Beth! If he succumbed to Asharti, Beth would bear the brunt of her vengeance. He staggered up and turned. The burning in his veins subsided into something bearable. His vision cleared. He could feel his ribs knit, almost instantaneously. His shoulder tingled with healing capillaries. And he felt strong. Maybe not as strong as Asharti, but he was not an easy kill.
He straightened and looked at Asharti, filling his gaze with derision. Asharti made a sound in her throat like some wild animal and threw herself on him once again. She held her fingers with their long nails like a scoop and went for his belly. Disembowelment might not kill him, but it would weaken him. He hit her hand aside and stepped to the left, trapping her other wrist in a grip that was growing stronger. But she twisted away.
“You think you can best me?” she panted as they circled each other. “You who serviced me as many times a day as I demanded it? You who came only when I let you come?”
The old feelings of shame welled from his center. To have Beth hear it said, so bluntly . . .
“Ancient blood makes no difference. I am a master, you my slave,” Asharti snarled. Ian felt her will wash over him. She was right! He was nothing. How could he stand against a goddess? He staggered and recovered. But he knew he could not win this day.
“Ian, don’t listen!” Beth cried. “She’s afraid of you. You aren’t the man she could compel anymore. You are vampire.”
Ian glanced over to Beth. A trickle of blood from her temple coursed its way down her cheek. In the bluish light the blood was black and her eyes glowed with . . . faith. Faith in him.
“Don’t you feel that strength?” Beth asked. “You have ancient blood.”
Ian looked back at Asharti. Yes. He did feel strong. The song in his blood was rising.
“The blood is the life,” Beth said, dragging herself up to stand against the wall. “That’s what Beatrix said. It’s not wrong to feel that strength.”
“The blood is the life,” Fedeyah whispered beside Beth.
“The blood is the life,” the Old One breathed.
“She can’t compel you,” Beth insisted, her voice urgent. “No one can.”
Ian felt the breath whistle in and out of his lungs. Blood flowed in him, through him. The Companion hummed in a vibration that ramped up some scale he could not hear. He turned to Asharti. The fire flickering through his veins flapped up into anger. How dare she!
Asharti must have seen his eyes harden, for she threw herself at him with renewed fury, clawing at his body. “You are nothing!” she shrieked. He felt her nails stab into his belly and he thrust her away from him before she could push her whole hand up under his ribs, grabbing for his heart. She slid over the floor just in front of Beth. Ian felt the power shushing through the muscles in his arms. He knew his eyes were red, his canines sharp. The bloody hole in his abdomen was knitting. He was vampire, and he was strong with ancient blood and with his own determination. He would finish it.
Asharti did not attack him. She whirled and grabbed for Beth.
No! Ian lunged forward, but it was too late. Asharti had Beth by the neck from behind. Her other arm embraced Beth’s waist, almost like a lover.
Ian went still. He willed the blood song back down the scale. “Kill her and it solves nothing,” he said. To his surprise the words seemed to boom inside the stone room. Asharti and Fedeyah both started at the sound. “I will kill you anyway.”
“Perhaps I’ll take her with me. I enjoy being serviced by a woman once in a while.”
“If you escape, I hunt you. You will pay, now or later. Think of it as being written.”
Ian saw the speculation in her eyes. Then they flared red. “What have I to lose?” She tore through fabric and through flesh. Blood bloomed across Beth’s abdomen. She shrieked in pain. Ian yelled his protest and the temple tolled with it. Asharti leaped for the black vortex. Ian sprang to catch Beth as she fell.
“No, God no, what have I done?” Ian cried, eyes only for Beth and the blood, blood everywhere. An inhuman shriek behind him brought his head around. He saw Asharti stumble back from the vortex. The Old One had closed it.
Asharti turned, her eyes big. The Old One rose from his throne, a grotesque shadow in the dim blue light. A rumble ground out from the narrow chest and turned into a roar. Ian hunched over Beth as if he could protect her. If the Old One was going to kill them, there was nothing Ian could do and he knew it. A feeling of helplessness washed over him as the Old One stalked forward.
