The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  Before we’re both destroyed.

  “Too late,” Maeve said softly. Then, with no one to see, no one to lend comfort, she buried her face in her hands and wept. She had won so much in that final battle, and lost everything.

  Nemesis was waiting in the graveyard of All Souls’ Cathedral three nights later when Maeve arrived. He might have looked quite ordinary, in his conservative overcoat, with that simple but frightfully expensive black umbrella unfurled against the chilly rain, except for the luminous quality that came from inside him.

  Looking upon this magnificent creature from a little distance, Maeve could see why the great masters had graced their painted angels with halos and bright auras. They must have been aware, some consciously, some unconsciously, of their own heavenly guardians and comforters.

  She wondered if she’d had a guardian angel as a child, and what he or she was doing now, when his or her services were no longer required.

  Or were they?

  Nemesis smiled his cordial, benevolent smile when at last she stood facing him, feeling the fiery heat of his aura. “You did have a guardian, you know,” he said. “Every mortal does.”

  Maeve covered her trepidation with bravado, for something about this powerful, mysterious, implacable being made her feel as defenseless as a child. “Fat lot of good it did me,” she retorted somewhat testily. Losing Calder had made her even more reckless than usual; she had so little to lose.

  The warrior angel chuckled, and the sound was throaty and rich. “We are not infallible creatures,” he explained, and Maeve thought it was rather generous of him, considering the circumstances. “Sometimes we make mistakes.”

  The rain pattered on the roof of All Souls’, the gravestones, and the ancient walkway that had been worn smooth by the passage of generations of saints and sinners. Maeve looked directly into the angel’s eyes and felt a strange, entrancing peace.

  She shook it off. “Then perhaps you will be more understanding of the errors of others,” she said. “We have destroyed Lisette as you probably know, and all but a very few of her vampires—which are being gathered by my friends at this moment.”

  Nemesis regarded her steadily, revealing none of his thoughts or emotions—if indeed angels had such things. She honestly didn’t know.

  “A great deal of damage has been done,” he said. “And there will be more still,” Maeve reasoned boldly, flying blind, “if you unleash your forces on the dark kingdom. Granted, you’ll eventually prevail, but we will fight you, you may be sure of that, as long as we have the strength to raise our swords.”

  “Insanity,” Nemesis replied. “You cannot win!”

  “No,” Maeve agreed calmly. “We cannot. But remember this, Warrior Angel: We, the warlocks and vampires, have met your demands, and we plead without shame for peace. If you refuse us, and thousands of mortals die in the resulting fray, whose fault is that? Yours or ours?”

  40

  Maeve did not have to seek out the Warrior Angel to hear his final decision; she was in her studio, working feverishly on the tapestry she had yet to properly study, when he appeared in the center of the floor.

  There was less fanfare than she would have expected of one of the most powerful angels in heaven, but she was startled all the same. Somehow all Valerian’s abrupt entrances had not quite prepared her for this particular surprise.

  She let go of the shuttle and stepped down off the high stool, her eyes wide. Everything depended on this meeting—everything. Either heaven was satisfied that Lisette had been stopped and her minions destroyed, or the end was upon them all.

  Nemesis, who wore a good nineteenth-century-style suit, including the tight celluloid collar, did not immediately speak or even look at Maeve. He went, instead, to the tapestry, now spilling, almost complete, from the back of the loom, and examined it thoughtfully.

  “What does this image mean?” he asked after a long and, for Maeve, difficult silence.

  Maeve had not looked at the tapestry in weeks, although she had worked the shuttle often in moments of intolerable stress. She felt stupid for not being able to answer the question—her pictures were never planned, they simply came out through her fingers—and they were often prophetic. She rounded the loom to stand beside Nemesis, and what she saw brought a small, strangled sound to her throat.

  The tapestry showed herself, in a flowing dress, holding a lush bouquet of ivory roses. Some of the petals had drifted to the ground, which was covered in leaves of brown and gold and crimson, and behind her was a low stone wall, perhaps waist high. Sitting on the wall, with the casual grace so typical of the vampire, was Calder. He was smiling back at Maeve, who wore an expression of radiant joy, but it wasn’t those things that moved Maeve. It was the beautiful, dark-haired child, perhaps a year old, who sat laughing on Calder’s shoulder, small, plump arms reaching out to Maeve.

  A child.

  She laid her hands almost reverently on her stomach. A child? But that was impossible—no vampire in all of history had ever given birth.

  Nemesis, probably weary of waiting for Maeve’s long-delayed answer to his original question, had by then divined the meaning of the tapestry for himself. He reached out and touched the likeness of the little one with the gentlest brush of his fingers.

  Maeve gazed up at him, in wonder and fear, because everything in that tapestry, every dream it represented, was in his hands. “Please,” she said hoarsely. “Tell me what has been decided.”

