Blood Red Dawn

by Karen E. Taylor

  I padded over to where a now naked Vivienne stood, folding her clothes, and I nuzzled her hand. She looked at me and smiled. “Excellent,” she said, “you’ve been practicing, no?” Vivienne had been the one to teach me the animal forms, since Deirdre refused. I nuzzled her again. “I get the point, Mitch. Adieu, Sam, darling, we will be back soon.”

  She curled in on herself, and her fragile human form became that of a deadly lioness. I knew she was deadly, she’d swatted me more than once with those claws during our training sessions and both the Wolf and I remembered the pain.

  I howled and she roared and we tore off down the hill behind the abbey.

  In our animal forms, the cold and the rain had no effect, so we ran, tirelessly, searching the night air for the scent of her. Halfway through the search, we both switched to our flying forms and, as eagle and black swan, we scanned the empty moors from above. Then we dropped to the ground and became four-footed beasts again, covering the ground back to the abbey slower this time. We arrived back at the ruins hours later, exhilarated but despondent from the useless run. Deirdre was nowhere to be found. I knew it; hell, all evening, I’d known the truth somewhere in the pit of my stomach. What Maggie had told me in the kitchen was true. Deirdre was gone. I refused to let my mind add the word, forever.

  In silence we changed back to our human forms and dressed. Sam waited for us on a bench overlooking the ocean. “Any luck?” he asked, walking toward us, holding something in one of his hands.

  “Nothing, damn it, not one scent, not one hair.”

  “Ah. I was afraid of that. Because, you see, I found something, taking a stroll through the cemetery.”

  “Strolling through the cemetery?” Viv kissed him full on the lips. “Sam, mon cher, you are growing morbid on me. Show us.”

  I froze in my tracks. Suddenly I didn’t want to know what Sam had found. In my mind, I sketched a horrible picture: Deirdre, sick and poisoned without memory of the world around her, crawling off to a far corner to die, like some wounded animal.

  “Mitch, it’s not her, calm down.” Sam knew me well enough to recognize my upset. “It’s the other dog, dead. And this.” He held out an empty syringe. “Amitryptilene, probably enough to knock anyone out for quite some time.”

  I sighed with relief, remembering that drug well. It had been responsible for the deaths of many of the Cadre vampires during the Larry Martin affair. Not by its use, but by its paralytic properties and the fact that it had been given in an open area shortly before dawn. The drug had also been administered to me by my stepdaughter, Lily. It wouldn’t cause Deirdre any lasting harm. “So she’s been taken by someone,” I said. “But who? And why?” Then I clenched my fists. “Maggie will know. She’s known all night long.”

  “The Breeder?” Vivienne asked, a nasty edge to her voice. “Just who did her eldest son turn into, I wonder.”

  I had my suspicions. Eduard DeRouchard had a lot of atoning to do. Too bad he was already dead, I’d have enjoyed ripping him to pieces. “Let’s find out.” I said.

  “What about the dog?”

  “Where is he?”

  Sam led me over to the far row of graves in the cemetery. Curly lay there, a poor little dead lump of fur, his eyes open and glassy. I leaned over, picked him up. “Chris will be heartbroken,” I said. Then I looked up at the sky, gauging the time until sunup. “We’ll bury him tomorrow night; for now, we have just enough time to get back to The Black Rose and find out what our little Maggie knows about all of this.”

  “She won’t tell you, Mitch. Why should she?”

  It didn’t make me feel better to know that Vivienne was right. I was angry and itching to take it out on someone. “Oh, she’ll tell me, if only to save her useless life.”

  “No, no, Mitch. That’s not an approach that works with her kind. You don’t know what they’re like. She’ll ensnare you, lie to you, and make you want more than anything in the world to believe her.”

  I gave her a cold, hard look. “This is Deirdre we’re trying talking about, Viv. I’ll do everything and anything I need to do to find her. If it means roughing up Maggie Richards in the process,” I smiled unpleasantly, “so be it.”

