The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  Las Vegas, 1995

  Daisy was waiting in Valerian’s dressing room when that night’s performance ended to thunderous applause and shouts of approbation, and he did not seem at all taken aback to find her there.

  So much, she reflected, for the element of surprise.

  The magician was a spectacular specimen, not only onstage, but up close as well. Something fast-moving and intangible came to a lurching stop, deep in Daisy’s middle, when he looked at her.

  She reminded herself that show-business types didn’t impress her, and he smiled slightly, as though he’d heard the thought.

  But that was impossible, of course.

  Daisy’s face felt warm. “I’m Detective Chandler,” she said.

  “I remember,” Valerian replied smoothly. He was wearing a majestic black silk cape, lined in red, and he loosened the ties and slipped the garment off, laying it almost tenderly over the back of a chair. There was something intimate and sensual in the way he performed that simple task, and Daisy had taken a hot, dark pleasure in watching him.

  “I’d like to talk to you about Jillie Fairfield’s murder.”

  She saw a flicker of grief in the aristocratic face. There was something so regal about the man, she thought, something old-fashioned and almost courtly.

  Valerian took his sweet time replying. “What do you want to know?” he finally asked in an abstracted tone, his gaze fixed just above her head as he unfastened his cuff links.

  “Several things. Starting with this—did you kill her?”

  He met her gaze then, and both pain and annoyance moved in his eyes. “No,” he said, and the chill in his voice went straight to the marrow of Daisy’s bones, like a wintry wind. “Of course not.”

  Daisy was unnerved, even disturbed by this guy, though she could not have said why. Even if he had done the murder—and practiced instincts told her he was innocent—she had no reason to be afraid of him. She was a good cop, and she’d learned to take care of herself a long time before.

  “Do you know who did?”

  Valerian raised one eyebrow and flung his gold and onyx cuff links onto the vanity table, where they landed with a clatter. The wall above, where there should have been a lighted mirror, was empty. “No,” he bit out. “It’s your responsibility to determine that, isn’t it?”

  Daisy was stung, and it made her damn mad to catch herself feeling that way. She couldn’t afford that kind of vulnerability. “I’m trying to do my job, Mr. Valerian,” she seethed. “Unfortunately, that usually involves a lot of spade work.”

  “Just Valerian,” he said, and the very calmness with which he spoke made Daisy feel like a raving hysteric. “Sit down, please,” he went on, gesturing toward a velvet-upholstered antique chair, which Daisy promptly took. He drew up a high stool and perched on the seat, arms folded, looking art-deco elegant in his tails, tuxedo pants, and white pleated shirt. “I didn’t know much about Jillie,” he confided. “We worked together, but that was the extent of our association. I am not a social animal, you see. The other women in the act might be able to tell you something more, however.”

  Mentally Daisy awarded Valerian a point for referring to the dancers as women and not girls. And it struck her that, although he’d been working under hot lights for a couple of hours, wearing a full suit of clothes and a cloak, he had not broken a sweat. Odd, indeed, she thought.

  “I’ve talked to some of them already. They’re pretty upset, though I’ve got to say they performed well tonight.”

  Valerian loosened the collar of his shirt, which had probably cost more than the new engine O’Halloran had just put into his car. “I’ll pass along the compliment,” he assured her. There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in his tone, and yet Daisy knew he was needling her.

  Or was she just being oversensitive?

  “Where can I get in touch with you during the day, just in case I need to question you again?”

  There was a wry twist to his mouth, and a weariness in the set of his broad shoulders that seemed ancient as well as profound. He produced a card, by some sleight of hand, and held it out to Daisy.

  “Call my answering service,” he said. “I usually spend the daylight hours perfecting my magic, but if you leave a message, I’ll be in touch.”

  Daisy had no reason to linger, and yet she longed to stay. A fragment of a dream she’d had stirred somewhere in her brain, and she heard the terrifying clang of swords clashing in battle. She eased toward the door.

