by PG Forte
There was little enough there as it was—just a name, a single date, a line of script.
Desert Rose. October 31, 1969. With my life…
Armand unobtrusively removed a few of the flowers and placed them in the empty vase—just to balance things out. Then he carefully repositioned the arrangement so that it no longer blocked the stone. All the while, he once again pondered the last line of the inscription. He’d been contemplating those three words for forty years and he still had no idea what they meant.
With my life… Was it a promise? Some kind of quote? Armand had no idea. The only thing he knew for certain was that he’d never know for certain; for it was not the sort of thing he could ever ask Conrad about.
In all likelihood, Conrad did not even realize Armand knew the grave’s location. He’d probably be shocked to learn of his yearly visits here. And as for the flowers…
“I don’t just send them to her either, mon ami,” Armand murmured, allowing himself a small moment of superiority. “I bring them here myself.”
Not that he could fault Conrad overmuch for that. Watching the older vampire deal with the weight of his own, much greater sorrow had provided Armand with a valuable lesson, one that he had taken very much to heart. Where the possibility of eternity existed—an eternity in which to endlessly regret your loss—attachment was a dangerous indulgence. A very costly indulgence. A risk he’d vowed never to take again.
“I must have been insane last night,” he muttered, recalling the euphoria of Julie’s kiss. Delightful though she was, nothing could be worth the risk he’d been contemplating. He had Conrad to thank for that lesson, as well.
Frankly, Armand was not sure how Conrad had survived it. He was certain he would have long ago succumbed to grief had he been in his shoes. As it was, Conrad’s anguish over Desert Rose’s death had been so great he’d fled the state. He’d stayed gone for over thirty years. Leaving Armand alone and friendless. Now that he was back…
Though not so much as a single word was ever said about the girl, Armand did not imagine she was ever far from Conrad’s thoughts. As for Armand’s own thoughts, he’d tried hard to block them out, tried not to think of the many foolish choices he’d made—any one of which might possibly have saved her life, had he but chosen differently.
His work finished, Armand stood back and studied the effect. It was well, he decided; sweetly pretty in a way that befitted the girl herself. “Au revoir, chérie,” he said as he blew a kiss off the tips of his fingers and prepared to depart. “Until next time. Sleep well.”
For vampires, Halloween in San Francisco can be likened to an all-you-can-eat buffet and, for those whose tastes run in those directions, an all-night orgy, as well. Usually, it suited Armand to follow up his visits to the cemetery with a long night spent blotting out his memories while mindlessly sating both appetites. Tonight, however, he’d have to forego that release and attend the party Conrad had decided to throw in honor of the twins’ birthday.
It was the first Halloween party the house had seen in four decades—ever since the fateful night when he and Conrad had first met Desert Rose. Perhaps this was a hopeful sign? Perhaps grief did have an ending…or at least a lessening. Were it not for the sense of foreboding that had afflicted him ever since he first learned of the party, perhaps he would take heart in that. As it was, his only hope for the evening was that it would pass quickly and without incident.
That hope was dashed the moment he walked through the mansion’s front door just in time to see a ghost float down the staircase and disappear into the hall that led to the ballroom.
“Chérie!” He ran after her, without stopping to think or even wonder how such a thing was possible. “Wait. Come back.”
The apparition was hovering hesitantly in the doorway when he caught up with it, when the slight differences in height and build finally registered in his brain. He skidded to a stop, staring in disbelief. “Julie?” The resemblance was…remarkable. So much so, he wondered how he’d never noticed it before.
No wonder Conrad turned her, he thought, his heart aching at the unfairness of it all. For now he had no doubts at all that Conrad would want this one in exactly the same way he’d wanted the other—all to himself. And how convenient it must have been for him, that this one came equipped with a brother for Damian to amuse himself with, as well…
“Hi, Armand.” Julie’s smile held a trace of uncertainty as she turned to him. There was an anxious, excited look in her eyes he did not understand. “How come you’re not in costume?”
