Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions (15 page)

He moved away from her, helped her to sit up, then sat with his head lowered and his hands clasped tightly on his knees. “Stupid,” he said. “It’s all so stupid.” Sara didn’t say anything, and after the silence dragged out for
a long time, he finally looked at her. “The world I’ve lived in for the last fifty years is so utterly stupid—useless, farcically ridiculous. There is nothing right about this world. Nothing sane. I don’t even think we rate as well-adapted parasites. Are we allowed to invent, to create? No. What has any vampire ever done for the world we live off of? There’s a rumor that says we invented all-night convenience stores. What sort of legacy is that?”

“You can’t draw attention yourselves. It isn’t s—”

“Safe? Who cares? Why must we live a life without risk or challenge?”

“Because your—species—would be destroyed if—”

“Who cares? We serve no purpose.” He sighed. “I serve no purpose.”

The bitterness in his voice twisted her heart. She put a hand tentatively on his arm; his muscles were as tense as steel. “You obey the Laws.” She felt like a fool parroting such words. What sort of comfort was that?

He stared into the night. She didn’t think he was aware she was there. “I’d be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by now if Rose hadn’t wanted me. I’d have accomplished something. My wife wouldn’t have died thinking her husband abandoned her. My son would have had something to remember. I would have had a life.”

That stung. “You have immortality,” Sara snapped.

“Never asked for it. Don’t want it.”

“Well, you’ve got it, so you might as well enjoy it!”

“Enjoy—” His hands suddenly gripped her shoulders. The pain was excruciating. His angry face was suddenly too close to hers. “My immortality should have been the son I never got to know, didn’t help raise, couldn’t love but from a distance. I think he’s dead now. Don’t know if seeing him is driving me crazy, or if I’m seeing him because I’m already crazy.”

He pushed her away and was up off the bench pacing before she saw him move. She crossed her arms over her breasts to massage her aching shoulders. Part of her wanted to get up and run, but he’d tasted her blood,
which could make her prey in several different ways. More than fear of how this natural hunter would respond should she try to escape held her in place. A thread of sympathy bound her to the restless vampire in front of her. She couldn’t deny that the strong curiosity to know him, know about him, know what drove him that had formed at their first meeting grew stronger with every passing moment they were together.

“How can you see your son if he’s dead? How can you even have a son?”

He swung around sharply to face her. “I wasn’t always a vampire, you know.”

“I know you were Rose Shilling’s companion back in—what?—the fifties?”

“And sixties. Rose took her time draining the mortality out of me. She’s—” He glanced up at the night sky. “I used to think of her as sweet. Even after the devotion we infuse into our companions wore off I thought she was the nicest person I ever met.” He laughed bitterly. “I went Hunting with the woman, watched her change into a creature that kills and consumes mortal beings. She took me Hunting to change me, and I’ve killed since. I want to do it all the time. It’s not the killing of mortals that I mind so much. There are plenty of mortals that need killing. It’s the wanting to Hunt that eats away at you. Until you’ve fought this constant hunger—Rose put that hunger in me.”

“You control the hunger. So does Rose.”

“At least she doesn’t Hunt often. She’s not a woman of strong appetites. She’s not all that interested in sex, either. She didn’t want me in her bed every night—at least she let me have a little bit of a life. I think she only makes companions because she sees it as her duty under the Law. Not every vampire takes companions, you know?”

“Olympias isn’t interested,” she heard herself admit easily, when her duty was to keep silent on any information about her mistress. Somehow, she couldn’t
manage to feel any guilt for this minor bit of treason.

“Good for her,” Andrew answered. “I’ve heard that there’s this irresistible urge to make other vampires but—some do it every few decades, some every few centuries, some never reproduce. No matter how few there are of us, there’s still too many.”

“How can you say that?”

“Cause I am one, darlin’.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to—”

“If I had it in me to be an Enforcer, I’d go that route rather than trying to get an Enforcer to rip my heart out.”

“It’s a biological change, isn’t it? Some kind of genetic mutation?”

“More like a magical mutation, I think. The rest of us are helpless against what we are. We can’t kill each other or ourselves. I did try—at least I tried to think about thinking about doing it. Made me sick—helped make me crazy. So I turned to the Laws . . . like a good little strigoi. I figure the best I can do is contribute a few meals to somebody who can destroy us. We should die. It’s a good thing the population’s so small. I’m glad that the mortality rate among fledglings is so high—bet you didn’t know that, did you?”

She did, she was the one conducting the vampire census. One reason nests existed was to nurse newborn vampires through the crucial months or years it took them to regain their senses. Not all nest leaders were as careful and concerned about this difficult task as they should be. Even in the caring nests, not every fledgling adapted to the difficult physical and mental changes required to become a full-fledged vampire. Despite her knowledge, this time Sara only shrugged.

“I’ve made a vampire, back when I was still living in California. I performed the spells while he made his first kill. That makes me a bloodsire, I guess, but I’ve never had a companion,” he went on. “He probably lived. The nest that took him in was strong. It was a nest I had to leave, even though this man and I had never been lovers.
I’ve had nightmares ever since. That’s what started this downhill slide. That’s when the loneliness started eating away at me. And I did it as a favor, thinking I was doing a good thing for a man who deserved a second chance.” He gestured toward the sky. “As if vampires can do good. All I did was create another vampire.”

Sara figured this was no time to say that she didn’t see anything wrong with that. She’d certainly lost control—of her emotions, of the situation, of the conversation—if she’d ever had control of any of it. “Sit down,” she told him.