  When we arrived back at the pub, the issue became moot. The entire place was in darkness. We were hours past last call, so of course Maggie had closed the pub. But normally there was a light on in the kitchen. Or a thin flash of light coming from under the door of Maggie’s room. It could be that she and Chris had gone to sleep. I had no compunction about waking her up in these last hours before dawn. Gently, I laid the body of the dog down under one of the trees and opened the back door.

  Entering the room, I noticed that there was an empty feel about the place. No sounds of breathing, no scents of occupation. But there was a very strong scent of death.

  Next to me, Vivienne inhaled in a sharp gasp. The kitchen reeked of blood, so much so that I knew that a lot of it had been spilled here. Recently.

  I ran my fingers through my hair, squared my shoulders, swallowed the lump in my throat, and opened the door to Maggie’s room, fearing the worst. When I flipped the light switch it took my eyes some time to adjust to the artificial glare. That momentary pause didn’t provide enough time to prepare me for what was there. True, it was not what I’d feared, but what I saw did not bode well.

  The dog, Larry, lay on the floor of the room in a pool of thickening blood. His throat had been slit and the knife that had done the job was laying on the bed next to a small piece of paper. As Sam bent over the animal, I picked up the note she’d left.

  The words jumped from the page in a script that was bold and black and somehow disturbing. “Mitch,” the note read, “I have gone. Chris is with me. Do not attempt to follow us. It will do you (and your son) no good at all. Accept that you have lost and let it go.”

  “I’d guess,” Sam said, coming over to me, wiping the dog’s blood from his hands onto his pants, “that he died about three hours ago. Maybe longer. What does the note say?”

  “Nothing good,” I snarled. “Maggie’s left and she’s taken Chris with her. Damn it. Now what do I do? Deirdre’s gone. Chris is gone, taken by the one person who has the answers.”

  “She called him Chris in the note?” Sam asked. Nodding, I handed him the piece of paper.

  He read it. “I see,” he said, his voice grim. “It’s not a particularly good sign that she refers to him by the name of Chris, instead of Phoenix. Nor is it good that she calls him your son. She’s already tried to kill him once.”

  “I should have given her twice the dose of Valium last night,” Vivienne said. “Or three times the dose. Or drained her dry of blood. The Breeder doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “Deirdre spared her life,” I said, with a catch in my throat. “Maggie has the answers I need to find my wife. And she has my son. I’ve no choice but to follow her, regardless of her threat. I’ve never given up on a case in my life. ‘Let it go?’ ” I gave a mirthless laugh. “She has no idea.”

  Walking over to the dog, I picked him up. “We might as well bury both of them before dawn. Or rather, you two should be getting back to your place and I’ll bury them.”

  Vivienne shook her head and glanced at Sam, who nodded. “We’ll stay, Mitch, mon cher. We need a plan and that can’t wait until the next sunset. You and Sam can take care of the dogs and I will clean up in here.”

  When the burial duties were over, Sam and I came back inside. Vivienne sat at the kitchen table, holding the note in her delicate hands. “Where would she go?” she asked as we entered. “Where did she and that monstre Eduard live? That, mon chers, is where I would go. Back to the source.”

  “A good guess, my love,” Sam said to her.

  I bolted the back door, glancing at the clock afterward. “Let’s get upstairs and settled in before dawn. We can do a little checking on the Internet. I remember from previous research that the DeRouchard Funeral Home business began in New Orleans. That would seem to be the place to start.�
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  We trudged back up the stairs and secured the apartment for daytime, bolting the steel clad door and closing the steel shutters. I started a fire in the grate and looked around. It was a small apartment, but without Deirdre’s presence it felt overwhelmingly large and empty. Pulling a clean change of clothes from the stacked and folded pile on the dresser, I headed for the bathroom. “You two make yourselves at home,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower to wash the stink of the night away.”

