The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  “How like you, Valerian, to wax philosophical,” observed a cheerful feminine voice, catching me completely off guard.

  I whirled to see Maeve standing only a few feet away, gloriously beautiful in her flowing, iridescent robes, her long dark hair falling free around her shoulders, her dark blue eyes like windows into the heart of the universe. She has a penchant for the dramatic, our Maeve, a fondness for spectacular entrances and fiery exits.

  But then, so do I. Perhaps it is a trait of vampires, after all, for they tend to be flamboyant creatures.

  “You honor me,” I said with a slight inclination of my head, “both by your visit and your words.”

  She laughed. “Still charming as a serpent,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “What a flatterer you are.” She paused again, gazing upon me thoughtfully. “I came to ask if there have been more difficulties with this rogue vampire you spoke of the other night.”

  “I have not been successful in tracking him down,” I admitted ruefully. I thought of Daisy again and my resolve to protect her strengthened. “But you have my vow that I will put an end to his mischief, whoever he is.” Maeve picked up one of the pretty glass bottles I kept on my dressing table and examined it with the absorbed interest of one who appreciates fine craftsmanship. “Do not be too hasty, my friend,” she warned, returning the bauble to its place before turning her gaze to my face. “This may not be a blood-drinker, but a warlock, for instance, only posing as one of us. I feel certain that this is some sort of trap.”

  I almost whispered my next words. “Could it be that Lisette has returned?”

  “No,” Maeve answered with a reassuring lack of hesitation. “She is most certainly dead. You saw her perish—we all did.”

  “Still—”

  “If Lisette had managed to resurrect herself, even in some other form, I would know it. We have other enemies, Valerian. There are many monsters roaming creation—ones we know nothing about. According to Calder, who has been performing some very interesting experiments since his transformation, there could well be other species of vampires, with different powers from our own. He has even uncovered evidence that gaps might exist between dimensions—passageways leading in and out of other realms and realities.”

  I found the mere prospect so overwhelming that I could not speak. The fiends of my acquaintance were daunting enough, without being joined by a host of other horrors skulking back and forth from one world to another.

  Maeve folded her arms and looked at me with sisterly concern. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

  I smiled sadly, touched and somehow calmed by this reminder that she cared for me. “I have found her again.”

  “Not—?”

  I nodded, reaching up to straighten my elegant string tie. I often wear formal garb to hunt—a cape and tails, ruffled linen shirt and cummerbund, trousers with silk stripes down the outer seams—due to that theatrical streak I mentioned before, I suppose. And because my victims expect me to resemble the classic media vampire. Who was I to disappoint the poor wretches?

  “Yes,” I said. “Same face, same body. This time her name is Daisy Chandler, and she’s a homicide detective with the Las Vegas police.”

  Maeve looked worried. “You know what always happens—the ruby arrives, she dies, and then you are heartbroken. You must avoid this woman at all costs, Valerian, for your own sake as well as hers.”

  I wanted to weep at the impossibility of the situation, at the injustice and terrible irony of it all. “It’s already too late,” I confessed. “Besides, there is no avoiding Daisy. It’s part of the curse.”

  “The curse,” Maeve mocked. Surprisingly, considering what she is and what she’s seen, my revered queen is not in the least superstitious. “That’s a medieval idea. There is no dark magic at work here—someone or something is causing these things to happen. Find the root of the problem and you will know how to solve it.”

  “So practical,” I said with a sad smile. Maeve is young, in terms of being a vampire, having been made quite recently, in the turbulence of the eighteenth century. “Do you fancy that I’ve never tried to uncover the cause? I have searched for centuries, all to no avail. And every generation or so, the horror repeats itself.”

  She approached me and put a gentle hand on my arm. “Perhaps Calder can find some remedy in science,” she said in an effort to lend comfort.

  I laughed, though my feelings resembled bereavement more than mirth. “You have great confidence in that husband of yours.”

