Eternal (6 page)

I put down the trowel. “I'm sorry.”

He came and knelt beside me, gently laying an arm across my shoulders. “So am I.”

I lost it. The sobs just came shuddering up and I couldn't hold them back anymore. Madera gathered me into his arms and let me bawl all over him.

After a while I was cried out. He kept holding me until I sat up, wiping my eyes with my hand. He then produced a handkerchief—a real, cloth handkerchief—and gave it to me.

“
Thanks.”

I mopped my face and tried to pull myself together. Madera went back to planting, scooping some of the dirt back into the monster hole I'd made and setting a baby plant on top of it. After a while I shoved the soggy handkerchief in my pocket and picked up the trowel again.

We finished the planting in silence. Madera gave me the hose while he gathered up the empty pots. There was something soothing about the gently flowing water, the young, green things we'd put in the ground. When all the plants were watered we went back into the house.

Len had made some sandwiches. I was surprised at how late it was—almost noon—and that I was actually hungry. I pulled off the work gloves to wash my hands, and the band-aid came off with them. I started to cuss, then realized my finger didn't hurt.

The cut was healed. Hell, it was
gone
. I couldn't find it at all.

I looked around for Madera, but he'd slipped away, probably to check on Savhoran. Len beckoned me over to the table, and I gave in.

I had intended to challenge her about why we were leaving early, but after what Madera had said, I understood it. Was not happy about it, but understood.

If the best thing I could do for Savhoran was leave, then I'd leave. I wished I could say goodbye, at least. It hurt to just go.

Caeran arrived as we were finishing lunch; I heard Len's car pull up to the front of the house. Amazing how quiet it was out here.

I went to my room to collect my bag and met Madera on the
portal
carrying it out. I glanced past him toward Savhoran's room. The door was shut. Nothing to do but follow Madera to the entryway.

Len was there with her bag, talking to Caeran and one of his cousins. The cousin looked at me, smiled briefly—Nathrin, I thought—then said something to Madera and went through the door into the
plazuela
.

Caeran looked worried, but greeted me with a smile. The four of us went out to the car. Caeran and Madera put the bags in the trunk, then it was goodbyes all around.

When Madera came up to me, I held out my hand. “Thanks for your hospitality.”

He took my hand and clasped it with both of his. “Be safe.”

His eyes were blue, I noticed. Filled with kindness and regret.

“
Thanks,” I said, and got in the back seat before I could make a fool of myself again.

The back seat was my territory, safe from prying eyes. I buckled in and hugged myself and didn't look back as we drove away.

We drove for a long time along one side of a big, empty field on the right and a fence on the left. Madera's property must be huge.

Crazy to be leaving like this. Poor Caeran had been driving a lot—and I knew for a fact that he hadn't gotten his license until a few months before.

Somewhere past Mora I fell asleep. Woke up when we stopped for gas in Las Vegas. I went into the convenience store to pee, and picked up a soda after eying the ice cream.

While I was waiting in line to pay, my gaze drifted across a rack of newspapers. An
Albuquerque Journal
had a big black headline:

“
CAMPUS KILLER RETURNS?”

I
picked the paper up and started reading the story. “A man's body was found on the UNM campus early Friday morning, apparently…”

“
Is that all for you, miss?”

I looked up at the cashier, then nodded and put the paper and my soda on the counter. I hadn't bought a newspaper since my pet parakeet died when I was in middle school.

I pocketed my change and went back to the car, where I read the news story until we pulled out. There was a picture of the victim—nice looking guy, vaguely familiar—and one of police tape tied around some trees. I skimmed the story for details.

The dead guy was a grad student. He was found by the duck pond, throat slit and bled out. My gut twisted into a knot; that pond was right next to the library where Len and I worked. The library where she'd seen the campus killer last fall.

Except she'd said he was dead.

Len got in the driver's seat and put on some music, then pulled out and got back on the highway. Reading in a moving car always made me sick, so I put the paper on the seat beside me. I'd read enough.

I watched the scenery go by, puzzling about the killer. My thoughts went around and around, and finally I gave up in favor of a less gruesome and, to me, more interesting subject: Savhoran.

I liked him enough to want to see him again, whenever he got well enough. I definitely was not just going forget about him. I decided to write him a letter and enclose it in my thank-you note to Madera. Spent the rest of the trip composing it in my head.

None of us were hungry when we got to Santa Fe, so we continued on home to Albuquerque. By the time we hit the outskirts of town I was starving. I leaned forward.

“
Hey, you guys hungry? Dinner's my treat.”

Len glanced over her shoulder at me. “You don't have to do that.”

“
I want to. It's a thank-you for taking me up to Madera's.”

“
You didn't get to enjoy it much. I'm sorry about that,” Len said.

“
At least I got to see it. You were right about Madera's place. It's wonderful. So what do you say? Dinner?”

They were silent for a moment, then Len said, “Sure. Where do you want to eat?”

We ended up at Pappadeaux, a great guilty pleasure, best when you're very hungry. I ordered my usual huge platter o' fried stuff. Len ordered the planked fish special and Caeran got a salad. In a fit of self-indulgence, I splurged on a fondue appetizer.

I'd brought the paper in with me. After we ordered, I laid it on the on the table in front of them.

“
Talk to me.”

They traded a long look, then Caeran turned to me. “Yes, we believe that was done by the person you saw.”

A chill ran down my back. I swallowed. “And?”

“
And that's why we took you up to Madera's,” Len said. “These guys are serious hunters. He could have tracked you down.”

