Первородные: Восхождение

CHAPTER EIGHT

ELIJAH SUSPECTED THAT the edges of the city would be the most likely spots. Witches and werewolves had eyes everywhere in the center of town, and the new residential neighborhoods were too orderly and visible for a purchase to go through unnoticed. But the outskirts, where the city faded into the bayou and the untamed forest, were still a half-wild paradise and the perfect place for a vampire to call home.

He rode out at night, while Klaus sank ever further into his lovesick misery and Rebekah gallivanted around with the French army. One of the Mikaelsons had to keep an eye on their true purpose and, as usual, the task had fallen on him.

Where the houses and shops gave way to patchy fields and makeshift farms, Elijah rode, surveyed, and occasionally made the most discreet of inquiries about land for sale. He had not yet met with any success, and in fact had been chased away by several suspicious residents. But he only needed to be lucky once, and he had a lot of ground left to cover.

There were still traces of the setting sun in the sky, but candlelight glowed in several spots, dotting the stretch of land he intended to ride over that night. One man, stooped and white-haired, was still outside, struggling to lash a wide piece of canvas over some barrels stacked at what Elijah judged to be the very edge of his land. There were full, heavy clouds on the horizon, and after watching him for a moment, Elijah rode toward him.

“Can I help?” he called when he was close enough, and the man spun around.

“You can stay where you are,” the man suggested sharply, and Elijah saw that, while his face was lined and tired-looking, his blue eyes were sharp and focused with intelligence. The house behind him was modest but in good shape, and he had kept his land clear of the forest that encroached on three sides. This was not a man who would drift into his old age in a featherbed, surrounded by fat great-grandchildren.

Elijah dismounted to put them on somewhat more even footing, and held up his empty hands meaningfully. “I am sorry to startle you,” he said softly. “I have been searching for a place near here to settle with my family and saw you working so late, that’s all. It seemed as though you could use an extra pair of hands.”

“An extra everything is more like it,” the man admitted, sizing up Elijah’s broad shoulders. “I should have made moving these into the cellar a condition of the trade in the first place, but I thought it would be just as easy to throw on a rain cover if I needed it.” He smirked wryly. “I was mistaken.”

“I can move them for you, if that would be better,” Elijah offered—in for a penny, in for a pound. It couldn’t hurt to have a friend among the homesteaders out here, and the man’s uncomplaining attitude toward a task that was most certainly beyond him was charming.

“It’s a two-man job.” The man looked at the barrels. Elijah realized that he meant he wasn’t one of those men, as he wouldn’t be able to lift his side of a barrel. It didn’t matter, since Elijah was much stronger than an ordinary man, but he hurt for the old man’s wounded pride all the same.

He walked to the barrels, tipping the nearest one into his hands and lifting it easily. “It is,” he agreed. “So please show me the way and open the cellar door for me. I’d rather not hold this any longer than I need to.”

The man looked incredulous, then delighted. There was a noticeable spring in his step as he crossed his little patch of land, making for the stump of what had once been an impressively massive oak tree. He pulled at an iron ring in the ground beside it, and a section of turf swung upward, revealing a gaping hole below. The cellar had been hollowed out beneath the spreading roots of the tree, and Elijah felt carefully with each foot for the next uneven dirt stair while balancing the large barrel against his chest. The next four trips went just as smoothly, and then the man closed the trapdoor behind them and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“The name’s Hugo Rey,” he grunted, his voice thick with emotion, holding out his right hand. Elijah tried to remember the last time a human had offered to shake his hand and couldn’t.

He accepted the gesture warmly, and gave his name—his real name, to his own surprise—in return. “Can I do anything else for you while I’m here?” he asked courteously, rather hoping that Hugo would take him up on the offer.

“You can join me inside for a drink, son,” the old man told him firmly. “That was hard work you’ve just saved me, and the least I can do is provide hospitality in return. You must be thirsty after all that lifting.”

