For All Eternity (The Black Rose Chronicles) (17 page)

She recalled his great love for his lost daughter and felt a new level of sadness. “There would never be any children,” she said. “Vampires mate, but they do not reproduce.”

Calder curved a finger under her chin, and Maeve tried to probe his thoughts, but as before, she had no success. The love she bore this man seemed to function as a barrier between his mind and her own.

“I would have liked having another child,” he said quietly. “I won’t deny that. But given the choice between marriage to a mortal woman and all that entails, and the adventure of living with you, there is no contest. I love you, Maeve, and it’s you I want.”

His words warmed Maeve’s heart and at the same time wrung it painfully. For the first time in her two centuries as a vampire, she missed mortality and all its sweet, if temporal, joys.

“I must go,” she told him after a moment of struggling with her emotions. “Please, darling—trust me, and do as I ask. Stay here until I come back.”

He nibbled at her lips, tempting her to stay, and she decided to punish him with a very special kind of pleasure. “All right,” he conceded, with a heavy sigh. “I’ll wait. But don’t be long, because I want to make love to you.”

She smiled mysteriously and straightened his collar. “When I return tomorrow night, I will show you more of my magic.”

A twinkle lit his eyes, though there was frustration there as well, and sorrow. “What sort of magic?”

Maeve ran her fingers lightly down his chest and made a circle around his belt buckle. “You’ll see,” she said. Then she stood on tiptoe, kissed the slight cleft in Calder’s chin, and vanished.

C
HAPTER 9

Maeve did not like leaving Calder unguarded, for even in that house, where few vampires and even fewer warlocks would dare to venture uninvited, he was a target. Still, the day of Nemesis’s revenge was drawing nearer with each passing moment, and her instincts told her that skirmishes between vampires and warlocks were breaking out all over the planet. On top of that, every night when the moon rose there were more of Lisette’s creatures to contend with.

Powerful as she and Valerian were, Maeve reasoned, they wouldn’t be able to handle the entire situation alone. They might go after Lisette personally, but other vampires and even warlocks, if they could be enlisted, would have to be sent out to battle the corpselike wretches she continued to create.

Maeve fed twice, within the space of an hour, near the London docks, and still there was no sign of Valerian. Her irritation with him began to turn to concern. Normally, of course, she would have been able to track the other vampire’s thoughts, or at least pick up on his whereabouts, but things were far from normal.

She hurried distractedly along a crowded roadside, pondering. Likely as not, Valerian was simply being his usual thoughtless and undependable self, playing sultan in a harem or pretending to be a gunslinger in some saloon in the American West. She was probably worrying needlessly.

Still, Maeve couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that Valerian was in trouble again. After all, the last time he’d disappeared, she’d found him lying at the bottom of a mine shaft, half dead of a warlock attack.

One way or the other, she must find the unpredictable vampire or tackle the job of destroying Lisette on her own.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” a feminine voice said.

Maeve turned her head and saw that Dimity had fallen into step beside her. She was carrying a dulcimer, and Maeve could hear the faint hum of the strings in the night breeze.

“You wouldn’t go after Lisette if you were me?” Maeve retorted with grim impatience. “Well, then, can you offer a better suggestion? In less than two weeks Nemesis and his legions of angels will be turned loose, and the situation with the warlocks and Lisette’s vampires gets worse every night.”

“You’ll need Valerian’s help—as well as mine and that of every other vampire you can manage to recruit.”

“I can’t find Valerian,” Maeve said in frustration. Drunken sailors, men who hadn’t been within a furlong of a bathtub in months, were stopping in the street to stare at Dimity and Maeve, their eyes glittering with lust and speculation. “Concentrate, Dimity. See if you can pick up an image or something. I’ve tried, but there’s nothing.”

Dimity stepped into an alleyway, and, of course, Maeve followed. While she watched, the angelic blond vampire closed her blue eyes and fixed her thoughts on Valerian.

