Twilight Prophecy (20 page)

“It did work. They were up and walking around. How is that not working?”

“They were pieces of animated meat. Not thinking, sentient beings. It’s not going to do any good to raise a zombie, is it? Besides, this isn’t even a body. It’s ash.”

“You don’t think I can do this. After all you’ve seen.” He got to his feet, walking away from her and shaking his head.

She hiked the bag onto her shoulder, got up and went to him. Standing close behind him, she said, “Maybe it’s that I’m afraid you can do it. I wouldn’t be so worried if I thought you were going to hold your magical, glow-in-the-dark hands over a pile of ash and nothing was going to happen, would I?”

He lowered his head with a sigh and turned to face her. “That’s what happened at my parents’ house,” he said softly. “I ran around holding my hands over one pile of ashes after another. Trying to…”

“Oh, James… But they weren’t there, so it’s no wonder you couldn’t—”

“I know. They’re okay. But see, they won’t be if I fail. No one will. I have to try. You’ve seen what’s been happening. You’ve read the prophecy.”

“The prophecy was incomplete. We still don’t know the details of what it is that Utanapishtim’s supposed to do, if and when you bring him back.”

“If and when I do,” he asked again, “will you be able to communicate with him?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. We’re guessing, at best, as far as what the language sounded like. I could write—maybe—basic things. But…it’s going to be a challenge. No one alive has ever heard the Sumerian language spoken.” She bit her lip, raised her head. “Wait a minute, someone has.”

“Yeah. Damien.”

“Gilgamesh,” she whispered.

“Vlad, too.”

“Vlad…you mean Dracula?” she whispered the name.

“Yeah. He’s far older than his legend would lead you to believe. He took on the role of Prince Vlad Dracul, but he’d already been alive for thousands of years by then. But it’s a long story, and we don’t have time.”

“You’re right. But I’m fascinated, James.”

He met her eyes, and she stared into them. They almost kissed, but she bit her lip and drew away.

James tried to focus. “Okay, so we’ll have people who can talk to him. We think. So we just need to raise him in a safe place. A place where we’ll have privacy, where we won’t be interrupted, and where nothing’s going to pop up and scare the hell out of the poor guy, like a truck or a bus or a plane or—”

“The island?” she asked.

He met her eyes, considering it, then shook his head. “Too many people wanting to talk to him, with good reason for impatience. We need to bring him up to speed, explain how it is he’s been returned to life and what’s been happening in the world since he was last a part of it.”

“It boggles my mind that this might actually be about to happen, James.”

He nodded. “Let’s take him out on the
Nightshade
. Get him out on the ocean, try to do it there.”

“Kind of close quarters, don’t you think?” she asked. “What if something goes wrong?”

“I won’t let anything go wrong.”

She closed her eyes and wished the phrase
famous last words
hadn’t chosen that moment to run through her mind. “Fine. The
Nightshade
it is.”

J
ames ended his phone call, then powered his cell phone down and replaced it in the belt clip attached to his khaki trousers. “Brigit’s fine,” he said, moving across the foredeck to join Lucy. She was leaning on the rail, looking out at the expanse of ocean and twilight. The sun had set behind them, and the purple sky and blue sea were equally placid. Unlike the rest of the world.

“Where is she?” Lucy leaned down to the nearby table, anchored to the deck and surrounded by several lounge chairs, and picked up the two dewy glasses that were sitting there, offering him one.

“Outside Boston, with a group of vampires she’s gathered together. The Resistance, she calls them.”

He took the glass from her. “What’s this?”

“Seven-and-Seven. I thought we could both use one.”

He took a sip and nodded. “Good idea.”

“So what are they up to? This resistance group of hers?”

He sighed, turning his back to the sea, looking at her instead. “Surveilling the houses of vampires who’ve fled. Waiting for the mortal vigilantes to try to torch one, and then…” He shook his head, then took another swig from the glass. Swallowed, baring his teeth at the strength of the drink. “Killing them.”

“…Killing them?”

He met her eyes, nodded. “I didn’t say I approved. But that’s what she’s doing, yeah.”

“But that’s…murder.”

“She says it’s war.”

“What do
you
say?” She watched his eyes as he formed his answer, and she saw his inward search, his quest for understanding.

“I think it would only be justified if she were defending innocent vampires, asleep inside. But if there’s no one there to be harmed, this is just an ambush attack against members of a species who can’t hope to defend themselves against something as powerful as Brigit and her vampire gang.”

“And yet they’ve been doing the same thing, these mortals. Attacking the helpless while they’re unable to fight back.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “That’s what Brigit said.”

“She’s putting herself at risk. Those vampires with her, as well.”

“I told her that, and added that with most of our kind either already dead or in hiding, these battles she’s waging are based on nothing more than a hunger for vengeance.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She hung up on me.”

Lucy closed her eyes, one hand automatically going to his shoulder. “I’m sorry, James.”

“She’ll come around once she gets it out of her system. But God knows how much more her acts will fuel mortal hatred and fear of our kind first.” He tossed back the remainder of his drink and set the glass on the table. “Are you ready to try this thing?”

