by Jan McDonald
“Not as a career, no. But I am going to kill Andrei – for my parents, and for me. See, I remember the old Andrei; the one who used to play with me and read to me, the one who used to stick up for me when I was in trouble. It’s for him too. That thing is not my brother.”
Beckett didn’t answer him; he was busy dialling Lane’s number on his mobile. It was switched off and he cut off her voicemail message abruptly. He saw no point in leaving a message; he’d keep trying until she answered him.
Darius drove in silence. They had not exchanged a word since they had left Beckett’s apartment, and tension had developed between them that had no particular origin.
“Can’t you drive any faster? I might as well have driven myself. Pull over.”
“I’m already driving over the speed limit. At least, if we get stopped, I’m sober.”
“All right, I get it – Beckett’s drunk! Well, it won’t be the last time and it sure as hell isn’t the first. Now put your bloody foot down or pull over and let me drive.”
“We’re almost there; calm down. Have you thought about what we are going to do when we get there? I mean, assuming we can get into the place without the Spiderman act? And if we do, and he’s there, what then? Do you have some sort of plan? Because, let me remind you, he’s a mean son-of-a-bitch and he won’t blink while he rips me apart. His own brother.”
Beckett remained silent. The same thoughts were swirling in his head, accompanied by a crashing pain that was the beginnings of the mother of all hangovers. He was beginning to regret the eggs and chilli.
“Say we get in, say …” Darius began.
“Say you shut up! Just for one damn minute, will you please shut the hell up? I’m trying to think.”
Beckett knew he’d acted impulsively. He knew he had little chance of gaining entry into the place without Lane, wherever the hell she was. And he was only too well aware of the enormity of taking on Andrei. The alternative, however, was too much for him to contemplate. He’d not acted in time to save Grace, not that he’d have known back then what to do anyway. But the outcome was the same. Grace had died. Turned into a feeding vampire by one of the Undead. And she had risen as one of them. If Lane hadn’t been there to end it, Grace would still be out there now, feeding and corrupting and tainting. His Grace, his sweet, innocent Grace, violated and destroyed while under his protection. He had failed her and, now history had repeated itself but, this time he wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing. This time he knew how it might go and he was prepared for it. He was prepared to die.
Darius brought the car to a gradual halt; they had arrived at the club whilst Beckett was deep in thought. He turned the engine off and sat motionless, staring at the Victorian edifice, focussed on the Gothic artwork around the sign ‘Danse Macabre’, which did not seem out of place against the stark frontage of the building.
“You know what that means, don’t you?’ he said quietly.
Beckett frowned. “What?”
“Danse Macabre. It means Dance of Death.”
“Yes, I know.” He looked into the young face that was lined with anxiety. “Look, I think it would be better if you stayed in the car. I may need you to drive me the hell away from here a bit sharp. Keep the engine running and, if I’m not out of there in ten minutes, call Lane. Understand? No stupid heroics that won’t do any good. Just get Lane.”
“No way! And in any case, you’re not in yet.”
Beckett laughed harshly. “No?” He pointed to the front door that was obviously open. “Arrogant son of a bitch is inviting me to the party. Well, it wouldn’t do for me to appear rude by refusing such hospitality. And you will do as I say, or I’ll lay you out cold myself. I mean it, sunshine.”
Darius was deeply resentful of the way Beckett spoke to him and wasn’t about to take orders from someone that he saw as a beaten, drunken, ex-priest on a quest for vengeance that he had little or no chance of gaining.
He remained silent but gave a cursory nod in Beckett’s direction.
The door stood ajar onto a dark entrance hall, normally peopled with Andrei’s heavies. In darkness and silence, the club was bathed in a more sinister atmosphere than when bouncing with all the dark music and with Goths and vampire wannabees present en masse. Beckett felt his heart thumping in his chest and his throat was dry.
