Immortal Sins (3 page)

Tricia tapped on a corner of the frame. “Did it come this way?”

“What way?” Kari asked, frowning.

“Framed like this. Oil paintings aren’t usually framed under glass.”

Kari shrugged, surprised she hadn’t wondered about that before. But then, she wasn’t an expert in such matters. Besides, she’d had other things on her mind, like a one-dimensional painted figure that refused to stay in one place.

Tricia stepped up on the raised hearth, her eyes narrowing as she studied the painting. “This is a Vilnius!” she exclaimed, gesturing at the signature scrawled in the lower right-hand corner. “Good grief, Kari, this looks like an original. Did you rob a bank, or come into an inheritance or something?”

“Of course not. What makes you think that?”

“Karinna, this painting is at least three hundred years old, and it’s worth a small fortune. Maybe even a big one.”

“How do you know that?”

“Hello? I majored in art, remember? Anyway, I remember seeing a picture of it in a book about little-known artists of the Old World. As far as anyone knows, Josef Vilnius painted only a handful of canvases. Three of them were supposed to have been lost or destroyed in a fire or a flood or something. One of them,
The Wizard’s Daughter,
is located somewhere in Romania. Bucharest, if I recall correctly. This is the only one that’s unaccounted for. Most experts assume it was destroyed, too.”

“You must be mistaken,” Kari said. “If it was valuable, it would have sold for a lot more than I paid for it.”

Tricia shrugged. “Maybe the art dealer wasn’t aware of its value. After all, Vilnius never made it really big, what with only five or six paintings to his credit. Or maybe the dealer thought it was a fake, since its whereabouts have been unknown for so long.”

Kari looked up at the painting, imagining the nice profit she could make if the canvas was a genuine Vilnius and as rare as Tricia seemed to think.

“It was rumored that Vilnius was a witch or a warlock or something.” Tricia waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Of course, that was a lot of nonsense. Whoever started the rumor probably thought it would jack up the price, you know?” She shook her head. “Girlfriend, you are so lucky.”

Kari forced a smile. She didn’t feel lucky. She felt like she was slowly going insane, but then, maybe she wasn’t. After all, crazy people never thought they were crazy. But maybe that was only after they lost their minds.

“Listen, I’d love to stay and chat,” Tricia said, “but I’ve got to go pick Brent up from work. His Hummer’s in the shop.” She gave Kari a hug. “Let’s do lunch one day next week. My treat.”

Later, after Tricia had gone home, Kari busied herself with housework. She washed the lunch dishes, mopped the floors in the bathroom and the kitchen, vacuumed the rugs and dusted the furniture in every room but the living room. Time and again she was tempted to go in and look at the painting to see if the man was still in the woods, but for her peace of mind, she refused to do so.

She told herself that the pretty white horse was grazing in the field, the shaggy black and white dog was asleep in the shade, the cute little gray kitten was curled up in the flower bed, and the man was in the woods, where he belonged. She had seen him there earlier and that’s where he was now, because painted figures didn’t move and certainly didn’t speak. She wouldn’t look at the Vilnius again. Monday morning she would take the accursed thing back to the Underwood Gallery and put it, and the man, out of her mind once and for all.

When she finished cleaning the house, Kari changed her clothes, grabbed her handbag and her keys, and left by the back door.

Getting into her car, she drove to the grocery store to pick up a quart of milk, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, and some fresh fruit and vegetables. On the way home, she stopped at Mama Wong’s for some Chinese takeout, then stopped at Polly’s and picked up a lemon meringue pie because, well, just because.

At home again, she put the groceries away, poured herself a glass of milk, then sat down at the kitchen table and ate dinner, even though she usually ate in the living room in front of the TV.

With dinner over, she rinsed her dishes and put them in the dishwasher, then looked out the kitchen window, her fingers drumming on the countertop. What was she going to do now? It was too early to go to bed.

Keeping her head turned away from the painting, she went through the living room and up the stairs, grabbed the book on her bedside table, then went into the bathroom to take a bath. She added a generous amount of lavender bubble bath to the running water, lit a candle, and stepped into the tub. She sat there a moment, thinking there was nothing more relaxing than sitting in a nice warm bubble bath. She read until the water was cool and her skin was pruney, and then, reluctantly, she got out of the tub.

