In the Dark (40 page)

Had she realized what the end result of her actions must be? Had she known she was dooming herself to become a semi-willing host for the developing vampires she carried within her?

She must have, he supposed. At least he hoped that was the case. He had to believe it was what she'd chosen because to think otherwise, to think that she had somehow blundered to her death because he had failed in his responsibility to guide her…that was a torture he was not certain he could survive.

But even this did not fully explain everything. For there was something else Conrad knew to be incontrovertible fact. Up until now, no human child had ever successfully been turned.

No one knew why, exactly. Perhaps there was some element present within the vampire blood that overwhelmed the children's more fragile systems. Or maybe it was something lacking in the children's makeup, some vital component—a missing hormone, perhaps—that would only come with age, which rendered their bodies incompatible with the vampire life force and left them unable to complete the change.

Though it had been tried many times over the centuries—for a variety of reasons, not all of them heinous—the results were invariably the same. Once the exchange of blood was completed, the children would go into their long sleep…but they would never wake up.

How the twins could have survived was a mystery, one that was unlikely to ever be solved. Perhaps it had to do with their having been so young, so completely unformed at the time. Perhaps their developing bodies had somehow absorbed and incorporated the foreign cells rather than the other way around.

Like all unexplained phenomena, Conrad knew their discovery could not help but engender fear, curiosity, speculation and greed. The children he'd seen in the hospital tonight were more than mere scientific oddities. By virtue of their very existence, they were creatures of myth and legend.

Born vampires, so the stories said, would no doubt possess unimaginable abilities, unfathomed gifts. They were pre-ordained masters, destined for greatness. If allowed to mature, their power could someday make them invincible.

It was silly to believe such things. They were childish notions, ridiculous fairy tales. They were nonsense. Conrad's mind rebelled at the thought they could ever be true.

Still, what wouldn't some vampires do to gain access to such potential—or to eliminate it from the Earth, either for stability or safety's sake, or for the common good? Even Conrad himself could see the wisdom of such an argument. Some gifts, some powers, some creatures were too dangerous to be allowed existence. If things had been different he'd have been among the first to concede that some sacrifices were necessary, some losses were unavoidable; that sometimes the innocent must pay for the sins of the greedy.

But he'd given his word. He'd promised their mother he'd keep them alive and safe, if it cost him his life. Which it probably would.

How was he even to go about accomplishing such a thing?

Bringing up even one vampire child in secrecy would have been difficult enough, two raised the odds to very nearly impossible. In order to give them all even a fighting chance, he would have to leave San Francisco and start over somewhere he wasn't known. It was doubly clear he would need help with the task. But to whom could he appeal for assistance?

Not Armand. His feelings for the girl notwithstanding, Armand was too young, too green and far too stressed by the responsibilities Conrad had already pressed upon him. To ask anything more of the boy would be cruel and unfair, would lead to his death—to all their deaths. Besides, Armand lacked the proper temperament.

Conrad knew only one person with enough reckless daring to even attempt such a thing. One person who possessed the confidence, cleverness and courage a stunt of this magnitude would require—and iron nerves with which to enjoy the charade. Someone who had cut his teeth on palace intrigue and could dissemble with the best. Who would look death in the face and yawn. Someone whose love for him was so great he would, without question, risk his life on what anyone could see was likely to be a fool's mission…

It was the last item on the list that had given Conrad pause. Certainly Damian had loved him like that once, but did he still? Could he ever again? It seemed highly doubtful.

When he'd left Conrad's House, all those years ago, still favoring his ruined shoulder, bitterness and hurt raging hotly in his midnight eyes, Damian had assured Conrad that all the love he'd ever felt for him had been destroyed. Every last green shoot had been uprooted, ripped from his heart and cast away.

Even given Damian's love for hyperbole, Conrad thought it likely that, in this instance at least, his words bore some small measure of truth, and he took it as inevitable that their long love affair was finally ended. What else was there to think? Hadn't they both done the unforgivable?

