Beyond the Night (17 page)

After several weeks of roaming the city, Rula returned to her spot at Victoria Station, resuming her card tricks, her fortune-telling, wondering whether this was to be her future because it seemed no less a black hole than eternity.

Sometimes she thought about how this had been her mother's life before she tried to pull off the biggest deception of her life: pretending to be a wealthy family's indigent relative.

And look where that had got her. Although, as Mirya was quick to assure her, her father had been guarding her mother and had gotten her to safety.

Rula had the sinking feeling that name she so desperately sought would tell her nothing.

But now she had an audience waiting for her to perform. She shuffled the cards and laid out three rows of three cards each.

“Who will cut the cards?” A volunteer was in the rear of the crowd. She quelled her feeling of disappointment upon seeing it was not
him
and gathered up the laid-out cards, placed the deck on her little table, and motioned for her volunteer to cut them as she would.

Then Rula looked up and saw
him
.

He acknowledged her and stepped back into the crowd to allow her to do her act. He knew what it was, how she did it. Yet, he'd let her read his awful fortune.

Death.

No death card in this woman's layout. No dropped cards as a portent of bad news. Nothing but good things for this woman. Good fortune, good times, money coming to her, romance, love, marriage. The things people loved to hear. The things Rula wished could be in her life.

She thanked her mark for her generosity, pocketed the coins, and held up her hands. “Thank you, everyone, thank you. Come again tomorrow when I'll read the magic cards that give you the key to your future.”

The crowd dispersed, except for
him
. He stood a distance away, watching her tuck away her cards, her collapsible seat, her small folding table, all of which she hooked and appended to a prop bag she slung over her shoulder.

Then she glanced at him, wondering if he would speak to her, or whether he would just disappear.

She picked her way through the passersby until she was within speaking range.

He held up his hand. “I know who you are. I'll see you again soon.”

A most cryptic message. She took a step forward, but he'd vanished. Like a magician. Waved a wand and he was gone, leaving a trail of mist and fog.

“How does that man know me?” she demanded later of Mirya. “Why, when I look at him now, do I see death?”

Mirya shook her head. “I know nothing of this man or how he knows you. Or why he should have wanted you to read his cards.”

“Nothing to do with my twin, my family?”

Mirya didn't answer.

Senna persisted. “Charles's son, perhaps?”

“Charles never spawned,” Mirya said tightly.
Thank the saints.

“Tell me again about how my father saved my mother from the Countess.” This was the real point, finally, a story she often requested because she never got tired of hearing it. But this time, she sought something Mirya hadn't yet revealed, the thing that could be the essential clue to her mother's whereabouts.

“He transported her to London, to the care of a Lady Augustine, who believed your mother was her ward, but who treated her as nearly a daughter. But vampires always cause blood and destruction. The Countess and Charles soon followed. It was inevitable there would be a confrontation. The Countess triumphed—even though she died, she managed to save your father and sire your mother.”

Mirya had never before mentioned that name.
Lady Augustine.

“What happened to this Lady Augustine?”

“She was sired, and ultimately she died,” Mirya said stiffly. “It is sufficient for you to know that Charles had a hand in all of that. And that is all you need to know.”

Charles. Maybe it was Charles haunting her dark dreams.

The important thing was the name: Lady Augustine. The name she'd been seeking? Her mother had lived with a Lady Augustine when she first came to London. She needed to find Lady Augustine's house, and maybe whoever lived there could provide information about where her mother was.

She told Mirya the next day that she was only reading palms that day, which relieved her of the burden of carrying her props.

Mirya didn't question it, which was strange. Rula thought for a moment Mirya knew exactly what she was up to and that she knew something that Rula did not.

She was determined to find the town house where her mother had stayed when she'd arrived so precipitously in London.

It was time.

Or a fool's errand.

It was something to do. She
had
to do something. Her mother might have other answers, and even if her motherly instincts had diminished to nothingness, maybe she could help in some way.

She had to have known Charles. She might have an idea where and how Charles would mount some kind of attack on her.

Or not.

It was a cloudy day. People were in a hurry. Rula could see almost immediately they wouldn't slow down for a palm reading, especially in the fog and drizzle.

She wandered back toward the squares, the posh neighborhoods, without even an idea of how she would proceed.

