Between the Lines - Chapter 5

Gabriel’s Perspective</u>

“If he tasted her blood, she is doomed. Love of his life or not, he will hunt her down and tear her into pieces.” Penelope was walking up and down the room at a speed not visible to human eye and talking a lot faster and quieter than any human could hear.

Thankfully, I wasn’t one.

“No, this cannot be. You don’t know him!” I tried to defend my friend best as I could, but I wasn’t doing that well.

“He isn’t your harmless little friend Antonio anymore, he is a beast and I know their kind all too well.”

My eyes involuntarily crept towards her chest where little pale scars lay as reminders of her dark past. When Penelope was my lover, I remember saying those scars were perfect, just like the rest of her. But then she met Adrian, her soul mate, and now…there is Isabel.

“In the end, it is your choice, if you say that you heard the calling for her, you have to have her. You remember what happened to Celina, don’t you?”

“How could I forget? I watched her to commit suicide! It’s not the most pleasant sight, you know. I still would be having nightmares if I could sleep.” I grabbed her elbow harshly to stop her marching around. “Quit it, the whole thing is intense enough without your drama tap dance.” I was being mean in return for her help, and I knew I would regret it later. I just didn’t think I would come to regret it in the next few milliseconds.

“Well bugger off then!” She yelled, her English accent showing greatly as she did that. “If you need help, go to Adrian or Elinor.” Penelope turned to walk out of the library.

“Penelope, no, I’m sorry. You know you are special. Adrian won’t understand, he didn’t fight for you, and he didn’t even really get the calling as strong as you did. And Elinor is too young.”

Penelope laughed in my face. “Too young? Elinor is ancient and you know it!”

“Ancient and as cold as ice…” I murmured walking out quickly as I knew Penelope would be revengeful and would only mock me about all this today, and possibly for the next few weeks. Time ran differently for her, even more than for the rest of us. She didn’t tune into the mortal’s time even when she was working, sometimes, she would be well ahead, her moods changing every second and sometimes her minute would be taking days.

I needed to think all this through even if I already knew the answer I would come up with in the end. So finally, Antonio turned. My best friend was now officially a werewolf. We knew this would come for the past few months, but it still hit me hard. His personality change was running quicker than usual. About twenty minutes after gaining consciousness, he was merry, cocky, and fairly ignorant, or so Penelope described him. And if he had even a tiniest bit of Izzy’s blood last night, she was bound to be his first victim. Werewolves are extremely overwhelmed by the first drop of blood they receive, and they long for that flesh more than a newborn vampire longs for the essence of life.

And no matter how much Tony loved her, he would feast on Izzy in a fortnight or less. This, of course, wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t fallen for Isabel. No, fallen isn’t the right word. She is my soul mate, just like Adrian is for Penelope; strangely Izzy is human, but it doesn’t matter. I will have to win her love or I will perish. Vampires are far from perfect in that sense, and I always wished I didn’t get the calling for myself.

It is love not from first sight but from the first instance you feel that person’s presence near you. Humans might call that perfect love, I call that a curse, I will never be able to cheat on my soul mate, I will never want anyone else but Izzy. And if I don’t get her love before she dies, which would mean that I will never bathe in the warmth of her presence again. My leftovers of something that might have been called a soul over a century ago starts decaying and I would eventually go mad and take my life away in a worst possible way I could think of. Knowing my sick mind, it would be something horrible involving hurting another lot of people between dozen and two hundred. Oh, this is just a load of waffle and I know it! No one can explain the calling no matter how evident his effects are. Why the hell am I kidding myself?! I will have to kill my best friend for the woman I love, or hope he will be an exception for the rule.

But then, if I try to win Isabel over, Antonio will try to kill me.

“I need a new life…” I moaned as I heard a knock on the door. “Go away unless you got over yourself Penelope.”

“It’s Izzy, can I come in?” The gentle voice behind the door sent my heart racing, or at least it felt like it did; I still remembered how it felt from the times when I was alive. How didn’t I feel her coming? Usually I’m so aware of her that it was absurdly annoying.

