Death Song (Tales from the Tarot)

18. Charlie

Chapter eighteen

Charlie

“ W hat did he mean? The man or the wolf he is holding captive inside?” I ask, as I settle into the passenger seat of the car. Rex has just been banned from Borders for one week’s time due to his altercation with Thomas, but we weren’t planning on staying anyway. Not with the words the reaper left behind ringing in our ears.

“I don’t know,” Rex replies, worry furrowing his brow. “It’s vague.”

“Not really,” Emery offers from the back seat. He exchanges a glance with Finn who sits beside him. “Charlie has a man and a wolf inside him. That’s pretty easy to understand actually.”

I snort a nervous laugh, thankful for Emery’s ability to speak what is really on his mind. There’s no pretense with him and with all the veiled comments thrown around tonight, I appreciate him cutting to the chase.

“Am I a shifter then?” I ask.

“Bowman says you don’t contain a wolf that he can scent,” Rex offers, as he starts up the car and pulls out of the parking spot. Tyros dips his head as we pass the front door and I smile at him, though he goes right back to scowling as we drive away.

“Not that he can scent,” Emery points out. “Not that there isn’t one. There’s a man in there holding him captive, apparently. Maybe that means the wolf can’t be scented.”

“For the record, I can’t scent him either,” Finn comments, leaning forward to sniff at my clothing. “Rex and Charlie. That’s all I get. No wolf.”

“What does Thomas look like?” Emery asks, completely derailing the conversation. I find I’m thankful for that tonight as well.

“A teenager,” I respond. “He is just a teenager. A child, really.”

“19 when he was reaped,” Rex adds.

“Like me, when I became a vampire.” Emery falls into silence and I wish he hadn’t because without his questions and thoughts, the silence in the car is growing thicker.

My heart flutters like a nervous butterfly and I reach for Rex’s hand. He grabs hold of me tight, lifting my fingers to his lips and pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “We’ll figure this out, Charlie. I promise.”

“What if only part of whatever I am is your mate?” I ask, fears bubbling up inside me. “What if Thomas comes back and takes whatever is wrong inside me, and then I am not yours anymore?”

“You are mine, Charlie Marius Polston,” he says.

“Marius,” Emery blurts from the backseat. I glance behind me to find his eyes wide and his head shaking like he cannot believe whatever it is he’s thinking. “Rex. What if it’s true?”

“Not the time, Em.” Rex glares in the rearview mirror at Emery, who gives him a sheepish look in response.

“Maybe it is the time?” I ask, curious what’s being kept from me. Rex makes a turn, not bothering to answer me, but his lips are pursed like he is frustrated. When he looks at me, I can feel caution rippling through me though I cannot say it is his or my own. “Tell me. Please.”

“Reincarnation,” he whispers, as he comes to a stop at a red light. “I believe you may be Marius.”

“Reborn,” Emery adds as Finn makes a surprised noise from his seat. “Like, old soul, new body. No memories attached. In the book from The Owner, it said that was a sign. No memories.”

I lean back in my seat, staring down at where my hand is clasped in Rex’ fingers. He tightens his grip on me like he cannot bear it if I were to pull away, but I know I will not. He is comfort to me and I crave that most of all at this moment even though questions and doubts are flitting through my mind at a rapid pace.

“If I am Marius,” I start, picking the most urgent one from my mind, “then maybe that is why we are connected. Maybe it has less to do with me, and more to do with him.”

Having said it out loud feels wrong though, like sludge is moving along my veins and turning my heart to ash. I inhale a deep breath, trying to keep myself calm because if he only wants me for Marius, then what was all of this for? To bring back his lost love? That is the change that was coming all along? It feels wrong to be a pawn in whatever game the universe is playing, though I cannot make myself let go of his hand. I cannot make myself not want him and perhaps that is what weighs the heaviest on my mind.

“Charlie, I love you,” Rex says, as the light ahead turns green. He doesn’t move the car though. Instead, he turns and loosens his grip on my hand then raises his palms to cup my cheeks. “I love you. Just you. Marius or not. Wolf or not. I love you.”

There is no time to say that I love him back.

No time to explain that I need a moment to think because that moment is lost in the screeching of tires.

