Ross came to Sereny only once during this time of domestic bliss. She was afraid he might banish her. He wanted her love every night, falling asleep locked between her legs, but she wasn't sure that was enough to insure her permanence. Ross had been a loner for a very long time. He admitted he didn't know what love was or what loving a woman was supposed to mean to him. Yet, he continued to let her and the boy vampire stay, and the days raced past as he got back to the business of supplying the Naturals and few remaining Cravens with the blood they needed.
He came once to her and sent Jeremy outside, admonishing him not to enter the house until he called. He was never harsh with the boy, but he frowned on his impulsiveness and demanded his own commands be obeyed without hesitation. Jeremy complied, knowing in some way that this vampire was greater than Sereny, and Ross could break him to pieces on a whim of anger.
"Look," Ross said, seemingly in a hurry to get out what he wanted to say. "It's this way, Sereny . . ."
She watched him closely for any hint he was about to send her packing. She would go, if ordered, but she really wanted to stay. Ross was not the hard man the rest of the world thought him. He could be gentle in their lovemaking, stroking her for hours as if there was nothing better he could ever find to do. He had an abiding respect for artistic endeavor, speaking of great masters in reverent tones, as if they were his priests. Any vampire who could hold onto a love for the creations of men was not totally lost.
He was honest about his debauchery, and didn't for a moment think he should repent. If she didn't want to share him that way, that wasn't his problem.
He loved to kill. But then, so did she. If it were a sin, they were both going into hellfire together.
"It's this way, Sereny," he continued. "I like the way you keep the place."
She smiled. Balthazar had found it distracting and useless. But this was a large modern home, nothing like she'd ever lived in before. It had many rooms, gorgeous furnishings, exquisite items that must have cost fortunes. She wanted to care for them. She was very careful, moving slowly and humming throughout the day, caring lovingly for the house and the priceless objects in it.
"I even like seeing you with the boy," Ross said, still agitated. "That Jeremy's got what it takes, you know? He's a brat right now, but I think he'll mature well."
She knew firsthand that Jeremy did have what it would take to survive. She'd gone hunting with him in a small rural area far outside of Dallas, showing him how to read potential victims, how to take the ones who were already hoping to die, or who deserved to die. There were so many.
"Anyway," Ross said, "as long as you don't try to boss me around, I won't boss you—and I'd like you to stay here. How's that?"
It was as close as he was going to get to saying she should be his partner, his mate. She kept smiling. "That's all right with me," she said. And then, without thinking, she stepped forward and kissed him until he put his arms around her back and drew her in close.
He pulled away. "You're a helluva woman, Sereny.”
“And you're a helluva man."
That was the level they met on and which gave them both so much pleasure. Man to woman. She had always known sex was one way to get back to the mortal souls that otherwise languished inside their immortal bodies. She had taught him that and the lesson was taking hold. It pleased her unimaginably.
~*~
Mentor stood poised to hear the worst—Bette had decided to go home. His house was empty except for the two of them now. The Predator clan had gone back to their duties as sentries, lab workers, delivery men, and business entrepreneurs. The uprising had been put down and except for the missing dhampir, all was back as it should be.
Malachi's disappearance weighed on him. He spent much of every day and night telepathically trying to ferret out the boy's whereabouts without success. It was an enigma. A dhampir as talented as Malachi should have sent out a signal of distress. Unless he was dead. Like Dell, Mentor didn't want to believe that. Besides, what would the dhampir's death do for Upton? No, it was another trick, a sleight of hand, a magician's veil that he had to try to rip away.
"Well?" Mentor stood in the living room, the book he'd been reading in his hand at his side. Bette stood at the doorway. He didn't see the urn, but it might be waiting on the hall table for her exit.
"I'm coming back," she said.
His throat closed as if a fist had squeezed it.
"I have to go home to close it up. There are some things I want. My altar. A Buddha statue. My teapot," she said, as if just remembering it. "I think I'll keep the house. Keep paying the taxes, keep the lawn mowed, that sort of thing. For the garden." She smiled wistfully. "We both love the Japanese garden."
He set the book on the coffee table and came to her, taking her into his arms. She laid her head against him. "You're so right. I do love the garden," he said.
They held one another, and Mentor thought he'd never been so happy. "Let me go with you. I can help."
"No, stay here. I want to . . . say my good-byes alone. The house was my sanctuary, not just the garden, the way it is for you. But now after so many years of sharing it with Alan, I know I can't be there alone anymore. It wouldn't . . . it wouldn't be the same."
He let her go, watching from the window as she left, his gaze following until she disappeared from sight. He went to her room and found the funeral urn. He brought it carefully to the living room and set it on the mantel over the fireplace. It should be in a place of honor. The man within it had loved and cared for the woman he adored. In his death, he wouldn't be forgotten by either of them.
Chapter 11
Malachi sat on the dirt at the bottom of the hole and stared into the twilight sky beyond the wooden latched opening. The first stars were coming out, tiny distant lights on a velvet display. It was as Upton had promised. He was fed. He was given water. He had a bucket sitting feet from him stinking of his own excrement and urine.
