Beyond the Night (18 page)

I will not kill. I'll die with honor.

That sounded good, except for the part about dying. She needed another strategy. She watched intently as Rob and the two other leaders conferred and delegated assignments, and then Rob turned to her.

“We're done. As you see, week by week, we take small bites of the big problem, and we slowly whittle it down. Charles is now the big problem, and the more of his minions we kill, the closer we get to him.”

“Where could he be?”

“Anywhere. We surmised maybe your father's town house that burned to the ground, but it didn't seem a likely hideaway for Charles. We searched what little of it we could with no luck. Your parents took over Lady Augustine's home, so Charles obviously isn't there. Your father sold off his business and we could find no connection to Charles in that transaction. The stable at Drom was a possibility, but there's been no sign of life there—I check periodically. Any other theory is pure guessing.”

“So you just methodically eliminate Tepes, hoping to stumble on Charles's whereabouts.”

“Something like that.”

“No supernatural premonitions?”

“None of us have that power.”

“What powers do you have?”

“Probably the same as yours—night vision, superior strength, and intellectual capacity. We're intuitive, but we're not psychic. And we don't know what more yet. There could be more that emerges under duress.”

Rob took her arm and propelled her to a small group. “Let me introduce you to some of the others.

“This is Dvora”—who was tall and dark haired; Naik was short and hairless; Zekka had the same reddish hair and blue eyes as Rob; Boru was tall, lanky, and redheaded; and Deklan was tall and hairless altogether.

She nodded to acknowledge each of them in turn and in wonder. They were just like her, and yet there was a difference. She sensed it, smelled it. They were committed, they would kill, they were not going to die.

“We'll be watching,” Zekka assured her. “No matter what the others think. We won't let him take you. We'll find him first.”

“Thank you.” Rula felt humbled that these people who did not know her were willing to risk their lives to protect her. But then it occurred to her, if she died by Charles's hand, would that be the end of it, or would he come after someone else?

How many vampires like Charles were there, manipulating the bloodletting in London? The vampires could go on forever; it had to be a never-ending, thankless task rooting them out and destroying them.

Why would Rob, or any of them, commit themselves to a hunt that would last through eternity?

She couldn't understand it, but then she'd led a fairly circumscribed life in which Mirya had made certain that world was not even remotely in Rula's consciousness.

If she'd been raised differently, she might feel as they did, she thought. But all these plans and schemes seemed like so much busywork for people burdened with a certain heritage and who didn't know what to do about it.

She could have been one of them. The odd thing was, Rob and Mirya were taking the threat of Charles's vengeance so seriously. They had no source to verify anything, no proof of any plans, no witness that Charles was even alive.

He had done nothing overt. Nothing to make anyone think that Rula was even in his sights. But they all fervently believed that she was.

Zekka was right. If he
had
survived, they had to find him first.

From behind a curtain, Senna watched as her daughter walked away.

My daughter.

She felt curiously detached from the idea of a daughter. Or the knowledge that she had borne both Renk and this girl together.

It now seemed so far away that it was impossible a girl of hers had come into this world not of the blood.

It had been the right thing to do, to give her away. They had kept the right child—the blood-hungry boy, who, even now, was recovering from a night's murderous rampage.

Time had proved Dominick right.

She felt him standing behind her, watching Rula's retreating back.

He put his hand on her shoulder as she let the curtain fall and with that gesture let the girl go.

Time felt as if it were rushing forward and things were going to happen that would change everything.

Charles now had control of Senna's son, Renk, and was about to initiate that same mind probe to find her daughter, Rula.

A man couldn't just lie around doing nothing when people had deliberately destroyed his life. Maybe they thought there would be no repercussions. Probably they thought he was dead.

Indeed, he had used that supposition to give himself time to heal, to figure things out, to plot and plan how the story would end.

Not well. Rula would die a horrible death. As horrible as he had nearly experienced, with her father bashing in his head.

Horrible, awful days, laying there, side by side with Dnitra's decomposing body, wondering if the mixture of dirt, ash, and char would irreparably damage what was left of his brain. Sinking into unconsciousness for hours, days, months.

