by S. W. Clarke
“Where will you go with my daughter?”
Lust stared at Mariana for a moment. Then, with the ghost of a smile appearing, she whispered, “Worry not. You will see her again when the orb falls from the sky and the world looks on. And you will smile.”
What the hell does that mean?
“Stop her,” I barked out. “Stop her now, Mariana.”
“Patience,” Mariana whispered in our head. Was that an instruction, or her addressing me by my name—my real name? “Fighting doesn’t always involve fists, and it doesn’t have to happen as soon as the impulse arises.”
Lust’s head turned toward me, but her eyes didn’t see me. She saw past me—and when her hand rose and she gestured someone over, I knew who it was.
I knew because Frank’s voice resounded through the night, a cry of desperation if I’ve ever heard one.
“Seleema!” he yelled, his voice cracking through a sob. “Please don’t go, Seleema.”
Footsteps sounded behind me, and then the seven-foot-tall houri passed me without even an acknowledging glance. She stepped lightly through the grass, approaching Percy’s side as Frank’s sobs broke the stillness.
Why hadn’t Lust taken Frank with her?
I knew as soon as I’d asked the question: Lust wanted to hear him grovel. She wanted to feel his desire.
How sick and awful.
Lust’s hand went up to touch Seleema’s chin, fingertips reaching out as Seleema inclined her head to meet her. “You will ride with me,” Lust purred. “And you will be among my courtesans, closest to me as any creature alive.”
“Yes,” Seleema’s smooth voice responded, gratitude soaking in amongst the word. “I shall accompany you.”
In the next moment, she had slid one leg over Percy’s back and sat close—too close, in my estimation—to Lust, her hands touching the bare skin of the sin’s waist.
And me? I just worried for Percy. Could he carry all three of them? He’d never had more than two riders at once. Motherly admonitions came to mind—“Let your talons help you rise from your haunches!” and “Don’t fly too hard with so much weight”—and remained only in my mind, because Mariana controlled my body and my tongue, too.
So I only gazed on, tears streaming down to my chin as Percy did use his talons to press himself upright. He carried the three women easily, their heads glinting under the moonlight as he carved himself only a short runway through the grass before his wings flapped once, twice, three times.
They left the ground, and Mariana turned our head as the angels took to the sky after them and all of Lust’s followers shifted their eyes skyward, watching the course of their mistress and, with only a moment’s delay, following after, striking across the landscape and disappearing into the night in her wake.
Which left us alone, and only Frank’s cries to break the silence as he ran down the porch and across the driveway and waved after her as though if he yelled hard and loud enough at the shrinking dot in the sky that Seleema might come back.
But she didn’t. And neither did my dragon.
Chapter 21
As soon as they were gone, Mariana released me. My body relaxed with a sigh, as though I had been held in a vise from which I was now free.
It was only when she let me go that I realized she might not have. The ease with which she had overtaken me told me it had been a conscious choice, which meant letting go had, too. And I didn’t know why she’d released me.
As my head dropped, the tears clinging to my chin fell—one, two, hitting the grass and disappearing. I knew now they were mine. I had been the one crying.
I turned slowly and found Frank not far off, his entire body heaving with emotion he couldn’t rein in. I wanted to comfort him, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to show sympathy to another human being right now.
Not after everything that had happened tonight. Not after losing Percy.
Beyond him, Erik sat against the bottom step of the porch, half-leaning with his burnt arm across his chest. He breathed heavy and deep, wincing with pain. Grunt sat beside him, staring vacantly out across the lawn, one of the porch struts still in his hand.
I just stared blind, feeling wrung out and uncomprehending. And then circus instinct snapped into place—
Someone’s hurt. First aid, Tara. Get them help.
“Valdis,” Mariana interjected. She was starting to sound like the sweet, moralistic voice inside my head. “Where is he?”
I snorted back at her. “You didn’t notice? He ran away.”
“No. He would not run. Find him.”
“He would, and he did. I saw it with our own two eyes.” I bent down, picked up Thelma and Louise and began twining them back into their loops. “Your ex-vampire’s a coward.”
“He had a purpose,” Mariana snapped. “Don’t be a fool. Find him.”
“Why don’t you just make me, then?” I snapped back, my anger over losing Percy spilling out every which way. “You didn’t have any trouble taking control a minute ago.”
“Petulance is for children,” Mariana said. “You’re an adult. A mother. And when you find Valdis, you will understand his purpose. He would never forsake Ariadne. Go now—do not make me move your legs.”
I rose, latching the two whips onto my belt at the side and the back. A purpose. Even after seven hundred years, Mariana trusted her vampire. She didn’t believe he was the coward I’d witnessed.
“Fine,” I said, starting forward, setting a brief consoling hand on Frank’s back as I passed by him. I stopped at Erik’s side, knelt. “Come on, let’s get you into the house.”
With his good arm slung over me, we crossed up the half-decimated porch and through the smoking doorway. Apparently Valdis had constructed this house of something other than wood, because Percy’s fire hadn’t penetrated past the doorway.
