.”

             
He smiled widely without any traces of sadness in his expression, as if he was purposefully striving to persuade me that he could be absolutely heartless, even when it was coming to his closest people. “Don’t worry, past is past.”

             
“Tell me about your friends then,” I went on more cheerfully, hoping that there would follow a joyful and maybe a bit nostalgic tale of several boys swearing eternal friendship to one another.

             
But Cardew just shook his head with another mysterious smile. “No friends, lovely. Just like you –”

             
The intensity of his stare would have startled me if I hadn’t expected it; of course, I remarked in my mind, how would he tell me about something so personal as his past – he would love it to remain an enigma to me...

             
Just that – right there and then – I didn’t mind this at all...

             
“Then what kind of girls do you like?” I tossed a provocation at him without missing to notice that he was keeping as much attention to the movement of my legs as to the talk, but that wasn’t the least bit diminishing from his concentration on our duel turning into a game.

             
His smiling eyes cast me a blast of lucent amused sparks and I felt as though a sudden gust of playful wind had thrown a handful of dark confetti in my hair to flamboyantly celebrate the never-ending feast of youth.

             
“Why don’t you check for yourself?” Cardew gave me a wink and his hand passed dangerously close to mine, his fingers brushing my palm, almost imperceptibly on purpose.

             
But I had decided to play with him, too; deliberately passing the bouquet with the roses in my hand which was from his side, I couldn’t suppress a smile while accusing him, “You want to keep as many secrets as possible!”