"WHAT CAME NEXT?" Jean-François asked.
Gabriel took a deep breath. "Mama was never the same after my sister died. I never saw my parents kiss after that. It was as if Amélie's ghost had finally killed whatever remained between them. Sorrow turned to blame, and blame to anger. I looked after Celene as best I could, but she was growing up a hellion, always looking for trouble and simply making it if she couldn't find it. Mama was scarred by her grief, hollowed and furious. Papa sought refuge in the bottle, and his fists fell heavier than ever. Split lips and broken fingers.
"There's no misery so deep as one you face by yourself. No nights darker than ones you spend alone. But you can learn to live with any weight. Your scars grow thick enough, they become armor. I could feel something building in me, like a seed waiting in cold earth. I thought this was what it felt like to become a man. In truth, I'd no fucking idea what I was becoming.
"But still, I was growing. I'd sprung up tall, and working the forge had turned me hard as steel. I began noticing the village lasses looking at me that way young girls do, whispering among themselves as I passed by. I didn't know why at the time, but something about me drew them in. I learned how to turn those whispers into smiles, and those smiles into something sweeter still. Instead of having kisses stolen, I found them given to me.
"In my fifteenth winter, I started trysting with a girl named Ilsa, daughter of the alderman, niece of Père Louis himself. Turned out I could be a sneaky little bastard when I chose to be, and I'd steal my way to the alderman's house at night, climb the dying oak outside Ilsa's window. I'd whisper to the glass, and she'd invite me in, sinking into desperate, hungry kisses and those clumsy first fumblings that set a young man's blood afire.
"But my mama didn't approve. We didn't quarrel often, but when it came to Ilsa, God Almighty, we shook the fucking sky. She warned me away from that girl, time and time again. One night we were at table, Papa quietly drowning in his vodka and Celene poking her potato stew while Mama and I raged. Again, she warned of the hunger inside me. To beware, lest it devour me whole.
"But I was tired of my parents' fear that I'd make the same mistakes they had. And furious, out of patience, I pointed at Papa and shouted, 'I'm not him! I am nothing like him!'
"And Papa looked up at me then, once so handsome, now sodden and soft with drink. 'Damn right you're not, you little bastard.'
"'Raphael!' Mama shouted. 'Do not speak so!'
"He looked at her, and a bitter, secret smile twisted his lips. And it might have ended there if the lion in me hadn't been too enraged to let it lie.
"'I thank God I am a bastard. Better no father at all than one so worthless as you.'
"'Worthless, am I?' Papa glowered, sliding to his feet. 'If only you knew the worth I've shown, boy. Fifteen years, and I've breathed not a word, raising such a sin as you.'
"'If I'm a sin, then I'm yours to own. And just because you were fool enough to seed a son in the girl you plowed out of wedlock, doesn't m—'
"I got no further. His fist flew as it had hundreds of nights before. Mama screaming as she'd always done. But that night, Papa's fist never found its mark. Instead, I caught it but a few inches from my face. I was taller than him, but he had arms thick as a baker's wife. He should've been able to swat me like a fly. Instead, I shoved him backward, his eyes wide with shock. My blood was pounding, and as my papa's skull struck the hearth, that pulse began roaring in the shadows behind my eyes. As he fell, I saw he'd split his scalp upon the mantel. And from the gash spilled a slick of bright and gleaming red.
"Blood.
"I'd seen it before, of course. Smeared on my broken fingers and smudged on my swollen face. But I'd never noticed before how vivid the color, how heady the scent, salt and iron and flower's perfume, entwined now with the song of my thundering heart. My throat was dry, my tongue like old leather, my stomach a yawning, clawing hole as I reached out with one trembling hand toward that spreading stain.
"'Gabe?' Celene whispered.
"'Gabriel!' Mama shouted.
"And like a spell broken at cock's crow, it fell away. That ache. That dust-dry longing. I stood on shaking legs, looking Mama in the eye. I could see secrets there, unspoken. A horror, a weight, growing heavier every year.
"'What's happening to me, Mama?'
"She only shook her head, kneeling beside Papa. 'It's inside you, Gabriel. I'd hoped … I prayed God it would not be so.'
"'What's inside me?'
"She said nothing, staring at the shadows on the floor.
"'Mama, tell me! Help me!'
"She looked into my eyes. This lioness who raised me, who taught me to wear my name like a crown. I could see it then; the desperation of the mother who'd do anything to protect her cub, realizing she'd only one thing left to do.
"'I cannot, my love. But perhaps I know someone who can.'