She stared into his eyes and thought that this insane experiment he was about to try wasn’t going to work.

It couldn’t possibly work.

They’d dropped anchor far from shore, in calm seas, away from shipping lanes, and an equal distance from the mainland and Haven Island, as they were calling it. She supposed it had a better ring to it than “the Isle of the Impaler,” as she’d heard James refer to it.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for this,” she said, and she kept drinking as if there was strength in the bottom of the glass, even while walking beside him back across the deck and down the steps to lower level. They moved along the narrow hallway, past closed cabin doors and into the sitting room at the end. James had cleared off an oblong, gleaming hardwood table and set it in the center of the room. They couldn’t have done this deed outside, where an errant sea breeze could blow the ashes of the great Utanapishtim away forever.

He laid the sculpture on the table and stood looking down at it, troubled. Lucy still wished she could convince him—or even herself—that this madness wasn’t necessary. But she knew she couldn’t. She’d tried. He was a man on a mission, and he believed the ends justified the means. He wouldn’t go ahead with it otherwise, and she had to respect him for that.

Right then, he was torn. She could see it and wished she could ease his mind, so she decided a change of subject might be in order.

“I wonder how things are going on the island?”

He looked up from the statue and into her eyes, then past her, through a large porthole at the glittering starlit night sky and the rippling sodalite sea. “I’m worried about that, too. It’s not that big an island, and there are a lot of vampires there.”

“So many I couldn’t keep all their names straight. Except the really unusual names, like that guy Reaper. And Briar. And Vixen.”

“Many vampires take on new names once they’ve been made over. And many, if not most, use only one.

It’s the name by which they are known among their own kind, even while having to live under one false identity after another to escape detection in the world of man. One is supposed to grow old, to age, to die, after all.” She smiled, lowering her head. “So your father’s name isn’t really Edge?”

“It’s Edgar,” he said with a slow smile.

Her eyes rounded. “Edgar Poe?”

“He says his human parents had a warped sense of humor.”

She laughed softly, sipping her drink again, knowing they were only putting off the inevitable: the moment when he would try to bring Utanapishtim, the first Noah, back to life. He was probably afraid he would fail. Just as she was afraid he would succeed. “How many do you suppose are on the island by now?”

He met her eyes again. “I don’t know. A lot. And the more there are, the more supplies are needed. And the more often they have to make a run to the mainland, the more likely they are to be discovered, or even followed.” Shaking his head slowly, he gazed out to sea again, opening the porthole to let the fresh air waft in. “They would be sitting ducks out there, if the vigilantes found them.”

“They won’t. Not with that fog trick of Rhiannon’s.”

He nodded. “I hope not. But even so, it’s not a permanent solution.”

Lucy stared out over the water, and the breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders. She turned to look at him beside her, only to find his eyes on her face, intense, searching. “What?” she asked.

“You’re very beautiful. I haven’t told you that, have I?”

Lowering her head, she said, “No.”

“I’ve been so wrapped up in…in all of this,” he said, with a wave of his hand toward the table. “I haven’t even bothered…to thank you. Or to tell you that I…well, I like having you around. With me, I mean.”

She lifted her gaze and her brows as one. “You do?”

“I’ve been thinking about how close we might be to…to finishing our work together. You’ve done everything I’ve asked you to do, and once we have Utanapishtim up and running and back on the island, with Damien to help us communicate with him, you’ll be free to go. If that’s what you want.”

She looked away. “I don’t have anywhere to go anymore, James.”

“We can fix that. It’s not even that big a challenge. We find out who did the shooting, we exercise some mind control to make him confess, we create an alibi for you, whatever it takes. We can give you back your life.”

“You have been giving this some thought,” she said, surprised to her core. “I appreciate that.”

He nodded. “But the more thought I give it, the more I realize…I don’t want you to go.”

Blinking in shock, her eyes flew back to his, and she tried with everything in her to read them. The whiskey was warming her blood just a little, but not enough to make her see something that wasn’t there. And she
did
see…something.

“I’ll miss you, Lucy.”

Warmth flooded her, right to her toes. “I’ll…miss you, too,” she whispered.

He curved his hand around the back of her neck, spread his fingers over her nape and drew her head closer to his, bending until his lips brushed over hers. And then he kissed her.

Feelings she had never known until she met this man—sizzling, electrical, yearning feelings—rushed through her veins like pure liquid fire. She let him kiss her, opening to him like a flower to the sunlight. This was primal, and this was right, and they would not be interrupted this time. She knew it, and she rejoiced in it. This had been a long time coming. There was no pretense of shyness or propriety, no hesitation. It was what they both wanted, and she wasn’t going to pollute it with anything false. Whatever was coming to life between the two of them was pure, and it was real. And there was no way she would deny it, nor did she believe she could have, even if she’d wanted to.

She twisted her arms around his neck and kissed him back, letting herself be swept away by passion. James continued to cup the back of her head with one hand as their tongues tangled. He slid the other hand down over her back to her bottom, pulling her hips to his as he arched into her. Her stomach knotted in need and anticipation.

