Beyond the Night (3 page)

The noise of wheels rattling and people talking felt deafening. She saw lamplights burning all along the alley. As she drew closer to Mirya's hovel, she heard scraping and scratching, as if something was being moved around. And then dead silence.

She knocked. “Mirya.”

No answer.

“Mirya!”
Even Senna heard the feral tone in her voice.

“Go away.” Mirya's rusty, old voice, laced with fear.

“Mirya—” Still that snarling voice. Senna tried to tone it down. “It's me, Senna.”

“No. It is not you. Go away.”

How did Mirya know? “I'm coming in,” Senna said with an authoritative growl, certain that her desire would transport her where she needed to go.

But it didn't work this time. She couldn't penetrate the walls, she couldn't seep in under the door. The
creature
Senna was not welcome because she had not been invited in.

“Let me in.” Her voice sounded tight, cold, impatient. She'd compel the old witch if she had to. She didn't want to have to. “Mirya—?” She couldn't get that anger out of her voice. She focused full force on Mirya's mind.

Invite me in.

No response. Senna girded herself. Mirya knew all kinds of mystical things. She could read minds and foretell the future. She might well be chanting some spell or putting up some kind of magic barrier against Senna's attempt to control her.

“MIRYA!”
A command Mirya could not deny.

She felt the give in Mirya's soul, the resignation and admission that Mirya was too old and too fatalistic to put up much more resistance.

“Invite me in.”

“Come if you can,” Mirya answered her grudgingly. It sounded as if she was moving whatever furniture she'd thought would be a barricade away from the door.

Senna closed her eyes.
Inside.
She found herself in the small front parlor of Mirya's home, a room in which Senna had confessed, cried, slept, sought comfort, a room Mirya was now ready to defend with her life as she reached for the fireplace poker and turned to face Senna.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Mirya's eyes dilated with fear, as if she saw the bloodlust in Senna's eyes, and the struggle.

“I know who you are.” Mirya's voice cracked. “I know what you've become and what you've done. And I know you've come to kill me.”

“M
irya—”

“Stay away!” She brandished the poker. “I know what you are.”

“I am who I always was,” Senna said firmly, “and I need your help.”

“I won't help you. You are death. I have nothing you want, except my blood. Go away.”

Mirya knew, of course she knew. Senna quelled her irritation. This was Mirya, the odd old soul who had nurtured the homeless child she'd been.

“I don't want your life,” Senna said at length. She looked at her hands. No lines. No heart, no life. She could move through walls. She could kill without compunction. She was what she was. And she was still human.

But for how long?

“I need your help. You've always helped me.”

“Ghouls don't need help.”

“Really, Mirya—”

“I don't trust you.”

“What would make you trust me?”

“If you left me alone.”

Senna gave her a look from beneath her lashes. Mirya never changed. She had a tiny, old-lady's body that seemed to be one piece from her neck to her shoes. A lined face always set in a frown. Clawlike hands. Gray hair scraped back from her face and twisted into a bun.

Mirya had taken pity on her, fed her scraps, found her odd kitchen jobs, taught her to read palms and do simple tricks. Gave her shelter from the elements. Protected her from predators.

She was now the predator. She was the enemy. No wonder Mirya was afraid.

“I need to stay here for a few days,” Senna said softly, choosing her words carefully.

“No.”

“I expect I don't even need to ask,” Senna countered, “if I am what you think I am.”

Mirya stared at her sullenly. Then, suddenly, she grabbed Senna's hand and turned it over. No lines. She looked up at Senna with her rheumy eyes.

“I say this as the one who knows you. You are a vampire. You cannot be trusted. You have no mastery of your powers. You have no control of anything, and you will kill me without pity when the next hunger burns in your blood.”

“I swear—”

“What do you want?”

Senna sank into the one of the wooden chairs by the fireplace. “Tell me what to do.”

“I can tell you nothing.”

“Then read the cards.”

“They cannot be read for the likes of you.”

Senna felt desperate. If she didn't have Mirya on her side, she'd have nothing. “Then read for them for yourself. Assure yourself I mean you no harm and that I really need your help.”

Mirya shook her head, hobbled to the other end of the room, and sat on her bed. “The cards have no control over the blood,” she said finally. “What do you want?”

Senna let out her breath. “I don't know. Teach me what I need to know.”

“I can't.”

Senna leaned forward. “You must know—a chant, a spell, a divination, a revelation . . . something. They're all gone—Dominick, Charles, Peter—they just all disappeared. You must know something.”

Mirya made a noncommittal noise, and Senna realized that Mirya did know something. Senna felt her blood start to boil with impatience; that quick, she was a minute away from grabbing Mirya and biting the answer out of her.

By the damned. She got a grip on her emotions with great difficulty; all the while Mirya watched out of those teary eyes that saw everything.

“Minute by minute,” Mirya muttered in her harsh, rusty voice, “you will become more of the thing that you are. You can't stop it. You can't help it. You can't control it. It will take hold of you and wring the last of your humanity from you in a bloodbath of death.”

“Stop it!” Senna bolted from the chair. She could feel the impulse burbling up inside her. The heat, the impatience, the need, the greed of the monster bursting inside her like an explosion and no way to hold it back.

It felt like liquid fire pouring over a dam. She had no defenses, no containment strategies.

It was as if Mirya deliberately wanted to destroy her. No, the thing she'd become.

Or else she really did know something that she didn't wish Senna to know. Which meant Senna had to take control of all the clamoring impulses and remain calm, contained, bloodless.

She hated that Mirya just watched the struggle reflected in her face, her eyes, her posture, her very soul, until she was finally able to fold herself back into her chair, her hands crossed, her face impassive.

