The Shadows' Child

A Fight

As soon as Liam ducked out of the room, Ceara waited. She listened for the squeak of his boots against the floor as he moved towards the till, she listened for the low rustle of money being fished out of his wallet, she listened for the bell clanging above the door as he left the shop. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to let out a relieved sigh and lean back in her chair, covering her face with her hands. It's not like Liam could have remembered anything from the night she had veiled him, but the experience of seeing him again had still shaken her. It set her teeth on edge and made her feel vulnerable. She wasn't used to feeling vulnerable and she didn't like it, not one bit.

Ceara was, unfortunately, not out of the woods yet. She would still have to deal with Tristan once their last customers left. Trying to distract herself from her impending doom, she began to put her cards away as usual. Only a few seconds later however, the bell above the door jingled merrily and three sets of feet trooped out of the shop. Ceara groaned. She could still clearly hear the girls giggling and joking with each other lightly as they began walking down the street. Lucky bitches, thought Ceara sullenly. Suddenly, a shadow appeared over the table she had been staring down at; she raised her eyes to see Tristan looming in the doorway. He wasn't angry though. Oh no, not angry. He was furious. Absolutely furious.

His eyes were coal black and hard as flint. They flashed coldly as he stood at the door, the red fabric of the curtain was drawn back, the velvet crushed tightly in his fist. Ceara looked back at the cards in front of her and pretended not to notice, placing her deck carefully back into its box. "What the hell was that?" He said, his voice low and dangerous.

Ceara shrugged. "A reading," she glanced up at him, "you know, my job? The thing I get paid to do-"

He was in front of her then, hands planted on the table as he brought his face a finger's breadth from her's. "You are not paid to give readings to people you have fed on, Ceara! My God! What the hell were you thinking?" He pushed away from the table and ran a hand through his hair. "He might have remembered you!" Tristan barked. He was gaining momentum now, like a runaway train. "He still might! Maybe he's running down the street right now, screaming about how a fucking vampire attacked him!"

Ceara had, up until this point, been listening to Tristan's outburst with a kind of cool and detached anger but at this last remark she finally spoke up. "I think that if he had run away screaming, we, of all people, probably would have heard him." Before she had time to blink, Ceara was being shoved up against the wall. The movement was so sudden that it caused a great whoosh of air to follow it, snuffing out the candles. Blue smoke hung in the air, creeping over their heads as Tristan's hands gripped her shoulders. He shook her so hard that her teeth rattled.

"Don't you understand, Ceara? This is serious! What if your veiling hadn't held, huh?" Ceara's mouth became a grim, tight line and she turned her head to the side. Tristan's breath was cool, she could feel his lips at her ear. "You knew the risk of making eye contact with him again, Ceara! You knew," he hissed.

She did know. She really did. Every second Ceara had been in that room with Liam, she had fought to keep from catching his eye. She couldn't help it though, it was like her eyes were drawn to his instinctively, her body remembering the last time she had met his eyes, remembering the taste of his blood. The smell. The entire reading had been absurdly dangerous for both of them. She had been tempted enough by his blood the first time, but this time the room had been oppressively warm. She had felt heat radiating off him hotly in quivering waves, the quick flush of his cheeks warming the air around them. She heard the dull, wet thud of his heart constantly in her ears, like his blood was calling to her.

It was crazy, but then it wasn't just her bloodlust that had posed a threat, she was able to control that. It was his eyes. If she kept eye contact with him for too long, she ran the risk of accidently lifting the veil she had cast over his memory before she had fed on him. The truth about what had happened would be exposed, and so would she. Her stomach clenched uneasily at the thought of it. She swallowed.
"That was one stupid risk you took in there, Ceara," Tristan's voice was sharp. " How could you jeopardise us like that?" He demanded. "Not only us, but every other damn brood in this city!"

"You..." She stilled momentarily. Her next words were pronounced extremely carefully.
"You think," she bit out, "that I would purposely put the well being of any other brood in danger?"

