“I’m sorry, is that a forbidden topic? I’m totally unaware of Cadre etiquette.”
“No,” she laughed, but I relaxed only slightly. “I was just wondering how it could be possible you didn’t know.”
I sighed again, setting my glass down on the end table and pushed my hair back from my face. “Vivienne, quite honestly, I know nothing of any of this. And”—I slipped my shoes back on, stood up, and reached for my coat with a twisted smile—“somehow, I suspect I am much better off that way. Thank you for the drink.”
“No, Deirdre, don’t leave yet.” Vivienne jumped up from her seat to prevent my retreat; her voice was low and urgent. “I forget that all of this is new to you and that you’ve been under a terrible strain these past few weeks. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable; it’s just that there are so few of us, female vampires, I mean, and I thought we could become friends.”
I studied Vivienne as she stood in front of me; her eyes glistened in the candlelight and she seemed sincere and honest. I fully understood her feelings; I, too, missed female companionship.
Sensing my weakening, Vivienne pressed on. “As far as my lineage, I don’t mind discussing that with you. It’s not forbidden and it’s no secret.” She leaned forward and traced her nails down my cheek, not pulling her hand away when I tensed, but grasping my chin delicately yet firmly. “I’m also from the house of Alveros,” she whispered to me, an odd smile crossing her face. Her face held a strange mixture of longing and loathing, desire and hate.
I moved away from her so abruptly that she almost lost her balance. “But Deirdre,” she continued, straightening herself, touching my arm lightly, “please consider. I could do so much for you. You could have power and wealth in The Cadre. After all, you and I are sisters in blood.”
I met her eyes squarely and surely. “All the same, Vivienne,” I said, shrugging off her touch and moving to the door, “until I know what sort of game you are playing with me, I would prefer to remain an only child.”
To my surprise, Vivienne took no offense, but laughed, a light metallic laugh, so charming and inhuman, so like her. “Bravo, Deirdre,” she called after me as I left the room. “Have a nice evening.”
There was no limo waiting for me outside, so I walked to Mitch’s apartment. I dismissed the strange episode in Vivienne’s room, knowing that I didn’t need to worry about her, that she was no threat to my life. With my trial before The Cadre finally over, I felt freer than I ever had before, and hummed to myself, smiling at the few people I passed.
There was no trace of Max in my mind or on the street, and although I missed his presence, I felt relieved and at peace. I would no longer be tortured by thoughts of him, for by his own admission I was free of the guilt for his death. For the first time in over a century, I did not need to fear my dreams. The demons of my sleep had finally been exorcised and were put to rest.
When I had gotten to within three blocks of Mitch’s apartment, I felt a cold stab of fear and stopped dead on the sidewalk. The way the recent events of our lives had worked out seemed too simple. Would it really be possible for Mitch and me to enjoy our lives together, unencumbered by demands of the outside world? Well, why the hell not, I reassured myself, I deserve a happy ending the same as everyone else.
I counted our assets in my mind. I had enough money to last us several lifetimes, not even counting the fortune I had inherited from Max. We could go anywhere, live anywhere we liked. Freed from guilt, freed from the sentence of The Cadre, I was immortal and Mitch, well, Mitch was young, strong, and in good health. He could conceivably live another forty or fifty years. They would be good years, I was certain, filled with love and happiness. And when death finally came to claim him, I would follow. But finally, after over a century of running away, I would be living a normal life, the life I had been denied the first time around.
I started walking again, quickly this time, for all my rationalization could not allay the terrible feeling that something wrong had happened. No, I corrected myself, beginning to run, ignoring the sharp pain of fear entering my stomach and washing over my entire body, something wrong is happening right now. Right now.
I kicked off my shoes and ran the rest of the way, shouting his name, brushing past surprised predawn walkers and joggers, the buildings and cars that I passed blurred with speed and tears.
I was almost prepared for what I faced when I arrived home. I bounded up the steps, noticing that the main door was hanging open and askew, and that one of the hinges had been torn off. Mitch’s front door was battered and lying on the living room floor. The remains of a bottle of wine that he must have opened for our celebration lay in pieces on the floor. I walked over them, not heeding the pain from the broken shards beneath my bare feet.
I stopped and held my breath. “Mitch,” I called tentatively, my voice quavering, “are you here?”
I heard an odd laughing sound from the bedroom, then the crashing of glass. Running down the hall, I felt the icy blast of wind from the broken window, smelled the tangy, warm scent of fresh blood, and a tantalizingly familiar man’s cologne. “Larry Martin,” I whispered, and knew that I could follow him out the window and easily catch up with him. But when I arrived in the doorway, the sight of Mitch occupied my complete attention.
He was bruised and badly beaten, clutching his gun with one hand and the open wound on his neck with the other. I dropped to the floor and knelt beside him. His eyes fluttered open and focused weakly on my face. His skin had the bluish-gray color that meant he had nearly been drained of all his blood. Taking his pulse confirmed this.
“Jesus, Mitch, what the hell happened? Who did this?” My voice sounded calm but inwardly I was raving; damn The Cadre and all its members! The time I had spent in Vivienne’s room might well have caused Mitch’s death. Even the few minutes I had spent on the sidewalk planning the perfect life would have been all the time Larry needed. And if I had been here when Mitch was attacked, I could have prevented this.
Tenderly, I touched his cooling cheek. “Mitch, talk to me, please. Oh, God, you can’t die. I won’t allow it.”
He stared at me for a moment and coughed weakly.
“Deirdre.” It was the only word he could manage, and even it cost him too much strength.