“Costume?” Armand started at the word. He took a closer look at the clothes she was wearing—the minidress, the matching scarf tied around her head, the go-go boots, the beads… He felt the blood drain from his face. Small wonder he’d mistaken her for a ghost, when she had dressed herself in the ghost’s discarded clothes. As a costume, it was frighteningly flawless, painfully evocative to anyone who’d witnessed the original.
Merde alors. And I’m the one who suggested she look in the attic.
“Come with me.” Taking Julie by the arm, he began pulling her back toward the staircase. “Now.”
“Let go.” She hung onto the doorframe, refusing to move. “What are you doing?”
“You need to go back upstairs. You need to take off that dress—quickly.” Before Conrad chanced to see her and made the same mistake from which Armand was still struggling to recover. Before he realized Armand had disobeyed his orders, all those years ago, that he hadn’t thrown the girl’s belongings in the trash, as he’d been told to do.
Or before Armand and Julie both ended up paying—he for his disobedience, she for her innocent mistake—perhaps with their lives.
“I need to…what? Take off my dress? I don’t think so.”
“Now,” he repeated as memories of the last time he’d seen Conrad lose his temper made his blood run cold. “Now!” Tugging harder, he finally succeeded in dragging her out of the doorway. “Believe me, you’ll thank me for this later.”
“Stop it,” she repeated, stumbling after him and prying at his fingers in an effort to free herself. “Why are you acting like this?”
“There’s no time to explain.” He snarled in pain when she succeeded in bending one of his fingers back, but refused to stop. “Trust me. You have no idea what could happen if you were to go in there dressed like this. If Conrad were to see you…”
“It’s the dress, isn’t it?” she asked, sounding suddenly breathless. As they reached the foot of the stairs she made a grab for the banister, bringing them once more to a stop. “You know something about it, don’t you? About who it belonged to? Tell me.”
“I can’t,” Armand said, turning reluctantly to face her. “Not now.”
They were the last words he said before his fate caught up with him and slammed him against the wall—hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. After that, speaking was no longer an option.
Chapter Twelve
Conrad lounged on the dais at the front of the ballroom, watching while his family and their guests enjoyed themselves. Once he might have joined them. Now he sat apart in hopes the outward change in behavior would allow the far greater changes within him to go unnoticed; just as he hoped the tolerant, amused expression on his face would mask the hunger that raged beneath the surface. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air. It called to him. But he didn’t trust himself to slake his thirst with any of the humans present. He feared his venom was yet too caustic for the attempt. Even more importantly, he feared he’d lose control.
Unfortunately, the effort to distract himself from his hunger by observing his children at play was not improving his mood. All he could think about was the last costume party he’d thrown here—and the woman who’d won his heart.
Ah, Mignonne, how I wish you could be here tonight.
Despair threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes to hide his grief. Tonight, he felt every bit as ill equipped to keep his promise to her as he had forty years ago.
If only he’d chosen differently when she’d asked him to turn her. If he’d waited, if he’d said no, how very different these last forty years might have been. How very different he might have been.
But, on the other hand, how much he might have missed…
“Don’t tell me you’re already so bored with the festivities you’ve fallen asleep?” Damian asked in chiding tones.
“Of course I’m not asleep.” Conrad opened his eyes to find that both Damian and Marc had joined him on the dais. His brow creased as he took in Damian’s appearance. “My dear, what is that you’re wearing?”
Damian smiled and pirouetted in place. “I know, it’s fabulous, isn’t it?”
Fabulous not being one of the words Conrad had had in mind, he said nothing. Damian’s long hair had been piled atop his head and affixed there with the aid of some kind of stick. He was dressed in a floor length toga that fastened over one shoulder and left half his chest completely bare.
“I really think I captured the essence of the role. Wouldn’t you agree?”
