Romeo and Juliet: A Vampire and Werewolf Love Story Page 9

The second tent was for my family. The Montagues were very hard liquor-drinking, meat-eating madmen. Their tent didn’t hasiz>l ready to party. That tent’s entrance faced the opposite side of the Capulets’ tent and again, it was roped off in the back before they could reach the other side.

  Both parties started around 9:00 p.m., so they had been going hard for a couple of hours. I’m pretty sure that right about now, they were starting to be suspicious that not only were their immortal enemies in the tent directly behind their tent. But it was also the one family that the other despised to the point of brutality toward one another.

  My plan was, right at midnight we’d turn off the music in both tents. Then we would open up the side wall of each tent that faced the stage. Then the real party, or should I say show, would begin, as Juliet and I would move next to each other and introduce ourselves to both families.

  Juliet and I had planned out exactly we were going to do it. I even told the DJ on my side to play some nice instrumental music once I started talking.

  I could see Juliet at one side of the white stage and we were waiting for our cues. The music was to stop, then the side of the tent walls were to be let down so that guests could see the stage. The stage had a beautiful white-dove theme backdrop. It looked like something out of a dream. I was very happy to this point, that everything was going according to our plan.

  I looked down at my watch. It was only seconds before midnight. Then like a well-orchestrated symphony, the cues went as perfectly as follows: The music shut off by the DJs. Then the side drops of the tents fell and all the guests turned their attention to the stage.

  The first person out from the Montague tent was Mercutio. I looked over and saw that the first person out of the Capulet tent was Tybalt. Great, the two hot heads were leading the charge. This should be interesting. After hearing Tybalt’s rebel yell last night, I was starting to question my sanity of bringing my family down here.

  But the lights came on at the stage and I heard the sweet sounds of instrumental music lightly playing. The cues couldn’t have gone any better if I was a stage manager for the Ahmanson in Hollywood.

  I stepped forward and I was miked up and looked across at Juliet, who was also miked up on her side. I walked onto the stage and simultaneously, Juliet walked out to me. Neither one of us were talking, but were in full view of both families. We just stared into each other’s eyes and slowly walked toward each other without a worry in the world.

  The closer we got to each other, the more it did feel like a wedding. I couldn’t imagine proclaiming my love for a woman in a grander way. We were now standing facing each other, neither one of us reaching out to the other.

  It was time for me to speak. I said, loudly, so that everyone could hear me, “In this life, we have been given a great givt>gift than that. We have all been given the gift of having a wonderful family. But, this week I have discovered a gift, an even greater gift than that.” I paused and there was absolute silence. No one was saying a word. They were just looking in our direction as if they were witnessing a horrific traffic accident that left them speechless.

  Nevertheless, I continued, “This week, I met the love of my life. Not just this life. Any life that I would ever wish to be in. I have found my hope. I know… she is my one true love.”

  I expected a huge uproar, especially on the Capulet side. But there was still silence.

  Juliet then spoke. I wasn’t sure if she would, but I hoped so. “I have always known that there was a part of me that was incomplete, waiting for the right person or thing to come in my life. I wasn’t sure what it was but when I saw Romeo, I knew I had finally found the one thing on this earth I was destined to live always and forever with.” Juliet paused.

  Again, silence echoed in the night.

  Then Juliet surprised even me. She said, loud and clear, “I love him!”

  I looked at her and was shocked and immediately yelled out, “And I love her!”

  I wish this was the part where I can say everyone agreed to resolve their differences and Juliet and I lived in peace and harmony throughout the rest of our very long lives. But, that wasn’t reality. When hate ran as deep in two families as it did with the Capulets and Montagues… not even young love could cure it.

  Tybalt yelled, “You will continue to love her over my dead body!”

  “Did someone say they wished they were dead!” Mercutio yelled out in Tybalt’s direction. Mercutio, my dearest friend in all the world, had a streak in him that I hated. He could get himself really worked up and tonight was no exception.