“Pardon me—do you know where Lady Augustine lives?” Some of the strangers she accosted looked at her as if she were vermin.

Most had never heard of her. Some hurried past her, others were outright rude.

“Where might I find Lady Augustine?”

“You? What for?”

“I need directions to Lady Augustine's house.”

“She's dead.”

“Where does Lady Augustine live?”

“They ain't givin' alms to the likes of you.”

“Could you kindly tell me where Lady Augustine lives?”

Finally, after hours of this, someone pointed her to Berkeley Square. The barren square. The death-cold square.

The one place she should not go. She felt shivers down her spine and an oppressiveness thick as a wall. What had she thought she would do once she reached her objective?

Observe. Try to identify her mother. And then?

When she didn't even know which was Lady Augustine's house?

She darted down into the servants' entrance of the nearest house. Here, she had a view of the entire street and the park. She could see anyone coming and going.

She could be here all night, she thought. She might see no one for days. She had once more operated on an impulse that would probably get her nowhere.

Still, she waited.

The sun went down. Twilight turned to darkness. Carriages neither came down the road nor left. There was no sign of a living being. A full moon rose, huge and blaring with light.

She dozed. She had no sense of what awakened her, but when she came to consciousness, she felt a curious stillness, as if time had stopped.

She looked up at the moon, huge and casting an eerie bright white light across the square.

Shadows flitted around the edges. Leaves rustled in the faint breeze. A dog howled in the distance. A rumble of carriage wheels somewhere close. Every sound was magnified, eerie.

She peered up over the edge of the basement stairs and caught a glimpse of a shadow moving quickly across the face of the moon, angling downward toward the square.

She rose up higher to see more clearly—and wished she hadn't. The figure was drenched in blood, from mouth to knees. She felt a gut knowledge of that body, that posture, and the direction he was heading: toward one of the houses on the square.

She didn't see which one—a body came out of nowhere, leapt on her, and they went tumbling down the stone basement steps entangled in each other and out of breath when they landed against the basement door.

The moonlight was even bright down here. They were virtually mouth to mouth, crushed up against the door. She recognized who it was instantly.

“You?”

“Me,” he said ruefully, but he didn't move. And she found she didn't him want to. Inexplicably, she wanted his body pressed that tightly against hers forever. She felt hot, safe, breathless. She didn't know what to say; she had a hundred questions and none of them seemed to matter at the moment. She felt as if she'd always known he'd feel so hard and fit so perfectly against her body. As if she'd been waiting and hadn't known it.

And he had. How?

She felt his mouth touch hers, and just the whisk of his tongue against her lips, along with the expectation there could be more because he wanted more.

Except this wasn't the moment, the place. And she knew she was too inexperienced to know what she wanted.

He knew it too.

Slowly, regretfully, he lifted himself away from her and helped her to her feet and, holding her hand, up the steps to the empty street.

“I saw something,” she whispered, leaning in close to him because she still needed his heat, his comfort.

“I know.” He took her elbow and led her from the square.

“That bloody beast was my brother, wasn't it?” she said shakily.

He didn't try to deny it. “Yes.”

She blew out a breath. Her brother. A merciless murderer. Returning triumphant from the kill.

His sole purpose in life was to kill. And feed.

She felt sick. Her brother. Her mother. Her father. She clutched the stranger's arm convulsively. It felt tight with tension, muscular, hot.

“I wish I'd spared you that,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “Why should you?”

“Because I could have.”

She stopped short. “Who are you?”

“My name is Rob Ellis, and the rest I'll tell you soon. If,” he added coaxingly, “you come with me.”

She wanted to. In spite of all the alarms ringing in her head, in spite of her overwhelming sensual reaction to him, she wanted to.

But how could she trust him? A face in the crowd keeping constant watch on her for weeks? A virtual stranger whose cards foretold trouble and death? Watching her. Why?

What
had
he been doing at Berkeley Square this evening?

“Tell me now,” she parried. “Tell me something.”

“Mirya knows you're with me.”

That shocked her. “You know Mirya.”

“I know many things, Rula. I know you.”

Now she was shaking. This was worse than just arrogant interference. This was another level of knowledge about things she did not know, should know, had a right to know.

She backed away from him. “Stop. Right now, right here. Tell me now. Everything.”

“In the middle of the street?”