  “Well, thank you,” she said. “And good night. It was a terrific show.”

  Valerian bowed. “Sleep well, Miss Chandler.”

  Daisy went home to her apartment in a complex at the edge of town, heated a frozen entree, and curled up to watch a news channel. The state of world affairs left her thoroughly depressed, as usual, and she went to the kitchenette and tossed the rest of her dinner into the trash, box and all.

  “Maybe I should get out of this business,” she said aloud. She was talking to herself more and more these days, but she figured it would be okay as long as O’Halloran didn’t find out. He was a good guy and a first-class cop, but he saw it as his mission in life to give her a hard time. That, according to him, was what partners were for.

  Daisy kicked off her sneakers as she crossed the gray carpeted floor of her living room, checked her answering machine, and saw that there was one message. She reached for the Play button and then drew back when a vague sense of menace brushed the back of her heart.

  She was being silly, she chided herself. The message was probably from her sister, Nadine, who lived in Telluride and was expecting her first baby. Or maybe O’Halloran had called to ask about her interview with the Great Valerian….

  Daisy touched the button, and one ominous word swelled from the machine like an evil genie from a lamp.

  “Soon,” the voice said, and Daisy could not tell whether the caller was a man or a woman.

  “What the hell?” she demanded, stabbing the button again.

  That time the tape dragged, making the warning, if indeed it was a warning and not a prank, that much spookier.

  “Damn,” Daisy whispered, more irritated then afraid. Was this somebody’s idea of a joke—O’Halloran’s, for instance? Even as she framed the thought, she knew her partner wouldn’t try to scare her. His sense of humor ran toward whoopee cushions, plastic vomit, and hand- buzzers, bless his tacky and totally uninspired heart, but he wasn’t cruel.

  While Daisy was still standing there, gnawing at her lower lip and wondering whether to worry about this development or have a light beer and go to bed, the telephone rang. It was an ordinary sound, but she almost jumped out of her sneakers, and her hand trembled when she reached for the receiver.

  “Hello!” she barked.

  “Soon,” said that same genderless, robot-like voice she’d heard on the tape only moments before. “Soon you—will—die—again. And again—and—”

  “Who is this?” Daisy demanded, furious.

  “—again and—”

  Daisy slammed down the receiver and shoved a hand through her hair. “Take a breath, Chandler,” she told herself in a whisper. “It’s just some smart-ass kid, or one of the guys at the station—”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, deliberately making her mind a blank, until she was calmer. She started to dial O’Halloran’s home number, then stopped in the middle of the process. She had worked damn hard and taken a lot of scary risks to get where she was. She didn’t want her partner, or anybody else on the force, to think she couldn’t take care of herself.

  Daisy went back to the front door and made sure the deadbolt was turned and the chain in place. Then she checked the windows and, on a roll, peeked behind the shower curtain and under the bed.

  Finally she washed off her makeup, brushed her teeth and hair, and went to bed. The telephone on her night- stand rang once, but by the time she’d groped for the receiver and put it to her ear, the line was dead.

  “Damn,” she said agai
n. Then she turned over onto her side, yawned twice, wondered whether or not Nadine suffered from morning sickness, considered getting a big dog, and dozed off.

  The dream was remarkably real.

  She was wearing strange, simple clothes—medieval, perhaps—and riding a horse. She could hear the roar of the sea and taste its salt in the mist, and suddenly she felt a surge of wild, ebullient daring. With a laugh, she spurred her mount toward the water.

  Someone shouted at her to come back, but she had suffered much in recent times, and she had grown up beside the sea, playing chase with the tide. Now the vast ocean seemed to beckon. It was a siren’s call, one she could not resist.

  She rode down a steep path, wending her way between giant stones, urging the little horse onward when she knew it wanted to bolt.

  Another cry found its way over the roar of the waves and made her turn, laughing with delight, to look toward shore. She saw him then, her companion. In that strange way of dreams, she recognized him as the magician, Valerian. And yet he was much younger, hardly more than a boy, and his clothes were ill-fitting and strange.