Probably reinforced steel all the way around, I thought as Erik and I came back into the foyer. I walked him into the living room and eased him down onto the couch. As he sat, he grunted with pain and clutched his arm harder to his chest.
“Dragonfire makes a hell of a burn,” I said.
Eric nodded, his hand shaking as he pulled out something on his belt. A needle.
“What is that?”
“Ever played Dungeons and Dragons?”
I shook my head. “Is now the time? I mean, I know you’re a nerd and—”
He smiled, dismissing my ribbing. “It’s a healing potion. Something the World Army concocted. A bit of magic, mostly science. Morphine, St. John’s Wort and Virgin’s Tears. Lots of tears … It’ll help me get back on my feet.”
I nodded and pulled out the tiny syringe and helped Eric inject himself in the leg. As soon as the fluorescent, unholy mixture was in him, he kind of dozed off, muttering to himself like someone who was caught in between sleep and consciousness.
With him out, I stood. I had a vampire to find.
↔
I hadn’t seen Valdis since I’d re-entered his mansion, but I had a feeling I knew where he’d be.
Maybe it was Mariana’s intuition that carried me through the living room, past the dining room and into the same study that Percy had slept in during what I’d already come to think of as The Night of Living Hell.
When I came through the double doors, a small glow greeted me. A desk lamp had been turned on, casting its halo in a circumference large enough to see a metallic object laid dead-center atop the desk.
Was that a dagger?
“Snowdrop,” a haggard voice murmured, barely audible above the sound of the crickets outside.
My gaze shifted beyond the desk to the figure seated in the wingback armchair. A pale hand, wet with blood, pressed against the torso. And wisps of his long white hair hung limp at the fringes of the light.
White hair. His hair hadn’t been white the last time I’d seen him.
I took two steps forward, that old hatred surging in me. “That dagger would have been useful in the fight.” My mouth closed, and then
the next word forced itself out of me. I couldn’t stop it. “Coward.”
Here was the moment I’d waited five years for. This was the moment I’d envisioned time and time again—standing above him, his life in my two hands. I’d planned a small speech I would deliver, a la Inigo Montoya.
You killed my family. Prepare to die.
I would use my best performer’s voice, the one reserved for moments of peril. For terror. For the promise of death.
Deep. Low. Lethal.
And I wouldn’t hesitate. I would pull both throwing knives from my boots, gripping one in each hand and with all the finesse of years of practice, I would lodge them right in his heart.
One, two. Just like that.
He’d deserved it. He was a murderer. He was irredeemable.
But now that the moment had actually arrived?
I knelt. I retrieved my knives from my boots. I held them one in each hand. And then ...
I hesitated. I GoneGodDamn hesitated.
A soft noise came from his throat. His breath hitched, and then, “Come here. Come to me, quickly.”
Death. I heard death in that voice, and my eyes narrowed. Had he really burnt through the vast well of time his ritual had afforded him?
He had a bad chest wound, but he could have burnt time to heal it.
He hadn’t.
So what had he done with his time?
“Come,” Valdis repeated. “Hurry.”
My grip on the knives loosened. Without a word, I took slow steps until I came to stand in front of Valdis.
His hand left his wound, reaching out to me in the semidarkness. “Mariana.”
All at once, I understood.
These were his last moments. This was the end of the vampire who had destroyed my entire world. Who had consumed the last five years of my life with thoughts of revenge. Who hadn’t fought for my dragon.
I hated him. I wanted him to die.
Or did I?
Now that I knew the truth—I had left Thelma alone in that circus tent—I found I couldn’t despise him with quite the same righteous venom as before.
Because if he had taken my parents’ lives, then I had taken my sister’s life. Not directly, no, but she might have lived if I’d chosen differently that godforsaken night.
She might be alive today.
But I wouldn’t give him Mariana. Not until I had an answer. “Why did you run?” I spat. “You could have saved them—Percy. Seleema. Ariadne.”
“I swear to you,” he murmured, every word labored. “I did all in my power. Now I must leave the rest to you. Please—I beg you, give me a moment with her.”
“Leave the rest to me?” I repeated in a venomous whisper.
Was he leaving Lust to me? After all this, he was putting that burden on my shoulders?
His breaths were curdled with blood now, his breathing wet and uncertain. He didn’t answer; maybe he couldn’t.
Now that I knew the truth about what had happened to Thelma, I had a choice.
I could be the same person I’d cultivated for five years. Angry, resentful, keen on revenge.
Or I could be another person—one who chose empathy. Did I have a choice? What revenge could I have anymore? Where could I direct my anger except at myself?
Nonetheless, I wanted it. I wanted to kill him anyway. My lust for revenge burned that hot. It had been burning for years.
“Patience,” Mariana said in my head. “I can feel your pain.”
“Don’t even start with me,” I shot back at her. “You don’t know. You’ll never know.”
I knew what she was doing. She was trying to ply me until I gave her control. And it pissed me off that she was manipulating me.
This was my moment. She’d already had a lifetime with Valdis.
“My family was murdered as well. You saw it,” Mariana said, not a hint of anger in her tone. “I might know something about your feelings.”
“Just because you didn’t take revenge, doesn’t mean I’m you,” I said. “You know I deserve this.”
