Midnight Rose (27 page)

Martha stayed at Sister Oaks that night, sitting vigil by the telephone. Kate awakened her when she caught the older woman slumped at the kitchen table, snoring into a cold cup of coffee.

“I’ll be awake,” Kate reassured her, hustling her off to bed in the west wing. “I’ll jump the moment it rings.”

Gideon was standing on the balcony, staring out into the darkness when she finally slipped into his room.

A cool breeze, rain-misted and sweetly scented with wet grass, wafted through the curtains.

Sunset had brought the rain, and with it, a darker concern. Jude could be out there somewhere, alone and soaking wet. They’d called all the hospitals within a thirty-mile radius, with no luck. He had to be smart enough to take cover during daylight, which left a precious few hours to travel when darkness fell.

And now it was raining, and dread weighted Kate’s heart. Visions of the boy gravely ill with pneumonia and exhaustion danced around her anxiety, pushing it to new heights. The likelihood of physical harm increased with every hour he was gone.

“I’ve called Delilah a thousand times tonight,” Gideon said, the breeze carrying away his words so that his voice sounded faint. “Left her a thousand messages. She doesn’t answer.” Surprise lifted Kate’s eyebrows as she paused at the concrete balustrade beside him. “You think Delilah would know where Jude is?” “She might.” He glanced at her, then away. “I want to leave no stone unturned.” Kate wanted to pursue the odd thread of conversation, but he changed the subject. “You need to get some sleep.” “So do you.” She rubbed her palm across his back, reading the tension that bound every muscle like granite. “I promised Martha I’d listen for the phone.”

As if by magic, the shrill ring of the telephone bounced around the room behind them, and they both jumped.

Gideon bounded to answer it, but it stopped mid-ring. He picked it up anyway, then set it back on the hook and stared down at it, willing it to sound again. Kate could see it in the tight coil of his posture. She followed and slid her arms around his waist in a soothing embrace.

“It was him,” he whispered, rubbing his hands over his face. “God, this is such hell.” Before she could respond, the phone rang again and this time Gideon grabbed it. “Jude?” From where she stood, Kate could hear the high pitch of a female’s voice.

Every sinew in Gideon’s neck stood out, and his eyes narrowed as he listened. “Let me talk to him,” he said icily. “Now.”

He glanced at Kate with a wild look, clutching the receiver in both hands, as though it might slip away from his ear. “Jude? Goddamn it. I don’t even know what to say to you.” Relief thundered through Kate and she collapsed on the mattress, flinging an arm over her eyes. Jude was okay. Okay enough for anger to shove aside his father’s crazed concern.

But her reprieve was short-lived.

“I’m coming to get you,” Gideon rasped. “Don’t—no. Tell her no. Don’t go with her. Jude, listen to me.

She’s not what you think. She’s going to suck you in and convince you to— Please. Don’t do it. You’ll be so sorry.” Tears of frustration sparkled on his lashes as he paced in front of the bed. “I’m getting in my car right now. You’d better be at her apartment when I get to Roanoke. Because if you’re not, I’m going to hunt you down and beat you silly. You stupid, stupid kid. Tell Delilah I’m coming, and if she’s smart, she’ll be gone when I arrive. You stay right there and don’t do anything.” Kate gaped at him as he slammed down the phone and grabbed his keys off the dresser. “He’s with Delilah? Why would he be with Delilah?” “He called her in the middle of the night to come get him from a gas station outside Putnam.” Kate stood in dark confusion. “But he doesn’t even really know her, does he? How did he get her number? And why would she let all this time go by, knowing you would worry?” “Because she’s evil.” He stopped at the door without looking at her. “Call off the police.”

“But shouldn’t they know—?”

“Just do it.” He turned his head, enough for her to read his murderous expression. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Long enough to take care of this once and once only.” “Be careful, Gideon.” Kate followed him into the hallway. She’d never seen him so livid. “Remember, he’s just a kid.”

“It’s not Jude you should be worried about,” he muttered, and headed down the stairs.

Kate wore a path through the middle of the sitting room as she waited for word from Gideon. The night dragged by, long and painful. Martha got up before sunrise to bide the time with her, but the older woman’s anxious presence just fed the tension hanging over the house.

The wait had only just begun. Another twenty-four hours passed without any word from Gideon, and darkness cloaked Sister Oaks, all signs of life and light snuffed out. Even the housekeepers kept to themselves as they moved through the shadows to complete their chores. Betty’s meals went untouched.

Silence reigned in every room, while outside the temperature dropped and dense, steely clouds gathered and spat rain, as if in sympathy for the misery of the house’s inhabitants.

Kate was sitting hunched on the staircase, dreading the approach of another day without word from Gideon or Jude, when she finally heard the hum of an oncoming car. It was barely dawn, the narrow window of time when the night creatures quieted and the birds had yet to stir. The silence was deafening…and then her ears discerned the distant roll and slam of the garage door.