"I think-"

"Never mind that," she interrupted him, "you think that I would put you in danger?"

"Ceara-"

"You are such an idiot!" She shouted, shrugging his hands off her shoulders.

Tristan snorted, still not backing down. "Seems to me like you're the idiot, you're the one who decided to go ahead with the reading!"

"What else was I supposed to do, Tristan?" She spat, her stare holding his unrelentingly. "Send him away?" Her eyes flashed a wild, thunderstorm grey and she laughed humorlessly. "How would I have explained that one?" Ignoring the furious set of Tristan's jaw she boldly ploughed on, taking on a high pitched voice in parody of herself. "I do apologise, sir, it appears that I will be unable to do your reading today. Why? Oh, you know, I just think it would be a little uncomfortable seeing as I jumped you in a dark alley and drank your fucking blood!"

"Ceara," Tristan snarled, a warning.

"Why didn't you turn him away?" Ceara pressed, suddenly finding her leverage. She brought her face so close to his that their noses were touching, her lip curled. "You saw him first, you led him to me, Tristan! You could've stopped him, so why didn't you?"

Tristan growled and angrily pushed her at the wall before moving to the other side of the room. He began to pace, he tugged at his hair again in aggravation, fighting for some semblance of control. "There were other customers, I didn't want to make a scene."

"And neither did I!"

"That's not the bloody point!"

Ceara glared at him. "Well then what is the bloody point, Tristan? Tell me, because I'd really like to know."

"The point," he said slowly, "is that he could have outed us. And even if he hadn't, They would've found out and then you would've been killed and... and I can't...I can't lose you, Ceara." A painful silence stole over the room at his words and hung in the air along with the smoke; suspended and moving sluggishly.

When Ceara spoke again, it was quietly, cautiously. "You can't be sure of that Tristan."

"Yes," he insisted, a little frantically, "yes I can! That's how it is, Ceara! That's how it always is, They always find you." His face was as grave as she had ever seen it. "No matter where you run to or how well you hide, Ceara, They find you and then They kill you. End of story." Tristan's words seemed to reverberate around the room, making Ceara's very bones tremble. His eyes were wide, dark and desperate. Ceara opened her mouth to say something, anything, but she couldn't. She knew Tristan was right; maybe not about everything else, but he was right about Them.

Tristan had paused in his circuit of the room during this speech. Afterwards he just sighed tiredly, his fight seeming to leave him in a rush of air. "It was wrong of me to blame you," he admitted. With that, he fell into the chair Ceara had previously occupied and sat with his elbows on his knees, hands cradling his head. "Seeing that man again was just...too close for comfort," he muttered softly. Ceara watched him warily.

"So you decided to take it out on me?" She said, crossing her arms and waiting for his response.

"I did," Tristan answered. He raised his head from his hands and looked at her apologetically, for once looking every inch his two hundred and fifty six years. Leaning back in the chair, he beckoned her over. When she stubbornly resisted, he sighed and got up, walking towards her. Her face was emotionless now, stony and cool, but hurt was still swirling in the grey of her eyes. She understood why he had lashed out, but it didn't make it any less upsetting though. Tristan had long ago learned that in order to make things right with Ceara, he would have to grovel, and so grovel he did. He took her balled up fists in his hands and stroked her knuckles with his thumbs. "I'm sorry," he ducked his head to meet her gaze.

"You practically threw me at a wall."

Tristan flinched a little, "I apologise."

"And you shifted all the blame onto me."

"Forgive me."

"Why should I?"

Tristan appeared to seriously consider this for a moment, then a familiar twinkle inched into his eyes. "Because, you can't resist my devilish good looks and biting wit." Ceara pulled her hands out of his and punched his arm. Hard. "Ow!" Tristan yelped. He rubbed at his injured arm incredulously. "What did I say?" Ceara, however, was already walking out of the room. Tristan called after her, "Ceara, darling, just admit it! You're in love with me!"

