Miles and Remy had even joked about the topic now and then, like when they’d watched old Bela Lugosi movies and Remy had faked a terrible Hungarian accent.
But somehow the word itself had remained unsaid. Just like another word: love.
“It was a long time ago.” That was Remy’s standard excuse.
He tried to brush past, but Miles grabbed his arm. “How?”
Silence stretched between them, and Remy’s flannel shirt was soft under Miles’s hand. Standing almost chest to chest, Miles remembered with a terrible ache how that cold, hard body had fitted so neatly against his softer, warmer one. How embracing Remy had always felt like successfully solving a complicated math equation. How his skin had tasted cool and coppery under Miles’s tongue.
“It was like la chasse-galerie,” Remy said evenly. “It was the night of the solstice, of the Thorsen Feast. It was held the same then as it is now. Mr. Thorsen invited all his employees. I drank too much and wandered into the woods. I was angry because a girl I admired had spurned me. I was too poor for her, too dark, too uneducated. So when I was deep in the trees, I called to the devil. I told him I was ready to make a deal.”
Miles had loosened his grip on Remy’s arm but hadn’t pulled his hand away. “Did he answer?”
Remy barked a rough laugh. “Someone did. I didn’t ask for his identification. A big, bearded man with one missing eye and a voice like thunder. He wore a wolf-fur cloak with a hood that almost hid his face. He asked what I wanted.”
“What did you want?” Miles whispered. He could barely get the words out.
“Love. Family.”
Tears stung Miles’s eyes and he tried to blink them away. “What was the price?”
Remy shook his head as if puzzled. “I don’t know. He said he’d give me a gift and I’d serve him someday, but he didn’t explain. Then he laughed and set his hand on my head, and….” Remy shuddered hard. “When I woke up I wasn’t human any longer.”
It was an unlikely story. Unbelievable. Yet Remy was, unmistakably, a vampire, and he wasn’t even the strangest thing the Castle had to offer. Besides, Miles felt the truth of this tale deep in his gut.
Remy stared at him, eyes wide and shining. “The stories about vampires…. A lot of them are bullshit. I can’t change into a bat or anything else. I don’t sleep in a coffin. Garlic and crosses don’t bother me. Neither does running water. I’m not obsessed with counting seeds or grains of sand. I can enter a home without an invitation, although I think that’s pretty rude.” He let out a noisy breath. “But my soul, Miles.”
“Your soul?”
“The stories say we’re soulless. In la chasse-galerie, the voyageurs lost theirs to the devil. What if I did too?”
“You didn’t,” Miles replied immediately and flatly.
“But how can you—”
“I’m hardly an expert on… any of this. I’m agnostic at best. But dammit, Remy, if I have a soul, you do too. I’m positive of it.”
Remy stared for a long minute before ducking his head. “Thank you,” he whispered. Then he extricated himself from Miles’s slackened grip and hurried down the stairs.
Miles stood quietly for a moment and then returned to his painting.
10
In the past, Miles had gone nights without sleeping and days without eating. But on those many occasions, he’d been under the influence of various drugs, his mind a flashing whir as he danced or painted. This time he was stone-cold sober, yet he didn’t feel like it. Maybe he was coming down with something—his skin burned and his head thudded. He kept on painting, however, well past dawn, then past brunchtime. Sometimes voices made their way through the open windows and delicious smells wafted up from the kitchen, but he remained focused on his work. The scene he was creating on the board was so intricately detailed that he felt as if, with just a little effort, he could step right in.
Just as the last light of day was fading from the sky, Miles set down his brush. The painting was complete.
Only after he’d stared at it for several minutes did he recognize the men he’d painted. The one with the cloak was lean and dark haired. The one with the antlers was shorter, stockier, with wild russet hair.
Remy and himself.
“Well, thanks for that.” Miles sarcastically addressed either his muse or his subconscious, whichever was responsible. His voice came out hoarse and raspy, unused since Remy’s leave-taking, which now seemed long ago.
He could analyze the subtext later. Now it was time to join the Feast.
Miles hurried down the tower stairs, stopping in his bedroom only long enough to use the bathroom and grab a T-shirt. Barefoot, his hair in snarls, and with paint on his skin and jeans, he went down to the parlor, which was now crammed to overflowing with people. He must have looked a sight, but one benefit of hanging out with his family was that nobody took particular notice of anyone else’s weirdness. A cousin tried to hand Miles a cup of spiced wine, but Miles shook his head.
Almost as if Miles’s arrival had been the cue for festivities to begin, the crowd funneled through the big double doors, down the porch steps, and over to the broad expanse of flat lawn on the side of the Castle, where additional throngs waited.
At least three hundred people were there. All of the Thorsens, of course, regardless of where they lived, plus their spouses and children. Also the Becks, Jensens, Holts, and other descendants of the town’s founders. Many newer arrivals to Kemken attended as well, along with selected guests from elsewhere. Miles spied some familiar faces from Kiteeshaa, another inland coastal town about thirty minutes to the south. He’d always thought there was something odd about the Kiteeshaans but, well, people in glass houses and all that. Besides, they’d been coming to the Feast for decades, and everyone liked them a lot.
Long tables almost audibly groaned under the weight of the food. Not only had the Castle’s kitchen been busy for days, but guests brought food too. A lot of the dishes spoke to the Scandinavian roots of Kemken’s founders, but there was an overwhelming variety of festive favorites from other cultures: tamales, samosas, pasta, stuffed cabbage, latkes, empanadas, red bean porridge, yebeg wat, rice cakes, steamed fish, and dozens more. Other tables held every imaginable kind of bread and endless dessert choices.
Large urns contained spiced spirits—both wine and ale—and for the children and those who chose not to imbibe, spiced cider and assorted juices.
The centerpieces of the feast—whole salmon, entire pigs, giant chunks of beef—had been roasted over a pit of glowing coals, which was now an enormous bonfire in the center of the lawn.
The scents were intoxicating, even more so since Miles had eaten nothing since yesterday afternoon’s pizza. Smoke rose from the fire into the clear sky, and people milled around, drinking and talking and laughing. Children chased one another, and several dogs of varying sizes joined in, barking happily.
Grandma had been right: the night was cold. Or so Miles surmised from everyone’s layers of clothing and the misty plumes of exhaled breath. He actually felt overheated in his thin clothing, like an engine pushing uphill in the desert in August. And his head, probably due to the dust in the tower, itched like mad.