  His face was a mask of terror as he lunged down the rocky path and raced toward the water.

  Poor silly darling, she thought indulgently. He’s afraid for me. I must tell him that I’ve ridden into the sea many times before without harm.

  She smiled, tossing her head, and raised one hand to wave him back. He was no swimmer, after all, and the sea was more fractious than usual that day.

  He shouted to her again, foundering through the surf, and she lost control of the horse. The animal shrieked and reared, and she was flung off, striking her shoulder hard against a rock.

  Pain thundered through her. She tried to scream, and water filled her mouth, drove her under, held her there, flailing. The weight of her gown and kirtle pulled her deeper into the smothering darkness, and then a current caught her up and twirled her around.

  There was another blow, this time to the head, and then she saw nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing—except for the name she’d been screaming before she died.

  Valerian.

  Valerian

  England, 1363

  When I awakened that first morning, to find myself in the place I would later know as Colefield Hall, I am ashamed to say that my first conscious sensation was a craving for wine. My mouth was as dry as straw, my stomach felt as though it had withered within me, and every bone and sinew ached in merry time with the slow thud of my heart.

  I rose from my bed, relieved myself in the chamber pot provided, and unbolted the door to peer into the hallway. The taciturn serving man was almost to the threshold, his arms laden with folded garments of exquisite quality. Raised in the home of a poor bootmaker and residing, until very recently, in horse stalls, abandoned dovecotes, and pigsties, I had never dared to dream of such things.

  “Good morning, sir,” said the quiet fellow. “Milord instructed me to provide you with whatever you required.” He actually smiled, taking in my nightshirt. “I see I was correct in assuming that proper garb would make a good beginning.”

  I was delighted and forgot for a moment my deep- seated yearning for the fruit of the vine. I reached out for the garments with a nod of gratitude, barely able to keep myself from donning them right there in the doorway.

  “Where is Challes?” I asked, turning away. “I must thank him personally for his generosity.”

  “I am afraid His Lordship is engaged this morning. He’ll be quite busy for the remainder of the day, as it happens. In the meantime, I will look after you—my name, by the way, is Abelard.”

  I might have been curious about Challes’s “engagement” at any other time, but I was still sick and half starved, and those splendidly embroidered tunics and closely woven hose held me rapt. Oh, I was a greedy creature, even then.

  Abelard went away, and I put on dark blue hose and a multicolored tunic. When I stepped into the hallway again, intending to explore—and, yes, I confess it, to find Challes’s store of wines and spirits—a pair of soft leather boots waited by the door. I snatched them up with joy and paused to pull them onto my feet before proceeding downstairs.

  The great house had a curiously expectant air, it seemed to me; as though the very walls and floors and rafters in the ceiling were awaiting some momentous event. I found the kitchen and purloined the leg of a roasted fowl of some sort before continuing to acquaint myself with my tutor’s domain.

  He owned many manuscripts and even a few bound books—envy flared inside me when I saw those tomes—row upon row of them, brimming with secrets and with magic. I touched their spines reverently, but even I did not dare to take even one down from the shelf to examine it. Those volumes were holy to me in a way crosses and relics and statues had never been, and one does not touch sacred things thoughtlessly.

  Besides, my fingers were greasy from the food I’d consumed.

  I left the books, albeit reluctantly, and went in search of the wine. Abelard appeared to be occupied elsewhere and did not bother me for the whole of the morning.

  The cellar was empty, except for a heavy iron door that would not open when I pulled on the latch. I tried several times and even kicked it once—for I had a more than ordinary dislike for things that thwarted me—but to no avail.

  After that small defeat, I searched the pantries, the storerooms, and even the stables and the carriage house. I found nothing except my friend’s tidy possessions, all neatly tucked away in their proper places.

  Abelard produced a venison stew for the midday meal—he was, it appeared, the only other occupant of the house besides Challes and myself—and sat on the other side of the trestle table talking with me while I ate.

