They ate a good deal of the pizza, and then Max walked Kristina back to the shop, where Enrique and Adrian were still packing and giving orders and arguing. Kristina gave Adrian a spare key—she had several, because of the new door—and asked him to lock up when they were finished.
Adrian kissed her on both cheeks, which made Enrique feel compelled to do the same, though he seemed a bit put out that his competitor had been the one chosen to close the shop. Max waited patiently by the door, then drove Kristina to her car, which was parked in a lot several blocks away.
“Feel like spending the night?” he asked, getting out of the Blazer to open her door for her and see her inside and properly seatbelted.
Kristina considered, then shook her head. She’d imposed enough as it was by showing up unannounced the night before. Another appearance would probably worry Bree and Eliette, or at least confuse them. “I could send Barabbas over, though.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Thanks,” he said, “but no, thanks.” He bent and kissed her through the open window of the driver’s door. “Try not to worry so much,” he said, when it was over. He’d left her dizzy, but he didn’t seem to have a clue how his kisses made her feel. “There are fiends and ghouls in the world, mortal and otherwise. I wouldn’t have believed the ‘otherwise’, if it hadn’t been for you, but you reminded me of something else, Kristina. Something I’d almost completely forgotten, because I was so furious that a woman as sweet and smart and innocent as Sandy could die like that.”
There were tears on Kristina’s face, and she didn’t try to hide them. Nor did she speak.
Max dried her cheeks, first one and then the other, with the edge of his thumb. “You made me remember how much good there is in the world. For every demon, there’s an angel.”
An old memory brushed Kristina’s heart, like the soft, feathered wing of a passing cherubim. Once, when she was very young, Benecia Havermail had told Kristina that she was doomed, being the child of two vampires, and would surely burn in hell forever. Kristina had been terrified and had run to her governess, the unflappable Phillie, with the news that she was damned.
“Heaven bears you no ill will, child,” Phillie had said, smoothing Kristina’s hair with a tender motion of her hand. “While the bodies of innocents sometimes suffer, their spirits are inviolate. Do you understand what that means?”
Kristina, being seven or eight at the time, and uncommonly bright, had gotten the gist. Flesh was temporary, spirit was eternal.
She brought herself back to the here and now, heartened, but still wishing for Phillie. How reassuring it would have been to tell her troubles to her old friend, the way she had as a little girl, as a young bride, as a lonely wanderer.
“You’ll be okay?” Max asked, caressing her cheek.
Kristina nodded, and as she pulled away she said a little prayer that Eliette and Bree would be guarded, with special care.
There was no word from Dathan, or from Valerian, her parents, or any of the other vampires of her acquaintance, that night. Only Barabbas greeted her, trotting over and plopping down beside the chair in her bedroom, when she sat down to read another of the ancient volumes she had borrowed from her mother.
She couldn’t have said why she bothered, for even if she found a spell to protect Bree and Eliette and Max, it would be of no real use, now that her magic was gone.
She learned nothing at all in fact, and her sleep that night was crowded with dreams, all of which stayed just out of conscious reach when she awakened in the morning.
After showering, dressing, and feeding Barabbas, Kristina drove back down to the shop. Adrian had locked the place, as promised, and he and Enrique and all their little hired elves were gone.
The place was practically empty, except for those things that had still to be boxed for shipment to other dealers. Kristina could have hired the work done, of course, but she wanted to be busy, to keep her mind off Benecia Havermail’s aspirations to be human and well away from the absolute necessity of breaking things off with Max. She most certainly didn’t want to consider the implications of her inevitable union with the warlock, so she kept her brain as blank as she could and worked furiously until the sun had gone down and she was exhausted.
Again there were no visitations from supernatural creatures, and Kristina was boundlessly grateful. She made a simple supper, attended to Barabbas’s canine needs—i.e., a walk and a bowl of kibbles—and finally settled herself in front of the family room TV. Unable to face the old letters to Phillie that still remained to be read, or the volumes that were yielding no solutions to her problems, she tuned in to the shopping channel and sat sipping herbal tea. By the end of the evening, she owned two gold bracelets and a combination grill and waffle maker.
