Forever and the Night (The Black Rose Chronicles) (8 page)

Chapter 5

V
alerian was not without sympathy for Aidan, and a number of other emotions in the bargain. Indeed, he loved the younger vampire jealously, and
with a devotion and tenderness that transcended all earthly meanings of the term.

Which was not to say he did not consider the poor fiend to be wholly misguided. While he himself had been a vampire for nearly six centuries, and a happy one for the most part, Valerian also cherished certain recollections of humanity. There was the warmth of spring sunlight on winter-pale flesh, for instance, the oddly pleasurable sensation of an explosive sneeze, the sweet ache that followed in the wake of unrestrained laughter, the solace of tears. Now, as they sat in the rear of a dingy London pub, pretending to consume ale and kidney pie, savoring those last precious moments before they would be forced underground, Valerian reached out to touch his companion’s arm. Aidan, who had been staring morosely into space ever since they’d left the battlefield where they’d fed last, started slightly.

“Do you really hate it so much?” Valerian asked in a low and, for him, somewhat fragile voice. He could not credit Aidan’s aversions; in all his wide experience he had never encountered another vampire who did not relish what he was.

Aidan forced a smile; he was a handsome lad, and he stirred things in Valerian’s being that were probably better left alone, but he lacked the sensual abandon of most immortal creatures. “Yes,” he said. He was pleasantly flushed from their recent feast, but there was a look of anguish in his eyes, of torment that far exceeded any felt by the dying soldiers they’d seen that night. “Yes, I hate it. I despise it. Hell itself cannot be worse than feeling this vile compulsion!”

Had anyone else made such a statement, Valerian would have asked archly why they had troubled to become a creature of the night in the first place, but this was Aidan. Aidan, the one blood-drinker he knew who had not made the transition willingly. He sighed, turning his plain wooden cup idly in one hand. “What would you have me do? What is it you want?”

There was a quickening in Aidan; he sat a little straighter in his chair, and his blue eyes glittered with something more than the temporary fever caused by feeding. “You are the oldest vampire in our circle, except for Lisette,” he said quietly, “and among the most self-serving. If there is a remedy for this wretched curse, you either know what it is or how to find out.”

Valerian looked away for a moment, toward one of two small, filthy windows. A subtle grayness permeated the black of night; dawn was near, and they must take refuge very soon, or the sun would catch them abroad. “I heard a legend once,” he said in a ragged, distracted whisper. “Mind

you, it was only a story, I’m sure of that—”

Aidan rose and seemed to loom over him. ‘Tell me!” he demanded.

Again Valerian sighed. “There is no time,” he replied, hoping he’d disguised his relief in feigned regret. “It’s almost morning.” He rose and looked Aidan squarely in the eye. “Come. I know a place where we can rest safely.”

He reached out, clasped Aidan’s arm, and gripped it hard when the other vampire moved to pull away. In the space of a wink they were inside a crypt in a country churchyard, far from busy, suspicious London.

“Damn you!” Aidan cried, lunging toward Valerian with his hands out, as if to choke the life from him. Which was, of course, a macabre joke, since he was neither truly alive nor truly dead. ‘Tell me what you know of this legend!” Valerian raised his arms, erecting a mental barrier between them, like a wall of glass. He smiled at Aidan’s frustration and then yawned copiously. “I am too weary to tell tales,” he said. “We will speak of it when the eventide comes again.” With that, Valerian turned to a stone slab, brushed away the bones and dust and the debris of a coffin that had rested there, and stretched out with a sensual sigh. He saw Aidan hesitate, then slowly, reluctantly recede, until his back touched the crypt’s heavy door. He slipped into a crouch, his arms folded across his knees.

“Until evening,” Aidan said. There was a warning in his tone, though his words were weighted with fatigue.

Valerian smiled again and slowly closed his eyes. Unlike younger, less sophisticated vampires, he was not totally lost to sleep; he often dreamed and sometimes projected his awareness to other places, leaving his physical self behind.