No one came looking, not even Dominick to gloat.

That, at least, was one good thing. It gave Charles the time to go through the cycle of pain, loss of memory, and loss of consciousness, time for what was left of his mind to heal, to coalesce, and to comprehend what he remembered, what he knew, what was gone.

To learn what he was capable of—and not. And what it would take to become whole—or not.

It came to a choice of regaining his body but becoming a vegetable. Or letting his husk of a body root in the ground and his mind use that energy to expand and explore new powers.

He chose his mind over his body, which he let decompose into the dirt and ash on the ground. All that remained was his bashed-in head and his brain. His intelligence. But it meant no more vampire powers, barring his need for blood. It meant something new and different altogether.

Such as controlling Renk. Sending him out to maim, murder, and immerse himself in blood. That was the first step—to be able to touch someone's mind and make the person do what he wanted.

Renk was the ideal tool, a blank slate who'd been allowed to run wild since he'd gained the third level of aging, and who would now be eighteen forever. Which meant he was ruled by his appetites and his eyes. And had a mind that was easily infiltrated.

Thus far Renk had done nothing in Charles's name that Renk didn't believe he'd decided. Which was just how Charles wanted it: the boy thinking everything had been his own idea.

But the next reckoning was now at hand.

Charles had been preparing for a year, exercising his mind, imagining tendrils of his brain reaching out beyond his useless body, beyond the gutted town house, the ash and char, the death and destruction, reaching, reaching all over the city, to places he conjured, envisioned, knew existed. Anywhere Rula could be hiding.

As with Mirya. Oh, he hadn't forgotten Mirya, with her stolid pronouncements and odd loyalty to Senna. Or Senna. It wasn't inconceivable that Senna was sheltering Rula, child of her body who was not of her blood.

But no. At this point, after this many years, Senna would have detached from Rula. Would consider her useless, not even hers. Probably she'd given Rula to someone else to raise when she still had some motherly feelings for her.

But now? Charles didn't think so.

So who had taken a baby girl to raise all those years ago?

Surely not Mirya. She'd been as old as the earth back then. How could she have cared for a baby at her advanced age?

Nevertheless, one thing he'd learned in his probing and delving was never to reject the thing that seemed most impossible.

So he reached to find a way into Mirya's mind. Pushing, stretching, heaving, as if he could, by force of will, plant those mind tendrils where he intended.

But he couldn't—not yet. The frustration brought him to the point where he wanted to destroy everything else instead. His body, what there was left of it, contracted in the dirt and debris in which it was rooted with a fury and frustration to
move
.

But he would never move again. He had chosen—to be one with the ash and char forever. He felt the helplessness of it now, the utter sin of a mind like his rotting in the coal cellar of these burned-out ruins.

He did the one thing that was left for him to do.

He howled in pain and anger to the moon and the sky.

R
ob watched her. From within the crowds that often surrounded her, from across the street, from a block behind her as she walked, Rob was there.

From secret places she didn't know, couldn't see, Zekka and Deklan followed her. From her hovel, Mirya protected her.

It was like the calm before a storm.

“We have to find Charles.” Rula didn't know why now she was the only one who felt the urgency of it.

“Dvora is working on it,” Rob assured her. “Naik is searching everywhere possible. Charles will have to make a move sometime if, as we suspect, he wants your blood.”

“Until he does, your assumptions are guesses.”

“Good ones, though,” Rob said with a hint of a smile. “There's nothing left for him—his plot to replace the Queen backfired. He never impregnated Dnitra. He couldn't steal you or Renk from your parents. There will be no Eternal Ruler. The Keepers were disbanded. Vampire activity has diminished. What do you expect the poor sod to do?”

“Die,” Rula muttered wrathfully.

“Just keep yourself among the crowds and you'll be fine. We're all here. We know what to do.”

The problem was, Rula felt as if she couldn't wait. Waiting meant all decisions were in someone else's hands.

And despite Rob's caution, she
could
do some things. Confront her parents. Find Charles.