“Yes, go ahead.” I was glad I ripped that nude painting on Sunday when I first saw her and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. It would have been disturbing if she found that one on my bedroom wall.

She came in, not her the usual fast and confident steps, but shyly and slowly. She seemed scared, but more beautiful then I ever saw her to be. Loose brown curls framing her lightly tanned face, long thick eyelashes shielding those marvellous dark brown eyes away. I enjoyed my perfect vision for a second, inspecting little shades of amber in her eyes, but as my eyes moved to her plump lips I could barely control my urge to sweep her off her feet and passionately kiss her…and more.

“Hi, I hope you are not annoyed with me being all around you today, j-“ She was talking really quietly, but I knew the rest of the house could hear every word. Damn that vampire family!

“No, no, but would you like to talk and walk? I’m dying for some air.” I was hoping this attempt to get her out of the hearing sight of my ‘family’ wasn’t too lame or that she didn’t find it weird. “How is your shoulder?”

“Good as new, Penelope did a great job on it. Actually, would you like to drive down to the forest park? The weather is great and it’s only ten minutes drive away.” She was getting more relaxed by the minute and her heartbeat was slowing down. This had its advantages and disadvantages. No matter how much her over fast heartbeat turns me on, it is so hard to keep myself composed so I was nearly glad she has calmed down a bit.

“Yeah, that actually sounds great!”

“Don’t you want to put something on?” She asked, with this ‘are you mental?’ look on her face. I looked down just to see I wasn’t wearing any t-shirt or anything out of that agenda. Crap! That must have been the reason why she was so shy, but I couldn’t help but smile inside thinking whether she liked what she saw or not.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, it’s really warm here, I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t wearing a top.” Yet another lie, I wouldn’t have been cold even if it was minus fifty Celsius in my room. One of few advantages of being dead. Because technically I am. I snickered at that and it was obviously too loud.

“What?” I was starting to think that girl has ultra hearing.

“Nothing, you just probably now think I’m a freak.”

“What makes you think I didn’t think so before?” she smiled at me so brightly I felt my heart jump, or maybe I was hallucinating since my heart couldn’t possibly function. “C’mon, hurry up, I have few things to talk about and Ben will need his dinner; I doubt there is anything in the fridge.”

She was driving like mad; I never saw a human speeding like that when he or she wasn’t being pursued by police or have just robbed a bank. She wasn’t talking, but I sensed she had something important to say.

We were walking in complete silence for the last five minutes when I finally tried to break the ice.

“So you said you wanted to talk about something.”

“Yes.” She didn’t look up from her shoes. It’s about Antonio, again.” Her head dropped even lower, it was hard to see her so sad and miserable.

She hesitated for a while, but I saw she was going to tell me what’s wrong.

“What was that you talked about with him today?” She looked up to me slightly tilting her head sideways. That question hit me unprepared; I was freaking out too much about what will happen in a week or two I forgot what would happen in a day, or as it proved to be, even sooner.

“Why?” I tried to get help by seeing what she wanted to hear. Because somehow, she didn’t buy my lies. And this had nothing to do with her being my soul mate and all. This was something entirely different. Isabel was utterly unique, because every other human being on this planet could have been tricked into anything by a gorgeous vampire like myself, but she wasn’t. She was impenetrable. Neither I nor Penelope could sense her emotions like we could do for the rest of human race, and she was so clumsy but at the same time she could stand on a half empty box on only one foot and balance three different shaped objects with one hand. Isabel was something different altogether and I hadn’t figured her out yet.

“Well, it is kind of personal…” the wind changed it’s direction and her scent blew me full in the face. It was really warm and spring-like.

“Come on, after today?”

“He… he…tried to hit me.”

I felt rage pulsing through me as her word sank in.

