The Immortal Greek by Monica La Porta

but she kept crying at his feet.
    Caterina knew of him. He should have never told her, but she had been such a sweet girl in her youth and he had cared for her. One night, the pillow talk had taken a different direction. She had seen him around from when she was but a child, and she wasn’t stupid. On the contrary, she had noticed things and started asking questions. He knew her life span would be short and felt compelled to gift her with a truth so few knew about him.
    Years later, she reminded him of how foolish his act had been.
    “Some consider living a life like mine a curse.” His resolution to negate her request was getting weaker, but he had to try to convince her through his friend Marcus’s words. “Once you’re changed, you’re changed. There’s no going back to your life.”
    “Margherita’s dying. She’s the only one I’ve got left. The plague has stolen everything I care for in this world. Please.” Caterina could barely talk by now. Her voice was but a whisper. She had been sick for four days and she had outlived, by only twenty-eight hours, four of her children and her husband, who had died first. She had sent her remaining daughter to the nearby convent, hoping she wouldn’t be infected, but it had been in vain.
    “The goddess might not grant my plea to turn Margherita. Minerva doesn’t listen to me anymore.” He looked around. Despite the open window, the bedroom was dark, the wooden beams weighed down the ceiling, and the hearth was cold. Outside, the sun hung low in the sky and it was covered by the billowing smoke fueled by the wet pyres. The city of Bologna was dying along with its citizens, the churches’ bells stroked mournfully, and priests demanded the last ones standing to repent. The sweet and sickly smell of death permeated the air. Frigid rain driven inside by the winter winds pelted the terracotta floor.
    “But you must try.” Caterina’s eyes had cried all the tears she had already. She shook her head and slid to the floor, her tattered gown fanning over the straws now soggy and giving off an unpleasant smell. “I can’t die without knowing you at least tried.” She raised her chin to look at him, and even that small gesture caused her pain, but she didn’t complain.
    Alexander leaned over her and took her frail body in his arms. Caterina weighed less than a child; she was all skin and bones. Even in her old age, she had been beautiful. In less than a week, the bubonic plague had ravaged her. “I’ll try.” He kissed her forehead and rocked her against him.
    Caterina mustered the strength to thank him, then smiled, and closed her eyes. He put her to rest on her wedding bed, and waited until the gravediggers arrived to claim her body. He didn’t let them touch her and toss her like garbage as he had seen them doing all over Bologna, but wrapped Caterina in a white linen and gently lowered her on the gravediggers’ cart. He paid them good coins to transport her to the burial site he had chosen for her and her family, and followed the cart to make sure they didn’t drop her in the communal grave.
    The Black Death had taken millions of lives all over Europe, but Alexander saved one. On a frigid morning in February, in the year thirteen-forty-eight, at the age of nineteen, Margherita Salvatori became an immortal. She hadn’t asked for it.
    Alexander walked the whole length of the fourth floor hallway of the Immortal Council headquarters, and reached the men’s bathroom. Once inside, he locked the door and fell to the marble tiles. The floor was polished to a shine and he could see his misery reflected beneath him. Samuel had said Margherita had drowned. He saw her immersed in the water, bubbles coming out of her mouth, straining her lungs to get air. Images of the last time he had seen her mixed with the images he was fabricating about her death. A pitch black veil was lowered over his head, suffocating him, while happy memories were shuffled with the most horrifying