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Treading on light feet, I found him sitting underneath the painting, “Le Jeune Martyre.” Back against the wall, slumped forward, knees drawn up and one bloody hand gripping the wrist of the other. His head bent, he didn’t seem to notice me.
As I passed the writing desk, I turned on the Venetian lamp. The click snapped Jude’s head up. He regarded me for a second, then glanced back at the floor. I sat silently in front of him, crossing my legs yoga style. The rage now subdued, I needed some answers.
“Why couldn’t you get inside that place?” I asked.
He didn’t reply at first, and I thought perhaps he’d fallen into some sort of trance, but finally he looked up at me.
“He used a blood cast to keep me out.”
“A blood cast? He used my blood to keep you out?”
The idea struck me cold, knowing it was my fault I’d let Danté get close enough to bite me. Of course, I thought he was Jude at the time.
“Not yours, Genevieve. Mine.”
What?
“Your blood? How did he—”
He shook his head and exhaled in an exasperated way, seeming to rouse from a deep reverie. His head fell back against the wall.
“I can’t believe a mistake I made so long ago would come back to haunt me now. Now when—.” He stopped and gazed at me, his features shadowed in the semidarkness. “I have so much to lose. The irony is laughable.”
But he didn’t laugh. Simply gazed at me as if he couldn’t believe I was still sitting there before him.
“What do you mean irony?”
A brief pause.
“At the time, I cared about absolutely nothing. Not my blood. Not my body. Not my soul. And now, I—” He stopped. I’d never heard Jude so much at a loss for words. He whispered so softly to himself, it could’ve been the voice of a child. “So this is the price of a devil’s bargain.”
He lapsed into silence again, but I needed to know.
“Jude, why did you let him take your blood? Did you know he could use it for a blood cast?”
His eyes closed in a sign of resignation, looking almost ashamed.
“Actually, no. I knew blood casts could bind people to demons, but I never knew it could block someone out of a demon’s domain. It was such a long time ago.” He paused, shaking his head with a snort of sad laughter. “I gave my blood willingly as a trade to save her.” He nodded upward. “He’d said it would save her. Fool that I was, I believed him. He used my blood to summon me on occasion, to torture me, and manipulate her.”
More pain creased that noble brow. I wanted to trace my fingers along those frowning lines and wipe them away. But I didn’t.
“So you sacrificed yourself for her, though he lied.”
“I never thought of it as a sacrifice.”
No. He wouldn’t.
“You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
He lifted his head. “Of course, I did. She was my mother.”
“Your mother?” I’d assumed the woman was his wife or lover, not his mother. “But, she was so young. You said you were responsible for her. How could you be?”
A heavy sigh. He tilted his head against the wall behind him. “She married my father when she was thirteen years old. I know. Seems young to you, but at that time, it was commonplace. I was born the same year. As a Vessel, she expelled demons for several years, until she was twenty-four. That’s when Danté found her.”
His voice dipped dangerously low.
“I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say, she refused to become his”—he glanced at me meaningfully—“his slave. She begged my father to kill her before Danté could take her away. Danté had already threatened to kill me and my father if she didn’t bend to his will. So my father did as my mother wished. He bound her hands, drowned her in a pond near our home, and then hanged himself from the nearest tree.”
