A Fall of Silver (40 page)

“We’ll have to take my vehicle,” Father Morris said as he opened a side door.

“What?” She glanced past him at the darkness outside.

“The rectory is a mile away. Would you rather walk?”

“No.” Quicksilver hurried to keep pace with Father Morris as he strode to a small, economy car.

Unlike Kethan’s vehicle, this one started immediately and in less than five minutes, he turned into a small parking lot near a Victorian monstrosity of a building.

Without speaking, he led her through a door set within a shallow recess, through a nondescript corridor, and up a narrow set of stairs to the second floor.

“Why didn’t you
take me to see Father Donatello in the first place?” she asked.

“
That would have been inappropriate and I had no wish to make two trips to the rectory tonight.”

“I see.”
She was sick to death of that word: inappropriate. All her life, everything she had ever done or wanted was inappropriate.

He knocked on a wooden door, halfway down a
long corridor of identical doorways. “Father Donatello? You have a visitor.”

The door opened
. She pushed Father Morris aside and threw her arms around the thin, haggard man to give him a hug. “I’m so glad to see you!”

“
What are you doing here?” Father Donatello squeezed her briefly and then stepped back.

She glanced
over her shoulder. Father Morris watched them curiously from the doorway.

“I wanted to know you
were all right.” Using her heel, she pushed the door shut, right in Father Morris’s surprised face. “You
are
all right, aren’t you?”

H
e nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.” But he didn’t appear fine. His eyes were so sunken under his brows that they formed black pits.

“
No ill effects?”

“
None.”

“
Are you sure they didn’t bite you?” She grabbed his jaw and turned his head first one way and then the other, inspecting his neck.

“
Really.” He gently pushed her fingers away. “I’m unharmed. A little hungry, perhaps, but unharmed.”

“You don’t look
fine.” Grabbing his arms, she pushed up his sleeves to check his arms.

There were other places, hidden places
, vampires used to access the blood of their victims. However, when the undead attacked a stranger, particularly a man they didn’t intend to convert, they usually bit the neck or arms.

“W
hy did they kidnap you? I’m sure it wasn’t just so you could overhear their insane plans to make me a zombie-psycho.”

“
No.” He shook his head before rubbing his chin. His hand trembled with exhaustion and the gray stubble rasped under his palm. “I believe they hoped to stop our negotiations with Mr. Sutton. Perhaps make him think we had changed allegiance.”

“Well, it worked.
I just spoke to the Cardinal. They don’t seem to want anything to do with Kethan. Idiots.”

“That’
s a pity.” Father Donatello pulled at his lower lip. “I had such hopes, and Kethan, of course, wanted to prove that mercy wasn’t wasted—”

“Mercy
?” she echoed, dumbstruck with the realization that there might be more to the negotiations than she thought. She knew the talks were important to him, but she’d assumed it was more from ego than anything. Men didn’t like to lose.

But
was it really that? After being with him for a few days, she sensed there was something more personal involved. He wasn’t the sort of man content to live an idle life made possible by centuries of intelligent investments and there was something more than ego at play.

Unlike Quicksilver, he was good with people
and good at talking. He genuinely wanted to find a solution, a win-win for everyone. She could respect that, even if she had a fundamental disagreement with the concept that there could ever be a win-win bargain between humans and vampires. He wanted to grant them mercy and the possibility of salvation.

Hard as it was for her to accept that there could be any kind of redemption for the undead, she knew it was vitally important to Kethan.

“Kethan believes in his work,” Father Donatello echoed her thoughts.

“Then we
’ve got to get things back on track.” Kethan deserved a chance to succeed in his crazy scheme.

The priest
shook his head. “It may be too late. The Church has expressed concerns. Only a few even know of the existence of vampires, and those few are more interested in quietly eliminating them then offering the undead a second chance. So Kethan can’t represent humans, at least not those in the Church. He has nothing to offer Sutton.”

“So you
’re just going to let the southern clan win? Wipe out Sutton’s vampires and establish a new clan here? Do you honestly think that’ll be better?”

“No, I don’t
. You know that. But there’s nothing we can do, and perhaps it will lead to some stability.”

“No.
Kethan might not be able to talk for the Church, but you can. Can’t you?”

“I
—I don’t know if the others, the Jesuits who hunt the vampires, will listen to me. I was in the hands of the southern clan. Even if they didn’t bite me, and I don’t believe they did, we can’t be sure they didn’t gain some hold over me.”

“So what?
We’re all under the influence of something, and I don’t see that it matters what. All that’s important is to stop the fighting.” Her thoughts slid to her parents and her inability to destroy them. She’d been a fool, hoping for some sign of affection, for something that showed they loved her when she should have realized long ago that they didn’t care about her. “I—I don’t know if I can kill them.”

“You’ve stopped killing vampires?”

“No—yes—no! I don’t know. I—they’re my parents for God’s sake!”

Father Donatello
’s grin surprised her. He gave her a hard hug. “Maybe there’s hope for you, yet. And to think it was Kethan who said you could change. I’m ashamed to have doubted him. And you.”

“I’m not proud of it
.”

“
You believe it shows weakness.” He gave her arm a brief squeeze. “I know. Give it time. It takes strength of will and purpose to find another path. You’ll find it, given time.”

