Blood Legacy: The Story of Ryan (37 page)

“You really are 700 years old.”

Ryan glanced at her with amusement, realizing Susan had just reached some private epiphany.

“Why yes,” she said, “yes I am.”

Susan sat back in her chair, unaware she had sat bolt upright. Ryan gazed at her curiously. “What?”

“They missed it,” Susan said, half to herself, “they all missed it.”

Ryan sat patiently, allowing Susan to continue.

“All the writers, all the filmmakers, all the people who ever tried to envision what you would be like, they all missed it.”

Ryan shrugged, as if Susan were stating the obvious. “I believe I already told you that.”

“No!” Susan shook her head, unwilling to let Ryan minimize her sudden prescience. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not the obvious things,” Susan trailed off, then spoke to herself, “and of course, it wouldn’t be.”

Susan looked over at Ryan and Ryan maintained her polite silence.

Susan’s thoughts raced furiously. It wouldn’t be the obvious melodramatic things humans always tried to envision. It wouldn’t be the hopes and dreams that mortals projected onto immortals, nor would it be human weaknesses manifested and magnified over time.

It would be the subtle things. Things like a certain way of speaking. From a voice that had been shaped by hundreds of languages, from a mouth that had articulated nearly every sound possible. It would be a certain way of moving, from muscles and joints untouched by the ravages of time, and yet blessed with centuries of neuro-muscular development.

It would be a sense of time fundamentally different from human beings, a temporal sense tied not to 70 or 80 years on this planet, but to an unlimited number. It would be a total lack of fear, not the bravado demonstrated by so many immortal caricatures, but a genuine lack of fear.

Because Ryan had nothing to fear.

Susan gazed at her, at last understanding. “You’re never in a hurry, are you?”

Ryan shook her head. “Why should I be?”

Susan was quiet for a long moment. “You must find ‘Dracula’ pretty amusing.”

Ryan shrugged. “It’s a morality play. I found it interesting, but not particularly accurate. It seemed very much tied to the time and place in which it was written, not the time it was supposed to have occurred. But it’s always this way with human writing. It’s easy to write about dates and places in history because those are recorded. What it was really like is much more difficult to capture.”

Ryan was thoughtful a moment. “I’m always struck by human portrayals of immortality. I have nothing in common with these characters. Why do they always long for their mortality? Is this simply a human’s idea that there is some sort of nobility in death? It seems to me they’re trying to convince themselves. And why do these characters always whine so?”

Ryan was silent for a moment, amused by this thought. She continued in a more serious vein. “I don’t comprehend how this entire race marches blithely towards a blackness that none truly understands, and yet all live as if they will never die. ‘Waste time’ has no meaning for me, but I understand it. It has a very specific meaning for humans, yet very few grasp it.” Ryan turned to look at Susan. “Even you will one day walk into a blackness and not return, and you don’t know if you’ll come out the other side.”

Susan did not wish to contemplate her mortality at this moment. “So you don’t ‘long for your humanity,’ like so many of these tortured characters?” she asked, attempting to bring back the lightheartedness of their earlier discussion.

Susan’s question was lightly phrased, and she was unprepared for Ryan’s reaction. Ryan looked almost as if Susan had struck her. She looked away, her eyes filled with sudden unwanted memories. Susan was not certain if it was the question itself which elicited such a response, or if the question simply triggered some deeper battle within Ryan.

Ryan turned her unblinking gaze back on Susan, but this time her eyes mirrored a rare indecision. When she finally spoke, her words were quiet.

“I was never human.”

Susan was startled. Ryan had told her much of her past life, and yet she had never given her any indication of this revelation. Susan did not understand how this could be, considering the stories Ryan had told her. Once again she had the feeling Ryan was leaving significant parts of her life out of her account. Susan had a sudden suspicion. She knew she would be treading on dangerous ground probing into Ryan’s past, but the question began to burn inside her, demanding to be asked.

Ryan turned to her in resignation, waiting for the question she knew was coming.

“Ryan,” Susan asked quietly, “what happened to Victor?”

Ryan stared at her for a minute, then in a completely uncharacteristic gesture, covered her face with her hand, rubbing her forehead. After a long moment, she raised her head and the unblinking gaze returned. All indecision was gone from her eyes and her voice was devoid of emotion.

“He’s dead, “ Ryan said simply, “I killed him.”

Susan stared at the woman, stunned. Everything Ryan had told her had just been contradicted by this single statement. And although Ryan seemed perfectly aware of the paradox she had just presented her companion, she stood and left the room without another word.

Susan was gone by the time Ryan returned, and she was left to stalk through her mansion alone. She whirled on her heel, staring into the licking flames of the fireplace.

“Time is the fire in which we burn,” she said bitterly to the flames, “but it does not burn me.”

Her anger grew and she was unaware her language was returning to an earlier time. “Nor does it provide me any heat or any light.”

She whirled on her heel again, stalking the shadows as her Memories began to stalk her.

She remembered the first time she had felt any anger at Victor, the time he had taken her against her will in front of the Borgia Pope. Although she had seen through his mind later that he had sufficient reason for doing so, she never completely forgave him for his deception. He in turn had seen the subtle invitation she had offered Marilyn, and had been furious at her.

