Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

Malcom did not follow.

After all, he’d pledged eternal fealty and a simple shake of the head from his new king was enough to trap my angel with the rest of the flock.

So off I went. Dazed, drained, wounded, and victorious. I went through the wreckage I’d made with little more than a whim.

At the edge of the fallen debris, I found a crack in an exterior wall wide enough so I might drag my body from darkness into budding life.

The gardens.

The same gardens I had played in as a child. The gardens I’d looked through from my glass cage. And came to stand before what had once been my conservatory. Now, nothing more than bent metal and razor-sharp shards of glass

Taking this all in, holding dear Daddy’s living head by the hair, I had no clue what to do with myself… what to do with him.

I know what he deserved, I grasped what was intended here, but enacting it was…

How?

Perhaps grandfather had felt grief dismantling his child. Perhaps this last step he found he could not do himself. Maybe that’s why he stared so long into the pain-filled, fluttering eyes of his creation.

Standing in the field of everything I’d broken, I glanced down at what hung from my arm. What couldn't even look up to see the expression on my face. “I think he did love you, however creatures like him know how to love.”

And now there was work to do.

I took a step toward a twisted bit of metal that had once been banked by panes of glass—a piece of my prison—and found it suiting. Like a pike, it rose from the cracked ground, sharp, tall, appropriate for a view of such a lovely garden.

“I loved you too,” I said, lifting the head without meeting Daddy’s blood-red eyes.

Shoving it upon the spike made the exact sound one might expect a head crammed onto a pike might make. And there Darius would stay, unable to scream, facing the east to take in the sunrise. I’m not sure if it was out of kindness—so that he would not be alone in those final minutes—or if it was out of an unbroken sense of obligation, but I remained at his side as the first rays peeked over the horizon.

He burned at first light, smelling of sulfur and evil, melting onto that metal rod until nothing but a mass of charred flesh and blinding bone showed through the fiery mass. Yet, inside that ruined shell, I was uncertain if he still lived. If day by day he’d suffer over and over in the blazing beauty of sunlight. If that were his punishment for whatever true sin he’d committed against a creature so impossibly more powerful than him, it was laughable.

I didn’t know if he’d heal without blood, or for how long he’d be left on display. I didn’t know if he’d be stolen by a zealot, or if the birds might eat him. All I knew was that I was reborn in the wafting stink from his smoking flesh.

And that I wasn’t going to cry anymore.

***

That night, I fell asleep in Malcom’s arms. I awoke in Malcom’s arms. I took sustenance from his body and pleasure from his attention. And as the evenings stretched by, there were no more political events or human maneuverings. No parties or fundraisers or bending over in back alleys for my father’s chosen stud.

Instead, there was a world to see, and a loving warrior to guide me through it. Though I’d lived in that city from birth, I knew nothing of it but what I’d been required to experience. So, he took me to restaurants, he took me dancing, played with me, taught me to smile.

Malcom gave me opulent gifts, and poetry in languages I couldn’t decipher. He took me out to films. We walked in parks. I learned about him: the names of his mother and sisters, the battles he’d fought and triumphs he still recalled with pride. His favorite color and the blood type he preferred above all others.

And though I was still uncomfortable with the change, the man took great pride in the fact that my eyes were now the same shade as the ruby he’d locked around my throat. A trait that made it a touch harder for me to fit in with humans, but was easily concealed with contacts or chic sunglasses.

Malcom taught me how to hunt, just as he would have taught any freshly-turned. He gave me access to his herd, and I found their existence not near as dreary as I’d imagined. The blood of happy humans was so much sweeter than that of those who despaired, he’d said. Not that my angel was a saint. He was a carnivore, the ultimate predator, and I found watching him feed to be exceedingly erotic.