The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  Daisy didn’t answer. Her thoughts lingered on Valerian. She was comparing the way he looked in real life with the younger, less polished version she’d seen in her dream, wondering if he was gay, straight, or in between, and where he’d learned to do magic. Something told her he was accomplished in the subtler forms of wizardry as well as the spectacular ones he employed onstage.

  “Chandler?” O’Halloran barked. “Pay attention, damn it.”

  Daisy switched mental gears and forced herself to concentrate. “I’m with you, buddy. Let’s go make the world safe for humankind.”

  After asking directions from a gray-haired man mowing a lawn, they found the Fairfield trailer. It was a rundown, two-tone double-wide with a sagging step and a yard made up of crushed gravel and cigarette butts.

  Mrs. Fairfield came out onto the dilapidated porch when they drove up, a petite blonde with a leathery tan, wearing white short-shorts and a skimpy red top. She wore high-heeled sandals, her toenails were painted, and her makeup gave rise to speculation concerning the way she earned her living.

  “You the cops?” she asked, raising a lipstick-stained cigarette to her mouth.

  Just two of them, Daisy thought, flashing her badge, but she didn’t say the words out loud because after all, this woman’s daughter had just been murdered. Just to the left and a little behind her, O’Halloran flipped out his wallet.

  “I’m Detective Chandler,” said Daisy, “and this is Detective O’Halloran. We’re investigating your daughter’s death, and we need to ask you some questions.”

  “Took you long enough to come around,” Mrs. Fairfield replied, giving no sign that she intended to invite them inside.

  Daisy was relieved. The place probably reeked of smoke, and worse, it might look too much like Gran’s trailer. There might be a loosely crocheted afghan draped over the recliner in the living room, pictures in dime- store frames on top of the television set, cheap shag carpeting with a worn spot in front of the door—O’Halloran consulted his ever-present notebook, and out of the corner of her eye Daisy saw a short grocery list scrawled on the first page. “According to my log here, I called you myself from the station, about an hour after we left the—er—scene.”

  Mrs. Fairfield sat down on the top step, crossed her still-shapely legs, and tapped the ashes from her cigarette into a clay pot containing a dead plant. She sounded bored when she spoke again. “If you’re going to ask me who Jillie was dating, or who her friends were, I couldn’t tell you. She and I didn’t get along too well. I do know that she worked for that magician, Valerian something- or-other, in the showroom at the Venetian Hotel. That’s some kind of place, isn’t it?”

  Daisy felt a swift, dizzying fury. Someone was dead, and this woman, the victim’s mother, for God’s sake, was talking about the latest addition to Glitter Gulch. She opened her mouth to comment, but O’Halloran, who could be amazingly perceptive when he tried, silenced her with a touch to her forearm.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s something, that hotel. You ever go down there and take in your daughter’s show?”

  Mrs. Fairfield laughed. The sound was low and throaty, but there was more despair in it than humor. “At the price those places charge for a ticket? Not on what I make serving drinks in a fourth-rate casino. And Jillie sure as hell never found it in her heart to get me comped in. I hear it’s a great act, though. HBO wanted to do a special a few months back, according to the papers, but this Valerian character won’t let any kind of camera through the door.” She tapped more ashes into the planter. “It’s all a lot of hype, if you ask me—that stuff about how he’s never seen in the daytime and everything. There’s nothing like an attitude to generate publicity. You gotta know how to sell yourself in this town, and that guy’s a master at it.”

  Daisy wondered if Mrs. Fairfield was really as crass and unfeeling as she seemed. People handled grief in a lot of different ways, some putting on fronts, some breaking down right away. Daisy had heard more than a few talk all around the subject of their loved one’s death, too, just the way this woman was doing. “We need to know if your daughter had any enemies, Mrs. Fairfield,” she said, grateful to O’Halloran for running interference until she could get her emotions under control. “In an incident like this, the killer is often someone the victim knew.”

