Unitil Next Year: Blood Ties 3

Final Night

Henry gasped as he awoke and immediately knew that he was alone in his bed and had been for some time. The sheets were cold to his touch without the warmth of her body. The chill surrounded him without her to chase it away, he marvelled at it bitterly. The cold was something he would have to endure once more when she left again. His heart sank, he had hoped to awaken with her in his arms for this last night. Slipping from the covers he padded naked from his bedroom in search of his elusive lover.

The condo no longer glowed with Christmas lights, the tinsel and holly, had been removed leaving the space seeming horribly empty. He found her by the sofa dressed in his shirt a duffel bag at her feet, she had her back too him. He watched silently as she arranged items of clothing on the sofa, a pair of jeans and a jumper. Clothes, how absurd they seemed after the nights they'd spent together. A childish pettiness seized him and in a sudden tantrum he swept across the room tearing the clothing from her grasp and replacing them in the bag, discarding the hateful thing in one fluid movement. Kathryn straightened watching in annoyance as her belongings flew the length of the room to crash against the bathroom door.

"Feeling melodramatic this evening I see." she muttered. Strong arms wrapped around her from behind drawing her against Henry's broad chest. His lips found her throat making her gasp. "Most people say hello." she mumbled.

Henry said nothing, his fingers grasped the curve of her hips tracing the hateful hem of the shirt she wore. He resolved to burn it for daring to hide her body from him, a betrayal he would not forgive.

His fingers made their way to the first button and began to slowly, sensually, open the shirt baring her body to his hungry gaze. She raised her hand to stop him but he brushed her half-hearted protest aside easily pinning it to her side to prevent further attempts. At last he lost patience tearing the offending cloth open, his hands slipping in to remind him of the flesh beneath.

"Henry-"

He spun her to face him capturing her lips with his, fiercely cutting off her words. He left her breathless and dazed, a fitting punishment.

Stepping back he gently eased the fabric from her shoulders letting it slide down her arms to pool at her feet. She giggled as he replaced it with his lips trailing kisses across her shoulders and collarbone.

"You know at some point we need to get dressed." she mumbled.

Henry growled low at the suggestion "No we don't."

"You might not notice, but it gets cold in here."

He was gone and back in an instant wrapping them both in the satin comforter from his bed.

"I prefer you in this if you insist on covering up."

He kissed her, brushing her cheeks with the soft fabric then stepped away to admire her.

"If you don't stop staring at me I will get dressed." she warned blushing sweetly.
He smiled then crossed to his workstation returning with canvas and paints.

"Sit for me."

He arranged her by the window looking out at the lights of the city, dark snowflakes cascading past her reflection, sparkling in a thick blanket upon the balcony. She patiently allowed him to arrange her hair so that it settled in waves across her bare shoulders. The sheet he arranged modestly around her naked body, gripped in her tremulous fingers to cover her breasts but allowed to tumble in folds to expose the smooth skin of her back.

Henry settled in front of the blank canvas eyeing his modest sitter critically. At last an idea came to him.

"You're able to partially change aren't you?"

She glared at him, "I'm not making anything bigger before you ask!"

He laughed "I wouldn't dream of it. I was thinking more of adding a feature."

He told her his idea and observed in fascination as she struggled to oblige him her body arched and trembling, sweat beading her brow with the effort of making the partial change. At last she stood before him, two majestic swan feathered wings cloaking her back, half lifted to cast shadows across her features in the candle light.

"I wasn't meant to change this way." she grunted after a while, the strain of holding the change began to show through her serene features.

"A few moments more." he promised. His hands were a blur over the canvas his brow furrowed in fevered concentration.

"Henry."

He smiled at her impatience, flourished his brush for a last single stroke and then finally stepped back to admire his work. "It's finished."

She sighed with relief her back rippling like water as the wings melted smoothly away. Kathryn stretched her sore muscles gratefully. "Well are you going to let me see it?"

