Instead, she finally found her voice. “That’s all well and good, but I can guarantee you that my truth is very far from yours.”
“I will try my utmost, mademoiselle, to see your truth.” The antifreeze eyes, empty of compassion, said otherwise.
“Go ahead, then. I will correct you when you are wrong.”
At that, one side of his mouth lifted, not enough to make the long smile lines pop, but enough to indicate amusement. All at her expense, she was sure.
He began her story. “Your grandfather, Nicolai, while living in Romania, was brought to the Other Side. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“But even after becoming a vampire, he had an insatiable . . . appetite . . . for his widow.”
She frowned. “Must you put it like that? He loved her. She was his wife.”
“The Undead know little of love. It is a lust, mademoiselle, nothing more. Take my word on this, for it is something I understand only too well.”
She wanted to argue further, but didn’t. She wanted this whole thing over with, and she wanted this creature out of her house. “Go on.”
“It is a lust, but a very powerful lust, a need that the vampire puts above all else. The vampire Nicolai continued to bed his widow until she bore him a son, your father Andrei. Your father was what many of you Gypsies call a dhampir, the human offspring of a vampire.”
She interrupted him. Some things were too important to let pass. “Don’t call us that. It’s offensive. We’re Roma, not ‘Gypsies.’”
He held a hand to his heart. “Pardon, mademoiselle! Je suis vraiment desole. Sometimes I forget the era in which we live. We must be politically correct, no?”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her loathing for the l’ enforcier increased even more. How dare he reduce the centuries-long struggle against persecution to a snit over political correctness? She closed her eyes and swallowed. She mustn’t fight with him. She mustn’t. Her survival depended on it.
She opened her eyes. “Don’t bother with apologies. Just do me a favor and call us Roma, all right?”
“Comme vous voudrez. As you wish. Andrei, the dhampir, had extraordinary abilities, did he not? He could detect vampires so well that he was hired by many of the . . . Rom to kill vampires, including his own father.”
She swallowed again, but the tightness in her throat made it difficult. “Yes, but he only did that for a few years. He didn’t enjoy killing, even creatures as foul as you are.” She couldn’t resist that last, even if it did anger Drago.
He blinked and paused in his recitation, but if he was angered, his hooded gaze didn’t show it. “Andrei lived until five years after you were born. At that time he was killed by one of the vampires he had been hired to kill years before, but had failed to. Poetic justice, some might say.”
She was trying to control her anger, but he was making it harder and harder. “Only a blood monster like yourself would call that ‘poetic justice.’ The Rom didn’t feel that way, and my mother most certainly didn’t.”
He leaned all the way back against the sofa’s cushioned back, stretching his left arm along the top of the backrest. His hand was directly behind her head. “You lost one father. I lost seven of my brethren to your father’s vampire-killing career.”
Her anger, still hot, helped her to ignore the proximity of his pale fingers. “‘Brethren.’ Don’t make me laugh. I’d be surprised if you personally knew any of them.”
“As a matter of fact, I did. But we regress. The story moves on to you, Marya. You have inherited your father’s abilities. Those abilities have been well tested and documented by local enforcers over the years. You cannot only detect vampires by sight and smell, but you have an unusually strong resistance to the compelling gaze of the average vampire. Do you dispute any of this?”
She sighed. There was no point in denying anything. As he said, it was all documented. “No. When I saw you in my bedroom I knew almost immediately what you are. But the legends aren’t as strong here as they are in Europe. Even if they were, I’m not an active part of the local Roma community. After my father gave up his career, he moved himself and my mother to France. When he was killed, my mother sold all his belongings, brought me here, and saw that I went to school. She wanted a better life for me than she had had. But I keep to myself. I don’t seek out gadje, and I certainly don’t seek out your kind. I’ve never had any contact with vampires outside the enforcers who have come to harass me. I am no danger whatsoever to any of the Undead.”
“‘No danger,’ mademoiselle? I’m not so sure of that. You carry much anger within you. What assurance do I have that in an encounter with one of my kind that anger would not prompt you to use your abilities to do him harm?”
Marya couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Now was as good a time as any to ask to speak her piece. “You told me I could speak. May I now?”
She felt rather than saw his fingers moving behind her head, stroking the fabric of the sofa. “You have been doing an excellent job of speaking thus far without my permission.” He sighed, but continued before she could form a reply. “I have yet to perform the final test on you, but if you wish it, go ahead.”
She took a deep breath. She was glad she hadn’t prepared a set speech, for she knew she wouldn’t be able to recite memorized words. What she wanted to say now came straight from her heart, and whether they helped her cause or hindered it, she didn’t care any more. “You want to know why I’m angry? I’ll tell you. If you had ever experienced the kind of persecution the Roma have, you’d understand all this.”
