Delcaos (Darkest Night Collection) Read Free Page B

and we would fight, she clambering to get away, me desperate to keep her in. Anywhere we stayed was ruined. Any conversation we had turned into a fiery argument. We were just as bad as each other, both of us flinging objects and furniture at one another.
    Despite all this, despite knowing how desperately unhappy Lucretia was, I never once suspected that she would want to leave me nor that there was anyone out there who would take her from me.
    Lucretia had changed much in the years we had been together. Her hair no longer shone in the moonlight, now it clung to her ever paler skin looking frayed and unkempt. Her eyes were empty wells sat amongst red clouds. Her skin tightly pulled around her bones, every corner was sharp like rocks in the sea.
    She couldn't leave me though, not now. I was all she knew. In so many years we had not encountered another vampire. It was me or be alone , and Lucretia could not stand to be alone. I had found me the perfect partner, or so I thought.
    Life with Lucretia was almost intolerable yet each night we went through the identical arguments and familiar hatred. How I wished to end her and her ungratefulness. I gave her this life, I should be the one to take it away but every time I grabbed her throat in my hand, something stopped me.
    And then one night that opportunity was taken away from me.
    Lucretia left the Parisian hotel room we were staying in whilst I was out hunting, she was gone when I returned. I waited until dawn but she never returned.
    When I awoke the next evening from the chaise lounge, a stranger stood in my room.
    This upstart stood leaning casually, one arm resting on the mantel of the fireplace in pathetic eighteenth century clothing. His olive green velvet frock coat and knee length boots made him look as if he were wearing fancy dress. Golden blond, wavy hair and green eyes were set in his angelic looking face.
    He began playing with his manicured nails . “What do you want?” I asked him.
    He tapped the mantle and walked to the other side of the fireplace before turning to me, one hand behind his back. “She's not coming back. She doesn’t want to.” His accent struck me as strange at first but was quickly forgotten.
    I thought about threatening him, holding him against the wall breaking his bones until he told me where she was, but I tried to remain calm.
    Of all the things I could think of, I asked;  “And you are?”
    He seemed surprised by my composure “Gabriel.”
    I nodded, he took a moment to look at me and then left through the door. I rushed to the window to see him leave the hotel and cross the street carrying on to the left. I climbed out of the window and up to the roof not caring if I was seen and I followed this stranger through the night time Parisian streets.
    As I watched him swiftly glide through passersby, my thoughts were raging. Just who did this ‘ Gabriel ’ think he was? And Lucretia, at lowest ebb he must have found her, my pathetic little child. He must have felt sorry for her. I can’t imagine what he thought when he saw her, this dishevelled, ragged looking vampire. Her appearance disgusted even me, most would avoid such a being but not this ‘ Gabriel ’.
    It was quite a long walk to where he was going and he never paused, save to cross over to the other side of the street. Not once did I take my eyes off him. The more time spent looking at him the more my anger grew. I was going to kill him, after he had led me to Lucretia, and I was going to make her watch. There was no life for her without me, no escape. She would find no peace. That was the price she would pay for trying to leave me.
    Finally we came to a lavish hotel and the upstart walked straight through the doors. I stood on the roof of the building opposite planning my next moves. A large road and pavement separated me from the hotel so I was in the perfect place to see the front of the building. I didn’t want to walk into the hotel after him, he could have seen me at