No matter how long he lived, or so Damian had sworn at the time, even if it verged on forever, he would still die cursing Conrad's name with his very last breath. It was a scenario they'd come perilously close to enacting in the cavern tonight.

Conrad shuddered at the recollection. It had been that thought, and possibly that thought alone, which had given him the strength to pull away, to release Damian's throat when his body was demanding he drain him of every last drop.

He would
not
be the instrument by which Damian's prediction was allowed to come true. He would
not
let him go to his death cursing him in his heart—as Conrad had every reason to believe would have been the case. If that was to be the cost of his survival, Conrad would rather have died himself. The price was too high to bear and a waste besides, for the grief and the guilt would have killed him anyway.

Now, pressing the bloody cloth to his nose, Conrad breathed in the scent of Damian's blood, savoring the aroma.
Mine
, his heart insisted achingly.
Mine. Mine
.

“Not mine,” he sighed, struggling to once again accept the bitter truth. He swallowed the rest of the bagged blood, and found it even more tasteless than before. “Not mine anymore.”

That was over. Done with. Lost to him. Gone.

Leaving his chair, he went to the window and looked out at the fading sky, the pale stars, the wizened moon. Men might say
time heals all wounds
, but vampires, with all the time in the world, knew better. Some wounds would never heal properly. Some losses could never be recovered. Some sins were past redemption, some mistakes beyond repair.

As he drew the curtains closed, shutting out the approaching day, Conrad heaved a heavy sigh, recalling a morning, some forty years earlier, when he'd been awakened by a too-cheerful voice and a too-bright flood of sunshine in his eyes. He'd been so furious with her, and yet now…now he'd gladly trade a goodly portion of his remaining nights for just one more such morning. But not even forever was long enough to make that wish a reality.

He took the cloth from his pocket and sniffed it again, thinking of all the mistakes he'd made in the past, all the mistakes he continued to make. So many mistakes, and most of them irreparable.

But, perhaps, if he were very lucky, there might be a few he could put right. For, after all,
while there's life, there's hope
. It was that solitary thought with which he'd consoled himself twelve hundred years ago; tonight, it was still pretty much all he had to cling to.

Chapter Twenty-Three

San Francisco, CA

Monday, November, 3, 1969

Damian stood on the sidewalk outside the gate of the Italianate Victorian mansion, staring irresolutely at the building before him, trying hard to quell the queasy nervousness he was feeling. So it had been a hundred and thirteen years since he'd last seen Conrad, was that any reason for him to be trembling inside like a virginal debutante hoping she'd be asked to dance? It wasn't likely the man had changed. No doubt Conrad was still the same tyrant he'd always been. Short-tempered. Overbearing. Domineering. Ruthless…

“So then why are you here, you fool?” he asked himself.
Good question
. Why
had
he dropped everything and rushed to Conrad's side the minute the selfish bastard snapped his fingers? “You're acting just like the good little lap dog he always wanted you to be.”

But, the answer to that was obvious. He was here because it was
Conrad
who'd asked him to come. Conrad, who never forgot and never forgave and never took anyone back, who couldn't possibly be reaching out to Damian now in hopes of reconciling with him…but who could hardly have had any other reason for contacting him, either.

“Idiot,” Damian chastised himself, as he leaned on the doorbell. After all this time, he should know better than to get his hopes up too high. He should have ignored the summons, pretended he'd never gotten the entirely too cryptic message and stayed at home.

Ah, but that was the problem, wasn't it? Because, however much he might wish it were otherwise,
home
was still exactly the same place it had always been for him. Wherever Conrad was.

“
Chi è esso
?” Conrad's rich baritone sounded exactly the same, as well—even despite the distortion caused by the intercom. “Who is it?”

Damian's heart contracted. He bit back a shaky sigh. “
Es-es yo
,” he replied, his voice faltering just a little. “Damian.”

