I didn't expect to hear from Dante so quickly. Based on what he'd said about the difficulty of the Nyx-charm, I'd figured it would be a while - if at all. Hugh's observations on the matter had only reinforced my growing skepticism about Dante's abilities.
"I've got your protection," Dante told me on the phone. "Or at least as close as I can get. You want it, come pick it up." He disconnected.
I drove to Rainier Valley, finding Dante's shop empty as usual. "Guess you don't see a lot of business so close to Christmas, huh?"
"Actually," he told me, emerging from the back room, "you'd be surprised at the kind of desperation the holidays can bring out in people. Here, catch."
He tossed me something baseball-sized. I caught it, feeling a little disappointed when I studied it closer. It looked like a wicker ball, made of very thin, dark branches. Through the gaps, I could make out a few things inside. One looked like a rock. Another looked like a feather. The whole thing rattled when I shook it.
"This is it?" I asked. "This is going to keep away an uber-powerful dream entity? It looks like a prop from The Blair Witch Project."
"It can't force her away," he said. "Nothing can. But it might make her think twice. It's more of...a repellent."
"Like citronella?"
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, like citronella. Depending on her energy charge, she might blow past it. If she's weak enough...well, it might hold her back."
I examined the ball again. It still didn't look like much to me. I sensed no power or magic off of it, but not all objects had an aura I could sense. For reading inanimate items, a psychic mortal tended to be more adept than a lesser immortal. My silence appeared to further annoy Dante.
"Look," he snapped. "You don't have to use it, but it took a fuckload of power for me to craft it, okay? It'd be nice if you could maybe withhold your customary sarcasm for a whole five minutes to thank me."
"My customary sarc - "
I stopped the burst of temper starting to flare in me. Dante ranked near the top of my list of cynical acquaintances, but I wasn't exactly Pollyanna myself. I'd given him nothing but a hard time since I first came to him for help. And now, studying him, I noticed he was pale and tired-looking. His eyes were bloodshot. The ball might be worthless, but he'd clearly exerted some sort of effort in making it.
"You're right," I said. "I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you for this."
His eyebrows rose, and I could actually see the self-control it took for him not to mock my sincerity. He nodded. "You're welcome." We each waited for the other to speak. I don't think we knew what to do without the sarcasm. "So...did you find your angel friends?"
"No. I apparently need a fucking Bat Signal or something. Jerome's gone too. Hugh - this imp friend of mine - could get a hold of him, but it'd probably piss Jerome off if we were wrong about all this." I scowled, recalling the conversation in the deli. "Anyway, Hugh's pissing me off right now, so I don't even know if I want his help."
Dante smiled. "I thought succubi were supposed to make friends everywhere they went. Or is that a myth like the bat wings and flame eyes?"
"He's just being an asshole about Seth."
Dante looked at me expectantly. I sighed.
"He thinks us dating is a waste of time. And not because of the sex thing. He thinks I'm going to get hurt."
"Terribly altruistic of an imp. But then, considering your quasi-morals, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to assume anything about you guys." He took a few steps toward me and playfully tapped my nose. "And what about you? Do you think you're going to get hurt?"
"No. And if I do, that's for me to deal with. Hugh shouldn't be worrying about it. And he shouldn't make Seth worry about it either!"
"Don't get so upset about people worrying about you. It means they care. If enough of us were like that, there'd be a lot less pain in the world."
That was an unexpected observation from Dante. "Maybe. But there'd also be a lot less unnecessary stress."
He chuckled and caught hold of my hand. Flipping it over, he looked at the palm. "A random assortment of lines for this body?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Can you change it to your original?"
"What, so you can read it? I thought this was a bunch of bullshit."
"Sometimes."
I waited for more, but it didn't come. His gray eyes were serious and thoughtful as they met mine. Something in them compelled me, and with great reluctance, I shape-shifted my hands back to the ones I'd been born with. I hadn't worn my original body since the day I'd become a succubus, and this small change felt unnatural. I hated this form. While my original hands weren't gargantuan, they were larger than was proportional to this petite frame I carried and appeared weird and mismatched.
Dante held my hands in his and glanced back and forth between the palms. After just a few seconds, he snorted and dropped them both. "Surprise, surprise."
