Dark Legend (29 page)

Gabriel sighed. He heard the soft shuffle of boots in the dirt, the heavy breathing of the ghoul a vampire had created. Dangerous creatures, ghouls lived to serve their masters, feasting on tainted blood and the flesh of humans. They were vicious and without mercy. He waited, his power building and building, gathering until it flowed through him and poured out into the air around him.

The ghoul approached from behind, shuffling closer, an evil being, clumsy but very cunning and impossibly strong. A human being would be in grave danger should he meet with a minion of the vampire. Gabriel was one of the ancients, powerful and far too experienced to give the ghoul much thought. As the grotesque creature closed the distance between them, Gabriel whirled around, caught the misshapen head between his hands and jerked hard enough to break the neck. The crack was loud in the silence of the night. The monster wailed loudly, flailing its arms, but Gabriel had melted away, his speed far too great for the macabre puppet.

The ghoul was shrieking in a brutal animal rage of pain and anger. It moved with jerky steps, swinging its body this way and that, searching for Gabriel, searching as it had been programmed. Its head flopped at a sickly angle, and the creature drooled continuously. Gabriel materialized in front of it, plunged his hand deep within the chest cavity, and removed the already dead heart. At once lightning slammed to the ground, incinerating the body to a fine ash. Gabriel flung the putrefied organ into the blue-white streak and turned away, shaking his head at the horror of the long-dead creature.

He felt their presence long before he saw them. Three vampires were moving silently toward him, gliding through the air so that their feet didn't touch the surface of the earth. He inhaled the stench of their foul, poisonous bodies. He turned slowly to face them. They were older than he would have liked and powerful.

"Come to me, then," he said softly. "I will give you the dark death that will free you from your chosen path."

Brice sat up when Francesca called his name softly. Raking a hand through his hair, he regarded her with speculative eyes. "Francesca. I didn't expect to see you tonight." He got to his feet and smoothed his rumpled clothes.

Francesca noticed his clothes were stained. Always before, he was immaculate and meticulous in his appearance. This shocked her. There was even a faint shadow of a beard, something Brice had abhorred in the past. He was almost compulsive about his appearance. He often said it was because he attended so many meetings and press conferences. He needed to know he looked good at all times.

Guilt swept through her. Had she caused this? Was she going to be the instrument of his destruction? "I wanted to see you, Brice. We've been friends a long time." Francesca sighed softly. Out of respect for their friendship, she had never "read" his mind unless it involved a patient or a crisis he needed help with. It had been important to her to be as human with Brice as possible. Now it was a temptation to look into his mind. Was he going to be all right? Had she really broken his heart? Maybe she should plant a subtle compulsion in his mind to get over her.

"I wasn't sure we were friends anymore," he responded. "Come on, let's get out of here and go somewhere quiet where we can talk this out."

Francesca glanced around the room. "It's pretty quiet right here, Brice." For some strange reason, Francesca was reluctant to leave the hospital with him. Gabriel was out in the city hunting the undead. She needed to arrange a guard for Skyler's room, and until she was certain the child would be safe, she wanted to stay close.

"You know if we stay in the hospital we'll be interrupted. I really want us to remain friends. Come on, Francesca. It's not like I'm asking all that much."

She nodded reluctantly. Brice .immediately opened the door and waved her down the hall. He followed close behind her, occasionally resting his hand on the small of her back. His palm felt hot and sweaty right through her clothes. Francesca found herself squirming to get away from him, walking faster through the corridor and out into the night. Clouds were swirling ominously overhead.

"The weather is looking a bit grim, Brice. Where should we go?"

"You never were afraid of a little rain in the old days, Francesca, before you had to look perfect for your hero."

Francesca stopped right there at the edge of the parking lot. "If you're going to be snide, Brice, there's no point in this. I don't want to fight with you any more. I really don't. I've always valued your friendship and I prefer not to lose it, but if you can't be civil about Gabriel, or at least avoid the subject, then our conversing is a complete waste of time." Suddenly, she didn't want to go with him. A dark feeling of dread was stealing over her and she wanted to be back with Skyler, or better yet, wrapped safely in Gabriel's arms in the sanctuary of their home.

