I was breathless when I got back to the bedroom and set up under the skylight. It took nearly half the roll of tape to cover the skylight and the area surrounding it with the garbage bags. I didn’t want to risk another tile abdicating from its position right when I thought we were safe.
With the room finally plunged into darkness, it was safe enough for me to retrieve Rowan. Carefully, I opened the closet door, dreading that I would find a pile of ash waiting for me.
“Naomi?”
Thank God or whatever deity watched over vampires, my boyfriend was very much alive. Although, as my eyes struggled to focus on him in the darker depths of the closet, I could tell he definitely looked worse for wear.
“Hi there,” I said, making my way into the wide closet. It was all I could do not to burst into tears of both relief and horror, but I was so pleased to see that he had done as I had asked and piled a dozen items over himself, effectively making a little cocoon. “Let’s get you out of here, shall we?”
“Y-yeah,” Rowan murmured. “I... I tried to call some members of the coven. They’re asleep, but I figured their thralls...”
He didn’t need to finish that, and honestly, I didn’t want him to. While I knew that whoever he had phoned had no way of knowing what was going on, especially if they were thralls, it was hard not to assume the worst about them purposely ignoring his number under their master’s orders.
“It’s okay, baby. That’s not important right now. What’s important is that I’m here, and that you’re gonna be fine. Why don’t I help you out of here and get you into bed? Or I can set up a fort for you on the couch, if you’d prefer that?”
“I… I need to get to my coffin.”
“Your coffin?” I murmured, like that wasn’t something we’d already talked about. I was still getting used to it.
“It’s in the basement. Need it to h-heal.”
“Okay. I’ll get you there. I promise.”
He let out a sound that I thought was pretty positive, and I finally reached him and began gently removing his armor of pulled-down clothing. And as he was revealed to me, bit by bit, I began to feel sick to my stomach.
Rowan tended to sleep in loose, almost billowy sleep pants and no shirt, which allowed me to see a black, crackling wound from his sternum all the way down to one of his hips. It reminded me of a volcanic fissure, craven in the way it turned flesh into something completely inorganic. There was no blood, which struck some part of my brain aswrong, but I ignored it.
“Is it b-bad?” he asked as his frigid hands closed around mine.
“Nah, just a flesh wound,” I murmured, not really wanting to lie to him but also not wanting to articulate that it looked like he was both being turned to stone and burned to a crisp at the same time. Because while the wound itself would seem natural with magma flowing through it, there were blisters all around it that looked like something straight out of a Kronenberg movie. It was like poison ivy on steroids.
Except, steroids were used to treat poison ivy, but whatever, the metaphor still stood.
“That’s good.”
“Do you want to rest a little before we go down to the basement?” I asked gently once I had Rowan on his feet, his weight leaning heavily into me.
He shook his head weakly. “W-won’t help. The faster we get me i-in, the better.”
“That’s what she said.”
Was that comedic brilliance? No. But the tiniest smile cracked across Rowan’s pale features. And by pale, I didn’t mean his normal translucence. No, he looked gray, ashen in a way that was completely unnatural, even for a vampire with albinism.
“Okay.”
That smile gave me hope, however, because if I could give Rowan at least the tiniest bit of mirth, then things couldn’t be so bad, could they? And I kept that thought at the forefront of my mind while we made the lengthy journey down the hall, then down two flights of stairs.
My one bit of comfort was that at least his basement stairs were sturdy and not covered with cobwebs, as so many were. And I was also incredibly grateful that I had pretty good vision in the dark, because even though I knew interior lights were fine, I didn’t want to subject Rowan to any illumination if it wasn’t completely necessary.
“Almost there,” I soothed as we descended the final few steps. Unfortunately, the basement grew too dark for my vision, and I used my phone to dimly light the space.
It was nice enough, as basements went. In the center was what looked almost like a bedroom, but instead of a bed, there was indeed a coffin sitting in the middle of it.
It looked pretty, for a coffin. Although, I supposed it was a casket and not the classic coffin one associated with vampires.It was rectangular rather than the more goth, Halloween shape, and made of meticulously polished cedar instead. The fittings and hardware on it were silver, so I grabbed the little draping cloth off the nightstand next to it so I could cover the handle as I opened it.
“Sorry for the s-silver,” Rowan whispered. He sounded barely there. I needed to get him interred ASAP.“I’ll get it replaced.”
“Don’t you worry. This is your space. If I need, I’ll bring some oven mitts down here.”
