Your own love,
Jasmine
I’d dropped my head into my hand at the last line. Embarrassed to have to read it out loud, but also feeling every word to my core, I knew my knees just wouldn’t hold me anymore. When I looked up, Vayl was gone.
I scrambled to my trunk, pulled out the Party Line, and stuck the pieces into place. “Bergman! Vayl’s gone! I mean, I don’t know where he is, but I’m assuming he went out to hunt or something. Have you got him?”
“Hang on.” I heard the tapping of keys. Bergman said, “Yeah. Looks like he’s heading to the Djemaa el Fna.”
I grabbed Grief, my holster, and the jacket that hid both. “He’s headed to that Seer’s place. Find the address for me, then tell Cole and Sterling to meet me there.”
“Okay, but… okay.”
I weaponed up, threw on the jacket, and ran down the stairs. Each step felt like a nail in my skull. Ignoring the pain, I slammed out the doors, gasping a little at the change between the cool, air-conditioned riad and hot, dry Marrakech.
People filled the sidewalks, and as I moved toward the old city’s central square, I passed an equal number of gaping tourists, bright-eyed immigrants, and smiling natives. Some of the last bunch felt I couldn’t live another day without their services, but I turned them all down and, miraculously, they moved on, probably uninterested in keeping up with my pace, which was nearing a run.
Bergman said, “I just got done talking to Monique. She says Sister Hafeza Ghoumari lives just off the Rue El Koutoubia. I can guide you most of the way just watching Vayl’s blip. But when you need the right door, you’ll be able to find it easily. She says it’s really distinct, with dots like brown rivets in a flowery pattern at the top, and then more dots going down the front that are in more of a triangular pattern. Also the doorframe is set with a mosaic of white and yellow tile.”
“Okay. I’m entering the Djemaa el Fna right now. Where’s Vayl?”
“He’s on the north edge. Looks like he’s just leaving. Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“He’s moving kind of slow. Like he does when he’s hunting. You’d better hurry, Jaz. I think he means to get a bite to eat before he visits the Sister.”
Shit!
At night the Djemaa el Fna is like a city unto itself. And negotiating the crowds without getting your pocket picked or punching a butt-groper in the face was a feat unto itself. I skirted audiences gaping at the amazing feats of Tazeroualti acrobats and ordered myself not to get caught up in the wonder of their twisting, leaping tricks. I strode past circles of men roaring at the rambling tales of storytellers whose nimble fingers mixed herbs and fire to make moving illustrations in the air above their handwoven baskets. I shouldered past tourists bartering over silver jewelry or standing in line to have their fortunes told. And all the time I talked to the ring on my finger. Out loud. Like a crazy woman.
“Tell him,” I whispered. “Tell him I’m coming. He doesn’t need to do this. He doesn’t want to do this. Deep down, he knows it’s wrong. Don’t let him tear up his own soul… or… whatever it is that makes him so… Vayl.”
As if in response to my pleas, Cirilai warmed my hand. But it wasn’t much of a comfort. I could feel him, just beyond my reach, his powers rising like a winter storm. And in my own pounding head, an echo to the pain drumming through my brain, Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
“Bergman! I’m through. I’m on the Rue El Koutoubia now.”
“Okay, turn left. Do you see the police station?”
I looked at the building. Funny. No matter where you are in the world, you can tell cops work inside the place just from the way it holds itself. No frills. With just enough bars and cement in the picture to bring prison to the minds of those who walked through its doors. But I read the sign to make sure. COMMISSARIAT DE POLICE. “I’m in the right place,” I told him.
“Vayl’s about two blocks past that. And Sister Hafeza is another couple of blocks west. Got it?”
“Yeah.” I pocketed my Party Line. No sense in Bergman hearing what I was about to say. And I really didn’t want him to know what I was planning.
As soon as I left sight of the police station I broke into a run. Cirilai and my Sensitivity took me straight to Vayl. He was still on the street, his attention wholly focused on a man who’d stopped halfway up the block to talk to a group of three friends. They all wore light gray jellabas and mustaches so heavy that their lips had given up the attempt to dig out from the avalanche.