I shape-shifted them back to the way they had been. "What?" I asked.
"Right-handed?"
"Yeah."
He pointed to the left hand. "Those lines represent what you're born with - your inherent traits. The right hand is the hand that shows how you grow and change and adapt to what you're born with. Nature and nurture."
"So?"
"Yours are identical on both hands. Your heart line is high on the palm - which means you have an intense, passionate nature. No surprise there. But it's broken into a million pieces. Sliced and diced." He tapped my left hand. "You were destined for heartache." He tapped my right hand. "And you are going to repeat that pattern forever. You aren't learning. You aren't changing."
"If I'm destined for it, then what does learning or changing have to do with anything? Isn't it a done deal?" I didn't like the censuring tone in his voice, like I'd done something wrong by having these palms.
"Don't start," he said. "I'm not a philosopher and don't want to get into any pre-destination or free-will debates. Besides, palm reading is a bunch of bullshit."
"Yeah," I said dryly. "So I hear."
To my surprise, Dante put his arm around me and drew me close in a sort of half-hug. "Be careful, succubus. You've got a mess o' dangerous things in your life right now. On all fronts. I don't want to see you get hurt either."
I stayed in the embrace and rested my head on his chest. "When did you get so nice? Are you still trying to get me into bed?"
"I'm always trying to get you into bed." He pressed a kiss to my forehead, to my nose, and then to my lips. "But I kind of like you too. Just watch out."
I drove home after that, a bit confused over Dante's surprising behavior. Thinking about him, I soon arrived in Queen Anne before I knew it. I found neither Vincent nor the angels in my apartment and decided to go to the bookstore. I had today off too, but I knew they were busy and could use the extra help. I needed the distraction.
Just before closing, Seth called my cell and asked if I could pick him up at his brother's. He and Terry had indeed gone to see the movie, but Seth's car was actually here in Queen Anne and he needed a ride now since Terry had originally picked him up. I finished what I was working on in my office and headed out.
Terry and Andrea greeted me warmly when I showed up, reminding me to come to Christmas dinner - even though I'd long since told them I'd be there. They always regarded my relationship with Seth as a tenuous, fragile thing (which it was) and felt compelled to do all they could to protect it. The girls were as thrilled as always to see me, and they assaulted me with questions and chatter.
All except Kayla. She'd apparently gotten to stay up late tonight. In some ways, her silence wasn't surprising. Aside from the startling conversation the other night, she almost never spoke anyway. But usually, she'd come forward with the other girls to see me. Tonight, she simply stayed on the couch, watching me solemnly. When Seth made motions to leave, I broke from the girls and went over to Kayla.
"Hey, you," I said, sitting down beside her. "How's it - "
I hadn't touched her, but Kayla suddenly jerked away from me as though she'd been burned. Backing up, she scrambled off the couch and tore out of the room. We heard her small footsteps on the stairs as she ran to her room.
Startled, I looked at the others. "What did I do?"
"No idea," said Andrea, puzzled. "She's been fine all night."
"Something must have gotten into her," said Terry. "No telling with kids. Especially with girls." He mussed Kendall's hair, and she yelped.
Everyone promptly forgot about Kayla and continued to make farewells to Seth and me. I spoke to them half-heartedly, though. Kayla was always happy to see me, and last time, she'd demonstrated a special trust and belief in me. Tonight, she had looked at me with abject terror. Why? Was it a little girl mood? Or was there something hanging on me from another plane that I couldn't see?
Just before we left, I asked if I could go say good-bye to Kayla and give talking to her another shot. Upstairs, I found her curled into a corner of her bed, clutching the unicorn. Her eyes widened in terror when she saw me, and I stopped in the bedroom door.
"Hey," I said. "You okay?"
No answer, just wider eyes.
"I won't come any closer," I said. "Promise. But, please...just tell me. What do you see? Why are you afraid of me?"
For a moment, I didn't think she'd answer. Then, finally, she spoke in a voice I could barely hear.
"You're bad," she whispered. "Why are you so bad?"
