‘Are you waiting for me?’ she asked casually.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Yes, we do,’ said April in a low voice. ‘I think I’ve got a real lead on the Albus Libre …’
‘Not here,’ snapped Gabriel, taking her arm and leading her down the hill.
April frowned, a little hurt and angry that he was being so short with her, plus she was concerned that he was blowing so hot and cold all the time – maybe it was something to do with the illness? She glanced at his face – he didn’t look good, that was for sure. She had hoped that last night’s dramatic collapse had been down to the fight, but seeing his grey pallor and the way he had started coughing, it was time to stop fooling herself: he really was sick.
‘I was so worried about you at the party,’ she said. ‘You haven’t been answering your phone – didn’t you get my messages?’
Gabriel coughed again and shrugged. April balled her hands into fists, trying to control her irritation. She knew he was trying to maintain his facade of strength, but she was only trying to help him, couldn’t he see that? Maybe he was still angry about the Ben thing – she couldn’t blame him, really. Sighing, she tried to change the subject.
‘Did you hear about Layla?’ she asked. ‘She’s gone missing.’
Gabriel nodded.
‘I saw the police car. She’ll be fine.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘I saw her with half a dozen different guys last night, and I’m pretty sure she’ll be with one of them. My guess is she’s been looking for someone to fill the hole Milo left in her life.’
‘But she told me someone was going to kill her, Gabriel! Maybe she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, just someone to protect her.’
He shrugged again. God, he was impossible sometimes.
They had reached the Ponds now and Gabriel led them to a bench. It was too cold to do much more than perch on the edge, hands in pockets.
‘So what did you want to talk about?’ asked April nervously, looking up at him. Was he going to break up with her properly now? After all, she had been about to kiss another boy when he caught them yesterday – and he did seem unusually grumpy.
‘I saw where you went this morning.’
‘To school?’
‘No, April,’ he said impatiently, ‘earlier.’
Her eyes widened as the penny dropped. He had followed her to Miss Holden’s. Had he been trailing her all along? Had those scary figures she’d been spotting in the corner of her eye been Gabriel?
‘You’ve been following me?’
‘Of course. I have to protect you, keep you safe …’
‘For how long?’
‘Ever since you got out of hospital, I just wanted …’
‘You just wanted what?’ she gasped. ‘I thought I was losing my mind, Gabriel! I thought I had another vampire stalker out there trying to kill me, when it was you all along? Jesus! You won’t even answer my phone calls, but you’re creeping me out by stalking me every night?’
‘You don’t understand: the vampires will stop at nothing.’
‘Yes, I know, Gabriel! But why does everything have to be so bloody secret with you? If you could have just told me, I might not have spent the last week thinking I was about to be killed – and I might not have been scared off from visiting my dad! Why can’t you just tell me these things?’
April didn’t know why she was so angry with him. Maybe it was the way he was treating her like a child, like someone who couldn’t be trusted with information. Or maybe it was the way he kept pushing her away. Last night he had keeled over in front of her and she was desperate to wrap herself in his arms, promise him she was finding the cure, and be told that it was going to be all right. Instead he’d dragged her out in the cold to lecture her. God, he really was Victorian, wasn’t he?
‘So what’s wrong with my visiting Miss Holden, anyway?’
‘She’s a Guardian, April. She’s sworn to destroy all vampires. That includes me. Can’t you see that I might find that a little bit worrying? Why do you have to go to her for help?’
‘Because you won’t help me!’ she cried. ‘I was asking her about the Albus Libre – not that she was any use – but it’s not like I’ve had any help or enthusiasm for finding it from you.’
‘And have you wondered why she really wants to get hold of it?’ said Gabriel.
‘I don’t care, Gabriel! All I care about is getting you healthy again. And do I need to remind you that it was Miss Holden who told us about the Dragon’s Breath in the first place? She’s risked the wrath of the other Guardians to help us, and she’s prepared to help me save your life. Without her, you’d be on death row.’
‘And she did that out of the goodness of her heart? You don’t think she and her council might have some ulterior motive?’
‘Like what?’
‘They want you to trust them, they want you to see them as the good guys. “Here, take this and you can save your boyfriend.” It’s a con, April, and I’m their bait. They’re trying to recruit you just as much as the Faces are.’
‘So what are you trying to tell me? That the Guardians aren’t good guys?’
‘I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you – you seem to have it all worked out already.’
‘Well I have to, don’t I?’ she shouted, her anger rising again. ‘Because the one person who knows what’s going on won’t tell me.’
‘The Guardians aren’t as they seem. They’re not all like Miss Holden. That’s all you need to know.’
‘All I need to know?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? My life is in danger, I’m risking everything to save you, and you’re treating me like a child.’
‘So what do you want to know, April?’
‘Well how about telling me exactly who I’m up against. Who at Ravenwood is a vampire? It’s information like that which might just save me from getting eaten alive.’
