A Fall of Silver (21 page)

Kethan nodded.
“Yes. You had two disobedient underlings.”

“
And you have a disobedient woman.”

“I
’m not involved in this deal!” Quicksilver pushed past Father Donatello, sensing a spiraling increase in the hostility surrounding them. “I tried to prevent it.”

If
only the priest would stay behind her, he’d be safe. Why had he come? He should have stayed away, where he’d be safe.

“She was unaware of the negotiations.
” Kethan placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “There won’t be any more interruptions if you guarantee the same.”

“You
can’t believe him!” She whirled toward Kethan. “They must eat and so humans must die! We are nothing to them but food. They’ll attack others, maybe other children like Kathy! Girls who can’t protect themselves—” She broke off, horrified when her chest tightened with a repressed sob. She had started the evening concerned for the young people in Theresa’s care, only to realize the one she wanted—but always failed—to protect was herself.

As
Martyn glided closer, his incisors overlapped his lower lip and pinched into the skin. His eyes were hidden by shadows, his expression feral and twisted. “We’ve an agreement, don’t we?”

“
If you associate only with human adults who want and understand what you offer and if your numbers don’t increase,” Kethan said. “In return, we won’t interrupt your sleep during the day, or send hunters after your clan. You’ll remain hidden and safe from society as you’ve always been. That was the bargain.”

“We
be two fewer! You reduce our numbers by drips and drabs until we’re gone. How can we agree?” Anger crackled through Martyn’s words.

Kethan
waited a moment as if to control his own strong emotions, but his expression never lost its monumental calm. “You’ll agree because those are the terms.”

“We’ve lost two men!”
Martyn’s implication was clear, at least to him. Two male vampires were worth more to him and his clan than one human girl.

Gripping her courage between two bone-white hands,
Quicksilver moved in front of Kethan and confronted Martyn. He’d lost two vampires because he couldn’t control them. They were his responsibility, and she wasn’t ready to forgive or be forgiven.

“
Yes, you lost two,” Kethan agreed in a neutral voice, one hand on her forearm. “However, negotiations will continue and on the original terms.”

Silence
chained them together as the vampires and humans alike considered his words and the implications.

“If you control that s
he-devil, we agree. But if she wanders alone and chances to meet one of us….” Martyn’s words drifted away with soft menace.

“If I meet one of you,
then you’ll lose another one.” She broke away from Kethan and stood alone on the damp grass with her back to the river. The water was the one thing she was sure of, for vampires hated it almost as much as they hated her.

“She didn’t mean that
.” Father Donatello’s thin hand gestured toward her. “She’s frightened. We all are.”

“No more threats.”
Kethan’s voice cut through the misty air. “Now, are we agreed?”

“
Aye.” Martyn nodded, though his voice carried his reluctance like a burr caught in a dog’s fur.

“Tomorrow night
then? Can I call to arrange a meeting place?” Father Donatello moved closer to the vampires, ushering them away from the picnic table.

Martyn refused to give way, however
. He just watched Quicksilver.

As
his silent fury mounted at the sight of her, alive and defiant, Kethan walked forward until he blocked her view of the vampires. She moved to the side when he turned his back on her, and she eyed the shaggy forms of the four vampires who’d remained in the Stygian darkness near the trees. Finally, Martyn walked away with shoulders stiffened. He stalked toward the parking lot, his men filtering through the shadows after him.

When they disappeared
amongst the pines and oaks, Kethan faced Quicksilver. “Are you sure you want to make Kathy’s death permanent?”

No.
She hesitated. But what can I do? Face her one night after she’s risen as a vampire? What then? Must I kill her again?

“
Yes.” She walked to the body and placed a hand on the cold, stiff shoulder. Kathy had been so young, so naïve.
So like me. Once.

Why couldn’t
Kathy have seen it wasn’t love? Jason only wanted her blood and a way to make his own play for power within his clan. He wanted to demonstrate to his master, Martyn, that he could not be ordered around or controlled.

“She could still have a life
—”

She swung around
to face Kethan, her body taut. “A
life
? What kind of a life? Living at night, taking blood from humans to survive, killing them. She’s dead, just like the rest of them. They’re all dead inside—their souls rotting away—they can’t create anything. All they can do is stagnate and play power games. She’s better off dead than damned.”

“As long as there
’s life, even half a life, there’s hope.”

“Hope of salvation?
Don’t make me laugh.” She struggled for calm. Tears of anger and guilt stung her eyes.

It’
s the best thing, isn’t it? To save her from damnation?

Catching her glance, Kethan eyed her strangely, as if he wanted to say something
more, but in the end, he remained silent. His expression smoothed into an unreadable mask. He walked past her and hefted Kathy’s limp body onto his shoulders, then he led the way back across the parking lot in near silence as the mist muffled his footsteps.

Quicksilver followed,
feeling empty as she watched Kathy’s long hair swing limply with each of Kethan’s steps. It all seemed so futile as she climbed wearily into the car and stared through the window at the gray bleakness. When she noticed her hands shaking in her lap, she shoved them between her thighs. Her head ached and in the cellar of her mind, Allison’s quiet, hopeless, weeping continued, unceasing and relentless, slowly driving her insane.

“Quicksilver, there’s something we need to discuss—” he said.

“No—no more discussions.”

He shook his head after laying Kathy’s body in the back seat and easing through the driver’s door. “Not about Kathy—”

“Then I don’t want to talk about it, whatever it is.” She sighed and leaned back in the seat, eyes closed.

“You need to understand my reasons—the importance of this.”

“No, I don’t,” she repeated patiently. “Not right now.”

