Time Without End (The Black Rose Chronicles) (27 page)

I could barely focus my gaze on her, and speaking was a greater effort than I could manage. I struggled to regain my tenuous grip on consciousness, knowing all the while that the attempt was hopeless. Yes, there had been times in my past when the mysterious slumber had not wrestled me downward, into inner darkness, but this night I would not be spared.

Daisy rushed toward me, and I sagged against her. She supported me with surprising strength, speaking rapidly, but by then her words were no more than an unintelligible murmur. The last thing I was aware of was the couch beneath me, still pulsing with the sweet warmth of her body.

Daisy

The Vampire’s Lair, 1995

Daisy knelt on the floor beside Valerian’s resting place, holding his cold hand in both of hers, both horrified and fascinated. His flesh, always unusually fair, was white as alabaster, and there was a stillness about him, so absolute that he might have been dead.

She laid her head to his chest and heard no heartbeat, felt no rise and fall of ribs and muscles and flesh. Had she not experienced Valerian’s magic for herself, over and over, she would have mourned, believing she’d lost him forever. She remained as she was for a long while, her ear chilling against his hard breast, struggling with the knowledge that she not only knew a vampire personally, she’d fallen in love with one.

She cried softly, silently, her tears wetting the fine fabric of the shirt he wore. Lots of women, even when they happened to be cops, lost their hearts to practicing alcoholics, philanderers, compulsive gamblers, and assorted other losers, but falling for a vampire was carrying dysfunction to a new level.

Here was an idiosyncrasy even Geraldo hadn’t encountered before.

After mourning for a time, Daisy raised her head and sat back on her heels, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. She needed to tell Valerian about Krispin, and the episode with the television set, but she dreaded the task to such an extent that she was almost glad for the respite sunrise provided.

She would be reasonably safe in the interim, she supposed, for if Valerian was incapacitated during the daylight hours, then Krispin, being a vampire himself, was surely curled up in a coffin somewhere, motionless as a corpse and temporarily harmless.

She hoped.

Daisy kept her vigil until her knees went numb, then made herself get up and walk around. There wasn’t a scrap of food in the house, and she was violently hungry. To keep her mind off the problem for a little while, she went out to the pool, which, like everything else, was underground. Building that place had been a real feat of engineering, and yet Daisy, living all her life in Las Vegas, had never heard so much as a rumor of its existence.

She removed the tie belt and the shirt purloined from Valerian’s vast wardrobe and slipped into the warm, sapphire-colored water. The chamber housing the pool and hot tub had a cavernlike ambience, and reflections danced across the dark ceiling, but the air was humid rather than dank and cool.

The water seemed to cradle Daisy as she turned, naked, onto her back, to float. Her hair spilled out around her, and the tips of her breasts hardened, reminding her of how desperately she had wanted—and
still
wanted— Valerian’s lovemaking. The desire was deep-rooted and instinctive, a consuming need beyond explanation or understanding, something so powerful that it frightened her and so compelling that she could not resist.

It was as though some ancient vow would be fulfilled in the act, some promise made before the stars were shaped. For good or ill, they would be joined, if only for a night.

Daisy permitted herself to remember the scene she’d witnessed on the television screen earlier. She’d felt the throbbing heat of the great fire, the rough ground beneath her feet, and with them the terror, somehow her own as well as Maddie Goodtree’s. She had known relief at the sight of Krispin—or Maddie had—and experienced every nuance of their tempestuous lovemaking as well.

She blushed, floating there in Valerian’s pool, to recall the sheer physical intensity of her satisfaction. And yes, she must claim that glorious, forbidden release as her own, because she had
been
Maddie Goodtree. As well as Brenna Afton-St. Claire and Elisabeth Saxon. She had vague, gauzy memories of those lifetimes, and she knew they had often touched her dreams.