I still had trouble buying that, but I let it pass. “Why are we back in Albuquerque, then?”

They didn't answer, and neither of them would look me in the eye. I started drumming my fingers on the table top.

“
The killer probably won't strike again for a while,” Caeran said, looking uncomfortable.

“
And you wanted to get me away from Savhoran?”

Caeran frowned. Len met my gaze.

“
Yes, but only because he's so ill. It's not that we don't want you to be close to him. It's just that right now he can't…”

I waited, but she didn't finish. “You're telling me he can't see anyone? Or he just can't see me?”

“
Anyone,” said Caeran roughly. “Even staying with Madera is a risk. It is likely he will leave once he has adjusted.”

Leave? No!

“
Adjusted to what?” I demanded, panicking. “What is this disease, anyway? It doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard of.”

“
It isn't.”

“
Well…” Len said, then the waiter arrived with our drinks and some bread.

I sucked down half my soda and pulled a chunk off the loaf of hot bread. I was mad, and more than that I was scared that I'd never see Savhoran again. I had wild thoughts of going back to Madera's on my own, except that it would probably piss everybody off.

“
Why don't you come stay with us for the summer?” Len said, helping herself to bread. “It would save you some money on the room.”

“
I'm not a mooch.”

“
Then buy some groceries. What do you say?”

It was tempting. I loved their house, and they did have a spare room. Len used it for an office, but there was a bed in there and it was a lot nicer than my dorm room. I'd crashed there on New Year's Eve.

“
You're changing the subject,” I said.

She sighed. “We're worried about you, Man.”

“
I'm fine.”

“
No, you're not. You're mad, and confused, and stressed-out. I'm sorry. The truth is…”

“
There are some things you can't tell me. Yeah, I've heard that. Why not?”

“
You would not believe us, for one thing,” Caeran said.

“
Try me.”

I stared straight at him. I hadn't ever been that rude to Caeran before, but Len was right. I was frustrated as hell.

Caeran stared back, his eyes cold. I'd never seen him like this. He reminded me of his cousins with the names I couldn't remember, of the way they had looked at me like I was a gnat.

“
How old do you think I am?” he said.

“
Caeran, don't—”

He raised a hand and Len shut up. I saw her swallow before she looked down.

“
Trick question?” I asked.

“
No.”

“
I dunno…twenty-five?”

“
Older.”

“
Twenty-nine.”

“
Older.”

I didn't like this game. “Fifty,” I said sarcastically.

The waiter was coming with our appetizer. Caeran's eyes narrowed and he lowered his voice to a murmur.

“
Older.”

The waiter arranged the plate in the middle of the table and said something cheery. Len answered and he went away.

Caeran was still watching me. No sign of joking in his face.

I leaned toward him. “Bullshit.”

Something flickered in his eyes and I was suddenly afraid. I had never, ever felt afraid of Caeran before.

“
I was born in what you call the fourth century,” he said.

Len gave a little sigh and dipped a piece of bread in the fondue. I didn't know whether to yell or get up and leave. She could have at least defended me.

“
You don't believe me,” Caeran said.

“
Give me a break.”

He shrugged. “I cannot explain if you refuse to accept ideas that are outside of your comfortable beliefs.”

“
Fine. You're sixteen hundred years old. You don't look a day over fifteen hundred.”

“
The person you saw at the blood center is probably older than I.”

I didn't have a snappy comeback for that. I grabbed a piece of bread and swirled it around in the fondue.

“
He—or she, it may very well be a female—is not human. Neither am I.”

I looked at Len, wondering when she was going to tell him to quit. She just smiled and gave a little apologetic shrug.

“
OK,” I said, “setting aside that you're a Vulcan, how do you know that creep is one too?”

“
Because we know the way the alben hunt. That student—” he gestured toward the newspaper “—died at the hand of an alben. My kindred and I were trying to find her, but it will be a few days now.”

I swallowed a bite of fondue. “Oh? Why?”

“
Because she is sated.”

I stared at him, trying to work out some way that could mean something other than what it sounded like. “Sated?”

“
The alben hunt for food.”

“
That guy wasn't eaten.”

“
No,” Caeran said with the air of a parent patiently talking to a kid. “He bled to death.”

Meaning the alben or whatever had drunk the blood. “But the article says the ground where he was found was steeped in blood.”

“
Yes. How many pints of blood are in the human body?”

Dammit. They'd just told us that at the blood donor center. “Ten.”

“
More than one person's stomach would hold.”

My stomach informed me that this was not an appropriate topic for mealtime. Why was Caeran trying to gross me out? That was mid-school behavior. Certainly beneath someone over the age of fifteen. Hundred.

“
She was at the blood center looking for prey,” he said. “I went back and checked the register. The student she killed gave blood about the same time we did.”

That was why his picture had looked familiar. I must have seen him at the center. I shivered.

“
So we're either talking vampire or creepy vampire wanna-be. Right?”

Caeran leaned his elbows on the table and spoke softly. “I need you to set aside what you've learned from books and movies. This is real. The alben is immortal but she can be killed. She feeds on blood. She is—”

“
Why do you think it's a she?”

“
Because the alben often prey on the opposite sex. They use sexual attraction to disarm caution.”

Oh, ew.

“
So she seduced the guy and then drank his blood?”

Caeran looked tired. “I don't know. It is possible.”

“
OK, assuming I accept all this, what do we do now?”

Caeran glanced at Len. “You should come and stay with us for now.”

“
Why? The al—albino—”