Time Without End (The Black Rose Chronicles) (10 page)

I was swamped by despair, then fury.

The woman’s death was the work of another night- walker, a powerful fiend. But who was this monster? I knew of many other vampires, of course, but of all those, only Maeve was stronger than I. She was a regal creature and did not feed on harmless chorus girls—her prey fell into two distinct categories: those who took pleasure in evil, and those who were already on the brink of death.

Lisette, the former queen, would have done just such a murder, sparing no thought for the victim’s youth and relative innocence, but she had been destroyed long ago. Dingdong, the witch was dead—but something else, something equally pitiless, was very much alive.

CHAPTER
5

Valerian

England, 1363

Forceful hands gripped the front of my tunic, and I was wrenched, half insensible, out of the stinking straw where I’d collapsed earlier, and onto my feet. I recognized Challes, my former tutor, in spite of my wine- sodden state.

“By the gods, it
is
you!” he rasped. “What in the name of heaven—?”

I swayed, and he steadied me. I felt a rush of drunken sentimentality, followed by an emotion I had not acknowledged in a long while—hot, searing humiliation. I had liked my teacher and sought his approval, and I found that I wanted it still. My normally quick tongue failed me, and I could say nothing at all.

Challes cursed and released me with such force that I struck the stable wall behind me. The shock cleared my head a little.

“You were the brightest pupil I’ve ever had,” he said furiously, waving with both hands, so that somehow the gesture took in both my disheveled person and my disordered soul. “Now look at you—dissolute, filthy, wasted! Why have you allowed yourself to fall into this shameful state?”

I swallowed, clinging to the last rotted shreds of my pride. “I want nothing but to die,” I said in an undertone that was both truthful and defiant.

He stunned me again by slapping me hard across the face. “Weakling!” he whispered vehemently, and when I tried to sidestep him, he grasped my shoulders and thrust me back against the wall once more. “Every day and every night brave men and women beg whatever gods are listening to let them live. And you, you sniveling, pettish little whelp, dare to
throw away
your powers and your gifts like so much rubbish! Well, I won’t have it, do you hear me? By God,
I will not allow you destroy to yourself!”

Tears burned in my eyes, shaming me anew, and I looked away in a vain effort to hide them. “It is too late,” I said in a bare whisper. “Too late.”

For a moment I thought Challes would strike me again. Instead he tightened his grasp on my shoulders just briefly, then spoke in a gentle, broken voice. “When was the last time you had a decent meal or a real bed to sleep in?”

I had been stealing food, sleeping in ditches and horse stalls, and begging coin for wine for so long that I could barely recall any other life. My childhood in the village of Dunnett’s Head seemed unreal, and my brief happiness with Brenna was naught but a pretty tale.

I spread my filthy hands. “When I was with the brothers, I suppose. They took me in after milady died.” I didn’t remember the old woman and her rough ministrations until much later, and therefore failed to mention her in my hazy account of those wretched days.

“And you’ve wandered ever since, like some savage lost from his tribe?”

The answer came hoarse from my throat. “Yes.” Only then did I notice that Challes was finely dressed—much
too
finely for a poor tutor. His tailored garments and exquisite opera cape would have been more suited to a London theater or a gentleman’s club; to say he looked out of place in the stable of a disreputable country inn would constitute an understatement of gross proportions. Odder still, he had not aged in the years since I had seen him last; there was a subtle vitality about him, and yes, he’d acquired an attractive air of quiet menace that made me think of wolves prowling stark and snowy downs.

Challes laid a hand to my shoulder. “Come,” he said. “I have a splendid gift to offer you, my misguided friend, but first you must be made ready to receive it.”

The strangeness of the remark did not penetrate the dense muddle drunkenness had made of my mind. I believed he was offering food and shelter, perhaps wine, too, and I wanted all of those things. Especially, I am ashamed to admit, the latter.

Challes led me to a carriage, waiting axle-deep in mud on the road. The moon rose around it like a huge and silvery halo, and I felt a shiver at the sight, one more akin to excitement than to fear. A footman opened the door for us, and I sensed the look that passed between him and my tutor rather than saw it.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked, once settled in the sumptuous leather seat across from Challes. He sighed. “I will explain that at a later time. For now,

it is enough to see that you are fed, scrubbed clean, and rested.”

I was already beginning to feel thirsty, and hoped the impressive improvement of Challes’s circumstances meant he kept a good stock of wine. Even though I was not particularly alert at that point, I know I didn’t give voice to the thought, for I’d guessed that it would not be well received.

Challes heard it all the same, for he responded as if I’d spoken aloud. “Foolish knave. You will crave another nectar soon, but the questionable pleasure of drunkenness is behind you.”

I folded my arms, still too fuddled to sort out the fact that Challes had just read my mind. What
was
clear to me was the absolute conviction that I could not bear a lifetime without wine. Such a sacrifice would lay bare my every nerve, physical and spiritual, to agonies beyond my ability to endure.

“Nonsense,” Challes said, though again I had not spoken. “You are not about to die, Valerian. You are on the verge of a glorious rebirth.”

I frowned. “You sound like my father now, God rest his soul. If it’s religion you’re peddling, I’ll go back to the stable. And how did you do that?”

“I assume you’re asking how I interpreted your thoughts. Alas, the divination of mortal minds is the least of my powers. Hardly a challenge at all.”

If I’d been sober, I believe I would have been insulted. I started to ask Challes what he was talking about, but he extended an imperious hand in a demand for silence, and I obeyed. My dedicated debauchery had reduced me to less than nothing: I had all the dignity and self-possession of a slat-ribbed hound snuffling through garbage.