  Maeve nodded. “I have,” she admitted. “And it is well placed, I assure you. Now, come with me. We’ll feed together, and then search for this mysterious foe of yours.”

  “It has occurred to me,” I said, looking down into her sweet, beautiful face, “that our cause would be better served by keeping watch over the four young women who remain in my employ. I shall sever all ties with them, of course—when I again perform my magic act, I will appear alone—but they seem the most likely targets.”

  “What about this Daisy woman? I should think she would be in the gravest peril of all.”

  There could be no denying that, but I had a suspicion that the creature wanted to punish me, to subject me to a lengthy and torturous ordeal. Logically, he was more likely to save Daisy’s death for last—and to make it the most grisly of all.

  I voiced these thoughts to Maeve, who agreed, though with reservations.

  “Still,” she said, “you must not leave her unguarded for long.”

  We linked arms, as though to enter a grand dining room or stroll onto a dance floor for a waltz. “I would like to bring Daisy here to my lair, where she would surely be safe, but mortals balk at such forms of protection—they consider them arbitrary. Remember how Calder hated your efforts to keep him out of danger?”

  Maeve winced and then flashed me a guilty little smile. “He was quite impossible as a mortal,” she said. “I like him much better as a vampire.”

  With that, we willed ourselves away.

  Feeding was not a challenge—though neither of us had a taste for the blood of innocents—for humans with evil hearts, while in the minority, are still all too easy to find. Prisons abound with them, and so do the world’s various halls of government.

  When we had taken the necessary sustenance, Maeve and I set out on our search for the demon who had murdered Jillie and Susan.

  Our efforts met with failure.

  Daisy pulled into the parking lot of a well-known motel at ten-thirty that night, too tired to travel even one more mile. After buying half a turkey sandwich and a can of tomato juice in the convenience store across the highway, she locked herself in her room and sat cross- legged on the bed, consuming her dinner and watching the early news.

  There was nothing about the so-called “vampire murders” in Las Vegas, but she supposed it was only a matter of time before the wire services and major networks picked up the story. What the tabloids could make out of it didn’t bear thinking about.

  She got off the bed and threw away the debris from supper, muttering to herself. “Don’t think about work, Chandler. Think about Nadine and your niece or nephew. Think about happy things—fun things. Do you want to have a nervous breakdown, for heaven’s sake?”

  Daisy looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. “You’re not a crazy person,” she said forcefully. “You’re smart and strong and brave, and a damn good cop on top of it all. And you are not losing your mind. You’re just tired, that’s all. A week with Nadine and you’ll be thrilled to rub elbows with homicidal maniacs again!”

  She laughed, but the sound lodged in her throat when the telephone rang.

  A lesser person wouldn’t have answered it at all, Daisy reflected, but she was Woman, and if she had to, she would roar.

  “Hello!” she snapped.

  A familiar chuckle came over the wire. “I found you,” Valerian said. “There are times when I wonder if my magic is a plus or a minus.”

  Daisy was
pleased out of all proportion to reason to hear his voice. Later she would think about the impossibility of his finding her in a motel she’d chosen at random. For the moment she was simply happy that he had.

  “I guess it’s a plus,” she said. “If I asked how you tracked me down, would you tell me?”

  “Sure,” came the blithe reply. “But you’re not going to ask me, are you? Because you already know the answer I’d give.”

  Daisy wound an index finger in the telephone cord, as wildly happy as a teenager about to be asked to the prom by exactly the right guy. “You’d say it was vampire magic.”

  “Something like that.” He sounded solemn now, almost sad. “Are you all right, Daisy? Have I frightened you?”

  She considered. “Yeah, you’ve done that all right, but in a different way than you probably think. It’s a kind of quivery, excited feeling, like I get used to get in high school, when my girlfriends and I would go to a horror movie and then stay up half the night scaring the hell out of each other.”

  “I honestly don’t know whether to be honored or insulted,” he said, and the smile was back in his voice.

