Mark of Betrayal

Page 69

With the dark of night surrounding me, and the wind soft enough not to knock me off the edge, I took a moment to appreciate the sheer height of the lighthouse and the magnificence of everything below it. “Holy cow.”
“It’s great, isn't it?” Jason noted.
I nodded and rested back on my hands, tilting my chin upward to the stars. “I've been meaning to get up here for so long now.”
“I know,” he said. “And you would have made it here that last time, too, but Mike got wind of your plan.”
“What last time?”
“The bonfire night.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“You were planning to come out here then, right?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “But how did you know that?”
He linked his hands together under his bent knees. “I read Mike’s mind. He found out what you were planning and, since he was too busy to watch over you that day, and the Private Guard were still human, he had Eileen extend her speech until nightfall.”
“That’s why it was so long?”
Jason nodded.
“Bastard!” I slammed my hands into the cold, hard surface under me. “He’s so damn controlling.”
Jason nodded, amused.
“Er!” I let my frustration out in a loud gust. “I'm really mad at him. That whole afternoon was a nightmare.”
“I'm sure you’ve suffered worse,” he said quietly, looking away.
I studied him as he stared with wide, glassy eyes, at the sky. “You okay, Jase?”
“They're magnificent, aren’t they?”
“The stars?” I sat up and rested my hands in my lap. “Yeah, they’re amazing.”
“I’ve spent my life studying them, you know, and still, even though I know each one, I can’t help but to feel like there must be something bigger out there than us.”
“There is.”
He placed his arm around me and squeezed my shoulders. “Is there?”
“Uh-hu.” I nodded.
“And what would that be?”
“Jupiter.”
“Ha!” He rocked back a bit. “That’s pretty funny.”
“I know.” I snuggled into his shoulder. “No one else in the entire vampire community would have laughed at that, but, I appreciate your amusement.”
“I think you’re funny, Ara. I ‘get’ you,” he said simply.
I hugged his arm, shivering a little. “Will you tell me about one of the stars?”
“Really?” He looked down at me, surprise alight in his eyes.
“Yeah. I always wondered about them, but just never thought to read a book or ask someone.”
“Well, I would actually love to tell you about them,” he laughed his words out. “No one ever wants to talk about this stuff. It seems like all the immortals have lost that sense of wonder, and any human I ever hung out with lacked the depth to sit and talk about such things.”
I shuffled my hips a little bit closer to his, stealing some of the warmth from his body. “You can talk about them all night to me, Jase. I’d love that.”
“Know what I love?”
“What?” I looked up at him.
“I love it when you call me Jase. No one ever has.”
“Serious?”
“Yeah. It’s just you. And I really like it.”
I grinned into his shoulder. “Well, Jase, talk stars with me.”
“Okay, well, see that star up there?” He pointed into the eternity of night.
“The silver one, or the silver one next to it?” I laughed.
He rubbed his chin and shook his head, smiling. “Good point. Um, pick the brightest star in the sky.”
My eyes scanned the firefly convention and stopped on one; my wishing star. “Okay. I see it.”
“Do you know what it’s called?”
“No.”
“That’s Sirius. As a scientist, I'm tempted to say it’s technically not the brightest star in the sky, just the brightest one you see. And I should tell you it’s made of this and that, but you’d prefer the romantic, historical side, wouldn’t you?”
I nodded against his shoulder.
“Historians consider it to be so much more than just a star—some actually believed it was magic. A nineteenth century writer said that it has some kind of mystic influence over our world, and ancient Egyptian’s believed it was responsible for the flooding of the Nile each year, which, in turn, brought new life through soil regeneration—an occurrence they relied on for survival and prosperity.”
“A star flooded the Nile?”
“That’s what they believed. So, even as far back as when the Pyramids were built, Sirius was influencing people’s imaginations—and lives.”
“So it is a magic star?”
“I don’t know. Has a wish ever come true for you?”
I angled my face up to smile in the radiance of his grin. “You came back.”
His eyes softened and he looked away. “Then maybe my wish will come true, too.”
“What’s your wish?”
He looked down at my knees, pressed tightly together to keep from shaking. “Are you cold?”
I nodded, biting my teeth together so they wouldn’t chatter.
“Silly girl. You should have told me. I don't feel the cold like you do.” He rolled his shirt off his shoulders and wrapped it over mine, leaving himself in the white T-shirt he had under it. “Better?”
“A little.” I tugged it around me, laying the base slightly over my knees.
“Do you want to go inside?”
“No. I'm fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re shaking.” He put his arm around me.
“That’s a bit better,” I said, pushing my shoulder into the warmth of his armpit.
“Okay. Just a few more minutes and we’ll go in.”
“Okay.”
But a few minutes passed and turned into hours, and the stars rotated in the sky, taking today and turning it into tomorrow.
I calmed myself from the laughter of his last comment about movie topics no one had ever covered, and a good one came to mind. “I’ve got it,” I said. “Aliens versus vampires.”
He laughed loudly. “Who do you think would win?”
“Guess it depends what the alien race is capable of. But, if you think about it, we’ll probably get to find out one day. I mean, we’re immortal, so we may have to defend the Earth against evil aliens somewhere in the future.”
“Hm.” He nodded. “Never thought of that.”
