Blood Red Dawn (16 page)

V
ivienne squealed with delight and I stood away from Deirdre so that they could greet each other.

“Are you cured?” Vivienne asked. “And how did you get here? The sun is just now setting. Were you here in the hotel all along?”

“Victor brought me here,” she said, “and yes, I'm cured. Or at least I've been given my memories back. Apparently the poisons have some far-reaching effects. But we don't need to speak of that now. Where's Sam? And Claude and Chris and all the rest of them. I have some news.”

“Sit down, love,” I said. She looked so fragile, so pale, seeming to have lost some of her spark.
No wonder,
I thought,
she's been through a lot. As we all have.
I stole a glance at Vivienne and caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror. To say which of us looked worse would be difficult. She gave me a questioning look. “Sit down,” I said again, “we have news, too. And I think we'd better tell ours first.”

Deirdre's eyes darted from me to Viv and back again to me. Biting her lower lip, she pulled one of the upholstered chairs out from under the desk and sat down. “Fine,” she said. “I'm sitting. Now what's wrong?”

“Sam is dead.”

“Oh.” I wouldn't have thought it possible but her face turned even paler. She reached over and took Vivienne's hand and held it up to her face where her tears had started to flow. “Viv, I'm so very sorry. What happened?”

“Maggie got him.” For the first time since I met her, Vivienne's face no longer looked youthful and innocent. Sam's death had changed her, aged her. Would she ever laugh again? I didn't know for sure, but knew the world would be a darker place if it were true.

“What was Maggie doing here? Why didn't you leave her back in Whitby? In fact, why aren't you all back there?”

I smiled at her. “It's a long story, love. But I'll make it short. The night you disappeared, Maggie left Whitby, taking Chris with her. We had to follow. She killed the other two dogs and threatened to do the same to him. I had no choice.”

“Of course,” she said. “I wasn't threatened. Not physically anyway. You made the right decision.”

I continued with the rest of the story, up until my arrival at the Ballroom of Romance when she interrupted me with an excited exclamation.

“Then that was you, at the door, demanding to talk to Max?”

“Yeah.”

She shook her head and gave a little smile. “If only I'd known. Derek didn't say who it was, just that it was someone Max would need to deal with himself. While you were arguing with Max, I slipped out the back door. If I'd known it was you, I'd have stayed around.” A strange, haunted look crossed her face. “Or perhaps I would not have. Max brought you in earlier that evening, to address my delusions and you didn't claim me.”

“It wasn't me, Deirdre, I swear it wasn't.”

“I know that now, but at the time the evidence seemed overwhelming.”

“Oh, love, I'm sorry . . .”

“Forget it, Mitch. I want to hear the rest of your story.”

“There's not much more to tell. I searched the streets all night, going to places we used to go to, looking for you. I knew you'd been in that room off of Max's office.”

She chuckled. “You may have passed me, actually. But you wouldn't have known me, I was disguised.” She bowed her head for a minute and when she picked her face back up, it wasn't her. And yet, as I looked into her eyes, her heart and soul were staring back at me.

“Deirdre, I'd have known you regardless.”

She shrugged and the false facial features seemed to slide off of her. “Maybe. I tried very hard not to be noticeable. But that doesn't matter. When you didn't find me, what did you do?”

“What could I do? I came back here almost at dawn. That's when I found out about Sam.”

“She stabbed him,
ma soeur,
in so many places and so deep that it would make the hardest person weep in sorrow.” Viv's voice sounded brittle. “He died instantly, I believe. But, God forgive me, I tried to bring him back. I ripped open my wrist with my nails and tried to force the blood down his throat. I called his name. I pleaded and begged for him to return. But he was gone and could not swallow my blood, could not hear my voice. Sam. Dead. How can this be? I still cannot believe.”

Tears streamed down Deirdre's face again and she put her hands up to her eyes to hide them. Vivienne got up from where she sat on the bed and knelt in front of her, grasping her hands. “Don't cry,
ma soeur,
Sam always used to say there was nothing that made him feel more uncomfortable than a woman's tears.” Viv drew in a short, sharp breath.
“Mon Dieu,
Deirdre. Your tears. They are clear. Sam was right.” She sniffled. “If only he were here to know that.”

Deirdre calmed with Vivienne's attentions. “What did Sam say? How is he right?”

“He said that you were changing, that you were no longer a vampire, nor a human. And he said something else.” Viv smiled then, a sad vestige of her former mischievous grins, but a true smile anyway. “And he also said that you were with child. Is it true? Will you make this old tired monster kneeling in front of you an auntie?”