“Beth,” he whispered, though it was lost in the roar above him. “Beth, I’m sorry.”
The Old One loomed above them now. Asharti began to laugh, that throaty laugh. But it had never before sounded so insane. Ian held Beth close and turned his back like a shield as the Old One strode . . . by them. Ian looked up in astonishment. He was closing on Asharti. He had spared Ian and Beth. Asharti wailed, then looked behind her. She was caught between the vortex that wouldn’t open and the ancient horror that now hung over her, roaring. Ian saw it all. He knew what would happen here with dreadful inevitability. The Old One had decided he couldn’t risk Asharti surviving to bring the blood that made his waiting torture. Ian bowed his head over Beth as Asharti’s wail cycled up the scale, along with the roar. The noise was deafening in the stone room.
Then the shrieking stopped, though the roar continued. Ian chanced a look. Pieces of Asharti were being flung in all directions. The Old One was ripping her limb from limb. Blood fountained up and spattered the walls. Fedeyah keened. It was over in seconds. What once had been Asharti was gone. The roaring ceased. In the silence, Asharti’s head rolled into the heap of bodies in the corner.
Fedeyah clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent his screaming. Ian felt his gorge rise. The Old One straightened and licked the blood from one long finger with a slender, supple dark tongue. The silence stretched. The Old One’s flat black eyes flicked up to Ian.
“I . . . I thought you would not make a choice.” Ian’s voice shook, all trace of power gone.
“Perhaps it was written that I would choose; thus the end that was written was achieved.”
“What will you do with us?” Ian asked. Fedeyah looked incapable of speaking.
“Do with you?” The Old One looked at the three of them. “I will do what is written.”
Ian nodded and rose slowly, shifting Beth to carry her. He could feel her blood, warm against his flesh where the burnoose was torn away. He clutched her to him and made for the vortex. “Come on, Fedeyah,” he muttered. He must get Beth to safety before he could tend her wound, before the Old One decided that they, too, were a menace.
He could feel the power of the Old One throbbing at his back. Would he let them through the vortex? Ian stumbled ahead. The voice boomed out once more. He stopped in his tracks.
“She will die.”
Ian looked down at Beth. She lay limp in his arms, her head lolling back, baring her lovely neck. Blood soaked her clothing and there in her midriff was a horrible gaping hole through which tissue could be seen pulsing. He let out a whimpering sound that didn’t seem human. He turned to the Old One, inarticulate with pain, unable even to protest.
The Old One sat, deliberately, on his throne. He went still and watched Ian for an excruciating moment. “You have the ancient blood,” he said deliberately. “There is life for both of you in it. Go. I do not wish to know what you will do. You will do what is written.”
Ian stared at him, trying to understand. Did he mean . . . ?
“Stay . . . ahead . . . of the vortex,” he said. His voice had slowed.
Ian whirled and saw the black whorl that was the door to this fantastic chamber begin to pulse and grow. “Come on, Fedeyah, we’re getting out of here.” He shoved the Arab into the spinning blackness with his hip and plunged after him, clutching Beth.
The gelatinous liquid of the vortex sucked at him. He held his breath and thrust ahead, finally popping out into the corridor into the dim green light from the two emeralds. He stumbled. Fedeyah w
as just scrambling up. The vortex tugged at Ian’s foot. It was expanding. “Let’s go!” Ian shouted, and ran up the incline. The sound of rumbling, like grinding stones, followed them. Ian glanced back and saw the giant stone doors crumble into dust as the black goo of the vortex whirled out. God! The Old One was going to bring the roof down.
Ian concentrated all his strength on running, trying not to think of the thunder behind him or to remember Beth’s wound. The fountain of jeweled light glowed through the doorway. He dashed past. He glanced back to see if Fedeyah followed or had been ground to dust. The Arab lunged just ahead of a boiling blackness that was gaining momentum. The fountain of jewels glowed through the blackness. The room around the pool did not collapse, but as the vortex passed into the passage beyond, the grinding sound resumed and grew in intensity.