That wasn't what I'd been expecting. I'd thought maybe she'd tell me there was a ghostly hag hovering above my head. Something in Kayla's words made my stomach sink. I knew I was evil - it was kind of the definition of a Hellish servant. I lived day to day with my eternal task, seducing and corrupting men. But somehow, a little girl telling me I was "bad" hit me harder than the cruelest, most profane accusation could. Without another word to her, I headed back downstairs.
As I drove Seth back to my place, I gave him the scoop on the angels and my subsequent lack of progress.
"You've got some creature stalking you, and you decided to go into work?" He sounded both amused and exasperated. "You might as well have gone to the movie with me."
"Oh." I felt kind of stupid. "I didn't want to interrupt any brotherly bonding."
"And," he added, "you forgot."
"I never forget about you," I said stoutly. "But I was kind of distracted."
"Funny how that's never a good excuse when the roles are reversed..."
My apartment was still empty when we got there. I left my coat and Dante's charm in my bedroom and then went to sit on the couch with Seth. "I hate waiting," I told him. "Why does this always happen? Some big, supernatural crisis pops up in my life, and I always end up sitting around and feeling useless. I'm always dependent on others."
"No, you aren't," he said, lacing his fingers through mine. "You're wonderful and capable. But you can't do everything."
"I just wish I could do something else besides shape-shift and look good. I wish I could, I don't know, shoot laser beams out of my fingers or something."
"You think that'd stop Nyx?"
"No. But it'd be cool."
"Me, I always wanted frost power."
"Frost power?"
"Yeah." Seth gestured dramatically toward my coffee table. "If we're talking superhero abilities. If I had frost power, I could wave my hand, and suddenly that whole thing would be covered in ice."
"Not frost?"
"Same difference."
"How would frost and/or ice power help you fight crime?"
"Well, I don't know that it would. But it'd be cool."
I laughed and snuggled into Seth, feeling better. I could wait this out.
"Are you hungry?" I asked him. "Yasmine and Vincent have been waging their own version of Top Chef around here."
We went to the kitchen and found it stocked with more food than it had ever had since I moved in. I unwrapped a plate of what appeared to be slices of freshly baked shortcake. Seth pointed to the refrigerator.
"If there are strawberries in there, it's proof of God's existence."
I opened the door and peered around. "Get ready for a religious experience," I told him, pulling out a bowl of chopped-and-sugared strawberries. With the other hand, I pulled out a larger bowl covered in plastic wrap. "And homemade whipped cream."
"Hallelujah," he said.
We piled plates high with shortcake and strawberries, and suddenly, dream entities seemed downright comical. I unwrapped the whipped cream, and Seth promptly dabbed a finger in it.
"Savage," I scolded.
"Heavenly," he countered, licking off the cream.
He stuck another finger into the bowl and held it out to me. I leaned forward and ran my tongue over the tip. Rich sweetness flooded my mouth.
"Mmm," I said, closing my eyes.
"Mmm," said Seth.
I opened my eyes. "Are you talking about the whipped cream?"
"Not exactly."
"You talking about this?"
There was still whipped cream on his finger. I took it into my mouth and sucked gently on it, cleaning up the last of the cream and stroking Seth's skin with my tongue. When I finished, he exhaled a held breath.
"Thanks for the cleanup."
"Cleanliness is next to godliness, I hear."
"I think I have more on me, though," he said.
"Really?" I asked. "Where?"
He swiped his finger through more whipped cream. "Right here."
I licked that off too, sucking and kissing all of the fingers on his hand - not just the guilty one. Finished, I flipped the hand over and kissed the top of it.
"There. Sparkling clean."
Seth shook his head. "Oh no."
"What?"
"You've got some on you too."
"Do I? Where?"
He dipped into more whipped cream and dabbed it on my lips, my chin, and the side of my throat.
"Everywhere," he said.
Before I could formulate a response, his mouth was on my neck, licking and kissing with as much sensuality as I had just used on his fingers. The eroticism of it astounded me - and I was hardly one to be caught by surprise with such things. I instinctually moved my body toward his, arching my neck back as his lips continued moving up. I felt his tongue, warm and amazingly skilled, clean up every drop of the whipped cream on my throat before sliding to my chin and finally to my mouth.