I did not think of the consequences of my actions; all I could think was that he would die too soon and leave me alone. I could not bear the thought. Taking his shoulders in my hands, I shook him until his eyes opened again and focused on me. “Do you want to live?” I said to him. “Do you love me enough to live?”
He nodded weakly, a small spurt of blood came from his neck, and he managed a ghost of a smile.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Picking up one of the broken shards of glass from the window, I cut into my wrist deeply, and forced it to his mouth before the wound could heal. “Drink, Mitch drink.”
There was no pull on my blood at first. He’s dead, I thought, he’s truly dead. “Drink, Mitch!” I screamed in desperation, not knowing or caring if he could hear me. “You must drink.”
Oh, God, I raged inside, I spent so much time away from him and we had so little time together. Don’t let him die, I prayed. Don’t let him die!
Finally after an eternity of despair, I felt the delicate movement of his lips at my wrist, feeble at first and then with greater strength, as he pulled deeply on my blood. The gray color began to fade from his skin, replaced slowly by an internal glow and the appearance of health. I watched as his bruises healed before my eyes and still he drank, until I began to feel the emptiness of my own veins. Then ever so gently I pried myself away from him. He choked, spitting a small swallow of my blood back to me.
His eyes opened briefly, then closed as his body shuddered once, then again, as if adjusting to its new life. His chest moved visibly as he breathed, and I knew he would live. I got up from the floor and looked out the window. There was no one on the street below, no sign of who had broken in here. All
I could see was the lightening sky. Panicked, I pulled the curtains shut, but the wind blew them back, splashing the street light on to the floor where Mitch lay.
“Damn,” I swore, wondering how I could move him, how I could keep the sun from him. Then I noticed the tall dresser in the corner of the room. It would cover the window and he would be safe. Frantically, I ran to it and pushed it across the room to block the light. The noise of this movement caused Mitch to awaken and sit up.
“Deirdre.” His voice sounded strong but confused. “What happened? I can’t seem to remember anything. And I feel so strange, light-headed.” His eyes sought me out and linked with mine. I had always thought that their strength and intensity were one of his most attractive qualities. But nothing could have prepared me for the shock of their depth—their complete and utter transformation; I knew his eyes, but never had they bored so directly into mine, never had they been so searching, so relentless. I choked back my tears and went to his side again.
“Hush, my love,” I said to him, cradling his head on my lap the way I had over two years ago, trying for his sake to hide my despair. “Everything will be fine. Sleep now.”
“But I need to remember what happened. Someone broke in while I was waiting for you. He told me not to remember and I can’t. Then you came. And now everything is different. What happened? Tell me, please.” The urgency in his voice almost broke my heart. How could I explain in the few remaining minutes until sunrise the life to which I had doomed him? That in my fear of losing him, I had done what I had resolved never to do?
“Sleep now,” I repeated. “We’ll have all the time in the world to talk later.”
We tensed at the same time, reacting to the rising of the sun.
His body writhed in agony and his eyes met mine. They were clouded now with fear and confusion, and in spite of my resolve, I began to cry.
“What’s that?” he demanded, his voice deeper and stronger than before. “What’s happening to me, Deirdre? Why are you crying? And why do I feel so different?”
“It’s only the sun, my love.” I put as much reassurance into the words as I could and my fingers stroked his grayed hair, trying to calm and comfort. “Now is the time to sleep.”
He looked up at me one more time. His eyes were undeniably the eyes of a vampire. Then they slowly closed, the lids falling as if of their own volition, and Mitch fell into the trancelike sleep I knew so well.
And I was alone again for a time, to mourn the death of the man I loved.
Epilogue
As soon as arrangements could be made, Mitch and I went to England. We told no one what had occurred that evening in our apartment, explaining only that we would be gone for a while on an extended honeymoon. Mitch needed time to learn, time to adjust to his new life, and I needed time to calm my panic over what I have done.
Before returning to my house and the pub, we decided to travel through the country, seeing the sights at night. Stonehenge was wonderful, and we crept past the guard and the gates and lay in the center, whispering to each other, making love on the dry, cold gravel. At Mitch’s suggestion, we even stopped at Whitby. From our hotel bed we listened to the waves beat on the rocks and read aloud from Dracula, pointing out to each other the inconsistencies of the book compared to the life we knew. As always, at the end of the story I cried when the stake pierced the count’s chest, remembering with a shudder exactly how it felt to kill a man of great power and age. And he laughed and kissed away my tears.
We have found that Mitch has a great instinct for hunting, his senses having been finely honed by his many years of police work. He is as good as I, or perhaps even better, at the post-feeding suggestions, but he still approaches the feeding and the victim timidly, tentatively, as if he had no right to their blood. He senses this hesitation as a liability, and I console him that he will get better with practice.
As for me, I don’t dream much anymore. When I allow myself sleep, it’s become like a small death, silent and mindless. Mostly, I lie awake and watch him sleep, wrestling with his own private demon of dreams. He moans and quivers, his eyes rolling within his closed lids, and he wakes covered in sweat. I never ask who appears in his dream, with whom he fights daily, what figure haunts his sleep. I fear his answer, sensing deep inside that I already know, not wanting to hear him say that I am the demon. So I lie, my mind pure and emptied of all former ghosts, holding him while he writhes, tormented and struggling in the darkness that is my eternal gift to him.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Compilation copyright © 2011 by Kensington Publishing
Blood Secrets copyright © 1993 by Karen E. Taylor
Bitter Blood copyright © 1994 by Karen E. Taylor
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7493-9
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