Daisy sighed, lying still upon the water. As pleasurable as Krispin’s intimate attentions had been, in that other life so recently recalled, they paled by comparison to the psychic sex she’d had with Valerian. He had driven her out of herself, the magician had, without even being in the same room.

She kicked her feet and tossed back her wet hair. If Valerian made love to her in person, the pleasure would probably kill her.

It would almost be worth dying young, she decided with a smile, making her way toward the tiled edge of the pool, if the last experience was anything to go by.

Daisy climbed out of the water and found a stack of fragrant white towels on a glistening brass stand next to the wall. Only then did it occur to her to wonder who cleaned this strange, hidden house—surely Valerian, vampire of legend, star of stage if not screen, did not scrub toilets and mop floors.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Daisy muttered, wrapping the towel around herself like a sarong and leaving the borrowed shirt and tie where she’d left them, flung across the back of a lounge chair.

There was a strange freedom in her confinement, though by rights the place was nothing more than a luxurious grave. She could walk about stark naked if she wanted to, and know that no one, including Valerian, would see her.

She dropped the towel at the doorway to the living room and went to stand over the exquisitely handsome vampire sleeping on the sofa. He was beyond a doubt the most beautiful creature, man or woman, she had ever seen, a subject worthy of Michelangelo or any of the masters.

How long, she wondered, had she loved him? A thousand years? Ten thousand?

Daisy turned away, the question heavy in her heart, and wandered into the kitchen, still starved. Maybe she’d overlooked a box of crackers or a can of sardines, kept on hand for that rare visit by a mortal.

The telephone caught her eye as soon as she flipped on the lights, and Daisy went to it and lifted the receiver with a slight smile playing at one comer of her mouth. She dialed O’Halloran’s cellular number, knowing he was going to give her a ration for disappearing the way she had. He wouldn’t be able to handle the truth—that she was standing naked in a vampire’s kitchen. In fact, he’d probably go straight to the chief and have her badge pulled—permanently.

“Yeah!” he barked over the roar of air rushing past an open car window, plainly annoyed at the interruption. O’Halloran carried a cell phone, but not for status. He hated the things and tolerated them only because they helped him stay in touch with his contacts.

“O’Halloran?” Daisy asked sweetly, although she would have known that voice anywhere.

The howl diminished into nothing as O’Halloran rolled up his window. “Chandler? Is that you?” He sounded anxious. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m staying out of sight for a few days, that’s all.” She thought of the layers of earth between the cool tiles beneath her feet and the surface of the Nevada desert. “Laying low, you might say. If you’ve been worrying about me, stop. I’m okay.”

“Is somebody forcing you to say that?”

“No, O’Halloran. Nobody is forcing me to do anything. I just need a little time to get my head together, that’s all. You were the one who suggested that in the first place, remember?”

“You’re really all right?”

Daisy felt a surge of affection for O’Halloran; he and his wife, Eleanor, were like family to her. All she had, except for Nadine. “Yes,” she said, blinking back tears because there was so much she couldn’t share. “How’s the investigation going?”

“No progress,” O’Halloran said with a raspy sigh. “We can’t find this Valerian character, for one thing. He’s let his personal staff and the surviving performers go and closed down the show at the Venetian, but the management says he plans to return soon, so they haven’t booked anybody else. His name is still on the marquee, and the press is clamoring for him. If I was a cynical guy, I might just figure it was all a publicity stunt.”

“You think he’d murder those women just to get attention?” Daisy demanded, feeling cold all of a sudden in her birthday suit. “You can’t be serious, O’Halloran. He has to know he’d be number one on the suspect list.” She glanced toward the living room where Valerian was sleeping. “Nobody in his right mind would expect to commit a crime like that and then just go merrily on with his career!”

“That’s just it, Chandler. You saw the bodies. We ain’t dealing with somebody who’s in his right mind.”

Daisy wanted to tell him that it was Krispin, not Valerian, who had done the killings, but there was simply no way to explain the realities of the situation. “That’s right,” she agreed somewhat testily, “we’re not. Look beyond the obvious, O’Halloran. Dig deeper. You’re missing something.”