She patted the spot beside her on the bench. She figured they were both surprised when he sat down. She was certainly surprised at the shared comfort that came when he put his arm around her and she relaxed automatically against him. Silence reigned for a few minutes, but the tension drained out of it quickly enough. She tried to sort out just where the conversation had veered off and how to bring it back on track.

“Your son,” she said finally. “Tell me about your son.”

“Maybe it’s painful to talk about.”

“Maybe you need to talk about it.”

“Maybe I do. I can’t seem to shut up when I’m around you. Why is it I trust you, Sara?”

Maybe because I am nothing and no one.

“I don’t think so.”

“Stop reading my mind.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That’s my gig this evening.”

“At least you know it. Your son?” she inquired, before he could answer that he was willing to give her a turn—because she knew that was exactly what he was going to say.

“I was already Rose’s companion when my son was conceived.”

Her skepticism meter went nearly off the scales. “Oh, really?”

He ignored her tone. “I told you Rose was a little—lax. She let me fool around on her.”

“You shouldn’t have been able to.”

He shrugged, and she felt it all along her body. “I’m a musician. Rose knew what musicians are like. She’s not the jealous type.”

Vampires were always the jealous type—or so Sara had been led to believe. “This sounds very—blasphemous.”

“It happened, sweetheart. I was there.”

“Fooling around on your mistress?”

“With my wife.”

This statement curtailed Sara’s outrage somewhat, or if it didn’t curtail it, at least her outrage was smothered by consternation. “Weird,” she said.

“Tell me about it.”

“Tell me.”

“I met my wife in college. I didn’t want to go to college, but my diplomat father insisted. I was glad I went, when I met her. She was from right here in Georgetown. That’s why I’m always drawn back here, I think. One of the reasons I applied directly to Olympias was to get a chance to come home to die.”

“I—see.”

“I spent most of my vampire years in Los Angeles and Austin, but I’ve always thought of this as home.” He made a sweeping gesture that took in the whole city. “I think my wife’s family’d been in Washington since the place was built. Her dad was in the military—my kid took after his granddad.” Andrew shook his head. “But then, I wasn’t there.”

“You were one of the original hippies, I take it?”

“Definitely. I clashed a lot with my wife’s father. But he decided that I was from a ‘good’ family and that I’d eventually straighten up and give up playing music in beatnik clubs.” He chuckled. “I did move off the folk circuit—but never mind my aborted career. We’d been married nearly two years when Rose put the bite on me.
Of course that changed everything—but I kept trying to get home.”

Sara’s heart ached for Andrew. He must have loved his wife very much to be able to fight off the blind devotion that came with sharing blood with a vampire. She wanted to kiss it and make it all better. But it had happened a long time ago, and she had no right. Besides, he was in the wrong. She tried with all her might to believe that he was the one who had no right to cheat on his vampire mistress. Even if Rose was a silly woman who hadn’t known how to appreciate him. If Sara had been in Rose’s place she would have tied this wandering minstrel to her bed if she’d had to.

“What an interesting idea.”

Sara blinked in surprise at his picking up her thought, but didn’t have the grace to be embarrassed. “Out of my head,” she ordered the vampire, making a shooing motion. “Go on.”

“I’m beginning to think you’d look fetching in dominatrix gear.”

Sara refrained from voicing the thought that came to her. If he caught it, he gave no indication. It amazed her how the man—vampire—could be so angrily glum one moment, and so cheerfully teasing the next. The way he treated her, and let her treat him, was also amazing. “Your son,” she urged.

“Michael. Michael Andrew Falconer, born July 15, 1960, died—sometime recently, I think. I was Rose’s creature when he was conceived. It’s worried me that somehow I passed along some psychic shit to him, but I don’t know. I’ll never know. I saw him as much as I could when he was little. I tried to keep track of him from a distance as he grew up, but the time came when Rose had to change me. The transition from fledgling to sane strigoi took a couple of years. I was sent to California. I vaguely remember a long car trip. I adjusted to being what I am, was even happy with my life. When I finally got around to checking on my kid, I found out
he’d followed his grandfather into the service. Found out my wife had cancer. If she’d had the least bit of psychic ability I might have been able to help her, but she had no part of the curse that got me into my current lifestyle. So I went on with my life until the depression hit a couple years ago.” He shrugged. “Been going downhill ever since.”

Sara kept her concentration on his son. “How do you know he’s dead? Did you read an obituary or—?”

“I’ve seen him.”

Okay, maybe Andrew was as crazy as he claimed to be. “Seen him?”

“His ghost.”

“Ghost?”

“You believe in vampires, don’t you?”

“Only because I know some personally.”

“Werewolves? Demons?”

“But—”

“But you don’t believe in ghosts? We’ve discussed my seeing them before, remember?”

They had, hadn’t they? Had it only been last night? She nodded. “In the park.”

“Yes. I told you I didn’t recognize who I saw. It took me a while to realize it after the first time I saw it, but now I know who the specter has to be. Vampires lie a lot, Sara. Please remember that.”

It was something they did for their own protection. “Are you lying now?”

“No.”

The word could easily have been a lie. She had to remember that he was seeking permission to die. Why not lie to a mere slave if it advanced his scheme to get himself eaten by the slave’s mistress? Why not make out with the slave to rouse her mistress’s anger? He had nothing to lose, and what happened to a slave didn’t matter. “Bastard.”

She felt his surprise at her suddenly turning wary and angry. If that surprise turned to anger she might be in for
a hell of a bad time. And it would be her own fault. What sane person knowingly let herself be alone with a vampire? She hadn’t told Olympias where she was going to be—she was even disobeying a direct order to be here. She’d even forgotten her duty to monitor the phone for messages Olympias was waiting for.

All because she was attracted to someone? How could that have happened?

“I am such an idiot,” she muttered.