Henry smirked bashfully then flipped to canvas to face her. He watched her reaction with pleasure as she beheld the picture. She stood as an angel her eyes on a sleeping city from the condo window, magnificent wings casting a shadow across the reflection as though at any moment she might spread them and sweep aside the darkness that surrounded her. At the angel's feet crouched head down in the shadows of her wings Henry had placed himself, a predator but also a protector, eyes sharp and guarded less the darkness dare come any closer to her.

Henry gently set the canvas to lean against the chair and crossed the room to meet her, she opened the satin sheet and drew it back around them both holding him close, her eyes still on the dazzling painting.

"Well?" he whispered.

She struggled to find the words for him her voice catching in her throat. He listened to her struggle moved by her inability to express the enormity of what she felt. At last he took pity on her hushing her softly. "Its for you, your Christmas present from me." she didn't respond. Frowning he turned her to face him and was alarmed to see tears on her cheeks. She blushed at the concern in his eyes and tried to hide her face from him but he held her firmly in place.

"Sorry, I'm being such a baby." she whispered embarrassed.

He drew her close kissing the tears away resting her head on his chest. "Its not that bad." he whispered.

She laughed through her tears. "You know I love it." she chided him.

"I just...you make it so hard to leave you behind." she whispered.

"You could just stay."

"Henry-"

He kissed her ending the argument before it began.

She gazed up at him tearfully, trusting him completely. Only one other woman in the last century had ever looked at him like that. He suddenly had an urge to see that woman once more.

"Come on, lets get dressed."

Whatever changes had taken place in the world over the past hundred years one place remained unchanged by time. The size of it inevitably grew, that was one thing time could not change. Henry stood at the gates of the cemetery regarding the dark silent headstones with a reverence that made his silent companion feel as though she had walked on to sacred ground.

Henry knew where she lay, he'd walked through this graveyard in the years since her death as silent as the snow falling around them, appearing and disappearing like the ghosts that dwelt here. Tonight though he meant to linger.

Steeling himself he clutched his flowers close to his chest, smiled at his companion and stepped among the silent gravestones.

Victoria Nelson

Even after so long it was strange that her remarkable life should leave nothing but those two words carved into old and weathered stone. Henry didn't allow himself to read the rest. The year of her death was permanently burned into his memory, he needed no reminding, and as for the rest no simple words could some up such an eventful life and he would not limit his experience with them.

Kathryn watched from a respectful step back, close enough should he need her but far enough not to intrude. Vicki and Henry had known each other long before she'd stumbled into their lives. She felt no jealousy for the woman who'd held his heart for so long. He'd loved her with a passion Kathryn had always understood that and never would she have stood in the way of that. What she had with Henry now was different, eternal, and, for her part at least, unconditional. No, eternity was too long to envy a dead woman a few happy years with her lover.

"I miss her too." she whispered.

Henry smiled "I always liked to think, that when she'd died, the world had felt it. That at her last breath humanity had paused, each and everyone feeling like they'd lost something important."

He sighed wiping his eyes. "I wanted them to feel just that fraction of pain for her. It was what she deserved for what she gave up to save them so many times."

They lapsed into silence. The demon standing quietly by, while the vampire knelt on Vicki Nelson's grave.

Kathryn watched a solitary tear escape tracing its way across Henry's cheek.
He wiped it away chuckling in self-reproach. "I seem to spend most of my immortal life in cemeteries."

Kathryn smiled sadly. "The stories are true then, vampires and demons do frequent cemeteries, but for the same reason as everyone else."

"Except we mourn for eternity." the vampire told her, he traced the letters with the tips of his fingers as though Vicki's soul lay among the cracked and weathered grooves.

Kathryn shivered pulling the coat tighter to ward off the chill of the night. "Do you think...when we die-"

"If." Henry corrected stubbornly.

"When. Will they be there, waiting for us?"

Henry smiled softly his eyes still on the gravestone. "Yes."

Kathryn smiled when he stood and took her arm leading her away from the stone and sad memories.