  I caught Mercutio’s eye and shook my head. He bulldozed on in the same vein.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Tybalt?” Mercutio then stepped forward in a challenging stance.

  “Who am I?” Tybalt responded. “You dumb peasant. I am a man who sticks to his morals. Unlike yourself. You mock the underworld by being both warlock and werewolf.”

  It appeared that Mercutio seemed impressed that Tybalt not only knew him, but even had a reason to hate him. One would think that would be enough for his ego. But Mercutio had to raise the stakes even higher.

  “Don’t frown because you’re jealous of the gift set that the gods have bestowed on me.”

  “The gods?” Tybalt abruptly laughed out loud. “The gods of what…Chihuahuas and poodles? The fact is, it doesn’t matter to me what you are. You are the one non-Montague I’d like to see dead.”

  “That is where you and I are the same, but different. You’re the only son of a bitch I want to see dead, and I wanted to see it for a very long time.” Mercutio leaped onto Tybalt, holding his rapier in his right hand. He had his silver stake over his head.

  I was horrified. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. This was the worst-case scenario.

  One of the wait staff dropped a tray of blood-filled goblets and they shattered.

  In that instant, when everyone’s attention, but mine, was slightly diverted by the sound, Mercutio turned into his werewolf form, still holding the stake. He quickly struck toward Tybalt’s neck. The way to kill a vampire is by puncturing one side of the neck and shoving it through the other side. Once the silver blade came out the other side, the vampire was completely dead. Then, poof! They are gone, vanished. They disappear forever. With no sign that they ever existed. That was the price of being immortal. When you did die, there was no trace of them. It was the same for werewolves. Werewolves could be killed by a simple silver stake, directly piercing the heart. When werewolves did die, we also just disappeared and nothing was left—no blood, no clean up. Nothing.

  This scene was not a good one.

  “No one else turn!” I yelled. “Juliet and I want no one else to fight. This is not why we called you down here. We want this to be a celebration. Not an excuse to fight.”

  No one else turned. Thank God. But that didn’t stop Mercutio and Tybalt from fighting. I wanted to get e="+0">that silver stake away from Mercutio. It was obvious that Tybalt had no such weapon. If I could at least get the weapon, I could make sure no one would get killed. They could just beat each other up for a while. I decided the best thing to do was to get the rapier away from Mercutio. If I could disarm him, it could look like a neutral action on my part, toward both families, especially, due to the fact that Mercutio wasn’t a family member to either side.

  So, I did something that I didn’t want to do, but knew I had to do. I turned into a werewolf and tackled Mercutio’s large white werewolf body. Werewolf on werewolf, we rolled around until we both turned back into our human forms, scuffling on the ground in our good clothes.

  “What are you doing?” Mercutio yelled at me.

  “Drop the rapier!” I yelled.

  “Are you serious?” Mercutio yelled in my face.

  “Yes, hand me the blade, Mercutio. Do it now!” I looked over at Tybalt and he looked on, concerned. He wasn’t sure what to do.

  I nodded my head at Mercutio, asking him for the silver stake, holding out my hand. I cou
ld see Tybalt getting closer as if he was helping to get rid of Mercutio’s stake in a show of solidarity. I was impressed, but then again, I knew Tybalt didn’t want to die.

  Mercutio eventually gave in. He slowly stepped forward and handed me the rapier. I sighed as he handed me the silver stake. I turned to look at Tybalt to say something sant> supportive, but before I could even turn my head to look at him, Tybalt had grabbed the silver stake out of my hand and leaped on top of Mercutio’s body, stabbing him directly in the heart.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes! What the hell just happened? Oh my God! Mercutio had been stabbed. The silver stake got him in the chest. I wasn’t sure if it hit his heart, but it didn’t look good for Mercutio. He was spitting up blood and coughing for his life.