The boat’s gentle rocking, the soft sounds of the sea water lapping against the hull, and the scent of salt water and fresh sea air, seemed to work as aphrodisiacs on her. It was all too beautiful, too perfect, and as they began tugging at each other’s clothes and tossing them to the soft white carpeting beneath their feet, she knew life would never be this perfect again.

Tonight was once in a lifetime. Their lives were entirely different—opposite, really. Hers was the existence of a bookish, timid intellectual. His was the constant adventure of a true hero to his people. She’d done all right, she thought, in surviving for a short while in his world. But she’d managed only because she hadn’t been given a choice.

She was a coward and would truly be far more comfortable in a dusty basement, studying cuneiform carvings on a jagged piece of ancient clay than running from enemies, saving lives, stealing artifacts and raising the dead.

“Lucy,” he whispered, while kissing her neck and earlobe. “Stop thinking.”

She smiled to herself. “I’m sorry. There’s just so much—”

“Just feel. Just shut your mind off and feel, Lucy. Feel my touch. Feel what’s happening to your body.”

She closed her eyes and refocused, this time on sensation. His breath, warm on her neck, and the way it sent shivers of pleasure up her spine. His palm on the flat of her back, sliding beneath the tank top she wore, so it was skin on skin, his rough, hers smooth.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s all. Just feel.” He pushed her back against the wall and tugged the tank top up over her head, and she raised her arms to let him. The bra came next. And then he was pushing her jeans down, every movement of his hands a caress as he undressed her. His knuckles dragging over her hips, his fingertips trailing over her thighs, pausing to dance in the hollows behind her knees and making her suck in a breath. And then he stood staring at her naked breasts, his eyes raking them before his hands covered them. Rough palms on sensitive nipples. She tipped her head back and bit her lip.

“Oh, Lucy. My beautiful Lucy.” He replaced his hands with his lips, and the sensations rippling through her made her gasp aloud. When he scraped his teeth over those yearning peaks, her knees nearly buckled.

But he didn’t let them. He was right there, holding her upright as he sucked her breasts. She barely noticed him standing on the legs of her jeans to help her step out of them. Or pushing down her panties until they fell at her feet and she felt his hard, strong hands closing on her bare buttocks.

Then he slid one hand down between her thighs, parting and probing her there, while she gasped for air.

She clung to his neck, his shoulders, as if for dear life, and he slid his hands down the backs of her thighs and easily lifted her up, pulling her to him, sliding his erect shaft inside her, when she hadn’t even been aware he had undressed. The breath rushed from her lungs and her eyes slammed closed at the sensation of him filling her. He was thick, stretching her to receive him, pressing deeper and still deeper. Her sensitive inner thighs were rubbed by the fine hairs and hard muscle of his as he began to move, sliding out and in again. His pace was slow as she clung to him, then picked up as his body played hers like a maestro at his chosen instrument. Higher and higher he made her soar, as he drove into her harder and faster. She sank her nails into his broad shoulders and felt unable to get close enough to him. To be possessed fully enough by him.

His mouth found her neck, and kissed and nibbled upward to her chin, insisting she lower it so he could feed from her lips again. When she did, his tongue mimicked what their bodies were doing.

She cried out, but his kisses swallowed the sound, and then everything in her seemed to explode in unbearable pleasure. Sensation reached critical mass, then detonated, and the ripples that followed made her body turn to liquid fire. Nothing but feeling existed in her. She was entirely enveloped in the ecstasy of physical pleasure, of release.

She was pure sensation. Just as he’d instructed.

She clung to him, limp and more satisfied than she had ever been in her life, and he held her in his arms, kissing her hair and her face, his arms so tight around her that she felt like a tiny thing, all wrapped up in strength. She wondered if a dusty university basement, or even her own little house in Binghamton, could ever feel this secure, this safe.

This perfect.

And then their bliss was shattered by the sound of something clattering. They both turned to see the statue lying on the floor beside the table, and it must have hit a nearby chair on the way down, because it was broken in two at the neck.

“Hell!” James lowered her to her feet and turned, unashamedly naked, to pick it up. “It’s okay.” He looked inside one half, then the other. “It’s all right, nothing spilled out. It’s all in the lower half.”

Self-conscious, cold and alone now, Lucy hurriedly gathered up her borrowed clothes. She pulled on the jeans, the tank top. Nothing underneath. She felt wild, untamed. Primal. Her hair blew as the ocean breeze picked up strength. She quickly turned to close the porthole, shutting out the wind.

“Thank you. We can’t risk a sudden gust blowing away my people’s savior.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she said softly. And inwardly she thought it
couldn’t
happen. Because
he
was his people’s savior. Him, James William Poe. He was the one. And she was so proud of him that she felt her chest swelling with it before she reminded herself that she had no right to feel so proprietary. He didn’t belong to her, nor she to him. They were two different people—different species, even—on totally opposite paths. This…this beautiful interlude was only that. A brief, magical oasis in the midst of chaos and war and death. And when it was over and peace had been restored, they would go their own ways and cherish the memory.