More sailors gathered at the mouth of the alley, leering, plainly getting ideas. Neither Maeve nor Dimity paid them any attention for, as mortals, they were no threat.

“I see a dark-haired woman with beautiful brown eyes,” Dimity said after several moments. “She’s in Spain—Madrid, I think. I’m sorry, that’s all I can determine.”

“Isabella,” Maeve murmured. Usually she didn’t keep track of Valerian’s many and varied playmates, but she knew about this particular mortal because he had told her once in a moment of candor. The woman was a simple soul, he’d said, though beautiful and possessed of a fiery spirit; she worked in a cantina, serving wine and ale.

Dimity cast a glance toward the growing crowd of sailors, and her sweet mouth formed a smile. “It would seem that we have admirers, you and I,” she said.

Maeve curled her lip in contempt. “You can have the lot of them,” she replied. “I’m going to find Isabella and ask if she’s seen Valerian. In the meantime, I would appreciate your help.”

“Anything,” Dimity answered as the little cluster of men started toward them. She smoothed her hair and skirts, as though intending to waltz with each one in turn, instead of feeding on their life-blood and then tossing them aside like chicken bones.

“Spread the word to as many vampires as you can that there will be a ball at my house tomorrow night, immediately after sunset.”

Dimity inclined her lovely head in agreement. “As you wish,” she said.

Maeve hesitated for a few moments, watching as the first misguided sailor reached out a grubby fist to grab a handful of Dimity’s silky blond hair.

The magnificent vampire made a snarling sound and tore into her would-be assailant like a tigress. The man screamed, probably more from terror than pain, and his companions turned to scramble toward the relative safety of the street.

It did them no good, trying to flee, Maeve noted with a certain grim satisfaction. Dimity had worked some mental trick, thickening the air around them until it was like invisible quicksand, and though they ran, their efforts took them nowhere. They had surely planned a savage rape, but they had expected to be the hunters, not the prey.

By Maeve’s reckoning, having to deal with Dimity was no less than the blackguards deserved; she clasped her hands together and vanished without giving the matter another thought.

She found Isabella alone in the back room at the cantina, polishing copper mugs. The woman started violently at Maeve’s sudden appearance, crossed herself, and murmured a rapid petition to the Holy Mother.

“Don’t be afraid,” Maeve said in unhesitating Spanish. One of the talents she’d acquired upon becoming a vampire was an ability to learn languages and indeed memorize the histories of whole societies, simply by paging through books on those subjects. “I mean you no harm. I’m Valerian’s friend and I want to know if you’ve seen him.”

Tears brimmed in Isabella’s dark, thickly lashed eyes. Maeve could glean no real information from the woman’s brain because the poor creature’s emotions were in absolute chaos.

“He was killed by a witch!” Isabella sobbed after several false starts and so much blubbering that Maeve wanted to shake her. “We were—together, Valerian and I.
She
came—” Again the mortal paused and made the sign of the cross with a swift, practiced motion of one hand. “She appeared out of nowhere, just as you did. Valerian told me to go quickly
—Madre de Dios,
I ran for my life—and I did not look back.” Isabella stopped to draw in a great, snuffling breath, then lifted her apron to her face and wailed, “He is dead! I know he is dead!”

“Stop it!” Maeve said firmly, her mind already racing. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the “witch” had been. The question was, what had Lisette done with Valerian? “I want you to take me to the place where all this happened. Right now.”

Isabella mopped her face, now puffy and tear-streaked, on the apron. “I c-cannot,” she said balefully, interspersing her words with hiccoughs. “It was a secret. Valerian worked some spell to take me there.”

“But you must know where it is, if Valerian sent you away on your own when the witch came,” Maeve insisted, speaking more moderately this time. She was worried about Valerian, of course, but beneath her fear ran an undercurrent of pure annoyance. If the vain creature hadn’t been so occupied with his pleasures, he might have sensed trouble in time to protect himself.

Instead, he’d quite literally been caught with his pants down.

