by PG Forte
“Anything! How about Vincent? You know, the guy who attacked Jules the other night? The one we’re hoping will lead us to Conrad? We could talk about him.”
“All right,” Damian answered agreeably. “That’s a good idea. What about him, Marc? What did you learn?”
“I found out how he got scarred. Conrad did it.”
“Did he?” Damian glanced sharply at Marc. “Who told you that?”
“Surly,” Julie muttered watching as angry stares were exchanged. And inconsiderate, too, she added silently, while both men ignored her.
Marc shrugged. “Someone who was there, apparently. It seems Vincent went after one of Conrad’s…pets. Guess the apple didn’t fall far from that tree, huh?”
Damian nodded thoughtfully. “Well, that would certainly explain some things, wouldn’t it?”
“Would it?” Marc demanded. “I’m not so sure.”
“So, you’re saying I’m not the first person he’s attacked?” Julie asked, leaning forward again, her interest piqued. “Who else did he attack, Marc?”
“I don’t know who exactly,” Marc replied, half-turning to face her. “Some girl, is all I heard, but it happened just about a year before we were born. Which kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“No way.” Julie stared at her brother in alarm. “You don’t think…I mean, it couldn’t be…?”
“Our mother? Sure, why not? It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Julie asked, as they both turned to Damian. “Is that what happened? Is that why he attacked me?”
Damian shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that, niños. As I’ve told you both before, I was not here at that time. I know little more than you about what went on then.”
“Except you weren’t a baby,” Marc pointed out. “You were a full-grown adult. So you’d have to remember something more than we do.”
Julie sighed. “Well, Armand was here and I bet he’d know. Why don’t we just ask him?”
“No!” Both Damian and Marc answered at once. They glanced at each other again, their startled expressions morphing into identically suspicious glares, as Julie subsided once again against her seat.
“Why the hell not?” she grumbled, feeling sulky.
“Not until we get Conrad back,” Marc said, turning his frown on her. “After that, you can talk to him all you want.”
“No, you can’t,” Damian repeated, his tone final. “Not now, not ever. Put it from your minds.”
“That’s not fair, Damian,” Julie protested. “It’s our mother we’re talking about. We have a right to know. What if Marc’s right and this Vincent attacked her? What if he killed her?”
“For that matter, what if she’s not really dead?” Marc added.
Damian’s eyes widened. “Is that what you think?” His gaze flickered from Julie’s reflection in the mirror to Marc’s and back again, meeting each of their gazes in turn, meeting the doubt and the need and the hope in their eyes. “Niños,” he sighed, so heavily it was almost a groan. “You know better. Of course she’s dead. Would we lie to you about such a thing?”
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? You don’t know much more than we do,” Marc pointed out. “You weren’t here, remember?”
Damian glanced briefly across at him. “So it’s just Conrad you suspect of lying to you? Ah, gracias, I feel so much better now.”
“What I meant is, you can’t be that certain about it, either.”
“I’m as certain as I need to be,” Damian snapped. “What reason would Conrad have for lying about such a thing? As heartbroken as he was over losing her—and still is, I think—I’ve no reason to doubt him.”
“Well, then why all the secrecy? We’re her children. Why won’t he even tell us how she died? Don’t you think we at least deserve to know that much?”
Damian sighed. “What I think is not the issue, Marc. If Conrad wants you to know anything more than what he’s already told you—”
“Screw what Conrad wants,” Marc snarled, in a tone more savage than any Julie had ever heard him use before. “I’m asking you now—not him. Tell us what you know!”
“Damian, was it because of us?” Julie asked. “Did she die giving birth to us? Is that why you won’t tell us?”
Damian hesitated. His expression wavered. “She died from… No, it was after your birth, child, but that’s not…ah, dios. She died from extreme blood loss, I believe. Is that not enough to satisfy you both for now?”
“Are you serious?” Marc growled. “No, it’s not enough to satisfy us. What kind of bullshit answer is that?”