She went back and forth between the two warring impulses, but the desire to face her parents was stronger than anything she felt about Charles.

She decided she wouldn't tell Rob. Let him follow her and find out as she did what her reception would be.

Accordingly, she made her way by degrees toward Berkeley Square as the afternoon progressed.

She heard Rob's voice in her ear. “Don't do it.” She whirled, expecting to see him, but he was nowhere near her.

She rounded the corner briskly and the sun glared in her eyes, so that she couldn't clearly see the houses.

“Stop now.” Rob again. She ignored him and mounted the first steps she came to and knocked on the door.

A butler answered. “Miss? The service entrance is downstairs.”

She ignored that. “I'm looking for Lady Augustine's house.”

“Lady Augustine is dead,” the butler said, and emphatically shut the door.

“Stop here.” How did she keeping hearing Rob? She mounted the steps to the house next door. There was no answer at all to her knocking.

And so it went along the left side of the street. The occupants weren't home, they didn't answer, or they slammed the door in her face.

“They tend to be suspicious,” Rob's voice sounded.

“So do I,” Rula retorted as she crossed the street to the opposite side of the square.

Immediately, she felt a chill. Death cold. Her parents were close, very close. Rob was silent, a sure indication she was heading into trouble.

She walked slowly along the line of houses, until the cold reached out to her with welcoming arms, stopping her in her tracks.

She caught a subtle movement from behind the front-window curtain.

Senna?

“Don't,” Rob nearly begged her now. Where was he?

She mounted the steps.

Ice-cold, so much so, she started shivering.

She didn't even reach the top step before the door slowly creaked open. She froze, waiting for someone to appear. No one did.

“Don't,” Rob said, like her conscience in her ear.

She stood on the threshold, her heart pounding like a hammer.

She took a deep breath and stepped inside . . . to come face-to-face with a woman who looked enough like her to be her twin.

She was looking into her own deep blue eyes, only these were cool and removed, seeing her as an unwanted guest rather than . . . what?

Not the daughter she wished she hadn't given up.

Rula couldn't tear her eyes away. Her mother was her, just a little older; when she looked closely, she saw Senna must have been turned sometime in her late twenties. Strands of gray were in her glossy hair that only Rula could see. It left her shaken, it defined the reality of what her mother really was, what Rula herself could have been.

Yet they were both slender as reeds, both had eyes a deep cobalt blue, their movements were similar, and both had the same facial expressions, which Rula could see just from watching her mother's reaction to her.

And in the corner of her mother's mouth, Rula could just see a little pearl drop of blood. For all she knew, Senna had just come from a kill. The thought chilled her.

She froze. That was the reality.

She couldn't think of a thing to say.

This was a mother who had no motherly feeling for her child. It meant nothing to her that Rula stood before her, grown, beautiful, protected and nurtured by Mirya's loyalty.

Nothing.

“Where's Charles?” she asked abruptly.

Her mother stared at her as if she were speaking gibberish.

“Where is Charles?” she said, louder this time, with more anger.

“Senna?” A male voice. Her father strode into the hallway and stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Rula.

She stared at him. His eyes were bluer than hers, he was tall, ascetic looking, impassive; he had the reddish hair of the Iscariot, and he looked to be in his thirties, having been sired twice by the Countess, by Mirya's account.

He was dumbfounded to see her. “Rula?”

She nodded.

“What are you doing here?”

Well, there. Some curiosity about her at last. This man had loved her mother, enough to create a child with her—no, children. Shouldn't he be curious about her? Even to just ascertain it was her.

“What do you want?”

The blunt and pointed manner of his speech ended any fantasy she had that he cared. All right then. Then maybe he had answers.

“Where's Charles?”

“He's dead.”

“Is he? They're saying he's coming after me.”

“He's dead.”

“Who said that?” Rula's mother asked suddenly.

“Mirya says.”

“She's wrong.” Dominick again. “He's dead. You should leave.”

Rula lifted her chin. “And if he is alive?”

Dominick gave her a long, appraising look, as if he were evaluating a piece of furniture. “I killed him. He didn't survive.”