In his haste, he had left without a torch or light of any description, so he had to feel his way into the club’s main area where he had seen Kat and Andrei take the lift to the penthouse apartment. As his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, he could see the overhead sign proclaiming the room as ‘The Lair’, and the outline of the various booths and seating areas as he headed towards the far side of what – to him – seemed like an arena. He trod lightly across the central open space where Goths and vampires alike regularly gyrated to the Danse Macabre. A quick glance around told him there was no staircase other than to the viewing balcony and no alternative route to the penthouse; he would have to use the lift. He hoped that Andrei would be sufficiently occupied with Kat to not hear the whirring of the lift mechanism as he ascended but, at the same time, wished her a million miles from there.
The silence was heavy and even the sound of his breathing seemed to reverberate through it. He held his breath and approached the lift doors.
He pressed the button to call the lift and the clanking that accompanied it shattered the deathly quiet.
“Shit!” he hissed. Ah well, if he didn’t hear that he’s either not here or he’s one dead vampire.
The lift doors opened surprisingly quietly, and closed behind him in the same way. He pressed the only button inside and the lift juddered to a start, ascending smoothly and silently. Maybe he still hasn’t heard anything. Maybe I’m Queen Elizabeth.
Andrei lay on his side next to Kat, propped up on his elbow. He had never seen such awesome beauty and power in a newly-turned vampire and, the power their lovemaking had unleashed had left him weakened as both sought ascendancy over the other without actually shedding blood.
He stood up and leaned over the ornate antique dresser, opening the small door to a cupboard on the top. He took out sparkling crystal, two goblets and a decanter glinting with the emerald light of absinthe.
Kat moved across the bed and stroked his back, nuzzled his neck, then pulled herself away as the urge to bite overwhelmed her. She slid her tongue across her teeth, willing the canines to retreat. They didn’t.
Andrei read her, penetrating deep into her psyche.
He held up the crystal glass of absinthe. “Drink this, take in the green fairy that lives in the absinthe. She will enhance your pleasure in the feeding. I sense your hunger Katerini, soon it will be over and the hunger will be satisfied. Come, drink.”
Kat took the glass from him, her eyes locked into his. She took a sip from the bitter liquid that lit a fire deep inside her belly. Since her turning she had eaten nothing and drunk nothing. She looked at him questioningly.
“How?” he asked. “It’s the magic of the absinthe. You will be able to tolerate it in small amounts. It brings out the heightened senses in you. And, speaking of which, your old boyfriend is here.”
Kat looked stunned, momentarily thrown off balance. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated, reaching out with her vampire sense, listening, feeling, smelling. It was true; Beckett was in the building.
“How very convenient, my love. Your dinner has come to you.”
In a fraction of a second Andrei was off the bed and into his clothes, his shirt hanging loose and torn where she had ripped it from him in the height of her passion, his taut muscular chest glistening in the half light. He was at the door before a human eye could have detected his first movement with Kat at his heels.
Beckett stared at the lift door, somehow knowing that, on the other side, Andrei stood waiting for him. He needed no vampire senses, his gut told him.
Momentarily Beckett wondered if he should pray, then dismissed the thought. Prayer had done him no good when
Grace had stood on the threshold of life and death, and he had been a priest back then – back then, when he’d had faith. He realised now that it didn’t give him any advantage at all. When you were stuffed, you were stuffed. He had turned away from his God that night and not looked back at him since. To him, there was no God. God was dead.
His throat was dry and the minutes ticked away, and with each second his chest tightened and his heart hammered harder under his ribs. He swallowed hard, unzipped the hessian bag and took out the wooden stake. Hawthorn: deadly to vampires and more effective than impotent prayer.
This one is for Grace.
Bile rose in his throat as he lunged forward and hit the button to open the door. Stake raised above his shoulder, he powered forwards as the door slid open. Andrei stood in front of him and Beckett brought his arm down towards the vampire’s chest. Midway through the arc of descent, his eye caught a glimpse of Kat as she was suddenly standing at Andrei’s right hand. He hesitated for less than a second before striking. It was all Andrei needed to bring him to the floor.