“Blood loss?” Julie stared at him in surprise. “Like…what do you mean, Damian? Like from a vampire attack?”
“Or from childbirth?” Marc suggested. “Is Julie right? Is she dead because of us?”
“No.” Damian sighed. “I don’t know. Both, perhaps. Or neither.” Then he nodded at the scene ahead of them, at the blue-black of the ocean under a nearly starless sky. “Look, we’re here. Enough talk. Help me find what we’re looking for.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wednesday, February 26th, 1969
Within minutes, the steady suction of Conrad’s lips had lulled Suzanne’s heart into a slower rhythm. She smiled quietly to herself, trying hard to quell her impatience. This was the easy part. This was nothing they hadn’t done before, even if she hadn’t known it at the time. It was the next part that worried her—and the next part, and the part after that.
As the minutes progressed, it became harder to breathe. Suzanne squirmed restlessly. “Cold,” she whispered as shivers coursed through her. “I’m so cold.”
“I know, my sweet,” Conrad murmured. “It can’t be helped. Just a little longer now.”
His tone was warm and reassuring. Suzanne thought about nodding, thought about answering, thought about telling him that, but she was too tired. She did smile at him though. Or, at least, she thought about smiling…
More time passed. Conrad left off sucking and began to lick her neck, soothing away the faint soreness that seemed to linger in the spot where his lips had been pressed. Nice, she thought sleepily. Don’t stop.
“Now, you must drink,” Conrad said. His voice seemed to come from very far away.
Suzanne frowned. She was vaguely aware that something warm and wet had been pressed against her lips, she couldn’t imagine what. She opened her eyes and met Conrad’s gaze above the arm he’d placed across her mouth. His face was flushed, his eyes were glazed, heavy, replete. He looks drunk. She was giddy and light-headed and…just slightly nauseated by the thought. Drunk on me. She wanted to laugh, but just couldn’t work up the energy for it.
“Drink,” Conrad urged again and panic nudged at her. She wasn’t sure she could drink. She wasn’t sure she remembered how and she had no idea where he expected her to find the strength. What if he’s wrong? What if he’s taken too much and I can’t drink? What if I die?
“Just swallow,” Conrad instructed patiently. “You need do nothing else at this point. Just let it in.” His eyes gave her hope. She opened her throat and did as she was told, gagging a little on the thick, brackish fluid that filled her mouth. “Again,” he ordered and she forced another mouthful down. “That’s right. You can do it.” It was salty and warm, but less odd-tasting than before. “And again.”
After a few more gulps, Suzanne had found her rhythm and Conrad no longer had to coach her through every step. Now, he murmured soft endearments instead and Suzanne basked in the glow of his love for her, her love for him, and all the many pleasures their future would hold; all the things he would show her and teach her and share with her. Gradually, breathing became easier again. Her heartbeat grew stronger. She sighed with relief and contentment, feeling warm, drowsy, comfortable, safe.
Too soon she felt Conrad pulling away from her. “There,” he murmured kissing her so softly it was like a prayer. “That’s enough now, I think. How do you feel?”
Suzanne’s eyes flut
tered open. He looks tired, she thought as she smiled up at him. Tired but content. Me, too. “Happy. And sleepy.”
“Yes.” He nodded in agreement. “I’m sure you’re very sleepy. Don’t try and fight it, for that’s just what your body needs now, and a very long, strange sleep it may seem, but it will not last forever. Remember that, if you start to worry, if it starts to feel as though it will never end. It will not last forever and I will be right here with you throughout it all, so you have nothing to fear. You won’t be alone. You’ll never be alone again. And, when you awaken, the world will be yours—a new world, chérie, yours to explore and enjoy. Just as you wanted.”
Suzanne nodded. She wanted to tell him that things already seemed different, that she felt as though she was already in this new world of his, but she hadn’t the words. As she sank deeper and deeper into sleep she knew only that the room, and everything around her, seemed somehow to be growing brighter, warmer, sharper somehow. As though the very air was alive, buzzing with a strange, indescribable energy.
