Realm of Shadows (Vampire Alliance)

by Heather Graham

  As if that should mean something to her!

  “My cousin—”

  “He is one of us, one of us, Tara!”

  She looked from Brent, who still held her in an iron clasp, to the other man. He was still breathing heavily, looking at her, wiping at the wounds she had inflicted on his face. He offered a grim smile. “I’m sorry we haven’t met. Really sorry.” He cast Brent something of a reproachful stare. “But you were suspicious. You didn’t want to believe. And someone needed to watch your cousin. And it was rather amazing when I met her ... I swear to you, I would guard her with my life ... my life as it is. I have been guarding her.”

  Tara stared at him, still speechless, feeling as if her mind had been completely numbed, encased in ice, frozen to the core.

  “Why isn’t she waking then?” Tara demanded, “She is there, still sleeping, she is there ... almost as if she were ... dead.”

  She hadn’t realized until that moment that Brent had let her go. She stepped back, rubbing her lower arm where it still hurt from the force of his hold. She looked from Ann, still an inert form on the bed, to the blond giant introduced as Rick, and on to Brent.

  “Someone else has been to her,” Brent said.

  “What are you talking about, someone else?” Tara asked angrily.

  Rick started for the bed. Tara flew to it, standing between him and her cousin. “Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare touch her!”

  Rick paused, ignoring Tara’s fierce hold on his arm. He pulled back the covers and shifted Ann’s hair. “The marks, see the marks, Tara. I believe it must have begun some time ago. It was begun slowly and carefully. But someone else has gotten to Ann.”

  Tara saw the marks on her cousin’s neck. So tiny ... and yet there. She felt as if she were crumbling within. As if she were in a nightmare, and it was real, and there was no waking, and no escaping.

  “Then Ann is ... dead?” she whispered. “Dead, gone ... lost?”

  “No, not necessarily,” Brent said.

  “We have to see that they don’t get to her again,” Rick Beaudreaux said. He looked at Brent.

  “Go on,” Brent told him, watching Tara. “She’s seen so much, suspected so much ... and still she doesn’t want to believe anything I say.”

  Tara answered that by going to the balcony doors and closing them. She arranged the garlic around them again. She went to Ann’s bedside, fighting tears, assuring herself that her cousin was breathing, that her heart continued to beat.

  “She’s ill, isn’t she?” Tara asked.

  “If she doesn’t come to soon, she will need a hospital, a transfusion,” Brent said. “And we have to keep her safe and—here. And away from the force that has taken her, and certainly has some control over her now.”

  “There are different ways that vampires kill,” Rick said. “They feast—and usually destroy the remains.”

  “Decapitate their victims?” Tara said.

  “Yes,” Brent said.

  “What about the old stake in the heart?” Tara demanded harshly.

  “Good, but decapitation is better. It’s the only way to be certain.”

  “I don’t understand this. How did you get here?” she asked Rick.

  “Ann let me in.”

  “Ann has been sleeping.”

  “She let me in—as she slept.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Obviously, Rick is a vampire,” Brent said.

  Tara felt again as if black clouds were surrounding her, as if the world had become surreal, it was all a dream again, but she couldn’t wake.

  “Then we need to destroy him, don’t we?” she asked harshly.

