NOT FOR SALE Page 9

  "I know you're nervous," he said. "But you won't feel the things I felt. I'll give you the painkillers first." But not the tetrodox. It was too strong. He remembered his anger, that someone had tampered with the old man. His promise to punish the transgressor. "It will be over so fast!"

  "Cool," she said. She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him hard. She was trembling. He could feel his fangs beginning to lengthen and took a courtly step away. She came toward him; he eased her gently out of reach.

  "I love thee," he whispered.

  "Awesome," she replied, her voice cracking.

  * * * *

  The poisoning's culprit had not yet been found, and Romeo felt his good humor sink with the moon. Love for Juliet had softened his mood, but now, as he remembered the foul taste and compared it with Lucenzo's good blood, he felt himself grow angry once more. He told Lucenzo to keep looking, surveyed the preparations, and yelled at the staff for not hanging the festoons properly.

  Then Romeo went down into the little tomb Lucenzo's grandfather had helped him design—Lucenzo was mortal, and his family had served Romeo for centuries. Romeo had not bestowed the gift of vampirism on any of Lucenzo's ancestors—in part because they had not wanted it—but Romeo knew Lucenzo had hopes.

  Romeo pushed back the lid of the stone sarcophagus. He sank into the coffin layered with earth from the churchyard of seven hundred years before. Weariness washed over him, and he crossed his hands over his chest—most comfortable for sleeping—and closed his eyes. The preparations for Juliet's initiation into vampirism would continue in the daylight while he slept.

  The sun leeched his strength and he began to doze. When vampires slept, they had no sense of the passage of time. That was one of the first things his vampiric maker, Scarlatti, had taught him. The noble bloodsucker had trained him in many things—how to hunt, what could kill him, how to pass among humans as mortal. Then Scarlatti had met the True Death at Romeo's hands. The older vampire took too many chances, hunting too closely to Verona. Self-defense, Romeo had told himself. Friar Lawrence had been shocked to his core that Romeo could so easily kill the vampire who had given him life.

  * * * *

  Verona, 1372

  "Your blood is cold," Friar Lawrence had whispered. He was very old by then, doddering, and forgetful.

  "My blood is dead," Romeo retorted.

  "I did not foresee this. I thought you would remain the gold-hearted youth that you were."

  Romeo drew himself up. "And so I have. Look in any mirror." He lips curled in cruelty. "Ah, but I have no reflection. I am as you would have me made."

  The friar raised a palsied hand. "To help you."

  "To torment me."

  "She will come," Friar Lawrence promised.

  But as the years passed, and Juliet didn't arrive, Romeo's dead blood grew icy. He gathered up Friar Lawrence's books and threw them in the river. Tore the old man's cell apart and burned the bed and his study desk in a bonfire. He went on a rampage, slaughtering innocents even when he didn't need blood.

  "You have become a monster," Friar Lawrence had told him, cowering from him.

  "Then give me what I want!" Romeo had shouted at him. "If you be a man of magic, bring her to me!"

  Friar Lawrence shook his head. "You must have patience."

  "I must have Juliet!"

  Romeo struck the friar, forgetting that his unnatural strength was twice that of a man. Friar Lawrence sprawled on the stone floor of his cell. Hard-hearted, Romeo made no move to help him up. Instead, he turned his back and disappeared into the shadows.

  Friar Lawrence had written him a letter that night, which Romeo found after the old man had died:

  Romeo,

  This is the last letter I shall write in this world, and I address it to you. You were such a good youth, a chivalrous gentleman, but you have become a heartless knave. Your love for Juliet has driven you mad. I urge you to repent. Perhaps it is God's will that you should let her go.

  Friar Lawrence

  After Friar Lawrence's death, Romeo's fury scourged the countryside like a force of nature. The sorcerer was gone, and with his magic, and Romeo was alone. Let Juliet go? Never.

  Sorrow and anger festered inside him, burning away his humanity. He became meaner, crueler. He outlived generations of Capulets and Montagues, hating them all, because none of them were Juliet.

  And then . . . Claire.

  Romeo smiled in his sleep, his fangs glistening.

  * * * *

  Verona, the Present

  He awoke with the rising of the moon and pushed back his coffin lid. Nearly delirious with joy, he climbed the stairs. He was shaking like the eager youth beneath his true love's balcony.

  The time had come.

  He unlocked the heavy steel door separating his crypt from the rest of the villa. His servants were shouting and running everywhere. Lucenzo turned, spotted him, and hurried over. His face was as pale as ash.

  "She's gone," Lucenzo said. When Romeo didn't seem to understand, he added, "Clara. Giulietta." He was clearly stressed, using the Italian version of her name.

  "What?"

  Romeo pushed past Lucenzo and raced to Juliet's room. The drawers of her dresser were open, the bed rumpled. Her laptop lay on top of the pillow.

  "She took nothing but what she brought," Lucenzo said, "and . . . money. She took money."