Nothing seemed to matter. The food was always tasteless to him and he only ate it because his stomach cramped if he didn't. When he thirsted, he drank from a canteen hung from a rope. When he must attend to his bodily functions he sat on the biting rim of the bucket and tried not to think about it.
After some days he realized the truth of his imprisonment. They were drugging him. Every time he ate a meal he felt woozy and disoriented and often fell over onto his side to sleep. He tried not to eat, but then he grew delirious anyway, and knew they were putting the drugs into his water. He could not go without either food or water unless he wanted to starve himself.
He tried and tried to think of a solution, but none came to him. If he did not eat or drink, he would die. Always, before he could get himself lucid enough to feel he could send out a call to his mother or Mentor, his captors would open the roof, climb into the hole with him, and beat him senseless with their fists and feet. He was too weak to fight back.
He caught himself daydreaming away the endless hours, piling little pebbles he found in the dirt into mounds before scattering them again. He found a pointed stick and scratched drawings and words into the earthen walls. He wrote his name. MALACHI. He wrote the word, GOD.
He wrote, HELP, INSANITY, and I'M NOT GOING TO DIE IN HERE. Meaningless. Meaningless.
When it rained, he sat in water that sometimes covered his legs, shivering and cold. They knew he would not get sick and he would not die. They were keeping him like a zoo pet, a mindless animal in a primitive cage.
When bordering on a lucid period just before his hunger forced him to partake of the tainted food, he sometimes felt a tear run down his cheek and he'd wipe it away with the back of his hand before any of the vampires saw. He was determined to endure it all. The drugs, the elements, the confinement. The silence.
One day his guards might make a mistake and turn their backs. One day they'd slip up and he'd notice and he'd get away. Upton had done it. Why couldn't he? Drugged or not, the food gave him strength and he needed that strength for the day opportunity prese
nted itself. He convinced himself it would happen.
He just didn't know when.
He rocked on his buttocks with a rhythmic motion, his legs crossed, his hands gripping his knees. He watched the stars fill the sky. He saw the Milky Way spread across the expanse of space like diamond powder dusted across the heavens. Sometime later, time being something he could no longer measure, the moon slid across the opening of his cage in the ground and he smiled up at it. It was a full moon, a Malachi moon. His moon, promising long life, promising freedom.
As long as he could see the moon ride the sky and he could smile, holding onto the hope of a night when he could walk free again, he would survive this hellhole.
Mom, he called weakly in his mind. I'm here, Mom, can you hear me? I'm here in a jungle land, held captive.
His rocking motion slowed and he ceased moving. He had fallen back against the dirt wall and his eyelids had gotten too heavy to keep open. Sleep slipped into his brain, paralyzing it. His hands fell from his knees and he slumped to the ground.
He drifted into the dreamworld that was becoming more real than his waking world. In his dreams there was no prison pit, no guards, no mad, lurking jaguar face lurid with curiosity.
In his dreams, Malachi wandered dreamscapes unlike the world he'd lived in. They were like the dreams of his childhood, without the silver wolf who stalked him then. The arid landscape was swept with moonshine. It was entirely devoid of life. Nothing moved, not even a breath of wind. Malachi wandered there thoughtless and lost. He walked for miles through every dream, the landscape unchanging, the moon above never setting.
On waking each morning he recalled nothing of the dreams except the vast emptiness of the land that left a residue of melancholy like a dry taste at the back of his tongue.
I will be free again, he told himself over and over. I am not destined to die like a rat in a hole in the ground.
Upton won't win this personal war. Mentor defeated him—and so will I.
To while away the hours when awake, but groggy with the drugs they fed him, he sometimes thought dreamily of Danielle. She'd promised to wait for him. He'd called her when he returned home with Jeremy, but he hadn't been able to meet with her before he was following his mother to Mentor's house, joining the battle.
Danielle had been so happy to hear from him. They talked of her college courses and her family. She'd delicately refrained from asking questions about where he'd been. She said she loved him. She missed him terribly, and she loved him.
Now he was missing from her life once more, this time without any explanation or good-bye. How long would it be before he heard her voice again? He couldn't hope she would wait for him if his imprisonment stretched from months into years.
But, God, it couldn't last for years. He wouldn't think of that again.
The roof rattled above his head, and he looked up to see one of the guards lifting it and dropping onto him.
Here they came again to beat him. They knew his thoughts, they monitored his dreams. They beat him near to death when they thought he made too much sense, even in his own mind.
"Stop it," he yelled, holding up his arms to protect himself. "Stop it, stop it!"
They never listened, they never relented. He tried to give as good as he got, but all his supernatural strength had fled him. The chemicals filling his bloodstream had stolen everything.
When he was conscious again, his mouth tasted of dirt and he found himself face down in the pit. He sat up, dying of thirst, and lunged for the canteen. He drank deeply of the tainted water, gulping down the liquid until his belly expanded.
He sat back, his bones aching, and his bruises still evident. By tomorrow they would have faded and his body would be ready again to accept his captors' abuse. He even healed more slowly now.
