by Raven Hart
Something near my still heart lurched. “I gather you’re feeling better,” I said to him.
He smiled in answer.
Renee pushed up from the floor. Then, with a glance toward Will that I could only describe as longing, she bounded toward me. “Good evening,” she said with a little curtsy. “Will is teaching me cards. A game called Primero. He said he learned it when he was a boy, and the English king used to play it.”
I did my best to hide my alarm. Renee alone with Will was not a comforting sight. “I see that,” I said, and ran one hand over her braids. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
Her expression changed immediately. “No sir.” She looked down. Reyha slunk over to me, looking as if she hadn’t slept all day.
“I think you need to go home. Take Reyha out with you. We have work to do.”
Renee did her best to hide her disappointment. Since she’d been old enough to run from one house to the other she’d loved to be present for my waking—her favorite time of day. She raised a hand to stroke Reyha’s head. “Okay,” she said. But I’d been distracted by a bruise on her arm. It looked like a puncture wound. If Will had touched this child I would kill him myself. I grasped her wrist gently and turned her arm up.
“What happened to your arm?” Before I realized my mistake, she answered.
“Mr. Gerard had to test my—”
Reyha barked, obviously thinking more quickly than I could, and interrupted her.
I did my best to convert the awkward conversation back to normal. “I see. Yes, I remember now. All right, take yourself home and tell your mother I’ll be over to visit her soon.” I wanted her out of the area as fast as I could make that happen without dragging her myself. I also wanted to order her to stay away, but that would be spice on the already juicy mistake I’d made.
Reyha followed Renee out but her bark had awakened Gerard. Diana soon followed. Will rose from the floor and helped his mother from her resting place.
“You look so much better,” she said, running her long fingers through Will’s unkempt hair. The smile he bestowed on her was completely different from his usual sneer.
“Yes, Mother. I think I’m cured.”
“We’ll see about that,” Gerard said. Then, looking at me: “How do you feel?”
I pulled up my own shirtsleeve and showed him. The marks were gone.
“One battle won,” Gerard said, patting me on the shoulder. “This way.” He signaled for Will to go and sit down in the straight-backed chair near his commandeered medical equipment.
Diana stepped toward me, her eyes soft. She slipped her hand in mine and leaned close to whisper, “Now that we know you’re well, is there somewhere we can go to be alone?”
The warmth in her tone sent a jolting crush of need through me. If I closed my eyes perhaps I could find the living, breathing, mortal woman I’d loved so dearly. My throat was too tight to answer. I simply tugged her toward the passageway, up the stairs, and into the master suite.
She was kissing me before I’d closed the door, her arms sliding around my neck, pulling us closer. The shape of her in my arms was so familiar but—
“You taste different,” I said, the words getting lost in her mouth.
She rubbed herself against me, thighs to neck. “So do you.” Pulling back to look in my eyes, she ran a hand down my chest and lower, over the erection I couldn’t hide. She smiled, looking naughty and supremely interested in what she’d found. “You feel the same, however.”
I caught my breath as she tightened her fingers in just the right places. Then I lowered my mouth to her neck and used my hand to unfasten her blouse, intending to get her out of it. She stopped me by framing my face with her palms and pushing my chin up.
“Thank you for saving Will,” she whispered, gazing at me as if I’d hung the moon. The intense appreciation I saw in her eyes warmed my cold heart. But another disturbing thought followed on the heels of her emotion.
“I don’t want your gratitude,” I managed. It was a lie. I wanted anything she would be willing to give. Most of all, I still wanted her love, her body, and a few thousand years of her future. All or nothing. Hugo be damned.
“You have it, just the same. Now I’d like to do something for you.”
I touched her lips with mine. “I thought that’s what we were about just now.”
“Not lovemaking. Not just yet.”
Now I was completely puzzled. With her hand still resting on my nether parts she was—“You’re not saying no to me,” I said in disbelief.
She smiled. “No, not really. I’m saying…soon.”
I must admit she still knew how to try my patience—or was that, whet my appetite? “What the devil are you talking about?”
She drew in a long, slow breath, then lowered her lashes. Removing her hand from my pulsing cock she brought it up to sweep her sweet-smelling hair off one shoulder to expose her pale, graceful neck. “I want you to bite me. Feed from me.”
Too shocked to answer, I stared at the velvety skin.
Looking up at me, she continued, “If we make…love, you’ll lose power. I want to help you regain what you lost by feeding Will. By saving him…Take my power now instead of offering me yours. I need you stronger, not weaker.”
Her hands were around my neck again, pulling me downward. “I want you to, I—” She moaned as my fangs found their mark.
I might have moaned as well but my mouth was too busy, sucking, savoring. She tasted of cool breezes and of honey mead. But most of all, she tasted of home.
Jack
By the time I’d gotten Sullivan into one of the suits from the wardrobe William kept at the plantation and had fitted him into the handsome oak coffin, the human guests—namely Tilly and Connie—had arrived. Rennie had dug the hole during the day.