"I'd no idea what else to ask. Didn't know the answer I needed. Mama would speak no more, and Celene had started crying, and so I saw to my sister as I'd always done. Things were never the same after that night. I tried to talk with Papa, God help me, I even apologized, but he wouldn't even look at me. I watched him pounding his anvil, fist upon his hammer. Great and terrible things, his hands. I could remember them closing around mine when I was a little boy, big and warm, showing me how to set a snare or swing a sword. I remembered them curling into knots and falling like rain. He built things, and he broke things, my papa. And I realized that perhaps one of the things he'd broken had been me.
"My only refuge was the circle of Ilsa's arms. And so, I sought it often as I could, sneaking out at all hours and climbing through her window. Meeting in that place where words have no meaning. We were both raised in the One Faith, and ever the specter of sin hung over us. But not even God Himself can come between a girl and a boy truly in want of each other. No scripture or king or law on earth has that power.
"One night, we were close. So close we both burned with it. Her nightclothes cast aside and my britches unlaced, my lips almost hurting from the press of her mouth. The feel of her naked body against mine was dizzying, and the want of her was a thirst, welling inside me. I could smell her desire, filling my lungs and making me ache, her long chestnut tresses tangled between my fingers as her tongue flickered against mine.
"'Do you love me?' I whispered.
"'I love you,' she answered.
"'Do you want me?' I asked.
"'I want you,' she breathed.
"We rolled across her bed, and her breath came quicker, and her eyes saw only me. 'But we can't, Gabriel. We can't.'
"'This is no sin,' I pleaded, kissing her throat. 'You have my whole heart.'
"'And you mine,' she whispered. 'But it's my moonstime, Gabriel. My blood is on me. We should wait.'
"My belly thrilled at that. And though she spoke again, the only word I heard was blood. I realized that was the scent, that was the want, roaring now inside me.
"I couldn't have told you why. There was no why in my thoughts at the time. But my mouth drifted lower, over the smooth hills and valleys of her body, and I could feel her heart hammering beneath my fingertips as my hands roamed her curves. She shivered as my tongue circled her navel, murmured the softest protest even as she parted her legs and dragged her fingers through my hair. And I sank between her thighs and pressed my mouth against her, feeling her tremble. And a part of me was just a fifteen-year-old boy then, nervous as a spring lamb, begging only to serve and wanting only to please. But the rest of me, the most of me, was filled with a hunger darker than any I'd known.
"Ilsa pressed her fingers to her mouth, clamping her thighs about my head. And as I pressed my tongue inside her, I tasted it, God, I tasted it, and it almost drove me mad. Salt and iron. Autumn and rust. Flooding over my tongue and answering every question I'd never known how to ask. Because the answer was the same.
"Always the same.
"Blood.
"Blood.
"I felt complete in a way I'd never known possible. I knew a peace I'd never have believed was real. I felt this girl, writhing against the sheets and whispering my name, and though a moment before I'd promised her my whole heart, now she was nothing, nothing but the thing she could give me, the treasure locked behind the doors of this silken temple and calling to me without speaking a word. I sensed a stirring in my gums, and running my tongue across my teeth, I felt they'd grown sharp as knives. I could hear the pulse in Ilsa's thighs, pressed tight against my ears, struggling to turn my head as she sighed protest. And then, then God help me, I sank my teeth into her, her back arching, her every muscle taut as she threw back her head and pulled me closer, trying not to scream.
"And I knew the color of want then. And its color was red.
"What am I? What am I doing? What in the name of God is happening to me? These are the thoughts you might have expected to be rushing through my head. The questions any sane person might have asked himself. But for me, there was nothing. Nothing but my lips against Ilsa's skin and the flood of that punctured vein into my mouth. I drank like parched desert sand, one thousand years wide. I drank as if all the world were ending and only one more mouthful of her could save it, save me, save us all from the grand finale waiting in the darkness. I couldn't stop. I wouldn't.
"'Stop…'
"Ilsa's whisper broke through the boundless hymn in my head, that choir of our heartbeats entwined. Hers was fading now, weak and frail as a broken bird's and mine thrumming stronger than ever. But still, the part of me who loved this girl realized what the rest of me was doing. And at last, I tore my mouth away with a gasp of ragged horror.
"'Oh, God…'
"Blood. On the sheets. On her thighs and in my mouth. And as the spell of my kiss wore off, as the dark desire that had gripped her bled away, Ilsa saw what I'd done. The animal part of her took over, and even as I raised my hands to shush her, she opened her blue-blushed lips and screamed. The scream of a girl who understands the monster isn't under the bed anymore. The monster is in it with her.
"I heard running footsteps. A soft curse. Ilsa screamed again, pure horror in her eyes. And that horror had me too, turning my full belly to water. The horror of a boy who's hurt the one he loves, of a boy in bed with a daughter as her father's footsteps come barreling down the hall, of a boy who has woken from a nightmare to discover the nightmare is him.