  Letting the water run hot first, I stripped off my clothes and looked at myself in the mirror, almost wishing the legend of vampires having no reflection was true. If it were true, at least I’d not be able to see the ravaged face of what I’d become staring back at me. My hair showed gray at the roots; fat lot of good the disguises had done us. The bastards had still found us and hurt us. Hurt her. And now, when, against all rational hope, they’d returned my son to me, Chris ended up in the control of a madwoman, a Breeder trained from birth to view the death of her children as acceptable.

  I saw the fire of rage come up in my eyes and I wanted to tear and slash all of them. Pull their beating hearts out of their bodies and laugh as they died.

  “Slow down, Greer, old man,” I told my reflection. “Now is the time for thought. Cold and clear, unclouded by anger. Revenge and justice will come later.”

  I showered methodically, not noticing my actions, playing over the entire night in my mind. Finishing, I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. As I dried myself, I remembered something Sam said earlier. “. . . it’s not all bad news.” Forgetting the need for clothes, wrapped only in a towel, I opened the door of the bathroom. Vivienne and Sam sat on the sofa, facing the fire and talking quietly.

  “Sam,” I called to him. “You didn’t finish the joke. What’s the good news?”

  He turned. “Excuse me?”

  “When we spoke earlier, you said it wasn’t all bad news. So I want to know, what’s the good news?”

  “Ah.” He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “I’ll need to test Deirdre again, of course, to be absolutely sure. There might be something in her blood or in the poison that falsified the results. Still, it looked fairly definite.”

  “What looked definite?”

  “Deirdre is pregnant.”

  I started to laugh, but the serious look on his and Viv’s faces choked it back into my throat. “Pregnant? But how is that possible?”

  “Beats me, Mitch,” he said, “But the results can’t be argued with. Deirdre is pregnant.”

  Chapter 4

  Deirdre Griffin: New York City

  “Where do I go from here?” I pulled out of Max’s embrace and crossed the room to the couch, sitting down and pressing my fingers to my eyes. The headache hadn’t improved with the wine I’d drunk earlier. I couldn’t think and I couldn’t remember anything specifically about my life prior to waking up in this room. There were vague details, however, that haunted me—I knew Max and knew of Steven DeRouchard and the Others’ method of attaining immortality through the murder of their newborn children. Perhaps some horrors could never be forgotten. Presumably I had other memories, better ones than the few I now held. “Where are they?” I whispered into my hands. “And where do I go to be healed?”

  “You’ll stay here with me,” Max said, “at least until you are better able to function. I hope,” his voice lowered, “that even then you will consider staying with me. I have loved you for so long, Deirdre, and it seems that fate has given me a second chance to make things right between us. I will do everything possible to keep you well and safe.”

  I slid my fingers from my eyes and gazed up at him. “That is all well and good, Max. But how did this happen? I have no memories. None. I may as well have been born right this very minute for all I know of my previous life. How will you ever make it right?”

  “I can give you explanations if you insist.” He reached behind the bar and pulled out another bottle of wine, pouring some into a glass and handing it to me. “But I’m not sure how that will help. Perhaps it’s for the best just to move on from this point in time.”

  “For the best.” I nodded and sniffed at the wine, noticed that he hadn’t poured himself a glass from the same bottle. Not the same vintage as the other, it smelled strange, bitter and oddly medicinal. Suspicious, I set it down on the floor next to my feet. “Yes, Max, I can easily see where you might think that this is for the best.”

  “You can?” He seemed somewhat shocked by my statement. “That’s good. We’ll just pick it up from here and go forward then.”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “You misunderstand me, Max. I didn’t say I agreed. I said I saw how you might think it. What you really mean is that not explaining is best for you. Best for me is for you to tell me exactly what has happened to me. Now.”

  Max stared at me for a while in disbelief and anger. “Is that a threat, Deirdre? What I’ve done has been for your welfare only. If it had not been for me, you’d be wandering the moors of . . .” He stopped abruptly and gave me a forced smile. “You’d be wandering aimlessly, defenseless and alone, sickened and dying.”