‘Yes, and it might also get you killed. If I give you a list of vamps at school, you will behave differently towards them and maybe even give yourself away. It’s more important – and useful – if you behave as if you have no idea they even exist.’
April was about to object, but she could see the logic of it. If Gabriel said ‘Mrs Bagley is a killer, she’s murdered five people,’ the next time the school secretary called her name she might jump in the air. Even so, it was still deeply irritating to have Gabriel pick and choose what she was allowed to know. She flinched as rain began to fall on them, fat droplets dimpling the pond’s surface.
‘All right then,’ she said, crossing her arms against the cold. ‘Tell me about Isabelle. The vicar said she was conducting her own investigation. What do you know about that?’
‘Isabelle?’
‘Yes, Isabelle. Every time I ask you about her, you give me a different story. You were there the night she died – tell me what happened.’
Gabriel stared out at the rain.
‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly.
‘You don’t know? What do you mean you “don’t know”? I’m asking you for honesty and that’s what I get?’
‘That is honesty, April!’ he snapped, suddenly angry. ‘If you’re determined to ask about these things, you might get answers you don’t want to hear. There are times when I’m … not myself, when I’m not in control. It’s like I’m a character in a story I’m not a part of. The darkness takes over and things happen, bad things.’
She looked at him, searching his face.
‘What sort of bad things? Are you saying you had something to do with Isabelle’s—’ April didn’t get to finish her sentence as suddenly Gabriel doubled over, hugging his stomach, pain etched on his face. She reached out for him, her arm around his shoulders. Oh Christ, not now, give me more time, please.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Gabriel, what’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I love you so much, but I can’t protect you. You’r
e everything to me and I’m too weak. You’re right, I should do more and I know I’m letting you down. But you can’t imagine how this feels to me.’
She put a hand on his back, stroking, soothing.
‘Tell me. Make me understand.’
‘It’s like I’ve been … given a gift,’ he said slowly. ‘The gift of death.’
April gaped at him, her mind stunned for a moment.
‘The gift of death?’ she said, ‘the gift of death?’
She jumped to her feet, unable to believe her ears.
‘How dare you? How dare you!’ She could feel her concern and frustration becoming anger, the rage rising and getting the better of her again, exactly as it had when she had faced up to Benjamin. It was like red mist coming over her eyes.
‘My father is dead and I would do anything, anything, to bring him back. His life was precious, he didn’t want to leave us. And you’re telling me you’re happy to let it all slip away. You selfish bastard!’
‘April, you don’t understand what I’m going through,’ he said, his face shiny with rain – or were those tears? April was too angry to care, her own tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks.
‘Screw you! What about me? What about anyone who cares for you? We’re the ones left behind in pain, we live in hell. If you die, I’ll spend every moment wondering if there was something more I could have done, if I should have been quicker or smarter or fought harder. Is that what you want to condemn me to? Do I mean that little to you?’
‘This isn’t about you.’
‘Oh grow up! You’re a hundred bloody years old and that’s the best you can come up with?’
She pulled her wet hair back to show him her birthmark.
‘You see this? You think I want this, you think I like having this curse? And having you look at me like I have “poison” tattooed on my forehead? I hate it. It’s keeping us apart; it’s my death sentence as much as it’s yours if anyone else finds out. But I’m not going to lie down and die, I’m going to fight.’
‘April—’ he said, reaching out a hand towards her, but she stepped away.
‘Of course this is about me, you selfish bastard! You don’t exist in isolation, I’m connected to you. I won’t live without you.’
She stared at him for a moment, then screamed at the sky, curling her hands into claws.
‘God! Men!’ she yelled, then turned and stormed off.
‘April!’ he called, running after her, still holding onto his stomach.
‘No, forget it, Gabriel. You’re so wrapped up in your own feelings, you can’t even consider mine. Go on then, crawl away and die if that’s what you want. I’ve got surviving of my own to do.’
‘But I’m experiencing things I’d never imagined,’ he said. ‘Hot, cold, pain, discomfort. It’s like I can see the world in colour again.’
She stopped and turned, about to yell at him again, until she saw the pain and despair on his face and relented.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said more softly. ‘I do think that’s great, but I want it to be permanent, Gabe. I want you to feel like that every day … but to do it we need to make you a vampire again and then find the Regent.’
Gabriel hesitated for a moment.
‘I’m not even sure there is a Regent,’ he said, despair in his voice.
‘Don’t you want to live?’ she said, losing her patience again. ‘Don’t you want to be with me? I thought you loved me.’
‘I do, April, and I want to be with you so badly. But I’m so tired. I can’t go back to that existence. You don’t know what it’s like; the endless urge, the darkness sucking you down like quicksand. The horror of staring at death, wanting to be part of it. Wanting to be swallowed by the blackness.’
April shook her head.
‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
He glanced at her, his eyes hollow and flat.
‘Isabelle …’ he croaked. ‘You asked about Isabelle. You wanted to know what really happened? I killed her.’
April’s stomach clenched. ‘You … killed her?’