Beckett had been up close and personal with several vampires since Grace, and he had no illusions as to their power and potential. Now, flat on his back, half in the lift and half out, with Andrei’s vice-like grip on his throat, he was at the mercy of one of the most heartless of their kind.
Andrei bared his fangs as he sensed the warm throb of the precious liquid in Beckett’s veins. He gave a throaty laugh as he read the resignation in Beckett’s mind.
I’m going to die. Right here, right now. And I don’t know what will happen to my soul. I have no faith. I can’t pray. I’m lost.
Andrei threw his head back, his sensual mouth wide and ready for the kill.
“No!” Kat screamed.
Andrei spun around, his eyes blazing, his hungry mouth a bestial snarl. He hauled Beckett to his feet with one hand and, with the other, he struck Kat hard across the mouth and grabbed her by the hair. In a few strides he was back inside the apartment and he threw Kat hard against the wall. Andrei’s grip on Beckett’s throat had clamped his windpipe and his face was a rapidly-deepening purple. He dragged him into the elegant living room and down onto the sofa. He tightened his grip even further and Beckett felt the waves of unconsciousness washing over him for the second time that day. The last thing he heard was Kat sobbing.
“Katerini! Here!”
Kat tried valiantly to control her weeping, to find the power that she knew lay within her, but the fire in Andrei’s eyes held her mind and she could do nothing other than obey him.
She moved towards him, afraid for the first time in his company since her turning.
Andrei’s face was suffused with rage and, even though she closed her eyes, she was unable to block the image. Beckett lay, out for the count, and Andrei had grabbed her arm, wrenching it behind her, his face only centimetres from her own.
“Don’t ever, ever, do that again. Consider yourself fortunate Katerini that you have a value – or I would be feasting twice this night.”
He hit her again and, this time, her sharp canines split her lip. Instinctively she licked at the blood and instantly felt her power returning. It was not enough. She was facing Andrei’s anger for the first time and she knew who would win the contest. She tried to control her breathing and began to feel the thunder in her veins subside to a muffled throb with a deathly pace. The blood continued to run onto her chin.
Andrei’s rage had not been spent and he hurled her on top of Beckett.
“Now, Katerini. Now, you will show me where your allegiance truly lies. You are hungry and need to feed, and here you have a meal. Feed.”
Kat’s voice shook, “Please Andrei, please, I beg you. Not him.”
Andrei grabbed her hair again and thrust her head forwards. “If you do not, you will both die. His death will be painful and demeaning and you will watch. Then I will feed from you and force you to feed from me. I told you what will happen if you do that, but until you have witnessed it’s agony you cannot begin to imagine the exquisite pain. Now, feed!”
Katerini leaned forward over Beckett’s pulsing throat. She smelled the blood in his vein and felt the tension in her mouth as her canines elongated into deadly spears. She hesitated, inches from his flesh, choking as a sob birthed somewhere deep in her soul. She swallowed hard, a mixture of her own blood and saliva. She looked into Beckett’s worn and beaten face; the lines seemed deeper than when she had last seen him, and he looked tired beyond measure. His torture was etched on every crease on his face. A release? His self-torture would be over, and he would find his peace with Grace. She had to believe that.
A hiss sounded from just behind her ear. “Feed. Drain him, or watch him die at my hands.”
She knew she had no choice. If she didn’t obey Andrei she knew they would both be dead. If she was careful, maybe Beckett wouldn’t die. Andrei tightened the grip on her hair painfully and pushed her once more towards Beckett. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, but before she allowed her mouth near to his neck, hidden from Andrei’s eyes by her curtain of silky hair, she kissed him on the lips. Tenderly at first, then allowing herself for the last moment to kiss him deeply, as momentary flashes of regret about what might have been were quashed by the cold hit of reality.
