Life's Blood (Pulse Book 2) (PULSE Vampire Series)

by Kailin Gow

  At last the train rolled into Paris. By this point it was nearly sundown, and Octavius looked all the better for having been refreshed.

  “I have an apartment here,” he said. “In the seventh arrondissement, near the Invalides. It will be safe; it is only a safe-house for me, but not commonly known.” She took his arm as he led her through the streets.

  Paris was so different from Rome. Rome had been colorful, alive – vibrant even in the evening with the moonlight shining on the cobblestones and music and laughter emanating from each bar or restaurant. Paris, rather, was cooler – more elegant. The skies were a pale shade of gray; the buildings were gray too, with their still facades and finely carved balconies, the flower-boxes with suspiciously red flowers in the windows. There was a more subtle romanticism to Paris; the place seemed somehow to be more restrained, more careful than Rome – where she and Octavius had wildly run from museum to museum, and cafe to cafe. This was a place to stroll, Kalina thought, rather than to run. After the excitement of the past few days, she imagined it was worth it.

  “The reason I demanded we go to Paris,” said Octavius as they walked towards the flat, “is that I wish to consult a little-known library here. The Bibliotheque Supernaturel. I assume your French extends that far.”

  “Of course.”

  “Before Maria...was killed, she sent me a telepathic message: the entirety of her knowledge concerning you and your destiny. I daresay it was the effort of such a large, detailed message that killed her – before Mal even touched her; it was a heroic act. Even vampires, Kalina, are heroic.” His face darkened. Not long after you were adopted, some vampires of the Consortium went to that Nepalese orphanage. They had an informant in the region who told them one of the babies might have had Life's Blood, and might have been orphaned after a drought in the area.”

  “Okay,” said Kalina.

  “They took all the records – interviewing the residents, using compulsion on them if necessary – and created a report. That report is now at the bottom of the Seine – in a matter of speaking – in one of the world's largest supernatural libraries, underground, underwater, – accessible only from a grate underneath the Pont Neuf. It is not common practice to take a human there – there are rules, you see – but in light of the subject matter...”

  “I won't cause a fuss,” said Kalina. “I'll keep my head down.”

  They arrived at the flat. “I must apologize in advance,” said Octavius. “This flat is a small one – it has only one bed. I did not expect us to be...re-routed. I will of course sleep on the sofa.”

  He looked down, clearly flustered.

  “Thank you,” said Kalina. “For your...chivalry.”

  He smiled weakly, but even now Kalina could not bring herself to remind him of the kiss earlier. Was he regretting it, she wondered? After his friends had been killed – was he regretting bringing her into his life? She seemed to be causing nothing but trouble – with Aaron, then with Jaegar and Stuart – and now with Octavius. Was she really worth all this chaos? She sighed as Octavius unlocked the door.

  The apartment was beautiful. It was not as grand or ornate as the Roman villa, Octavius’ main residence, but it was nevertheless carefully decorated with furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries.

  “I used to call this my writer's garret” said Octavius. “Where I would go to write poetry.”

  “You wrote poetry?”

  Octavius did not smile. “Only in the nineteenth century,” he said.

  A few minutes before dawn, they set off for the library. It would be safe there, Octavius argued, and given its subterranean location it would be free of the normal side-effects of being out during the day.

  “Are you sure you don't want to rest more?

  Octavius shook his head. “We must get answers,” he said. “It is the only way.”

  They made their way along the Seine until they came to the Pont Neuf bridge, the structure connecting the Left Bank with the Ile de la Cite. Octavius frowned as he felt each sewer grate, his hands at last fixing on the right one. He turned the cover three times counterclockwise, once clockwise, and then waited. Immediately the metal grate seemed to shatter into nothingness, leaving before them a long tunnel.

  “Ladies first,” said Octavius, holding out his hand.

  They climbed for what seemed like hours down a narrow spiral staircase, then through a series of long, dark passageways, illuminated only by the intermittent candle. At last they came to a heavy marble facade, with the words Biblios Daemonon inscribed in Greek across the main entryway.

  “Lux aeternis,” Octavius whispered.

  The door slowly swung open.

  Kalina gasped. Underneath the Seine was the largest library she had ever seen, packed with shelves upon shelves of beautifully-bound tomes.

  “None of these books can be found in your Public Library,” said Octavius.

  “Werewolves,” breathed Kalina, looking at the shelves, “fairies, bacchanals, Kali, demons...”

  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” Octavius began the quotation, “that are dreamed of in your philosophy.”

  “Hamlet?”

  “Yes, Hamlet.”

  He approached the librarian, a small woman with long, silvery hair that seemed to shimmer even in the absence of real life. She was not human, Kalina knew, but she could not tell what she was.

  “Mermaid,” Octavius whispered, as he handed the woman a slip of paper.

  “The Nepal Papers,” the woman nodded. “Are you sure – such knowledge is dangerous...”

  “I am sure.”

  She vanished – into thin air, Kalina thought – and then returned moments later with a pile of papers.

  “As you wish, Octavius,” she said, with emphasis on this knowledge.