If Valerian managed to survive this latest escapade, Maeve thought furiously, she would probably kill him herself.

“It was dark,” Isabella said, shaking her head. “I was afraid. I remember only that it was the oldest part of the city, and that there was a cemetery nearby, a forgotten place where all the stones were crumbling.”

Maeve gave a soft exclamation of frustration, composed herself, and spoke again. “If you see Valerian before I do, please tell him that Maeve Tremayne is looking for him. This is important, Isabella, so make certain it doesn’t slip your mind.”

“I will remember,” Isabella said with an indignant sniffle. “This is not the sort of experience one forgets.” Maeve smiled. “I suppose not,” she agreed. Once again she vanished, arriving moments later in the heart of Los Cementerio de Los Santos y Los Angels, the graveyard Isabella had mentioned.

A cool wind tossed Maeve’s dark hair as she stepped up onto one of the ancient, sinking crypts and scanned her surroundings.
Valerian!
she called in the silent language that could be heard in other times as well as other places, but, as before, there was no answer.

She was concentrating on finding the love nest where Lisette had surprised Valerian—it was almost surely underground—when the sound of hoarse, wordless whispers began all around her. The noise came from behind every crypt, every broken headstone, growing louder and louder.

Maeve kept her composure, even when the warlocks began to appear, one by one, seeming to take shape from the shadows themselves. They wore hooded cloaks that hid their faces and rustled as they made a large circle around her, these ancient and deadly enemies.

She might have fled, for she had the power to transport herself anywhere in the known universe, but her pride would not allow it. Besides, instinct would have taken her straight to Calder, and the warlocks would surely follow.

“What do you want?” she shouted, in order to be heard over the incessant, thunderous whispering.

It stopped, that grating sound, as suddenly as it had begun. One of the warlocks stepped forward to look up at Maeve, who stood regally atop the old headstone, like a queen on a dais.

The creature pushed back his hood, revealing a head of brown hair and a face as fetching as any angel’s. The beast looked human, even to the discerning eye of a vampire.

He inclined his head in a polite gesture of greeting and actually smiled. “Allow me to introduce myself, Your Majesty,” he said, and to Maeve’s surprise there wasn’t so much as a hint of derision in his tone or expression. “My name is Dathan, and I speak for the covens.”

Maeve did not ask how many covens; she knew this being was a leader among his kind, with much power. “I am no one’s queen,” she said coolly. “There is no need to address me so formally.” She narrowed her blue eyes and folded her arms. “But perhaps you were mocking me?”

“Never,” Dathan replied with watchful geniality. His hair and eyes were brown, and his face had a look of impossible innocence. It was as if he were really an altar boy, turned warlock only an instant before by the spell of some evil magician. “A counsel was held, and we have decided to ask for an alliance between vampires and warlocks—albeit a temporary one.”

Maeve was suspicious, and she could discern little from the friend’s mind because he was uncommonly powerful in his own right. “An alliance? Why should we trust you, we who do not trust our own kind?”

“Our mutual survival depends upon it,” Dathan reasoned. “There are already warrior angels moving among the mortals—scouts and spies preparing the way for war. Need I tell you, gracious queen, that we cannot win against such enemies?”

Precisely because her courage was flagging a little, Maeve raised her chin. “I am well aware of that,” she said.

“Our only hope lies in destroying the vampire called Lisette,” Dathan went on moderately. “We left this task to you and your heedless friend, Valerian, and—please excuse my directness—we have not been pleased with the results.”

Maeve’s considerable pride was nettled. “Perhaps if Valerian had not been set upon by warlocks, poisoned and then left for dead, we might have succeeded sooner.” The large, rustling circle of cloaked figures drew tighter as each one stepped forward a pace. “I warn you”—she paused and then raised her voice so that it would carry
—“all of you
—that I will be taken only at great cost to you. The first to fall will be your leader, Dathan.” There was an angry murmuring in the ranks, but Dathan silenced his followers almost immediately, simply by raising one hand into the air.