The Watchtower

head and strode away, down to the shore of the lake.
    “Morgane!” he called. “Show yourself! You have a lot to answer for, you bitch!”
    The water swirled and once again disgorged a creature, but this time instead of taking the shape of a monstrous seal, Morgane appeared as a woman—a beautiful woman with long, seaweed hair that only partly veiled her bare breasts. She rose from the lake until the water reached her waist.
    “Will Hughes, I presume,” she cooed. “Is this the man who stole my pathetic sister’s heart?”
    “It’s you who are pathetic. You added that part about protecting humanity from vampires because you couldn’t bear to see Marguerite happy. You knew what I had—what I will—become.”
    Morgane laughed. “So you are from the future. I guessed as much. And who is this?” She tilted her head to look at me, and I felt a chill as if I’d been plunged into the icy pool. “She looks enough like my sister to be her spawn. Let me guess, he says he loves you and wants…” She tilted her head the other way as if listening to something whispering from the water. “Oh, it’s too rich!” she exclaimed. “ Now he wants to be mortal so he can be with you. Make up your mind, Will Hughes.”
    “I have made up my mind, Morgane. I want to share a mortal life with Garet. All I require of you is for you to do for me what you just so easily did for Marguerite. I have the box…” He reached into the bag strapped across his chest.
    Morgane laughed. “Do you? I think you’ll find your present counterpart has it. You see the box is a constant. It exists outside time and space. When you traveled back in time, it merged with its past incarnation. I believe you’ll find your bag is full of rocks.”
    Will dug into the bag and came up with a fistful of rocks, which he promptly threw at Morgane. She deftly ducked and laughed.
    “Don’t despair, my boy. You don’t need the box. You only need to follow your past self to his rendezvous with John Dee, and then, when Dee has used the box to summon the vampire who made you, you must get a little of that vampire’s blood. Drink his blood and you will be mortal again. Then you and my great-niece can wallow in the dung heap of humanity together.”
    “You swear—on your oath as a Watchtower—that this is the truth?”
    The sneering smile left Morgane’s face. “What makes you think that I am still bound by that oath?”
    “Because as evil as you are, you still would not leave the world without its last Watchtower. And because I know there is one mortal whom you loved. Still love…”
    “Don’t name him!” Morgane shrieked, rising from the water, revealing that below her waist grew a scaly tail. “Do not pollute his name with your undead lips!”
    “Arthur,” Will whispered. “King Arthur. You loved him. You carried him to the Summer Country when he was dying and granted him immortality.”
    “I tried. He refused the gift of immortality. He preferred to share his death with that ninny Guinevere.”
    “And you granted him that, didn’t you?”
    Morgane’s face transformed from a mask of rage to something almost tender—for only an instant—then she shrugged. “They deserved each other.”
    “You did it because you loved him. Swear on Arthur’s name that you are telling the truth that I can regain my humanity by drinking the blood of the fiend who made me.”
    “I swear it,” she said, her face somber. “On Arthur’s name. Now go. Your requests have made me tired.”
    “Gladly,” Will said, taking my hand. He pulled me away as Morgane began to sink beneath the water, but before she disappeared, just as her lips were level with the pool, she locked her eyes on mine and spoke her parting words:
    “Remember, even when he becomes mortal, the blood of all his kills will still stain his hands.”

27
    1602: Primordial Heat
    Marguerite had known the blood moon was a sign that the fabric between the worlds was tissue-thin, and that it heralded the best possible moment to gain access to the Summer County. But instead of going outside upon observing it, she returned to bed, unwilling to leave Will just yet.
    Marguerite gazed adoringly at Will’s sleeping features, brushed an errant lock of hair from his forehead. The crimson light bathed his limbs and hers, uniting them in a baptismal bath of bloodlight. Perhaps, she thought, it was an omen, a sign that she would soon share with Will the blood of a mortal. She felt a profound longing