What role would that be? Conrad wondered as he finally succeeded in tearing his gaze away from the gold ring that glittered so enticingly in Damian’s exposed nipple. Flaunting forbidden fruit in a man’s face was a move guaranteed to sour anyone’s mood—and his had been bad enough to start with. He shifted uncomfortably. “You look ridiculous.” Besides the toga, Damian had wound a long silk scarf around his neck. The ends fell over his shoulders and trailed behind him in his wake. That, and the elaborate lacquered fan he carried comprised his entire ensemble. It all added up to nothing comprehensible. Or, at least, nothing Conrad could ever recall having seen before. “And is there a particular reason why you’re not wearing shoes?”
“Well, of course I’m not wearing shoes,” Damian snapped. If Conrad didn’t know him better, he’d swear Damian had been hurt by his censure. “Honestly, Conrad, did you never see Isadora Duncan perform? She always danced barefoot. Everyone knows that.”
Isadora Duncan? Conrad studied Damian’s appearance once again, confusion giving way to grudging respect. The costume was a testament both to Damian’s genius and his rather morbid sense of humor. It gave the impression he had nothing to hide, all the while providing coverage in exactly the right places to conceal the damage Conrad had done to him over the years. The scars on Damian’s shoulder, neck and back were completely hidden. Only a handful of people knew about any of them. Only Conrad and Damian himself knew the whole truth about all of them. “I detest costume parties. You know that. I don’t know why you insisted on it anyway.”
“It’s Halloween.” Damian sighed as he reclined beside him on the chaise. “So of course it had to be a costume party. What else would you expect?” He lifted his eyes to Conrad’s face, gazing at him with every appearance of devotion. From a distance, his performance was flawless. Only Conrad was close enough to note the hint of malice in his glance. “At least I’m attempting to get into the spirit of things. Unlike some people. Or do I misjudge you, querido mio? It is quite a nice tuxedo you are wearing, after all. Could it be Bella Lugosi has failed to return your cape? But for that, I suppose you make a perfect stage vampire dressed just as you are.”
“Very funny.” Refusing to rise to Damian’s bait, Conrad turned his attention to Marc, who was dressed in an uncharacteristically severe black suit and tie. “And what is it you’re dressed as, my dear?” At least he was reasonably certain it was a costume. Surely the dark glasses and bobbing, green antennae indicated as much.
Marc smiled. “I’m one of the Men in Black.”
Conrad hid his confusion behind a polite nod. “Ah. Of course you are. Well done.”
Damian sighed. “It’s from a movie, Conrad. Which you might know if you ever went anywhere. The Men in Black hunt space aliens.” He turned to Marc and smiled. “Bravo, chico. It’s nice to see you’re finally learning to laugh at yourself. I assure you it’s a very useful attribute to possess and very well worth cultivating.”
Conrad nodded in agreement. For years Marc had seemed obsessed with the theory that vampires had evolved from some form of extraterrestrial life. It had grown tedious. “Yes, indeed. As I said before, it’s very well done.”
Beside him, he felt Damian stiffen. “Dios,” he muttered as he sat up again, a frown on his face. “What is that idiot doing?”
The sound of a scuffle reached Conrad’s ears even as he turned his head in the direction of Damian’s gaze. His heart skipped a beat. Suddenly breathless, he stared at the couple struggling in the doorway. Forty years dropped away in an instant and all the fury he’d been suppressing erupted to life once again.
“Ay, ay, ay.” Damian stared in horror as Conrad leaped from his seat and charged across the room growling dangerously.
“What’d I miss?” Marc glanced around in confusion. “Damian? What’s going on?”
Damian shook his head. “Nothing good,” he said as he got to his feet. He’d seen such looks on Conrad’s face before—enough times to know that, in such a mood, he should not be left to his own devices. “Stay here,” he told Marc. “Play host.” Then he hurried after Conrad, hoping there was still time to avert disaster.