I am flung forwards in my seat, seatbelt ripping into my chest as my head bounces off the dashboard.

As everything fades to black, I glance at Rex, his bloodied face resting against the steering wheel of his Batmobile.

I love you, Rex.

Bright light surrounds me and as I blink my eyes open, my head screams in pain. I moan into the soft mattress I find myself upon, burying my head in the pillows beneath me as the ache sets in behind my eyeballs. I linger in the darkness I’ve created for a few moments, rubbing my fingertips into my temples, before realizing that none of this smells like what it should.

There is no coffee scent clinging to my nose. I smell disinfectants and cleaners, lemon and chemicals in the space where Rex should be. Sniffing the pillow and finding no trace of my love makes my stomach lurch, and I push myself upwards, squinting into the bright, whiteness of the space I’m in. I locate a metal toilet in the one corner and head for it, depositing the contents of my stomach into it. I lean my head on the cool metal seat, closing my eyes just for a break from the bright overhead lights.

Where the fuck am I?

I was at the club, with Finn and Emery. We left because Rex got in a fight with Thomas and Thomas said something about me having a wolf and a man inside me. There was a noise and after that… nothing.

What happened during the nothing?

I sit for a few moments, trying to find an answer, until I become aware of a soft tapping sound coming from behind me. Blinking my eyes open again, I rise from the toilet and push myself to my feet, my head reeling. I scan the space I’m in through squinted eyes, as I come to realize I’m in some sort of white filled room. Panels of what appears to be glass make up the cube I’m inside of, and I can see no door to get out of here. There is a bed along the one wall, but aside from that and the toilet, only an easel with an empty canvas upon it and a box that appears to be full of tubes of oil paint and brushes sit in the room with me.

What the fuck is this place?

The tapping comes again, and I look to the left glass wall, my entire gut clenching as I reel back at what I see moving behind it.

No. Not what.

Who.

I blink as I take stock of the person, trying to make this make sense.

Red hair.

Freckles on his nose.

Who can only be Marius stands there behind the glass, tapping at the glass wall that separates us. I stare at him, eyes wide as he gestures to something on my side of the wall, then taps at the glass again. When I don’t move, he visibly sighs, then taps even harder at the glass, gesturing to my wall again.

On shaky legs, I cross the space, seeing a small switch embedded in the white wall panel on my side of the glass. He nods eagerly as I approach it, reaching for it. It’s some kind of dimmer switch and I move it downwards, letting loose a sigh of relief as the brazen light in the space does indeed decrease.

And then I go back to staring at him.

Marius, who should be dead.

He is as I have painted him, yet different. There’s a frailty about him as he wraps his thin arms around his waist and his skin is far paler than I ever dreamed it to be. His eyes have sunken into his skull, and they no longer carry the spark of life within them.

It is as if he is dead, here before me, yet I can see his chest rising and falling as he breathes into the dim light.

“Marius?” I ask, not taking my eyes off him.

He shakes his head furiously as I speak, covering his lips with a finger in the universal sign for “shut the hell up.” I nod, taking a step back from the glass that separates us as he scans the room beyond where I’m being held.

Where we are being held. I glance behind him to find that his space is much like my own. Small bed in one corner along with a toilet along the wall. The only thing missing from his space is the easel and box of paints that sits on the floor of my cube, but what he has instead nearly sends me to the floor. My paintings hang from the back wall of his cube, each one of them that was taken from me on display.

I take a step back, glancing over them all, though I know the contents of each. Rex on horseback. Rex naked in the waters. Rex and the man in the glass cube beside mine, locked in a heated embrace. Their loves shines for each other in their eyes, but when I look at the sad, frail man opposite me, I see none of the Marius I see in my dreams.

He looks at me, touching his hair and his cheeks with his bony hand, gesturing to my own face. I nod. We are similar. Not the same, yet not different either.

“Brother?” he mouths, eyes confused as he gazes over my body again.

I shake my head, and he blinks, again staring at my features with questions in his eyes.

“Marius?” I mouth, fearing saying the words out loud now. I point at him as I say his name and he too moves closer, eyes on my lips.