“Victor says so.”

“Ah,” Vivienne said, “then it must be true. And some good will come of this after all.”

“Deirdre?” I'd stood back and let Vivienne comfort her, thinking that it would be good for both of them. I'd even thought about slipping out of the room and allow them to really talk. But this news was too wonderful to walk away from. “Is it true? Are you pregnant?”

She turned to me and smiled. “It seems so, Mitch. Are you happy?”

“Happy? Bloody hell, Deirdre, how could I not be happy? If it's a boy, we'll name him John Samuel Greer. What do you think, Viv?”

“Sam would have liked that, Mitch. But,” Viv waved a hand at me, “I know that it cannot possibly be a boy. Lily and I have already decided it must be a girl.”

I laughed. “Viv, who must be obeyed, has spoken.”

“For now, though,” Deirdre said, “I think that's enough talk about the baby. It will be what it will be. Right now we've got more important things to worry about. Maggie's in custody, right?”

I shook my head.

“No one caught her? She walked out of here with a bloody knife the size of a machete and no one stopped her?”

Vivienne flinched and I threw Deirdre a warning glance. “There wasn't time,
ma cher,”
Viv said, “She was gone and I was tending to Sam.”

“Yes, of course. I'm sorry, Vivienne, I didn't mean to imply you had done something wrong. I know you loved Sam, you must've gone crazy at first. I think I can assume where she went: she went to find Max. Or Steven. She got her orders from him on the phone. But why kill Sam, I wonder? Max would want to keep Sam alive, I'd think, just in case something went wrong with his little potions.”

“Potions?” I asked. Deirdre surprised me with her take-charge attitude. She really had changed. What had he done to her?

“He gave me something to drink,” she continued, almost as if in answer to my question. “A hideous concoction. But it calmed me, kept the memories submerged and made me more docile.” She laughed bitterly, “I quit taking it after three or four days. But I still doubt he ordered Maggie to kill him. I'd think, rather, that his orders were to kill you, my love. You were the one who stood most in his way.”

“But,” I reminded her, “Sam stood in
her
way. She had to know that as long as he was alive, he would keep her sedated.”

“Ah,” she said, “of course.”

I thought for a minute. “I don't think, though, that Maggie would run to Max. He terrified her, especially since she failed to kill me the first time she tried. My guess is that she's hiding out somewhere, biding her time, waiting to kill me or all of us. Then she can return to Max.”

“Sounds very likely. So her time is limited. He'll kill her either way, but I doubt she knows that. Max doesn't like loose ends. We could just let him clean up his own problem.”

“No,” Viv stood up. “I want her. I will make her pay for what she did to Sam.”

“Then what do we do?”

“To be honest, Deirdre, I don't have a bloody clue. Too much has happened, I can't even think straight right now.”

Vivienne looked at me. “You did not sleep, did you, Mitch? How long do you think you can continue this?” Turning to Deirdre, she continued. “The man hasn't had a decent day or night's sleep since you disappeared. I will call Claude to come up and pass some time with me. You two should go to your room. Immediately.” She smiled at both of us. “You've been away for too long.”

Deirdre nodded, a shy smile lighting her face. “If you're sure you'll be okay, Vivienne, that's a good suggestion. I could use some sleep myself.”

“Go,” she waved her hands at us. “Do not worry about me,
mon amis.
I need some time alone anyway. Perhaps I will take a walk.”

“Whatever you do, Viv,” I reached over and ruffled her hair, “be safe. And be good.”

She let out an exasperated breath. “Oh, foo, Mitch. I am always the former and never the latter. But if it makes you feel better”—she picked up the phone—“I will get Claude to accompany me.”

“Perfect,” I said, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and took Deirdre's arm.

We heard her making arrangements with Claude as we headed out the door. Deirdre hugged my arm to her. “We do have a room, don't we?”

I pulled the key out of my pocket. “Indeed we do, Mrs. Greer, although I've not been there yet.” I looked at the number on the key envelope, consulted the room number sign on the wall and compared the nearby numbers. “It must be around the corner here.” We turned to the right to follow the corridor and I looked at the room numbers again. “Yeah, and then all the way at the end of the hall.”

“You spent the day with Vivienne?”

“Yes. Are you jealous?” I know that I would have been had our situations been reversed and Deirdre had spent the day with Sam, comforting him. I scowled at the thought.

“No, Mitch, I'm grateful that you were there to offer her some sort of comfort. I can't even begin to imagine what she must be feeling.”