She snorted. "Dream on, Mr. Blanchard!" But there was laughter in her voice. The tension in the room evaporated and Tristan gave a small smile. He was forgiven, for now at least.

It wasn't until later that night that their fragile peace treaty was threatened, which, considering Tristan's quick temper, was pretty good going. They were back at home, sitting in their weird little living room with its mismatched arm chairs and numerous bookcases; being immortal inevitably led to excessive hoarding of books, well, in Ceara's case anyway. Ceara suggested that they broaden their hunting territory to deal with the whole running-into-your-last-meal problem they appeared to be having. "What?" Tristan said, looking up from the pocket watch he seemed to torturing with a cotton bud.

"I think we should cover some new ground," she repeated. "We've been hunting around the same place for too long, we were obviously going to start bumping into people we've fed on sooner or later."

Tristan nodded and twirled the cotton bud between his fingers distractedly. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that too." He began tinkering with the watch again, "I think we should leave."

Ceara stared at him. "What do you mean 'leave'?"

"I mean that you're right, we've been in the same place for too long. We need a fresh start; somewhere new."

"No," Ceara spluttered. "I mean, I don't want to leave here, I...We're doing so well. We have the shop."

"Ceara," Tristan said as he set the pocket watch down on the coffee table and leant his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands loosely between them, "we have to. There's no other way."

"We could just-"

"We can't expand our hunting boundaries, Ceara. What about Adrienne's brood? We're already too close to their territory as it is."

Ceara's heart sank a little. Tristan was right. As it stood, there were eight other broods in the city, each with a different hunting ground. Luckily enough, Tristan and Ceara were situated on the edge on the city; here the tall buildings were packed in close for a hundred or so metres before they became sparser and eventually thinned out on to a motorway surrounded by fields. It meant that the pair only had to worry about one hunting boundary to the north of their territory. This itself, however, did come with its disadvantages; Adrienne's brood, the brood they shared a boundary line with, was notoriously protective of their hunting ground. There was more chance of Tristan joining the Russian Ballet than of negotiating boundaries with Adrienne.
"But I like it here," Ceara murmured, "I feel...settled."

Tristan watched her quietly. "I know," he said, one of his hands rested on her's, "I like it here too. But what else can we do?"

Ceara thought, the wheels of her mind turning almost visibly behind her eyes. "What if we try to talk to them, maybe we could get them to agree to moving our boundary just a little-"

"It won't work, Ceara," Tristan said.

"We could at least try."

"The answer is no."

"Why not?"

"Because they'll want to know what's in it for them, and we don't exactly have much to bargain with, Ceara."
Ceara's face fell a bit and Tristan spoke again. "We don't have a choice here, we have to go."

"No we don't."

"Ceara," Tristan was getting riled up, "stop being stubborn. You know I'm right."

"You're not right, and we're not leaving here, Tristan."

"Yes," he insisted, "we are!"

She was quiet for a second, staring down at the clutter of screws and springs on the coffee table distantly before a slow smile spread over her face. "We're not leaving. I have an idea."

Tristan raised one eyebrow sceptically. "And what's that?"

Ceara just tapped her nose. "You'll see," she sang, leaving the room.

Tristan sat there in a slightly stunned silence. "I don't like this," he told the watch on the table, "I don't like this at all."

By dawn, the evening's stress had caught up with Ceara. She was exhausted. As soon as she pulled down the lid of the heavy, wooden chest she had claimed as her bed , sleep took her; instantly and blissfully. But her peace didn't last for long. As the sky began to lighten to a bluish grey and a pink flush touched the horizon, Ceara began to dream.

♠ ♠ ♠

I'm so pleased that so many of you are enjoying this story so far. This chapter was kind of heavy and hard to write ( I hate it when they argue ): ) but I hope you like it anyway. Comments are always welcome. :)