The intercom shut off with a snap and a buzzer sounded as the gate was unlocked—for all of an instant. Damian grabbed for it just in time and headed toward the house muttering beneath his breath—roundly cursing himself and Conrad and whatever unlucky stars had happened to have been in alignment on the day they'd first met. “I should have
never
have allowed myself to become involved with such a…with such a
peasant
.” That had been his first mistake.

The front door was ajar. Damian froze with his hand extended toward the doorknob and his pulse racing with the thought that it could be a trap he was walking into. For just an instant he considered retreating. But, what the hell? He'd come this far, what was a little more lunacy?

Still, as he pushed through the door and stepped into the darkened entrance hall the sound of his own heartbeat was so loud in his ears it drowned out any other sound. “Lucy, I'm a-home,” he called in his best Ricky Ricardo impersonation, almost jumping out of his skin when Conrad growled softly, “Quiet.”

Damian spun around to face him. For a very long moment he just stared, unable to do anything but drink Conrad in, as though his eyes had been starved for the sight of him. Finally, inexcusably late in the day, his self-preservation instincts kicked in. Fear had him drawing back, straightening his spine—even as his insides continued twisting themselves into knots. There was a faint frown on Conrad's stern face, a wary gleam in his glittering, ametrine eyes. Damian's own eyes widened in uneasy surprise when the squirming bundles in his old friend's arms finally registered.

He waved one hand at the babies in a seemingly careless gesture as he joked, “Why, what are these,
mi querido
? Appetizers? But, they're so small! You cannot possibly be planning on our making a meal of them?”

Conrad's eyes blazed with a look that was just this side of insanity. He laid back his lips and snarled savagely, “They're not food, you imbecile.” Then he turned on his heel and stalked away. “Shut the door,” he hurled over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hallway.

Shaking his head, once again, at his own stupidity—for not leaving while he still had the chance—Damian did as he'd been told and then followed Conrad into the large room that had been intended as the mansion's formal dining room. Flames leaped and crackled in the ornate marble fireplace. Another unwelcome surprise. Even though today was the first decently overcast day the city had seen in weeks, it was certainly not cool enough to warrant a fire.

Perhaps Conrad had another purpose in mind for the blaze? Fire could serve as a weapon, could it not? Or as a devastatingly efficient means of destruction. But who, or what, might he be intending to burn in its flames tonight?

“Conrad, what the hell is going on?” All kidding aside now, Damian studied his friend with mounting concern. Conrad, his face drawn, sat slumped in an armchair uncomfortably near the hearth, and within arm's reach of the crib into which he'd placed the two infants. “You look terrible.”

Conrad ignored the question and waved Damian toward a second armchair, on the other side of the fireplace. “Sit down.”

Damian crossed to the chair, but he cast a worried glance at the hungry flames as he did. His nerves were shrieking warnings. What was it that most alarmed him, he wondered; the doubtlessly deadly blaze, or his potentially murderous companion? He'd never seen Conrad in such a mood as this and he didn't trust it. Standing in front of the chair, he hesitated. “Conrad,” he murmured pleadingly. “What is this? Why am I here?”

Conrad roused himself. Eyes flashing darkly, he fisted one hand on the arm of his chair, leaned forward and fixed Damian with a menacing glare. “It's a long story. If you want to hear it, sit down!” Their eyes met. As his gaze focused on Damian's face, it seemed as though a little of the madness left Conrad's expression. His face relaxed. A small smile appeared and graced his lips. “Please?”

Too surprised to reply, Damian plopped into the chair behind him—quickly, before his legs could give out. It was the shock of being addressed so cordially, he told himself, refusing to even consider the awful possibility that it could have been Conrad's smile that had once again made him go weak in the knees.
No. I can't. Never again
.

For another long moment the two men stared wordlessly at each other. Finally, seemingly satisfied with whatever he'd seen in Damian's face, Conrad dropped his gaze. He slumped back in his chair and sighed. “It's good to see you,
caro
.” And then, again without giving Damian any chance to recover from this latest shock, he launched into his tale. “There was this girl…”