  “Real world 101,” Brent said impatiently. “There are forces out there, have always been, will always be. There are those who are fighting for a realm of normalcy, for life for all, for peace if you will, for all good things. And there are forces out there where power is sought by some, where needs and selfish gains outweigh all else. Once, and actually still, always, in some place, for some reason, battles are waged. Long ago, tribes fought for space. In the Dark Ages, tribes were constantly shifting and moving. Death and destruction were the general way of life. And later, when the civilized world encroached, warfare generally ruled. Battles have always existed for land, and for power. And in the midst of that kind of death and destruction, more death and destruction was not much noted. Even into the past century, men went to war around the globe. And into this new century, men still fight their battles in their different ways, with death and destruction still the result. So in all this time, it has been easy for many to survive on the spoils of war. But if you will, it isn’t exactly true that a vampire is a shell of evil, a soulless entity. Vampirism is like a disease, an ancient disease. One that cannot be cured, but can be controlled. And for some, the true soul remains, and a hunger for something different—eternity, if you will—along with the rest of humanity, a belief in a greater being, something beyond ... respect for life. Over the centuries, things change. And now . . . those who come over, who do ‘die,’ who are not slain but ‘turned,’ if you will, can be as they were in this life. Those who were prone to bloodshed hunger for greater bloodshed—and power. Everyone ‘turned’ faces the hunger. Just as we are born with free will to seek peace or vengeance, so is the change.”

  Tara stared at him blankly.

  “I was a cop,” Rick said ruefully.

  “A cop?”

  “A cop in New Orleans.”

  “When?” Tara demanded.

  Rick shrugged. “Not so long ago,” he said softly.

  “You weren’t brought forth from some musty tomb?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a very young vampire,” he explained. “Unlike Lucian.”

  Tara’s eyes shifted to Brent. “So your friend Lucian ... is an old vampire?”

  “Very old, yes.”

  “When was he brought from his tomb?”

  Brent smiled. “Never.”

  “I see. He was born a vampire.”

  “No, but he was turned when the world was in a constant state of raids and warfare, and he has been as he has been ... since.”

  “And his wife, Jade?” Tara asked.

  “No,” Rick said softly.

  “But—”

  “She was never ‘turned,’ ” Rick explained, as if that should make sense.

  “This can’t be real!” Tara said, in a whisper of exhalation.

  “But it is real, Tara,” Brent said, and he waved a hand impatiently in the air. “Just look at history, at the things that have gone on, at the legends that have been around forever.”

  “So you are a vampire as well?” she demanded, staring at him. “You lied to me, you said you weren’t, but you’re among them, and you are one of them!”

  He stared at her a long moment. “I’m not a vampire,” he said. “I’m—”

  She lifted a hand. “Don’t! Don’t tell me how you’re part of my grandfather’s great ... Alliance. I don’t think that ... that ... oh, God! This is so ... insane! This woman, this one woman, came out of a tomb. Because she wasn’t destroyed completely, the king loved her, so he didn’t take off her head. And now she’s been dug up ... and she’s running around the countryside, and the police don’t really know what they’re up against—except Rick here, who used to be a cop in New Orleans—so some other vampires are here to stop her?”

  “You don’t understand,” Brent said. “She isn’t alone. She was extremely powerful in her last life, because she had the king. She had him in her power, but she didn’t kill him, because she needed him for the life she was living. But your grandfather’s Alliance was alive and well back then, and the king was forced at last to do something with her. And the Alliance saw to it that at the least, she was contained, with the proper materials, lead, brass, silver, copper, and gold. And she was held fast with these materials formed into the cross on the coffin, and sealed with the molten metals. But she was brought back on purpose, by someone who decided th
at they must have her. There is another force at work, one that is old and very powerful, and what we haven’t managed to discover is exactly who this is, and where they have created their lair.”

  They were crazy. It was all crazy. The thought struck Tara again, along with a need to be away from them for a moment, to be alone.

  She turned and walked blindly into the hallway and then headed for her room.

  She closed her door.

  It opened immediately.

  The two men had followed her. “Tara, you can’t run away from any of this,” Brent said. “You have to listen to me, I’m trying very hard to explain, completely, why you have to do everything I say, and exactly who I am, and why—”

  He suddenly broke off, staring across the room.

  Tara looked as well, and could see nothing, just her room, bed, chairs, desk, balcony doors—closed, garlic around them—her suitcases in the corner, her easel, set up where she had been sketching.

  She looked at Rick, who appeared as puzzled as she was herself.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The drawing,” Brent said harshly.

