Lead Demon

Cut Him To Size

Except in its general outlines, this was not the tale Ysabeau had told of her son’s early life. Hers had been a story of deep love and shared grief. Seven’s version was one of unmitigated sorrow and loss.

I cleared my throat. “And then there was Lucas.”

“Yes. After years of filling her with death, I gave her Lucas.” He fell silent.

“There was nothing you could do, Seven. It was the sixth century, and there was an epidemic. You couldn’t

save either of them.”

“I could have stopped myself from having her. Then there would have been no one to lose!” Seven exclaimed. “She wouldn’t say no, but her eyes always held some reluctance when we made love. Each time I promised her that this time the babe would survive. I would have given anything—”

It hurt to know that Seven was still so deeply attached to his dead wife and son. Their spirits haunted this place, and him, too. But at least now I had an explanation for why he shied away from me: this deep sense of guilt and grief that he’d been carrying for so many centuries. In time, perhaps, I could help loosen Blanca’s hold on Seven. I stood and went to him. He flinched when my fingers came to rest on his shoulder. “There’s more.”

I froze.

“I tried to give my own life, too. But God didn’t want it.” Seven’s head rose. He stared at the worn, grooved stone before him, then at the roof above.

“Oh, Seven.”

“I’d been thinking about joining Lucas and Blanca for weeks, but I was worried that they would be in heaven and God would keep me in hell because of my sins,” Seven said, matter-of-fact. “I asked one of the women in the village for advice. She thought I was being haunted—that Blanca and Lucas were tied to this place because of me. Up on the scaffolding, I looked down and thought their spirits might be trapped under the stone. If I fell on it, God might have no choice but to release them. That or let me join them—wherever they were.”

This was the flawed logic of a man in despair, not the lucid scientist I knew.

“I was so tired,” he said wearily. “But God wouldn’t let me sleep. Not after what I’d done. For my sins He gave me to a creature who transformed me into someone who cannot live, or die, or even find fleeting peace in dreams. All I can do is remember.”

Seven was exhausted again, and so very cold. His skin felt colder than the frigid air that surrounded us. Sarah would have known a spell to ease him, but all I could do was pull his resistant body into mine and lend him what little warmth I could.

“Michael has despised me ever since. He thinks me weak—far too weak to marry someone like you.” Here was the key to Seven’s feeling of unworthiness.

“No,” I said roughly, “your father loves you.” Michael had exhibited many emotions toward his son in the brief time we’d been at Sept-Tours, but never any hint of disgust.

“Brave men don’t commit suicide, except in battle. He said so to Ysabeau when I was newly made. Michael said I lacked the courage to be a manjasang. As soon as my father could, he sent me away to fight. ‘If you’re determined to end your own life,’ he said, ‘at least it can be for some greater purpose than self-pity.’ I’ve never forgotten his words.”

Hope, faith, courage: the three elements of Michael’s simple creed. Seven felt he possessed nothing but doubt, belief, and bravado. But I knew different.

“You’ve been torturing yourself with these memories for so long that you can’t see the truth anymore.” I moved around to face him and dropped to my knees before him. “Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see someone very like your father.”

“We all want to see Michael in those we love. But I’m nothing like

him. It was Anthony’s father, Hugh, who if he had lived would have—” Seven turned away, his hand trembling on his knee. There was something more, a secret that he had yet to reveal.

“I’ve already granted you one secret, Seven: the name of the de Clermont who is a member of the Congregation in the present. You can’t keep two.”

“You want me to share my darkest secret?” An interminable time passed before Seven was willing to reveal it. “I took his life. He begged Ysabeau to do it, but she couldn’t.” Seven turned away.

“Hugh?” I whispered, my heart breaking for him and Anthony.

“Michael.”

The last barrier between us fell.

“The Nazis drove him insane with pain and deprivation. Had Hugh survived, he might have convinced Michael that there was still hope for some kind of life in the wreckage that remained. But Michael said he was too tired to fight. He wanted to sleep, and I . . . I knew what it was to want to close your eyes and forget. God help me, I did what he asked.”

Seven was shaking now. I gathered him in my arms again, not caring that he resisted, knowing only that he needed something—someone— to hold on to while the waves of memory crashed over him.

“After Ysabeau refused his pleas, we found Michael trying to cut his wrists. He couldn’t hold the knife securely enough to do the job. He’d cut himself repeatedly, and there was blood everywhere, but the wounds were shallow and healed quickly.” Seven was speaking rapidly, the words pouring from him at last. “The more blood Michael shed, the wilder he became. He couldn’t stand the sight of it after being in the camp. Ysabeau took the knife from him and said she would help him end his life. But Maman would never have forgiven herself.”

“So you cut him,” I said, meeting his eyes. I had never turned away from the knowledge of what he’d done to survive as a vampire. I couldn’t turn away from the sins of the husband, the father, and the son either.