  Daisy sighed. “Take your choice,” she said. “You are definitely weird, but I’ve got to admit, I like you. Maybe it’s the old snake-charmer syndrome.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed. “I have to go now, love. But before I hang up, I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “Okay,” Daisy replied.

  “Do you remember the promise we talked about last night?”

  She felt a shivery, delicious warmth in all the places where she was most feminine. “Yes,” she said. “Sure.”

  “I’m about to keep my word,” Valerian told her. “That is, if I have your permission.”

  Daisy was trembling with anticipation and sweet terror. If this was a sexual fantasy, it was a hot one, and she wasn’t about to squelch it. “Okay,” she said shakily.

  “If you want the lovemaking to stop, you have only to form the thought in your mind, and it will be over.” Daisy was glad he couldn’t see her—at least she didn’t think he could—because she was blushing like crazy. “That sounds fair.”

  He chuckled. “Good night, Daisy.”

  “Good night,” she whispered, but the line was already dead.

  Confused, happier than she’d ever been, Daisy got ready for bed, turned out the lights, and slipped between the sheets. Both the nightgowns she’d brought were still neatly folded in her suitcase.

  She lay still for a long time, waiting, half expecting Valerian to appear in her motel room in the same way he’d vanished from her apartment.

  Forty-two minutes had passed on the digital clock on her bedside table when the urge to throw aside the blankets and sheets struck her like a sudden fever. She trembled as the cool night air touched her bare skin, making her nipples tighten.

  In the next instant she felt hands on her flesh, and she knew the hands were Valerian’s, even though she was still alone. Then she felt his lips, warm and wet and soft, on her breasts, on her belly, on her neck and her thighs. It seemed that every part of her, inside and out, was being kissed and caressed, fondled and teased.

  Daisy arched her back, giving herself up to the passion that swept around and through her like a storm. She was reminded, in the midst of the wild ecstasy that followed, of a recent dream. She’d been someone else in that dream, living long ago and faraway, and she’d ridden a horse into a pounding surf. The waves had consumed her then; this time, it would be the pleasure, the mounting, excruciating, glorious pleasure.

  49

  Valerian

  England, 1457

  True to his word, Challes had abandoned me after teaching me the rudiments of feeding and protecting myself from certain gruesome perils to which vampires are subject. I was at my most licentious in the years and decades that followed; there were few pleasures I did not sample and even fewer sins I did not commit. In retrospect, it seems that my proclivity for wine had been replaced by an equal devotion to the ever more capricious demands of my senses.

  I was beautiful as an archangel and as self-centered as a spoiled child, and I resented my erstwhile tutor bitterly for leaving me to my own devices as he had. I carried cynicism to new heights, and might have continued on this treacherous and unsavory course if I hadn’t happened into a seedy roadside inn one spring night in 1457. I’d been traversing the countryside in my coach, pretending to be a mortal, as I sometimes did when I was bored.

  I doubt it will surprise you to learn that the place was the Horse and Horn and that I found Brenna within its shoddy walls, clad in a cheap, undyed gown that revealed too many of her charms and carrying pitchers overflowing with ale to tables full of leering louts.

  Imagine my astonishment, my joy, my outrage! I had believed her dead—I knew she had perished in the waters off the coast of Cornwall—and yet here she was, looking as she had always looked, except for the coarse dress, laughing and bantering with a lot of louse-ridden sailors and highwaymen!

  Utter silence descended when I noticed at last, standing there in the doorway of that wretched establishment, a gentleman to all appearances, finely dressed and obviously rich. I heard their jumbled thoughts—more than a few planned to rob me, and most would have done murder for the least of my valuables—but I was interested only in Brenna.

  She turned to see what had caught her customers’ attention, and the look of speculation in her green eyes was devastating to me, for there was no recognition in them and certainly no love. She, like the bilge-rats and pickpockets seated round the rough-hewn wooden tables, was calculating my worth. The thought that I would pay well for a tumble in the straw, and probably be a pleasant partner in the bargain, flitted across her mind.

