Divine Fire (12 page)

“No. I have buried children before—I will leave no other orphans behind wondering what became of their father, nor some woman wondering if her missing husband is truly dead. I see the question in your eyes, but think! Assuming they could survive the process of conversion, how could I ever bring them with me? It would be forcing them into an unnatural life of lies and secrets before they were old enough to truly understand. And what if any of them refused? Would they not be bitter if their mother and siblings aged and died and their father remained young? Would it not grow worse as they also aged and I did not?”

Brice swallowed all the questions and arguments that were welling up. It took a moment, but she asked calmly, “So, even with all this, you do not regret what you’ve done?”

“No.” He paused. “At least not often. Though sometimes I wonder if Tennyson had it wrong—is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?”

She thought of the losses he had known. Many were well documented. But how many more had the next centuries brought? How many lovers had he turned away? How many lives and offers of happiness had he rejected because of his secret? How bad could the cumulative losses be? she asked herself. How could she measure it, given her own brief life?

Then Brice remembered an incident from her childhood. When she was twelve, her father had been trapped in a building that collapsed in an earthquake in San Francisco. He had ultimately been found and rescued, and had not suffered any permanent harm, but in those dark hours while she and her mother awaited word from the rescue squads, she had known the agonies of the damned. A part of her had never felt entirely safe after that.

She’d had other losses too—but only one lifetime’s worth. Those losses had been hard to bear, the disappointment of loves that weren’t great loves after all, and the one great love that had ended in death—a pointless death caused by a drunk driver on an icy road. Then the loss of parents, both to cancer. For a time she had been so sad, so lonely, that it had hurt to breathe because every inhalation reminded her that she was alive and in pain. And she’d decided then not to love again, not to care—at least not to care about anyone who was still living.

But, of course, in the end she always did care. Not caring was too much like being dead. You marinated in your grief long enough and you became the very heartache you wanted to escape. Then you turned into a ghost, and then into nothing at all. Surely it was the same for him, only on a vaster scale because he’d had centuries, lifetimes, to love and then lose. She’d never lost a child, but could imagine the pain of it. How could she judge him, or question any decision he made in order to survive?

His dark, compassionate eyes watched her, perhaps guessing what she was thinking.

Brice cleared her throat. “Sometimes I’ve felt guilty for being alive when Mark isn’t. My parents too. They died so young. And though life has been good, I’ve wanted to go back and savor the lost time that I never realized was so precious,” she confessed. “Sometimes I’ve felt like I would give anything to have it all back so I could do it better.”

He shook his head. He wore the darkness well, and by the firelight he looked like he was one of the elements of the night—moon or star or even a dark angel. That was fanciful, of course, but the flickering gold light revealed the fantastical in him.

“There’s no going back except with thoughts and words,” he said. “Do not deceive yourself. I can’t give you that. No one can. This is not magic. Yesterdays—yours and mine—are gone forever. We can never go back to where we were, when we were, who we were. I did not realize until later just what I had gained, and lost, forever.”

Brice stared, unable at first to voice the new question that his words had given life. She was both fascinated and horrified.

“You can’t give me that? But you can…? Are you saying that you actually know how to…?”

“Yes, I am breaking my rule of silence and secrecy. I am telling you the truth.” He spread his hands wide. “It is just possible that I could give you many more tomorrows than you ever planned. Time to know all you wish to know about Ninon or myself or anyone. To achieve everything you want.” He added almost to himself, “And perhaps that would be enough for you.”

“You could give this to me?” she repeated. “Really?”

He backed off. “Perhaps. Theoretically. I’ve never attempted it before.”

“
Perhaps?
But how, exactly? You actually know what Dippel did? The process?”

“Yes, I believe so. The process was more elaborate and painful than the one I must go through now that I’ve changed, but I could probably duplicate it—if someone were mad enough to want me to.” He again turned on his heel and paced the length of the room. His gait was only slightly marred by the surgery he must have had to correct his club foot. Any scars he might have as a memento of the old birth defect were too fine to see by firelight.