We nearly reached our room when we heard an angry screech from the direction we'd come. “Damn,” I pushed the key into Deirdre's hands. “I'll go see what's wrong. You stay here.”

“The hell I will. We'll go together or not at all.”

We rushed back to Vivienne's room in time to see Maggie make a vicious swipe at Claude, who stood blocking Vivienne from harm. Blood spurted out of the slash, staining his white shirt and spilling over onto the floor. He didn't blink an eye, instead he laughed. “You'll have to do better than that, Maggie.” His huge hand encircled her wrist, forcing her to drop the knife and cry out in pain. I thought I heard the crack of breaking bones as Claude spun her around and held both of her arms behind her back with one hand. His other arm snaked around her neck. “Not so tough now, are you?” He said, then craned his head around to talk to Viv. “Get Sam's bag, will you? He must have something in there we can use to restrain her. And hurry. I feel sort of funny.”

“No need for that,” Victor's voice echoed from the doorway and Maggie winced. “She'll come along with me without a fight, won't you, Maggie.”

She whimpered slightly but nodded. “Yes, Victor. You have to protect me. They all want to kill me. Even Steven wants to kill me. But I had no choice, you know that, don't you?”

Victor reached over and took her head in his hands. “Poor girl,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle, “I know what your choices have been as well as you. I will find a place where you can be alone and safe, where you won't harm yourself or others. Maybe we can salvage the girl you used to be.”

“But Victor,” Vivienne began to say, “she killed—”

“Don't overstep your bounds, Vivienne.” His voice changed, the gentleness replaced by cold steel. “Direct your revenge at me, or not at all.”

She took a step forward, stared up into his eyes, and backed away.

“Good,” he said. “You've done the right thing. Anyone else care to dispute my claim on this woman? Mitch? Deirdre? Claude?”

I wanted to challenge him, not because I wanted to kill Maggie myself, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I wanted to take him on simply because of his superior attitude, because of his arrogant nature. And I wanted to test my powers against his. I had for years. I wanted to see if I could win. Almost stepping forward, I felt Deirdre's soft hand on my arm. The heat of her skin and the glow in her eyes changed my mind. Let Victor take care of Maggie if he could; I had better things to do.

 

I
held my breath, not believing that Mitch actually intended to challenge Victor. There was a time when I might have supported him in this effort; the qualities that annoyed Mitch about Victor had also annoyed me. But the blood I had taken from him gave me a deeper understanding of the man and what he was capable of. Placing a hand on Mitch's arm, I looked into his eyes and sighed my relief as I felt the tension slowly pass out of his body.

“Good,” Victor said again. “Claude, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Claude pulled his hand away from his chest, unbuttoned what was left of his shredded shirt, and studied the wound. “It seems to be healing up just fine, thanks.”

Victor placed a hand on Maggie's forehead. “Was there poison on the knife, Maggie?”

She shook her head and answered him with a whispered “No.”

“Then sleep now,” he passed his hand over her eyes and her body drooped. Victor picked her up as he had picked me up the previous evening. “I'll be back as soon as I can.” He glared at Mitch. “Under no circumstances are you to play the hero and confront Max without me. Or it will be your funeral.” He nodded to me and to Vivienne and walked out the door, carrying Maggie as if she were a sleeping child. To him, I suppose, she was. As were we all.

“Well,” Vivienne said, with a trace of her former vivaciousness, “Victor has certainly changed from the doddering old man we saw last time he came around.”

I laughed. “Did you ever think that he was that senile?”

She gave a little toss of her head. “I never thought it at all. I think perhaps he would be horrified to know how little he is able to trick us.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said, “he seems to be doing just fine.”

Claude gave a rumbling chuckle. “You all forget that I was set the chore of watching him, back in the Cadre days. I knew there was nothing wrong with him then, but never saw the need to mention it to anyone else.”

Mitch nodded. “And with that, I think Deirdre and I will try to get to our room. Maybe we'll actually make it this time.”

Vivienne looked away from us, thinking, I knew, of Sam. “And I think I shall still have that walk. Do you feel up to coming with me, Claude?”

“Absolutely.” He reminded me of Moe at that minute, eager and happy to go with his mistress. Mitch winked at me and mouthed the words, “I'll tell you about it later.”

Claude, however, was oblivious to our exchange and I smiled. Yes, he was exactly like Moe. “Just let me stop by my room and change my clothes,” he said to Vivienne. “I'll meet you in the lobby.”