Instead of the nod I anticipate, he gives me a mournful look before shrugging, his eyes filled with something that looks like loss and suffering. He wraps his arms around himself again, cradling his body in his own frail arms, then looks at me again like he’s begging me to give him some answer to some question.

“Who are you?” I mouth, and again he gives me that mournful look with a shrug. He clearly doesn’t know or can’t make out the words I’m trying to say.

Slowly, he moves closer to the glass wall separating us, pointing to his lips. I step closer too and he curls his lips up with his fingers, revealing sharpened fangs dropping from the roof of his mouth. I take a step back in surprise, but he lets go of his lips and points at me.

“Nope,” I mouth back, shaking my head. For emphasis, I pull back my own lips and show him my very normal, human teeth. Marius slumps where he stands, tears forming in the corner of his eyes as he takes a step back. He stands there for a moment, letting his tears fall down his face until finally he raises a hand to his cheeks, wiping them away. His chest rises and falls slowly as he exhales breath, hand on his chest like he is calming himself down.

Until a light comes on in the room beyond the cubes we’re in, sending him flying to his bed, eyes wide with fear and hands shaking at his sides. He makes quick work of curling up on his mattress, pulling his blanket on top of his form like he knows hiding is the best bet. I should probably take his lead, but the need to know what’s going on drives me to the front of my cube, and I stand there, hands on the glass, watching as more lights flick on in the space beyond me.

We are in a basement, I can tell. There are windows now visible in the walls beyond my cube of glass, but they are high up. They’re also haphazardly boarded shut and if Marius is indeed a vampire, that’s probably for the best.

“I see you’ve met my friend, such as he is now,” a voice murmurs as someone steps into the room.

I am stunned into silence, knees shaking and hands quivering on the glass that keeps me hostage as a man I feel I should know walks over to my cage. He is tall and handsome, with chocolate hair and pouty lips that would draw me towards him if I met him in passing, but there’s also something about him that is repulsive despite the fine tailored suit with shiny black shoes he wears. He is put together, but he’s not at the same time. Familiar, yet not.

“Who are you?” I ask, as Marius shivers beneath his blanket.

He merely smiles, then moves to the cube Marius is in, tapping at something on one of the glass walls. With a whoosh, he enters the room as Marius shivers more beneath his blankets. He crosses to where he lays and reaches beneath the sheets, yanking Marius from his false safety. He cries out in fear as he lands on the floor at the man’s feet, then scrambles to a corner.

“See this? Pathetic,” the man comments, walking over to kick Marius in the side where he quivers.

“Hey,” I shout, slamming my hand on the glass that separates us. “Leave him alone.”

He kicks Marius once more, then turns to face me. “I’m starting to lose my patience with him, dear Charlie. I’ve given him ample time and space, and yet, he gives me nothing in return.”

“What are you even talking about?” I ask, heart rocketing into my throat as I glance down at Marius’ form tucked into the corner of his cell. He covers his face with his hands and trembles like a leaf in the wind at every word this man says.

“Imagine my surprise when I go through all the effort to get your blood, only to find him like this on the other side of the veil. When I first heard of your paintings, I thought I’d finally found a way to get him back to my side where he belongs, but instead, I just got this miserable, piss poor excuse for a vampire.” He emphasizes each word with a boot to poor Marius, and I slam my hand angrily on the glass again. Finally, he leaves Marius behind coming to stand at the barrier and facing me. “A good lay though, I must say. I like it when he screams. Perhaps he will have a use in the end, if you fail to fix him.”

Hatred ripples through me as I stare at the man, my fists clenching at my sides like I’d somehow be strong enough to break through the glass to strike him in the face.

“Who are you?” I repeat, as he stalks out of Marius’ cube, the invisible door whooshing shut behind him.

“I believe you know me as Nikandros, though I much prefer you call me ‘my Lord.’ I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Charlie.”

“You’re dead.”

Nikandros smiles, nodding. “Yes. I am. Or rather, I was, until an enterprising young man named Colin found a way to bring me back. Blood summons blood, after all.”

“You’re related to Colin? Rex wasn’t sure you’d made an heir.”

“Do you honestly believe I would sit upon such a precarious throne without making sure a line of succession was established? Adhrexos may have solely dealt in taking men to his bed, but I ensured I sired offspring.”