Ian put his head down and concentrated on covering ground. His lungs ached. His legs throbbed as the passage grew steeper. He shot through the doorway under the guardian statues as blackness rolled out behind him. It seeped forward as he plunged for the temple doors.
He was out, into the sun. The blinding light seared his eyes as well as his skin. His burnoose hung off one shoulder, exposing his flesh to sunlight. He made a dash to shelter in the shade at the far side of the ravine, slowing to catch his breath. He hung, panting, clinging to Beth as the red and gold stonework of the temple began to crumble. Blackness whirled in the doorway.
The Old One was burying himself under tons of rock, leaving only the pulsing signal to his faraway compatriots and the throne room where he would wait for them. He would not need will power to refuse the blood. It was done.
Ian glanced to Fedeyah. Pain was writ plain in the man’s face. “So, she is gone.”
The Arab’s chest heaved as though there were not enough air in the whole of Africa to sustain him. “Am I free?” Who he asked, no one could tell, least of all Fedeyah. “Gods!”
Ian followed Fedeyah’s gaze. The blackness rolled out across the sand, reaching for them. “It isn’t finished!” Ian yelled. Clutching Beth, he ran along the ravine wall. The grumble of collapsing stone grew louder. Then it was out into the searing afternoon sun that lit the open square. He would never make it before passing out from the pain, he thought, remembering another time he had exposed himself to open sunlight. His flesh blistered. He would not die from sunlight, but Beth would die if he didn’t keep ahead of the vortex. He pumped his legs, covering yards at a stride. The vortex gained. He looked for Fedeyah but didn’t see him. Around him, darkness rolled up like a sandstorm. Pillars crumbled and crashed. The great steps of the amphitheater tumbled. Pain coursed through him. He would not make it.
Wait! There was an answer. It was so risky he wanted to scream. Could he take Beth with him? But there was no choice. He stopped. The rumbling overtook him. Companion. Come to me. Come fast. Power whooshed along his veins in one smooth swell. Dimly he was aware of dust clogging his lungs, stones under his boots caving in. It did not matter. He was still. And the blackness that whirled around him and Beth for a single instant held them in time and space until . . .
Sun hit the crown of his head like a blow. He stood in front of the opening to the ravine, holding Beth. Darkness dissipated around them. The mouth of the ravine was silent, but he could hear the grinding sound and the wall of dust approaching. Ignoring the pain of the sun on his body, he strode out into the open desert, away from whatever might emerge from the ravine, before he turned.
Black liquid was flung into the sky above for two hundred feet. The vortex raced toward them. A smaller darkness circled beside them and Fedeyah shrieked as he popped through into the calm. He stumbled to his knees in front of Ian and Beth. As the vortex approached the open desert, the impenetrable black began to collapse in on itself. In seconds, it was gone, leaving only scrubbed stone walls and eddies of sand that slowly stilled. The giant’s stair had disappeared.
Ian knew that if they went back along the ravine, they would find no trace of Kivala.
He looked down at Beth, ignoring his flesh searing in the sunlight. Her face was gray. Sticky blood covered her clothes and his blistered skin. Was she dead? Lord, he should not have jostled her so! He set her gently down and touched her throat. A tiny, erratic pulse still beat there. It was not too late.
Ian knew what he had to do here. The Old One had told him he could save her, but only by damning her to his own hell. Did he have the right to make her into the monster that he was? He took a breath. Right or no, he could not let her die because she had helped him. And he could not live without her. So simple—so horribly complex. There was no time for Hamlet’s hesitation. He knew he would do this, so he might as well get on with it.
Kneeling, he called to his Companion. He put his hand over his blistered chest. A smile came unbidden to his lips. Companion mine, come to me. Sing in my veins with the power of ancient blood. He did not have to ask twice. He felt his eyes go red and power hum along his arteries. His canines lengthened. The pain of the sun receded. He glanced back at Fedeyah, who stood gazing at the ravine with haunted eyes and heaving chest. Fedeyah would not interfere.
