The night sky is brighter than I've ever seen it. Stars illuminate the heavens like a trillion brilliant flames. The universe brims with life. It pulses down at me, filling the void with its howling song. The wild unsayable. The moon is ripe and the air is tinged with heat. Winter is passing and spring is being born.
I stand with Emily and Atticus by O. Henry's modest grave in historic Riverside Cemetery. This boneyard seems the only place in town Emily is truly comfortable. She likes it here. Her leg is healing and she is clad in new black jeans and a thin t-shirt. Santos stands beside her, eyes shining like a wolf. They search the night incessantly, looking for threats or a way out. Since the night of the turning, he has fallen unusually quiet.
He has secured a leave of absence from the sheriff's department, claiming he needs a mental health break. No one was really surprised. The murders, he told them, on top of a decade of war, had taken their toll.
Officially cleared of suspicion, Lucien has assumed Dana's place as my partner at work. I'm glad for his company and this way I can more easily protect him. Though investigators have assigned blame for the murders of the two girls, and the disappearances of Dana and Savannah, to the vanished Dr. Webb, not everyone is convinced.
Mr. Granger, especially. He's unable to accept that a respected white doctor took his daughter and not the young black man who openly desired one of the victims. Others are unsure as well and Lucien walked a hard road until detectives discovered mementos of Webb's other victims in his home on Whisper Mountain. Delicate locks of hair in wisps of gold and amber, jet and flame, were tied with silken thread, kept under glass like specimens of butterfly. Las Mariposas, Santos calls them. Webb even had a lock of Savannah's, which he might have snipped the night I brought her to the hospital. I can easily imagine him sliding a scalpel out of his white coat and slashing free a tendril of her hair when she and her father weren't looking.
They trusted us.
Mr. Granger is on the hunt, armed with a rifle and moonshine. His kin dust these mountains like blue smoke and have come forth to search for Savannah. Law enforcement is looking as well, but no one will find her. With my sun-strength, I buried her three fathoms deep on a high bluff looking down upon the Grangers' valley. I wanted to get her closer to home, but with the bloodhound noses of her kin, it wasn't wise.
No one must ever find her. No one will ever find Webb. I incinerated him where he fell, and I will confess that I took alarming satisfaction in it. All it took was one little match and his sun-ravaged corpse erupted in ash.
In the cemetery, Santos now shifts uneasily on his feet. While it soothes Emily, the setting seems to unsettle him. He does not know how familiar Emily and I are with graveyards. We grew up with one right outside our parsonage window. For us, they are a comforting reminder that the dead are never far.
His skin is a shade paler, but the darkness still remains. It glows more blackly in his eyes, shining. How will he adjust to constant killing without losing his soul?
Emily and I won't let him.
"You're his maker," I say to my sister. "Don't run from this." Don't slip into fantasy and hide. "Teach him. Contain him. Show him how to survive. If anyone is strong enough, Emily, it is you."
She looks at me with a wide, deep gaze. There is an anguished look to her I haven't seen since Branwell died. Her eyes are a sea-grey storm, crashing with frightening currents. I have never known a male and female Night Walker to live as equals, but Emily will be subjugated by no one.
Beside her, Santos looks savage and on edge. Fear in him swirls, shifts to anger, filling me with dread. Depending on his heart, he can become a dark guardian or a blazing demon, and I'm unsure which path he'll take. He stays close to Emily as if her presence offers security, and this gives me solace.
I long to reach out to him, to comfort him, but his taut wrath holds me back. I pray Emily will grant him a little warmth. A soothing touch. An impassioned embrace? I smile inwardly at the thought. Perhaps that is asking too much, but Santos is a physical creature and if there's any chance of saving him, she mustn't live too fiercely in her mind, withholding reassurance, refusing to forgive.
He saved me. He saved her. Surely sentencing him to a life without daylight absolves him of Jadallah's death. So why this dread in my heart? Because my sister doesn't forgive and she never forgets, even when it defies all reason.
Yet if I can be so thoroughly transformed, then surely the possibility exists for her as well. To soften. Open. Atticus is angry and scared, but mostly he is confused. He doesn't understand why Emily bristles in his presence and remains so resolutely cold. I long to explain, but that is for her to do when the time is right. She'll tell him someday, but not yet. He has enough to contend with now.
"Have courage, Atticus." His eyes alight on me and I feel their force against my skin. So much intensity burns within. How will he ever contain it? "You are worthy of the night. You have the strength and discipline for it. Learn to love it. Don't shun it as I did, rejecting its mysteries and wisdom. The darkness is beautiful and Emily is one of the brightest souls I've ever known. She will light the way."
With a jaded stare, he studies her to see if this is true. Only I can hear her heart quicken. She glows beneath the moonlight, untouchable, but I smell the fear in her. Santos has no idea who she is. He knows not her brilliance or her strength and cannot conceive the depths of her brutality. Her poise turns his gaze hot with anger. I don't know if he's forgiven us, but when he looks back to me I glimpse a slender thread of hope. Perhaps I am proof this life does not condemn one to a fiend, and even amidst the carnage we can do some small measure of good.
I relinquished his mortality, but I will not relinquish his soul. "You are at a crossroads, Atticus. Although we walk in darkness, we are guardians of the light. But you must choose it. We are condemned to be free and you must decide which path to walk. Excuses are irrelevant. Only choice matters."
His eyes rest on me a moment before turning away, looking across the graveyard. Roaming, scanning, sweeping for danger, but he is the danger now.
"What will you do?" Emily asks me.
"I'll stay here. It's my home now. William is here and my work." He hasn't forgiven me yet, but I feel his desire and I'm unwilling to relinquish that either.