The three of us exited the room, with Claude going on his way toward the elevators and Mitch and I heading to our room. When we stopped at the door, Mitch ran the key through the electronic lock and held the door open for me. He laughed, “I was beginning to doubt this room even existed.”

He moved the Do Not Disturb sign from the inside doorknob to the outer one. Then he locked the door and the deadbolt and turned to me where I stood.

“God, Deirdre, do you have any idea of how much I missed you?”

I smiled and reached a hand up to stroke his cheek. “About as much as I missed you.”

“Damn straight. Now”—he picked me up and carried me over to the bed—“let's get reacquainted.”

He lay me down on the bed and was starting to kiss me when the phone rang.

“Damn it,” he said, picking it up. “What the hell do you want?”

“Dad?” I could hear Chris's voice clearly. “What's going on?”

Mitch sighed and ran his fingers through his hair—a gesture I remembered and loved. “Oh, Chris, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. But it's been a horrendous day. Sam is dead, Chris.”

“Dead? How?”

He hesitated. “I don't exactly know how to tell you this. There's really no way to soften it. Your mother killed him.”

“Mum?”

“Yes.”

There was a long pause. “Mum killed Sam?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God. What happened? Where is she? Is she under arrest?”

“No,” Mitch said. “Victor has her.”

“Victor has her? What the hell business is it of his? I'd rather she were in jail.”

I reached my hand out for the phone. “Chris?”

“Deirdre? You're back?”

I gave a sad laugh. “Yes. As your father said, it's been quite a day. But as for Victor, he's keeping her safe from herself and from any of us wishing to seek revenge.”

“But why would he do that?”

“He told me Eduard was his brother. I'm not sure he meant it literally. Then again, I'm not entirely sure he didn't. One can never tell with Victor. In any event, she's safe and the rest of us are all right. Shaken and sad, but all right.”

“Thanks.” He paused. “I'm glad you're back.”

“As am I, Chris. Did you want to talk to Mitch again?”

“No, tell him I'll catch up with him later. You two probably have better things to do.”

I hung up the phone. “He says he'll talk to you later. Now I believe you said something about getting reacquainted?”

“I did indeed.”

We made love, frantic at first, as if we were starved for the taste and feel of each other. Although in actual physical time we'd hardly been separated for that long, emotionally it felt as if we'd been apart for centuries. I feared at first that perhaps my changed nature would detract from the experience, but instead it was as if my senses were newborn. Each touch, each kiss, each sound he made as he loved me with his whole being was intensified, until they culminated in a thundering climax, one which seemed to encompass and surpass at the same time all of our previous lovemaking. As if this were our first time together and our only time together. I etched each and every sensation on my soul and my heart.

When we had finished, we lay as if glued together, panting and satiated, but each of us still striving to touch the other. And when we could speak again, we rolled apart but kept our hands joined. We talked for the rest of the night and spoke of our future together and the future of our child.

Mitch fell asleep shortly before dawn. I lay for a while next to him, listening to the rhythm of his breathing, put a hand on his chest to feel the steady beating of his heart. He slept soundly and didn't notice that I kissed his lips softly and got out of bed. I picked up my discarded clothes from the floor and dressed. “And now,” I whispered to myself, as I quietly opened the door and shut it behind me, “now I will see if what Sam and Victor believed is actually true.”

The night shift front desk clerk was filling in the day shift person on the recent hotel events when I got off the elevator in the lobby. “Earlier this evening, we had another scare from the same floor, but it turned out to be nothing. Watch out for the woman in 701, though, she's the one who lost her boyfriend yesterday. Miss Courbet is her name and she's quite distraught. As you might expect. Other than that,” the clerk smiled at his replacement, “it was a fairly uneventful night.”

“Yeah, right. You know damn well that's the most excitement you've ever had in your life.”

“True,” he said, and finally noticed me where I was standing in front of the counter. “Can I help you?”

“I'm sorry to bother you, but could you possibly tell me what time sunrise is?”

“Not a bother, ma'am. Give me just a second.” He turned to his computer, called up the information and glanced back to me. “About fifteen minutes according to the weather site. And it's going to be a beautiful day, sunny and clear, if a little on the cold side.”

“Thank you so much,” I said and moved through the revolving doors to the street outside. The sky was tinged with the oncoming dawn and I felt the instinctive warnings of danger from deep within. But I didn't care, it had been so long since I'd felt the sun on my upturned face, and the aching had plagued me for most of my life. To satiate that desire, I'd risk a burn. Or even death.

I looked up and down the street until I found a building facing east with a wide entrance and a set of steps leading up to it. I settled in there, huddled against the railing, wishing I'd brought one of the coats Max bought me, watching the darkness of the night sky lighten.

