The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  Max rose suddenly from his seat on the arm of the chair and went to stand on the hearth, his broad back to Kristina, his hands braced, wide apart, against the mantelpiece. “I loved her very much,” he said at great length, in a voice so low and hoarse that Kristina could barely hear him. Then he turned and looked deep into her eyes. “But I love you, too. And even though I don’t remember being Gilbert Bradford, I know from the letters you showed me that he felt something similar to what I’m feeling now.” He paused to draw a long, ragged breath and once again pushed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t understand about eternity—I’m an ordinary man, Kristina. All I know is what I want this moment, in this lifetime. And that’s to marry you.”

  Kristina looked down at her hands, which were knotted painfully in her lap. She tried to relax her clenched fingers. “That’s what I want, too,” she admitted. “But we can’t be together. Max. It’s impossible, and the sooner we accept that, the better off we’ll be.”

  Even as she spoke the words, she knew she would never be able to accept losing Max, never get over this particular farewell. She dared not think beyond the moment when they would part, once and for all.

  He came to her then, drew her up out of the chair and into his embrace. He held her close, and they wept together in silence, while outside the little cabin the snow continued to fall.

  In a cabinet inside Max’s garage, the package stirred. Brown paper fell away, followed by the festive Christmas wrap beneath. The thing quivered, grew hot enough to singe the paper, and toppled out onto the concrete floor with a metallic crash.

  It rolled a little way, and then, in a mere flicker of time, Kristina’s spell was broken. Billy Lasser, boy criminal, came back to life.

  He was only eighteen years old, but in the course of his brief existence, he’d pulled off more than his share of convenience-store heists, muggings, and rapes. Once he’d even done murder, if that was what you wanted to call it, killing a whore down on the Sea-Tac strip and dumping her off out by the Green River.

  Billy smiled, remembering his cleverness. No doubt about it, the cops would have chalked that one up to a certain serial killer they’d been tracking for as long as he could remember.

  But his pleasure quickly faded, replaced by rage. He had another score to settle, with that weird chick who’d turned him into a goddamn monkey. Billy wasn’t overly bright, and it didn’t occur to him that messing with somebody who could do stuff like that might not be a good idea. He knew two things: that he was hungry and that he was pissed off.

  He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, and realized more from the smells than anything that he was in somebody’s garage. Maybe if he broke into the house he’d find that bitch who’d locked him up inside a hunk of metal and make her wish she’d never been born.

  After he’d had a sandwich and maybe some beer, if there was any.

  Billy tried the inside door and found it locked, but that hardly slowed him down. The light switch was right there handy, and he turned it on. There was a toolbox on a workbench nearby; he took a screwdriver, and in no time he was inside.

  He paused, waiting, listening. The place was empty; he’d have bet on that. There was no dog and probably no alarm system.

  Billy flicked on the kitchen lights and went straight to the refrigerator. There was plenty to eat—he stuffed two packages of lunch meat down his throat without bothering to find the bread, then guzzled two beers in a row before taking a third one to sip as he went through the house.

  He figured out right away that the bitch didn’t live here, but he found some cash in a cookie jar on top of the fridge and stuffed that into the pocket of his jeans.

  Billy checked out the upstairs, reckless with relief that he was finally free, and high on the beers he’d downed so fast. Two little girls shared one room, and one was obviously reserved for company. The third belonged to a man, judging by the clothes in the closets and bureaus. No mommy in this family.

  What a pity, Billy thought.

  He went downstairs, feeling a little less reckless now that the food was getting into his system, and tried to figure out what to do next. It was cold outside, and all he had was his fake leather jacket, bought at a swap meet a couple of years before.

  He helped himself to a beat-up down-filled coat he found in a closet by the front door and pulled it on. It didn’t fit, hung clear to his knees in fact, but Billy didn’t care. It would keep the chill off.

  It was snowing, and Billy walked a long way before he finally managed to catch a bus headed downtown. The weather in Seattle was usually mild, and when they got a little white stuff, the whole place freaked out.

  The bus driver gave him a look, and Billy barely suppressed an urge to strangle the bastard then and there. Instead, he brought out some of the money he’d lifted from the big man’s cookie jar and paid the fare.

  The shop on Western Avenue was closed, of course, since it was late. Billy let himself in through the back door, a little disappointed to find that it wasn’t even locked. A few seconds later he knew why—the place was empty to the walls—and now he was even more pissed than before.

  He paced the darkened shop restlessly, barely able to contain his agitation. Nobody—nobody—was going to get away with treating him the way that woman had. What was her name?

  He’d been able to hear things, once in a while, since he’d sat, helpless, for weeks, maybe even months, in this prissy-assed store, though most of that time he’d just sort of drifted, as if he’d been high on top-grade stuff.

  He thought hard.

  Kristina, he recalled at long last. Kristina Holbrook.

  Billy went out the same way he’d come in, hurried through the bone-chilling cold to the nearest phone booth, and shut himself in. Sure as hell, the stupid slut was right there in the book, big as life, along with her fancy address.

  It was almost too fucking easy, Billy thought, but he was grinning as he left the booth. Feeling triumphant, he hailed a cab.