Brice deliberately took her arm. "I'm sorry. Jealousy is an ugly thing, Francesca. I'll behave. Just come with me. Please."

She owed him that much and she knew it. Brice had always been her friend. It wasn't his fault that she wasn't human. He had no idea of her true nature. He couldn't possibly fathom the relationship between true lifemates. Francesca glanced up at his face as she went with him. She thought she saw something flickering in the depths of his eyes, just for a moment, something sly and cunning, but he blinked and it was gone before she was certain. All the same, Francesca was uneasy.

Brice cleared his throat as they walked along the bank of the river toward the seclusion of the park. "I haven't liked myself very much lately," he admitted. "I didn't much like learning certain things about myself."

"Brice"—her voice was soft and sad—"I didn't want you hurt, not for the world. I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't tell you about my past with Gabriel because I truly thought him lost to me. Otherwise, I would never have allowed you to think there was a chance for us. You knew I didn't love you. I told you I didn't."

"I loved you enough for both of us."

His words stabbed at her heart. "Brice, no one person can make a relationship work. It takes two people together. I wish I was the right woman for you, but I know I'm not. There's someone out there, someone very special who will love you as you deserve to be loved." She used her voice, giving a little push even though she didn't like to do such things do with friends. She hated his pain, hated knowing she was the cause of it.

Brice was silent for a moment; then he let go of her arm and clutched his head. Francesca touched him. At once she could feel his pain, a sharp splintering headache growing and building at an alarming rate. She settled her fingers around his arm. "Let me help you, Brice. You know I can."

He broke away from her, breathing heavily. "No, Francesca, just let me be for a moment. I've been getting these headaches the last few days and they're killers. I even had a CAT scan done to see if I had a tumor." He pulled a tube from his pocket, took off the lid, and shook several small pills into his mouth.

Francesca could see his hand was trembling. "You don't need medication. I can take the pain away," she said softly, feeling hurt by his rejection.

He shook his head again, this time decisively. "Don't waste your time and talent on me. The pills work just fine. Give me a few minutes and I'll be okay."

A small frown touched her soft mouth. "Brice, I know you're angry with me, but these headaches sound serious. You know I can help. How often are you taking these pills? What are they?"

He shrugged and cut through the park along a dark pathway, holding aside the low-lying branches to prevent them from hitting Francesca. "It doesn't matter. Why were you looking for me?"

"Where in the world are we going, Brice? This path leads out of the park toward the cemetery. Let's go back."

He swung around to face her and once again she thought there was something crafty in his eyes. Then he blinked and it was Brice looking down at her with sad eyes. But Francesca was very uneasy now. Nothing felt right to her, not Brice, not the path they were taking, not even the night itself. She bit down on her lower lip while she tried to think what he could be planning. Brice was not a violent man, she knew that much about him. He was gentle and caring, even if he was ambitious.

"We aren't going back, Francesca, not until we talk this out. If nothing else, I want to stay friends. I'm hurt, I won't deny that, and I've acted like a spoiled child, but I always thought you would come around and marry me. I really did. In my mind we were already engaged." He shook his head as he picked his way along the uneven surface of the road. "You never looked at other men, never. I thought that meant you truly felt something for me, but you had been hurt and were afraid to love again."

Francesca could see the first of the many headstones standing like silent sentinels of the dead in the graveyard. It was a beautiful place really, ancient, a place where it was believed the sacred and the damned had to be kept apart. One side of the burial grounds was sanctified, blessed with holy water, while the other was for those who had lived lives of sin and debauchery, criminals and murderers. It was now being torn up, the dead removed to the new cemetery away from the middle of the city. The machines hadn't yet reached the area where they walked. The imminent destruction made her sad; she had many human friends buried there.

