Vincent Heartwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

Vincent came back before dawn to wait for the man's answer. But when the door opened, the man's face was wrong. His eyes were red from no sleep. He held the door half shut, his knuckles white on the wood. "Someone saw you," the man said. "Last night. Someone in this house watched you leave through my window." His voice dropped. "They're saying a monster came here. They're saying I should burn the sheets you touched." Vincent felt the cold spread through his chest. One whisper could undo everything. The man had not said no. But fear was doing the work refusal never could. "Let me speak to them," Vincent said. "Let them see me as a man, not a shadow at the glass." "No." The man shook his head. "You'll only prove it. I can't do this. I can't have them looking at me like that." He started to close the door. Vincent went to the one person who might help. He found Morwen at his grandfather's house, her rune-staff leaning by the fire. She was grinding something bitter in a bowl, humming to herself. She looked up and read his face at once. "You want me to fix a frightened housemaid," she said. "Magic can quiet a mind. It can make a memory soft as fog." Her green eyes narrowed. "But that's the same theft you refused before. You'd take their truth instead of his." Dracula stood from his chair. His red eyes caught the light. "Listen to the witch, boy. I silenced a whole village once. It bought me a hundred years of hiding. Fear you smother always claws its way back." Vincent stood between them, the old vampire and the witch, and knew they were right. He turned and went back alone. He did not go to the window this time. He knocked at the front door in daylight, when the whole house could see. A frightened figure peered from an upstairs curtain. Vincent stepped into the open sun and let it fall on his face. He did not burn. He smiled, easy and plain, and lifted his empty hands. "I'm just a man who cares for him," Vincent called up. "Look. No smoke. No claws. Only me." The curtain fell shut. The whispering figure said nothing more. But the man came to the door, and his shoulders had dropped. The terror had drained from his eyes. "You stood in the light," the man said, wondering. "For me." "I'll stand anywhere for you," Vincent said. The man reached out and took his cold hand. He did not flinch. "I still haven't answered your real question," he said quietly. "But I want to. Ask me again. Somewhere far from these walls and these eyes." Vincent's heart lifted. The fear was beaten. Yet now the man wanted to leave his whole life behind before he would choose. And Vincent knew the one place that could hide them both.