Realm of Shadows (Vampire Alliance)

by Heather Graham

  Ann shrugged. “Well, I’m still afraid. But I’m also trying to catch up with work. And trying to keep the old place going with little help. I don’t mean you, your folks, your brother, or my folks. I mean on a day-to-day basis, simply keeping bathrooms clean, straightening out, keeping the roof on, and the ivy down. We’ve only got Katia running the house and Roland keeping up the grounds. Debbie, his old assistant in the States, has written to say that she wants to come to look after Jacques, but it will take her a while to put her affairs in order. So, you see, I really haven’t had any extra time to go running around to ruins. And I’m really glad that you’re here. You said that you were actually all caught up and would do some painting that you wanted to do—rather than what was commercial and paying the bills—while you were here. Maybe you’ll find inspiration in the crypt. Maybe they’ll even let you set up an easel. I don’t know. I love old Jacques with my whole heart. Remember when we were kids? He wrote popular fiction, but people were always interviewing him as if he were a great scholar or literary writer. He’s always had such a grip on the world, on human nature ... I don’t want to lose the grandfather we’ve known and loved all our lives.”

  “I love him, too. He was always magnificent, larger than life. He gave me my love of art, and you’ve certainly learned a lot about writing and publishing from him. He means the world to us, and he loves us very much as well.”

  “Yes, but you are the one with the love of stories and tales and fantasies. I am far too logical and straightforward for him. So you talk to him. See if you can make sense of it all.”

  “I’m here to do whatever is needed.”

  Ann nodded, falling silent as they drove.

  They had left the city behind and were driving through beautiful countryside with little clusters of charming old houses. Minutes later, Tara saw the drive to the chateau before them, and then the home that had been her fantasyland as a child. The drive wound haphazardly through trails of flowers—Ann’s babies, as she called them. Then they came around the gravel drive directly in front of the old stone steps.

  The front door opened and Roland, who was close to her grandfather’s age, came hurrying down the steps, throwing open the car door before she could do so herself. He burst into a warm and enthusiastic greeting so quickly spoken that she could pick out only one word in every few; it didn’t matter, she knew she was being welcomed. She hugged Roland, then insisted she was perfectly able to handle her own bag. By then, Katia, a few years younger than Roland, had arrived at the door. She wiped her hands on her apron, ran down the steps, and folded Tara into a massive hug as well. Tara struggled for the right words in French to return her greeting, gave up, and hugged her back. It seemed that the cheek kissing went on forever.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” Ann called to her. “I’m not going inside. You’re in your old room.”

  Tara had her own firm grip on her bag again; she wasn’t about to let either Roland or Katia try to take it from her.

  “Your grandpapa is in the library!” Katia said with stern disapproval, shaking her head with such vehemence that little gray tendrils of hair escaped from her neat chignon and whispered around her face. “You mustn’t excite him too much; he can be such an old fool!”

  “I’ll tie him down if he gets too frisky,” Tara assured her.

  Ann continued around the gravel drive and headed for the street, returning to the city, and Roland and Katia followed Tara back into the house. In the once grand foyer, Tara paused. She looked around at the beautiful woodwork, and the fraying tapestries on the wall. The long, claw-footed table in the hall held Ann’s computer surrounded by mounds of paper.

  Tara smiled. It was good to be here.

  Far across the Atlantic, Jade DeVeau woke with a start, and then wondered what had caused her to do so.

  It was still night . . . or the wee hours of the morning. For a moment, she lay tensely, eyes narrowed, as she tried to ascertain what danger might have stirred her survival instincts while she slept. And yet ...

  She heard nothing.

  She opened her eyes farther, twisted silently around.

  Moonlight streamed through the window above the charming courtyard of her Charleston home. Lucian sat in the rocker by the window, looking out at the night.

  It wasn’t strange that he should be there. Jade had changed her own natural sleeping schedule to coincide with his, and he had learned to lie down and rest in the darkness of the night. But still, many a night she woke, and saw him there. Sometimes, he read, with a book light, so as not to disturb her. Sometimes, he sat, rocking, watching the moon. Most of the time, he was at ease, simply a quiet night owl, who, when really restless, went downstairs to work or watch one of the twenty-four-hour news stations or an old classic movie.

  Tonight . . . there was something different.

  Jade sat up, reaching for her robe at the foot of the bed, still afraid, though she knew not why, and feeling strangely vulnerable in the naked state in which she slept. She knew that he was instantly aware that she had wakened; he could sense her slightest movement.

  He turned toward her, and even in the dimness of the moonlight, she saw that he smiled apologetically.

  “I woke you. I’m sorry. I thought I was quiet.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t wake me. I just woke.”

  He pulled her down to sit on his lap. She drew her fingers through his hair, wondering if it was a sin to love anyone so much.

  “What is it?” she asked him, her voice a whisper.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  A shiver shot through her. His arms tightened around her. “Don’t be frightened. It’s . . . whatever it is, it’s away. Far away. Of course, that’s what bothers me. I can feel something. But I don’t know what.”

  As if he were afraid that he might be sending his tenseness straight into her soul, he stood suddenly, setting her upon her feet. “I’m in the mood for a hamburger.”