"I never was interested in anyone else, Brice. I preferred your company, but it was friendship I felt, the love of a sister. I often wanted to feel more, and when I thought about the future, I wished I could love you as you wanted me to, but I never loved any man other than Gabriel. I thought him dead to me, all these years, but I was not over him."

"Why didn't you ever mention him?" Brice demanded, sounding petulant again. "Not once did you even say his name. If we were such good friends, why didn't you share with me such a terrible tragedy as losing your husband?" He spat the last word out distastefully. "I didn't know you'd ever been married to anyone." He was moving faster, now, taking the lead, pushing his way over the small rock wall to hurry along a little-used path leading to the mausoleum.

"I never spoke of him to anyone, Brice. It was too difficult." That was the truth. Even her mother had never known about that small incident in the village so many centuries earlier. When her family had been wiped out in the wars, she had fled the Carpathian Mountains, making her way to Paris, where she learned to hide herself from her people. Tears shimmered unexpectedly in her dark eyes, the memory of that time still raw. She blinked them away and followed Brice along the winding trail.

"I wasn't just anyone, Francesca. I was your best friend. But you always held a part of yourself away from me. No matter how hard I tried, I never could get close to you."

She hated that whiney note in his voice and that made her feel guiltier than ever. He had every reason to feel bad about what had happened between them. She
had
thought about spending her remaining years with him. She ducked her head, her long hair falling in a cascade around her face. "I didn't mean to lead you on, Brice. I hope you believe that. I tried to be honest with you, but there were times when I seriously thought about becoming involved with you. Because I was considering a relationship with you, I must have been inadvertently sending you messages that we might eventually be together. That was very wrong of me, but I didn't do it on purpose."

He turned his head for a moment, fury in his eyes. "That doesn't take away what I feel, Francesca, or absolve you of guilt."

She sighed. He seemed to be going back and forth between recrimination and genuinely wanting to retain their friendship. "Perhaps it is too soon for a conversation like this one. Maybe we should wait a few weeks until you can see I never would have been right for you, I never would have felt the way you wanted me to feel."

"We'll never know that for sure, will we?" he said. He was moving rapidly through the graveyard, moving away from the newer headstones into an older part of the cemetery where the stones were so ancient, they were crumbling and gray from the effects of weather.

Francesca slowed her pace. "Brice, do you have any idea where you're going or are you just walking as fast as you can because you're so angry with me?" She could hear the blood pumping furiously through his heart, the rush of adrenaline coursing through him as he moved.

He caught her wrist and yanked, a snarl twisting his handsome features. "Come on, Francesca, hurry up."

She moved with him a few steps, deliberately touching his mind as she did so. At once she was afraid. There was nothing in his mind except the overwhelming desire to get her to a certain place at the far side of the cemetery. He was willing to use any method, from cajoling her or humoring her, to brute strength. His need to get to this place was so strong, it blocked out everything else.

"Brice," she said very softly, "you're hurting me. Please let go of me. I can walk all by myself." He needed help desperately. Whatever was wrong with him, whether he had been shadowed by a vampire, or was using drugs, or was on the verge of a mental breakdown, Francesca wanted to help him. She feared for him now, more than for herself. There was something terribly wrong with him and she was determined to heal him.

"Well, hurry up then," he growled, still retaining possession of her arm. He loosened his hold because she had picked up her pace and was walking willingly with him. "Honestly, Francesca, you want everything your own way. You didn't want to talk to me about our friendship. You probably wanted to discuss your little patient."

"I do want to find out when I can bring Skyler home. She's anxious and bored in the hospital. And a reporter got into her room. She was very frightened." She kept her voice reasonable as she walked beside him, studying him intently. If she used her power, the vibrations of it would scatter into the night and draw unwanted attention. She would have to be persuasive to get him to her home, where she could control him and help him without the threat of interference.

"If she was so darn frightened, why didn't she tell me about it?" he demanded, angry all over again. "I'm her doctor, not you, not Gabriel. If she has a complaint, she can voice it to me. We know she can talk. Not that she talks to anyone but you."