Such journeys were unquestionably dangerous, for the silver cord that anchored the spirit to the form could be severed in any number of ways. If that happened, the two could never be rejoined, and the traveler would be forced to
contend with whatever fate awaited him in the next world.

The mere contemplation of such an event was a terror to sensible vampires, for even they could not see beyond the Veil to determine the true shapes of heaven and hell.

Far down in the deepest regions of his comalike rest, Valerian shuddered at the visions of eternal torment that had been impressed on his mind so long before, while he lived and breathed as a human animal. Since he had been born in medieval England, the images Valerian carried of the damned were especially horrible.

Still, he was an adventurous vampire, interminably curious, and he loved to explore the dusty little comers and pockets of time that generally went unnoticed in the great intertwining schemes of history.

And there was a secret.

Valerian loved secrets, and mysteries, and conundrums of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. All the better that only he and a handful of other old ones knew. By concentrating very hard, Valerian could cast his consciousness into the most remote folds and burrows of eternity, venturing back and back in time, passing beyond his mortal life and even his birth as a human being.

It was perilous work, utterly debilitating, often leaving him too exhausted to hunt for days afterward. Even so, Valerian could not resist occasional forays through the void, each time venturing closer to the Beginning.

That particular day he had an added impetus, bittersweet and compelling; he sought the oldest, most closely guarded secrets of the vampire, for only in finding those could he learn what Aidan so desperately wanted to know.

At nightfall Aidan stirred, opened his eyes, and raised himself slowly out of his crouch against the wall and into an upright position. Valerian still lay on his slab in the middle of the crypt, though he was awake, and he looked shrunken somehow. Even gaunt.

His flesh was a ghastly shade of gray, and there were great shadows beneath his eyes. He raised one hand weakly, to summon Aidan to his side, and even though there were no tears, it was plain that he was weeping deep down in the essence of himself.

Aidan clasped Valerian’s upraised hand in both of his; they were not friends, but they were of the same brotherhood, they trod on common ground.

“What is it?” Aidan whispered. “What have you done?”

“I went back—to search—” He paused, made a strangling sound low in his throat. “Blood. I—need—blood.” The plea rasped in Valerian’s throat like a saw severing hardwood. He clutched Aidan’s fingers so tightly that it seemed the bones would snap, brittle as twigs, drawing Aidan downward to hear, “Bring me blood.”

Aware of an inexplicable urgency, and very little else, Aidan did not pause to question the gruesome request. He went to the door of the crypt, stopped to look backward once, and then willed himself to a time and place in London he’d often visited before.

He returned within minutes, burgeoning with the blood of a back-street thief and murderer. By instinct, or perhaps by some subliminal instruction from the still-stricken Valerian, he transfused the life-giving fluid into the other vampire by puncturing the papery neck with his fangs. The process left Aidan temporarily weakened, clutching the edges of the slab to keep from falling, and only partially restored Valerian.

The elder vampire sighed and slipped into a light, fitful slumber. His skin, which had looked as fragile as ancient parchment before, took on the faintest tinge of color, and his frame seemed to fill out slightly, having fewer hollows and sharp angles.

Now that the crisis had passed, whatever it had been, Aidan was wild with impatience. He paced at the foot of Valerian’s slab, feeling confined and restless to the very core of his soul. The mere memory of his strange communion with the other vampire sickened him, and yet he could not deny, even to himself, that there had been some sort of fusion of their two spirits.

After a while Valerian stirred and opened his eyes. He seemed stronger, but his whisper was labored and raw. “Leave me, Aidan. I must rest.”

It was all Aidan could do not to grasp his companion’s lapels and wrench him upright, so desperate was his need. “You promised to tell me what you learned!” he blurted. “You
promised!”

“And I will keep my vow,” Valerian answered, grating out each word. “I cannot—speak of it now. Have pity, Aidan.”

“Just tell me this,” Aidan pressed, moving to Valerian’s side, clasping his cold hand. “Is there hope? Can I be unmade, become a man again?”