After a long minute of silence, she glanced over at him. Both hands gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and his mouth was compressed into a thin line. “I’m trying to explain about me, my past—”

“True confessions?” she asked in what she hoped was a light voice. She simply couldn’t handle it right now, not with Kathy lying so white and still behind her. “Please…tell me later. Can’t we just have peace for a little while? Silence?”

“I suppose that’s best,” he replied in a tone that was drenched with
a “we both know this is not right” tone.

At some time in the near future, she expected him to treat her to the “I told you so” speech, but if she could defer whatever he had on his mind for a few hours or even the next fifteen minutes, she’d be grateful.

The atmosphere in the car felt as cold and silent as the night surrounding them as they drove to the only home Kathy had, the place Quicksilver still thought of as the Convent of the Weeping Madonna. “Convent” sounded better than “orphanage” to her; it sounded like a place someone might choose of their own free will, a refuge instead of a jail for young people with no place else to go.

Quicksilver barely waited for Kethan to part the car. She scrambled out and walked up the sidewalk, listening to the awkward sounds of Kethan picking up the girl’s body and following her.

After the second peal of the front doorbell faded, Theresa opened the door and studied the remains with a pale face and tightly compressed mouth. “Bring her to the infirmary,” she said at last, waiving them inside.

“
Jason...contaminated her.” Quicksilver kept her voice low as she brushed a soft strand of damp hair back from Kathy’s empty face as Kethan carried her down the hallway. The girl looked so young, her pale skin smooth and satiny.

“I’ll take care of it.”
Theresa’s expression grew even bleaker.

“I’m sorry
,” Quicksilver said, moving ahead of Kethan to grip Theresa’s elbow. “I should’ve stopped it—I should’ve done something. Let me handle it. I told Kethan I would.”

“
No. It’s not your responsibility. We gave her the medicine, but she disappeared anyway, a few hours ago. We searched and found the pills under her pillow.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called your home phone.” Theresa’s voice held no accusation, but Quicksilver felt it, anyway.

I should have been
home. If I’d been there, I could have prevented this.

She
glanced at Kethan over her shoulder, her eyes burning with pain before she turned back to Theresa. “I was out. You should’ve tried my cell phone.” When she pulled it out of her pocket, she realized she’d turned it off. After she flicked it on, it beeped, informing her of several unheard messages. Her breath caught in her throat as her body swayed with a rush of cold guilt. She’d turned it off! “I’m sorry,” the phone beeped again, “I—the battery is low. Oh, Christ, I’m sorry—I’m a useless idiot! I can’t believe you tried to call me and my damn phone was turned off!”

“It’s not your fault
. Obviously, Kathy was determined to go. She tricked us into believing she took the pill, and then she escaped. I doubt you’d have found her in time, even if you had gotten my phone call.” Theresa tried to hug her, but Quicksilver was too consumed with rage at herself to allow any comforting touch. When she pulled away, Theresa asked, “Where did you find her?”

“She was at the park
by the Potomac.” Kethan watched her with a look of concern creasing the skin between his brows.

“You see?
” Theresa caught her wrist, but Quicksilver shook her off and paced a few steps forward before stopping at the intersection to the hallway that led to the infirmary. “Why would you think she’d go there? Didn’t you find her at Chez Burgers before? There was no way for you to know where they’d go. No one blames you.”

“Well, I blame me.
” She rubbed the nape of her neck. The puckered scars felt hard and unnatural under her fingertips. Her head ached with the rhythm of someone pounding nails into a plank. “I was distracted. I left my cell turned off—I meant to plug it in. And I
knew
I should’ve killed Jason last night, along with Tyler. If I had, Kathy would still be alive.”

Or I shouldn’t have interfered at all.
She gritted her teeth and twisted her head, trying to ease the throbbing sensation and pull of the tight muscles in her shoulders.

“
Hindsight. It’s easy to play the ‘would-uv, could-uv, should-uv’ game. None of us can predict the future,” Kethan said, “and you can’t kill on the assumption someone might do something wrong.”

“Do something wrong?
” She swung toward him. “He killed that seventeen year old girl laying in your arms! Is that
wrong
enough for you?” The pressure in her head intensified, the throbbing agony driving away the last shreds of sanity. “There’s no negotiating life and death! The only way to deal with vampires is my way. You kill them. Simple. End of story.”

I’m right. I’ve got to be.
She turned away, blinking as the humming fluorescents overhead made her eyes water. Shards of light glittered in the dim hallway, interfering with her vision until she realized they were not real, just the dim light reflecting off the tears in her eyes. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Nothing is ever that simple
,” he said. “Not when there’s still hope of redemption,” Kethan countered.

“Hope?”
She laughed bitterly. “
Hope
? Haven’t you figured it out yet? There’s no such thing as hope. There’s only what
is
. Reality. Deal with it.”

“There’s always hope,” Theresa said, her
soft voice tinged with sadness. “There must be hope. If you give up hope, you’re giving up any chance for the future.” Her eyes searched Quicksilver’s face. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“It’s another headache, isn’t it?” Theresa gripped her shoulder. “You should have let the doctor do a CAT scan. We can still—”

“No. It’s just a tension headache
or a migraine.”

“It could be
more serious—”

“I’m not being poked, prodded, and shoved into a tube just to have some doctor tell m
e they don’t know what’s wrong and suggest still more tests. It’s just a headache.” She rubbed her face tiredly in the crook of her elbow. The blood beat a huge, bass drum in her head while the pressure increased. She could literally hear the pain singing along the nerves and beneath the bass boom, she could still hear the high, thready sound of Allison crying in the darkness.