  He heaved a great sigh and turned to look down on Maeve with a peculiar combination of sympathy and love and reluctance. “Were it up to me,” he said, “I would still purge the earth of all night creatures—vampires, warlocks, werewolves, all of those things. But, alas, it seems there is some truth to that theory you expressed before—the Master feels that you have your place in the scheme of things.” He was studying the child again, an expression of troubled amazement on his face. When he turned to meet Maeve’s eyes once more, he said, “You will live and fulfill your destiny, and if you are to be destroyed, then it will have to be by one of your own kind.”

  Maeve felt a great surge of joy, closely followed by an equally powerful rush of fear. “This infant—” Her words fell away, and she laid a hand to Calder’s woven image and then the baby’s.

  Nemesis heaved another sigh. “One of their poets said it—‘There are more things in heaven and earth…’”

  “But vampires do not have children,” Maeve mused, as much to herself as to Nemesis, “and certainly I would never transform a mortal child…

  “This infant will be mortal,” Nemesis said, frowning at the tapestry again. “Perhaps conception occurred before Dr. Holbrook was transformed.”

  Maeve was in a daze. There would be no war with the angels, and a miracle of the sort she had never dared to dream of was happening. She, a vampire, carried a living, human child within her.

  And the father of that little one, she reminded herself brokenly, had gone away.

  Having delivered his message, Nemesis vanished in the blink of an eye, and Maeve was alone with her thoughts and the mysterious tapestry.

  Dathan and Valerian must be told that the danger was past, that Nemesis and his Master had relented. Maeve would leave the spreading of this good news to them, however, for she had other things to do.

  She stared into the tapestry for a long moment, her heart swelling with happiness and anticipation, then focused her thoughts on Valerian.

  He was in a smoky saloon in the nineteenth-century American West, wearing rough-spun trousers, an old woolen shirt, six-guns, and one of the biggest hats Maeve had ever seen. A long, thin cigar protruded from one side of his mouth, and he was frowning at the hand of cards he held, as if the fate of the world depended on that very game of poker. A dance-hall girl hovered behind him, simpering and at the same time massaging Valerian’s broad, powerful shoulders.

  None of the mortals saw Maeve; she made sure of that. Valerian, however, looked up at her over his hand of cards. The merest sha
dow of a smile touched his mouth, and his eyes twinkled.

  You and your games, Maeve told him.

  He settled back in his chair, a gesture meant for the assortment of mortals sitting at the table and standing around it. Eternity would be very dull without games, he replied.

  Maeve laughed. I suppose you’re right, she said.

  Nemesis came to me a little while ago—he and his Master have decided not to make war on us.

  Valerian laid his cards out on the table in a flamboyant fan shape, and the mortals groaned in sporting despair and threw down their hands. I am your creator, remember? the great vampire finally said. The instant you knew what had been decided, so did I.

  Maeve put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side. Then you know about the child, too.

  Valerian gathered his winnings and tossed a chip to the dance-hall girl who was attending him so faithfully. My dear, he answered, if you’d only troubled to look at the tapestry you were weaving, you would have seen the truth long ago. I’ve been aware of your delicate condition for days.

  Mild irritation moved in Maeve’s spirit; sometimes Valerian’s seeming omniscience really got on her nerves. Well, she retorted, just tune out for a while, won’t you please? There are things I want to settle with Calder, and I’d rather you weren’t a witness to the whole encounter.

  He raised one shoulder in a shrug too elegant for the surroundings. I have interests of my own, he replied. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’d like to concentrate on my poker game.

  You’ll tell Dathan and the others about the truce with Nemesis? Maeve pressed, eager to go but at the same time determined to accomplish her original purpose in coming to that rough, smoky place.

  Certainly, Valerian answered, but he’d become absorbed in the new hand of cards he’d been dealt, and the dancing girl was perched on his knee. The first time I see the warlock, I’ll tell him. Then I’ll tear his throat out.

  Maeve shook her head. Have a care, she warned. Dathan is more powerful than you like to think.

  Valerian shifted his thin cigar to the other side of his mouth, clamping it between his white teeth. I’ve been taking care of myself for centuries, Maeve, he reminded her distractedly. Believe me. I’m very good at survival. Now, get out of here and let me finish my game.

  She hesitated, then went to Valerian’s side, bent, and kissed his cheek in gratitude, affection, and farewell.

  Maeve found Calder in that same century, in a field hospital in northern Tennessee. He wore the uniform of a Confederate officer and carried a black leather bag packed with modern instruments and medicines.

  When Maeve revealed herself to him, he was injecting a powerful painkiller into the arm of a boy who should have been at home, playing ball, doing chores, and going to school.

  Calder raised his eyes to Maeve’s face, and she saw his love for her in them, and his pain.

  “Can they see you?” she asked.

  Calder smiled sadly and withdrew the needle from the man-child’s arm. “Yes,” he answered softly. “They believe I’m a mortal, like them.”

  She looked down at the soldier. “Will he live?” Calder nodded, then rounded the cot, took Maeve’s elbow in one hand, and led her outside into the balmy southern night.

