Page 24

“You want to sit with me?” Charlie patted the rumpled duvet next to him, eyes on Auris.

“No, thank you.” Auris pulled the chair in front of the small desk out for me. When I sat—awkwardly, because I was trying to put the collected bones down between my feet without the sound giving away what it was—he casually leaned against the desk and asked, “Charlie, did Jonathan tell you not to leave him? To come for him?”

Charlie scratched his head. “I suppose he did. He would have, wouldn’t he? It’s been such a long time. I never found him. They don’t let you go anywhere but the front part of the church, you know, and all the doors are always locked. But you got in.”

“I see.” Auris sighed. “When did you first meet Jonathan?”

Charlie pursed his lips. “Maybe… I’d just run away from home. How old was I… Maybe seventeen? Maybe. I could’ve been fifteen.”

“Shit,” I mumbled.

Charlie looked at me. “You’re not a vampire.” He looked at Auris. “Is he yours? I’m Jonathan’s. He says no one else can touch me, because I’m his.”

The next curse that wanted out of my mouth I swallowed right back down.

“This is Ethan.” Auris nodded in my direction. “He’s under my protection, yes. Do you know why Jonathan brought you here? You’re not from here.”

Those pursed lips again. “He said he likes it better here. He never liked CCTV like we have in London. He says you can get all the things here and have lots of fun. Oh, he said he had dealings with the fur people in the area.”

Auris crossed his arms. “Right. Who or what are the fur people?”

Charlie tilted his head, left, right, left again. “Don’t you know? I think they’re wolves. Or bears? Like, were-bears. I’ve never seen them, but there was supposed to be a meeting. We missed that. Jonathan will have to set up a new one once we get him out of the ossuary. So did you see him in there? He’s probably really hungry by now.”

Auris went quiet and shifted to the side, closer to me. Then he said, “Jonathan is dead, Charlie.”

Charlie stared at Auris, wide-eyed. Then he stared some more. In the end, all he said was “Oh.”

Auris sighed. “Do you think you can go home now, Charlie?”

Pursed lips. “I’m not sure. He said to wait. He was very specific. Wait. Come help him. He always said he couldn’t go long without me, because of the hunger, you know. Are you…are you sure? That he’s dead?”

Auris picked up the bag I’d put between my feet, put it next to Charlie on the bed, and undid the knot.

“Oh,” Charlie said again, sounding not at all like someone confronted with his dead vampire lover. As Auris and I watched, Charlie pulled out the skull, held it up in one hand, and ran a thin index finger along the brow line and over the cheekbone. “Oh,” he said again, a tear running down his cheek. He kissed the charred skull with an amount of tenderness that made me feel all kinds of conflicting emotions.

Auris put a hand on my shoulder. “Ethan, I saw a tub in the bathroom. Will you do me a favor and run a bath for Charlie?” I felt him flinch and tighten his grip. “If that is okay. I can do it as well.”

I stood. “No, that’s fine. He’s been entranced? Ever since…”

Auris nodded. “I expect so.”

I went to the bathroom and ran the water like Auris had asked. Pacing while waiting for the tub to fill would’ve been my preference, but the room was too small. I walked the six steps back to the bedroom instead.

Charlie had moved on to examining the rest of the bones while the skull was on the duvet on his right. It was the strangest scene I had ever seen, and I wasn’t sure what to make of this, whether it was grief or whether Charlie was looking for some specific mark on the bones to confirm what we had told him.

“Charlie, come with me,” Auris said after about ten minutes. “Ethan, I don’t know how he’ll react.” I heard the unspoken words there—don’t come into the bathroom, nothing bad will happen, don’t listen to the noises. Auris’s face didn’t betray much, but I knew he didn’t want to trigger me.

“I’m okay. Really.” I pulled out my phone. “I’ll just play some Candy Crush.”

Auris nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t happy, going by how tense his shoulders were. He and Charlie went into the bathroom, and Auris closed the flimsy door behind them.

Instead of opening Candy Crush, I looked up werewolves, then found bear warriors or berserkers, and wondered whether I could handle the knowledge that those existed in the world along with vampires, magic, and murderous priests. There was splashing from the bathroom. It didn’t really bother me, because I knew Auris wouldn’t hurt anyone. The whispering and sobbing unsettled me somewhat. It was followed by more splashing. I looked at the skull, nestled on the duvet, and wondered whether I should leave it out or put it back.

It was a little after eleven when Auris came out of the bathroom, a bedraggled-looking Charlie wrapped in a towel behind him. I decided I didn’t need to have an opinion about the fact that Auris had made Charlie take his clothes off, looked at the old plastic bag on the floor that held all of Charlie’s possessions as far as I knew, and felt bad about almost being jealous.

Auris’s face was tight, his lips a thin line. I bobbed my head. “We’re taking Charlie with us?”

“At least for tonight,” Auris said.