  I turned my head and stared down Tybalt, right in his beady little eyes. His white hair glowed in the dark. I looked at this man, this man I gave every chance to. I even put my own life on the line for him so that my best friend wouldn’t kill him. How did he repay me? He attempted to kill my best friend after he gave up his weapon in an obvious action to a truce. I was horrified, shocked. The rage inside was boiling over. I had never felt so angry and hurt in my life. The pain and anger was unbearable.

  This is not how this is going to go down. Oh, hell no!

  I completely snapped. I grabbed the silver stake that was still lodged into Mercutio’s heart. He was trying to hold on, his breathing labored. Right now, I only had one thing on my mind. Revenge. This filthy Capulet killed my best friend, the very second that he was vulnerable. And I was the reason why he was vulnerable. In trying to stop the fight by disarming Mercutio, I had erred in trusting Tybalt, that he would also back down from the fight. Now Mercutio’s death would be on my hands. I could hear the coughing progress to a death rattle as Mercutio paled before my eyes.

  I looked at Tybalt, and with the silver blade in my hand. I made my way toward him.

  Tybalt said, “Go ahead. Try to kill me. I’m glad your friend is about to die.”

  ont="+0">, That did it. I turned into my werewolf form and with the blade in my claws, I jumped on top of Tybalt. We rolled a tad and then I pinned Tybalt to the earth. I had overpowered him and now he was going to pay. I struck the rapier forward and sliced his neck all the way through. The silver quickly came out of the other side. In an instant, he vanished.

  I had killed him instantly. Unlike Mercutio, who was still holding on, gasping for air. I fell at Mercutio’s knees and with his last breath, Mercutio gasped to me, “This…wasn’t…worth…it.”

  Then Mercutio vanished and I was the one person left alive…

  and the only murderer left. I looked at Juliet, horrified. Her look said it all. I had really blown it. Everything was ruined. Everything.

  “I am so sorry!” I yelled to Juliet. Then I turned into the werewolf and took off running, deep into Central Park.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Oh my God! How did I allow this to happen? What did I do? How could I have done such an act? He killed my best friend, that’s why!

  All I wanted was to come together and share our love. I screwed up everything. How could I kill him? In front of everyone? I had ruined everything. I had lost everything. Juliet would never forgive me for killing her cousin. She had watched me do it, for goodness’ sake.

  I ran and I ran. I got as far away from Verona as I could without being recognized. I made my way to the subway. I hopped on the 4 train and took it to the Bronx. The Bronx was a neutral zone.

  Now, there was only one person I could trust and that was Friar Laurence. I called him and had him meet me at the subway station by the 167th Street Station. There was a little pizza joint right below the stairs when you first came out. The place had a lot of warlocks, but my attitude was, I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone and that seemed to work out whenever I was down here. Now, I needed to be incognito more than ever.

  Friar Laurence came into the pizza shop. It was a long, skinny shop and I was sitting at a table in the very back, drinking a soda. I was too sick to eat.

  The Friar came over and sat at my table. “How are you doing, son?”

  “I’ve been better.” I looked at the Friar and I wanted to cry but that wouldn’t do any good. I blew it in gigantic way and how no idea how to proceed. No one knew I was here, except for Friar Laurence. Not even my family.

  “You did a bad thing, Romeo,” Friar said.

  “I know. I need to go somewhere for a few days and hide out.” I looked at Friar Laurence and maybe a part of him thought he was going to come down here and get me to turn myself in. But Friar Laurence knew my heart. He knew I wasn’t a killer.

  “I have a close friend. He lives down the way over on Sedgwick. He’ll put you up. His name is Friar John and he and I go way back.”

  “Another Friar?”

  “You know better than to ask.” Friar Laurence looked at me and handed me a sheet of paper. “Take this paper and find this address. He will be expecting you.”

  “He’ll be expecting me?” I asked, surprised. I thought we had just come up with this idea but apparently, Friar Laurence had already made plans. He was a good man.

  I took the paper from my friend and he stood up and gave me a hug. “Remember, Romeo, true love is worth fighting for. So, fight on.”