“I almost can’t believe it.” In fact, she couldn’t.

“Understandable. You recall my mentioning that there was a price.”

She nodded, returning her gaze to his face. “Yes.” When he didn’t look her way, she added, “Something besides emotional isolation and all the rest of it?”

“Yes. There is also a physical risk and permanent bodily changes. I risked the peril because my epilepsy was worsening and I couldn’t bear the thought of it damaging my mind, killing off my intellect with every explosion in my brain.”

“What is it that you did then?” she asked, eyes a little wide, breathing a little fast. She’d seen too many Frankenstein movies, and the horrible images of stitched corpses stolen from looted graves buffeted her mind like a flock of evil black birds. She was repelled and desperately hoped that he wouldn’t tell her anything too awful to accept.

“I embraced death,” he said simply. “I went to the gods in an iron cage, by stopping my heart with lightning. And then, in the place of agony, I grabbed their fire, praying that though it killed me their power would again return me to life.” He stopped in front of her. “And it did.”

“But?”

“But there were many others who were not so fortunate. Dippel had many failures. Maybe they didn’t want life badly enough to fight through the pain.”

“I see.” In spite of the blaze in the fireplace, she felt a chill. A part of her wanted to make some sign—perhaps to cross herself, or to make some gesture to ward off the evil eye that must surely be watching.

“Read about it, if you want.” He went to the desk and took out the old journal she had seen earlier. He hesitated a moment and then offered it to her. “I’ve improved upon the method he used, but fundamentally it’s the same process—a mix of stimulants and electrocution by an iron plate clamped over the heart and charged with Saint Elmo’s fire.”

“You have been doing this to yourself?”

“I have to in order to keep the epilepsy at bay. Once in a while. It isn’t a yearly event.”

The paper of the journal had yellowed badly. She thought at first that it was age but then realized the paper had been exposed to intense heat. Some pages were even singed.

She squinted, reading the first few lines:

10 Dezember, 1731

Das Tagebuch

Johann Conrad Dippel.

She shivered again, her breath stopping as her heart constricted and then forgot for a moment to go on beating. This ghost would speak to her freely. He would be very real after this. If she took the apple from the serpent, would he always haunt her?

“My German is rusty. Does that really say that it’s the daily journal of Johann Dippel from December of seventeen thirty-one?”

“Yes.” Damien waited, hand outstretched, offering her a chance at knowledge.

Afraid and yet unable to resist, Brice stepped closer and reached for the journal.

It hit her at once: the same sensation of heat that had charged through her when she had opened Byron’s letter. It was a passion driven by a mix of adrenaline and the knowledge that she was seeking, if not forbidden fruit, then the fruit of knowledge that had been denied most men. It felt a lot like desire, and a bit like terror, and it made every other emotion seem pallid.

She couldn’t refuse it, whatever ugly thing she learned, even if the knowledge banned her forever from the innocence of Eden, she had to know.

Eyes very wide now, and face too pale, she looked up at her mentor. Finally, as the world began to gray at the edges, she remembered to breathe.

“I am in so much trouble,” she whispered. Then she gave a small, inappropriate gasp of laughter that was two parts joy and three parts hysteria.

“What? Out with it,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk where he had made love to her. “I’d like to know what there is to laugh at in this. So far, it seems very unamusing.”

“You’re wearing jeans,” Brice said, throwing up her hands.

His lips twitched. “I see. And?”

“Given what we are talking about—what you are suggesting—I am just so relieved that you don’t smell like something that’s been taxidermied.” The teasing words came out against her will.

“Or cooked?” he suggested, starting to smile. Perhaps that was the only thing to do in this situation. He reached out and took her free hand, slowly drawing her toward him. The small band of flesh at his wrist was crisscrossed with the golden net of scars. “And here I have been romantically thinking of myself as a phoenix, not the main course at a barbecue.”