  She walked over to the easel. “What? The shadows on the building? The wolf? The ... sketch of the man?”

  “The man,” he grated out.

  “That’s just Inspector Trusseau, the forensic specialist in from Paris.”

  “Tara!” She was startled when her name was called from the doorway by a soft, feminine voice.

  Ann’s.

  She was amazed to see that her cousin was up; she was a classic, fabled beauty, pale and gaunt, clad in a flowing nightgown, holding on to the door frame.

  “Ann!” She started to hurry to her cousin, afraid that she would fall, she appeared so ashen and fragile.

  Ann waved her away.

  “That isn’t Inspector Trusseau,” Ann said impatiently. “Tara, don’t you ever pay attention? Don’t you remember? I pointed him out to you at the café! That’s Willem.”

  “Willem?” Tara said.

  “Yes, that’s Willem.”

  “No,” Brent said, and she had never heard his voice harsher, or seen him so tense, for he stood there, his fists knotted at his side, his eyes transfixed upon the paper. “It isn’t Trusseau, and it isn’t Willem. It’s Andreson,” he said, and the word spit from his lips as if the man were the greatest abomination ever to walk the earth. Evil incarnate.

  He didn’t explain further. He suddenly stiffened as if a bolt of lightning had traveled through him, let out an expletive, and turned, heading for the door.

  Tara raced after him, catching his arm. “Brent, wait! What are you talking about?”

  He shook her off as if she were an annoying raindrop, but his eyes fell upon hers. “I can’t wait, I’ll explain later. Your grandfather ... something is happening. Now!”

  CHAPTER 17

  Sick with worry, hurriedly Lucian entered the apartment.

  Instinct informed him that whatever had happened, whatever evil had been there, was gone.

  “Jade?” He called her name, silent prayers filling his heart and mind and he looked around.

  He found her, slumped on the ground, by the balcony doors. The open balcony doors. He stooped down, hands shaking as he reached out to shift his wife’s hair from her face, to find her throat, feel for a pulse.

  She groaned softly as he did so, rolling onto her shoulder and her back, looking up into his eyes, blinking, half rising.

  “Oh, God, Lucian! I failed.”

  “Sh, sh!” he said, drawing her carefully into his arms, eyes searching over her for any sign of injury. “What’s important first is that you’re all right.” There was a catch to his voice, concern as he lifted her hair, ran fingers gently over her collarbone.

  “I’m all right, Lucian. I do have experience ... and I was so certain, so sure of myself. I just knew that I could protect Paul, and I couldn’t.”

  “Jade, it’s all right. We’re going to make it be all right,” he amended. “What happened? I knew ... I knew you were in trouble. I couldn’t move quickly enough. I can’t get into the minds of these abominations. They know I’m out here, and they’re using tremendous strength to block me.”

  “I kept checking on him, I kept checking on Paul every few minutes. He seemed to be doing fine. He was restless, but he seemed to understand that we had to sit tight. It was so sad, in a way, Lucian. He loves that girl so much!”

  “Then . . . ?”

  “He was watching television. I was on the computer, bringing up everything I could find on the area immediately surrounding Le Petit Château DeVant. Anything around the church and the village. There was so much destruction there at the beginning of the Occupation. Resistance fighters had been holing up there ... and the enemy went after them. I was trying to find the exact sites of the ruins ... but I kept coming out to check. Paul fell asleep. A few minutes later ... I felt uneasy. I came back and ... Lucian, I’ve never seen anything like it. There was someone ... something ... there. But the face kept changing. I didn’t know the café girl, I’m not even certain I saw her the day we met Brent at the café. But, of course, it was her, because Paul was going for her, and I screamed at him to stop, and then, it seemed that it wasn’t the girl ... then it was again ... and I don’t know who was out there. I went rushing to the window with the holy water, and tripped in my haste and fear ... but I sprayed the creature, whoever or whatever it was ... managed to enrage it, but not stop it! Suddenly there was nothing but black, a huge black shadow, or a shadow wing, and it swept out at me and sent me flying ... I was dazed ... I felt it coming again ... but it paused above me, and couldn’t come closer. I have my cross, of course, and I think that I spilled half the holy water on myself, but ... I heard Paul scream. I tried to struggle up, and I was knocked back down by the wing of the shadow ... and I knew that Paul was gone ... and then you were here.”