She would figure out what to do with this largess some other time.
Morning brought some good news, however minor. Her period was over.
Kristina went through the showering, dressing, and eating ritual and, clad in jeans and a sweatshirt, returned to the shop to finish packing the last of her stock. Only a few items had not been sold; she would take those home and, like the loot from the shopping channel, dispense with them later.
By noon a delivery van had arrived, and the driver was wheeling boxes out to his truck in relays. Kristina signed the necessary papers, supplied her account number, and then stood in the near-empty shop, wanting to cry but not quite able to manage it. She’d loved building the business, but she knew it was the process of doing that that she’d truly cared about, not the establishment itself.
She wondered, with wry depression, what her duties would be as queen of the warlocks. How could there even be a queen of the warlocks, for pity’s sake, if witches, the female of the species, were an entirely separate group? Come to that, how could there be warlocks or witches if the two genders hated each other too much to mate?
Kristina had decided to donate the microwave, table and chair, fax machine, etc., to a charitable group. They arrived with a truck of their own and took away the contents of the back room, the place that had been her refuge during hectic work days. She threw in the unsold antiques for good measure so she wouldn’t have to carry them to her car, and then went home.
She’d been in the house approximately five minutes when Daisy called. From the electronic choppiness of the transmission, Kristina guessed that her friend was using the cell phone she carried in her fanny pack.
“You might tell a person you’re closing up shop,” snapped Valerian’s bride, “instead of just folding your tent like some sheik and stealing silently off into the night.” Kristina smiled, even though she felt more like crying. Daisy usually had a cheering effect on her, and she hoped her upcoming, lifetime alliance with Dathan wouldn’t interfere with their friendship. “Sorry,” she said. “It was a sudden decision.”
“Like agreeing to become Dathan’s bride?” Daisy demanded between crackles. “Damn, I always forget to charge this thing. Stay where you are—I’m coming right over.”
Kristina sighed, put on water for tea, and waited.
Daisy arrived within twenty minutes. Barabbas greeted her with pitiful delight, squirming at her feet like a puppy.
“You’ve got to take him back to your place,” Kristina said. “I can’t bear the guilt—I feel like the villainess in a Lassie movie.”
Daisy shrugged out of her jacket. “Okay,” she said, opening the kitchen door and cocking one thumb. “Barabbas, go home.”
The wolf shot through the slim gap as though he had springs in his haunches.
Daisy closed the door. “Valerian is pretty crazy over this marriage of yours,” she said. There was no judgment in the remark; it was just an observation.
“It’s none of his business,” Kristina replied in the same tone. The tea was ready, and she carried the pot to the family room table on a tray, along with sugar cubes, a small pitcher of milk, and two cups and saucers. The irony of the phrase “family room” struck her, and she laughed, though the sound came out so
unding more like a sob.
“You’re right,” Daisy agreed, letting the sob pass without commenting or commiserating. “But since when has that stopped Valerian from meddling?” She sat down across from Kristina. “I guess you gave up the shop because you’ll be leaving here.”
Kristina nodded, stirring sugar into her tea. “There is that. And I’ve been in the business of collecting and selling antiques for about seventy-five years.”
“Because you loved it,” Daisy pointed out. She could be implacably blunt, like Max. It was one of her most endearing, and most annoying, qualities.
“It’s gone,” Kristina said. “That’s the bottom line.”
“You own the building, don’t you? Maybe you could start up again sometime. If you get bored with being queen of the warlocks.” There was a twinkle in Daisy’s eyes, along with a great deal of empathy. “What exactly will you do, anyway?”
Kristina shook her head. “I don’t have a clue—beyond the obvious, of course.”