  The aging cocktail waitress raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. There was something faintly mocking in the motion, and some of Daisy’s sympathy ebbed away.

  “Is that right? How long you been a cop, sweetie?” Daisy took a breath, let it out slowly. “We’re not here to talk about me, Mrs. Fairfield. Please—tell us whatever you can about your daughter.”

  “I told you, we didn’t get along,” came the distracted, slightly hoarse reply. “We didn’t speak at all for the last two years.”

  “Why not?” O’Halloran asked with quiet compassion.

  Mrs. Fairfield’s eyes were luminous with tears when she raised them to meet his gaze. “It was a stupid thing, really—she was dating a married man, and I told her he’d never leave his wife for her, ’cause they never do, you know—and Jillie and me, we had too much to drink one night, and we got into it good. We tore into each other, right here in front of this piss-ant trailer, and it was a catfight like you never seen before.” She paused and smiled faintly at the memory, as though proud that she and her daughter were scrappers. “The cops came, too. Look in your computers if you don’t believe me. Jillie and me, we was both too stiff-necked to say we were sorry afterwards. We thought we had forever to make things right, you know?”

  At this last, her face crumbled, and Mrs. Fairfield gave a small, raw sob that wrenched hard at Daisy’s insides.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Mrs. Fairfield rose gracefully to her feet and tossed her cigarette butt into the gravel. Then she wiped her mascara-streaked cheek with the back of one manicured hand. “Yeah, sure you are, honey. Sure you are.”

  With that, Jillie’s mother turned and went into the trailer, closing the door firmly behind her.

  “Back to square one,” Daisy said.

  “Families just ain’t close anymore,” O’Halloran philosophized in response as they walked back toward his car.

  Later that afternoon a woman ran over her ex-husband in the parking lot of a convenience store, and a fifteen- year-old gang member was knifed to death by his older brother, who had been out of prison just over two weeks. It all seemed to underscore O’Halloran’s theory about families, and Daisy was thoroughly depressed when she went off duty at six-thirty that night, got into her convertible, and drove back to her apartment.

  There were no messages on the answering machine. That was something, at least.

  The blues invariably made Daisy restless, so she dragged her rowing machine out from under her bed—she’d ordered it eighteen months before, inspired to a frenzy of ambition by a late-night infomercial—and into the living room. Usually she worked out in a health club a couple of miles from her building, but that night she just didn’t feel like dealing with a lot of people.

  She put on her shorts and a T-shirt, switched on the TV, warmed up with a few brisk calisthenics, and rowed up a sweat. The effort relaxed her, as she had known it would, and Daisy showered and put on her chenille robe. She had just put some low-fat fish sticks into the microwave for her dinner when the telephone rang.

  Daisy didn’t hesitate to answer. Maybe Nadine had picked up on her intent to call and beaten her to the punch.

  “Chandler,” she said, just in case.

  “We got another one,” O’Halloran told her wearily.

  The bottom dropped out of Daisy’s stomach. No matter how many homicides she investigated, she never got over the shock of learning that one human being had killed another. Again.

  “What do you mean, ‘another one’?” she snapped, though she knew. Damn it to hell, she knew.

  “Her name was Susan Cantrell,” O’Halloran said. “Miss Cantrell’s roommate came back from a long weekend th
is afternoon and found her dead in the bathtub. No blood, Chandler. And she had those funny little marks on her neck, just like the Fairfield woman did, and the M.E.’s office thinks it happened last night sometime. God, but I hate this job.”

  “What else?” Daisy prodded, knowing there was more because she could read O’Halloran so well. She didn’t argue that he shouldn’t hate his job, because he always did when there was a murder. So did she.

  O’Halloran gave a deep, sorrowful sigh, and Daisy could just see him running a stubby hand through what was left of his hair. “She worked for that magician, too. The one that’s been packing them in down at the Venetian since the hotel opened—” Daisy heard papers rustling. “Let’s see here,” her partner went on. “His name’s—”

  “Valerian,” Daisy said, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes as tightly as she could.