  The driver bitched about the snow all the way, and that was good, as far as Billy was concerned. Kept the guy from wondering what business a hood like him would have in such a ritzy area of the city. Not that it mattered, Billy reflected smugly, what some dumb-ass cabbie thought about anything.

  Her house was big and expensive-looking.

  It was also dark.

  Billy blessed his continued good luck as he paid the cabbie with cookie-jar money, crossed the sidewalk, opened the front gate, and walked up to the door. He was running on attitude now, and adrenaline.

  The cab pulled away, it’s taillights glowing red through the heavy white flakes.

  Billy sprinted around the side of the house to the back, where he broke in through a basement window. The lots were big in this part of town, and the neighbors wouldn’t have heard the glass breaking anyway, he figured, because the snow was still coming down thick and fast. Billy was no weatherman, but he knew from TV that snow muffled sound.

  He crawled through the space and found himself in a pretty standard basement.

  It was dark as hell, but he couldn’t risk turning on any lights, not yet, so he just stood there, waiting and breathing hard, until his vision had adjusted again.

  Then he made his way to the cellar stairs.

  No big surprise: They opened onto a kitchen.

  Billy found a flashlight in one of the drawers—he’d burgled a lot of houses in his time, and they’d all had a little cubbyhole where things like that were stashed, along with a lot of assorted junk.

  After pausing once more to listen, Billy switched on the flashlight and, keeping the beam pointed low so there was less chance of it showing at one of the windows, he began to explore the home of the woman he meant to punish.

  He went upstairs first, found her bedroom, touched the perfume bottles, on her vanity table, and fingered the jewelry lying in a pricey, Chinese-looking box on one of the dressers. These rich bitches, they didn’t even care enough about nice things to take care of t
hem right. Just left them laying around, waiting to be stolen.

  Billy dangled a strand of pink pearls from one index finger. They were real all right, and old. They glowed, even in the darkness, as though there was moonlight inside them. His ma would have given anything, including him, probably, to own a necklace like that.

  Not that his old man woulda let her keep it very long. Thing like that you could pawn for serious change.

  Billy dropped the pearls into his pocket. He’d check out the other jewelry later, after he’d made himself at home for a while, after he’d had revenge on Ms. Holbrook. When she got home from wherever she was, she’d find a big surprise waiting for her.

  He grinned at the thought and opened drawers until he found her nightgowns and underwear. Silk, all of it. A single pair of her panties probably cost more than everything he had on, even when it was new.

  His grin faded, though his fingers worked the smooth silk back and forth. It wasn’t fair that some people had so much, while guys like him got squat.

  He’d make her pay, he thought, and felt better. Lots better.

  Billy put the panties back and scooped an armload of nightgowns out of the drawer. Then, carefully, still with only the fading beam of the flashlight to guide him, he began laying the costly garments out on the bed, one by one, tracing the lace edgings with his fingertips, running his hands over the cloth. It felt as fine as a butterfly’s wing.

  God, he thought, he was getting to be a regular poet.

  It took a long time to pick out which gown he wanted the bitch to wear when he took her, but he finally chose a little thigh-length number the same pink color as cotton candy, with ivory trim. He draped it over the back of a chair for later.

  Then, very neatly, taking his time, he refolded all the other garments and put them back in place. After that, he went back downstairs, found a roll of duct tape, scissors, and fresh batteries for the flashlight, all in the same junk drawer he’d raided before.

  Finally Billy Lasser stretched out on Kristina Bitch Holbrook’s satin bedspread, hands cupped behind his head, booted feet crossed at the ankles, and waited for her to come home. He drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face, dreaming of sweet, sweet revenge.

  Max and Kristina spent the whole night making love. Their couplings were poignant, frantic, even greedy, for both of them believed that this would, indeed, be their last night together.

  In the morning they awakened to find that the snow had stopped. According to the weatherman on TV, the pass was clear again, and traffic was moving at a steady rate in both directions.

  Resigned, Kristina and Max showered, had breakfast in the lodge’s restaurant, and set out for Seattle. Max was already running late, and although he’d called the school office from the cell phone that morning to explain his absence, he was anxious to get to work.

  Or did he just want to get away from Kristina?

  They stopped at her house first, of course, and Max walked her to the door, waiting while she let herself in. The pain in his eyes was so intense, such a clear reflection of what she herself felt, that Kristina could barely look at him.

  “Do you want me to come inside and have a look around?” he asked.

  Kristina’s heart might have been in agony, but her brain was numb. She shook her head. “It’s okay,” she murmured.

  Max touched her cheek with the backs of curled fingers. “Shall I call later?”

  “It would be better if you didn’t,” she answered.

  He nodded, leaned forward to kiss her forehead briefly, then turned and walked away. Kristina watched him until he’d gotten into the Blazer and driven off, longing to run after him, convince him that somehow everything could be all right. But that was a lie, and they both knew it.

  Thoroughly weary, Kristina went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. It was a paradoxical thing to do, considering how badly she needed sleep, but nothing about Kristina’s life made much sense at that moment. She was too soul-weary to sort things out in any reasonable fashion.

