One With the Night (20 page)

He glanced up to her, then leaned down and swung the gate shut. “Does a man’s view of women fester with ye sa?”

That took her aback. “Like a wound,” she answered lightly.

Then she sobered. Criminal or not, she wanted information from him. Could she achieve truth and trust from him by giving him less? She took a breath, deciding, as he trotted up beside her. She’d tell him as much of the truth as she knew. “I suppose I’m preoccupied with whether the circumscribed role a woman plays in the world is dictated by her nature or society. Perhaps if I had known my mother … She died in childbirth, to my father’s shame. He was afraid it would ruin his practice. Who would have a doctor who had let his wife die? So he worked twice as hard, and gained a reputation for his technique of transfusion.” The path sloped up the hill that cradled Urquhart Glen. Fern and bracken grew on either side. The moon shone brightly. To Jane it was as bright as day. But it didn’t make her way clearer. How could she explain the old problem? “I want to be like him,” she said slowly, “to make him proud of me. He expected a boy to carry on his work, you see, but all he got was me. I’ve tried to be more … logical, more attentive to scientific method than he believed a girl could be. And yet … well, I haven’t satisfied him.” She smiled to force her tone lighter. It wasn’t as strong a smile as it might have been. “He doesn’t even let me help him with his work.” She took a breath. “So, I suppose I have always been fighting against men’s idea of women, wanting to believe it was not my nature that limited me, but their opinion.”

He nodded, those marvelous lips pressing together.

“I know he loves me.” She sighed. “I suppose that’s why I don’t want to disappoint him. And…” She hesitated, feeling the dread emotion welling up into her throat.

“And what?” he pressed.

In for a penny, in for a pound. This was a way to draw him round to her true object. “And now … with this thing in my veins, I feel I’m drifting away from him.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Are we even the same species now?”

For a long moment he said nothing. Had she frightened him into retreating? But at last he said, “Ye are no’ th’ same anymore.” She could hear him breathing, and the horses blowing, and the rustle of the larch leaves, the movement of some small animal off to their right. “But ye can be. Yer father will find th’ cure.”

She shook her head. “Can one go back? Is it possible, once one has been what we are?”

He pressed his lips together. “Ye can at least, Miss Blundell. Ye’re an innocent. And ye’ll stay that way until yer father finds th’ cure.”

He must have resolved to tell her no more, just to keep her from knowing the worst. “You of all people should know I’m not innocent,” she protested.

He shot her a skeptical look. “It has nothin’ ta do with virginity. Ye’re th’ cherished daughter of a London doctor ta th’
ton
.” His tone said he thought that was something small.

She felt her anger rising. “I was delivering babies in the slums by the time I was twenty. I’ve seen the poor and the helpless, women beaten and abused, old before their time. I’ve seen death, Mr. Kilkenny. And tried to fend it off where I could.”

He examined her briefly before he turned his eyes back to the path. “Did yer father approve o’ ye venturing inta th’ slums?”

She colored. It hadn’t been right to fool Papa. “He assumed I was shopping.” That proved she was sophisticated enough to lie by omission at least.

Kilkenny nodded. “I’ll wager ye came back with an empty purse every time.”

Worse! Did he know everything about her? She bit her lip, thinking of Mrs. Dulnan.

He glanced over to her. “Dinnae worry. Sometimes there’s nae way around charity.”

He had given money to those less fortunate, too. Many times. He must have. Look how expert he was at providing for Mrs. Dulnan without even seeming to do so. And he had provided for the unknown prostitute, Alice.

“I’m sure ye’re a woman o’ th’ world.” His expression was too serious to be truly serious. “As a woman o’ th’ world, d’ye believe in love, then?” It was as if he’d read her notebooks.

Was he trying to goad her into some sort of declaration he could point to as naïve? “No,” she said lightly. “I think it’s all a hum. People talk about transformation—that’s just nonsense. The physical act is mildly pleasurable, but I can’t see what the fuss is all about.” He looked taken aback. Maybe what he wanted was some sort of paean to his skills in lovemaking. Well, he wouldn’t get it. The part about it being only mildly pleasurable was a bald-faced lie, of course.

His expression closed down. “I agree with ye there.”

“You’ve never been transformed by it?” She peered at him closely.