  Lucian sat on the floor, pulling her against him. He held her tight, his chin resting lightly on top of her head.

  “They’re shape-shifting,” he said softly. “It wasn’t Yvette, the girl from the café. It was either Louisa ... or whoever it is that brought her back, who is guiding her, caring for her. He has to be someone old, someone I have encountered, and someone who knows what forces to use against me, and against others who would stop him.”

  “It has to be the lover,” Jade said.

  “The creature she was seeing when the king finally realized he was being mesmerized by a monster?” Lucian said.

  “Yes.”

  Lucian was silent a minute.

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “Supposedly he was destroyed by the Alliance, with the blessing of the Sun King.”

  “But perhaps he wasn’t,” Jade said. “You knew him, and about him, didn’t you?”

  “I knew ... and at the time ... the world was different,” he said.

  At that time, the ancient rules had been followed, she knew. And seldom, if ever, did they destroy one of their own kind. Often, perhaps, they led mortals to the strongholds of their enemies, but the destruction of one’s own kind was completely taboo.

  “He might have survived,” Jade repeated.

  “Yes, he might have survived. He was to have been killed, dismembered, decapitated, and thrown into the river. The king’s command. But . . .”

  Lucian stood, drawing her to her feet, meeting her eyes. He lifted her hair again, worried.

  “I wasn’t bitten,” she assured him softly.

  “But you were before,” he reminded her. “And didn’t tell me.”

  “Because, if I had entered your world, it would have been fine with me. I’m afraid of life, of the years that will pass, as it is,” she told him.

  Lucian hesitated, then kissed her on the forehead. The world was a strange place. Life and death were stranger still. He had come to a point amid the centuries himself when he knew exactly what his role would be.

  And yet ...

  He didn’t know if the end w
ould bring eternal damnation. And he would not risk such a fate for someone he loved with every fiber of his being. She had become more than his lover and his wife, she was his very soul.

  “We need to get to Château DeVant,” he said.

  “Wait. I have all kinds of printouts for Jacques,” Jade said.

  Lucian waited while she collected the papers. He got her coat, placed it tenderly around her shoulders, then led her toward the door, but there, when he looked worriedly at her again, she spoke with a determined confidence.

  “He has the answers, I know that Jacques has the answers, as soon as he is able to get through the tangle of possibilities,” Jade said.

  He nodded, but they both knew what lay unspoken between them.

  Fear.

  Lucian was afraid for her. He hadn’t doubted that his presence in the area would be known. That didn’t matter. He intended to make himself known.

  But now ...

  Besides the urgency of keeping the DeVant household safe, there would be another worry.

  Jade.

  She placed a hand on his arm. “I’ve been through this. I’m not afraid.”

  “I know you’re not,” he told her, and admitted, “I am.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “We have to end this. Quickly,” he told her.

  “We will,” she said.

  “Strange,” Lucian murmured.

  “What?”

  “I think that it’s the old man’s granddaughter who actually has the answers,” Lucian said. “And she just hasn’t realized that she has them, that they’re there, in her mind ... or in her dreams.”

  He locked the door as they left the room. And he wondered why.

  It was like locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen.

  Louisa stood by the great hearth, leaned against the stone, watching as the flames rose and danced. As he walked into the room, she turned to him, a smile on her face, arms crossed over her chest. “All is well,” she assured him.

  “What have you done, where have you been?”

  “Oh ... I picked up this evening’s supper, that’s all,” she assured him.

  “From—where?”