“I wish you were here to help out,” the older cop confessed. “You got good instincts, Chandler.”

“I take it I’m still suspended, then?” Daisy asked, unable to hide the sadness and frustration she felt. Her work was such a large part of her identity that she wasn’t sure who she was without it. “The chief hasn’t blown a brass trumpet and shouted, ‘Bring me Chandler, she of the good instincts and negative drug test’?”

O’Halloran was quiet. Too quiet.

‘Talk to me,” Daisy ordered when she could stand his silence no longer.

“The brass wants you to talk things over with a shrink.”

“They think I’m crazy.”

“They think you’re under a lot of stress, like every other cop in the country.”

“Yeah, well, they’re not making ‘every other cop’ see a head doctor, are they?”

“Chandler? Do yourself a favor, take some advice from an old veteran. Don’t fight this one. Just do what they ask. It ain’t so much, you know—the doc will probably want you to look at a few ink blots and play some word association games, that’s all.”

Daisy swore.

“More advice,” O’Halloran said crisply. “Don’t use that word in front of anybody above the rank of lieutenant.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Daisy allowed. It was hard, she discovered, to be naked and angry at the same time.

“Okay, Chandler, give me a number where I can reach you, and we’ll wrap this conversation up. I’m on my way over to the Venetian—again—to see if I can track down this magician of theirs. I’ll say one thing for this Valerian fella—he’s got the disappearing act down pat.”

Daisy smiled and dashed at her cheek with the back of one hand. All of the sudden she felt vulnerable, rather than free, and she was anxious to put Valerian’s shirt back on. In the meantime, though, O’Halloran wanted a number.

She thought quickly. “I’m staying in a lake cabin,” she lied, “and I have to use a pay phone whenever I want to make a call. I’ll be in touch within a day or two.”

“Just give me the name of the resort, then.”

“Sorry, partner—that’s a secret. I’ll call again soon.” With that, her stomach twisted into a knot of guilt, Daisy hung up the telephone.

Next she called her apartment. She listened patiently to her own voice, droning the usual spiel about leaving a name and number, and punched the pound sign when it was over. At the other end of the line the tape rewound with a high-pitched squeaking sound, and then the accumulated messages began to play.

The first was from Nadine, saying she was in labor and had checked into the hospital.

The second was from Freddy. Nadine was yelling a lot, he said frantically, and he wished he’d never gotten her into this mess. Could Daisy please come to Telluride as soon as possible?

Fresh tears brimmed in Daisy’s eyes. She wanted desperately to be with her sister and lend what support she could, more now than ever, but it was too dangerous for Nadine and Freddy and the baby. She couldn’t bear even the thought of what Krispin might do to them, for whatever insane reason of his own.

The next voice was the same painfully slow, inhuman drone she’d heard before, and she knew now that it was some trick of Krispin’s—a robot, maybe, or a computer, or his own private brand of magic. “Come out, Daisy. You cannot hide from me forever. If you don’t show yourself, I will kill again.”

Bile surged into the back of Daisy’s throat; she squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to keep her empty stomach from convulsing. “Dear God,” she whispered. “Help me.”

The line went dead, and then she heard Nadine’s voice again. Daisy’s sister sounded weary but full of joy. “Daze? The baby came this morning, and mother and daughter are doing great. Freddy suffered so much angst over all the pain I went through that he gave a little ground on the name business. We’re calling our daughter Whitney Miranda. Fruit not included. What do you think, Auntie? Call me soon—I’m going to tell you more about childbirth than any sensible woman would want to know.”

That was the end of the tape, and Daisy was weeping softly as she hung up the receiver. She had a niece—her only flesh-and-blood relative besides Nadine and the long-lost Jeanine—and she couldn’t even make a pilgrimage to Telluride to admire her.