We kissed harder, dessert (of the food nature) now forgotten. I felt his lips fit perfectly with my own. My back was against the counter, and Seth pressed his body against mine, trapping me. When I finally pulled back from the kiss, I could scarcely breathe.
"Wow," I said, eyes wide. "This is why I don't cook. It only leads to trouble."
Seth, still right against me, glanced left and then right. There was a heated, feral look in his eyes that made me shiver. "I don't see anything too bad happening."
"Not yet," I admitted. "But you know the drill."
He shrugged. "Yeah. But nothing bad is happening now."
"It will if we - mmphf!"
Seth was kissing me again, and this time his arms went around my waist, pulling us closer still. I wrapped my own arms around his neck, tilting my face upward to get more of the kiss. It was hot and dangerous and amazing, and I couldn't get enough. I knew, though, that I'd have to get enough of it pretty quickly here and was contemplating how to stop it when Seth broke away first.
"Ah," I teased. "You've come to your senses."
Seth smiled at me, and my heart raced at the juxtaposition of the animal desire and trademark laidback look on his face. "Nope," he said. "Let's see how far we can go."
"You already know," I said. "We've timed this before."
That was a bit of an exaggeration. We'd never had a stopwatch or anything, but we'd gained a good sense of how long and how deep a kiss could go before it was time to part.
He shook his head. "Not kissing. This."
I wore a black tank top with a red cardigan over it. Seth reached out and unfastened the sweater's three large buttons and pulled it off of me. Letting it drop to the floor, he then rested his hands on my arms, fingers warm against my bare skin. He looked at me expectantly.
"We're timing how quickly you can take off my sweater?" I asked.
"Wrong answer. It's not always about you."
Removing his hands, he caught the bottom edge of his Cap'n Crunch T-shirt and pulled it over his head. He'd pulled me to his chest before it even hit the floor, and suddenly, I was face to face with golden, delicious-smelling Seth skin. Lots of it. Resisting the urge to start kissing his chest then and there, I looked up into his face and attempted levity.
"Is this like strip poker? Except...without the poker part?"
"This, Thetis," he said, grabbing the edge of my tank top, "is a test. A test to see how far we can go on all dimensions. Not just kissing."
I should have stopped him, but the feel of his hands sliding up my torso was too intoxicating. The tank top went over my head and joined the other clothing on my kitchen floor.
I laughed. "So...we know how much kissing we can do. Now you're trying to see how much naked we can do?"
"Yes," he said. He was attempting a dignified air. "It's a scientific experiment."
"Mostly it seems like you pulling off my clothes."
"That's part of it. We know how much we can kiss. But can we kiss naked? How long can we kiss naked? Is it the same?"
"I don - "
Again, he cut me off with a kiss, and my whole body tingled as my breasts pressed up against his chest. There was nothing between us, just skin on skin, and it was incredible. Between that and the kiss, I felt dizzy.
And so, Seth's experiment progressed. He removed articles of our clothing one at a time, then would kiss me, pause, and examine the results. When we were both completely naked, he stepped back and admired my body, his face gleeful and smug.
"I don't think the succubus thing is working," he said.
"Oh, it works, believe me," I said, suddenly nervous. Every inch of me wanted to be touched and caressed and ravaged. My skin burned. And the hunger within me - the instinct that urged me to feed off human energy - was raging, realizing just how close it was to dinnertime. This had started out as an amusing game, but it now occurred to me how dangerous this had become. "It's less about naked and more about us not kissing so much. Remember that time we started making out in bed? I got some of your energy then, and we were dressed. Push this enough - or start doing things with other parts of our bodies - and it'll be game over." I stepped back and reached for my shirt. "But you made good scientific progress tonight, I'll give you that."
Seth caught my wrist before I could get the shirt. He pulled me back to him. "Just a little bit more. Just to see." He still had the same intensity and arousal all over him. I'd seen it in him before but never like this.
"What more is there?" I asked.
"Just one more kiss," he said, feigning innocence. "A...parting kiss."
"Oh good grief."
"One kiss, Thetis. That's it."
I hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. Fine. But I'm onto you, so don't think you can get away with anything here."
"Noted."