  Romeo tore through the room. The gauze gown was there. The ripped leggings, not. The iPod, gone. He was dizzy. He could barely think.

  Then he picked up the laptop and opened the lid. Plopping onto the bed, he typed in her password—Juliet—and waited for her mail to open.

  There was a letter for him:

  Dear Romeo,

  I'm gone. Please don't try to find me. Please just let me go.

  I wanted to believe that I'm your Juliet, but I know I'm not. I don't know why I have the birthmark and stuff but I just can't go through with it. I tried to be how you wanted but it's just too scary. You're too scary. I tried to tell you but I knew you wouldn't listen. For a while I thought you were just eccentric, you know, some rich crazy Italian guy, but. .. you're real.

  I met this guy. We're together now so please just leave me alone.

  I hope you find your Juliet.

  Claire

  "No!" Romeo roared. He hurled the laptop at the wall; Lucenzo dove, grabbing it like a soccer ball and skidding across the stone floor. "Find her! Find them both! Drag them back here!"

  His servants scattered, both to obey his orders and to stay out of his way. Romeo tore the sheets off the bed. Ripped the pillows to shreds. Whirled around and pushed over the dressing table. Wood shattered and cracked. Glass shattered. He pounded the wall. Plaster fell in clumps. Then, he fell to the floor and sobbed.

  Then he grabbed his cell phone and called her. It went to voice.

  "Juliet," he whispered. "Come back."

  Someone was standing in the doorway. Looking up sharply, he saw a flash of movement and darted with blinding speed across the threshold.

  It was the ugly little maid, retreating as fast as she possibly could.

  "Stop," he ordered her.

  She obeyed. She was no taller than his shoulders; she was wearing a white blouse and black trousers, the uniform of his servants, and black athletic shoes.

  "Turn around."

  Her black hair hung around her face as if she were trying to conceal the scars that zigzagged across her cheeks. Her mouth was twisted to one side, and her nose was too big. Her eyes were chocolate brown, quite deep-set.

  "What do you know of this?" he demanded.

  "Nothing, signor," she said.

  Before her gaze shifted to the floor, she glanced at him with obvious pity. He was incensed. Who was she to pity him?

  "Then go away, donna brutta," he sneered at her. Ugly woman.

  She flinched and did as he asked. Lucenzo approached, skirting around the maid as if she weren't there. He was waving a little notebook.

  The maid
disappeared down the hall.

  "She got into a blue Fiat Panda with a young man," Lucenzo announced. "He pulled over and she got out. He had to talk her back into the car. A boy walking a dog saw the whole thing."

  Romeo took that in. "And?"

  "We're looking, signor," Lucenzo said, sounding less enthusiastic than when he had been waving the notebook.

  "You didn't find them?"

  "They had a head start." Lucenzo licked his lips. "I've sent cars after them, sir. Motorcycles."

  "Get out there and look yourself! Or don't come back!" Romeo's face changed. His fangs lengthened and he hissed at the man. He heard Lucenzo's heartbeat pick up and a sadistic thrill rushed through him. Be afraid, he said. Be afraid for your life, if you don't come back with her.

  "Sir," Lucenzo ventured, "if she's not Juliet, then why—"

  "Because she is!" Romeo shouted. To his horror, he burst into tears again. "She is!"

  * * * *

  He called, left messages. Texted. Where are you? Come back! Seven hundred years! Seven centuries! God could not be so cruel. Or maybe He was. Maybe this was Romeo's punishment for trying to kill himself. God dangled hope in front of him, snatched it away.

  "Then I defy you, stars," he ground out, stumbling into the garden, pulling over statues, knocking over stone benches; ripping out vines, flowers, ferns. He was destroying his home. His sanctuary.

  His holding pen.

  All night he ranted, raved, demolishing anything he could lay his hands on. He destroyed the music room, where her transformation was to have taken place. A bit of drugged wine, and draining her nearly to death. Then giving her his own blood to drink. Then forever, together, eternally young.

  Now . . . nothing.

  He called her again. Again. The villa was quiet. The servants were hiding. The sun pulled on him as it began to rise, burning him from the inside out. It hurt, and made him clumsy. He slammed inside the protective walls like a man on the verge of losing his sight.

  Three hours later, a text message came in on his cell phone.

  Help.

  It was from her phone. Then his phone rang, and wild with joy, he connected.

  "We've found them," Lucenzo said through the speaker.

  "Is she all right?"

  "She's afraid."

  He frowned. "Of . . . ?"

  "Of you, Romeo."

  Romeo flinched. How could that be? Afraid of him? Of him?

  "Sir?" Lucenzo said.

  "Bring them here." Romeo's voice was hoarse. The sun was about to spread its rays across the horizon. "Keep them until I rise."

  "Keep them ..."

  He paused. "Safe," Romeo said.

  Hurting, he lay down in the earth.