  “Has Mr. Challes—his lordship—always lived here?” I asked. It had occurred to me, as my throbbing head cleared, that the gentleman might have deceived us all—Brenna, the baron, her late father, my brother, Krispin—every one of us. Perhaps he had never been a poverty-stricken tutor at all, but a dilettante, merely amusing himself among the poor. Experimenting, perhaps, to find out if country folk were as stupid as mules or if they could learn to reason and work sums.

  “He came into an inheritance quite recently,” Abelard replied, obviously uncomfortable with the line of questioning. “We have been in residence for perhaps five years.”

  My mind, ever fitful, had returned to thoughts of Krispin. I did not often let myself remember my brother, for when I did I always imagined how the plague would have changed him. Had his skin turned to a dark, bruised color before he died? Had he risen from his pallet and spun about in a hideous death dance as I had heard of others doing?

  I pushed my stew away, my appetite spoiled.

  “Where is this engagement of his lordship’s?” I asked with an impertinence that causes me to wince when I recall it. “I’ve looked through practically every window in the keep, and there’s naught but empty moors in every direction.”

  Abelard’s patience was not easily strained. “Not empty,” he said, drawing a trencher of bread close and tearing off a piece. “There are wolves abroad. Gaunt ones, with ribs showing through their hide, that like nothing better than to happen upon an arrogant fool of a man with more bravado than good sense.”

  Everyone in England was afraid of wolves in those stark, brutal days, when vast forests still covered the land—the creatures had been known to leap, snarling, into carriages and even to creep into huts and crofts and carry children away in their teeth. The stories about the beasts were rife, told at every cradle and fireside in the country, used, as fear has ever been used, to control those who might otherwise take it into their heads to wander.

  Just the mention of the beasts made me go bloodless with dread. In the next instant I blushed furiously, embarrassed by my first reaction.

  “We saw no such animals last night while riding in the carriage,” I pointed out. The unpleasant images of a dying Krispin had faded from my mind, and I reached for my half-finished stew again.

  Abel
ard made a production of chewing his bread, swallowing, and biting off a new piece. “I suppose they were busy elsewhere, then,” he said at long last. “They’re out there, though. You can be sure of that, sir.”

  I could not hide my shudder. “Have you seen them?”

  “Oh, yes,” Abelard confided in a low voice. “And any man with ears can hear them howling of a night. Calling and calling they are, wanting the unwary to come out and play their dreadful games.”

  I shifted the conversation away from the subject of wolves. “Is his lordship here, in this house?”

  “He might be,” Abelard said speculatively, though it was plain, even to me, that he knew exactly where his master was and what he was doing.

  “It’s damn rude,” I blurted out, “making such a mystery of things and leaving a guest all on his own. I didn’t ask to come here, after all.”

  Abelard smiled. “Didn’t you?” he asked.

  I was completely confused. “By the saints, man, I wasn’t so drunk that I can’t recall what I said with my own mouth!”

  The servant finished his bread and then rose from the table. “There’s no need to be afraid, lad,” he said gently. “This is where you belong, and you’re welcome here, and safe, too, if you mind your manners.”

  I wanted to point out that I was not some witless youth, that indeed I had lived five and thirty years, but I realized as I shaped the protest in my mind that I would sound foolish if I uttered it.

  “Have you any wine?” I wanted to know. Blustering bluff was one of my stock traits; I had relied upon it, among other deceptions and ruses, for a long time.

  Abelard sighed. “No,” he told me. “And if I did, I would not offer it to you. The stuff might have been your destruction, if his lordship hadn’t found you when he did.”

  I was yet considering the wine, and resenting my host’s lack of charity where strong drink was concerned, so I did not stop to wonder how Challes had known where to look for me, or what business he had with me in the first place.

  By the gods, I was not only mortal then, I was an idiot. I might have been deaf and blind for all the notice I took of the terrible and magnificent drama unfolding around me!