“I’m not saying he’s a monster. By all accounts, he’s a good lad. He’s trying his best to overcome the hand he was dealt, but he has many people’s lives to pay for. In the eyes of God, in a thousand lifetimes he’d still be hard-pressed to have redeemed himself.”
We continued down the motorway, breaking the speed limit and passing row upon row of plane trees. The branches were pointing at me like old, decrepit fingers poised accusingly. What it was they were accusing me of, I didn’t know.
“You know about the dimensions?”
“Yes.”
“Then how is it you believe in God?” I was walking a tightrope, but I had to know what he knew.
“However Gabriel puts it, whatever science is involved and by whatever name you would call these dimensions, to me they are Heaven and Hell. The mythology stems from what people witnessed all those years ago; different people interpret things differently. I still believe there is a God.”
“Have you asked Gabriel if that’s true?” I was losing my balance on the tightrope.
“He’s not able to explain to that degree. He’s an Angel, and I am one of the Devil’s. I understand and accept that.” He nodded, rubbing his hairy chin, the other hand placed rigidly on the steering wheel. He didn’t know about the crystal, about Orifiel, about the reason behind the existence of Angels.
Ruadhan had been deeply religious before he was turned, I had gathered as much from the conversation we had shared in the church back in Hedgerley. Shattering someone’s faith like his would never be easy and even if you could, why would you want to if it gave a purpose to his existence and provided some sort of comfort?
I swerved the conversation back to Jonah. If I was going to be spending some serious time with him, I needed to know more about him and his intentions. “How did Jonah become a Vampire? What happened to him, Ruadhan?”
“Would it help you understand him, help you understand the danger?” He was not one to gossip, but if it served a purpose he might tell me.
“Yes.”
He contemplated before he began, and I sat up straight in the passenger’s seat, ready to listen.
“Jonah has been with us just shy of seven years. He grew up in New Jersey, and by all accounts he was a perfectly normal lad—captain of the football team, and all that. He was granted a scholarship to Florida State and started in the autumn. He hadn’t been there long when he received a call to say that his family had been in an accident; they had all perished.”
He stopped there and I inhaled a sharp breath. “Poor Jonah…” I trailed off. “What happened?”
“A car accident … drunk driver knocked them clean off the road. From the account Jonah gave, it sounds as though they didn’t suffer. But he couldn’t accept it. Especially his sister. She was the baby, he loved her more than anything. He never went back to Jersey; he stayed down in Florida, but he went off the rails. Spent most of his time drunk, squandering his inheritance away in bars and by gambling. He got kicked out of college.”
“How do you know all this?”
“He told me once; some of us have shared our stories. He’s still haunted by his past life. He’s not the only one.…”
“How did he come to be a Vampire?”
“He was found by a Second Generation, slumped behind some dumpsters outside a biker bar, and was dragged back to their Gualtiero—Emery. Jonah was a light soul, and so Emery chose to turn him. Jonah took to his new role like a moth to a flame, enjoying his new powers. He moved up the Gualtiero’s ranks quickly, and was out stealing humans for him within a matter of weeks. Within months he was one of Emery’s most prestigious soldiers. Jonah took orders only from Emery and did his bidding directly. That is unusual with an army of so many.”
The rounded streetlamps that lit the borders of the mountains reminded me of army helmets. Ruadhan drove fast but steady; sheer drops into the forest on any other day might have scared me.
“So how did he come to travel with you, with Gabriel?”
“He savagely murdered and pillaged, Cessie. Worse still, he enjoyed it. Emery held him in such high regard that he would turn females specifically for Jonah to feed off, to grow stronger. He granted him the freedom to hunt for his own human meals and Jonah always sought out pretty little things like you. There’s your second warning sign.”
I tried to stop my heart banging against my chest as I imagined him feeding off young girls, chasing them down for sport.
“What was the first?”
“The very fact that he is a Vampire.”
I didn’t say anything for a while, letting this new information sink in. “You didn’t answer my question—how did he come to travel with you?”
Ruadhan was trying to highlight the evil in Jonah to scare me away from him; I would have to do more than scratch the surface in order to understand the entirety of his story.
“That’s not really important, is it, love? What’s crucial is that you recognize the danger and keep your distance.”
“It’s important to me.”
Looking at my expectant face, reluctantly he continued. “He was hunting with some of the others and found a house on the beach. Inside were a mother, father, and daughter. The girl was the same age as his sister and had the same disability.”
“Disability?”
“She was blind.”
“Oh…” I trailed off.
“He told the Vampires to leave, but they wouldn’t. Some went, taking the parents back to Emery, but a few stayed, turning on the girl. She was not worthy of presenting to their Master, so they set about tormenting and killing her. Jonah had to make a choice, and for whatever reason, he decided to turn on his own kind and tried to save her. Gabriel and I found them at the moment Jonah broke through the door, carrying her in his arms.”
“What happened to the girl? To Jonah?”
“She, well, she died.…” Ruadhan went quiet and I sensed he was not telling the whole story. “Gabriel and I ended the three Vampires who made chase, but we offered Jonah a choice: return to his Gualtiero, or leave with us and try to regain his decency. He chose the latter.”
I pondered on this for a while. “He felt love for the girl, like he did for his sister. It broke through the darkness of his soul, long enough for him to decide. And he chose redemption. Why would you warn me off him, when he’s so clearly trying to find himself again, trying to be a good person?” If anything, Ruadhan’s story had caused me to feel a surge of compassion for Jonah.