“I won’t deny you what you deserve. You do,” Mariana said. “You deserve it, Patience. But when you look back on this moment, will you be proud of your actions? Will you be able to look Percival in the eye and know you’ve earned the right to guide him to adulthood?”
Earned the right to guide him to adulthood. What a bunch of hooey.
Except that hooey got me right in the gut. And one thing I’d learned: if someone’s words got you right in the gut, you could call them hooey all you wanted … but they’d still take the wind out of you.
She was right. I wouldn’t tell her as much, but she had a point.
Every instinct in me resisted what I knew would be the right thing to do. The good thing to do. I didn’t trade in kindnesses.
But maybe I could pretend to be someone who did. What were good and kind acts, anyway, except people pretending to be the people they admired until they became those people?
Who did I admire? Who did I want to be?
The answer was obvious.
All right, I thought, every nerve lighting up and down my body with adrenaline. This felt like a betrayal of the bloodlust I’d carried around, even as some solid, rational part of me sensed it was the better choice. For him. I’ll do it for him.
“If this will get me any closer to Percy,” I whispered, taking a step forward. “Then you’ll get your moment with her.”
“Yes,” Valdis breathed. “Yes. I promise.”
When I relinquished control to Mariana, she flew to the fore of my consciousness like a moth to light. It was that quick, that thorough.
She fell to her knees in front of Valdis. Both her hands went forward, clasping his bloody one. When she looked up into his face, half-shrouded in darkness, I felt the stab of pain that lanced her chest.
She loved him. After all this, she loved him.
His gaze traced the outline of her hair, softened on her face. “I would have spent ten thousand lifetimes with you.”
Tears blurred her vision until the whole room swam. “And I you. I regret nothing about the life we lived together.”
His bloody hand squeezed hers, the thumb tracing over her knuckles until his blood was warm and wet on my hand like paint. They spent a few moments like this, the two of them together in silence.
This was how they spent many moments, I realized. Way back then.
And even as I reviled the man in front of me, a bud of respect pressed its way into my chest. I recognized the truth of their love, their respect for one another. True loyalty came rarely among anyone, no matter the time or age.
“Snowdrop …” he began, his voice shifting to seriousness.
“Tell me,” she whispered, blinking the tears away. She understood at once. “What must I do?”
“The weapon”—his eyes drifted to the dagger on the desk—“both of you must wield it.”
“Both of us,” she repeated, half in question.
He gave an almost invisible nod. “To protect …” His chest caught, his breathing stilted. “Her.”
She squeezed his hand, bringing it forward to her lips. When she kissed the back of it, his blood came away on her mouth. “I will bring her home. Rest now—she will be safe.”
The smallest smile graced his lips, his lidded eyes on hers. Even when his breath came slower, more halting, and then stopped entirely … he still gazed down at her.
That was how the vampire died. Not with my throwing knives sticking out of his chest. Not with my whip wrapped around his neck. Not even by a wound I had given him.
He died as I knelt before him, one of his hands clasped between both of mine. And as Mariana looked on—as I looked on—a strange brew of emotion filled me.
Whether as Mariana or as Tara, this man had been the focal point of my life. He had given me love and agony. He had brought my soul back from the ether so that I could live again.
I’ve heard that love and hate aren’t so dissimilar. I never understood the e
xtent of such a thing until Valdis died in that burning house, one fall night in the middle of Texas.
My quest to kill a vampire was over.
When Mariana released me, I slowly stood. On the desk, the dagger gleamed with a perfect lethal edge under the lamplight.
I had a new quest. One which I could not fail at.
I had to save my dragon.
Chapter 22
I stared down at the dagger. It was the strangest weapon I had ever laid eyes on.
It had a clouded crystalline grip, through which I could see the warped wood beneath. Who made a dagger with a crystal grip? And the blade itself wasn’t made of metal; it, too, seemed forged from the same material, semi-transparent and almost glittery under the lamplight.
It looked just like the object he’d stabbed me with on the rooftop in NYC.
I stepped forward, standing opposite Valdis’s unmoving body to stare down at the weapon he’d offered to me and Mariana.
We could use it to save her, he’d said.
But my hands didn’t move to pick it up.
“Take it,” Mariana said in my mind. “He burned the last of his life to give us this weapon.”
“I don’t like taking things when I don’t know what they’re for,” I said back to her.
“But you do know.”
“I know he said something about saving Ariadne.”
“What else do you need?”
I didn’t know. My eyes flitted to his bloody chest. “He burned the last of his life here in this office.”
“To craft this weapon,” Mariana said.
I lowered my eyes to the dagger once more. Some decades of a man’s life had been poured into the blade. “Why would he do that?”
“I do not know as yet.” Mariana sighed, and her face appeared in my mind’s eye. “You may have hated him, and I would not blame you. Suffice it to say, I trusted him. I trust him now. He died to give us this so that we could defeat Lust. What harm would it do you to take the dagger?”
I would be accepting a gift from my enemy, I thought but didn’t say. Five years had taught me caution around things offered freely, particularly ones from men I considered evildoers. Particularly from ex-vampires.