“And somehow, you ended up with Colin.” What a great prize. “What happened to the rest of them?”

Nikandros sighs, sounding very out upon. “One of my children turned his back on my efforts the moment he took the blood that make him fully vampire kind, obliterating the human half of him. He didn’t seem to take well to that idea, but his protests were too little, too late. The other of my children wasn’t offered the same and instead was charged with carrying my blood forward.”

I snort a laugh. “And it still took this long for your resurrection? It’s been hundreds of years.”

“It isn’t an easy task,” Nikandros snaps. “I waited for the right person to come along. One that sought what I have to give him. Colin is worth the wait.”

He says that, but he looks rather annoyed by it at the same time.

“Sure, he is.”

“Charlie.” He sighs. “I wish you would understand that I am your friend here. I have your best interests in mind.”

“Bullshit.”

“Oh, I assure you, I do. I only wish for you to use the talents you possess. That is all.”

A shuffling noise draws his attention off me, and I watch as Colin comes into the room, his head downcast and his feet unsure. He walks over to the man and lifts his head as the man reaches for him, drawing him into his side.

“You have done well, my child. Though you left the others behind, for which you will be punished, I am pleased you have at least brought me the one I wanted.”

“I told you I could find him,” he says, glancing between me and the man. He licks his lips, then turns to face me, glaring into my cube.

“Yes, exactly as you said you could. He can, perhaps, help this one come into himself again. If not, it will be a pity, but I suppose he still at least looks like Marius, even with a brain made of Swiss cheese. I do long to hear him sing, though. He always had such a pretty voice.” He crosses the floor to stand in front of Marius’ cage, staring in at the quivering vampire in the corner. “Are you hungry, pet? Colin is here.”

Marius doesn’t move an inch and the man sighs. He turns to Colin who is starting to look a little green and nervous, before looking to me. “Our Marius isn’t quite comfortable with his nature. I will admit it was a surprise to find him turned upon his revival, given that he protested so vehemently against it in his first life. Colin will feed him, yes?”

I have no idea why he’s looking at me, like I’m the one with all the answers here. I don’t have to say anything, though, before Colin is rolling up his sleeve, exposing a hellscape of bruises and cracked open wounds littering his forearm. He winces as a cuff catches on the edge of one of them, but takes a deep breath, then dutifully opens Marius’ cube. He steps inside quickly, holding his arm out towards Marius.

“Come eat, my love. Must keep your strength up,” the man says, as Marius lifts his nose to the air. Like an animal, he creeps forward on the floor towards Colin who has started shaking slightly where he stands. Marius reaches for Colin’s offered hand and yanks him downwards, sinking his fangs deep into his forearm. Colin cries out in pain but does not make any move to get away from the vampire gnawing at his flesh.

“You must fix him.” The man sighs, shaking his head. “He is hardly fit for what is to come in this state.”

“Maybe if you fed him more than fucking Colin, he’d be better,” I mutter, tearing my eyes away from the scene of Colin’s blood dripping from the corners of Marius’ mouth.

“Sadly, the poor idiot has come back lacking himself. He doesn’t seem to know who he is or who I am, or even who Adhrexos is. Say the name Marius, and he just stares at you with this dumb look on his face. He’s broken, and you must fix him. I thought having my dear Colin bargain for your paintings would help jog his memories and bring him back to me, but it hasn’t worked. So, you remind Marius of who he is, or I’ll kill you both. Or maybe just you. A hole to fuck can be attached to an idiot and perhaps that is his new purpose. Then again, perhaps you will live to serve the same purpose. I have yet to decide.”

“And how am I supposed to fix him?”

“Paint, of course. Paint memories, tell him your dreams. Upon my rise, Colin informed me of the things you’d create in the dead of night, and then I knew you had a role to play in this new world I am creating. Bring me my Marius back, and I will let you live long enough to see it.”

I’m don’t quite know how to explain that the reason Marius is not himself is because he likely isn’t. I contain what he would need to be whole, but I also don’t think letting this monster know that would end up well for me. Luckily, Colin makes a small noise of pain from the next cube drawing attention off of me. Marius lets go of his arm, ripping his fangs free from his flesh, then scrambles back to his corner, frantically wiping his face free of blood. His eyes are distressed when he meets my gaze, then he hides his face away from my view.

