by Susan Conley
“I don’t know. She came to my room and demanded I go with her. When I refused, she got furious. We were still arguing when, without warning, she turned and exited through the window. I heard the screech of tires and when I looked down, I saw her standing before Ryan’s Prius. She moved as I watched, opened the driver’s door and dragged Ryan from inside. I didn’t see what happened next for I rushed down the stairs, but her car is gone and I couldn’t find Ryan.”
“She took Ryan?” I screamed and rushed to him. “Where did your mother go?”
“He doesn’t know,” Bécquer repeated. “But, don’t worry, I can track her.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Gently, Bécquer grabbed my arms. “No, Carla. Your presence will provoke Beatriz, make her still more unpredictable, and hinder me. Ask Matt to drive you home and wait for me there. I’ll bring Ryan back to you. I promise.”
He stared at me for a moment, his mind willfully dominating mine, while his fingers traced my cheek. Then he moved back, called his thanks to Federico for giving him the blood he had stolen, and left swiftly through the glass door.
Chapter Nine: Kidnapped
When I looked back into the room, my mind aflutter with feelings I had thought long dead, Matt was confronting Federico.
“Is it true you were going to kill my mother?” he asked, his voice raw with anger and fear.
Federico didn’t flinch. “Your mother stole Bécquer’s blood. Among immortals, that is an unforgivable crime. Even if I don’t kill her, the Elders will.”
“The Elders?”
“The Elders are our rulers. They implement the law and have the ultimate saying on who is to become immortal.”
As he spoke, Federico walked somewhat unsteadily to the sofa and sat down. Matt followed him. “But Bécquer promised not to kill her.”
“And he won’t, Matt. But if your mother kills tonight, not even Bécquer will be able to save her.”
Looming over Federico, Matt screamed, “My mother is not a killer!”
“Tonight, your mother has transcended her human nature. She has instincts she has yet to master and, until she does, her thirst for blood will dominate her actions. I’m sorry, Matt; but, tonight, your mother is a killer.”
Matt moaned.
Federico closed his eyes. I could feel the thirst in him, the urge to drink from Matt and his will fighting back.
Please, Carla, take Matt away, Federico’s voice spoke in my mind.
And you?
I’ll be all right. I just need blood.
How — ?
I have some in my room.
I flinched at the image of a human held prisoner in his room.
A quick smile twisted Federico’s lips. I don’t drink blood from humans. I buy it in bags.
I’ll help you to your room, then.
No. I need you to take Matt away.
I grabbed Matt’s arm and pulled at him. “Let’s go,” I said, cajoling him as I would one of Ryan’s friends. “Bécquer will bring Ryan to my house. Your mother may come with them.”
Matt didn’t move.
“Go,” Federico said. For a moment his eyes glowed red.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.
I sensed Federico’s reluctance to share with the young man his need for blood, and underneath an undercurrent of feelings quickly suppressed. I remembered how, earlier at the party, Bécquer had stopped Beatriz from calling Matt. His reasons were clear to me now. Matt couldn’t come, because he was with Federico.
Yes, Federico spoke in my mind. “Nothing,” he said to Matt. “I’m tired. That’s all.”
A light of understanding lit Matt’s eyes. “Did my mother steal your blood too?”
“No. Bécquer took it,” Federico said. “He needed his strength to find your mother.”
“I’m sorry.” Matt’s voice was soft now and the anger in his eyes was gone, replaced with concern.
Federico nodded. “I’m sorry, too, about your mother.”
I stepped back to give them privacy. Whatever had happened between them, it was obvious a new understanding had been reached. Federico had acknowledged Matt’s feelings for him. And, judging by his present reaction, he might return them as well.
“I’ll wait outside,” I told Matt. After nodding my goodbye to Federico, I walked to the glass door and slid it open.
I found myself in a graveled space between the back of the house and a stone barn. Light escaped through one of the windows on the first floor, which I guessed would be Matt’s room.
The white limousine Matt had driven before was parked to my right; on my left, Ryan’s red Prius blocked the access to the front of the house.
The driver door was wide open, I saw when I got nearer, which evoked in my mind the image of Beatriz stepping in front of the car as it turned the corner, of Ryan braking not to run her over, and of Beatriz forcing the door open and dragging him out.
I ducked my head and looked inside the car. Ryan’s guitar was on the back seat as was his blue and white duffel bag, both items sending the message no mother wants to hear: that her son is moving out. Ryan had returned home after our discussion to pack his guitar and his clothes. He was moving out, not because he was ready, but to be free of my interference. Moving where? To the couch in one of his friends’ apartments? Hopefully not Emily’s, for Emily, the Goth girl with whom he had been going out on and off for a year now, was still using. Or so Ryan had told me only the previous week when he’d also told me he was clean. If only I had believed him! Not that his moving out mattered at the moment. What mattered was that Bécquer reach Beatriz before she could hurt Ryan or kill him. Or make him one of them.
“Carla, my car is in the barn, would you come with me?”
Matt’s voice startled me, and as I turned to face him, I saw the car key still hanging in the ignition.