At least that's what I think he said because it came out kind of muffled with his mouth crushing mine. I was pressed back against the counter again, and his hand was moving down my ass, down the back of my thigh. We were so close. So, so close. We'd never been this close, this naked, before. We'd certainly never been this naked and kissing before. I felt alive and on fire, craving him both as a succubus and a woman in love. The floodgates burst, and all the passion we kept restrained flowed forth. I could feel him, how hard he was and how much he wanted me. My own body responded in kind, pushing closer and grinding against him. His hand on the back of my thigh tensed and then pulled my leg up. It was barely around his hip when I felt...it.
It.
Seth's life. Sweeter than kissing, sweeter than whipped cream. It came into me pure and bright, unlike anything else I'd ever tasted - well, other than the last time I'd stolen some from him. I would have moaned if my mouth wasn't preoccupied.
Reason seized me, and I did my best to squirm free. My best wasn't good enough, and all I could do was slide my mouth away from his. He simply moved down, kissing my neck. The energy didn't stop.
"Seth. Seth. We made the point. We saw how far we can go."
His eyes, full of so much longing and passion, held mine. "Please, Georgina...we're so close...just this once..."
We were so close. Too close.
"No." I pressed my palms to his chest. "Seth! Stop." I shoved hard. "Stop!" I broke free all at once and staggered a few feet back, my hand catching the counter for support. The energy transfer cut off abruptly.
He reached out a hand to help steady me, but I stayed out of reach. "Are...are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," I said, breath heavy. "But you aren't. I got a little - a little of your energy."
"A little is nothing."
"Not to me," I said, still keeping my distance.
"It's not your energy," he said. His eyes were still heated and hungry. "It's mine. And I think it was worth it." He took a step forward. "And I'd think it was worth it, even if I lost more."
I held out my hand, palm-first. "Stop. Don't come closer. I don't trust you."
His expression became less aroused and more dumbfounded. "You...don't trust me? I never thought I'd hear you say that."
"That's not what I meant. Exactly. I mean, I don't know. I don't think you're going to rape me or anything, but you're...uh, persuasive. And you haven't been yourself lately. Ever since you got shot. You've been...I don't know. Risky. Like you're having a mid-life crisis."
"I'm having a life crisis, Thetis. I don't want to be one of those people who discovers on my death bed that I didn't do anything. Why can't you understand this? You're so quick to encourage Maddie to do exciting things, but you're still trying to protect me."
"It...it's different."
"How?" he asked. "Why is it okay for her to take risks but not me?"
"Because there's a big difference between going rock climbing and sleeping with someone who's going to take years off your life. How long is this phase going to last? You always said it wasn't about sex between us."
"It's not," he said stoutly. "Not at all. I love you for...so many reasons. More than I can even begin to describe. But I don't want to die never having touched you. Really touched you."
I stared. He was serious. How could he say he didn't want to die without touching me when touching me would only lead him closer to death?
"You're only saying this because you haven't had sex in so long," I accused. "You got all turned on and now you're not thinking straight."
"I am turned on," he agreed. "By you. The woman I love." He took another step toward me but still stayed far enough away so we didn't touch. "I want you, Georgina. So badly it kills me. I know you want me too. How can we go on being afraid of something we never tried? I'll take a hit for it, yeah, but if we go on for years...without ever knowing..." He shook his head and sighed. "Please, Georgina. Just this once. Let us be together - really together."
I swallowed. He was so earnest. So sweet. So sexy. And so help me, he sounded reasonable. The calm way he spoke almost made me believe it didn't matter, that if I gave in and let our bodies come together, the loss would be small and inconsequential. I looked into his eyes and tried to convince myself of his rationalization, bringing up what Carter and others had said. That it was Seth's choice to make, nothing for me to worry about.
But, of course, it was.
"No," I said. "I can't. Please, Seth. Don't do this. Don't look at me like that. I love you too - so, so much. But we can't do this. I'm telling you, you just need to have sex. Go out and find someone - anyone. It doesn't matter. I don't care. It'll fix all this and make it easier for us to go on."
"You would care," he said, voice deadly calm. "You say you wouldn't, but you would."
"Not if it protects you."
"Protecting me doesn't matter."