  47

  Valerian

  Las Vegas, 1995

  For the second time in as many nights, I regained consciousness at sunset to find that there had been another murder. I saw poor Susan’s death plainly before I ever opened my eyes—the horrible images were imprinted on the insides of my lids—and I glimpsed the vampire who had done the killing as well. I could not recognize the fiend, for its face was shadowed by a hooded cloak, but I intuited that the creature was male, and for a reason I could not grasp, I felt that I should have known him. I wept with grief and helpless frustration, although I had not been well acquainted with Miss Cantrell, as I rose from my luxurious pallet and began to dress. This night there would be no performance at the Venetian Hotel—how could there be? No, tonight I would hunt, traverse centuries and continents if necessary, to run this monster to earth and put a finish to him by whatever means that might seem prudent at the moment.

  Before destroying this vampire, however, I would extract much in payment for the suffering of my friends. I was furious that the thing had not confronted me directly, for I was obviously the true object of its hatred. The creature was cowardly, however, as well as implacably vicious; it clearly knew that, save Maeve Tremayne, who had not been weakened by her marriage to a fledgling named Calder Holbrook, I was the most powerful blood-drinker on this plane of existence. Better, then, to torment me through those helpless beings close to me, those I valued and, in my way, loved.

  I had to find it before another innocent died.

  Before it turned to Brenna—now Daisy Chandler—the love of my eternal life.

  Before the ruby ring arrived.

  I was drawn to the living room of my hideaway, and the television set descended from the ceiling as I entered. I had not willed this to happen, and I felt a mental chill as I watched light flicker in the center of the screen and then spread into an image. My lair had heretofore been sacrosanct, but now it seemed that some other creature dared to work magic within its walls.

  Perhaps, I thought, I would not have to search out my enemy after all. Perhaps he had come to me.

  The televised picture solidified into an image of Brenna, riding boldly into the surf, laughing, never dreaming that her death was imminent. Before my eyes the scene shifted; Brenna was gone, and the raging sea had vanished to become a shoddy fifteenth-century tavern called the Horse and Horn. Brenna appeared instantly, immediately recognizable for her green eyes and coppery hair, but now her name was Elisabeth Saxon. She was a bold and fiery wench, her cheap dress showing too much of her bosom, flirting shamelessly with the ruffians she served, permitting them to touch her. Driving me half mad with jealousy and frustration. She faded away, and then I saw Jenny Wade, my lovely Jenny, another incarnation of Brenna, though she wore the lush, red-blond hair in a tidy chignon and her green eyes were sightless. I had cherished her especially, because she loved me so completely and so selflessly without ever seeing my face.

  Jenny and I were together in the late sixteenth century, for far too short a time.

  I heard that gentle angel whisper my name, and when the screen went blank, I was startled to find myself standing in front of the set with both hands pressed to the glass.

  “No more,” I whispered, for I could not bear to see the other incarnations my beloved had donned, like pretty frocks, over the centuries. It was enough to be reminded of Brenna and Elisabeth and Jenny, of how completely and how hopelessly I had loved them, all different facets of the same glorious, intrepid spirit.

  Suddenly another picture spilled across the surface, and I drew back, appalled. The leading lady in this new tableau was Daisy Chandler—the latest incarnation of Lady Brenna Afton-St. Claire. I saw that she lived in one of those bland and anonymous apartments that are so prevalent in the twentieth century, with no more variance between the units than between the cells in a honeycomb.

  “Daisy,” I muttered, but of course she could not hear me. She was only an image, but a modem version of Brenna nonetheless, projected from the dark depths of my mind—or, more likely, the mind of my enemy, whoever and whatever it was.

  I watched as Daisy moved about her small kitchen, preparing a frozen dinner—a peculiarity of the modem age that makes me glad vampires do not require the same sort of sustenance mortals do—and I heard the nerve- jangling ring of her telephone. When she answered, “Chandler,” I was touched by the note of bravado in her voice.

