Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang(101)

 

He turned away from me, prodding Alec with his shoe.

 

“Show’s over, I guess,” Magda said softly. “Why don’t we go inside and give them a bit of privacy?”

 

“Probably best,” Raymond said, fussing over the camera that Magda had handed back to him. “Oh, now look what you did. You had it set completely wrong for this amount of sun. . . .”

 

“Come on, Mattias. Mattias . Honey, we need to have a talk about Pia. Why don’t you come with Ray and me, and I’ll tell you how things stand.”

 

The others left. I grabbed Kristoff’s arm and made him turn around to me. “I know you don’t want to talk about her. And I promise I will never bring up her name after this, but please, Kristoff, answer me. Did the woman you loved above all others shun you because she found out about your origins?”

 

His eyes narrowed. “The woman I loved above all others?”

 

“Angelica. Your girlfriend. The one the reapers killed,” I said, in case I’d gotten her name wrong.

 

“I loved her, but I didn’t love her above all other women,” he said. “And yes, we were tracing some reapers when somehow she stumbled across information about my past. She was repulsed by what I had been, and ran away from me. It was then that the reapers caught her.”

 

“Wait a minute,” I said, waggling a finger at him. “You were mourning her when I first met you.”

 

“No, I wasn’t,” he said, stroking his chin.

 

“But . . . you had sworn eternal vengeance or something like that. Alec told me.”

 

He gave a little shrug. “I had sworn to avenge her death, yes. As well as find out who had given her the information about me that sent her fleeing to that death.”

 

“Still haven’t figured it out?”

 

We both looked down to the source of the question, Kristoff immediately putting the sword tip to Alec’s neck.

 

Alec waved it away, pulling himself up until he was propped up on a nearby bench. “You can drop the sword. I’m not going to kill Pia.”

 

I widened my eyes. “Were you going to try?” I squeaked.

 

“Yes. It seemed only fitting to take his Beloved as he took mine.” Alec winced as he felt along his head, his fingers coming away smeared with red. “And speaking of killing, why didn’t you end my suffering once and for all?”

 

“I couldn’t do that without a ceremony and a group of reapers,” I said, watching him carefully. “Not that I would. You really would have killed me?”

 

“Yes.” He looked up, his gaze meeting mine before a wry smile stole over his mouth. “No. I thought I could, but I guess I’m just too weak.”

 

“I don’t think it’s weakness,” I said, smiling slowly. “I think you realize that Kristoff did not kill your Beloved.”

 

Alec leaned back against the bench, his eyes closed. “Does it matter anymore?”

 

“Yes, it does,” Kristoff said, lowering the sword. “You told Angelica the truth.”

 

“Yes. As I did Mabel, and Augustine, and who was that dairymaid in Alsace whom you used to visit every Sunday? Marie? I told them, just as I told every woman who ever captured your heart.”

 

“Only one woman has captured my heart,” Kristoff said, raising the sword again.

 

I looked at him in surprise, hope bursting into unreasonable but undeniable being deep inside my heart, growing with a desperate prayer. I thought you just said you didn’t love Angelica above all others.

 

Kristoff shot me a look. I’m a little busy. Now is not the time to discuss relationships.

 

I think it’s just a perfectly fine time. Who have you given your heart to? I was suddenly giddy, almost light-headed as I waited for him to answer.

 

“And she took me by surprise,” Alec said with a rueful little laugh. “I wanted to destroy her as I’ve destroyed all the others, hoping each time that it would do the job, drive you beyond bearing.”

 

Dio! You pick now to have this conversation? Right now? This second? This instant?

 

Yes! Now! Stop stalling! Tell me!

 

“But you weren’t driven beyond bearing. You never were. So I changed tactics. I figured if I couldn’t rip your heart out the way you ripped out mine, I’d destroy the other parts of your life.”

 

“He didn’t rip out your heart. His wife did. He had nothing to do with it,” I pointed out.

 

Alec cracked open one eye and glared at me. “Pia, you do not interrupt a man when he is explaining his master plan after having been soundly defeated. Don’t you watch any James Bond movies?”