"All of your old lovers? Damn I won't even get a look in." she teased him. He stopped suddenly she turned to him in surprise. His face was impassive staring at her. She backed away suddenly fearful that she'd said something wrong.

"Do you really not know what you are to me?" he whispered. "After all this time?"

He reached out brushing a curl from her face struggling to find away to tell her, to make her understand.

"In my lifetime, I have truly loved only six people, I count you among them."

He watched the tears rise in her eyes and pulled her in for another kiss preventing her from responding. He knew how she felt, there was no need for more words. Silently they made their way back to his condo.

Henry watched the play of emotion on her face as they walked, thinking about the bitter parting to come. He remembered their first parting back when Vicki was still alive. They'd barely known each other, could not be certain yet whether she would live beyond her mortal years. She'd been so innocent then but with an unsettling prophesy of things to come. They'd stood in his condo just before dawn and he'd said so openly: "I gave up my mortal life for Christina, I will give up my immortal life for Vicki."

She'd smiled sadly contemplating the possibly endless life ahead of her and said "You say that now but that's the funny thing about life. It keeps giving you something else to live for."
She'd been so right.

he condo was cold when they arrived. It seemed empty without the tree and the decorations. Back to its yearly functional purpose. Not home, never that. Just a place he felt safe for the daylight hours, a place he could work, shelter. How could it be more than that when Kathryn wasn't with him? It had felt like home these last few nights.

Within moments of stepping through the door Henry had whisked her away to his bedroom, removing her hateful clothes along the way. Kathryn found herself naked among his satin sheets cradled in his arms as he brushed butterfly kisses over her body. "Let's not waste a moment more tonight." he whispered. She was more than happy to agree.

They made love slowly and passionately basking in each other, committing the smallest caress and kiss to memory as the night marched on and the sun began its relentless climb.

Henry felt it distantly, his eyes snapped open feral black, fangs extended warning the day to retreat. Kathryn shifted in his arms, he forced his vampiric features to soften for her. He wanted to fight to keep her, but there was nothing to fight, nothing but the sun itself. She sighed burying her head in his chest.

"I'm sorry Henry. I wish we had longer." she whispered.

He curled around her as though to shield her from the coming day.
"Time is fickle, when your away from me I have too much of it, when your with me, too little."

She turned in his arms blinking back sudden tears. "A year isn't all that long Henry."

"You could stay just a little longer. A few more days? A week?-" she kissed him smiling sadly.

"A month, year and forever. Every year you ask-" she whispered.

"In the hope that your answer will be different to the last." she looked away he gently turned her back to face him kissing her softly. "Stay...please."

"I never liked cities Henry."

He groaned in despair burying his head in the crook of her neck, "Oh God, I wish I could put you in a cage and tame you till you'd promise to stay by my side." she chuckled.

"No." he sighed in defeat. "Your not to be tamed, there's too much of the wild in you."

"You let me go and I always come back. That's part of what love is."

He held her close treasuring the soft rhythm of her heart against his, the warmth of her touch and the smell of her hair. The dawn was drawing ever closer making the hair rise on his neck and his body tremble with the primal fear of the day. He willed it away, willed the sun not to rise and the day not to come, even if the world ended it wouldn't matter, she was with him, he wasn't alone, he would go to his death with his demon in his arms. But the day would come, the sun was even now touching the snow blanketed streets of Toronto.

One final time he looked into her eyes, kissed her lips and repeated his plea.

"Don't go."

"Stop me." she begged in return. "Stay awake and stop me." his eyes sharpened with sudden anguish, God that he could. It was cruel of her to torment him with such words and she knew it. The day drew upon him snatching the breath from his body desperately she brought her lips to his, taking his final gasp of life into herself before the day could steal it away. His eyes closed reluctantly, his body limp and suddenly lifeless among the sheets. With a small sob she curled her body around him burying her head in his hair.

She lay within his silent embrace for three more selfish hours.

When he awoke the bed was already cold and a small Christmas card lay on the pillow adorned with her delicate handwriting:

"Until next year x."

The End