Drago leaned his head back, and the motion narrowed his eyes. A muscle twitched in his cheek, but Marya barely took notice. She went on, neither caring if he had a response, nor wanting to give him a chance to respond even if he did have one. “My people have been enslaved, murdered, and denied the rights that most people take for granted. And should not some of that anger be directed toward your kind? What my grandfather and father did has nothing to do with me, and yet for the past twelve years you’ve held my life hostage. The fact that I’m not now part of the Roma community is because of the limbo you’ve put me in. If I were living with the Roma, I would be pressured to marry. Family is everything to us. But how could I allow myself relationships, knowing that in a few short years some vampire, who knows nothing of life, might arbitrarily decide I am to be denied mine?”
She paused to catch her breath, and the sudden silence was almost deafening until the clock announced the top of the hour with the requisite number of clangs. After the final bong, its echo hung in the air, giving nervous energy to the silence that descended once more. Still Drago said nothing.
Marya knew she hadn’t made any brownie points with her speech, but she didn’t regret a single word. It had needed to be said. Even if he didn’t understand any of it, even if it meant her termination, it had been worth it.
He finally spoke, and his voice was very soft. “Tell me of your life, mademoiselle. In spite of your passionate declaration to the contrary, you do have a life. Quite a prosperous one. I see it all around me.” He raised both hands in an acknowledgment of her artwork.
She shook her head. He would never understand. “My father’s career was . . . lucrative. When he died my mother had enough money to give me a decent life. But I do have to make a living. My painting allows me to largely work at home. I attend arts and crafts shows and an occasional art club meeting. That’s all. I have no social life to speak of and no close friends. I rent this house and most of the furnishings. I’ve never lived in any one spot more than three years. My mother is dead and I have no other family nearby. That is my life, if you insist on calling it such.”
He leaned toward her again, his body nudging closer yet to hers. She was painfully aware that his leather-encased left leg was only two inches from her right leg. She dared not touch him, yet she
rebelled at backing away.
“Oh, I do, mademoiselle. Only when life is completely stripped from you will you understand how much you have.”
So that was it. He had already made his decision. She would be flagged for termination. Her throat constricted again, and she had to force the words out. “So that’s it, then? Just like that?”
He threw his head back. “My comment was purely rhetorical. Only when I am finished will I make my decision. Tell me of this man whose name appeared in the last report filed on you. Jaime Buckland. He is a boyfriend?”
She took another deep breath. She hated bringing Jaime into this. “No. He’s an acquaintance. He would like our relationship to be more than that, but I’ve made sure he remains a distant friend, nothing more, for the reasons I’ve already given you.”
Drago’s neon blue eyes seemed to burn into her. “And if you were granted life, you would have a relationship with this man?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. As I said, I’ve kept him at a distance. There’s a lot about him I don’t know.”
“But you would rejoin the Roma community?”
“It wouldn’t be easy, but they’re my people. The gadje certainly aren’t.”
“‘Gadje?’”
“The non-Roma.”
He tapped his fingers on the backrest behind her head. “And if someone in the Roma community were ever to approach you and want you to use your talents against one of us . . .”
She shifted her position, ostensibly to adjust her skirt, but the movement gave her the opportunity to move a few inches away from him. Those few inches of space were like a breath of fresh air, and the relief from his proximity gave her renewed courage. “I’m not my father. I’m not a vampire hunter. Much as I despise all of your kind, I have no desire to kill vampires. I would never hire my abilities out.”
“In spite of all this anger and hatred that you seem to harbor.”
Her eyes met his, a dangerous proposition, but she was not going to be the one to lower her gaze first. “My feelings are a part of me. I don’t know that I would ever be able to change them. But I can control my actions.”
“You are sure of this, mademoiselle?”
She held his eyes. “Yes.”
“You would, for instance, make no move against me now in spite of your feelings for me?”
“Only in self-defense. If, for example, you move your hand any closer to my hair, I would have no compunction against slapping your face.”
He laughed out loud and brought his hand from behind her head. “Bravo, mademoiselle! I admire your spirit. Few would dare say such a thing to l’enforcier. Tell me something. How did you hear of me?”
Marya didn’t smile in return. A left-handed compliment from Drago was nothing to be happy about. “I don’t have any clear memories of my father, just vague impressions, but he told my mother all the stories of the Undead that he had heard, and she relayed them all to me when I was a child. Your name was mentioned more than once.”
“In most unflattering terms, I am sure.”
“If you’re asking if you’re hated among the Roma as much as you are among your own kind, the answer is yes.”
The corner of one dark brow moved almost imperceptibly.
She shook her head. “Are you surprised? You dispense death as if it were nothing more than a pill from a bottle, designed to cure all ills, great and small.” She paused. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Certainement.”
“Why are you here for me? Surely the great and powerful Alek Dragovich has more important affairs to deal with than the future of one ‘aberration.’”
Emptiness flooded the unblinking blue eyes, causing a shiver to invade the warmth of Marya’s discomfort, and she wondered what, if anything, this creature felt.
His eyes shifted again, refocusing on hers. “Apparently not, as I am here. Perhaps it was felt that none of the local enforcers have the competence to perform this final evaluation.” His voice was dry, filled with an obvious disdain for his coworkers. No wonder they all hated him. “The reports filed on you indicate quite a strong resistance to the domination of the vampiric mind, even for a descendant of a dhampir.”
