Page 169

“Attempting to walk,” he answered, and promptly fell to the ground.

“He cannot hold his liquor at all,” she sighed, fanning herself. “I really do not know why I keep him around. ”

“I satisfy your every need,” he answered from the floor.

“For now,” she sniffed, then smiled at me rakishly. Her teeth were very sharp, and I realized she was a vampire.

“How are you tonight, Dominique?” Ignatius asked, still not moving from his chair.

“Completely devastated by you not introducing me to your dear companion,” she said as she flung herself to her knees and clung to him.

“Perhaps because I feared this sort of scene,” he said to her.

“I am a bit drunk,” she admitted with a smile.

“Very much drunk,” he corrected her.

“And quite hurt that you did not tell me you had taken on a lover,” she said with a pout.

I felt awkward standing, so I sat down in my chair and played with the stem of my goblet.

“It was not my understanding that I had to report to you,” Ignatius answered.

“But I am your dearest friend!”

This made him laugh and he shook his head with amusement.

Rising to her feet, she swung about his chair, her hands resting on the back of it as leaned over to gaze at me. “It is good to see that he finally allowed himself to love someone other than God. ”

Quite suddenly the frivolity was gone from the mood in the room. Ignatius abruptly and terrifyingly looked quite sullen. Dominique seemed to realize she had gone too far and quickly spun away on her heel, fanning herself.

“Sometimes your tongue runs before your sense,” Ignatius said sharply.

“Yes, it does,” she conceded, but then turned to smile at me. “You must come and see me in Venice. We shall be grand friends one day. You shall see. ”

“I should like that,” I answered politely, not quite certain what else to say.

With the flash of her sharp fangs, she was gone, dragging her mortal lover behind her by his collar.

As the curtain fell back over the doorway, we sat in the silence filling the small room with its ornate furnishings and flickering candlelight. Ignatius was still and shrouded in shadows, his long hair falling over his shoulders.

“You are a priest,” I said slowly.

“Was,” he answered.

I lowered my eyes, not quite sure what to say or think. I had thought the priest garb a disguise. Now I realized my beloved Ignatius was a man I hardly knew despite my love for him.

“I was a priest,” he said admitted.

“Then all this,” I said to him, motioning with my hand. “All this is truly your purgatory?”

He raised his eyes, and I saw the great sadness there. “I am in hell and I swore I would never be happy in it. Never. And then, I found you. ”

I smiled slightly, nervously.

“And I love you,” he said softly. “I love you as I never dared believe I would love any woman. You have made this hell bearable. ”

“But it is not as easy as that, is it?”