"Damn it, it does!" I yelled, lunging forward. I drove my fists - lightly - into his chest, and all the emotion that had been building up throughout this argument suddenly burst out. "Don't you get it? I have to protect you! If anything happens to you - if I'm responsible for anything happening to you - it will kill me. It. Will. Kill. Me. I can't handle that. I can't handle anything happening to you. It will kill me!"
I stopped my yelling and met Seth's eyes. Neither of us said anything. And as he stared down at me, I knew what he was thinking. Because I was thinking exactly the same thing. I had just given voice to what Hugh had said, what Seth had been worried about. In my outburst, I'd changed the balance of risk. It wasn't about Seth hurting. It was about me hurting.
Gently, he reached out and caught my wrists. He removed them from his chest and let go. Backing up, still not speaking, he picked up his clothes and began dressing. I stayed where I was, naked and frozen.
"Seth..." I said slowly. "I didn't mean it."
"It's okay, Thetis," he said, fastening his pants and not meeting my eyes. "I understand. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I pushed you."
"No, no...it's not..."
"It's okay," he repeated. His voice was so, so neutral. So, so steady. It wasn't natural. "Really. But I think I need to go. I think it's better for both of us, and God only knows you have enough going on without me to worry about."
I felt tears starting to fill my eyes. "I didn't mean..."
"I know what you meant," he said. He straightened his shirt and finally looked at me. "But seriously...I should leave. We'll talk...I don't know. We'll talk later." He held out his hand, like he might touch my cheek, and then let it drop. With another sigh, he said good-bye and left.
I stood exactly where I was, still not moving. My heart felt like it had just had acid thrown on it. It was burning and raw. Finally, finally, it all caught up with me. My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor. It was cold and hard against my bare skin. I drew my knees up to me and buried my face in them, wondering what I had done. Part of me screamed to go follow him, to beg him to come back, to tell him we could make love and have everything we had ever wanted. Another part, half-reason and half-pride, held me back.
It was that same part that had stopped me from going after Andrew that day back in the garden after we'd fought about the Black Death. I'd let him go and gone out of my way to avoid him after that. When the plague finally came to our town, my bishop was one of the first to leave. I went with him and the rest of our household. Just like in The Masque of the Red Death, there was no true place to hide from sickness. Still, some places were better than others, and my bishop took care to keep to the better places. He survived.
Months went by, and stories and rumors trickled in about the town we'd lived in. By that point, I'd grown weary of Geoffrey and decided it was time for me to move on. I got permission from my archdemon for a transfer to Florence and sneaked out of Geoffrey's house one night to make the long journey. Our old town was along the way, and a week later, I passed through it.
A plague town wasn't quite like what modern people might imagine. It wasn't as though there were piles of bodies lying in the streets or anything. Not always. After all, Europe had survived the Black Death in the end, and civilization had still functioned through the worst of it. Crops were still grown, houses still built, babies still born.
But the town seemed quieter and more melancholy than when I'd lived there. Andrew wasn't at the church when I stopped by, and an old man tending the grounds told me that Andrew was off helping some of his parishioners in one of the poorer districts.
I found him there, inside the home of a brewer. The brewer had a large family - eight children - as well as a couple of brothers living with him. The house was small and cramped and filthy. Everyone in it was sick except for the brewer's wife who wearily tried to help Andrew take care of her family.
"Cecily?" he asked in astonishment when he saw me. He was kneeling by a teenage boy. Something inside my chest blossomed with both joy and relief. Andrew was alive. He'd stayed, fought disease, and won.
I strode forward and knelt beside him. The wife, giving water to a small girl, watched me uneasily. I wasn't in silk or anything, but I was clearly from a different class than theirs, and she didn't entirely know how to treat me.
"You're alive," I breathed. "I've been so worried. So worried I'd never see you again."
He smiled that gentle smile of his, and I saw more lines around his eyes than I'd seen before. "God didn't want to separate us quite yet," he said.
I looked down at the boy. I'd figured Andrew was feeding him or something, but I realized then that the priest was actually giving him last rites. The boy wore no shirt, and I could see on his neck and in his armpits the tell-tale dark pustules that had given the plague its name. The plague usually did what it was going to do in about a week, but from his emaciated look, you would have thought he'd been dying for years. His eyes were fever-bright, and I didn't know if he even knew we were there.