“There's no one around, no one to hear your precious secrets if you have any to reveal.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Tell me one,” she challenged him.

“There is only one,” he said roughly, pulling her toward him so he could look into her eyes and see her reaction. “We, you and I, are Vraq, the uninfected children of vampires. And our mission in this life is to destroy as many of them as humanly possible.”

R
ula felt something give way deep inside her.

Someone like me?
Such a flood of emotions poured through her she couldn't speak or frame a question. He was like her, born without the taint and the bloodlust and the urge to kill.

Another child of the dark side who'd been born into the light.

She felt him take her shoulders. “There are others. We've been waiting for you. I've been waiting for you.”

She barely heard anything beyond
There are others.
And then, waiting for her? Why her?

“Who? Where?”

“Listen—”

She gazed up at him, seeing now the harsh lines in his face, framing his mouth, his eyes. “Waiting for me?” she whispered.

He tightened his hold on her shoulders, and she saw he wasn't going to answer that question. Not yet.

“There are more important things to tell you right now.”

She wanted to say,
That was the most important thing.
Instead she murmured, “I'm listening.” She felt faint.
Like her.

A family of Like Her.

“I think I'm taking you back to Mirya. There will be time for the rest tomorrow.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders as they started walking. “How do you know about Mirya?” she managed to ask.

“We know. We know every untainted child born here. We've been watching since the moment you were born. We know your parents, your brother. We know everything. We watch, we calculate”—his voice hardened—“we destroy.”

They kill, he meant. The letdown felt almost like falling into an abyss. There was no way to escape it—there would be blood, ever ending in death.

He knew what she was thinking and pulled her tighter against his side. “It's the way it is,” he murmured, echoing Mirya's words.

“Where are the others?”

“All over. Everywhere there are vampires, there are Vraq. We have to be everywhere, and aware of every bloodletting, every vampiric death.”

“So you watch my brother.”

“I watch you,” he said simply. “It was only a matter of time until Mirya told you the truth. I wanted to be the one with you when that happened.”

Comprehension dawned. Of course. This was where Mirya came up with her
forethoughts
. Rula's spirits sank lower. Nothing supernatural about any of it, except her own vampire blood.

“We're here,” Rob said, as he turned into the alleyway. Mirya was waiting, the soft light of candles and the fireplace limning her body against the door.

Mirya motioned them inside, and to the table, where she had set out a loaf of bread, a smear of butter, and a pot of tea on a trivet.

The bread was somewhat stale, but Rula ate it hungrily.

“So now she knows,” Mirya said to Rob.

“Almost everything.”

“How can there be more?” Rula asked between bites.

“Just this little bit more,” Rob said. “Tell her, Mirya.”

Mirya stared straight into her eyes. “I am Vraq.”

Those three words sent Rula's senses reeling.

“It is so,” Mirya said. “Have some tea.”

“It was too much in two days,” Mirya said sadly as she and Rob finished the bread and tea. “And there will be many more questions when Rula awakens.”

“Answer them all,” Rob said. “She must come to our side quickly, or she'll die. Charles is planning it even as we speak. You know this. The Keepers are on alert for the one time, the one place, they can successfully kidnap her and take her, one by one. Charles is looking forward to it. He revels in the thought of it. He imagines the bloodbath, her screams, her death.”

“She will never side with the mission,” Mirya said sadly. “She cannot kill.”

“I'll make her see that she must.”

“How?

“Because otherwise
they
live. There's no choice here. Murder on one side or the other. They kill to survive. But then, so do we. Are both sides monsters? We're killers, both of us. Who chooses who survives?”

Rob squeezed Mirya's arm and rose to leave. “This we know, there are no answers, we can only do what we must do, and that's to kill Charles Sandston, in whatever form or shape he is now.”

“I had hoped this time would not come,” Mirya said the next morning as she and Rula sat down to their usual meager breakfast of tea and stale bread. “I prayed that the vampire clans had killed each other off in enough numbers that there would be none left to replace them. Sadly that did not happen—”

“Your parents?” Rula asked gently. Mirya was
old
—how many years had her mother and father been roaming the earth?

“I know they still exist,” Mirya said softly. “How can I wish them harm? They are out of sight, so they are out of my mind—until moments like this—when my Senna begs me to save her child. Or until Rob appears and demands my help to defeat the very one who wishes to harm you.”