She buried her head in Beckett’s throat, her long, sharp teeth piercing his skin and vein easily, her mouth receiving the crimson flow as if it were consecrated wine. She swallowed and the red veil descended over her as she was oblivious to the man that had once been her friend and would-be lover, aware only of Andrei’s distant laughter.
She was lost in the blood.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The voices were strange. Familiar, somehow, like a voice that has been distorted for a movie; slow and drawling and deep, like a tape being played on the wrong speed. There were two of them, a male and female. Images tried hard to gain entry in his consciousness but they melted away like ice in a bucket. He was weak and sick and incredibly thirsty.
It all came into focus then; Kat. And Andrei. And what followed. This was it then; he was dying. In all the times he had gone against a vampire he had never once thought that he would die, not even when his chest had been laid bare and bleeding, bloody broken ribs open to daylight, not even then. And Kat, poor Kat, he’d failed yet again. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe this was his payback for Grace. Maybe …
“Aaargh!” the pain ripped through him, sending searing tongues of agony throughout his entire body. His back arched and went rigid before a massive seizure took hold. Foam forced its way from between the clamped jaws. His breathing stopped and he felt the pressure as his lungs fought to draw in air but would not oblige. The blinding pain again, and this time he could not scream. He had nothing left. No breath, no spark, no fight. He slipped into the nothing of the darkness.
He felt himself being pulled upwards into the nothingness. There was no light, no tunnel, no Grace, and no God. If he had been alive, he would have laughed at that. Now he knew the truth. After death, there was only eternity in the dark void of your own consciousness. Son-of-a-bitch, something was wrong; there was someone else in his eternity and a delicate fragrance that reminded him of someone.
“Grace?” he whispered.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Get him on the stretcher now.”
“Grace?”
“It’s me, Beckett. I’m here. Hold on.”
He felt himself being lifted and set down. Movement heralded the return of the searing agony. He felt a sharp stab in his forearm and then slow warmth that cloaked the pain and shrouded him in a mist of confusion. He gave in to it glady.
“Get him to the Sanctuary. Don’t stop for anything – blues and twos – go!.”
He rested in the warm haze; whoever was barking the orders was obviously in control. He’d ride it out and see what happened next. Maybe there was a process, some sort of half-way station between life and eternity.
Maybe he was going to be one of those souls that roamed
the earth in endless unrest. Ah, shit. That would be just his luck.
There was another pain, this time centrally in his chest; a tight pain that sent its emissaries into his face and down his arm. It was then that he realised he had been breathing again. Until then, that was. Because then his heart constricted and stopped. It was in the split second before that, that he heard the alarm of the monitor. A thump on his chest and a voice, high and commanding. “You get back here, Beckett! You hear me? You get back here, right now!”
And it was then that he saw her.
“Grace,” he said.
Her arms were extended and she smiled at him.
Now he was hallucinating.
“It’s all right Paul; it isn’t your time yet. You’ll be going back in a minute. I just wanted you to …”
“No, no wait. Grace!”
There was a rushing sensation as though he was riding the tornado to Oz. His eyes jerked open.
Lane was leaning over him, listening to his almost imperceptible pulse. No need for a stethoscope, she heard its every feeble beat and sensed its unsteady return. She let out a deep breath.
He looked at her, confused and hurting like hell.
“You had me going there for a minute, Handsome.”
He wanted to ask her if he was in Kansas. He wanted her to smile, to lose the fear in her ancient eyes, fear where he had never seen it before, but all he could do was blink. The quips could wait for later. It wasn’t the time; wasn’t his time.
He slept then, a deep natural sleep untroubled by bad dreams. They would come later.
He opened his eyes three hours later to find Lane sitting by his side, her aristocratic features lined with concern.
“Hello, Handsome, nice to see you back. How do you feel?”
“I feel like crap, how do you think I feel? How did I get here? How did you know?”
Beckett struggled to sit up but Lane put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “No, don’t try and sit up. Not yet. I need to check you out first.”