“Back inside, children,” he ordered clapping his hands as he neared the doorway, in an attempt to stem the tide of people already ebbing into the hall. “Andale! You’re here to party, not to gawk.” As Conrad’s Major D’omo and Second in Command, his word carried enough sway that everyone reluctantly obeyed. He waved them back into the ballroom then closed the big double doors behind him, just to be safe.
By the time Damian caught up with him, Conrad had Armand by the throat, backed up against the wall. He seemed intent on choking the life out of the younger man—a move Damian was reasonably certain he’d eventually regret.
“Answer me,” Conrad growled, even though Armand was clearly unable to respond. “Where were you taking her?”
“Stop it,” Julie begged. “You’re hurting him.”
“Conrad!” Damian snapped. “Let the boy go. Or at least let him have some air. You can hardly expect him to manage a reply if you don’t.” He turned to Julie who stared wide-eyed from the stairs. “What happened, niña? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” she wailed. “I keep telling him that, but he won’t listen to me! It’s this stupid dress. I was in the attic and I thought…I thought it would make a good costume. Damian, please, can’t you make him stop? What’s wrong with everyone tonight?”
Damian sighed. “Calm yourself, chica. Hysterics will not improve the situation. You can berate us all for our poor behavior later.”
“The attic?” Momentarily diverted, Conrad scowled at Julie. “What was it doing there? What were you doing there?”
“N-nothing. I don’t know. I was looking for a costume. I thought…”
“My fault,” Armand said, struggling to get the words out. “I told her to.” Damian turned to him in surprise, not sure whether to admire his courage, or pity him for his stupidity. The smartest course, at this point, would have been to say nothing. “Conrad…she didn’t know.”
“And what about you?” Conrad demanded, his attention reclaimed. “How long have you known? How long have you been planning this?”
Damian groaned. “Oh, this is madness.” Another minute and Conrad would be giving everything away—forty years of secrecy, wasted on a foolish misunderstanding. Stepping forward, he placed his hands on Conrad’s shoulders and gently squeezed them. “Stop it, querido. You go too far. He has not the least idea what you’re talking about. He knows nothing.”
“No,” Conrad insisted stubbornly, so obviously blind with anguish Damian gave up the idea of trying to soothe him. “You don’t know that. You’re wrong.”
Gritting his teeth, Damian took a step back, determined to try another tack. “Oh, very well,” he sighed, as though thoroughly bored with the proceedings. He snapped his fan open and fluttered it theatrically. “Do as you please then! But don’t say I didn’t warn you wh
en it all goes horribly wrong. You know how very unhappy you become after you’ve damaged one of your playthings. When you’ve bloodied this one, don’t come crying to me.”
As he’d hoped, Conrad dropped Armand and turned on Damian in a rage. “Careful, my friend. Push me too far and it’s you who will be made unhappy.”
Damian smiled, grimly pleased his ploy had worked and mostly confident Conrad would not attack him—not now, not with the others looking on. “Sí. So you’ve said before.”
“I’m s-sorry,” Armand stuttered, still catching his breath. “I know you said I should throw her things out, Conrad, but I couldn’t. I just… I couldn’t do it.”
Awareness of the mistake he’d been about to make flooded Conrad’s face. Damian watched as he struggled to conceal his horror at what he’d nearly done. He waited for a flash of gratitude, a look, a small smile—anything that might indicate Conrad realized he had Damian to thank for saving him from himself. It never came.
Instead, Conrad turned to Armand. “My apologies, mon ami,” he sighed, lightly cupping Armand’s face in his hand. “Of course you could not. I should have realized it at the time. I should never have asked it of you.”
“I never imagined anyone would find them,” Armand continued. “You know no one ever goes up there. And then…when I saw her tonight, I-I thought…” His voice trailed off.
“I know.” Conrad sighed again, his shoulders sagging. “It was something of a shock for me as well.” He looked old and tired as he nodded toward the ballroom. “Go back to the party now. All of you. I need a moment to myself.”
Disappointed once again, Damian watched as Conrad disappeared into the salon alone, without so much as a word or even a look in his direction.