An Immortal in London: Corruption (9 page)

“You have shared my dreams,” I said, meeting his knowing gaze.

              He bowed his head and smiled across to me, “It seems I am glutton for punishment.”

             
The words he spoke were identical to those which Levi had spoken. I took a step towards him and my hands propelled from behind my back and I held them out before him. His hands emerged from his pockets and they too crept towards mine. Our fingertips touched and I took a sharp breath. Light and dark were side by side, fighting for control, both winning neither losing.

             
“This can only end one way,” I said, controlling my passions.

             
His brows furrowed and he stepped closer to me, “It doesn’t have to.”

             
“What are a few dreams?” I asked, as if trying to convince myself.

             
“Exactly,” he whispered.

             
I crept painfully closer to him and took his hands in mine tightly, my grasp on him growing tighter and stronger, and my light overpowering his shade. He didn’t fight me, he allowed the pain to consume him and he pulled me into his arms with all of his pitiable force. I rested my hands onto his chest and he closed his eyes.

             
“You just have to give in,” he uttered in a breath.

             
I traced my left hand’s finger tips along the contours of his perfect face and took in a deep breath as I fought with myself, my darkness and light at war with one another. His eyes opened and he saw the inner conflict in my eyes as they delved into his.

             
“If you don’t kill me, I will kill Levi, and each and every other man that ever looks your precious way.”

             
“Levi does not
look my way
in
that
way
Victo
r
.”

             
“Did he tell you that?”

             
I shook my head, “you wouldn’t win, even if he did.”

             
He laughed and slipped his arms around my waist, his hands resting on my lower back, “Oh I have done it before.”

             
“How?”

             
“I was mortal he was not, I fought him and he fell. I had always been the stronger of the two of us; we had shared the same name until that day, the day that I became Victor. “

             
“You and Levi…”

             
He lifted my chin and his lips fell against mine, so delicate yet passionate. He leant his head against mine for a second before looking down to me and continuing.

             
“He took everything from me. His youngest sister, Cassandra, she and I were to be married. At the death of his father he refused the marriage and later that year she died of my people’s plague. In his guilt he promised me
anything
, by then his mother had returned from the Lord only knew where. Levi and Clarence were gifted with immortality, Clarence had told me and that was what I asked for. Before my dark fate was decided we fought, I gained my vengeance as he lay in a pool of his own ruby red blood. He then returned and I was killed, not by his hand, but because of his actions.”

             
I ran my hand along the scar on his left arm, identical to mine and looked back up into his eyes which were lost in the past.

             
“Kill me now, or I will find him and I will destroy him,” he said as he took my hands and rested them onto his chest.

             
“I can’t kill you.”

             
“Yes you can. You’ve done it before, skin, bone, what does it mean to us anymore? One touch and this will be over.”

             
“I need you Victor,” I said quietly, “but I need Levi too. I own him more than my own life. I won’t kill you, and I won’t let you kill him, not until I have paid you both back.”

             
“I want nothing from you Victoria, do you hear me? I want nothing.”

             
“Help me, and I promise that I will be yours.”

             
“Forever?” he whispered, Sedric’s face flashed before me and I closed my eyes quickly.

             
“For a while.”

             
He lifted my chin and kissed my lips hard and fast, he smiled as I opened my eyes. “For a while,” he repeated quietly, “When?”

             
“When the balance has been restored and Francis’s name has been cleared.”

             
He bowed his head in acceptance and I kissed him. His hands returned to my waist and he pulled me in to his chest, our beating hearts singing together to a deadly melody.

             
It wouldn’t end well, that I knew.  Men were my weakness, and love was my conqueror. They would be safe for now, but I didn’t have long to find a way to save them both. Victor had ripped my shield to sheds, my vacant emotionless self shattered around my feet and I stood more vulnerable and naked than I had ever been.

             
I walked from our meeting place and back to Levi’s home.

I finally knew the truth. They had a past, darker and far more ancient that I had dared believe. Whether or not Clarence had told Levi about Victor I would find out, as subtle as a cloud on a fresh summer’s day no doubt.