“That’s the good thing about never dying, I guess.”
“What, being able to see if aliens are real?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Learning the secrets of the universe.”
“Being around for the end of the world.”
“End of the world,” I said very quietly to myself, thinking about that as I looked across the almost pitch-black ocean. “Do you really think there’re aliens out there?”
“There is. We’ve already found proof of living organisms—”
“No, I mean like aliens on TV.”
“Could be.” He shrugged, grinning. “It’s a big universe out there, and we’ve only got the technology to actually see about four percent of it.”
“So what's the other ninety…?” Oh, crap, brain not working.
“Six,” he said.
“Yeah. I knew that. What’s the other ninety-six percent?”
“That’s the eternal question, Ara, and the answer is; we have no idea.”
“Helpful.”
He laughed. “We have theories, though. Since the nineteen-thirties, we scientists have come to call the stuff we can't see—the invisible substance that holds everything together—Dark Matter.”
“Dark Matter?” I scoffed. “Sounds like a problem you have with a Sith Lord.”
Jason chuckled. “And yet it is much more complex than a bad guy with a Lightsaber.”
“Why?”
“Because we can't see it—yet. We know it’s there, because we can see the gravitational effect it has on objects around it, but light just shines right through it—we can't touch it or capture it.”
“Riiiight. A force that no one can actually see, yet you’re sure is there,” I said.
“Yes. I mean, realistically, the stars in the galaxies don't contain enough mass or gravity to stay together; Dark Matter is that bond—it’s what stops them all from flinging apart.”
“A magic bond.” I smiled to myself.
“Yeah,” he said. “And, you know what’s great about it?”
“It’s not solid?” I joked.
“Funny tonight, aren’t we?” He pinched my cheek. “No, what's great is that we don't know much about it. Right now, it’s just a mysterious form of energy. Imagine the things we can dream from that—imagine what may be possible if we could study it—harness it. Maybe all the magic of life is hiding up there, inside that secret. ”
“So you believe in magic now?”
He shrugged. “I don't really know, but then, if there's no magic in the world, what are we?”
“Well, you’re the result of a genetic polarity that’s been triggered by vampire venom to change the way your cells interact with the universe and each other.”
Jason lifted my hand into his, threading his fingers through mine. “And you are simply a miracle.”
I looked at the stars all the way over to my right so he wouldn't see my probably very red cheeks. “Why do they twinkle?”
“Who?”
“The stars, dummy.” I backhanded him; he caught my wrist before impact.
“Astronomical scintillation.”
“What the hell?”
He grinned, kissing the back of my hand, then tucked it into his chest. “The light has to come through the atmosphere before we see it, and the interference of various elements bends that light, giving stars the appearance of twinkling.”
“Well, that's not very magical.”
“I know.” He leaned his head on top of mine. “But it doesn't mean they’re not wishing stars. Nothing is impossible until you’ve proven it impossible.”
“Huh?”
“I mean that, until you can give me proof that each and every one of those stars in the sky cannot and will not ever have the capacity to grant a wish, then I, and you, have every right to believe they will.”
I bit my smiling lip. “David says wishing is good time wasted.”
He laughed. “Do you know where he got that from?”
“Where?”
“My father.”
“Really?” I sat up and looked at him.
“Yup. It was Father’s favourite line.”
“Why?”
His shoulder came up to his ear then back down again. “He never had a lot of faith in anything good—especially us boys.”
“I know.” I looked out at the ocean. “David tries to justify your father’s behaviour.”
“It’s his way of dealing with the abuse.”
I sat back a bit to look at him. “How bad was it?”
“It was worse for David than me.”
“Why? I thought your father saw you as evil or something.”
“Precisely why he saved his fits of rage for the child who was not protected by the devil.”
I covered my mouth. “What did he do to David?”
Jason rested his arms over his knees and leaned forward. “He wanted to break him.”
“His spirit?”
He nodded. “David never cried. Didn’t matter what Father did to him—he never cried.”
“Why?”
“It was his only defence. He wouldn't give Father the satisfaction.” His jaw came forward a bit, his brows pinching in the middle. “I saw him cry once, though.”
“Did your father see it?”
He shook his head.
“Well, what happened?”
“Father came home drunk one afternoon to find David and I fighting again. He pulled us apart and gave us a lecture about being young men—being good brothers. And David didn't mean to, but…he laughed. So—” He sniffed once, “—Father threw him into the wall—broke his arm.”
I pressed my palm firmly to my lips.
“He had the maids toss David into the cellar; told them not to open the door until he cried.”
“And he cried?”
“Not in that cellar, no.”
“How did he get out?”
“I was walking home from school a few days later when Uncle Arthur came back into town—just passing through. He asked where David was, and I told him.”
“And he helped?”
Jase nodded, still not really looking at me. “That night, David was in his bed, his arm all bandaged up, and I saw him wipe a tear from his cheek.”
The picture of the lonely scene made me ache all over. “Did you comfort him?”
He shook his head, breathing out, and I could see that he was reliving that memory, because he just couldn’t stop shaking his head. “David and I had grown apart more and more by that stage. We loved each other, but for me to acknowledge his pain would have been to humiliate him. So, I blew out the lantern and went to bed with a pillow over my head.”