  This was not my Brenna, and yet it was. The flowing, coppery hair, the slightly freckled and otherwise flawless skin, the sumptuous little figure and the breathtakingly beautiful emerald eyes all belonged to my beloved. The mind and spirit, at least in their deepest recesses, were hers, also; it was the outward character I did not recognize.

  She sidled over to me, smoothed the fine silk of my tunic with the palms of her small, grubby hands, and smiled up into my rigid face.

  “My, ain’t you pretty,” she crooned.

  Catcalls erupted all over the room, but those men were no more to me than the vermin that crawled among the folds of their ragged garments and skittered behind the walls.

  Despair nearly overwhelmed me, and yet I could not help rejoicing. In whatever form I found her, this was my treasured one. The darling of my heart. I would carry her away and, in time, share with her the gift Challes had given me. Together we could explore eternity.

  “Brenna,” I whispered, catching her fingers in my own.

  “You can call me whatever name you want, pet,” she simpered, batting her eyelashes and even managing to blush a little. “But I’m Betsey to me friends.”

  I wanted to carry her out of that place over one shoulder and to throttle her, at one and the same time. In the end I did neither, for I could not move. “Betsey?” I echoed stupidly.

  She drew herself up, preening, and her coquetry almost made me laugh, for she was no cleaner than if she’d been thrown down and dragged through a barnyard by her ankles. The poor thing suffered greatly in comparison to the sophisticated mortal women I normally consorted with; in her present state she barely had the grace to slop swine.

  “Elisabeth Saxon’s me full name,” she announced very proudly.

  More hoots and crude comments rose from the Great Unwashed, and I ignored them as before. I would deal with any who dared to approach me—or Elisabeth—later.

  I placed a small leather pouch in her palm, weighted with gold, and watched with an odd mingling of pleasure and pain as her eyes lit up at the prospect of such wealth.

  “Come with me,” I said quietly.

  Elisabeth did not hesitate; she untied her stained apron and tossed it aside, never noticing that it settled over one reveler’s head like a crud
ely woven shroud. Then she offered her hand to me, and I took it and pushed her out into the dark dooryard of the inn.

  Her companions rose almost as one from their benches and stools, and their faces, in the flickering light of the candles and the scant fire on the hearth, were the faces of fiends.

  It was pitifully easy to intimidate them, however; no magic was required. I simply swept them up, one and all, in a look calculated to shrivel their very souls. None of them tried to follow as I turned and strode outside, catching Elisabeth’s elbow in a forceful grasp as I passed her and thrusting her toward my waiting carriage.

  “You’re not one of that sort what likes to be rough with a girl, are you?” she asked as I bundled her inside.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I said. I was trembling with emotions I could barely sort through—passion, fury, adoration, disgust. “Great Zeus,” I muttered at last when we were settled and I had signaled the driver to be off with a rap of my knuckles on the carriage roof. “What’s happened to you?”

  Her eyes were huge in the darkness, and she held the small bag of gold tightly against her belly, as though fearing I might snatch it back from her at any moment. “What do you mean by that, sir? I’ve just been making me way in the world, like any girl would, in me place—”

  “When was the last time you had a bath?”

  Fire flared in her spirit, and I was heartened to see it.

  “Baths ain’t good for a lady’s health,” she said with conviction.

  I folded my arms and regarded her in silence for a long time. “Don’t you remember me, even a little?” I asked at last, unable to keep myself from voicing the deepest disappointment at all.

  Elisabeth shook her head. “No,” she answered bluntly. “And I’d recall a fine and fancy man like yourself if we’d ever met, now wouldn’t I?” She paused to ponder me, though I must have been nearly invisible to her in the thin moonlight, her lovely eyes narrowed. “Why did you call me by that other name, even after I told you it weren’t mine?”

  I feigned a sigh, wondering what this poor little urchin would think if she knew I wasn’t a man, fine and fancy or otherwise, but a beast instead. A creature that ventured out of its vault only by night, loving the darkness, exalting in it, drawing nourishment from the veins of hapless mortals.