              Levi was stood by the ash tray oak tree when I turned into the drive. His head turned and a smile pricked onto his worried lips as I crossed the lawn to him. I had no right to be angry as I thought of everything that he had kept from me, but I couldn’t stop the fury that grew within me.

             
“So you managed to escape Roberta’s cave?” I asked calmly.

             
“She was stalling,” he said, searching my eyes, my cool emotionless eyes.

             
“I like her,” I replied, stood before him standing tall, not giving in to his pleading eyes. “What did she want?” I asked, as I met his eyes and forced my guilt and anger back into the dark recesses of my mind.

             
“She was stalling like I said. Where have you been?” his worry and relief poured from his lips as he put his hands onto my shoulders.

I placed my hand onto his cheek, my fingers trembling lightly, and shook my head, saying softly, “I’m sorry.”

He kissed my hands and looked over to the house, “Clarence has food waiting for you.”

“Are you not eating?”

“I have to go.”

“Where?”

“An old friend called, we have a lot to sort out.”

Panic fluttered through my chest and he caught sight of my worry.

“I’ll return in one piece I promise.”

I pulled him into a tight embrace and held my head against his thick heavy chest, his heart beat faster as I held him closer. I couldn’t lose him. Imagining my life without Levi would be like losing Sedric and my family all over again, like losing Katelyn and Francis.

“Be careful.”

“Ten minutes,” he whispered,
forcing his body from mine.

I hoped with all of my heart that I had given him enough to stop him from going to Victor. Clarence must have told him, and as I began to feel anger at her betrayal simmer in my heart she stepped out to me and called me into the house. 

“Where has Levi gone?”

“I think you know,” I said, sprinkling sugar into my tea.

She frowned and sat down opposite me, “You know?”

“I didn’t, but thank you for confirming it for me.”

“Victoria…”

“Save it, I understand why you told him.”

“You do?” I nodded and her eyes opened in shock, “You’ve been to him again, haven’t you?”

I shrugged and put my tea down, “He wants to kill him,” I said
. I was furious at her, but I was trying to keep calm. “But Levi won’t go to him today, not now.”

“What have you done Victoria?”

“Saved your brother’s life, pass the butter please.”

“
Oh.” She slid the butter across the table and sat watching me until her brother walked back into the house ten minutes later as he had promised.

I left the dining room to greet him. Clarence followed me slowly.

“Where did you go?” I asked quietly.

“You look like you could use some rest.”

“I’m fine, Levi, please.”

“Go, I’ll pass by your room later.”

As I walked up the stairs I heard Clarence ask Levi quietly with worry in her voice, “So you two are ok now?”

             
I waited to hear his answer, but none came.

             
Instead of going to bed I walked to the window in my room and jumped down from the frozen ledge.

             
I walked through London, the rain trickling through my hair and across my cheeks, alone, cold and more confused than ever. London had once been a comfort, home, but in the twenty first century it was alien and bared no resemblance to the city that I had once loved. The people were careless and cruel, the weather had gotten worse over the centuries, and the streets were heartless.

I had to fight the darkness, the shadows that played upon my memories; I had to end the corruption if I wanted my sanity and life back. I had no choice.

“Excuse me.”

             
I opened my eyes and shot up. The man sat next to me laughed and I looked around the park in which I had been sleeping.

             
“Was I here when you sat down?” I asked.

             
“Yep, fast asleep.”

             
I pushed my hands through my hair, and threw my head back with a sigh. I stood and stretched my shoulders, looked down to the man with an apologetic smile and walked from the park.  It was only a half hour walk to Levi’s house. I stood outside of the towering red brick building and wrapped my hands around the bars of the gates.

Levi
ran down to me, the rain not bothering him, I was all that he saw. My lips parted and a cool slim finger met them softly, far too tender to bear. He didn’t say anything. There was something in the way that he was looking at me that scared me, truly and deeply.

I had wandered through London for hours, coming and going from episodes of my memories my mind taking control of my body. Every part of me was sore and cold. I was more tired that I had ever felt.

“I want to go home.” My voice broke and my words were barely words at all.

He lifted me up into his arms and walked me to my home, my childhood home, Rainbow’s End.