“Lord Brâncoveanu! Whew, you’re a fast walker. I thought I’d never catch up to you!”
Vayl whirled, so pissed to be interrupted that he was actually snarling. Oddly, that put me in a great mood. I shook my finger at him and grinned. “You went off without your supper. And here I’d prepared something especially luscious for you.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You did?”
“Absolutely!” I strode up to him and slapped him on the back. “Big fella like you needs his nourishment, right? We can’t have you staggering around Marrakech like one of those forty-day fasters, now, can we?” I linked my arm through his and drew him into a side street. “Here, let me take you to the feast, okay?”
Halfway down the block he stopped. “I am nearly at my destination. To backtrack now would waste time I do not have. Sister Hafeza—”
“Can wait a damn minute,” I growled. “Look. You promised yourself to stop hunting.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Not at all.”
“Vasil, you made a solemn vow—”
“Poppycock.”
I stared up at him. “Oh. My. God. You’re a pompous dick and an asshole. You’re a pockhole!”
His nostrils flared so wide I’d have sworn he’d just gotten a good whiff of Yousef and Kamal. “Your services are no longer necessary. Gather your things and—”
I waved him off. “Even in your current state you know I’m good for you. In fact, I’m probably the only thing standing between you and a permanent gig in Vampere hell. So listen up. I know you. I know what you’re going to do to yourself if you start hunting again, and I promised myself to help you. Which is why Berggia and I arranged willing donors for you these last three days who agreed to make it look like they were victims. But today I overslept, and obviously Berggia got sidetracked too.” Probably by the demon bitch. I can see this whole mess being one of her underhanded schemes. I went on. “I can see you’re hungry.”
Red flared in his eyes. “Starving.”
“So do me.”
We stood in a wide street lined with pink and brown buildings, some of which had rickety awnings attached above their tall doorways. These displayed small lights that did little more than beam down, laserlike, on their museum-quality doors. The buildings were souks whose owners, during the day, would set out huge plaid bags full of herbs and spices, or hang hand-spun skeins of wool from long white poles. Pleasant shopping even at noon, because swaths of material had been stretched across the street from roof to roof to cut the glare so that people could stand and haggle. At night, however, that meant deep shadows filled the alleyways.
Vayl pulled me into the darkest spot, where part of a wall had crumbled away and no one had bothered to repair it. I don’t know why I thought he’d argue against my plan. He wasn’t the vampire I knew. He was a prequel. Like the Statue of Liberty must’ve looked when we first got her. Kind of obnoxious and brassy until she developed that eye-pleasing veneer that only the pounding of the elements and surviving to a ripe old age will get you.
Still, when he wrapped one arm around my waist, when my hands flattened against his chest, I couldn’t help the anticipation. And when his fangs sank into my throat, my gasp wasn’t purely pain. I closed my eyes and held him, falling into the rush of emotion like I’d just come off a water slide. Except when I surfaced I only had a second to gasp for air. Because it was already time for another ride.
Just like I had on the tower in Australia, I r
eached for Vayl through Cirilai. But this time, understanding the power he’d given me then to walk in his past, I visualized the specific time I needed to relive. And as my blood and Vayl’s powers danced, I opened my eyes. Over my sverhamin’s shoulder I focused on a window, its bars as black as the snakes that had once killed his beloved dog.
No, I don’t want to go to his childhood. Take me to 1777. Show me why Vayl really left England.
Yeah, I’d mostly bought his story that he’d taken Helena away for her own safety. Except for the part of me that didn’t buy the idea of Vayl running. From anybody.
Like hard edges will when you’ve stared at them too long, the bars blurred. Then they started to bend. I blinked. And when my vision cleared I realized I’d been gazing out of my carriage, leaning forward because mud from the large back wheel had splattered up onto the glass. I looked closer. Yes, there it was staring back at me. The reflection I’d hoped for.