Normally, the inadvertent invitation to feed would have whetted Elijah’s appetite, but the thought of hurting Hugo didn’t even cross his mind. “It would be my pleasure,” he agreed sincerely, and together they made for the house in the center of the field.

It had grown dark and rain was nearly at the doorstep. Hugo set about lighting candles and clearing odds and ends from the rough-hewn kitchen table. Bits of hardware along with paper covered in lists of figures and painstakingly precise drawings were swept away before Elijah could put his finger on what they were, and he refocused his attention on the stocky earthenware cups that Hugo set out in their place.

They were filled with a rough but serviceable liquor—a few steps down from rye, but a few crucial notches up from moonshine. Elijah sipped cautiously, while Hugo drained half his mug in a single swallow. In the candlelight, he looked even older than Elijah had assumed at first. It was astonishing that he still lived out here, all alone, keeping his house and land in decent order and even attempting manual labor at his advanced age.

“That stuff keeps you young,” Hugo said, lifting his half-empty mug by way of explanation. It was as if he had followed the line of Elijah’s thoughts perfectly, as if Elijah didn’t need to speak to be understood.

Had it ever been so easy with his own father? This man was centuries younger than Mikael, but much older than Mikael had been when Elijah was still his cherished human son. And yet there was something about him that reminded Elijah of a father, of the way a father should behave toward a child who had grown up and chosen a path for himself in the world. Moving the barrels had not been a tremendous challenge for an Original vampire, but nonetheless, Hugo didn’t seem merely grateful: Elijah had the sense that the old man was proud of him.

“Have you lived out here long?” he asked politely, sipping again at his liquor.

“Twenty years at least,” Hugo replied vaguely. “The city’s closer to my doorstep now than it was.” He sounded as if he disapproved of that development.

“I’m a rather private person, myself,” Elijah offered. “I’ve been looking for land out here, actually. My sister and my brother like the nightlife in town, but I think we’d all be more comfortable with a quieter place to come home to.”

Hugo’s smile was distant. “I always thought I would have children,” he said suddenly, and Elijah blinked in surprise. “My life was never the type that gives much room for a family,” the man went on, “but I think there’s a part of you that never stops planning for the future as if there is one.”

Elijah wondered how Mikael would have responded to that. His own children obviously had no place in the future he wanted to build. Did Mikael have some other sort of legacy in mind, or did immortals eventually cease to think about such things? Elijah always thought of the future, although perhaps not in the way Hugo meant. When Elijah looked to the future, he was always still in it. “Family is a blessing,” he mused noncommittally, “but blessings can come in many forms.”

Hugo nodded and refilled his cup. He held out the bottle meaningfully, offering more to his guest. Elijah, whose cup was still nearly full, took the bottle from him politely and poured in just a few drops more. It was always proper to accept hospitality, in his experience, or at least to make a reasonable show of it.

“I suspect I’ve been blessed enough,” Hugo answered thoughtfully, swirling the liquid in his mug and staring into it for a moment before taking another long drink. “I’ve used my talents in my work, made and kept a good reputation my whole life, and owned this square of land outright since probably before you were born.”

Elijah was not inclined to correct him on that last point; instead he simply nodded. It was clear to him that the wheels of the old man’s mind were turning, and he suspected that, if he waited, Hugo would say more. A silent moment proved him right.

“A man should have a home he can call his own.” His voice was low and forceful, almost a growl. “It’s not natural to be adrift, family or no.”

Unnatural once again. Abomination.

“I’ll drink to that,” Elijah replied, and matched action to words. “And to that note, do you know if any of your neighbors are thinking of selling? We have had some trouble with going through official channels in this matter, so we would be open to offering a nice price for someone willing to sign over the deed quickly, with no formalities.”

Hugo’s lined face crinkled into a knowing smile. “Not so popular with the higher-ups, are you, my boy? Local politics have no winners, at least not for long. Why do you think I’m all the way out here? I don’t have to deal with anyone who doesn’t value my time and work, and I prefer it that way.”

