I try to stay out of the way, sitting down by the water, as far from the so-called “music” streaming from their instruments as possible. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure there are ninety-nine-year-old deaf women in Siberia blocking their ears right about now, moaning in pain, and I’m getting worried on whether this plan will actually work.
A shadow crosses over me and a moment later Jareth sits down beside me in the sand. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything this terrible,” he exclaims.
“Me neither,” I agree. “And I’ve sat through an entire John Mayer concert with Sunny.” I grab a handful of crimson-colored sand, running it through my fingers. “I don’t understand it. Race is an internationally known rock star. And yet he’s as bad as the rest.”
“Yeah, but remember, there’s no Auto-Tune down in Hades.”
“Good point.” I frown. “At this rate, it’s going to take them a hundred years to get good enough to play.”
Jareth gives me a rueful look and the two of us fall silent. But somehow the silence is comforting rather than awkward. And even the terrible music currently sound tracking the scene can’t put a damper on the fact that the vampire has chosen to come sit next to me of his own free will. I steal a glance at him, wanting to say so much, but at the same time I don’t want to push him away again. I realize this is a big step for him, and I don’t want him to regret making it.
“Remember that first night we sat on the beach?” I dare to ask at last, keeping my eyes glued to the water ahead of me. “Right after we staked the vampire Maverick during my first slayer mission?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his slow nod. “You were poisoned by the blood virus,” he remembers. “You told me you’d be dead in a few days.”
“I know. I was pretty freaked out. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, had I known about the free Wi-Fi…” I can’t help but joke.
Jareth doesn’t laugh. “I remember thinking… I barely know this girl,” he continues instead in a dead-serious voice. “How can I already love her so much?” He shakes his head. “It scared me to death, to tell you the truth.”
I swallow hard, thinking back to that fateful night. I’d finally met the one guy I could allow myself to love. The one who understood the walls of protection I’d built around myself for all those years, afraid to let anyone see the real weak and powerless me. I knew Jareth had the power to help me tear down those walls once and for all. To love the real me, despite her flaws.
And now that I’d done it, now that I had finally embraced Rayne McDonald, warts and all, the vampire who’d helped me get there no longer wanted to be a part of my life.
“You saved me,” I remind him. “When no one else could.”
“Did I?” Jareth’s voice turns suddenly bitter. “Or did I damn you to the life of a monster? Sometimes I wonder.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a small shrug. “If I had only let you go… allowed you to pass peacefully into a happy afterlife with free Wi-Fi and video games… would it have been better in the end? Was I really saving your life when I bit you? Or was I just being a selfish monster, not able to bear letting you go?”
I stare at him in disbelief. Is that what he really thinks? That I should have died rather than become a vampire?
“So what you are saying?” I ask, not able to help the undercurrent of anger in my voice. “That everything we’ve shared, everything we’ve said, means nothing to you? That if we had to do it all over again, you’d rather let me die?”
Jareth stares down at his feet, his eyes rimmed with blood tears. “I’m just saying I think you would have been better off if you never met me,” he says at last, his voice tortured and broken. “Or if I’d never walked the Earth at all.”
I open my mouth to protest—to tell him he’s being crazy, ridiculous—that my life is three thousand million times better because he’s been a part of it and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But before I can speak, I hear a shuffling behind us. Whirling around, I see Charon standing above us, dressed in a pair of Superman silk pajamas, a big frown on his face.
“What the hell is going on here?” he demands, gesturing to the ruckus up by the fire pit. “I’ve never heard such obnoxious noise in all my millennia! It’s four in the morning, for Hades’s sake!”
I grimace. I was afraid this might happen. Here we are, trying to charm him and instead we’ve only managed to piss him off. I hope Torrid lets me take over his WoW account when he finally crosses the river. Otherwise it’s going to be a long hundred years…
“Sorry,” I say, rising to my feet. “I’m really sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll tell them to lay off for the night, okay?” I start toward the band, but Charon grabs me by the arm.
“What, so they can begin again tomorrow morning?” he demands. “Absolutely not. I will not tolerate another nanosecond of this blasted noise on my shores.”
I’m about to apologize another hundred times, but suddenly an idea strikes me. It’s a risk, of course. But those who dare, win, right? “Oh, well, good luck getting them to stop,” I say breezily. “Race told me they plan to practice every day for the next hundred years. Evenings and weekends, too.”