A dark-eyed Rom whose curls were long enough to tie with a velvet bow at my neck. I wore a white shirt with a straight, stiff collar. It was covered by a superbly tailored black suitcoat unbuttoned to reveal my gold waistcoat. I could feel the quality of my matching breeches beneath my hands. One clutched my thighs so tightly I might have given myself bruises had I not supped of immortality. The other held a black walking stick that matched the shoes whose gold buckles twinkled up at me as if to remind me of the event I had just deserted. The accessories whispered, Opera, while my white knuckles shouted, Danger!
My home filled the frame of my window like a painting. So unreal, those three lovingly crafted floors of redbrick and mortar fronted by a broad brick stair. The door had been whitewashed, as had the window frames. Pink roses arched over the entryway. I found that strange, even though I had lived in the house all these seven years. It seemed to me that somewhere the home I had taken from a dead man should show black, like the corruption that oozed from my heart, filling my lungs with such vile hatred that sometimes the desire to maim, to murder, overcame all other thought.
But the brightness of the people within those walls stole all the shadows away. I did not deserve them. Not Berggia, nor his kindly wife. And never my dearest Helena, whom I would have chosen as a daughter even had she not been a helpless orphan when I found her begging on the streets the night after I vanquished the wolf who had tried to destroy her.
“Father!” Her scream, too faint for any but my ears, pulled me out of the moving carriage. Later I would castigate myself. Self-pity had blocked my senses from detecting her fear and pain. Else I would have leaped to her rescue sooner, would have burst through the door before Roldan could have done more than startle her as she sat in our flower-filled drawing room, reading from one of the many books she could never convince me to touch.
By the time I reached her, Helena was lying on the floor beneath the wolf, the bloody gashes on her arms and long rips in her skirts raising in me a fury such as I had not experienced since the deaths of my sons.
I knew, deep in my mind, that if I had been a human father I would have roared my rage, and perhaps even the chandelier would have shaken in response. But I had traded fire for ice, and now I was glad of the cold wind that swept through my murderous thoughts, forcing them into order, adding a thread of calculation that would make Roldan’s death more likely and infinitely more painful.
I strode forward and, grabbing the wolf by both his ears, yanked backward. His scream, high-pitched as Helena’s, brought a smile to my lips.
I took stock of my daughter. Shock had distanced her. The hands that held her torn bodice closed shook like leaves in a storm.
“Helena!” I snapped. Her eyes came to mine, hurt that I would speak to her so given her terrifying circumstance. I steadied my tone, willing her to respond in kind. “My flintlock is in my desk. It is loaded with silver.”
She nodded.
“Lock yourself in the study with it and shoot anything that tries to get in. Either Berggia or I will come for you when this is over. Do you remember the secret knock?”
Her head bobbed again, but this time she seemed more self-assured.
“Then go.”
She rushed from the room, shoving the door closed behind her as if it were the gate to hell itself. Perhaps a real lady would have swooned, or at the least begged to stay under my direct protection. I had certainly tried to raise her in that vein, knowing full well the misery that accompanied a life led outside Society. But my ward had learned early that her world rotated on two axes, and if she meant to survive she must develop a backbone strong enough to hold her steady no matter which way it tilted. My grandmother had been such a woman. But I had never told Helena how my heart swelled when I saw her jaw jut and her shoulders lift, reminding me of the tiny woman who had fought bullies, bandits, and corrupt sheriffs to ensure my survival.
I lifted the wolf by his ears, forcing another squeal from him as I flung him against the wall. He recovered quickly, pulling himself up onto his enormous paws, growling so deeply that I felt the rumble shake the back of my chest.
He charged, the weight of his massive body making the floor quake under my shoes. I yanked my silver dagger, a constant companion since Helena had entered my care, from its cradle in the hollow leg of my walking stick. And then he was on me.