Drying off, she blew out the candle, then slipped on her nightgown and robe. Now what, she thought? She was tired of reading. It was still too early for bed. Her computer and the big-screen TV were both in the living room….

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Kari, you can’t stay out of the living room for the rest of the weekend!” she muttered, even though it seemed like a good idea.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked briskly down the stairs and into the living room. Sitting on the sofa, she picked up the remote. Keeping her gaze fixed squarely on the screen, she turned on the TV.

It took all her concentration to keep from glancing up at the Vilnius. Was it her imagination, or could she feel the man gazing down at her, willing her to look up?

“Not real,” she murmured. “He’s not real.” Perspiration beaded on her brow. She looked at the fireplace, her gaze slowly moving up, up, until she was staring at the painting from hell.

And he was there, looking at her through the glass, his gaze intent upon her face. His eyes…what was there about his eyes that made her want to go to him, to take him in her arms and soothe the ache she saw in his gaze?

She leaned forward, felt her heart plummet to her toes when, with a smile, his lips formed her name.

Karinna.

It was too much. With a cry, she leaped from the sofa and ran out of the room.

Rourke swore softly as the woman fled the room. Of course, he couldn’t blame her for being startled. After all, how often did a figure in a painting move, much less speak? He supposed he should be grateful she hadn’t fainted dead away. But, dammit, how was he going to establish contact with her without scaring her half to death? One way or another, he had to communicate with her. She owned him now. His fate, his future, the end to his relentless hunger all rested in her hands.

When she was in the room, he could hear the steady beat of her heart, smell the warm red river of life flowing through her veins.

Three hundred years since last he had fed, and with every passing year, the ache had grown stronger, until what had at first been mere discomfort turned to pain; the pain into never-ending agony. These days, the need clawed at him relentlessly, the pain unceasing. Excruciating. Sometimes, when it became more than he could bear, he fed off the horse. The animal’s blood took the edge off his thirst but did nothing to satisfy either his hunger or his endless craving.

He slammed his fist against the glass. Relief was so near. So near. He closed his eyes, remembering the last time he had fed, the rich salty taste, the warmth that had flooded his being as the elixir of life flowed down his throat. It had been but a momentary pleasure, though, as, unexpectedly, the sweetness of her life’s blood had turned sour and scorched his tongue. Only then had he realized the seductive young woman in his arms wasn’t an ordinary mortal.

He pounded his fist against the glass again, but yet again, to no avail. His preternatural powers had been neutralized by his imprisonment, leaving him with little strength, supernatural or otherwise.

Frustrated and angry, he paced the length of his prison until the worst of his anger dissipated. Someday, he vowed, someday he would reclaim not only his freedom but the sword that Vilnius had stolen from him. Rourke clenched his hands into tight fists. The sword had belonged to his father, Thomas, who had fought with Prince Edward in the Eighth Crusade in 1272. Since becoming a vampire, his father’s sword had been the only tangible thing Rourke had owned that held any meaning for him, the only memento he had left of the life he had once known. Thanks to the wizard’s twisted sense of humor, a picture of that sword hung over the mantel inside the castle, a constant reminder of all Rourke had lost.

With a sigh, he dropped to the ground, his gaze moving toward the box with the moving pictures. It was a wondrous creation called television. He marveled at the witchcraft that had conjured such a miracle. Much of what he knew of the modern world he had learned from watching the people trapped inside the mysterious machine. It had taken him quite some time to realize that some of what he saw took place in the present and some in the past, that some elements were fact and some were fiction, though he couldn’t always tell which was which. But whether fact or fiction, he found it entertaining most of the time.

He glanced at the doorway, wondering if the woman would return. When she didn’t, he spent a few moments perusing the woman’s domain. The room he could see was small. The walls were a pale blue, the curtains at the window were white, the carpets a shade darker than the walls. The sofa was covered in a flowered print. A slender vase filled with fresh flowers could be seen on a side table. A three-tiered shelf held a number of small, framed photographs, a collection of blown-glass animals, a large seashell, and a blue marble egg. Another shelf held a trio of candles. Magazines were scattered over the top of the table in front of the sofa. It was a very feminine room. He wondered if she ever had male visitors.

Troubled by the thought of the woman being with another man, he turned and went into the castle on the hill.

Kari stood at her bedroom window, staring out into the night. It was almost midnight, time to stop acting like a frightened child, go downstairs, turn off the lights and the TV, and go to bed.