  She looked up at him dryly. “At five in the morning?”

  They were interrupted by a sudden wail. “The baby,” Jade said. She turned, hurrying to the next room down the hall. She knew that Lucian dogged her footsteps, though she didn’t hear his movement.

  She flicked on the light and hurried over to the crib where six-month-old Aidan slept. At the moment, he was wide awake, tufts of blond hair standing straight up from his tiny skull, cheeks red, little fists flying, tears streaking down his little face. Jade scooped him up into her arms.

  The hardest thing for her to face when she married Lucian was the fact that she couldn’t have children. She had decided not to adopt; she wouldn’t put an infant into danger. But then, she heard about Aidan, just days old at the time he was orphaned.

  And now . . .

  It didn’t matter that she couldn’t bear children. Aidan was her child. She loved him as fiercely as she ever could any child who had been born of her own flesh and blood.

  She cradled him gently in her arms, crooning to him. He began to calm down, making little gulping sounds. “Little boy, little boy, little boy . . . you’re all right. It’s all right. Mommy is here.”

  His sobs subsided, then began again.

  “Here,” Lucian said, and took him from her arms. Lucian looked down at their son. He spoke softly in French. Aidan looked up at his father, fell silent, and slowly closed his eyes, sound asleep.

  Jade took him from her husband and slipped him back into his crib, then came back to Lucian. “I should resent your ability to calm him so easily, you know,” she said.

  “I cheat. My French is excellent. And it’s a soothing language.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry, raising him, trying to keep working . . . to keep up ... I’m far too exhausted most of the time to be resentful.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. “Go back to bed, my love. Get some sleep.”

  “I’m not tired anymore. Let’s have hamburgers.”

  “You don’t want an omelette?” he aske
d. “It is veering toward breakfast time.”

  “I’m in the mood for beef, very rare. How about steak and eggs?”

  “That will do.”

  They went down the stairs, hand in hand. Jade was proficient in a kitchen, and good scrambled eggs were one of her specialties. But she noted, though Lucian spoke to her, his words casual, that he kept staring out the rear windows. The pool—not much of a pool, but enough of a little lap pool—was in the back, surrounded by latticework and vines, a beautiful area. And a high stone wall that dated back more than a hundred and fifty years surrounded the backyard. She couldn’t understand what he was watching so intently.

  Or perhaps she did.

  He watched the moon.

  Moments later, she came out to the dining room. “Steak and eggs, and a wonderful Burgundy to accompany the meal.”

  “Burgundy—at this hour of the morning?” he inquired.

  “You bet,” she told him.

  They sat down to eat. She tried to be casual. She talked about Aidan’s smiles. The book she was reading. He responded with all the right words but he wasn’t really listening.

  The deep darkness of night began to lift.

  He stood, stretching. “Well, that was delicious. We should try to get a little sleep.”

  Jade nodded. She started to pick up the dishes. He caught her arm, and his deep brown eyes touched hers.

  “We’ll get them later,” he said.

  She nodded, feeling a jump in her heart, in all her senses.

  Her husband was an expert lover.

  A vastly experienced one, but . . .

  He loved her, and she knew how deeply, and the past didn’t matter at all.

  She followed him up the stairs, her hand in his. And at the foot of the bed she shed the robe she had wrapped around herself. In seconds she felt his hands upon her bare flesh, and as always, it was as if she was set afire, as if she melted . . .

  As if nothing else mattered in the world at all ...

  No matter the darkness, no matter the light, always, she felt his eyes, liquid fire, traveling over her, into her . . .

  And in the end, always, she would be amazed that she could still feel such passion, time after time, as if the world burst into gold, and sometimes, after the volatile climax seized, seared, and sated her, the brilliance would fade to black.

  Finally, exhausted, she slept in peace.

  He lay awake, and when he was sure she was completely into a world of dreams, he rose.

  He closed the curtains, and went down the stairs, then down again, into the basement.

  He kept a computer there. He started toward the desk, determined to send an e-mail.

  Then he decided against it. He found his place in the dark coolness of the lowest section of the house. There he closed his eyes.

  And receded into the depths of his mind.

  “Tara!”

  Jacques DeVant might be aging, and his health might not be the best, but he could still offer his granddaughter a bone-crunching hug. He didn’t go on and on welcoming her, he just said her name the way only he could say it, and hugged her. And she hugged him back.

  Then, of course, there were the inevitable kisses, one on each cheek, and he held her out at arm’s length, studying her.

  He was a handsome man, even at his age. He’d never lost his hair. It was thick and snow white glinting silver in the light. His eyes were incredibly blue, and though his features were weathered and worn, there was a nobility in his facial structure that gave him a tremendous dignity and appeal.

  “Terrific hug,” she told him, ushering him back to his library chair. “And you look wonderful. But you have to be careful, you know. You have to rest. And not go about throwing away too much energy.”

  He arched a furry white brow to her, looking at her skeptically. “I’m doing very well. And trust me, I’m extremely careful of my health. I intend to live until . . . well, you know, until I reach a ripe old age. A riper old age.”