He looked up at the night sky and saw it was nearing dawn. He'd been unconscious for hours. The moon, the yellow moon he called his own, was gone from sight. But not his hope. It was as vibrant and alive as the breath he drew and the slow beat of his dhampir heart.
He had hope for the future, knowing it awaited him. Hope that he'd see Danielle again, and his mother, and his father.
Hope he'd rise as a phoenix from the lowly pit.
They couldn't take that from him.
Chaper 12
Dell woke with the sound of her son's voice echoing in her mind. He was calling to her. He was in a . . . jungle.
She threw back the covers and swung her legs to the floor. Ryan woke and sat up in bed. "What's wrong?"
"Malachi called to me. He's being held in some kind of jungle."
Ryan remained speechless.
Dell hurriedly dressed. She put on jeans and a matching blouse. She slipped on hiking boots.
"Where are you going?" her husband asked.
"To find him. I can't wait any longer. I know he's alive now. I have to find him."
Ryan came from bed and put his arms around her. "Don't cry," he said. He held her tighter. "You'll find him, I know you will."
She pulled away, wiping her eyes. "It might take me a while. It might take a long time. There are so many jungles . . ."
"I'll be here when you get back, waiting for both of you."
She kissed him and hugged him close. "I love you," she said. "I'll call you. I'll call every day I can. Tell Mentor I've gone. If I need him, I'll let him know."
Outside the house, Dell took a deep breath. She had waited for just this kind of message. She had never despaired and thought Malachi dead. Now she knew for certain he lived and she'd find him, no matter how long it took.
A jungle. Somewhere in the world. They held him prisoner.
It had been the faintest of messages, but she knew it was Malachi. It hadn't been a dream, a wish fulfillment. He lived in a jungle and something kept him from contacting her until now. He was weak, his powers lessened. But he was alive.
Where should she look first?
The most famous jungle that occurred to her was the Amazon. She would go there, then. She'd contact other vampires, looking for clues. As fast as she could move, it would not take her years the way it might a mortal. She hoped it might only take months, if that long.
She looked around the ranch once more, sighing at the thought of leaving her home, her husband. She had planted the roses and four o'clocks. She had watched the trees grow and mature. She gazed out at the herd of cattle in the fields where they rested quietly.
She'd be back and her son with her.
Chapter 12
Dell woke with the sound of her son's voice echoing in her mind. He was calling to her. He was in a . . . jungle.
She threw back the covers and swung her legs to the floor. Ryan woke and sat up in bed. "What's wrong?"
"Malachi called to me. He's being held in some kind of jungle."
Ryan remained speechless.
Dell hurriedly dressed. She put on jeans and a matching blouse. She slipped on hiking boots.
"Where are you going?" her husband asked.
"To find him. I can't wait any longer. I know he's alive now. I have to find him."
Ryan came from bed and put his arms around her. "Don't cry," he said. He held her tighter. "You'll find him, I know you will."
She pulled away, wiping her eyes. "It might take me a while. It might take a long time. There are so many jungles . . ."
"I'll be here when you get back, waiting for both of you."
She kissed him and hugged him close. "I love you," she said. "I'll call you. I'll call every day I can. Tell Mentor I've gone. If I need him, I'll let him know."
Outside the house, Dell took a deep breath. She had waited for just this kind of message. She had never despaired and thought Malachi dead. Now she knew for certain he lived and she'd find him, no matter how long it took.
A jungle. Somewhere in the world. They held him prisoner.
It had been the faintest of messages, but she knew it was Malachi. It hadn't been a dream, a wish fulfillment. He lived in a jungle and something k
ept him from contacting her until now. He was weak, his powers lessened. But he was alive.
Where should she look first?
The most famous jungle that occurred to her was the Amazon. She would go there, then. She'd contact other vampires, looking for clues. As fast as she could move, it would not take her years the way it might a mortal. She hoped it might only take months, if that long.
She looked around the ranch once more, sighing at the thought of leaving her home, her husband. She had planted the roses and four o'clocks. She had watched the trees grow and mature. She gazed out at the herd of cattle in the fields where they rested quietly.
She'd be back and her son with her.
Chapter 13
It had been a year. A long, desperate year of searching. Dell fought the fatigue of endless and fruitless days and nights. She had never again gotten a mental message from Malachi. She wouldn't give up, however. He wasn't dead, any more than he'd been dead before his plea reached her on that long ago night in her sleep.
She ran into vampires who gave her bad information, wrong information, and deceptive information. She followed down every possible avenue until it led to a dead end. She met renegades who threatened her, Predators who hadn't time to waste on her plight, Cravens who whined about their own lost or dead loved ones. She went to Naturals and pleaded with them to set up a worldwide network to share information.
She had trudged through the Amazon, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and most of Asia. She used to call home to Ryan every day, but her treks took her into the interior of wild lands where she couldn't call. She sent messages to Mentor, instead, who relayed to Ryan where she was so he wouldn't worry. She almost went home a few times, but every time she thought she had to go back and give up this hopeless mission, she thought of her son's sad, broken voice echoing in her mind. How could she give up on her son and leave him a prisoner? She straightened her shoulders and went on.
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