  “Nothing gets past Illyria,” said Octavius as he led Kalina over to a small carrel. “This place is the safest in the supernatural world – and it is all due to her. She is more powerful than she looks. She has memorized each of these books...”

  “Wow...” Kalina was astonished at the enormity of the library. How much must there be in the world – how much mystery – that she had never even thought about, could never even have dreamed about. She suddenly felt very small indeed.

  “I think you have the right to be the first to see it,” said Octavius. “It is your story, after all.” He slid over the papers to her.

  Kalina took a deep breath and read.

  Reading, she found in the web of names and answers the first real clues she had ever experienced about her past. Her mother was called Sophia Varma, and she was an Anglo-Indian woman living in Nepal until her death in childbirth; her father was called Sanjay, and died of grief soon after. Sonia was the product of an English father – a holdover from an old colonial family and an Indian mother – whose roots lay in a traditional Brahmin clan whom she spurned to marry a Christian – leaving behind her culture and her power with a new life with this Englishman, Alexander Calvary. And Kalina learned too about this Englishman – and his French roots – and as she read she found the story of her family traced to the other Carriers – all related to her by blood through Calvary's mother, the Franco-English Aimee Despar, and from the Carrier at last to that Chinese woman of whom she had heard so much – Bai Xang, who had fallen in love with the vampire Francois, and produced the first line of Life's Blood. It was a story of strong women and brave men, of powerful vampires and just-as-powerful humans – of loves, loss, collected memory and history from centuries of traditions. The Consortium Vampires had used compulsion to interview Cavalry's brother, Kalina's great aunt, had taken family photo albums, genealogies, oral legends, ultimately creating the most accurate and complete account of Life's Blood in existence.

  But it was not the Life's Blood that excited Kalina. Rather, it was the names she read – the stories behind them – the men and women whose extraordinary lives had all come together to produce her, Kalina.

  Her eyes were wet with tears a
s she slid the folder back to Octavius.

  “May I inquire as to its contents?”

  “Don't bother reading it,” she said to Octavius. She closed her eyes. Can you hear me?

  Yes. I'm here.

  She transmitted her memories to him, the words she had read, the pictures in her imagination of her birth mother and her grandmother and the Italian poetess and the English soldier and the Indian priestess who had made up part of her heritage. With it she transmitted, too, her feelings – her fear, her pain, her sense of loss at having never known them, her loss, too, for the adoptive parents who had raised her – and, without knowing it until it was too late, and her oft-replayed memory of that kiss, of Octavius’ mouth so sweet against her own.

  She could see his expression change as her thoughts and memories washed over him. He felt her pain, her sadness, as keenly as if it were his own. At last he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

  “You come from a great line of heroes,” he said. “But you will outdo them all. I can promise you that.”

  She smiled, and felt him draw her close.

  “I am sorry,” he said - “I have been brusque with you this past day. So much has happened...please, do not think I regret inviting you with me. It has been – nearly as extraordinary as you are.”

  She felt him kiss her again, in the shadow of all these books, his hand tight on hers; his arms warm about her neck – warm but so cold! - and then she released herself into his kiss.

  “Come now,” said Octavius, pulling away tenderly, “we have to celebrate your birthday.”

  “My birthday? It's not till the...” It was the sixteenth now. In the stress of Mal's attack, Kalina had completely forgotten her eighteenth birthday.

  “Eighteen,” said Octavius. “You're getting older.” He looked away from her and sighed.

  Chapter 14

  That night, Octavius announced that he would be taking Kalina out for a proper birthday celebration. He produced from his closet a shimmering mess of blue silk, accompanied by two white satin gloves, the color of polished pearls. “I arranged for my valet to buy this for you,” he said. “If you would do me the honor of wearing it tonight.”

  Kalina took the dress in her arms.

  “You want me to wear this?” It was too glamorous, she thought – too beautiful – even for an eighteen-year-old girl.

  “You are an adult now,” said Octavius. “This is a dress for a young woman.”

  She fingered the silk.

  “Well, maybe I'll just go try it on...” She blushed as she slipped past him into the bathroom. She hurriedly changed from the clothing she had been wearing earlier, a white linen skirt and blazer Octavius had supplied, into the dress. She pulled on the gloves, praying that she wouldn't tear them in her effort to put them on properly. When she was finished, she looked into the mirror and gasped.

  She was beautiful. Octavius was a man of great aesthetic taste, and it was clear that he had understood what would best flatter her coloring and figure. The dress – a sleeveless, tight outfit that nevertheless flowed out into fullness at the feet – accentuated Kalina's slender curves, even as it brought out the nebulous, green-gray color of her eyes and the chestnut highlights hiding in her dark black hair. She had never seen herself like this before – truly a woman, truly an adult – for the first time freed from that in-between place, as difficult to discern as the color of her eyes, between childhood and adulthood. Octavius had seen the woman in her beneath her adolescent innocence more than she did.

  “So,” she said to herself. “This is what you really look like.”

  She applied her makeup sparingly, not wishing to distract from the simplicity of the dress itself. When she was finished, she tentatively opened the door, and walked out.

  “Well?” She couldn't resist giving Octavius a flirtatious toss of the head.