“If you’re a bird, you could be roasted or stuffed,” she pointed out, allowing herself the joke. It was odd that his touch excited but also calmed. He was a man, a special man, but still human. Much of her supernatural fear died away.

“The first response that comes to mind at that observation is entirely too crude.”

“I just can’t believe it,” she said.

“That I can be crude?”

She shook her head. “That I’m holding hands with history.”

“Ah! It’s more exciting and strange than you guess. Go read,” Damien said, standing up suddenly and guiding her to her borrowed desk. He switched on a light. “Later, we will talk about the rest.”

“There’s more?” she asked, amazed.

“Yes. Dippel’s story—and his evil—is not ended with that journal. Unfortunately.”

Brice, head swimming with too many experiences, sat down and began to read at the place where the journal was marked. Damien opened his desk and pushed something. Soft music filled the room. He didn’t bother trying to read or scribble out a new review, but sat watching her attentively.

A few minutes later, Brice lifted her head and glared.

“What?” he asked, his voice virtuous, his expression innocent.

Brice didn’t want to admit that his gaze bothered her, but she heard herself saying, “I can feel your eyes inching up my nightgown.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“It’s a damned distracting thing. I’m trying to read about the greatest scientific experiment known to man here.”

Damien smiled, but obligingly turned his gaze to the manuscript on his desk.

Two hours later, when the fire was nearly dead, Brice shut the journal. Byron put his manuscript down too. This time, neither of them smiled.

“I don’t know if I believe it,” she said. She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “But then, I have to believe it, don’t I? This madman’s ravings actually prolonged your life.”

“No, you don’t have to believe. You can let yourself suppose that this is all a dream. Or that I am a pathological liar. Or deranged. There are many options if you can’t accept it,” he answered.

Brice shook her head. “No, I can’t believe any of that. Could you?”

“Honestly? No. I’ve never had the capacity for vast self-deception.” He added, looking closely at her face, “I’m sorry. I should have waited to tell you about this. It’s shocked you.”

“Literally.” Brice finally smiled. “I’m still tingling, you know.”

“I don’t actually feel bad about that part,” he confessed, eyes heating. “The attraction between us all but danced in the air. How could I ignore it?”

“Why should you feel bad? I enjoyed myself hugely. But, Damien…” she said softly, then paused. Her brow furrowed. “What should I call you now?”

“Damien is best,” he answered. “You must not think of me as being anyone else. It wouldn’t be safe. You see, there’s a lot more that I have to tell you about this situation. Until you understand, Byron must remain dead.”

“There’s
a lot
more?” she asked unhappily. Brice knew she was in deep and would eventually have to know the truth, however terrible. A few hours ago—yesterday, even—she would have said that she had no expectation of this affair being more than an exciting interlude of escape from her work. It had been years since she had allowed herself to hope for anything more from a relationship than that there would be a quick mercy-killing when it came time for it to end. But that had all changed. This was the man of her dreams. And more. Hell’s bells! He had loved several lifetimes and she was certain they had each been dangerous and exciting. And someday she would want to hear all about it. But not tonight.

“Yes, there’s further to go in this tale. But that’s for later. You’ve had enough dark stories and warnings for one night.”

She nodded, face again sober, brow creased with concentration.

“Your intuition is speaking again?” he asked.

“Maybe. Was Ninon de Lenclos one of Dippel’s…”

“Experiments?” Damien suggested.

“Patients,” she corrected. “Don’t make it sound so bad. For heaven’s sake! You were seeking medical treatment, not an audience with the devil.”

Damien didn’t look convinced that so harmless a concept described what Dippel was doing, but he nodded without arguing.

“I’ve been thinking about the stories of her endless youth, and also her eyes. In early portraits her eyes were pale, but in that locket, her eyes are black. Your eyes only changed after…?”

“Yes. Mine were blue. It was only afterward that my eyes became so dark. It is one of those physical changes I mentioned.”

“I’m thinking of that mysterious man in black who brought her that elixir to mix with her bathwater. Could that have been Dippel and not the devil?”