Although Ryan had felt a pronounced sense of fear at Victor’s fury, she also felt the slightest sense of power over him because of his jealousy. This did her no good, however, as he sensed everything she felt and could take her thoughts simply by feeding off her. He took these thoughts from her and laughed, giving her nothing in return. He was not weakened by his jealousy; it only made their bond more powerful.

But as the bond between them grew, Ryan began taking Victor’s thoughts as well. Much of his Memory was unclear to Ryan, as Victor thwarted her efforts when he felt it necessary.

But Ryan continued to probe his mind over the years and their second great fight occurred when she discovered he had been the instrument of her parent’s destruction. She had always assumed Derek had acted alone. But in one unprotected moment, Ryan peered into the recesses of his mind and discovered he had sent Derek to find her.

Victor had not understood her anger. In a way, Ryan did not understand it herself. She had felt no great love for her parents, and Victor had given her much more than Hans and his wife ever had. Even at her young age several centuries ago, Ryan was already accustomed to death and destruction.

For years, Ryan was uncertain why she had reacted so violently to the knowledge that Victor was responsible for the death of her parents. She did not understand the rage that circulated through her body like the blood of a stranger, a stranger that neither she nor Victor had ever Shared with.

This thought infuriated Ryan and she sprang to her feet, lifting a vase from a nearby table. She threw the vase with such force against the hearth it shattered into dust.

As quickly as it had come, the fury vanished, replaced by a sadness so profound it would have killed a normal human being.

Ryan collapsed onto the couch, her head in her hands. She reached out, as she often did, into a void that would never be filled again. All that greeted her was a black emptiness.

Even from a great distance, many of the Others would feel an anguish that none would understand. Only a dark-haired woman, one of the greatest of their Kind, fully understood and gazed thoughtfully into the darkness.

CHAPTER 30

 THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. Susan was glad because between the foul weather and the luxurious accommodations, she was not inclined to get out of bed.

She went downstairs and found Ryan sprawled in the great room. Her clothing was wet, as if she had been outside. She seemed unconcerned with her damp attire and sat gazing mutely into the fire.

Apart from the wet clothing, Ryan looked no different from any other time Susan had seen her. But it appeared almost as if Ryan was tired, although Susan had seen her like this only once before, recently. If she did not know better, she would say Ryan had been spending a few “sleepless nights.”

Susan moved to her side and on impulse, put her hand to Ryan’s forehead. Susan was shocked at the temperature. “How are you feeling?”

Ryan looked at her curiously. “I’m fine, why?”

Susan shrugged. “No reason, I just thought I’d ask.”

Ryan started to say something, then stopped.

Susan looked at her expectantly. “What is it?”

“Actually,” Ryan said slowly, “I have a headache.”

The significance of Ryan’s admission did not register on Susan, but Ryan seemed oblivious to this as she puzzled over the malady. “I have not had a headache in over 200 years.”

Susan’s concern deepened as Ryan settled deeper in her chair, shivering slightly. “Not even when you were recovering from your injuries?”

Ryan shook her head, then shrugged the entire matter off. “I’m probably adapting to something my other senses are unaware of.”

Susan was not satisfied with Ryan’s explanation, but Ryan did not seem to want to pursue the subject further. Besides, the conversation had led in a direction that Susan had wanted to explore for some time.

“What exactly happened to you the night you wound up in the morgue?”

Ryan turned her unblinking gaze on Susan, and for a moment Susan thought she would not answer. When she finally did, her tone was expressionless.

“I had contact with some of the Others.”

“Contact?” Susan’s words were filled with slight dismay. “Is that what you would call it.”

Ryan gave a short, bitter laugh. “We are predators, remember? The reunion was not particularly joyous.” Ryan was silent a moment, then said off-handedly, “Besides, most of my wounds were self-inflicted.”

Susan turned to her, incredulous. “What do you mean, self-inflicted?”

Ryan was patient with her. “Surely I’ve told you enough of myself for you to realize there’s no one out there who could do that to me.”

“I have been curious,” Susan admitted, “But I still don’t understand.”

“I came in contact with some of the Others. I don’t think they realized who I was, but I was not taking any chances. Not only did I destroy all of them, but I faked my own destruction as well.”

“Why would you do that?”

Ryan was contemplative. “Although none of these knew me, word could get back to those who might. Those whom I could not destroy.”

Ryan settled into silence, and Susan recognized she would say no more on the matter, so she changed the subject. “When did you first come to the United States?”

“The Americas?” Ryan was thoughtful, “Probably around the middle 1600’s, I’ve never been very good at keeping track of time.”

“So you were one of the first settlers here.”

Ryan laughed, a short sarcastic laugh. “If you don’t count the several million people who were already living on this continent, yes, I was one of the first ones here.”

Ryan seemed very bitter right now, and Susan pressed her for more information more to get at her mood than to get at her story. “I guess I didn’t realize there were so many,” she prompted.

Ryan glanced at her sideways, as if she knew what Susan was doing. She went along with it anyway. “There were millions, at least until we Europeans landed, bringing every sort of pestilence imaginable. I thought the Black Plague was bad, but it killed only one out of every three in my time. The plague here killed 9 out of every 10 Indians.”