“WHAT?” Hearing my rage escape, I realized I was being too loud. Her scared eyes proved me right. “Sorry, I didn’t mean in like that, but… it can’t be, Tony is always so gentle with you, I mean even when he talked about you h-”

“Wait, he talked about me, but you made it look you never knew about me. Or was that just another act of pretence?” Her tone was rising; she had such a bad temper.

“He never gave away your name, he didn’t even describe you properly, he was always being so strange about your relationship to me, I never got why was he doing that until yesterday.” I heard my voice had calmed down, but inside I was storming, how could he?

The point is that the whole vampire soul mate deal is really complicated, it is different to each of us, but the main things always are the same. One of them that first few weeks you are an emotional wreck, because after a nearly absolute numbness in emotional sector something so overwhelming drives you mad, literally. I saw Penelope go through it, it’s not exactly a pretty sight. So far she said, I’m doing great. We will see how long that will last, because nights are too long now. I even thought of getting back to hunting instead of buying blood of our contacts in various blood banks.

I just can’t live through the night thinking about her all the time, day keeps me occupied – a little bit – the school is so easy it is extremely hard to focus in classes, especially when teachers, who are stupid compared to me. And I’m only saying that because it’s a fact, the teacher has only one masters degree, if any. I have three masters degrees and two Ph.D’s. No one in this state has a qualification like this, except maybe Elinor. But she was being a bitch and isn’t telling much about her past. I bet she killed off all the people of Atlantis and then sank the city… She is nearly about the right age and swims better than any fish or other water creatures…

“Just tell me what happened.”

“We were having a fight because he was keeping stuff away from me a lot lately. The way he wanted to talk to you alone today totally finished me off. I don’t understand him anymore. He always had mood swings, but his dad is Italian, they are all like that. Plus when his dad went in after breaking two ribs and fracturing a skull for his mother, it was really hard for him. He needed to let everything out, and he never hit anyone who didn’t ask for it, but now, he was so violent, you didn’t see his eyes…” She was sobbing loudly now and few people stared at us when we passed them by. I put my arm around her shoulders and just hoped she wouldn’t think I’m hitting on her. “…Couldn’t recognize my Antonio in those eyes, it was like he wasn’t there anymore, I don’t know what had happened.”

“Isabel… I had no idea… I still can’t believe he did something like that.” I couldn’t think of anything to comfort her. Stupid emotional decline…

“What did you talk about?” Her voice was so cold I shivered, and then felt weird because I haven’t shivered in more then a hundred years.  All the pain that she was haunted with a moment ago was gone. Why is she so hard to figure out? I can read humans like an open book but she was so strange I just can’t understand her. I was stumped, as I understood that I just diagnosed a case of serious weirdness to the love of my life and nearly burst out with laughter. I’m the one who is being insane! “What did you talk about?” Her voice was so quiet but so threatening I got scared of her for one instant then I remembered she is human and can’t do anything to me, but she sounded so much like Elinor it totally freaked me out. Even being the smallest one in our family and only looking like a petite twelve-year-old girl, Elinor was clearly the most dangerous one. I remember not letting my guard off for nearly two years after she joined us. The vampire in a fight could be a disturbing sight for some but Elinor in a battle is a sick sight for anyone, even an undead.

“I can’t tell you, sorry Izzy.” I saw her face clouding over, she reminded of Elie so much then. I wanted her to tell everything so badly, but how could I? Just come up and start ‘oh, yeah, I’m a blood sucking killing machine – a vampire. And your long loved boyfriend is a werewolf craving for your flesh who will rip you apart in less than two weeks. So yeah, you might consider hiring mercenary or buying a coffin. Oh, and I’m eternally in love with you.’ Yeah, that would go down really well.

“You don’t want me as an enemy Gabriel.” And then she just walked off. I longed to run after her and comfort her, tell her everything she wanted to know, but I had more than just a good idea of what would happen next. I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I would rather die then see hatred and fear in her eyes every time she looked at me. I looked at the irony of my choice, but it wasn’t funny this time. So I just watched her walking away, quickly for a human but slow enough for me to fall in despair from watching her.