Mirya could have helped, but she did nothing.

I can do this. I can tame the beast. By myself. As always.

The silence lengthened.

Finally Mirya rose from the bed and hobbled over to Senna, and without a word she placed her clawlike hands on Senna's temples.

Immediately, Senna felt calm, centered, as if all would be well.

“You must return to Lady Augustine's home and take possession. It is very important that you claim your portion as Lady Augustine's ward. They all still believe it. That will not change. They will find you. You will have to decide.” She pushed away from Senna abruptly. “That is all I can tell you.”

“But what about Dominick?”

Mirya shook her head. “Nothing.”

“I have to go back.”

Mirya nodded.

“Go to the funeral.”

Mirya shrugged.

“Pretend nothing's changed, in spite of Lady Augustine's death.”

“Perhaps,” Mirya said.

“And that's all you can tell me.”

Mirya said nothing.

“All you
will
tell me,” Senna surmised, frustrated that the information was cryptic at best and perhaps utter nonsense to put her off.

Mirya stared at her.

There was only one way to find out. Mirya must come with her, Senna decided, wondering if this was the decision that Mirya had foretold.

“I understand that you just gave me a lesson in restraint,” Senna said finally. “And I appreciate how necessary it is for me to learn to keep those impulses and appetites at bay. So, will you come with me to Lady Augustine's?”

“No.” Mirya started to back away.

Senna leapt across the short space between them and grabbed Mirya's shoulders. “I think you misunderstood me,” Senna said, her voice calmer, quieter. “I need you to come with me to Lady Augustine's. I need your good sense, your advice. I need your help.”

Mirya gave her a long, telling look before she closed her eyes and nodded.

“Thank you,” Senna said, releasing her.

“You've learned nothing,” Mirya muttered.

“Which is why I need you with me,” Senna said calmly.

“A vampire needs nothing,” Mirya spat.

“I need to find Dominick,” Senna contradicted her. “And because of that, I need you.”

He didn't know who was alive and who was dead. If Senna was dead. After she was forced by his dying mother to save
him,
and then his mother infecting Senna with her poisoned bite . . .

Devil's bones.

Dominick had never felt so powerless, and now he was in the hands of Dnitra, the mysterious stranger who had yet to give him any explanation for her virtual kidnapping of him.

He should have stayed.

He was so weak that only a whirlwind could have lifted him from Senna's side. He couldn't have stayed: Senna had taken another's bite as well, the bite of a Tepes, the ancient enemies of his clan. He didn't know. He might never know if the bite had drawn blood, if she was now of Clan Tepes. Only there might be a child, and if there was, he'd destroy anyone who got in his way.

Find your people.

Dnitra was of his people: like him, she had the cool, flat blue eyes and reddish hair that were traits. She wore obsidian for protection, solely ancient Iscariot knowledge. She had powers. She looked beyond him as the whirlwind surrounded them and lifted them, with a droning hum, away from the desiccated, blood-drenched landscape of Drom.

Talk was impossible. His mouth was still full of the taste of his mother's blood drying on his tongue. His wounds heaved fire, the pain so crippling he could barely keep his balance.

Senna was gone, and he couldn't bear to even imagine how she was coping with the dark, bloody reality of her turning.

He swallowed the bile in his throat. It still tasted metallic, it tasted as if every inch of his body were covered in blood, dried and smeared, everywhere, even his hands, his face.

Dnitra's silence unnerved him, but he had nothing to say to her, not even a question, because if he asked about Senna, she would tell him, and he wasn't certain he was strong enough to know.

He ached for Senna. On every level. But everything was different now. The Countess had claimed another victim.

Everything had changed.

He felt exhausted, as if all his power was drained. He'd taken too much during that final confrontation, and he felt too much, in the aftermath of the attacks and the fire.

Humanity was the curse of living. What was left of his was dwindling fast.

The humming ceased; Dnitra was no longer in the cocoon of the whirlwind with him. He felt himself falling suddenly to his knees and then to the floor.

What floor?

He forced himself to a sitting position on the unfamiliar stone floor to find he was surrounded by a half dozen strange faces, and that he was in a cavernous room with stone walls hung with richly colored tapestries.

He looked at Dnitra.

“This is Castle Biru in Stigira.”

He shook his head at the unfamiliar names.

“Romania, Dominick,” Dnitra prompted impatiently. “Your mother's people. Your clan.”

“
She
sent you.” He felt flat resentment that, even in death, the Countess was still manipulating him.

“She summoned,” the older of the men said, “through me. I am Iosefescu. That one”—pointing to the other man—“is Zelenovic.”

“I see.” Dominick's tone was tinged with bitterness. “She didn't trust me enough to fulfill the quest she gave me.”

“No,” Iosefescu contradicted gently, “she just didn't trust there would be enough time.”

“And now?”

“We have all the time in the world.”

Senna and Mirya were standing just at the bottom step of the stairway to Lady Augustine's town house, and Puckett, her longtime butler, waited in the doorway, as if he expected them.

“Miss?”

“Yes, of course,” Senna said, stunned to find herself dressed all in black—as if she'd come from a funeral. The same for Mirya. “Thank you, Puckett,” Senna said, as he helped Mirya up the last several steps. “We must carry on.”

“Indeed, miss.”

“This is Mirya, who was my nurse a very long time ago.”

“Of course, miss. We'll prepare a room.”

Senna gingerly followed him into the house, pulling Mirya after her, subtly seeking the scent of death, which, given Lady Augustine's bloody demise, should have permeated the air.

But everything smelled fresh, clean, untainted by the bloodletting.

She made a sound as Puckett led the way past the parlor and up to the bedroom floor. That bloodsucking beast had not been her.