  He sat before her, speechless at her beauty. It was clear he had expected it to suit her; nevertheless, as she walked – more confidently, more self-assured than before – he had not expected how much. He stood before her in awe before at last he rose and pressed her lips to his fingers.

  “I don't think I've ever seen anything as beautiful as you are right now,” he said.

  He rose and kissed her quickly – deeply – before pushing himself away.

  “No, do not distract me,” he said. “You see, we cannot be late. We have tickets to the opera.”

  “The opera?”

  “You were humming vissi d'arte, from Tosca on the train – I assumed...”

  “I love opera,” said Kalina. She remembered trying, in vain, to drag Aaron to a performance of Carmen in San Francisco.

  “I thought Tosca would be an appropriate choice,” he said. The heroine in that opera had famously flung herself off the Castel Sant'Angelo – where Octavius and Kalina had first kissed – in the name of true love.

  Kalina couldn't help but smile. Was this truly the same Octavius who had so angered and terrified her only days before? With her, he seemed to be a completely different figure – no longer bound to behave in a manner to intimidate his subordinates. No, she was an equal to him – and she felt his respect course through her like vampire wine.

  They went to the Opera Garnier, a palatial building – with gilded staircases and heavy marble columns – sitting in a private box swathed in red velvet.

  “This is all so new to me,” whispered Kalina as the curtain went up. “I've never even left California before.”

  “I want to take you everywhere,” whispered Octavius in her ear. “Anywhere you want to go – India, Greece, England...I want to see the world anew, through your eyes.”

  “You mean...”

  “I have grown so tired of the world,” he said. “I have seen so much. But your enthusiasm – it makes it all feel so new...”

  Indeed, Octavius must have seen Tosca many times. She saw him close his eyes, rapt with bliss, as the most beautiful melodies struck up and repeated themselves, and nod rhythmically – as if he knew each strain by heart. And yet, when she saw the tragic story of the Roman Tosca enacted upon that opulent stage, and she could not help herself from gasping in delight at a particularly mournful note, or shivering with joy as a soprano hit a high C, she instinctively squeezed Octavius’ hand, and saw in his eyes that her joy gave his experience new meaning.

  Kalina felt that, for all the danger and all the pain that she had experienced, there could be nothing more beautiful in all the world than sitting with Octavius here just now, listening to some of the world's most stunning music, in the world's most romantic city – the possibilities of the world opened up before her at her feet. And Octavius had known so much – seen so much – and he wanted to share it with her, and she wanted to experience it with him...

  They walked home through a Paris alive with the evening – the moon full and heavy above them. They walked past the Grands Boulevards, filled with art nouveau department stores and elegant outdoor cafes, and through the more narrow side-streets of the Medieval Marais, across Ile St Louis and along the shimmering Seine. Octavius pointed out the Latin Quarter to her, where he himself had studied as a young lad in the 1100s (he had studied, he said, at all the great universities of the world – Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, La Sorbonne, La Sapienza...choosing a different subject each time. “I wish to learn all the world has to offer,” he said, although he admitted his memory was rusty as to the principles of canon law he had taken at the University of Paris. “Studying canon law as a vampire...” he laughed. “I could not enter the place of study!”) He showed her the Eiffel Tower, the Boulevard St-Germain, where he had once met the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The whole world had never seemed more alive to Kalina than just now.

  At last they returned to the flat, their hands twined together, and when the door closed behind them the silence Kalina felt was louder than all the shouting in the world. In silence they began kissing; in silence he removed her gloves in smooth, graceful motions; in silence they were locke
d in each other, first at the threshold and then on the sofa, and then, laughing silently, buried in each other's neck and shoulders and fingers, upon the bed.

  She was lost in a world of music, in the Puccini arias still lingering in the air, and the beauty of Paris outside their window, and the delicious sensation of Octavius’ fingers cool along her neck, heating her blood further, and then she found that her dress slipped off her in a flush of cool silk, and that she was unbuttoning his shirt, untying his bow tie, and then all at once they were naked, both of them, as if their clothes had dissolved off their bodies, and still kissing.

  Kalina remembered the spell; she stopped.

  “We shouldn't...” she forced herself to say, wishing all the while she didn't have to. “I mean, the Life's Blood.”

  Octavius stopped for a moment, and then laughed.

  “What is it?” She clutched the blankets to her chest, flushing. “Did I say something wrong?”

  He kissed her deeply.

  “This is one instance,” he said, “where I am rather glad of the out-dated terminology of legend-makers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Octavius, “the spell was likely composed...in a time when...” He flushed. “How can I put this? Vampire magic has a rather...technical concept of virginity.”

  “Technical?”

  He kissed her cheek. “Your poor Greystone brothers,” he said, “are young – all of them, still young. And not wise. And you'd think, in a thousand years...but they're still boys. And I assure you, my darling, there are many, many ways to....ahem....circumvent the laws your condition necessitates.”

  “You mean, as long as I remain a technical virgin...”

  “There is plenty,” said Octavius, his mouth at her shoulders, her chest, her stomach... “that we can do without angering this mysterious magic in your blood. And I want you to know...” He kissed her again, “you beautiful, maddening girl, that I want this – tonight – to be about you.”