  He had been going to say something else, Tara thought. I intend to live until . . . it was as if he meant to say that he was going to live until he was done. Until some task was completed.

  “Honestly, you could be a young dude of only sixty,” she assured him.

  He shrugged and smiled, accepting the compliment. Tara perched on the edge of his library desk, looking at the old volume he had been reading.

  She decided to cut right to the chase. “What are you up to? Ann is upset because you want her to go down and find out what’s going on at a dig in the village.”

  His smile faded just slightly, becoming rueful. “She thinks I am a demented old man.”

  “No, she would never think that. But she is worried.”

  “I have to know what is happening there, and Ann has resisted me, and ... well, thank God you’re here!”

  He spoke the words so fervently that Tara immediately understood her cousin’s concern. “What is it about this dig?” she asked

  “I have to know what they’re after. And what they’ve found.”

  “A bunch of old bones, I would imagine, if they’re digging up the crypt of a deconsecrated church.”

  “I have to know exactly what they’re digging up. I need the plans to the crypt. I need to know if the professor has other scholars working on the project, who, just exactly who, is involved. I believe that the work must be stopped. And if I don’t have all the information, I won’t be able to do anything. Tara, you must go for me. You must be my eyes and ears. I have to be so careful, you see. My own grandchild thinks I am losing my mind. If I am not careful, others will see that I am locked away. That can’t happen.”

  “Grandpapa, you are a scholar. A well-known author.”

  “An author of fiction. Of far-fetched tales.”

  “With tremendous messages,” she reminded him.

  That compliment only irritated him. “Fiction. They will think that all the fiction of my many years has slipped into my mind, and that I am crazy. Of all the times to be old and ill and weak!”

  “I don’t understand,” Tara said.

  He didn’t appear to hear her. He was staring into the old stone fireplace where logs burned and flames danced, rising in blue, orange, yellow, red, and soft gray plumes of smoke.

  “ Grandpapa—”

  “I need you to go to the church,” he told her.

  “I’ll go tomorrow,” she said. “I promise—”

  “Tomorrow may be too late. Perhaps today is too late, and yet I haven’t heard of anything terrible happening.”

  “What terrible thing can happen in an old church crypt?” Tara asked. “Are you afraid that there is something of immense value down there and someone may be after it? Are the men in charge of the dig in danger? Is there something that you really know?”

  He stared from the flames into her eyes. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand. But you must find out for me what is happening.”

  “I told you that I would. But you know me, I can’t sleep on planes. I’m exhausted. I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Today.” He looked her up and down. “Katia will get us some strong coffee. If you keep moving, you’ll be fine. It’s once you lie down and rest that jet lag gets to you.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m wiped out. I had to turn in a project before I got on the plane. I haven’t had a lot of sleep in days.”

  “Then one more day won’t matter.”

  “Hey! You’re my grandparent, you’re supposed to be concerned about my health and welfare.”

  “I’m extremely concerned. But you will go this afternoon and bring me back every possible piece of information they have on the dig. The name of everyone involved. You must somehow get in right where they are working.”

  “They may not allow—”

  “Good heavens! Flirt your way in.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to just sell my body on the street?”

  He let out a sound of impatience, giving her a stern frown. “This is not a
matter for joking.”

  “Jacques!” she said, using his first name, as she had always done when pretending to be among the literary community he had known so well in New York. “I don’t know what I’m doing. If I could understand, it would help. What exactly do you think is going on that you feel you must stop? Ann says you’ve spoken about something called the Alliance—”

  “Yes, the Alliance. I am one of the Alliance, and there are not many of us left, not many who have understood the calling. Surely, there are others. But perhaps they don’t know as yet. There are those I may be able to find ... but first! I must stop the dig.”

  “Jacques, what is this Alliance? A group from the war? A group of writers?”

  “The Alliance ... there isn’t time. Yes, perhaps you could say we’re a group from the war. Now please, we can talk for days on end. You must do this for me. If you do not, I will have to risk another bout of pneumonia or respiratory failure and go myself. If I’m right about what they may find . . . who they may find . . . you’ve got to get down there.”

  “If you know something, you should call the police.”

  “The police would not understand. They would have me locked up. Please, if you love me at all, Tara, you will help me now. I need you.” There was a desperation in his tone that made her seriously wonder about his mental state.

  “The police cannot help,” he went on. “Not now. We are not in danger from any thief or ordinary murderer.”

  “Grandpapa, what is the danger, then?”

  “Evil, pure evil. Tara, I’m begging you. You must do as I ask.”

  She was startled by his words. She wanted to open her mouth, to protest the things that he was saying.

  Yet, she suddenly could not.

  A chill had settled over her. A chill that seemed to sweep straight through her, blood, flesh, and bones.

  “You will go?” he asked. “You will go for me. Today. Please?”

  “Of course I will go.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The gloom in the crypt seemed overwhelming. Despite the many portable lamps hung around the vault deep in the earth, the corners were cast in shadow, deep and gloomy, shadows that moved in a macabre dance, making angels, saints, gargoyles, and grotesques come to life in an eerie profusion of darkness and light.