“But if he did?” Rula persisted.

“Hello, what's this? If who survived?” And there he was, male to her female, with the same deep blue eyes and the reddish hair, his shirt soaked bloodred, the prominent fangs indicating he'd just returned from a kill.

He stared at her. She stared back.

Ugly monster with her face. Ghoul. Murderer. The bile rose in her throat, and for the first time she felt a violent urge to harm someone.

“Charles is dead,” Renk said gleefully. “Everyone will die eventually. Including you.” He gave her a ghastly grin. “I'd be happy to save you the anguish of the wait.”

“Renk!” Her mother's tone was faintly scolding.

“I need to clean up,” he muttered.

Rula watched his retreating back. So like her, the way he walked, a certain timbre in his voice. His eyes, his hands. The shape of his lethal hands.

She could have been born him, of the blood, and he with no taint but for forces at work that could never be explained.

There was nothing more here. All her fretting had been for nothing. They knew and cared nothing. And Renk—even his
hello
was suspect as far as the truth went.

She moved toward the door. This situation definitely did not call for social niceties. There just was nothing to say. The truth was right there, and she must accept it.

Mirya had always been her mother. Senna had just been the vessel that had given Rula life.

They made no move to stop her or prolong her stay.

But as she crossed the threshold, she felt a presence behind her and whirled around to find Senna standing there, with a great sadness in her deep blue eyes.

Then, with a quick ruffling sound, she disappeared and suddenly a bat materialized and flew right into Rula's hair.

Rula shrieked and began slapping at her head.

A hiss of words in her ear: “Ash on his shirt,” so blurred she couldn't even be certain she'd heard them correctly.

She turned to see Dominick standing and watching her as she frantically brushed her fingers through her hair. Then she felt the hideous brush of a bat wing against her cheek.

She shrieked again but the bat was gone.

Nothing. He'd spent the whole day but for a break when that piece of crap, Renk, brought him a body to feed on probing this way and that.

That was the other thing—it wasn't enough to have fed on Dnitra's body for these eight years. Blood was still vital. The hell of it was, he was dependent on someone else to take care of that need.

And he had to force the little bastard to do it.

Beyond that, he goddamned couldn't get anywhere with his ceaseless probing. It was as if a wall were obstructing him, and it wasn't that Mirya was aware yet that he sought her. That would come. But something blocked his probing tendrils.

It had to be that he wasn't strong enough yet, he decided. Or he still hadn't had enough time because he had Renk under his control now and manipulating Renk took a damned lot of his time.

To be fair, he'd had to practice endlessly to slip in and out of Renk's mind. But that was when he'd been learning how. He'd have thought he'd be agile enough to probe anyone by now.

Or maybe he just needed more time.

Maybe that was the key to an old dragon such as Mirya. Time.

Or—the thought struck him—maybe someone else was in the game.

His rage started building. What dung beetle dared get in his way? That brainless piece of shit Renk?

He rammed himself into Renk's mind. Nothing there.

But wait—in his mind's eye, he suddenly saw Senna . . . peering at Renk reclining in the grave dirt in the secret room, and she was looking at him with some compassion in her eyes.

Senna, his nemesis?

No, Senna was wide-open. And he didn't like what he was seeing—Senna regretting something she'd done, something she'd said. Senna silently begging forgiveness from that vermin she called her son.

Interesting. Relevant, he thought, but he didn't have time to dissect what it meant now.

He shot out tendrils toward Mirya's mind, deciding he didn't have any more time to waste, and he wasn't going to quit until he'd prized her mind wide-open.

She emerged from the house shivering, icy cold, confused. The temptation to look back had died. She was certain Dominick watched her, and the last thing Rula wanted him to think was that she cared.

She cared. She wrapped her arms around her midriff, almost as if to protect herself from those feelings. Nothing could have been more clear than her reception by both her parents and her blood-soaked twin.

And the horror of seeing her mother disappear like a magician's assistant; Rula could still feel the repulsive whisk of that bat wing against her cheek. She shuddered just thinking about it.