She sat utterly still, listening, heart pounding with anticipation as downstairs a door closed, then the sound of footsteps climbed the kitchen stairs.

Gideon rounded the corner and stopped to meet her eyes.

He was alone.

She read the desperation on his face and her hope splintered. “Oh, Gideon…” He moved toward her, his gait slow, weary. Stubble shadowed his jaw. Gray circles deepened the hollows beneath his eyes. Sitting down on the step beside her, he said hoarsely, “I couldn’t stop it from happening. I thought I could, when the day finally came. I thought I could shield him from it.” “What, Gideon?” she asked softly. He was too tired to make sense. “What did you think you could shield him from?”

“His heritage. The darkness. I thought, when Davide and Jakome tried to take him, I thought they were mistaken, that he didn’t favor us. But he made his own choice, and now I can’t stop it. It’s already begun.” Confused, anguished, Kate reached out and touched his cheek. “Your friends tried to take Jude?” “Yes. He’s with Delilah now. Just like they wanted.”

“Is he hurt? Did she hurt him?”

He blinked, stared at her like a man awakened in the midst of a nightmare. “She saved him,” he said.

“How can I argue with that? She gave him back his health. Even still, I think I would’ve killed her had they crossed my path. They ran before I could find them.” Kate shook her head. “I don’t understand. Make me understand, Gideon. What do you mean, she gave him back his health? This is kidnapping. He’s a minor. She can’t keep him. You need to call the authorities in Roanoke. I don’t understand why you haven’t.” He looked at her and laughed, a frightening sound that instantly silenced her and washed her with a fresh wave of panic.

“Gideon, please. I’m trying to understand—”

“You can’t.” The harsh sound of his own words seemed to snap him awake and the wild light in his eyes faded. “He’ll come back. It only takes a day or two. He’ll come back to us, but he won’t be the same.” All the energy seemed to drain from him and he leaned to bury his head in her lap.

The lump in Kate’s throat kept her from asking any more questions, and suddenly she didn’t want to know the answers. She cradled his head and brushed the hair back from his temple, while a creeping horror stole the remnants of her peace of mind.

Gideon slept through the day, too exhausted to battle his anguish any longer.Shadowy fingers of darkness stretched across the bedroom when he jerked awake. Disoriented, he lay back on his pillow and searched his memory. Something was wrong in the world. Tragically, terribly wrong…and then he remembered. Jude. Jude was gone. Never to return as they’d known him.

Gideon laid a wrist across his eyes and drew a shuddering breath. He had failed his son. Even as he’d driven into Roanoke last night, he’d known it was too late. When he’d reached Delilah’s apartment and kicked in the door, the rooms were deserted, stripped of furniture and life. Delilah had up and moved, taken the center of Gideon’s universe with her. A stealthy thief with her fingers around the jewel. God only knew how long she’d been working at Jude’s subconscious, but it must have started when she kissed him there in the billiard room at Sister Oaks. Jude had fallen under her spell, and all Gideon could do was stand in the middle of her empty apartment and shake with rage at the realizations pounding through him.

Even after he’d calmed himself, breathed in rationale and regained a semblance of control, he hadn’t been able to sense his son anywhere in the city’s vicinity. It seemed as though a suit of armor encased Jude, impermeable to Gideon’s psychic projections. And now, twenty-four hours later, he felt for the gossamer strings that tied him to his son, and found the edges hacked, frayed. He floated free of his boy, unable to reach him.

It didn’t take long to create a nightwalker. All Delilah had to do was drain Jude’s blood within an inch of his life, then feed him her own. Jude would fall into a death sleep, dead to the mortal world, but when the hunger stirred within him he’d awaken, and the training would begin. In a matter of hours, Delilah would infuse him with every trick in her book. Crash course in vampirism for the boy with the most potential.

Yes, Jude would come home. But as an immortal, a blood-drinker, a ravenous hunter with power granted by his youth and fervor. Too much power. Jude would gorge himself on it, as Gideon had done once. His innocence was forever gone, and Gideon had failed him.

Breaking under the weight of his grief, he turned his face into his pillow and wept.

The grandfather clock in the sitting room pealed five o’clock, the Westminster chimes echoing through the sleeping house. In the library, shadows cast from the glowing fireplace danced on the walls, frenetic and taunting. Gideon threw another log on the fire and returned to the wingback chair he’d pulled in front of it.

He was waiting. Waiting for Jude. His head throbbed; his eyes ached. He hadn’t fed in days; the thought of blood touching his lips made him unbearably nauseated and ravenous at the same time.

He leaned his head against the back of the chair and thought of Kate, sleeping alone in her bed. After he’d returned from Roanoke yesterday, she’d retreated from him, maybe out of fear, maybe because that which her mind could not accept, her psychic sense had grasped and now recoiled from. Still, her love surrounded him, a cushion between his broken heart and the ugly reality of his existence.