Everything around me grew quiet, almost as if the city itself waited in as much anticipation as I for this moment. For it, however, dawn was an ordinary occurrence. For me it was at once both profound and fateful, a test of my very being.

My heart beat wildly, my palms felt sweaty. I hadn't realized that I'd been holding my breath until the breath rushed out of me in a exhalation of surprise. The very first rays of the sun appeared, far away, behind layers and layers of buildings. By human standards this sunrise was nothing special, nothing like it would have been in the cabin in Maine where I imagined the sun would burst through the trees like a sudden flash of golden fire. But to me, it was a revelation. “Oh,” I whispered, “I'd forgotten how beautiful the sun is.”

The noise of the city rose up around me, but I paid it no attention. Instead, I got up from my perch on the stairs and stepped down to the sidewalk, my arms outstretched and my face turned up to catch the first rays. I closed my eyes and spun around, feeling the sun's warmth hit different parts of my face and body.

“Beautiful,” I whispered again. “Just beautiful.”

“Yes, it's quite something, isn't it?”

My eyes snapped open and I turned around. Victor slouched in a corner between the door and the entrance arch, not totally in the sun, but not avoiding it either.

I nodded. “Yes. It is. Quite something.” I walked up a few steps and sat back down again, my back to the railing and my knees drawn up to my chest. “I'd forgotten.”

“Yes, we all do. So that the first reappearance is one of life's special moments. And now, Deirdre, you are no longer a vampire. I don't know what your life expectancy will be, but I suspect it will be longer than a normal human life span. The vampiric elements of the blood that made you into that creature of the night have burrowed deep within your tissues and muscles, carrying the natural immunities of the vampire. You'll heal faster than a human, but not at the astonishing rate you once did. You should be immune still to normal human diseases. But you will also age. And you will eventually grow old and die.”

As I sat there, drinking in his words on my new life, I felt the movement of the baby in my womb, only a gentle kick, a quiet reminder of its presence. Laughing out loud, I pressed my hands to my abdomen to feel again that small stirring of life. “And my baby? What will it be?”

Victor shook his head. “As for that, Deirdre, I have no idea. As I told you, you are something different. And your offspring? Well,” he quirked his eyebrow, “your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.”

I sat quietly for a while and wiped away a few tears. “It's frightening.”

He laughed. “Of course it is. It's a new life. Now you have some difficult choices to make, while you are still dancing on the edge of that life. It is still possible for you to return to the vampiric ways right now, simply by drinking from any of your friends, or from your husband. I'm guessing that you'd have better than a fifty percent chance of surviving such an encounter. The baby, on the other hand, would die. Or rather, it would cease to age and live forever as an unborn fetus. You wouldn't give birth, you'd simply carry it with you throughout your years.”

I shivered. “That's horrible.”

He nodded. “It need not even be a deliberate taking of blood. One night during an especially impassioned lovemaking, you could accidently graze Mitch with your teeth. It would only take a drop to turn you back. And to kill your baby.”

“But I'd be careful. I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize the baby. And I certainly wouldn't want to go back to what I was.”

“Right now, of course, you wouldn't. Being closer to human, being free of the ties of your vampiric nature—oh, yes, no doubt it all seems very exciting right now. But what happens when you notice that your hair is turning gray, when you see those first wrinkles around your eyes, when you can no longer rise in the morning without pain in your legs or your back? When your lifelong partner ages not one day and people begin to mistake him for your son rather than your husband? And then your grandson? That the two of you love each other, I have no doubt now. But twenty years from now will it be the same? How about in forty years? Will you constantly regret the choice you made to see the sun rise one morning in New York City, growing more bitter with every passing year?”

I stared at him for a minute, then put my hands over my eyes.

“I'm sorry to say this to you, Deirdre, but you have a decision to make. And you need to make it soon, before you forget what I've told you.”

I uncovered my face. “What is that decision, Victor?”

“To leave Mitch, to walk away from the vampire life you've led and go back to human ways.”

“I can't leave Mitch.”

“Not even for the sake of your baby?”

“Damn it, Victor, this isn't fair.”

“No, it is not fair, Deirdre. But it's the way it is. Sam's funeral is scheduled for tomorrow morning. It makes an excellent excuse for you to be away from all of them.”

“But where would I go?” I asked in a small voice I barely recognized as mine.

“I've had your cabin in Maine rebuilt. You were comfortable there, happy there. You even have a friend still living close by.”