Cradling Beth, he opened her jaw, slashed his wrist with a single sharp tooth, and concentrated on pushing his blood down his veins and into her mouth. “Drink, my love,” he encouraged softly, even as the power sang in him. “The blood is the life.”
She couldn’t swallow, but he held her up so the blood slid down her throat. Now let’s see what the blood of an Old One can do. Could it heal her before she got immunity to the Companion? Would she be as sick and fevered as he was for so long when Asharti had infected him? He refused to think about the worst and instead remembered that the Old One thought she could be saved. If it took the last drop of his blood, he would do it.
Beth swallowed convulsively, coming to consciousness. He held his wrist to her lips. She looked up at him, questioning. Then, with faith in him gleaming in her eyes, she suckled at his wrist, drawing at his wound. Her hands snaked up to hold his wrist at her mouth. She smiled at him as she sucked and licked his wrist tenderly. He cradled her close against his chest, rocking her. It was more intimate a feeling than he had ever known. More intimate than lying with a woman, except maybe with Beth. The wonder was that she knew what she was doing. She took his blood willingly. She embraced the fate he so feared. It was an acceptance of him clearer than any she could have vowed in mere words. He had never known anyone with more courage.
He felt dizzy; whether with shock at what had happened, from the sun, or from loss of blood he could not tell. Still she held his wrist and lapped. Still he willed his heart to pump his blood into her mouth. Regardless of her courage and her faith in him in this moment, she might hate him later for the fact that his blood condemned her to be vampire. It did not matter. He could not sentence her to death when he could save her, whatever kind of life she might lead. His Beth would never be a monster, no matter that she drank blood. Perhaps it was written that he should save her. Perhaps it was a selfish act of will.
He steeled himself to look at her belly.
The dreadful wound had come together in a ragged line. Ian’s throat closed. He could not swallow and his breath came fast. He hung his head. Tears dripped onto her new pink skin.
Beth watched Ian hang his head and felt the drip of tears onto her flesh. There was such a strange tingling sensation there. She gave his wrist one final lick and let it go. A precious gift, given generously. She squinted against the brightness of the sun, though it must be late afternoon. It seemed to stab her eyes. Dear Ian. Such a selfless act. She could hear his tears dripping, Fedeyah breathing raggedly in the background. She heard the chirp of crickets somewhere far away and the camels moving restlessly.
Ian looked up at her. “Beth?” he whispered. His blue eyes still glinted with tears. He fairly vibrated with some resonance she had never felt before. Worry creased his brow. She felt very far away from herself, weak yet strong. Something burned inside her, not quite pain.
Ian
put his hand to her forehead. “You are fevered.”
“Shade,” she croaked. She saw the horrified realization in his eyes. He swept her up, pressing her against his bare chest. The skin was blistered and hot. The shade of the cliff wall reached out for them. Fedeyah followed. Beth felt the heat of Ian’s body, the beat of his blood in his veins. The sense of him was almost overwhelming. In the shade, he held his wrist to his teeth.
“No,” Fedeyah said. “Wait until she requires it. Save your strength.”
“How do you feel, Beth?” Ian asked anxiously, cradling her. “Are you in pain?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” As a matter of fact, his nearness, the memory of his warm gift of life tasting copper in her mouth, was making her throb between her legs. “I feel tired . . . but very alive. Something burns in me. Is it pain?”
Ian clasped her to him. “What have I done?” he rasped.
“The blood is the life,” Fedeyah muttered. “You have given her a gift of great price.”
“What must I do to make her . . . transition comfortable?” Ian demanded.
“Give her blood when she asks,” Fedeyah said simply. “It is said that ancient blood makes us quickly. She will soon be whole. You will tolerate the sun better now as well, English.” He glanced over his shoulder into the ravine. “It has many powers. A good reason to rejoice that it is beyond our reach.”
“The Old One?” Beth asked. The sounds, the smells, distracted her. Of course she could smell Ian’s wonderful cinnamon and Fedeyah’s, though his was different somehow, but she could smell the odor of sand, the faint warm horse scent, and the more pungent camels, too.
Susan Squires - [Companion Vampires 0] Page 36