Daisy, who had been a homicide cop in Las Vegas and consorted with all sorts of sleazeballs in her more recent career as a private investigator, actually blushed and averted her eyes. Although neither of them took the subject any further, Kristina was pretty sure they were both wondering what it would be like to have sex with a warlock.
She felt a new yearning for Max, deeper and more desperate than ever.
“Where will you live?” Daisy asked.
Kristina didn’t know that, either. And since she no longer possessed magical powers, she wouldn’t be able to transport herself from one place to another at will as she had done in the past. “Probably in Transylvania,” she said, trying to make the best of a bad situation by turning it into a joke. It didn’t work.
“Don’t,” Daisy said.
At last Kristina broke down and cried. “I’m going to have one weekend with Max,” she sobbed, “just one weekend. And the memories of that will have to last for the rest of my life.”
Daisy lowered her head for a moment, obviously feeling Kristina’s pain, bowed by it, probably imagining what it would be like to be separated from Valerian, once and for all. She tried to offer consolation. “You’re mortal now. Maybe in another lifetime…”
Kristina’s sobs had subsided to inelegant sniffles, but her sorrow was as great as ever. “No,” she said. “I knew Max once before—he was someone else then, of course—and it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Don’t tell me he was that Michael character who threw you down the stairs and left your foster son in a workhouse!”
Kristina didn’t need to ask how Daisy had known those things, details she had confided to no one else besides Phillie and her “guardian vampire.” Valerian had told her, of course. “No,” she said. “Max wasn’t Michael.” But she didn’t offer any more information than that.
“Have some more tea,” Daisy said. “Have you got any brandy? If you ask me, you could use a shot of firewater.”
“No, thanks,” Kristina replied. She would have liked to escape the pain, but she didn’t care for the idea of dulling her senses, especially now that Barabbas was no longer there to guard her. “How’s the new nanny working out? Not to mention motherhood in general?”
Changing the subject proved a good tactic. Daisy’s face brightened, and the uncomfortable subjects of Dathan and Max were forgotten, at least temporarily. “She’s a wonder worker—now that she’s told Esteban he’s safe with us, that we’re not going to starve or beat him, he’s doing better. He still sleeps on the floor once in a while, but he’s not hiding food, and he’s trying to learn English. He adores Valerian.”
Kristina remembered how tenderly the legendary vampire had held the little ragged boy that night in Rio, and was touched. Ah, but it was not a simple thing, this matter of good and evil. Was Valerian, who preyed upon mortals and sustained himself on their very life’s blood, a monster? What of Esteban’s birth mother, who would sell her own child into an unthinkable fate? Was she not the true fiend, though a human heart beat within her breast and her soul might still be salvaged through grace, should she repent, however unlikely that seemed?
“To know Valerian,” Kristina answered at last with a slight smile, “is to love him.”
Daisy laughed. “I certainly do,” she said, “but you’ve got to admit—it’s a matter of perspective.”
It was a comfort just having Daisy’s company for a little while, and by the time her friend left, Kristina felt better, if a bit lonely. She built a fire, took a nap on the family room sofa, and lapsed into a dream. She couldn’t remember it after she woke up, and that troubled her, for she’d been left with a sense of urgency, part terror, and part hope.
The next day was Thanksgiving.
Kristina packed a small bag for the weekend in the mountains with Max and dressed carefully in a tan cashmere skirt, high brown leather boots, and a long, ivory-colored silk sweater. When Max and the girls arrived to pick her up, she saw by the warmth in Max’s eyes that she’d chosen well, and that was something of a relief, for with all her sophistication, Kristina did not know exactly what one wore to a family feast. She’d never attended one before.
Max took her bag and put it in the back of the Blazer while Bree bounced around him, babbling questions. Was Kristina taking a trip? Where was she going? Was he going along, too? Could she and Eliette go?
Eliette walked more sedately, keeping close to Kristina’s side. She was usually reserved, but she’d been the one to cuddle closest the other night, when Kristina had slept over in Max’s guest room and his children had joined her in bed. “Bree is just a kid,” she confided to Kristina. “She doesn’t know about these things.”