Taking a deep breath, she marched resolutely down the stairs. She switched off the TV, careful not to look up at the Vilnius. She was about to turn off the lights when her gaze was drawn toward the painting. What on earth was that?

Curious, she moved toward the hearth. She had never noticed that little white square on the lower left-hand corner of the glass before. Had it always been there? Or was it just another manifestation of her decaying mental state?

She stood on the raised hearth and peered at the small white piece of paper. And there, written in bold script, she read the word
help
written in what looked like blood.

Kari stared at the word as if she had never seen it before while her mind tried to come up with some logical explanation, but, of course, there was only one explanation, illogical and impossible as it seemed. The man in the painting was trying to communicate with her.

With a shrug, she turned away from the fireplace. After all, if he could move from place to place, why couldn’t he write a message?

Humming softly, she turned out the lights and went upstairs to bed. There was a simple explanation for everything, she thought as she snuggled under the covers.

She was out of her mind.

Kari rose early the next morning, ate a quick breakfast, and left the house. She spent several hours at the mall, had lunch at her favorite restaurant, took in an early movie, and then stopped in to visit Tricia, who invited her to stay for dinner and watch a DVD.

“So,” Tricia remarked when she switched off the DVD player. “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped pretending to be a hermit? There’s a new guy in Brent’s office….”

Kari held up her hand. “Stop right there.”

“Kari, I’m not asking you to marry the guy. Just go out with him. Have a little fun for a change.”

“I’m not ready to date anyone yet.”

“Kari, this is me, Trish. I know Ben hurt your feelings, but it’s not like he broke your heart or anything. What’s the problem?”

Kari blew out a sigh. She wished she could tell Tricia the truth, that she was falling in love with a man in a painting, but there were some things even your best friend wouldn’t understand, or believe.

It was almost midnight when Kari returned home. She went straight to her room, undressed, took a shower, and went to bed.

Surprisingly, sleep came quickly.

She dreamed she was in the castle again. This time, he was waiting for her in the great room. She frowned, thinking that it looked different than it had the last time. There were fresh rushes on the floor. Several huge tapestries depicting hunting scenes hung from the walls. A cheery fire blazed in the large stone hearth. He rose from his chair when she stepped through the doorway, one hand outstretched in a gesture of welcome. Her gaze moved over him. Here, in her dream, he wasn’t made of canvas and paint but of living flesh and blood. The light of the fire cast golden highlights in his fair hair, his deep blue eyes burned with a heat to rival the flames crackling in the hearth.

As she walked toward him, she realized she wasn’t wearing her nightgown; instead, she wore a long, ice-blue velvet gown with a square neck and long, fitted sleeves that tapered to points at her wrists. The skirt swished around her ankles; a pair of matching slippers covered her feet.

She offered him her hand as though she were a highborn lady, surprised that the gesture came so naturally. His fingers were cool when they closed over hers, yet her whole body warmed at his touch. He was several inches taller than she was, his shoulders broad. Holding her gaze with his, he drew her down on a bed of thick white furs that suddenly appeared on the floor in front of the fireplace. Lying side by side, he aligned his body with hers. Even through the heavy material of her gown, she could feel the hard length of him, the heat of his arousal. He wooed her with soft-spoken words and sweet caresses, granted her every desire, fulfilled her every secret fantasy without being asked. His kisses were intoxicating, unlike any she had ever known. When he looked at her, she felt cherished. When he whispered her name, she felt loved as never before.

In the morning, Kari woke with tears in her eyes because it had only been a dream, and because he was nothing more than an attractive figure painted on canvas. It wasn’t fair, she thought. She had finally met the man of her dreams, and that’s all he was, a dream, a figment of her own warped imagination. For the first time in her life, she had found a man who made her feel vital and alive, a man she wanted to love, and he wasn’t real. But real or not, she had to see him again.

Flinging back the covers, she grabbed her robe, then hurried downstairs, glad that it was a holiday and she didn’t have to go to work.

Hurrying into the living room, she looked up at the painting. He wasn’t there. Frowning, she examined the Vilnius from one side to the other, and from top to bottom. The horse was in the field, the dog was sleeping in the shade, the kitten was in the flower bed, but there was no sign of the man.

There was no sign of him after breakfast. He wasn’t there at lunch. No matter how many times she looked at the painting that day, he was nowhere to be found.