As if he had lived there himself he walked around the house, knowing where each room, each hallway, each stair case would lead. He sat me down in my father’s study, a room in which I hadn’t ventured since leaving that awful night to go to Killin.

He rested me on the sofa that stood in the centre of the room before he left.

Something between the cushions of the sofa caught my eye and I couldn’t believe as I held in my hands the first and only gift that Sedric had given to me, it was a thin gold band with a glorious red stone in the centre with carefully crafted gold around it in a beautiful pattern. It was the summer before he proposed to me, the day of the sixteenth anniversary of my mother’s death, my sixteenth birthday. I put it onto my ring finger and smiled as it fit just right.

             
I thought back to the time that we had been driven to leave the house. My father had it all at the beginning. Everyone adored him, admired him and envied him, but I ruined it all with one foul swoop.

As I looked around the room my mind flickered back to
1823
it was a frozen night and we were leaving London, for good.

“What about the girls?” my aunt cried out to my father. Since my mother’s death, Margaret, her youngest sister had taken care of us
like a mother.

             
The snow was falling hard, me and Sophie stood shivering in the doorway watching them screaming and crying. Our eyes were too cold to cry, too weary to look at anything else.

             
Sophie wrapped her clock tighter around my trembling shoulders and she sung quietly, the beauty of her voice distracting me from their fight. I was nineteen and she was twenty one, but in that moment we were children once more, vulnerable and innocent.

             
“The girls will be fine Margaret,” father said, his voice flat and emotionless.

That fight had been my fault, each fight that had happened and would happen was down to my foolishness, yet no one ever blamed me, no one ever fought with
me
.

             
My aunt fell to the ground and took a hold of his lower legs, “We will have nothing Alexander, nothing! Is there nothing we can do to fix this?”

             
And for the first time in my life I saw my father cry, he too fell to his knees and held my aunt’s arms, shaking, “I’m sorry Margaret, I’m so sorry.”

             
I and Sophie ran to them and I held my father tightly. “We’re Jewels father, we can get through anything,” Sophie whispered, kissing my cheek lightly with a small smile on her foolishly hopeful lips.

I sighed and rested my head back on the sofa, my eyes slowly flickered closed. The house had never left my father’s name and had been lef
t to age until, with Gabriel’s help, I returned and had it renovated.

             
Something outside of my rested mind moved and I shot up and squinted at the human shadow that stood staring back at me. “How did you get in here?” I whispered, as if worried I might wake someone.

             
George stood into the beginning of the day’s light and walked to sit down next to me, “Clarence thought you were M.I.A, this was first on my check list. I’ve been invited for dinner.”

             
“Levi didn’t tell you?” I asked quietly.

             
“No,” he said with a sigh of annoyance, “He’s about as miserable as you look though.”

             
“Really?” I asked, sitting up and shaking the sleep from my head.

             
“Yes, and if I have to sit through dinner looking at his face I don’t know what I’ll do. Please come back with me Vickie, what do you say?”

             
I sighed and stood with him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice coming back to me slowly from sleep.

             
He put his hands onto my arms and smiled down to me, “Why don’t you try a smile?”

             
I tilted my head and smiled a little.

             
“There we go.”

I sat opposite George beside Levi. I smiled across to him and he laughed lightly as I forced it onto my lips.

              “That’s a beautiful ring Victoria,” Clarence said looking down at Sedric’s ring.

             
I laughed and slipped the ring from my finger putting it into my jean’s pocket. “It was a gift from Sedric; I found it in the house.”

             
“So Victoria, have you heard from Gabriel?” George asked.

             
I shook my head and shrugged, “No. I’m going to leave it a day or two, let things calm down.”

             
“Of course, well, let’s eat.”

             
The rest of the meal was spent in quiet speculation, no one wanting to really say what was on his mind. I wanted to talk to Levi, just him and me, but the distance between us at the table was too great. I could feel him pulling away from me the closer I got. The look that had scared me earlier was one that I would have killed to see again, it was better than the nothing that I could see in him then.

             
“Well I am fit to burst,” George said as he took a sip of his wine and relaxed back into his chair, “how about we retire to the drawing room?”