Uncomfortable, she shrugged and turned away.
“Whatever. That’s not the point. We’ve got to help Kethan. We have to get the negotiations back on track. Maybe if he succeeds, the Church’ll see they’re wrong.”

“Perhaps
. Although I’m not sure they ever intended for him to succeed. I’ve heard rumors—”

“
Listening at keyholes again?”

Father Donatello
shook his head. “When you stop talking and start listening, you hear surprising things.”

“So what did you hear this time
?”

“
The Church’s hunters may have used the talks as a honey pot to draw out their enemies and make them easier to destroy.”

“Then screw the
m! Sorry, I mean, that’s nuts. You know I’m not in love with vampires, and really, I don’t care if the Church does destroy all of them in one fell swoop. But it’s not likely, is it? They’ll just start a larger war with more casualties. The killing will go on.”

“So you
do
understand Kethan’s arguments?” Father Donatello touched her hand and smiled, his eyes gentle. “You see other opportunities.”

“Yes, fine.
Whatever
. The fact remains that if we’re going to stop a war between three factions, we’ve got to find Kethan. And God help us, we’ve got to talk.”

“
And listen.” The priest nodded. “I agree. In fact, I couldn’t agree more.”

Unable to
locate Martyn Sutton or the master vampire of the southern clan, Kethan drove back to his townhouse. He was so tired his mind kept blanking out. Seriously concerned about falling asleep at the wheel, he shifted position and opened the window. Cold air smelling of mist and autumn leaves washed over his face and neck.

A red light flashed. H
e blinked and stepped on the brakes, bringing the car to a shivering halt. When he remembered to glance up again, the light had already cycled through green and turned to yellow again. He pressed the accelerator to the floor. Rattling in protest, the car limped forward.

After
the vehicle finally crawled to a stop in front of his home, he rubbed his face. Grit ground into his eyes with each tired blink. The sharp rasp of his whiskers barely registered against his palm.

Not a single, friendly light shone
through the dark squares of the windows. The house looked deserted and filled only with cold, empty shadows.

He rotated his shoulders and
climbed out. As he walked down the deserted sidewalk, he listened to the pre-dawn stillness. Not even the birds were awake yet.

Was she already in bed?
Somehow, he didn’t think so, the house felt too empty to him, almost hostile. Where could she have gone? His mind balked at the thought that she may have returned to the stone house on Oak Street where her parents stayed.

He couldn’t imagine what
she must have felt when she found them there. Their presence must have reopened the raw wounds they’d carved on her soul when they abandoned her.

How could any parents
, even the most callous, do that to their only child? He couldn’t conceive of the cold reasoning that had gone into the decision to leave their child with her grandmother so they could pursue their careers or their subsequent plan to make a weapon out of their young daughter.

The wind picked up, whipping through his hair with sharp, icy fingers
as he stood in front of the door. His eyes ached each time he blinked. Somehow, he felt reluctant to go inside. He didn’t want to know if she were gone.

All he wanted to do was lie
next to her and drape an arm over her waist, feel her soft warmth against him.

Hesitating, h
e glanced across the street at the church. Should he attend early Mass? He might have the opportunity to speak to the Cardinal again. He took a step in that direction. The stone edifice hunched in the gloom, silent with disapproval.

A sharp presentiment made him
glance away from the building. He had the inexplicable feeling that the Church had already turned its back on him, and that he had failed. His shoulders slumped. He longed for a large bottle of Irish whiskey, a warm fire, and Quicksilver’s head on his shoulder.

Oblivion from care,
surcease from sorrow.

He hadn’
t realized how much he cared about the negotiations, how much he’d invested in their success and the possibility of providing opportunities to others who, like himself, may have realized too late the emptiness of their long, shadow life and wanted another chance.

Mercy was never wasted.

Not that he could guarantee another chance for anyone, however. The possibility of redemption had to remain a secret, so the vampires couldn’t even know it existed. A vampire could not act with the necessary selflessness if he knew that in so doing, he could shed his immortality like a too-small husk and become human again.

But
Kethan could provide fertile, safe ground, for the possibility.

Possibility
. A chance to experience love, true, human love.

His mouth grew dry as the image of Quicksilver’s face
rose to remind him of everything he most desired and missed about being human: the possibility to make love once more to a woman who challenged and excited him as no one had done for a long time.

Opening the door
to his house, he stepped inside, praying he was wrong. Maybe she was upstairs, flushed and drowsy with sleep.

“Quicksilver
?” Silence greeted him. “Quicksilver!”

Nothing, except…
.

A light tread
sounded on the stairs.

He glanced up
. His heart thudded faster at a glimpse of pale hair. “Quicksilver?”

“
She’s not here.” A woman’s voice drifted down the stairs.

“Who—”

“You don’t know us, but we’re Allison’s parents, Sylvia and Hector Bankes.” The slender woman came into view, followed by the darker shape of her husband.

“How did you get in here?
Where’s Quicksilver?”

“In c
hurch, I should imagine. She left a few minutes ago.”

“Church?”

She slipped closer to his left side while her husband edged toward the right. Kethan backed up a step, tension bleeding away the remains of his energy.

“She headed that way,” Mr. Bankes said
, “so we decided to wait here, for you.”