“I think I could learn much from your example,” Elijah admitted.

Hugo pushed his chair back from the table abruptly, and when he rose Elijah noticed that he was unsteady on his feet. That was a surprise. Although Hugo had partaken quite liberally of the liquor in his cup, Elijah had been under the impression that he did not normally drink less. He should have been accustomed to his generous nightcap, and yet he swayed as he crossed the room as if he were on the deck of a ship.

He returned with an intricately mosaicked wooden box, which he set down wordlessly in the center of the table, halfway between the two cups. With a long exhale, Hugo opened the box to reveal some worn, yellowed papers. Elijah stared at them, unsure whether he was meant to pick them up and examine them himself.

“I have a house, and not much more need of one. You need a house and do not have one.” Hugo’s gruff voice was blunt, but his blue eyes avoided Elijah’s as if he felt suddenly shy. “Keep searching among my neighbors if you like, but if you want it, this home will be yours upon my death.” He produced a fountain pen from one of his pockets, and Elijah stared keenly at it. Such pens, with a reservoir of ink hidden neatly inside of a metal casing, were rare—yet another unexpectedly interesting item in this modest little house. Hugo scribbled on the papers before him, then signed his name at the bottom of each page with a flourish. “I have not met a man in a long time that I would wish to consider my heir,” he mumbled when he had finished. “But I cannot stop thinking of the future, even now. And here you are....”

He trailed off, his eyes still fixed on the papers before him. Elijah understood that they were two of a kind. “I would be honored,” he told the old man gently, “and grateful. Eternally grateful,” he added, a little ruefully. If Hugo wanted his home—and his memory—to live on, he could hardly have chosen a better beneficiary. “But I hope that it will be a long time before we have the use of this remarkable gift. I would rather come to visit you here again, and often, if you will allow it.”

Hugo smiled and sat down heavily in his chair, although he was not a large man. “I would like that, too,” he said serenely, his gaze fixed on something in the distance that Elijah could not see. His lined face looked flushed in the candlelight. “But I think that the time for visiting is largely past. It has been very enjoyable, though. Very satisfactory.”

Elijah frowned and glanced down at his cup again. Was Hugo ill? Did he know something about his death that he had chosen not to share? His eyes moved forward to the signed pages between them on the table. He had made it his goal to own land, but now he felt deeply troubled about accepting it. As hard as it had been for the Mikaelsons to carve out a foothold in New Orleans, to find a friend had always proved even more difficult.

“I will use whatever time is left, then,” he promised, and a smile creased Hugo’s face. He poured them another glass from his bottle of liquor, which was already more than half gone, and Elijah raised his mug in a silent toast.

They talked well into the night. Their silences grew and lengthened as the hours wore on, and several times Elijah thought that Hugo might have dozed off. During these lapses, Elijah’s eyes roamed the room, taking in each small detail. He imagined how it would feel to have a home of their own again, a place as personal and lived-in as this one. Then the old man would rouse himself, and their conversation would resume. Hugo’s cheeks were still unnaturally flushed, and at times his mind appeared to wander, but he seemed to want their evening to continue, and Elijah was perfectly content to oblige him.

Finally, silence fell again, and to Elijah’s keen ears this one was deeper and more perfect than all the rest had been. The rainstorm had come and gone, and he could hear cicadas and bullfrogs outside. In the distance, the lazy spill of the Saint Louis River swept along. But inside the house, there was no sound at all.

Hugo Rey sat in his chair, one hand wrapped around his mug, but his eyes were empty and lifeless. The rise and fall of his chest had stopped, while Elijah’s attention had been diverted. He had passed, silently and peacefully, in his home and attended by a friend. Elijah knew that few humans were so lucky, but still, as he collected the papers from the table and returned to his horse he felt a painful twisting of regret in his chest.