Kristina tried not to smile. She also felt bruised inside, for she guessed that Eliette had begun to let down her guard a little, to see her as a friend. Which meant the child would be hurt again, to some degree, when Kristina and Max went their distinctly separate ways.
“What things?” she asked, casually offering her hand.
Eliette took it, after a brief hesitation. “Oh, kissing and stuff. Like you do with Daddy.”
“Oh.” Not a very original or profound reply, but Kristina was stumped.
Mercifully they had reached the Blazer, and Eliette pulled free and scrambled into the back beside Bree, who was already buckled in. Max helped Kristina into the passenger seat and then went around to get behind the wheel.
He was whistling softly under his breath.
“Aunt Elaine moved to Arizona,” Bree chimed from her booster seat. “She breaked her heart. I think she fell down.”
“She didn’t fall down, ninny,” Eliette said. “She wanted to marry Daddy, and he said no.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kristina saw Max tense slightly, but she had to hand it to him. When he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact. “Aunt Elaine missed your grandparents,” he said. “Besides, they’re getting older and they need her.”
Max hadn’t exactly lied; he hadn’t denied that Sandy’s sister, Elaine, was in love him. It was probably true that she missed her parents, and they might even need her help, if their health was poor or something like that. But he had certainly steered the conversation away from the subject of his sister-in-law.
Kristina gave him a teasing, sidelong look, to let him know she wasn’t fooled.
He chuckled and shook his head.
The day was wonderful, straight out of the fantasies Kristina had cherished all her life.
Max’s parents lived in a large colonial-style house, built of brick, in one of Seattle’s better, though certainly not exclusive, neighborhoods. There was a small duck pond out back, and the spacious property was fringed with fir and maple trees. A few gloriously yellow, brown, and crimson leaves still clung to the wintry branches of the maples.
The people in the living room, some gathered around a piano singing, and others in front of the fire arguing politics, looked like figures from some painting celebrating Americana. The air was filled with lovely aromas—
roasting turkey, spices, scented candles, and a variety of perfumes.
Mrs. Kilcarragh came immediately to greet Max with a kiss—the girls had already shed their coats and gone running to sit on either side of the piano player, whom Kristina deduced, by the resemblance, to be Max’s father.
“Kristina,” Mrs. Kilcarragh said warmly, taking both Kristina’s hands in hers. “It is a joy to meet you at long last. I’m Allison, and that handsome devil at the piano is the girls’ grandfather. Do come in and meet our other guests.”
There were an overwhelming number of people in the Kilcarragh house, but that only made it better. Kristina loved the laughter, the music, the talk, and the food, and she could not remember a happier day in all of her life.
After the meal, which was unbelievable, the men retired to watch the football game, Max included, and the women cleaned up. Kristina was thrilled to help—she had not known this particular kind of female camaraderie ever, and being part of it was an experience so sweet that it swelled her heart. Oh, to be a part of this family, to share in other celebrations, to belong.
But it wasn’t to be, and all the pretending in the world wouldn’t change that. Nor would she squander such a precious gift by looking ahead to a bleak future, however. Kristina kept herself firmly in the present, listening to the women’s chatter.
Gweneth, Max’s sister, whom she remembered from her one visit to the shop when she’d wanted to buy the brass monkey, was in charge of drying water glasses as they were washed and rinsed. Since Kristina was doing sink duty, they were in close proximity.
“I’ve found the world’s ugliest gift for Max,” Gweneth announced to the room at large, with glee and an obvious sense of accomplishment. “He’ll never be able to top this.”
“What?” asked one of the aunts, grinning.
“Yes, what?” echoed somebody’s cousin’s sister-in-law.
Gweneth’s eyes twinkled as she shook her head. “I want it to be a complete surprise. Trust me, though—he will hate this. And the best part is, I’ve hidden it right under his nose.”
The Black Rose Chronicles Page 118