William had gotten there, too, and had successfully calmed Iban down. When Sullivan was ready, Iban asked for some time alone with him, so Lucius went off to make some phone calls to the New York colony. William engaged Tilly in a battle of wills over whether she would allow him to carry her to the grave site since it was a long way to walk. Werm had shown up and was talking to Gerard. That left me to entertain Connie.
She was beautiful in black. “Thanks for coming,” I said. I remembered what Sullivan had said about her being hung up on me, and for a few seconds I forgot I wasn’t alive.
“Thanks for asking me.” She looked around nervously at the other vampires, not meeting my gaze. I guess there was no use looking a creature you didn’t think was real in the eyes. “Are you sure I’m safe here?”
“Yeah, you’re safe. These are civilized vamps and even if they weren’t, I’m here to protect you. And I found out you weren’t exposed to that virus after all, so you’re safe on all counts.”
“Thank God,” she said, visibly relieved. “How is Iban?”
“Physically, he’s much better. That guy I told you about—the scientist—figured out a cure and it worked. Emotionally, he’s pretty torn up. Sullivan was his best friend.”
Connie nodded. Inclining her head toward William and Tilly, who were still in an intense debate, Connie said, “What’s with those two? Is she a vampire?”
I chuckled. “No, although she’s always had that as an option if she wanted. She’s William’s oldest mortal friend. They were quite an item about seventy years ago. He still dotes on her. Right now he’s fussing about her standing out in the cold for the funeral.”
“They had an affair?” Connie’s tone sounded forced, as if she was trying to sound casual about something serious.
I looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to open her heart to me, if not in words then in feeling. “They had a grand affair after he killed her bastard of a husband. William treated her like a queen. He offered Tilly eternity, but she turned him down. He never went against her—in anything. To this day, her wishes are his command. Let me tell you this about vampires: We’re powerful and hard to kill. So is our loyalty—our love.”
<
br /> Connie’s dark eyes smoldered. “Demons can love?”
“Don’t ever doubt it.”
She nodded, but I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. She was keeping her emotions to herself.
The double doors to the parlor opened and Iban came through, eyes streaming with tears. William, Lucius, and Gerard went to his side to serve as pallbearers of Sullivan’s closed coffin.
Connie put her hand to her mouth and her eyes swam with tears. Then, remembering, she turned to me. “Did you kill the monster who did this like you promised?”
“No,” I admitted. How could I tell her I had to go back on my word to her in order to try to salvage my rocky relationship with my sire? “I can’t. It’s complicated,” I said lamely.
“That seems to be your answer to a lot of hard questions.” Connie’s eyes clouded. “Well, if I have powers of my own, as you say, I suppose I’ll just have to use them and learn how to kill vampires myself, won’t I?”
With that, she turned on the heels of her smart black pumps and followed the others out the front door and toward the cemetery. Just when I sensed Connie was learning to deal with the fact that vampires exist and I am one, just when I thought I might be making progress with her, I was back to being worse off than I was before I’d owned up to being undead. But that’s not what caused a shudder like a jolt of electricity to pulse through me at her last words. Something about the thought of Connie using her powers to kill my kind gave me a sense of dread greater than I’d ever gotten from Reedrek or Hugo, or, hell, anything in almost a hundred and fifty years. I’d just introduced her to nearly every vampire I knew.
I tried to shake it off, but as I went to join the others in the boneyard, I got a premonition that hard times for bloodsuckers had only just begun.
Eighteen
William
The night seemed to be holding its breath: No breeze rustled inland from the ocean, no rolling cold front spread down from the northwest. There was only silence and the cold, still, breath of death.
And the watchers: Spirits drawn by this gathering of mourners unconcerned by our lack of heartbeat or warmth.
“Sullivan—creditworthy companion, mortal compatriot, faithful son to Iban—is dead.” I spoke to the group gathered along the hastily dug grave site with Iban standing next to me.
The rest were scattered among the moldering stones: Lucius, Gerard, Jack, Lamar, and the mortals, Connie and my dearest Tilly. Eleanor refused to be present, remaining apart from me and my faithlessness. The others missing were not welcome here: Hugo, Diana, and the murderer, Will.
“His death is a mark against us all. In a few short weeks we have lost more kin than at any time in our New World history. We must look to one another for strength now, no matter past grudges.” I could feel Iban’s simmering gaze. He knew I was speaking to him most of all.
“We have no clergy to officiate. For Sullivan though, I would quote Dylan Thomas, one human who also spent too few years in this world:
“Old age should burn and rave at the close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
I leaned toward Iban. “Do you have something you’d like to add?”
He seemed to be making a great effort to guard his emotions. “What I would say would be no comfort to anyone here, least of all to Sullivan. I’ll not taint his memory with an argument over his corpse.”
I nodded. Iban had a right to his anger, and I knew we’d be revisiting the subject of Sullivan’s murder soon. I left his side and went to Tilly. Slipping an arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees, I lifted her. “You’re as light as a feather,” I said, doing my best to push back my alarm at her frailty. I knew it would not be long until she asked me for her last wish. I wasn’t ready to speed her passing, to let her go.