He cleared his throat. “If I was, it was no’ ta my betterment.”

“Ahh.” What did he mean? Likely that what they had done together made him a smaller person. Was the insult meant to be personal, or did he just think that every act of such … intensity diminished one? Very well, they had gone this far, she would ask. “You mean what we did made you a worse person? It’s not as though you raped me. I was willing, if you noticed.”

He looked up at her sharply. “I was no’ talkin’ about us.”

“Then who?” She was going to
make
him explain something of himself to her.

“Nae. I’ll no’ tell ye that,” he said. His voice was flat. His profile revealed nothing. Then how did she know he was in pain? But she did. It was by his very blankness that she knew.

They broke out onto the crest of the hill that faced south. New grass poked up through a meadow of bracken. Moonlight made Kilkenny’s black, curling hair gleam. Jane had learned a lot about him in the last three days, though it didn’t clear up the mystery. He’d been hurt, badly. His spirit was as bruised as any man she had ever seen. But he still had the courage to believe you must use what gifts you had, even if they were onerous to you, to do good. He was exactly like Robin Hood, little as he liked that. He was still an idealist, though that idealism was battered. How did that fit with being a criminal and a traitor? Had he lied to her about what he’d done? But she didn’t think so. Unless she was so truly naïve she didn’t recognize a liar. What to believe about him?

The horses picked their way through the bracken. Much as she wanted to know more about him, her purpose was to find out more about being vampire. But how? If she was clumsy he’d refuse to tell her anything and the opportunity would be gone. To their left the mountain called Carn Nam Bad by the locals shot up starkly above the crest of the hill they had climbed. Below them on the right the dark waters of the narrow loch, filled with who knew what monsters, lay flat and ominous. Valerian would be hereabouts somewhere. They’d have to get off their horses and comb the meadow for the tiny pink flower whose root had soporific qualities. Not an easy task to find the plant since the flowers would be closed at night.

All right. She’d assume the little he had revealed about himself was true. And she’d use it to get what she wanted. If he’d been telling the truth, here was a man who did good deeds and was ashamed of the fact that he had enough idealism left to do them. He protected people. He’d committed to protect her and her father. That was her opening.

“I know you think vampires will come again to stop my father’s work,” she observed.

“Aye.” He pressed his lips together grimly.

“And they’ll try to kill us.”

“Aye.” His expression said he hated that he felt obligated to tell the truth. Was that why he spoke so little?

“Can you stop them?” This was cruel in a way. But she daren’t back down. “Can those three that arrived last night stop them?”

He looked away. “I will no’ lie ta ye. It is no’ certain.”

She took a breath. “Then I need to know what it means to be a vampire—what I am facing, how I can use what I am.” This might work. Fear filled her throat. What if what he told her was so horrible she couldn’t bear it?

He turned in the saddle and shot her a piercing look. Emotion flickered behind his eyes. Then he bent his head, staring at his thigh. Finally he took a deep breath. “Fair enough.”

Jane’s impulse to gloat at her victory melted away as the fear inside her rose. She unhooked her knee from the sidesaddle horn and slid to the ground. She wanted to walk beside him so when he explained she wouldn’t miss a single word. He looked surprised, then swung his long leg over Faust’s croup and jumped down himself. They pulled the reins over the horses’ heads and walked in silence for a moment. He stared at the ground. She didn’t press him. He had committed. He was a man who kept promises.

“This will no’ be easy for ye,” he muttered.

“No matter how horrible, tell me all.” There was still a lump in her throat, though.

He took a deep breath. “Verra well, then.” He looked out at the loch. “Ye know some already: th’ heightened senses, th’ strength, th’ healing, th’ sensitivity ta sunlight. What I dinnae think ye know is that th’ thing in our blood has power and ye can use it, if ye know how,” he continued. “Th’ power is what makes th’ vibrations. Ye’ve felt them.”

She nodded silently, afraid her voice would betray her fear.

“Th’ vibrations are faster th’ more power ye ha’. And power grows with age. Verra old ones are stronger than we are.”

“Like Miss Zaroff, and Brother Flavio and even Clara.”

“Aye,” he said grimly. “Now listen carefully. If ye call yer Companion, it answers with power and a red film across yer vision.”