There was a sizzling, singing sensation in her blood that seemed to spread and grow until she was certain she could feel it vibrating in every last cell. She could hear things, too, like the blinking of her eyes, the subtle rustle of her hair as Conrad adjusted the pillows beneath her head, the beating of her heart as it slowed and slowed and slowed…
And then, just as she was about to surrender to sleep and peace and contentment, she heard something else. She heard two somethings—very soft, very distant, very distinct. Two tiny hearts, so very new they’d only just begun to beat.
“Conrad?”
At the sound of her voice, Conrad glanced at the girl in surprise. He’d thought her already asleep. “What is it, chérie? Don’t try to talk now. You should be resting.” Her eyes were open. The uneasy expression lurking in their depths filled him with dark foreboding. “What’s wrong?”
“What about…what about babies?”
He stared at her in disbelief. Not this again? “We talked about that, mignonne,” he reminded her sternly. “Did we not?” This time they had. This time they definitely had. This time he’d taken nothing for granted. He’d told her, damn it. “We do not have children. You cannot have children. You said you understood. You said you were certain.”
“I know,” she sighed, her voice failing. “I do. I did. But…what if I were…if I were pregnant…what would happen then? Would the babies still be human? Or would they be like you?”
“Nothing would happen.” Maybe she just needed to hear it explained? “There would be no babies. Our bodies are constantly regenerating themselves, you see, which is why we don’t age, why we heal so quickly. New life…it cannot develop under such circumstances. Even if it were possible for you to conceive now, which, I assure you, it is not, the pregnancy could not advance. I imagine your body would simply reabsorb whatever…material…had been created.”
“So…so you’re saying…they’d die?”
“They? They would never even live. So how could they die? Now, stop worrying about such things, mignonne. Sleep. It’s just the paralysis that’s bothering you, perhaps,” he suggested hopefully. “It plays tricks with your brain, sometimes, I know, but I promise you, there is nothing for you to worry about. We’ll talk when you’re awake again.”
She shook her head, rocking it slowly back and forth on the pillow. “You said…you said if I don’t feed…”
Conrad smiled in relief. “Is that what’s worrying you? Never fear, chérie,” he soothed, softly stroking her hair, her face. “I will help you with that. I will help you with everything. It’s far easier than you think. You’ll do fine.”
Her eyes closed. A faint frown remained. “But…if I don’t…I’ll stay human, then? And…and could have the babies?”
Once again, Conrad stiffened. “Is that what you want now? You’ve changed your mind? You want to have babies after all? You want to be human?” He should have known.
A tear leaked out from beneath her closed eyelid. “No, that’s not what I want. I want you. Just you.”
“Then what is this all about?”
“Scared,” she murmured, lips trembling. “Hold me.”
Conrad did as she asked. Wrapping his arms around her, he whispered in her ear, “You will feed, mignonne, I swear it. I will not allow it to be otherwise. You will complete the change and everything will be fine. Everything will be just as it should be. I have said I would give you forever and I will.”
One last troubled sigh broke from her lips and then she was still. Conrad continued to hold her but his mind and his heart were in flux and he could find no peace.
“I’m too old for this, perhaps,” he mused. It had all seemed so much simpler once. The weight of the changelings’ regrets had been so much easier to bear. Or maybe it hadn’t either. Maybe he had just chosen to forget how it was. Maybe it had always been this way. After all, this was not the first time something like this had happened to him, was it?
“You might have told me about this sooner,” Damian had muttered, gazing at him reproachfully. “I had a right to know what it was I was giving up.”
“I’m sorry, my dear.” Conrad stared at him in dismay. “It never occurred to me that you would be expecting to have children someday. With whom would you have had them, caro mio? One usually requires a woman’s help for such an undertaking, does one not?”
“Something might have been arranged,” the younger man replied stiffly. “It would not have been the first time that one such as I contrived to father a child.” Though he tried hard not to show it, both his tone and his expression betrayed his badly injured pride.