She sighed. “One can never be too rich, or too thin,” she said. “But one can be too old.”
“I’ll always be older than you by half a millennium,” I answered in my usual banter. We’d had this discussion many times in the last fifty years. In the first twenty of our acquaintance we’d been unconcerned and too busy to fret over the future. “Do you wish to stay with us this evening?”
“No, I think not.” We’d reached the house by this time, and I set her on her feet. She patted my chest. “Funerals make me tired.” Then she walked over to where Iban was in conversation with Jack. They seemed to have a lot to talk about. Tilly stepped up to Iban and embraced him. “No more sorrow, no more pain,” she whispered into his ear. He nodded and looked deeply in her eyes for a moment. Then he slipped an arm around her and walked her toward the front of the house and to her waiting car.
Part of me was glad to see her go. The rest of us had unhappy business to discuss and there was a good chance it could come to blows. I went to Jack.
“Thank you for arranging this.” It would’ve been inappropriate for me to have set up the funeral for the mortal my son had killed.
Jack looked surprised by my statement, but he recovered quickly. “Yeah well, I kinda felt responsible and I—”
“Yes, and you’re used to dealing with human remains.”
“If you mean I have a little more respect than to leave them behind like empty beer cans, then, yeah, you’re right.”
His belligerence actually brought a smile to my face. It felt like coming home. Comforting, after having my world turned upside down like a ship rolled by a rogue ocean wave. I’d survived the tipping, but now the only thought filling my head was for…Diana. The memory of her taste made my jaws ache for more.
I looked over Jack’s head toward the small family cemetery. Connie had stayed behind, as far away from us as possible. I couldn’t blame her. She stood out among us like a lamb among lions. “I think you should have your police-woman go home. What happens here may be more than her courage can take.”
Jack flinched. “Not her courage. She’s already seen the worst of us in action, thanks to that rat-bastard, Will. I’ll send her on her way in case she goes all Dirty Harriet on us—”
“And we have to kill her as well.”
His features settled into a scowl. “That isn’t what I meant.” Instead of arguing further, he paced off the porch in her direction.
I had no time or intention to kill Connie, but I couldn’t be sure of the others. “Jack?” He stopped and turned, hands braced on hips.
“What?”
“Remember, Will is contained but Hugo is still out there. If we learned anything from Reedrek, it’s that our loved ones are in danger. Make sure she knows that.”
Jack nodded briskly and continued across the yard.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. “William—I mean, sir?”
“Yes, Lamar?” When I turned to face Werm he blanched as though I might strike him and his features went slightly transparent at the edges. I considered the disappearance of the spiked hair an improvement.
“I was just wondering, I mean—How is Will? Jack told me he was sick and I—I can’t ask him again ’cause he’s so mad—”
“Will is fine now,” I answered, but the mere mention of his recovery shifted my thoughts once again to Diana and my promised reward. I could only call it an obsession. Paradise awaited me at home and I could barely contain my exhilaration. She would finally be mine again after—
“Do you think I could pay him a visit? I mean, I know he’s vicious and all but he won’t hurt me. We’re buddies.”
Was that how everyone saw my son? Like a rabid animal out of control? No wonder they wanted him dead. Before I could answer I heard Iban’s voice, as though he’d read my mind.
“That dog needs no ‘buddies,’ as you say. He’ll be dead soon.”
“Iban, please—” He walked past us into the darkness toward Sullivan’s still-open grave.
Werm looked ready to bolt. “Go ahead,” I said. “He’s at my house on Houghton.” Before he walked away I added, “And Werm—don’t tell him about Iban’s vendetta. I hope to change his mind.”
“Yes sir.”
Jack
Now that Tilly was on her way back to town, Connie was the only human left. She stood at graveside alone, as if she didn’t know what she should do next. By the time I reached her side, Iban was there, too, staring abjectly into his friend’s open grave.
“If only I could talk to him once more,” he said, his voice breaking.
“Uh,” I began. “I don’t know if you know this, but I can talk to dead people. I’d be glad to be the go-between if you want. Kind of like…an interpreter.”
Iban blinked. “Yes. Yes, please, Jack. That would be so meaningful to me.” He thought for a moment. “Where do I begin? Sullivan, I want to thank you for everything you did for me through the years. For the friendship, the acceptance, the understanding. The…courage. Few men are brave enough to look a demon in the eye, see what goodness there may be in him, and call him friend.”
I glanced at Connie to see her reaction to Iban’s words. She was staring at me, wide-eyed. Whether she was moved by Iban’s statement or floored by my ability to communicate with the dead, I couldn’t tell. “Sullivan says he can hear you,” I said. “He says he blesses the day he met you in UCLA film school. He says he’s glad he was taking night classes.”
Iban’s laugh became a choked-back sob. “You bless the day we met, even though our friendship led to your premature death at the hands of a monster. I’m sorry, amigo, that I didn’t protect you as I swore to do so many years ago. I did not maintain my vigilance on your behalf, and you paid the price with your precious mortal life.”
“Sullivan says not to blame yourself. He says thanks to you he saw and did more than most humans would do in two mortal lifetimes.”