“He went really deep.” Colin moans, holding up his gnarled, bloodied arm.

“He did,” Nikandros comments. “You’ll need a disinfectant for that. Wouldn’t want you to get infections, now would we?”

“You don’t even lick the wounds closed?” I can’t even imagine Rex leaving open bite marks in my body. He wouldn’t dream of it.

“They’ll heal when I’m given what I am due,” Colin snaps, lowering the sleeve of his shirt. “Which is more than I can say will happen to you. I am going to live forever, and one day, I will sit upon the throne of the Bloodrend Court.”

Nikandros gives him a placating smile, patting him on the head as if he were a dog. “Yes, you will. Come, Colin. We have things to prepare.”

They leave quickly through the door they entered from, leaving me alone with Marius. I stand for a moment, staring at the room around me as I try to put everything together. Marius whimpers in the dim corner of his cell, and I move to sit beside him, the glass separating us. I reach out and flatten my hand on the glass, wishing I could touch him and give him some comfort. Maybe find out what he does know so I can learn how I can possibly find what he doesn’t. His shaky hand raises, and he slowly flattens his own hand against the glass on top of mine, but he keeps his head down.

“How are you here, Marius? If I am you, how are you here?”

“I am nothing.” Marius looks at me, his green eyes haunted by things I cannot put to words. “I don’t like blood, it tastes wrong.”

Of course it does. He never wanted to be a vampire, yet here he is made to exist as one somehow. “I’ll get us out of here, Marius. Rex will find me.” I hope.

“Rex?”

My heart aches as I stare into the soulless dead eyes of the man who my mate once loved so much, he mourned his loss in a song that reverberates within my own mind. “Rex. The real king. Not the one this monster is trying to raise. He loved you, you know. He loves you, still.”

“I don’t know anything,” Marius whispers, looking away again.

We sit there in the dim light, hands pressed towards each other in the silence of the glass that separates us for a few moments as a soft hum begins to rise from the man trapped in the space beside me. Marius’ voice rises and falls, the tune hushed as his leaves his chest, but I know it.

I know this song he sings.

Tears fill my eyes as I join him, humming the death song that somehow ties us together as a gentle caress soothes through me. It centers itself on my heart like an arrow and a tear slips down my eye at the warmth it spreads through my bones. The air around me fills with the rich, dark coffee scent I know as my love, and I almost look for him, like he’s somehow come to me even though I know he has not. Marius ends the song and then takes a deep breath before starting it anew like he cannot help himself, but my voice falters when I try to join him this time. I lean against the glass, listening to his voice, the tangled thread of warmth smoothing itself along my bones like a hand reaching inside of me to touch what my body contains. I am comforted by it, yet I am not because I know it is Rex, though he is not here.

My heart aches at the thought that I may not see him again. That I will be trapped here with the empty husk that is now Marius until the end of my life because I cannot do what Nikandros has commanded. I am not a seer as the one he once possessed in his castle.

I am just mate.

Only mate.

Mate to a vampire who should not have a mate, yet I exist anyway. I am here, anyway, and here I will be until my life is ended by this vicious, vile creature that has the audacity to claim Rex’s bloodline and throne.

A mournful sound resonates within me, though I do not recognize where it is coming from. It is a howling of sorts, filled with grief and worry as it echoes through my bones, wrapping itself around the warmth that means Rex. That means love and comfort. Craving and need and want. The scent of coffee strengthens in my senses, and I find myself drawn to restlessness, emanating from somewhere deep inside of me, a place I do not know to name it.

All I know is Rex. All I know is mate.

And then my mind unfolds from itself, warmth deepening in the very core of me as my body seems to explode outwards, clothing falling from me in tattered pieces. I exhale a pained breath as whatever this is shatters through me like a freight train, pulling and pushing at my joints and skin until I feel like I have been pummeled into new shapes and fractions I have never felt contained by before.

I tilt my head back to the ceiling above, the howl building inside the very marrow of my bones, rumbling up my throat, and when I open my mouth it escapes, tripping over my sharpened teeth to rattle the glass around me.