Because it was her mother’s birthday, Kari went to dinner at her parents’ house. For a few blessed minutes, she forgot all about the mysterious man in the painting, until her mother asked if there was a man in her life. His image, and the dream she’d had the night before, brought a quick flush of heat to Kari’s cheeks.

“Oh, I know that look,” her mother said with a smile. “You’ve met someone! What’s his name, what does he do, when will we meet him?”

“There’s no one, Mom.”

“Now, Kari…”

“Honest, Mom, I haven’t met anyone.”

Which was true enough, Kari thought later. In her dreams, she had made mad, passionate love to the man in the painting, but they hadn’t exchanged names, or been formally introduced, so, technically, they hadn’t met. And then there was the fact that he didn’t actually exist.

With a shake of her head, Kari changed the subject.

She was feeling much better when she left for home later that evening. Spending time with her folks and her two older sisters and their husbands always grounded her in reality and was fun besides. Kari and her sisters had had their share of squabbles when they were growing up but they were all the best of friends now. Kaye was a kindergarten teacher, Kristina was a legal secretary. Kaye had a two-year-old son, Tommy; Kristina was expecting her first child in a few months.

Driving home, Kari convinced herself that the man in the painting had been nothing but a figment of her imagination created out of stress, boredom, and some kind of perverted wishful thinking. Tomorrow, she would put the painting up for sale on eBay and see if what Trish had said was true, that it really was worth a lot of money.

Humming softly, Kari parked the car in the driveway. She stood outside for a few minutes, gazing up at the starry sky. The air was fragrant with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and honeysuckle. It was a beautiful night, the kind they wrote songs about. If only she had someone to share it with.

Going into the house, she turned on the lights, tossed her handbag onto the sofa, switched on the TV, and glanced up at the Vilnius.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him waiting for her at the front of the painting. His gaze met hers, his smile melancholy.

If she removed the frame, would she discover the secret of how he moved from place to place? Or would he leap off the canvas? She laughed softly. No matter how handsome he was, what on earth would she do with him when he was only ten inches tall?

“You’re not real,” she murmured. “Do you hear me? I know you’re not there, so just go away.”

But he didn’t disappear.

Standing there, she saw a number of small details she hadn’t noticed before, like the jagged crack in one of the upstairs windows of the castle, and the gray squirrel on the branch of one of the trees. Funny, she hadn’t noticed those things before. Had they always been there? Or was her overly vivid imagination sketching them in?

The man sat cross-legged on the grass, his gaze focused on her face. Sometimes she thought he was trying to speak to her, not verbally, but mentally. An absurd notion, to be sure. And yet, she had heard a voice in her mind….

Sitting on the sofa, she shook the disconcerting thought away.

Hours passed but time had no meaning. There was only the man in the painting. She knew he was sad and wondered why the artist had painted him that way, and what magic canvas he had used, to give his creation the ability to move about and express emotion. Sometimes she was sure the man was in terrible pain, though she had no idea what made her think so. Or maybe it wasn’t the man in the painting who was sad and in pain. Maybe what she was feeling were the thoughts and emotions of the artist. That hardly seemed likely, she mused, since she wasn’t the least bit psychic or telepathic, but tonight she could believe almost anything.

Kari could hardly believe it when she looked at the clock and saw that it was after midnight. Shocked, she scrambled to her feet. She had to get some sleep. She had to go to work in the morning.

Reaching up, she pressed her palm against the glass that enclosed the painting, whispered, “Good night,” and went to bed.

She dreamed of him again. Tonight, she wore a gown of pale, pale pink that made her feel like she was a princess in a fairy tale. Hand in hand, they walked through the verdant meadow. The horse trailed behind them, its white coat gleaming like liquid silver in the light of the moon. The dog frolicked at their heels, then ran ahead, sniffing the ground.

She was acutely aware that she was in the painting. Strange, that she didn’t feel small or one-dimensional. Walking along, she felt a vagrant breeze caress her cheek, the spongy sod beneath her feet. She was equally aware of the man at her side, of the latent strength of his hand holding hers. Her whole body tingled at his nearness. Oddly, neither of them spoke, but there was no need for words.

When they reached the edge of the lake, she sat down on the rock and he sat beside her, his arm slipping around her shoulders as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Leaning forward, she trailed her hand in the water, surprised that it was cool and wet. It was only a picture of a lake, after all, yet, like everything else, it seemed so real.