“Thanks, Matt. But that won’t be necessary. I’ll take Ryan’s car.”
Matt didn’t move. “May I go with you?” His reason for coming — I want to help my mother — hung unsaid between us.
I hesitated for a moment then nodded. “Of course.” Settling in the driver’s seat, I started the car.
We drove in silence at first, which suited me fine for my mind was going in a thousand directions at once covering all the possible outcomes of Beatriz’s kidnapping of Ryan.
Bécquer had said he could track Beatriz. But could he? Beatriz was immortal now, and immortals, Federico had told me, could block their thoughts, hide their presence from each other. And even if Bécquer found her, what were his chances of convincing her to let Ryan go? Beatriz had been raving mad even as a human; I couldn’t imagine how she would be now driven by the thirst of her newborn condition.
“I understand you hate my mother.” Surprised by his words, I said nothing. Matt continued, “I hate her too, most of the time. But for all her faults, she’s still my mother.”
He said this matter of factly, as if there was a bond between mother and son nothing could break. I didn’t argue, although in my case the duffel bag on the back seat said otherwise.
“You hate her,” I repeated to keep him talking, for I didn’t want to dwell on my fears.
“My mother didn’t raise me,” Matt said. “She left me with my dad when I was about two, while she went to pursue her career. She was a model, did you know?”
“No. I didn’t.” That didn’t mean she wasn’t famous. Unlike Madison, who studied fashion magazines with the intensity a scholar gives a rare manuscript, I had never been interested in couture.
“She was well known back then,” Matt said. “Made it to the magazine covers many times. I collected them all and hid them under my bed. If my dad saw them, he never mentioned it. We never discussed her. Then, when I was about ten, he got married again, and sent me
to boarding school. Mother left modeling around that time and became Bécquer’s secretary. Lured by the promise of immortality, I guess. But not knowing who Bécquer was, her choice struck me as odd.”
“And Bécquer? When did you meet him?”
“I saw him when Mother took me from school, at Christmas or summer vacation. He spent more time with me than she ever did. I think he liked me and I liked him too. Mother seemed to resent that fact.”
“When did you learn he was immortal?”
“He told me last year when he bought his house in Bucks County. I had just finished college and was looking for a job. He offered me free room and board and a salary if I looked after the house and the grounds and drove his guests when needed. I agreed, of course. It’s a great arrangement for me. It allows me to pursue my music while I build my freelance business. And the pay is good. But living so close to him, he figured I would notice … ”
His words faded as if sucked into a vacuum that silenced the world around me and stole the air from my lungs. It was a sudden change that came and went too fast for me to understand. A second frozen in time, I would have probably dismissed as a product of my imagination, but for the image it left, burnt in my mind, of a body suspended in midair between a concrete walkway and a dark mass of water.
Come. Bécquer’s voice, distorted and unreal, resonated inside my head, a command I couldn’t ignore. And again a vision overtook me. This time I saw Ryan swimming, fighting the churning waters that rushed toward the opened gates of a dam.
I’ll get Ryan. But you must come. Again Bécquer’s voice, sounding far away yet pressing, was in my mind. Then nothing.
I swerved off the road, braking hard until the car came to a halt.
“What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you feel it?”
Matt stared at me.
“Never mind,” I continued, for the answer was clear in the puzzled look in his blue eyes, which I noticed were the exact shade of Beatriz’s.
I returned to the road, made a U-turn, and headed northwest.
“Bécquer is at Peace Valley,” I explained to Matt.
“How do you know?”
“He just told me.” Showed me would have been more accurate for I had recognized the dam in the image Bécquer had sent me as the one closing the southwest side of Lake Galena. But I didn’t feel like explaining my vision of Ryan drowning, afraid, perhaps, that saying it aloud would make it real.
“Bécquer talked to you?”
“Yes.”
“You two are connected?”
I nodded.
“Is that why my mother took Ryan, to get back at you for taking her place?”
Like Federico had before meeting me, Matt concluded that I was to become Bécquer’s blood giver.
“No,” I said, too loud to sound convincing, for the assumption irked me more than it should have. “I don’t want to take your mother’s position.”
“But you’re connected to Bécquer,” he repeated.
“Yes and no. He gave me some of his blood today. The effects will wear off soon. There will be no further exchange between us. But you’re right,” I continued, feeling slightly guilty for screaming at him. “Your mother thought Bécquer meant to replace her.”
“Mother has big plans. She wants to help people. That is why she wants to be immortal.”
A part of me understood Matt’s need to excuse his mother’s behavior. But if the image I had seen was real, Ryan’s life was in danger at this very moment because of Beatriz, and that made her my enemy. So I kept my eyes on the road, luckily empty at this late hour, for I was going well over the speed limit, and didn’t answer.
We reached the lake by its southeastern shore and followed the road that surrounded the water. In the last parking lot, the closest to the dam, a car I recognized as Bécquer’s BMW stood dark and alone. And empty, I confirmed after getting out of mine. Where was Beatriz’s car? I wondered. Was she gone or was her car on the other side of the lake? I pushed the question from my mind. What mattered now was to find Bécquer and Ryan. I’d worry about Beatriz later.