  “That’s quite a uniform,” she said, noting his gray tunic and well-made trousers. “When did you switch sides and become a Confederate?”

  “I haven’t,” he answered, studying her through narrowed, worried eyes. “I’ve always been on the side of life—I go back and forth between the two armies, helping where I can. Why are you here, Maeve?”

  She hesitated, then said bravely, “Because I love you.”

  “And I love you,” Calder answered, setting his bag down and laying his hands on Maeve’s upper arms. “But I can’t let you hold me prisoner, no matter what dangers you might be trying to protect me from. I need the freedom to be myself, Maeve—without that, I might as well not exist.”

  “I understand,” she replied. “And I’m sorry for those times I held you captive. My intentions were good, but I realize now that I was wrong.”

  Calder raised one hand to touch her face. “Perhaps we could try again, you and I,” he said gruffly. “You let me take my chances with the world, and I’ll let you take yours.”

  Maeve felt unvampirelike tears burning in her eyes and clogging her throat. “We could always find each other,” she said, “with just a thought.”

  He bent and kissed her lightly on the mouth, and she felt the old, savage passion stirring. “Always,” he agreed.

  She took his hand. “Would you come away with me, just for a little while?” she asked almost shyly. “There’s something I want very much to show you.”

  “Of course,” he replied, looking puzzled.

  “I’ll meet you in my studio,” she said, feeling as though she could fly home on the wings of her joy, needing no other magic than that.

  “To London,” Calder said with a grand gesture of one arm, as though inviting Maeve to precede him.

  She was standing in front of the tapestry when her mate appeared, and she watched his eyes widen as he took in the images and their meaning. Finally he turned to her in wonderment.

  “A child?” His voice was low and gruff, and he sounded as though he were trying to restrain his rising hopes, to avoid disappointment.

  Maeve caught both Calder’s hands in her own and arranged them flat against her stomach. “Nemesis says the baby is mortal,” she said.

  Calder looked at once joyous and baffled. “But how can that be?” he whispered.

  She put her arms around his neck. “I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “You’re the doctor.”

  He ran his hands up and down her back, his eyes full of wonder. “It’s a miracle,” he marveled, and then he kissed her again.

  Maeve was intoxicated when he finally drew back, and so weak that she clung to the front of Calder’s tunic to keep herself upright. “How will we manage, Calder?” she asked. “How can vampires raise a mortal child?”

  “The same way mortals do,” Calder replied, smoothing her soft dress away from her shoulders to reveal her white, full breasts. “With a great deal of love and patience.”

  “But—”

  Calder bent and took one of Maeve’s nipples boldly into his mouth, effectively cutting off her words and swamping her doubts in a storm of physical and spiritual sensation.

  Maeve threw back her head, abandoning herself to Calder’s attentions, glorying in the wild appetites he had aroused in her. He smoothed the rest of her clothes away without leaving her breast, and then Maeve was clothed only in moonlight.

  “Here’s something else mortals do,” he said gruffly when both Maeve’s breasts were throbbing and wet from his tongue. He dropped to one knee before her, like a cavalier acknowledging his queen, parted the veil of silk that hid her most sensitive place from view, and kissed her there.

  Maeve cried out, half in protest, half in glorious surrender. Calder’s hands cupped her bare buttocks, and he pressed her hard against his mouth and suckled until she was trembling against him, whimpering softly in her need.

  Calder lowered her to the bare wooden floor finally, and his own clothes were gone, quite literally, in a twinkling. He poised himself over her, and she parted her thighs for him willingly, even eagerly.

  He entered her in one hard, desperate thrust and, as quickly as that, Calder’s own control snapped. He and Maeve moved together in a graceful dance of passion, their sleek bodies rising and falling, twisting and turning, as each worshiped the other.

  It ended with a simultaneous, white-hot melding, not only of their physical selves, but of their souls as well, and afterward they both lay stricken and exhausted on the hard floor.

  Maeve was the first to move. She put her clothes back on, reached into the pocket of her gown, and took out the pendant the gypsy had given her, long, long ago. Crouching beside Calder, who was still splendidly naked and had managed to raise hims
elf onto one elbow, she put the chain around his neck and then kissed him softly on each side of his face.

  “This is my pledge to you,” she said. “I will be your wife, now and throughout eternity, in heaven or in hell, in life or in death.”

  Calder sat up, took Maeve’s face in his strong hands, and kissed her earnestly. “And this is my pledge to you,” he replied then in a hoarse voice, drawing back only far enough to look deep into her eyes. “I will be your husband, faithful and brave and patient. I will love you beyond forever, and my soul will be a part of yours.”

  Maeve moved back into his arms. It was the closest they would ever have to a wedding, this exchange of vows they had just shared, but she and Calder had agreed to love each other for all eternity.

  Forever sounded just right.

  III

  Time Without End

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  For Doreen Drago, Valerian’s good friend and mine. Heartfelt thanks from both of us.

  Prologue

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  1995