We toppled into Helena’s favorite Louis XIV settee, our impact throwing it backward, sending my dagger flying. My head slammed into the floor with a force that might have stunned another man. A real man. I did not even feel it.
Hooked fangs longer than my fingers slavered at my throat. I shoved my fist into the maw that they surrounded, gaining another yelp for my collection. Roldan gagged and jerked his head back. But he was no green street fighter. Even on the defensive, he kept his wits clear enough to rake his enormous black claws down my sides, scoring me so deeply that I suspected bone now showed between flaps of flayed skin.
I cried out, but still and all, not for myself. For my girl, whom this monster had bled and bitten, whom he had attempted to defile.
I kicked, a sharp jab to his soft underbelly that compromised Roldan’s balance even further. As he staggered off of me I kept hold with one hand and rolled with him to the wall. When I had him pinned, I shoved my fangs deep into his throat, pouring the ice of my cantrantia into his blood, knowing now that my core power would not slay, but only slow him.
His tongue drooped from his gaping mouth, stray flecks of saliva freezing in midair. I released my grip and lunged for the dagger, which had dropped onto the hearth of our empty fireplace. My body screamed, tortured by the stretch as much as if the Church had laid me on its altar. I felt dampness on my cheeks and realized two bloody tears had escaped my narrowed eyes. And in that moment I felt the separateness of my selves. One half weeping in protest for the anguish the other half must eternally push it through.
My fingers wrapped around the dagger’s hilt, a fine leather-wrapped handle that fit snug as a tailor’s tuck in my hand. I slid free of the wolf’s snapping jaws and staggered to my feet. Blood soaked what was left of my shirt and suit coat. I had knocked over Helena’s reading table, shattering a lamp, which had soaked her books with whale oil. My sitting room was in shambles—and for the first time since I had crossed its threshold I could finally relax. This was my territory. Roldan must pay the price for crossing its boundaries.
He charged me again. I looked into his fiery yellow eyes. And laughed. When he leaped, I spun, shoving the dagger deep into his side. It was not a killing blow, nor did I mean it to be. Silver takes Weres slowly, painfully. That was how I wanted Roldan to die. That was how the men who hurt my children would always go.
I hauled him up by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to the front doorway, and threw him into the street, my dagger still hilt-deep in his flank. My satisfaction at seeing him tumble into the gutter where he would die like a beggar snapped as a shot rang out from inside the house.
I spun, running so quickly to the study that the wind of my passage blew the window draperi
es midway up the parlor wall. Parts of the shattered door cracked beneath my feet as I swept into the room, one glance telling me all that I needed to know. A Were lay dead on the floor, his features already melting back to human. Another, still in his man’s form, had dealt Helena such a bruising blow that she lay unconscious over his shoulder. He could take her through the window, but we both knew how badly the shattered glass would cut her.
He stared at me from the center of the room, surrounded by thrown papers and the items that the gentleman who had built the home felt he needed for his comfort. A tall, hickory desk full of cubbyholes and drawers. Two ladder-back chairs to sit on either side of it. A chaise on which Helena occasionally lounged, regaling me with stories of her tutors (less often their amazing revelations regarding history or mathematics than how she tricked them into spending entire afternoons roaming the park, listing the names of flora and fauna she had known since her toddling days). Beside it, a table holding a vase full of flowers she had picked from the garden only that morning, and two half-burned tapers held aloft by matching silver candlesticks.
“Put her down,” I ordered.
He hesitated, staring toward the door as if measuring his chances of escaping me with Helena weighing him down.
“Make me a deal first.” He spoke with a broad cockney accent, tossing the limp patch of hair blocking his sight out of his way as he spoke. I smelled the greasy sweetness of his unkempt locks from across the room, and my stomach turned that Helena should have to bear his touch.
“What?” I snapped.
“My freedom for her neck.”
I inclined my head. “Done.”
The Were deposited Helena on the chaise and moved toward the door. My next question made him hesitate with his hand on the latch. “I must ask. Why would you take the word of a vampire?”
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