“I live near here,” Challes told me after a brief silence, during which he gazed pensively through the carriage window, his oddly beautiful face drenched in moonlight. “Our journey will not be a long one.”

I studied him, struck by the differences he evidenced and yet unable to define them. “What’s happened?” I said. “You’ve changed.”

For the first time my tutor smiled. “So have you,” he answered. “Do not trouble me with questions tonight, Valerian. It is enough for now that I have found you.” We traveled the rest of the way without speaking. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, and although I was still thoroughly inebriated, I was well aware of Challes’s gaze upon me. I knew, somehow, that his regard was pensive, and that there was a certain strange hunger in it.

His home was grand, for that desolate part of England, a small, square keep, made of gray stone and lighted from within. Surely there would be wine in such a place.

I had recovered some of my spirit, so buoyed was I by the mere prospect of a bath and the knowledge that I would not be required to share my bed with vermin. I glanced warily at Challes as a new and disturbing possibility struck me.

My tutor was just alighting from the carriage, tugging at one immaculate white glove as he did so. “Pray do not pursue that ridiculous and insulting thought any further,” he said dryly. “I have no designs on your virtue—such as it may be. In point of fact, I shall ask nothing of you behind the joy of seeing you find and exercise your own magnificent powers.”

That was all Challes would say, and I had neither the energy nor the will to press him for more. I simply followed him up to the arched wooden door, which was promptly opened for us by a servant bearing a flickering tallow.

He nodded deferentially to Challes, but gave me an oblique look as he stepped back to admit us.

My wits were not about me, so to speak, but I did take note that the place was very clean, and not in the least gloomy. Indeed, moonlight streamed through the high windows in one wall, illuminating the foyer with a glow that was no less beautiful for being eerie.

It seemed that I had been expected. A spacious chamber awaited me abovestairs; there was a cozy blaze snapping on the hearth, and a table had been laid for a meal. A large metal tub steamed in the firelight, and the counterpane on the featherbed had been turned back to reveal linen sheets of the purest white.

I went to the table and checked its contents. There was bread, cold meat, boiled turnips, and even fruit, but alas, no wine.

I sighed.

Challes laughed. “Reprobate,” he said, tossing me a bar of hard soap. “You’ll find nothing there to fog and foul that splendid mind of yours. I’ve told you
—no more wine.”

Not troubling to answer, I raised the soap to my nose; the scent reminded me of my beautiful mother, Seraphina, and for a moment I missed her keenly. I turned from Challes, seeking to disguise my emotions—I had not yet learned that I could hide nothing from him.

“I shall not stay long, then,” I answered.

“We’ll see,” Challes replied. And then he left me.

I bolted the door—in my sorry travels I had learned that what seems like good fortune is often a trap instead—and then stripped off my pitiful clothes and stepped into the tub. I gave a low groan of pleasure as the warm, clean water lapped against my flesh.

I soaked for a long time, then scrubbed my shaggy, red-brown hair and every dirty inch of my hide. When I was clean at last, I rose and stood naked on the hearth, letting the heat of the crackling fire dry the little glittering beads of water that trembled like jewels upon my skin.

A nightshirt of some fine, shimmering fabric—I know now that it was rare and priceless silk—lay spread upon the bed. After I had enjoyed the fire for a time, I pulled the garment over my head and took myself to the table. I ate with remarkable appetite, given the shrunken state of my oft-abused stomach, and no semblance of grace. When I’d finished, I was dizzy with fatigue.

Sated, and able to tolerate my own company for the first time in recent memory, I fell into the lush depths of the bed and gave myself up to sleep. My rest was absolute; I kept no vigil and dreamed no dreams.

It makes me smile to remember that I felt safe.

Daisy

Las Vegas, 1995

Daisy was waiting in Valerian’s dressing room when that night’s performance ended to thunderous applause and shouts of approbation, and he did not seem at all taken aback to find her there.

So much, she reflected, for the element of surprise.

The magician was a spectacular specimen, not only onstage, but up close as well. Something fast-moving and intangible came to a lurching stop, deep in Daisy’s middle, when he looked at her.

She reminded herself that show-business types didn’t impress her, and he smiled slightly, as though he’d heard the thought.

But that was impossible, of course.

Daisy’s face felt warm. “I’m Detective Chandler,” she said.

“I remember,” Valerian replied smoothly. He was wearing a majestic black silk cape, lined in red, and he loosened the ties and slipped the garment off, laying it almost tenderly over the back of a chair. There was something intimate and sensual in the way he performed that simple task, and Daisy had taken a hot, dark pleasure in watching him.

“I’d like to talk to you about Jillie Fairfield’s murder.”

She saw a flicker of grief in the aristocratic face. There was something so regal about the man, she thought, something old-fashioned and almost courtly.

Valerian took his sweet time replying. “What do you want to know?” he finally asked in an abstracted tone, his gaze fixed just above her head as he unfastened his cuff links.

“Several things. Starting with this—did you kill her?”

He met her gaze then, and both pain and annoyance moved in his eyes. “No,” he said, and the chill in his voice went straight to the marrow of Daisy’s bones, like a wintry wind. “Of course not.”

Daisy was unnerved, even disturbed by this guy, though she could not have said why. Even if he had done the murder—and practiced instincts told her he was innocent—she had no reason to be afraid of him. She was a good cop, and she’d learned to take care of herself a long time before.

“Do you know who did?”

Valerian raised one eyebrow and flung his gold and onyx cuff links onto the vanity table, where they landed with a clatter. The wall above, where there should have been a lighted mirror, was empty. “No,” he bit out. “It’s your responsibility to determine that, isn’t it?”