  Friar Laurence and I said our goodbyes and then I headed to the address. It wasn’t too far away and when I got there, Friar John was expecting me. He was a short gray-haired man who was 100 percent human and het hw. I nee was aging the way our bodies were originally designed to age. To me, there was always something marvelous about people who would voluntarily choose to part with this earth.

  I eventually settled in and tried to piece together the next phase of my life and what it all meant.

  One day became two days and two days stretched into a week. Then one week into two. It has been pretty hard the last couple of weeks without Juliet. I still couldn’t believe what I had done. It was breaking my heart every day, but I was going to have to come to terms that I blew it. I blew it, and there was no coming back from it. The worst part was, there was a good chance that I had probably lost Juliet forever.

  It was a little past two in the morning, and I was getting ready to turn off the TV off and get some sleep. Since I’d been here at Friar John’s, I had been sleeping for thirteen hours a day. I tried to sleep away the pain. There isn’t much else you can do when you’re hiding out in a guy’s apartment that you don’t even know.

  There was a knock at the door and I froze. I slowly went to the back of the apartment and waited. There hadn’t been too many knocks at the door these past couple of weeks, yet now there was one at 2:00 in the morning.

  I stood still in the back room and listened. I could hear a woman’s voice.

  As I listened closely, I began to recognize the voice. It was Juliet! Once I realized it was her, I stepped out of the back room and made my way toward Juliet, who stood just inside of t"> /fohe front door. Our eyes met, and I stared at her with a look that said, ‘Please forgive me!’

  Juliet saw the plea that was behind my eyes. She ran to me and wrapped her arms around me and gave me a giant embrace.

  “I am so sorry, Juliet,” I said softly.

  “I know, Romeo,” Juliet said looking empathetically into my eyes. “I know that you just reacted at a madman who had just used you to kill your own cousin. Then he mocked you for it. I think you just reacted.”

  “You do? You understand?” I asked.

  “Of course I do. I know you, Romeo. I know that you’re a good man. That deep inside you isn’t a murderer, but a beautiful man wanting a better future for him and his family.”

  Her forgiveness spread through me like sunlight. “You’re amazing, Juliet. You really are.”

  I held Juliet tightly in my arms. Time had a way of getting away from me anytime I held Juliet.

  After long moments of our embrace, I looked down and broke the silence. I said, “How did you know I was here?”
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  “Who do you think would tell me?”

  “Friar Laurence?”

  “Yup, I finally went to him and promised him I just wanted to see you. I wanted nothing more than to just hold you again.”

  “Well,” I said, smiling down at Juliet. “How could he say no to that? Friar Laurence is a romantic at heart.” I held Juliet even tighter and said, “I0"> is a r"+0">’m so glad you’re here. It has been so hard being apart from you.”

  She returned the affection and kissed me gently on my lips. She leaned back slowly and said, “These past couple of weeks have been the worst days of my life. I longed for you the whole time we were memorializing my cousin Tybalt.

  During the funeral, all I could think about was the man who actually had killed him. I knew why you killed him. I knew then that I no longer belonged to them. That I only belonged to you!”

  Juliet and I held each other tightly. I held her very close. Things were going to happen. Enough of hiding. It was time to fight or lie down. I was planning to fight for the one I love.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Juliet stayed with me all night. We only held each other tightly, never wanting to let go. She left early enough in the morning that she was home before sunrise.

  When she left, I rolled over on the bed at the hideout and thought, Juliet and I need to just leave. That’s the answer. It isn’t about trying to make others change their minds. It is time for us to just leave.

  Suddenly, I got extremely excited by the thought of just going and never looking back. I decided I needed to tell Juliet this as soon as possible. The sooner we got away, the sooner we could spend the rest of our lives together.

  Juliet hadn’t been home for long. I knew she would be asleep until sunset. I needed to somehow talk to her without opening her back door and bringing sunlight into her bedroom. I wasn’t sure even if I opened the door for a split second what that would doan>0"int to her.