But the silence of truth couldn’t go on. She wouldn’t wait forever, and he wouldn’t ask her to. If Jude didn’t return within a few days, he would send Kate back to Richmond, to safety, turn deaf ears on her sadness. Her world was about living. His, about death. The pairing could not exist; it would destroy them both.

His foggy mind didn’t immediately register the soft tapping at the library windows as out of the ordinary.

A nocturnal insect, drawn to the light within, haplessly beating its wings against the glass. Except the sound continued, grew louder.

Gideon squinted at the window and his pulse quickened. His senses perceived the steady thrum of blood on the other side. The scent of blood.

Bounding from the chair and over the back of the sofa, he reached the curtains and threw aside the heavy material.

Jude hovered outside the glass, ebony eyes gazing back at him. Death cloaked the boy in darkness. He was beautiful, frightening and fierce. The metamorphosis was complete.

“Dad,” he said hesitantly. “I tried to come in, but I can’t. Something’s keeping me out.” Gideon stared at him, unblinking. “The house can sense what you are. You have to ask permission to be allowed entrance.” Jude’s eyes, black and reflective, pleaded with him. “I’m asking, then. Can I come home?” Gideon pressed his forehead against the glass, glanced down. Jude’s feet were bare. The boy floated some ten feet off the ground. Every trick in the book…

“Is that what you want?” he said hoarsely. “To cross this boundary and return to your life here?”

“Don’t you want me back?”

Gideon’s eyelids slid closed and grief knotted his throat. “You’re not my son.”

“I am. Just as you’re Gideon Renaud, born in the last century…I’m Jude. I’m still your son.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Like you.” Jude scraped his fingertips against the glass, a lost boy emerging from the miasma of death.

“Let me in.”

“There’ll be no killing in this house.”

Jude nodded, too quick to agree. Novice nightwalkers were sly creatures. The dawn was coming; Jude’s urgency had nothing to do with sentimentality and everything to do with fear of the sun’s searing rays.

Gideon met his gaze squarely through the glass. “You will not hunt from here, nor bring death within these walls.”

The boy shot a nervous glance back at the paling sky and nodded again. “You can teach me to live like you.”

“Then you’ll be hungry often. Hungry, and torn, and searching for an end. That’s what I can teach you here.” Gideon shook his head and balled his fists against the window, felt another piece break off his heart. “Go back to Delilah, Jude. She made your hell. She’s already shown you things you never should have seen, and I can’t undo the damage.” “But I miss you.” Desperation filled Jude’s gaze as he pressed his palms against the glass. “Please, Dad, let me come home.”

Gideon’s intentions dissolved, drifted, shoved aside by a father’s overwhelming love for his son.

Trembling, he threw open the latch and pushed the windows open wide. “Come into this house,” he said without meeting Jude’s eyes, “and find your human disguise so I can bear to look at you.” The teenager braced his hands on the windowsill and hoisted himself down to the carpet, then straightened with the grace of a cat. He was dressed in black from head to foot, his features sharp and mature, eyes like brilliant black jewels as they swept the room.

“Everything’s brighter,” he said breathlessly. “I see the world like never before.” Gideon made no reply. When Jude moved to hug him, he allowed himself to be embraced, and closed his eyes in horror at the chill that permeated through his son’s clothing. The coldness of death.

Wearily, he waited for the boy’s arms to fall away, then he seated himself before the fire again. “Let’s go over some ground rules, shall we?”

Jude wandered around the room, his pale fingers caressing objects as though seeing them for the first time. “Anything you say.”

“First of all, no contact with Delilah.”

When Jude didn’t respond, Gideon glanced over his shoulder and found his son’s face darkened with dismay. “Did you hear me, Jude?”

“But how can I stay away from her? I’ll need her at times. She needs me. You know how it is. You’ve been with her. She gives her blood so freely.”

“And then she takes and takes, and you don’t even realize that she’s stealing those final threads of humanity from you until it’s too late. She’s evil.”

“Most nightwalkers are,” Jude said impatiently. “You’ve brought hell on your own head by denying your true nature.”

“Rule number two.” Gideon turned back toward the flames, his rage barely contained. “You will not judge me or preach Delilah’s garbage in this house. Hopefully she left some room for the truth amidst the brainwashing she shoved into your head. While at Sister Oaks, you will live as I live. Morality dwells here, Jude. Delilah stole yours before you even knew the meaning of righteousness. One day you’ll hate her for it, but for now, you’ll follow my lead because you’re blind and deaf and helpless. Are we understood?” Jude came to stand beside his father’s chair, the flames dancing a reflection across his luminescent skin.

“Of course. I’m allowed questions, though, aren’t I?”

“For tonight, one.” Gideon sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “What is it?”

“When you find salvation, Dad, what are you going to do with it? Be mortal again? Delilah says ‘mortal’

is a fancy word for dying. Is that what you want? To die? I don’t understand what you’re trying to do.”

“I’m trying to get back what was taken from me,” Gideon said without looking at him. “I want my life back.”