“And what is this ‘final evaluation’ you keep mentioning?”
“Are you ready, mademoiselle? It is what I will base my decision on.”
She swallowed, trying to summon all the courage she had earlier felt, but her throat was tight with renewed fear. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
“Very well. I warn you, though. It will not be pleasant, but if it is any consolation to you, know that it is no more so for me.”
As if she cared how he felt. “You’re right. It’s no consolation. Just what exactly are you going to do?”
“I will set the mirror before you, and to it you will reveal all. Not the outward appearances you show to the world, but your true self. Your reality, Marya Jaks. Comprendez-vous?”
More ribbons of chill ran down her spine, coaxing a bead of sweat to form under her blouse. She felt it trickle slowly down her side. “Mirror?”
“The vampiric mirror. Myself.”
She was suddenly very afraid. She knew now what he was talking about. She had never heard it referred to as a ‘mirror’ before, but she had heard countless stories of the frightening power of the gaze of the Undead.
It wasn’t that she was afraid he’d discover some deep, dark secret, for, in truth, she had nothing to hide. There was her ‘double life’ as she liked to call it, but for all the thrill of the forbidden it gave her, her monthly visits to New Orleans were innocent enough. Vampires infested New Orleans like a disease, but while she had seen countless of the creatures on her journeys, she had had no face-to-face encounters.
No, it was simply that her very soul would be laid bare to this uncaring monster. For someone like her, who had long sheltered herself from the world, it would be the ultimate violation.
“There’s no other way?”
“No, mademoiselle, regrettably not.”
She was sure he had no regrets. She summoned her courage. She had no regrets in her life, either. There was nothing she had to be ashamed of, nothing she would do differently if she had it to do over. “Let’s get this over with. Just don’t touch me.”
He merely nodded. “Gaze upon me, then, Marya, and the journey will begin.”
She stared into his eyes and, as before, beheld their clear, cold depths. They were as beautiful as they were horrible, like some force of nature terrifying in its destructive power, yet impossible to turn away from. She shivered and tried to will herself to stand fast, but felt a stronger will intercede, compelling her to submit. The eyes before her grew opaque, as shiny and dark as black water, and for the first time in her life, she felt ruled by a mind other than her own. Beads of light reflected off his eyes, dazzling her, until she could no longer see him, but herself. She wanted to struggle, to fight, but had no power to transform her wishes to reality. She watched, helpless, as her life unfolded before her eyes.
She saw herself as a child, eager and full of wonder, listening to her mother’s stories. She felt the pride and love for her father inherent in the tales, and the disgust for all things preternatural. She saw Marya the teenager, caught between the gadje, the Rom, and the Undead. Unwilling to shake off her past, denied a future, she fought for every moment the present lent her. But every instant spent in fellowship was followed by an eternity spent in isolation, and every minute of approval was followed by three spent in ostracism. She saw Marya the adult, trying to accept her fate, trying to forge a life, but only reaping anger with the passing of each biyearly visitation from the Brotherhood.
Suddenly she felt her mind released, and the vampire’s composed features appeared once more before her. She felt exhausted, and her breath came in labored gasps, but she forced hers
elf to search his eyes for her fate. All she saw revealed in his impassive gaze was a touch of weariness. Not sympathy for the tortuous journey he had just led her on, but his own lethargy, as if he had just completed a disagreeable task and was glad to be done with it. How could any being on Earth view a lifetime of emotion and react with so little empathy?
He’s not human, she reminded herself. He’s a monster, whose job it is to dole out death.
She blinked, and he was on his feet in an instant. He raked a hand through his hair, glanced at the pendulum wall clock, and sighed, his fatigue still evident in spite of the speed and boneless grace of his movements. “It is done, mademoiselle. You will receive no more visits from us. I will inform the Brotherhood. Know that my decision is final. No one in that esteemed organization or any other has the authority to take away what I have given. But know also that should you commit violence of any sort upon my kind, that I will personally come for you, and there will be no mercy. Comprendez-vous?” He pulled on the cuffs of his sleeves and grabbed his coat from the chair that held it.
What? She shook her head. “No, I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”
He nodded toward the cocktail table in front of the sofa. “My verdict is on the table. I give to you what will never be mine. Bonsoir, mademoiselle.”
She glanced down at the table and noticed a small white envelope sealed with a glob of red wax. When had he put that there? With trembling fingers, she picked up the envelope and stared at it. The wax had been sealed with the impression of a dragon’s head. She broke the seal and pulled out the enclosed white card. It read Alek Dragovich and gave a phone number beneath the script of his name. She flipped the card over. There was but one word on the back.
LIFE.
She looked up, but he was already gone.
Two
DRAGO DIDN’T normally dwell on an assignment once he made his resolution. Maybe it was the boredom of the night drive to Jackson, or maybe it was the memory of another assignment in Mississippi last year. Whatever the reason, his mind chewed on the Jaks case. He put the car on cruise control, leaned his head back on the seat’s headrest, and ran his hands up and down the leather grip of the luxury car’s steering wheel.
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