“That’s when our eyes look red to others,” she murmured.

He nodded. “Th’ power makes ye stronger yet. And it does other things.” He paused.

He didn’t want to tell her. “What? What other things?”

When they came, the words seemed dragged from him. “If ye keep askin’, th’ red goes black and ye … well, ye pop out o’ where ye are and inta somewhere else.” He glanced over and must have seen her incredulity. “If they come for ye, ye’ll need ta know this, sa attend ta me.”

“All right…” She was totally at a loss. What did he mean “pop out of where you are”?

Handing her Faust’s reins, he walked four paces and pointed over to a slate outcropping that jutted through the meadow. “I’ll go from here ta there.” He stood straight, hands at his sides, legs apart. “First I call my Companion. Then ask for power. I’ll do it slow, sa ye can see it.”

Jane was braced for the fact that his eyes went demonic red. He pressed his lips into a thin line as he concentrated. But she was not ready for the black, whirling vortex that swirled around his feet and slowly rose up over his knees, his hips, his chest. Then things happened faster. He was enveloped in the blackness and … winked out. She was staring at empty space.

“Here,” he called. He stood, with neither red eyes nor black vortex, near the outcropping.

Jane’s mouth dropped open. She pulled the horses forward even as he strode back toward her. “What…? What … was…?” She felt like an idiot.

“It’s called translocation. Comes in handy when ye need ta escape.”

“How far can you go?”

“Two or three miles, as near as I can tell. I think people say we can turn inta bats because we disappear in th’ night. It is no’ true of course. Th’ part about th’ mirrors though…” He took the reins of the horses. They cropped the new spring grass eagerly, tearing at it with their great incisors, apparently oblivious to the miracle that had just occurred.

“But we do cast reflections, I’ve seen you in the mirror.”

“True. But when we translocate, th’ power gets denser until light does no’ escape. Yer reflection disappears, just before ye disappear yerself.” He motioned to her. “Now try it.”

Excitement and a thrill of fear spun around her spine. She nodded. This was what she had wanted, a tutor. She stepped several paces away.

“Look at th’ rock there,” he instructed.

She glanced at the rock. It was about fifty feet away.

“Now, then, think about callin’ to yer Companion.”

She looked doubtfully at him.

“It seems verra silly. But do it.”

Companion,
she thought. An answering thrill along her veins startled her. She took her lip between her teeth.
Uh
 …
Companion, may I have some of your power?
A red film slowly dropped over her field of vision. The moon glowed red. Kilkenny’s face, too. The loch was burgundy-black. And she felt strong. Blood pounded in her ears. She took a breath and closed her mouth. Something sharp cut her lip on both sides.

She almost jerked out of her concentration, but Kilkenny said, “Call for more.”

May I have more power?
The answering surge made her gasp. She looked down. Her gown was red, not gray. Around her feet a blackness whirled. Some force within her pulsed.

“Think about th’ rocks and call for more,” she heard Kilkenny shout.

Rocks! More!
Her thoughts were getting harder to control. The spiral of power went up and up, and she couldn’t feel her legs and then her hips and she knew the darkness whirled around her and she was frightened, but there seemed no way to back down now without betraying his commitment to teach her, so she shouted in her mind,
More!
And the world went black and there was a shrieking tear that sent pain shooting through her body. She might have screamed but it was lost in the instant where she seemed to be rent into a thousand pieces.

And it was over. She swayed beside the rocks. Kilkenny and the horses were outlined against the loch, fifty feet away. She sank to the ground. It was either that or faint. Kilkenny dropped the grazing horses’ reins and started toward her at a run. He threw himself to his knees beside her and grasped her upper arms.

“Are ye well, lass?”

“That … hurt.”

Guilt washed across his face. “Breathe now. There’s always a cost.”

“You might have told me.” She blinked.

“Ye might not ha’ gone through with it,” he said ruefully. “And ye did a good job convincin’ me ye ought ta know.”

She shook her head, trying to anchor herself. How could she do that when she had just come unstuck from where she was and maybe even who she was? Was she still Jane Blundell? “A scientist seeks knowledge,” she managed. “I would have gone through with it. Is it always that painful? It didn’t seem to affect you that way.”