             
Each of us was slightly tipsy from the never ending flow of wine. George stood and offered Clarence his hand and they walked out of the room arm in arm. Levi placed his hand on the small of my back and we slowly followed on.

             
“Where had you been earlier?” Levi asked quietly.

             
“Here and there,” I said, uncertain as to what he wanted or expected me to say.

             
Clarence and George sat side by side before the fire and Levi frowned as I took out a pack of fine cigars.

             
Clarence sighed, “They’re no good for you Vic.”

             
I shrugged and stood, walking to George for his lighter when there was a harsh knock at the door as the hands of the clock threatened midnight. I reached the door before anyone else had chance to stand and as I opened it I was thrown to the floor.

             
I stared up in horror at the dead eyes. His hand came towards my chest but as his finger tips grazed my flesh he stopped dead. I looked up and Clarence was standing behind him with his heart in her hands.

             
She kicked his body away from me. Levi pulled me up and I clung to him. George sent Clarence to wash off her hands and he picked up the body to take it out back to burn.

             
Levi’s arms were wrapped around my body like iron bars holding me securely. As I pulled away from him I noticed blood on his white shirt and felt the back of my head.

             
“Great,” I muttered, as I pulled at my matted hair in which the blood had already begun to coagulate.

             
“This isn’t your day,” Levi said quietly.

             
“It could be worse,” I said, as I shook my head and sat down on the bottom stair on the grand staircase. “It’s one sure fire way to sober up I suppose.”

             
Levi sat down beside me and clasped his hands together.

             
“Are we ok?” I asked in a whisper.

“Were we ever ok?” he asked, his lips parting as I put my free hand onto his chest and leant closer to him.

His eyes were locked onto mine and refused to let me go. “You have a way of getting under my skin and I just can’t…”

             
“You two look cosy,” Clarence said, as she took hold of the banister and swung around to us with a devious smile on her face. “Where’s the blood from?” she asked as she noticed his stained shirt.

             
“My head,” I answered, as I felt my knotted hair again.

             
Clarence took my hand and began walking me up the stairs when she turned to Levi, “George is waiting for you, he wants to do a quick check.”

             
He stood without saying a word. The usual emotionless mask occupied his beautiful features once more.

             
Clarence walked with me to a bathroom. She washed my hair in the sink, brushing out the blood. I watched her and thought about her loyalty to Levi.

             
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said, as her hands massaged my head with the warm soapy water.

             
“I’ve let myself slip recently,” I said, thinking about my emotional defences and how brick by brick they had steadily crumbled since returning to London like a curse placed upon me by a spirit who wanted to keep me out of the old city.

             
“Levi does care for you,” she said as she turned off the tap and handed me a towel.

             
“I know he does, we’re just not like
that
.”

             
She laughed and shrugged her perfect little shoulders, “Ok, well when you change your mind, let me know.”

             
“There will be a dead body to be walked over before that happens.”

             
“Talking of bodies,” she began, “have you heard anything more off of Victor.”

             
I frowned and turned back to the mirror; I met my own eyes and sighed internally.

             
“No, but even if I had I wouldn’t tell you.”

             
“I just don’t want you to get hurt Vic.”

             
“You’ve said more times than I can remember.”

             
When Levi returned George had gone home, satisfied that his old Jewel was safe.

             
I walked into the drawing room across to Levi and looked up into his terrified eyes. I clung to him and his warm protective arms held me safe. I kissed his neck softly as his lips graced my hair and he sighed.

             
“It’s not safe for you here anymore.”

             
“Where else can we go?”

“George, you could stay with him?”

              I closed my eyes and took a breath, “Where will you go?”

             
“I’ll stay for a while…”

             
“If I go you go.”

             
“Rose…”

             
“I’m not going to argue about this.”

             
“You’ll go to him first thing.”

             
“Tomorrow I’ll go, you’ll come?”

             
He nodded and pulled me into his arms firmly. Once again I had been pushed into his arms by the one thing that wanted me the most, the darkness. Levi was all that I had and I wasn’t going to let anyone take him away from me.