Mirya shook her head. “I am too old now. I have no fire. I am smoke and ashes, and he asks too much.”

“Embers can be fanned into flame,” Rula said.

“No embers. No flame. Just ash and dust. I will do what I can, but I understand I might die.”

“Mirya!”

“How can it not be? It is all intertwined with Charles's ambitions and grand schemes. My part will not escape unnoticed. He had been meant to marry your mother, you know.”

Another shock. More secrets. Rula could barely manage to say, “I didn't.”

Mirya sighed. “The Countess wanted an heir. An heir with untainted blood. And your mother schemed to be taken in by a wealthy family as a poor relative. Their paths crossed, need for need, with the unexpected complication of Dominick's return to Drom.”

“Would my mother have married him?” Rula asked.

“Charles? No. Charles would have bred her and abandoned her. He already was filled with the lust to kill. No. That plan did not work.”

“Who is the Eternal Ruler?”

“He is the One who will rule over all vampires to eternity. It is written that he must be born of a woman infused with the commingled blood of the two clans.”

“How can that be? It must be a myth.”

“It is fervently believed among the clans. It was thought your mother was that woman after the carnage at Drom because she was bitten by both a Tepes and an Iscariot that very same night. But, it turned out not to be so. Charles planned to simultaneously take the child and take power, in any event. And if the child wasn't born with the marks of both clans, he meant to kill it.”

“He would have had to kill both me and my brother.”

“Well, now he means to destroy you alone to avenge himself on your father, who thought he had killed him. Only Charles somehow regenerated. And now he will not rest until he kills you.”

“How do you know that?”

“How can it not be so? I feel the stirrings, the indomitable will. What we don't know is where he is. As he does not know where you are.”

“But—”

Mirya held up her hand. “It is inevitable that there will be a confrontation.”

“So, what are you trying to tell me? That I must kill him?”

“I am telling you that you must decide. To be a victim or a victor.”

“That sounds like something Rob would say.” Rula said it with a confidence that surprised her; how did she know what Rob would say?

“This is Vraq talking. Knowing there will always be blood. Always. Either yours or theirs. They die or you do. They survive or you do. Your choice, Rula. There is no middle ground. Blood will flow, from one side or the other.”

“I won't kill.”

Mirya shrugged. “That is your decision.”

“You won't try to talk me out of it?”

“Not I,” Mirya said sadly. “It is not enough to talk about it. When you are faced with it—then you will truly make your choice.”

There was no talk of choices when Rob came for her later, as he'd arranged with Mirya.

“We're going today to meet some of the others this morning.”

The meeting place was the lower floor of a centrally located church.

“Because they'll never find us here,” Rob said wryly. “Down those stone steps. The first door.”

When Rula thrust it open, she was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd. “All of these—Vraq?” she whispered.

“All.” Rob clapped his hands. “Everyone, this is Rula.”

A hum went through the crowd, then a spattering of applause.

“Come, sit.”

She sat, facing the crowd, looking into the faces of people like her, Iscariot vampire spawn with blameless blood.

“Where are we now?” Rob asked the group.

“Five destroyed. A dozen injured but whereabouts and status unknown,” one of the men reported.

People like her, Rula thought, talking so cavalierly about blood and death. She shook her head. She couldn't do it, she just couldn't.

“All right. Our most cunning and most dangerous enemy still is Charles Sandston. I'll go over again what we know for Rula,” Rob said. “It isn't much. We have yet to locate where he is. We're working toward it by eliminating as many Tepes as we can identify. We think Charles is impaired in some important ways, which is why we think the Keepers have been recruited as surrogates. They're quick, secretive, and vicious. They'll kidnap you, and they'll carry out Charles's will.”

Rob looked at Rula. “There are no guarantees that help will arrive in any kind of time, should that happen. You'll be at that crossroads, Rula. You'll have to decide who lives.”

Another murmur surged through the crowd.

“She should have a watcher,” someone shouted.

“More than one.”

“Put a guard around her day and night.”

“Send her away.”

“Get her in hiding.”

Rob held up his hand. “We need to cut off the hydra-head. That's our prime objective. When Charles dies, the Keeper vampires die, the threats die with them, and we survive for another day, simple as that.”

Rula shuddered. It was not as simple as that.