  Vampires lose track of time when they're asleep, and they don't dream. But that day, Romeo dreamed that he was holding Juliet. They were very old, and they sat before a fireplace surrounded by their children and grandchildren. Juliet was showing them love letters they had written to each other, smiling at Romeo with so much love as she picked up stack after stack. Some were written on parchment. Others, on modern-day, heavy stationery the color of cream. All these hundreds of years, she had written him letters, not knowing where to send them. And now they were his.

  When Romeo woke with the night, he charged out of his coffin and raced up the stairs. He remembered his dream about the letters, and it gave him hope.

  "She's here," Lucenzo said, keeping a cautious distance as Romeo burst across the threshold of the crypt staircase. "Please, sir, she's terrified."

  Romeo nodded. "And the man?"

  "We have him, too. He's the son of the head gardener."

  "I hope Signor Gardener has more than one son," Romeo declared, as his fangs lengthened and he allowed the blood- lust to come over him. "Where are they?"

  "In the music room," Lucenzo told him.

  Lucenzo trailed behind him as he walked to the room. The white columns of the room were still tipped over, and their festoons of white ribbons and roses wafted in shredded tatters, intermixed with the rose petals scattered on the hardwood floor. A harp stood in the center of the room, and beside it, Claire—Juliet—was on the floor, crying and clinging to a young man Romeo had never seen. The young man had blond hair pulled into a ponytail, and blue eyes that darted nervously back and forth as the lord of the manor planted his feet in front of both of them.

  "Please," she managed to croak out, "please don't hurt us. Just let us go."

  "Why should I?" he demanded.

  "Because she's not Juliet!" the blond man yelled at him. Then, as if he realized how foolish it was to shout at Romeo, he lowered his voice. "She's not. . . Juliet."

  Romeo watched them holding each other, weeping, and he trembled. She was his.

  "You just don't remember," he began. It occurred to him that the son of the gardener knew too much to be left alive. He was glad. "But I know you are Juliet, Claire."

  Deep sobs made her shoulders jerk. She shook her head violently.

  "I knew a long time ago that I wasn't. But I ... I had nowhere else to go. I'm sorry. I thought I could fake it but, it's just too . . . gross."

  He frowned at her. "Then why did you text me for help?"

  She raised swollen eyes toward him. "I didn't. I told you, I lost my phone."

  "Then who is this?" he asked, showing her the message.

  "I don't know."

  "You have to let us go," the man insisted. "We've done nothing to you."

  Nothing but rip out my unbeating heart.

  "Everyone here is loyal to me," Romeo said. "They would rather die than reveal my secrets. If your father works for me, then he's made the same vow." He gave Lucenzo a look. Lucenzo flushed at this lapse in security.

  "I don't know this young man," Lucenzo declared.

  "I came for a visit, from university," the young man said. "And I saw her at the balcony ..."

  Romeo's body contracted as if he had been stabbed through the heart. Claire—no, Juliet, she was Juliet!—gave him a look that reminded him of the scarred maid. He raised the hand in which he held the cell phone, clenching it so tightly it began to crack, and she cowered, sobbing.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I really am. But I'm not her. I'm not."

  "Let me take them away," Lucenzo said. "Don't do anything you might regret. Perhaps in time ..."

  It was in his heart to refuse. To kill the boy who had confused her. To drain him in front of her, make her sorry . . . to make her shriek . . .

  God, I have become a monster.

  He was overcome with anger and grief, shame and despair. Friar Lawrence was right. He should have died, rather than become this. How could Juliet love him? Was there anything of Romeo left to love?

  "Get them out of here. Everyone," Romeo said without looking at him. "All the servants. Every single one."

  Lucenzo hesitated. "Sir?"

  "Get them out!" Romeo bellowed. "Now!"

  For two or three more seconds, Lucenzo stayed. Then he turned and walked away. Romeo kept his head lowered as he listened to the heartbeats of each person in the villa. They grew fainter in clumps; then in smaller groups; and then there was one left, lingering, as if hoping to be called back.

  Then that one left, too.

  He sank to his knees and bowed his head. He was done. Awash in misery, and self-hatred. How could he have thought this would be what she wanted? How could he ever have hoped?

  "Madness," he whispered.

  Nothing tired vampires except the rising sun, and Romeo felt its pull as he got to his feet. Despairing, he surveyed the destruction of the music room, which he barely remembered having caused. He trudged out, numb with sorrow, and staggered through the villa.

  Down to his coffin? Was there any reason to preserve his own life? He was at the end. All of it had been for nothing. Juliet was not coming.

  She was never coming.

  Then he paused, detecting the weak beating of one more heart. Lucenzo? Or—

  "Juliet?"
he cried, unable to stop himself. "Claire?"

  There was no answer but the heartbeat, and he realized it was coming from outside—in his gardens. The scene of the crime of the gardener's son. He remembered Lucenzo telling him that Claire had gotten out of the car, and the boy—Romeo didn't even know his name—had talked her into getting back in.