  I made a mental note of that pause. Realizing I had not been here in this place indefinitely changed everything. I knew from what he just said that I’d been living somewhere else. Before. It was a start, at least. Better than a start actually, since his mention of the moors triggered a flash of memory: I saw the stones of a ruined church, heard a restless ocean, and felt the gentle weight of a familiar arm wrapped lovingly around my shoulders. Maybe it had been Max’s arm. It could have been, but somehow I didn’t think so. There had been someone else; if only I could pull back something other than that brief flash. A face or a name or a place. Anything. I glanced at him, wondering if I could trick more information out of him.

  “I vaguely remember being with someone else. Was I really alone when you found me, Max?”

  “When I found you, yes, you were alone. There was no one else, Deirdre, except perhaps in your feverish imaginings. At the time you didn’t know who you were, you didn’t know who I was. I imagine you don’t even remember the flight here, do you?”

  He sounded so sure of himself. Sighing, I picked up the glass of wine and took a tentative sip. The strange scent didn’t detract from the taste, so I drank more, draining the glass before I spoke again. Although the liquid was tepid, it seemed to warm me and took away the gnawing hunger in my stomach. “I’ll tell you what I remember, Max. Waking up here. That is the sum total of my memory. Not much to build on, is there?”

  “But you know me. You said my name. That must count for something.”

  I shrugged, not wishing to give him the advantage. I did know him, that much was true. Somehow the knowledge did nothing to make me feel more secure, since I also knew that I didn’t trust him one bit. “And for what does it count? I say your name and I know that it is your name. But do I know you?”

  “There’s no one on this earth who knows me better, Deirdre. We’ve been together for a very long time.”

  “If you say so, Max. But that still doesn’t explain a thing. You say you saved me. But from what?”

  “The Others.”

  “But you are one of them.” It was not a question. I knew what he was, just as I knew what I was. Or I thought I did. Resting my head against the back of the couch, I rubbed my eyes again. In reality, I knew nothing for certain. If only my head would stop aching, if only he would stop sounding so confident, so calm and self-assured, then maybe I could think.

  “When the attacks on you were happening, I was not in control. I could not help the fact that you were poisoned, could not stop the effect of the drugs they’d introduced into your system.”

  “And now? Can you do something to stop this, to reverse the process?”

  Max looked away from me and turned back to the bar, picking up that second bottle. Walking over to me, he filled my glass again, then sat down next to me on the couch. “Drink,” he said, “it’ll do you g
ood.”

  “What is it?” I asked, suspicious again. “Why does it smell so odd?”

  “It’s a tonic, of sorts. A blend of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and medications, sweetened with just a little bit of wine to help it go down. It will nourish you, for one thing, you have been a long time without any kind of sustenance. It will also help control the nausea you’ve been experiencing. And it serves as an antidote to the poison, flushing it out of your system. You have been very sick, whether you remember it or not.”

  “Sick?” I puzzled that over in my mind. “I haven’t been sick, have I?” Sipping more of the wine, I strained to remember. “I can’t have been sick.” I was a vampire, wasn’t I? By rights, I was immune to sickness, immune to disease, immune to death itself. How could I have been sick? How on earth could that be possible?

  “Yes, Deirdre,” Max walked over and sat next to me on the couch. I inched away from him, but he ignored my response. Instead he took my free hand in his and brought it up to his cheek. “You have been sick, Deirdre. Even now, I’m sure, your head aches. And I can tell that you are running a fever and may still be slightly delirious. I don’t mind telling you, it was touch and go for a while; I feared you might die.” He kissed my hand then and dropped it back down. I moved the wineglass to that hand, making a show of brushing back my hair with the other.

  He crooked an eyebrow at me, not at all fooled by my casual avoidance of his touch. “The fact that you don’t remember is a blessing. You ranted and raved and swore at the doctors I brought in.” He got up from the couch and laughed. “You have always been a creature of great spirit, little one, one of your many wonderful qualities.”

  “If I was that sick, why was I here? Why wasn’t I in the hospital?”

  He turned his back to me and busied himself at the bar. I felt he was trying to gather his thoughts. With every word he spoke a part of me screamed liar!

  “A hospital? For you? I think not. I took care of you myself. Who better?”