Conrad sighed. “And now I’ve hurt your feelings.”
Dipping his head, Damian stared down at his body. He spread his arms in a helpless gesture and muttered, “I just feel as though I’ve been…as though I’ve been neutered. Why did you not just cut off my balls, while you were at it? At least, then, I would look as useless as I feel.”
Conrad winced. “Does it help at all to know we are all in this condition? None of us can reproduce as humans do. I can no longer father children either, you know.”
Damian shrugged. “How does that help? You had children once, did you not?”
“Once,” Conrad agreed. “A very long time ago.”
“So, then, what did you give up? Nothing.”
But what Conrad had lost in becoming Vampire was not something he wished to discuss, not even with Damian. Closing the distance between them, he took Damian’s chin between his fingers and gently forced him to raise his head. “I’m sorry, mi amor. I never meant to disappoint you. How can I make it up to you? Tell me what I must do.”
“There is nothing to do,” Damian muttered, his voice sulky, his eyes refusing to meet with Conrad’s. “It has already been done.”
“Would it have mattered?” Conrad asked quietly. “If you’d known, would it have changed things? Would you have chosen not to come away with me?”
At that, Damian did look up, his eyes startled, tears sparkling on his lashes. “How can you ask? Of course it would not.” He shook his head fiercely. “Nothing matters to me, mi amor. Do you not know this? Nothing but you.”
Conrad sighed. He gazed sadly at the sleeping girl beside him, wondering if she, too, might feel that way about him when she woke…and, if so, for how long?
“You may be right, mignonne,” he murmured softly. “Love might indeed be all any of us needs, but only if it lasts, and it so seldom seems it does.”
Chapter Seventeen
Present Day
Marc climbed out of the car and took a look around. The night was cool, foggy, quiet. The smell of salt hung heavy in the still air. It stung at his eyes and burned his nose and lungs when he tried to get his bearings. Elise’s suggestion, that he try and imagine what it would be like to breathe this in for forty years, came to mind. But he didn’t want to imagine something like that. He didn’t even want to imagine what three weeks of it would have been like.
Agony. Sheer agony.
“How the hell are we gonna do this?” he muttered. Vincent could be hiding anywhere out here—a hundred vampires could be hiding here—and they’d have no way of knowing it. Just like in Elise’s loft, his sense of smell was confused and thwarted. All the usual scents were masked. It could be a trap. It could be a lost cause—and how much time would they end up wasting before they found that out? “It’s hopeless.”
“Quiet,” Damian ordered as he, too, glanced around, his expression thoughtful. “Leave that here for now,” he told Julie, indicating the cooler she’d just taken from the car. “We can come back for whatever we need.” Then he locked the car and handed her the keys. “Hold onto these for me.” Then he turned away, heading off with the air of someone who knew exactly what he was looking for. “Come on. It has to be this way.”
“Wait. How do you know where you’re going?” Marc called after him.
“Elementary, my dear Marc,” he called back. “Just think like a bootlegger.”
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” Julie whispered, clutching Marc’s arm as they trailed after Damian.
Marc shook his head. “Not a fucking clue.”
Julie bit her lip. “It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? He seems like he knows exactly where he’s going.”
“Really weird.” Marc sighed. He just hoped weird was all it was.
Damian stopped and motioned them forward. “Here we are,” he said, not bothering to disguise the triumph in his voice.
“Weirder and weirder,” Julie sighed.
“Come on,” Damian called to them again, ducking his head to enter the cave, the twins still following, even more reluctantly now.
The air inside the cavern was drier and cooler and considerably less salty. But that was not nearly the improvement Marc had been hoping for, because that just made the other scents—of blood and death and putrefaction—stand out all the more clearly.
“Holy crap,” he muttered, trying to let his eyes adjust to the odd greenish phosphorescence that appeared to have been painted along the cave’s walls and ceiling. The assault on his senses was sickening. It was an effort just to keep from heaving. His heart had begun to pound with a violence he’d never felt before, as though it wanted to jump from his chest.