“Let’s go,” I said. Without looking back to see if Matt was following, I ran toward the lake where I could see two figures emerging from the water. Two shadows in the moonlight, Bécquer and Ryan, both standing, both alive, I told myself to assuage my fears, even if one of them, the shortest one, stumbled as I watched and fell to his knees in the shallow water. The other, Ryan, stopped. Holding Bécquer by the waist, he helped him to his feet then dragged him further ashore.
Matt reached them first. He set Bécquer’s right arm over his shoulders, wrapped his left around Bécquer’s body, and after nodding to Ryan to indicate he could let go, started toward one of the wooden benches that dotted the lake.
I called out to Ryan, who looked up and came to me. I took him in my arms or, more accurately, he took me in his because he was almost two heads taller than I was now, which made it difficult for me to hug him.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“It’s all right,” I said, and meant it. Everything was all right, for he was alive.
“What happened?” I asked him as he pulled away. “Where is Beatriz?”
Ryan pointed at the upper ground that closed the lake. “She threw me in the water from up there. Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, because I didn’t, and because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Why did she take me? Why here?” he asked, question following question as if they were just crossing his mind. “She told me Bécquer was my father. Can you believe it? She must be mad,” he concluded. “For how could … ” He frowned. “He’s not.” A note of concern crept into his voice as he added, “Bécquer is not my father, is he Mom?”
My guess was that Beatriz had told Ryan Bécquer was his ancestor, but now was not the moment to explain.
I shook my head. “Of course not, Ryan. I only met Bécquer last week.”
Ryan sighed. “He saved my life,” he said, looking over my shoulder. “I have to thank him.”
Without waiting for me, he started toward the bench to our right, where Matt had taken Bécquer. I followed him.
When we reached them, I saw Bécquer sitting back, his eyes closed while Matt bent over him.
“Is he all right?” Ryan asked.
Matt’s back straightened and turning to face us he pointed at Bécquer’s neck. “Did my mother do this to him?” he asked me. His voice was close to panic.
“Yes. Back at the house. But, don’t worry. He’ll be all right,” I said. I lied to calm him down, for I had no idea what was wrong with Bécquer, and the fact that his mind was closed scared me.
Matt said nothing.
“Let me see him,” I said.
As Matt stepped back, I moved closer and sat by Bécquer’s side.
The blue scarf Federico had wrapped around the wound was gone and the glass left an ugly, swollen wound, clearly visible. It was not bleeding now, but the collar of Bécquer’s white shirt was stained with blood, as was probably his waistcoat also, although the blood was invisible against the vivid scarlet of his vest.
“Bécquer,” I whispered and took his hand. It was cold like winter rain. I shivered, not only because of the cold that settled on me now with the rush of adrenaline gone and I was not wearing a coat, but out of fear that he might be dying — “We call ourselves immortals, but that name is a misnomer,” Federico had told me. “We can die.”
The intensity of my fear must have reached his mind, because his eyes flickered open and his voice was in my mind. Tell them to leave.
“He’s all right,” I told the two young men staring at me, “but he needs a bandage. Ryan, do you have a clean shirt in your bag?”
Ryan frowned.
“I drove your
car here. Can you bring me a clean shirt?”
“Sure.”
Ryan turned to go.
“Change into dry clothes, first, or you’ll catch a cold,” I called to his back.
“I’ll do it later.”
“No. Do it now. Matt can go with you and bring me the shirt.”
Matt hesitated for a moment, reluctant to leave Bécquer. But Bécquer nodded at him, flinched at the pain the movement must have caused him, and whispered, “Your mother is all right, Matt. Do as Carla says.”
Matt smiled, a quick smile of relief that make him look even younger. “I’ll be quick,” he said to me and started after Ryan.
Bécquer followed him with his eyes, and then winked at me. I thought they’d never leave.
Chapter Ten: Ryan
I felt relief at first upon hearing his voice. Relief that he was well enough to play games. But soon my relief gave way to anger, because I had been worried about him.
“So you were pretending,” I said aloud.
“Pretending I’m half dead? No. But I wanted them gone so I can talk with you alone.”
“About Beatriz?”
Your mother is all right, he had told Matt before dismissing him. Maybe Beatriz was badly hurt and Bécquer had not wanted to tell Matt.
Bécquer stalled. “Beatriz? What about her?”
“Did you ki — hurt her?”
“No. We talked. Then she left.”
“You let her go?” I asked in disbelief.
“I didn’t let her. She didn’t ask my permission.”
“You could have forced her to stay.”
“Force her? Beatriz is immortal, Carla. Probably stronger than I am right now. And she had Ryan. How on earth would I do that?”
I said nothing. I could see his point. Yet I was still upset that Beatriz was free.
Bécquer bent toward me. “Why are you so difficult to please? I promised you I’d get your son back. And I did. Could you at least be thankful for that.”
I blushed under his deep stare. And looked down, embarrassed at the truth I recognized in his words. “Thank you. I mean it, Bécquer. I’m grateful. Very, very grateful.”