  If she slept, she would dream. If she stayed awake, she would think of nothing but Max, and how she’d lost him forever.

  She couldn’t win.

  She dialed Daisy’s number at home and got the new Brazilian nanny. Ms. Chandler, the woman told her pleasantly, was on a case at the moment, but Kristina’s message would be relayed.

  Kristina sighed and hung up, feeling utterly alone.

  It was only when she’d poured her coffee and climbed the stairs that she realized she was not alone. There was a faint, strange scent in the air, something dangerous. And things seemed disturbed, out of place, though this last was strictly a subjective matter, a fact discerned in her gut rather than her head.

  She paused, almost on the threshold of her room, the hairs on her nape standing upright. Some of the coffee splashed over her hand, burning her, but she barely noticed the resultant sting.

  Her visitor could not be Benecia or Canaan—they were vampires and thus asleep in their lairs. Dathan, though fully capable of being abroad in the daylight, liked to make flamboyant entrances, a la Valerian.

  Who, then…?

  Kristina closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed hard.

  Of course. It was only her housekeeper, Mrs. Prine, back at last from her vacation.

  Kristina stepped into her room and stood frozen in place, staring into the grinning face of the young man she had turned into a doorstop months before. He was lying on her bed, cleaning his fingernails with the point of her antique letter opener.

  He gestured toward the chair, and she saw one of her silk nightgowns there, laid out for her. A shiver went down her spine.

  “Put that on, baby,” he said. “Billy-boy wants to see you in it.”

  Kristina’s response was two words long and most unladylike.

  “That’s kinda what I had in mind,” Billy answered, sitting up. She’d have to burn her white satin bedspread after he’d lain on it, with his filthy clothes and greasy hair. “Only it ain’t gonna be good for you, honey. Just me.”

  “No,” Kristina said flatly. If her life was to end in this room, at the hands of this awful man, that was that. But she wasn’t about to cooperate in any way, and she would die fighting.

  “Come here,” he said.

  She did, but only to fling the scalding hot coffee into his face.

  Billy was screaming in fury and pain when she turned, an instant after the deed, and bolted for the rear stairway.

  She was halfway across the family room, headed for the side door that led out onto the deck, when he caught up to her, grasping a handful of her hair and wrenching her back against him. Bile rushed into her mouth, and the pain in her scalp was blinding.

  Billy intensified it by giving her a little shake. She caught her breath; nearly fainted.

  “Let me go,” Kristina said, forcing herself to speak calmly, “or I’ll turn you into a toad.”

  Billy laughed. “I figure you would have done something like that already, if you could. What’s the matter, little witchy-bitch? Have you lost your magic somewhere?”

  Tears of fury and frustration filled Kristina’s eyes. She didn’t want to become the warlock’s bride, but neither did she want to die.

  Dathan, she thought desperately. Help me.

  Billy tightened his hold on her hair, nearly pulling it out by the roots. “Answer me,” he said.

  Kristina spat another ungracious invective and tried to stomp on his instep.

  He hurled her back toward the stairway, and she landed on the steps, bumping one shoulder hard. “I’ve got plans for you,” Billy said with a leer that made her stomach roll again. She hated being so defenseless, and yet she was glad she’d turned down Max’s offer to check the house for her before he left. Max was much bigger and stronger than Billy, not to mention brighter, but the little creep might have gotten the jump on him somehow. There was no question in Kristina’s mind that Billy was armed.

  She gave him a look of contempt and g
ot to her feet slowly, using the wall for support. She was breathless with fear, on the verge of vomiting, but she wasn’t going to let this little weasel know it.

  “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to cancel your plans,” she said.

  He produced a .38-caliber pistol from the waistband at the back of his jeans. Kristina recognized the weapon from the night he’d tried to rob her shop and wished she’d made him eat it. The idea had occurred to her at the time, but she’d dismissed it as gauche.

  “No, ma’am,” Billy answered, brandishing the .38. “We’ve got business to attend to. It’s going to hurt, it’s going to take a long time, and face it, baby doll, it’s going to happen.” He was standing by then, with his back to the window over the kitchen sink, leaning indolently against the counter. “First, you’re going to take off all your clothes, then I’m going to look at you for a while. Have a little fun, maybe. Then you’re going to put on that silky thing—”

  Kristina’s gaze was caught by something at the window—a flash of white—and then suddenly the glass splintered in a thousand directions, and Barabbas came through the chasm, all sleek, glorious, snarling wolf. Billy shrieked as the animal landed on him from behind, catching him by the nape and shaking him as though he were no heavier than a rat.

  Wide-eyed, both paralyzed and speechless with shock, Kristina simply stood there, unable to believe what she was seeing.

  There was blood and glass everywhere, and, after an indeterminate length of time, Billy stopped screaming. Barabbas flung him aside and trotted over to Kristina, as docile as a lapdog, nuzzling her thigh with a bloody muzzle.

  Sobbing, she dropped to her knees and flung both arms around Barabbas, burying her face in his lush fur. Billy lay still a little distance away, and Kristina knew without touching him that he was dead. She clung to the wolf, who sat patiently, and waited.