"The door burst open. The alderman stood there in his nightshirt, a dagger in one hand. And he cried, 'Good God Almighty!' as I dragged myself from the ruined bed, hands and chin drenched red. Ilsa was still screaming, the alderman roared and swung his blade. I gasped as a line of fire sliced down my back, but I was already gone, moving so swift the world was a blur, out through the window and into the dark.
"I landed barefoot in the mud, dragging my britches up as I stumbled, my hands sticky and red. I could hear the village waking, Ilsa's screams ringing across the muddy square, and the tread of watchmen's boots as little lights flared in the dark.
"I was lost and alone and running only God knew where. But I realized with awful wonder that the night was alive around me, burning as bright and beautiful as the day once had. My legs were steel, and my heart was thunder, and I felt every inch the lion I was named for. In that moment, I was more alive and afraid than I'd ever been, but my thoughts were clear enough now to question. What was happening to me? What had I done? Had Amélie passed some measure of her curse onto me? Or was I something else entire?
"It started to snow. I heard church bells ringing. And I dashed onward, toward the only place I thought I might find safety. Where does the cub run, vampire, when the wolves snap at his heels? Who does the soldier cry out for, when he bleeds his last upon the field?"
"Mother," Jean-François replied.
"Mother," Gabriel nodded. "She'd tried to tell me something that night I'd struck Papa low. That night the blood first called to me. And so, I burst through our cottage door and called only for her. She rose from bed, and my little sister stared at me, wide-eyed and fearful at the blood on my hands and face. Papa snarled, 'Oh, God, what have you done, boy?' and Celene whispered a soft prayer. But Mama enfolded me in her arms and whispered, 'No fear, my love. Everything will be aright.'
"Heavy fists pounded on the door. Angry voices. Mama and Papa exchanged a glance, but Papa moved not a muscle. And with lips pressed thin, my lioness wrapped a shawl about her shoulders and took my bloody hand, leading me back out into the cold.
"Half the village awaited us. Some held lanterns, burning brands, or icons of the Redeemer. The alderman was among them, and so was Père Louis, the priest clutching a copy of the Testaments like a sword in his hand. He raised the holy book and pointed at me, his voice hoarse with the same righteous fury with which he'd damned my sister.
"'Abomination!'
"Mama cried protest, but her voice was lost under the clamor. The farrier grabbed my arm. But the blood I'd stolen pounded hot and red in all my hollow places, and I sent him flying as if he were straw. More men came on, and I lashed out, feeling bones break and flesh split in my hands. But they fell on me in a mob, the priest bellowing.
"'Bring him down! In the name of God!'
"'He's one of them!' someone cried.
"'Gone like his sister!' another roared.
"Mama began screaming, and Celene was spitting curses, and somewhere in the tumult, I heard my papa roaring too, crying out that I was only a boy, just a boy. I felt the crowd dragging me bloodied and half senseless to my feet, and I thought of Amélie then, dancing and wailing as she burned. Wondering if the same fate awaited me. I looked into Père Louis's eyes, this bastard who'd denied my sister her burial, hate upon my tongue.
"'Faithless fucking coward,' I spat. 'I pray you die screaming.'
"A shot split the air, the crack of a wheellock pistol ringing in my ears. And the mob fell still, all eyes turning to the figures riding slow up the muddy road.
"Two of them on pale steeds, like angels of death from the pages of the Testaments. A thin fellow rode in the lead, gaunt as a scarecrow. He wore a leather greatcoat, black and heavy. His tricorn was pulled low, collar laced about his mouth and nose. All I could see of his features was a strand of dry, straw-colored hair and his eyes. His irises were the palest kind of green, but the whites were so bloodshot they were all but red. He had a burlap sack over the back of his stout tundra pony. The shape inside was akin to a man. On his shoulder sat a falcon, sleek grey feathers and glittering gold eyes.
"The second rider was younger, broader of shoulder, but again, I could see little of his face. He wore the same gear as the first, a longblade sheathed at his waist. His tricorn was pulled low, and he looked about the mob with an ice-blue gaze.
"The snow was coming heavier, its chill digging into my bare skin. The riders bore small hunter's lanterns on their saddles, and the light glittered on the flakes falling fat and freezing from the sky, the silver sevenstars embroidered at their breasts.
"Papa had fetched his old war sword from the wall, and Mama was breathless, her hair come loose from its braid. Celene stood with her fists bunched in knots, my little hellion stepping in to defend her big brother as those ponies clopped slowly up to our house. We all of us could feel the gravity of that moment. I watched these strange men, and I marked how fine their steeds were, how sharp the cut of their greatcoats, how the thread in those stars at their breasts wasn't thread at all, but actual, real silver. And the one in the lead slipped his wheellock inside his coat and called out over the song of my pulse.
"'I am Frère Greyhand, Silversaint of San Michon.'
"He pointed at me.
"'And I am here for the boy.'"