  I could not discern what the caller said, but I saw Daisy’s lovely, impudent face go white with fear and fury. I watched and listened helplessly as she slammed the receiver back into its cradle and then sagged against the wall, trembling.

  I wanted to will myself to her side, to draw her into my arms and offer her what comfort I could, but better judgment prevailed. The vignette I’d seen was not occurring at that moment; it was a colorful shadow of the future. If I went to Daisy then, I might find her in the shower, driving her car, doing any one of the millions of wonderful mundane things mortals do. It would be neither kind nor wise to reveal my unique powers to her in such an abrupt way.

  Yet I feared for her in those moments as I had never feared for another living being. My unknown foe had shown me all these visions, but most especially the last, to taunt me with the fact that it was stalking Daisy, that it meant to murder her as it had already murdered poor Jillie and Susan.

  I closed my eyes. What was this thing?

  There was no answer, of course—not then. The television screen went dark and returned to its nesting place in the ceiling with a low, electronic buzz.

  I was instantly possessed of a brutal weariness, as abject as if my immortality had suddenly proved an illusion or a jest, as if my vampiric powers had been wrested from me and I had been reduced to a fragile, human state. To ask such pitiful flesh and bone to bear the weight of some six hundred years of adventurous living would be like expecting a spider’s web to support a cathedral.

  With some effort, I collected myself, faced down the consuming panic that threatened me, and centered my thoughts on the one immortal I truly trusted, the only vampire I dared depend upon for help and advice.

  I sought Maeve Tremayne, once my fledgling and now my friend and my queen—she who knew our species to be ungovernable, and governed it nonetheless. She who protected us from our foes, be they angels, warlocks, or rogue vampires, and meted out punishment for our crimes.

  I found her in the uppermost chamber of her London house. She shared the residence with her mate, Holbrook, who had been a brilliant physician and surgeon in his mortal life. Their remarkable child, Kristina, was grown and far away.

  Maeve was at her weaving when I arrived, and alone, as I would have preferred. Calder and I are not particularly friendly; I find him too absorbed in his incessant experiments, and he dislikes me, I suspect, for my superior mind.

  Maeve feigned a little sigh when she saw me and said, “Ah, Valerian. What now?”

  Daisy

  Las Vegas, 1995

  Susan Cantrell had died in the same way Jillie Fairfield had, except for a few small details. Her slender dancer’s body had been virtually bloodless and unmarked except for
the two small puncture wounds at the base of her throat.

  The differences were minimal—Jillie was murdered in her living room, and she’d been partially clothed.

  Susan’s body was found naked, and in a ludicrously modest pose, lying in her bathtub.

  Two full days after the killing, late in the afternoon, Daisy left the city morgue in a daze. She’d seen corpses before—a lot of them in far worse condition than Miss Cantrell’s—but there was something chillingly different about these cases. Even O’Halloran was subdued, and he wasn’t given to sensitive contemplation of the deeper mysteries.

  “You gonna be okay, Chandler?” he asked when he and Daisy stood between their cars in the parking lot.

  She thought of the calls she’d been getting, and a shiver of pure paranoia trickled down her spine and formed a chilly pool in her stomach.

  “Yeah,” Daisy answered. “As soon as we nail this pervert, I’ll be fine.”

  O’Halloran nodded, opened his car door, and pushed a crumpled potato chip bag off the seat before getting behind the wheel. “You watch out for yourself,” he said. “You get any hotshot ideas, you call me. Don’t go running off on your own. You hear me?”

  Daisy sighed and saluted.

  O’Halloran slammed his door and rolled down the window. “And eat a decent dinner for once in your life, will you? Something besides them frozen things with more calories in the carton than in the food.”

  She smiled. “A nutrition lecture from you?” she said. “I must be in a bad way.”

  “Get outta here,” O’Halloran said. “I’m tired of looking at you.” With that, he started up his car and backed out with a screech, narrowly missing Daisy’s left foot and a UPS truck.