Gabriel hung his head. ‘I stood there and I let her die. She was injured, wounded when I found her, crying, begging for life. I knew she was in danger, I could feel … whatever was out there in the dark, just waiting to finish her. And I wanted …’
‘You wanted what?’
‘I wanted to kill her myself!’ shouted Gabriel, his face creased in pain. ‘I wanted to drink her blood, to tear her apart. Every fibre of my being was willing me to do it, to become that animal, to be possessed by the darkness. It was all I could do to fight it.’
‘But you rescued me, you got me away.’
He nodded sadly.
‘Yes, I couldn’t let whoever – whatever – it was take you too. But I should have saved Isabelle.’
April put her arms around his neck. ‘You can’t save everyone, Gabriel. But you can fight back and you can resist – you proved that by pulling me away. Now you need to keep fighting, you need to be strong for me … you need to stay alive. Stay alive for me, Gabriel.’
Finally she broke down, sobbing into his shoulder ‘I can’t have someone else die on me. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand my dad leaving me, but if you died, what would I do then? You can’t leave me, please.’
Gabriel wrapped her in his arms and held her tight.
‘All right,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘All right, my love: for you. I’ll do it for you.’
Chapter Eleven
April couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen the shop before. Now she stood peering in the window, it seemed so obvious. Redfearne’s bookshop was such a contrast to all the trinket shops and sandwich bars and fancy boutiques that populated this touristy end of Covent Garden. It was like a lone sapling growing in a flower bed. Once you knew it was there it stood out, but otherwise somehow your eye managed to skip over it.
The frontage was a dark stone and the door was painted purple. The window was crowded with books, candles, decks of cards and all sorts of gothic paraphernalia. Honestly, April was now feeling a little reluctant to find the Albus Libre after everything Gabriel had said. Plus she never felt confident going into little shops like that. There was nowhere to hide when someone said, ‘Can I help you?’ or ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’
What was she going to say? ‘I’m looking for a powerful spell book, which may only exist in legend’? Come to think of it, they probably had that sort of request every day.
She took a deep breath. It’s now or never. Do you want to save Gabriel or not? For a moment, she wasn’t entirely sure. Before his terrible confession about Isabelle, April hadn’t really understood the hell Gabriel was going through. All he wanted was to be human again, to live a normal life, to love and marry and have kids: all the mundane things we take for granted. But instead he had spent a hundred years trapped in a cage, forced to do and see terrible things, racked with guilt, struggling with his desires on a daily basis – and then along came April, desperate to push him back into that horrible prison. Maybe the kindest thing was to let him go. But she couldn’t, not while there was hope. Yes, he would become a vampire again, but if they could just find the Regent and – one thing at a time, she reminded herself. One thing at a time.
She heard chimes as she pushed open the thickly-painted door. Of course, she thought. Of course they’d have chimes.
Inside, the shop had a low ceiling and a velvet sofa in the centre of the room, but apart from that it looked like any other small independent bookshop. What were you expecting? Skulls hanging from the roof? A pretty woman behind the counter looked up from a book and smiled, but didn’t hassle her, so April walked among the shelves, trying to look natural. There were lots of surprisingly modern books on ghosts and tarot reading and ‘paranormal romance’. April allowed herself a smile. Pity my love story isn’t working out the way it does in the books. There was even a chalkboard by the till advertising coffee and cake; it was more like an intern
et café than a scary witches’ coven. April suddenly realised that this would be exactly the kind of shop which stocked her father’s books. She walked around to the section marked ‘Conspiracy’ and sure enough, there was the whole collection: William Dunne’s name running down the spines. She reached up and pulled out Beneath the Dark Waves, her dad’s book about the Loch Ness monster, realising with a flutter that it was the book she had discussed with Gabriel the morning he had told her about the birthmark behind her ear, the one which proved she was a Fury. April heard footsteps and quickly put the book back, turning around and picking up a book about dreams. She didn’t want to get into discussing her dad with the shop-keeper.
‘That’s a pretty good one if you’re looking for the meanings of dreams,’ said the woman as she approached. ‘In fact, I consulted it myself the other day. I had the strangest dream about Robert Pattinson.’
‘I think I’ve had that dream too,’ said April.
The woman laughed.
‘Probably not quite the same,’ she said. ‘In mine he was running a carousel at the fairground, but wouldn’t let me on the ride.’ She nodded towards the book, ‘Apparently it means I’m scared of rejection.’
‘Ah, I see,’ muttered April, not sure if the woman wanted a chat or was just being helpful. This was exactly why she avoided shops like this. You never had these problems in Asda.
‘I haven’t seen you in here before,’ said the woman.
‘No, my first visit. Do I stand out?’
The woman rolled her eyes. ‘As you might imagine, we have a lot of regular customers. Some very interesting individuals.’ She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘So it’s always nice to see a human being in here. I’m Jessica, by the way. I run the shop.’
‘I’m April. I’m not surprised you get some special customers given the kind of stuff you stock here.’