Part 23 (2/2)
Noah placed a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back to the moment. ”Are you okay?” he asked.
She shrugged his hand off. She needed s.p.a.ce, needed to breathe. ”Fine,” she said, more tersely than she'd meant to.
As if she were in a movie, she saw her father reaching out a hand toward her. She couldn't deal with it, couldn't deal with him. A week before, a day, an hour, she knew in her heart she would have killed him for what he'd done to her family, to his family.
Now everything was so complicated.
”We need to get back to home base,” she said. ”Let's move out.”
THE MONASTERY OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. ANDREW.
ANTONIO AND ESTHER.
In the cell bristling with stakes, Antonio spent every moment hating himself. The thought that he had bitten Jenn still made him shudder, but with a terrible mixture of remorse and longing, regret and desire. He wanted more of her blood. He wanted it the way a drowning man wanted air.
The monks of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew had told him they could help. They came to pray and chant, but he felt no different. They were wrong. Just as Father Juan had been, and Jenn. They should never have trusted me. But then again, if what he had heard about the virus was true, it would all soon be over.
The tumblers of a lock clicked in the distance, and, moments later, footsteps echoed against the stone floor. One of the monks coming to check on him, no doubt. He didn't even raise his head.
”You're a sorry excuse for a man, vampire or not.”
He jerked his head up in surprise and saw Jenn's grandmother, Esther, standing and staring at him, arms folded across her chest, eyes critical.
”Excuse me?” he asked, so shocked to see her there that he could barely process what she'd said.
”You heard me. Sorry excuse for a living creature.”
He felt his lips twist in a snarl. ”You don't understand.”
”Then enlighten me,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
”You should back away from the bars,” he warned her. ”You're standing too close. I might . . .”
”What? Bite me? Kill me? Bore me to death with your sad tale about how you just wish you could be good?”
”What is wrong with you?” he asked, wondering, just for a moment, if the woman had lost her mind. Grief could do crazy things to people.
”That's what I want to know about you,” she said with a snort.
He stood, slowly, and wrapped his hands around the bars of his cage. ”I'm a vampire,” he said, pulling back his lips to reveal his fangs.
She shrugged. ”So what?”
He felt as though she had just slapped him. He shook his head. ”I don't understand your att.i.tude.”
”And I don't understand yours.” She frowned at him. ”You love my granddaughter, right?”
”With all my heart,” he admitted, though the words tore at him.
”Love's stronger than hate, or fear, or anything. Except maybe faith. And from what I hear, you've got plenty of that.” She c.o.c.ked her head. ”At least, you say you do.”
”I have faith,” he insisted. ”I do.”
”Prove it,” she said, not even flinching.
Without hesitating, he placed his hand against a cross tacked on the wall of his cell. After a moment he showed her the skin, unburned.
”I'm not talking about parlor tricks or magick or superst.i.tion,” she said, shaking her head at him. ”I'm talking about real faith. And real love. Either you have them or you don't.”
He stared at her. No one had challenged him like this in a very long time.
”Last time I read the Bible, it said that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains,” she continued.
Antonio nodded. ”I know the pa.s.sage.”
She looked at him full on, challenging. ”So if you have faith, you can overcome the evil urges in your heart.”
He lowered his head.
”And Antonio? Mustard seeds grow in the dark.”
”I want to believe that you're right,” he whispered.
Esther exhaled, exasperated. She looked as if she wanted to strangle him.
”Then do it. Don't want to believe-believe. Or maybe that's your problem. You just don't have the will.”
”I do, senora,” he insisted, but he couldn't look at her. He wondered what she saw. A monster that had attacked her granddaughter?
A silence fell between them. He heard her sigh.
”When it all comes right down to it, what a man has is his will,” she said. ”If his will is weak, so is the man. If it's strong, the same applies.”
He thought of the scriptures-not my will, but Thy will. But that spoke of freely handing over his will to G.o.d. He had spent his lifetime trying to understand the will of G.o.d.
But there are some things about His will that I do know. He wants me to be good, and moral, and decent.
”Antonio,” Esther Leitner continued, ”the history books are filled with stories of men with iron will who have done great or terrible things. Look at Churchill. Look at Hitler. Two men from your youth on opposite sides of a war. Two men with iron will. When things seemed bleakest, one of them took his own life. Hitler. In the end, his will was weaker.”
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