Bile rose in my throat, and I averted my eyes. Standing up, I told Andrew, "I'll let...I'll let you finish this and wait outside." I left the house, going out to where it was warm and things weren't dying.
A while later, Andrew found me. I didn't ask if the boy was still alive. Instead, I said, "How many of them live? Out of all the ones you stay and risk your life for, how many of them actually survive?"
He shrugged. "Three-quarters. Sometimes half, if they're very young or very old."
"Half," I repeated flatly. "That's not very good."
"If one more person lives because of me, then that's very good."
I looked at that confident, serene face and sighed. "You're so damned frustrating."
He smiled. I sighed again.
"What can I do to help?"
The smile disappeared. "Don't make light of this, Cecily."
"I'm not. Tell me what to do."
And that was how I found myself playing nurse in a small town in backwoods England. Honestly, there wasn't anything glamorous one could do to fight the plague. It was all about basics, keeping the people clean and supplied with as much food and water as they could take in. The rest was in the hands of their immune system and - if you believed Andrew - God. When my patients began declining past the point of no return, I usually stopped helping. I couldn't stand to watch and left them to Andrew and his prayers.
But sometimes I'd see people come back around, people whom I'd given up on, and then I could almost believe there was a higher power at work. At least, I believed that until Andrew got sick.
It started slowly at first, a fever and aches, but we both knew what that meant. He ignored it and kept working until the symptoms began compounding. Finally, he couldn't fight it. Neglecting my other patients, I devoted myself fully to him.
"You should help others," he told me one day. His skin was pink and blotchy, and he was starting to get the dark spots around his lymph glands. Through all the sickness and fatigue, he was still beautiful to me. "Don't worry about me."
"I have to worry about you. No one else is." It was true. Andrew had helped so many, but no one had come to his side, despite the fact that plague survivors tended not to catch it again.
"It doesn't matter," Andrew told me, voice frail. "I'm glad they've survived."
"You will too," I said obstinately, even though the signs were starting to suggest otherwise. "You have to go on so you can keep doing your annoying good works."
He managed a smile. "I hope so, but I think my time in this world may be drawing to a close. You, though..." He looked at me - truly looked at me - and I was astonished at the love I saw there. I knew he'd been attracted to me, but I'd never expected this. "You, Cecily...you won't get sick. You will go on, strong and healthy and beautiful. I can feel it. God loves you."
"No," I said sadly. "God hates me. That's why he lets me keep living."
"God only gives us tasks he knows we can handle. Here, take this." He touched the gold cross around his neck, but he was too weak to take it off. "Take it when I'm gone."
"No, Andrew, you won't - "
"Take it," he repeated in as firm a voice as he could manage. "Take it, and whenever you see it, remember that God loves you and knows that no tragedy you face is ever too much for you to bear. You are strong. You will endure."
Hot tears spilled down my cheeks. "You shouldn't have done this," I told him. "You shouldn't have helped them. You would've lived if you hadn't."
He shook his head. "Yes, but then I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."
Andrew lingered a few more days after that. I stayed with him, but every moment of it was agony. I hated watching what happened to him and was more convinced than ever that there really was no benevolent power looking after humans.
He died peacefully and quietly, much as he'd lived. Another priest came to administer last rites when it happened, and Andrew's final conscious moments reflected hope and absolute faith in what would come next. I stayed to make sure the funeral arrangements were taken care of, not that there was much fanfare or anything. There were no viewings or fancy funeral halls in those days - at least not for men like him.
I soon left England for the continent, and after a while, the pain of his death began to take on a new form. Oh, I still missed him - still burned and ached and felt like part of me had been ripped away. But added to that, guilt was starting to create a pain of its own. I felt like I should have taken better care of him. I should have insisted on him leaving with me when the plague came. Or maybe I should have gotten my hands dirtier while helping him tend the sick; it might have kept him away from whomever had infected him.
Florence was a beautiful city, on the verge of the Renaissance when I got there. Yet even while living amongst all that splendor and art, Andrew's death tormented me for many years, the pain of guilt and missing him digging into my heart. It never entirely went away, but it did lessen - it just took a really, really long time. As Hugh had said, a long life simply means having more time to mourn.