Emily shifts uneasily and stares down at my new boots. They are gleaming black leather, supple and sleek. Not a drop of blood stains them, which is how I'd like them to stay if I can help it.
She kicks at the ground and says, "I never told you I was sorry. For abandoning you." I'm not sure if she is referring to our first life or second, but it doesn't matter. I forgive her everything, for even with her blood-drenched heart she is the most beautiful of souls. Primal and true. She needs no rules to guide her way. No laws or religion. Emily is her own compass, her own flame carving a path through the darkness.
A beacon unto herself.
Oh, how I love her.
And suddenly I know that love is immortal. Death cannot end it. Time—space—mortality cannot contain it. Love transcends. Long after our bones have melted to dust, our memories decayed, despite madness, betrayals, loss—it still abides. Shattered hearts bleed with love. We can't help it. It's how we're made.
In the image of divinity.
Emily looks at me, eyes fierce. "I should have found you sooner. I should have looked harder." Her voice breaks. She rubs her brow in frustration while Santos watches, mesmerized by her sudden vulnerability. "I will never run again, I swear it. If you need me, call and I will come."
"I'm glad to hear it." I reach into my jacket pocket. "Here." She stares uncomprehending as I hand her a flip-phone. "Charge it occasionally. I'll take care of the rest."
Her shoulders drop as if I have yoked her with a great burden. "I guess I'll have to figure out how to use this."
"Atticus will show you." I laugh. "It won't hurt you to step into the 21st century."
"They can track us with it," Santos says.
"Who's 'they'?"
"The police," Emily says. "The government."
"It's not the government I worry about, it's other Night Walkers," I tell them. "Regardless, I'll no longer be careless with my safety. From here on out, all technology our group uses, including this phone, comes from Vander. He's tightened his security and doubled his satellites. Our messages are encrypted and locations blocked. William is tracking other Night Walkers in our area and we're strengthening our medical and blood supplies in case of an emergency. You'll have to trust us," I tell Atticus.
"I trust you," he says.
My heart leaps. Emily shifts, aware he has not granted her this gift and I want to pull her into my arms and kiss her, but she would detest it. Instead, I squeeze her hand.
"Emily, I forgave you a long time ago. Branwell, too. Even Charlotte." I smile. What is a slandered manuscript next to eternity? "We had a love that was epic. Is epic. It will never die."
Grief illuminates her gaze, but she does not let the tears fall. I'm glad of it. She will need great strength if she is to save Santos from the darkness of his own heart.
Embarrassed, she turns to leave, but I stop her. I must be strong too.
"Emily Brontë and Atticus Santos." My voice turns formal, capturing their attention. "You are more savage than me, but know this, Asheville is my town now. I am its Alpha. Its blood is off-limits to you. If you hunt here or harm a living soul, I will kill you."
Atticus glares at me, hurt flooding his face.
Emily reaches a hand out, softly grazing my cheek. "My little fawn has learned to fight. As you wish, my love."
And they are gone.
I walk the streets toward home. Voices drift through windows, laughter, the sleepy murmur of a child. A father tucks his daughter into bed. A mother whispers the words of a fairy tale to her little boy. Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl. A dog looks up, but doesn't bark.
I turn down a block until I stand outside William's door. Through the window, I see him bent over his desk, scribbling away in feverish concentration on a new manuscript. He no longer shares his work with me and in a brilliant fury threw his first novel in the fire. Bless the gods I was there to snatch it from the flames despite his best efforts to stop me. Against William's will, I've stowed it safely away.
Tonight his eyes are bruised from insomnia, his thick locks a long, tangled disaster. Beside him is a stack of crisp, clean paper and a laptop, cold and closed. At his feet, Woody dreams restlessly.
Longing shatters my soul. My professor hasn't thawed for me even though I sense his desire thrumming through him. Vander says to be patient, in time William will come around. He's been exposed to violence before and always recovers. But not this kind of violence, I think. Not from a woman. Even so, I suspect it's not violence that shakes him, but something far worse. Shame. Shame at his failure to protect me. Shame at his fragile sense of mortality. Shame at his humanity.
But he didn't fail me. He saved me. He gave me the strength and courage to fight. He gave me a reason to face the darkness and own it. I've tried to tell him, but he won't listen. He refuses to see past his injured pride, and his sense of honor is not as flexible as Vander thinks.
I have read his masterpiece. I know his soul. Honor and duty cut in unexpected ways and it is the noblest among us who bear the deepest wounds.
Yet what do I have if not patience?
I am no longer blind to my powers and someday William will know them too.
He believes I am a fallen angel; Emily thinks I'm a risen one. I have tasted the forbidden fruit and swallowed the blood of self-knowledge and such nourishment has triggered the dream's dissolution.
I know who I am.
William glances up and stares out into the night, his mind a multiverse away, lost in dreams, the gods of his religion. And in this moment, he is the creator, infinitely more powerful than any destroyer. He shakes his hand as if to ease a cramp, then bends back to his work, writing with quick, fluid strokes. His skin is pale, his eyes tortured, but they burn with an incandescence I know fully well.
I want to go to him, to ease his doubts and slay him with love, but in my family it is a sin to break a writer's deep thoughts, so I let him be.
For now.
I turn toward home. Soon the sun will rise and I will meet it in tearful awe, but for the first time in a life of darkness, I do not want the night to end.
At home, Ivanhoe greets me with a look that says, "You are the same, but different, and I approve." Sweeping him up, I give him a kiss, go inside and build a roaring fire.
Then I sit before my ancient desk, pick up a pen and begin to write.
The End