The answer gurgled on Valerian’s tongue, as though he were choking on the blood Aidan had given him. “It is too—dangerous,” he gasped. With that he lost consciousness again.

Aidan was tom between a desire to stay and look after a fallen comrade and an almost uncontrollable urge to flee, to be as far from this place and this horror as possible.

He wanted Neely, wanted her to comfort him, to hold him tightly in her arms. He craved her humanity and her warmth, her very womanhood, but it was just that yearning that forestalled him.

Yes, he loved her, he knew that now, had begun to accept the realization. But he could not allow himself to forget that he was a beast, at least in part, and his need for blood was as great as that of any other vampire. He couldn’t be certain, for all that his soul had already joined itself to hers, that his terrible thirst would not cause him to fling himself on her in a fit of passion.

The prospect of awakening from a frenzy, of finding Neely limp and lifeless in his arms, was worse than any punishment a demon could devise.

Frantically Aidan formed Maeve’s image in his mind.

Neely had just finished the breakfast shift at the café when an ancient station wagon rattled into the parking lot, came to a shrill, steamy stop by the front window, and emitted a tall, gum-chewing blonde. The woman was wearing frayed jeans, an equally worn denim jacket, a tank top with a picture of a motorcycle on the front, and the kind of open, friendly smile that turns strangers into friends.

“Hi,” she said, taking a seat at the counter and reaching out to pluck a menu from behind a chrome napkin holder. “My name’s Doris Craig. I’m flitter-flat, down-and-out busted, and that old car of mine isn’t gonna go much farther. You the manager here?”

Neely untied her apron, glancing past Doris’s right shoulder, which bore a tiny tattoo of a bumblebee, to the loaded down beater parked out front. But for its relatively modem vintage, the vehicle might have belonged to the Jode family of
Grapes of Wrath
fame, there was so much stuff tied on top and stuffed inside.

“No,” she answered. “My brother manages the whole place. I just work here.”

Doris closed the menu resolutely and gave Neely another of her guileless, openhearted smiles. “You aren’t thinkin’ of quittin’ or anything, are you? If you are, I’d sure like to have your job.”

Ben hadn’t said he was looking for more help, but he hadn’t said he wasn’t, either. Neely poured a cup of hot, fresh coffee and set it down in front of Doris. “I think of quitting for the last three hours of every shift,” she confessed with a grin, tapping her name tag with one finger. “I’m Neely Wallace. Glad to meet you.”

Doris nodded cordially. “If you’re not plannin’ to quit,” she said, blue eyes twinkling, “is there any chance of your gettin’ fired?”

Neely laughed. “Sorry—like I said, the boss is my brother, and he’s pretty well stuck with me. I’ll be happy to send him over to talk to you, though. In the meantime, what’ll you have?”

Doris pried two crumpled dollar bills from the pocket of her jeans and smoothed them out on the counter. “Soup and milk, if this will cover it,” she said. While her circumstances were obviously desperate, there wasn’t a trace of self-pity in either her voice or her manner, and Neely couldn’t help being struck by such uncommon courage.

She nodded and went back to the kitchen, passing the teenager who was taking over for the afternoon and early evening shift. Heather was no unchained melody of ambition, but she showed up on time and did her job well enough, which meant she probably wouldn’t be creating a vacancy anytime soon.

In the back Neely dished up a bowlful of vegetable-beef soup and grabbed a basket of soda crackers in individual wrappers. She set the food down in front of Doris, along with a spoon, and proceeded to the milk machine.

She was just putting the glass on the counter when the little bell over the door jingled and Ben came in. He’d been shoveling snow from the walk over at the motel, and his cheeks were red from the cold.

It seemed providential to Neely, his showing up at the perfect moment like that. “Ben, this is Doris Craig,” she said. “Doris, my brother, Ben Wallace. Doris is looking for work.”

Ben’s ever-ready smile flashed instantly; he took off his plaid coat and came over to greet Doris, one hand extended. Neely poured him a cup of coffee, then grabbed her purse, said good-bye to Heather, and hurried out.