The Companion (46 page)

Beth trembled. Who else could it be? Asharti.

The second pool evaporated, and the tall Arab she had seen at Haasi Fokra appeared.

Asharti looked around and fixed her gaze on Beth. She cocked her head. “Was it you who tore my Berbers limb from limb?” Her aristocratic nose sifted the air. “No. You are not our kind. Fedeyah!” She turned to the Arab behind her. “You said you saw my slave.”

“Yes, my goddess. It was he who killed the Berbers, not this human child.”

Asharti turned toward the passage, sniffing again. “He is here. . . . He has defied me! He is with the Old One even now! I must call him to heel.” She stalked toward the dark portal.

Beth’s mind raced. This woman was lethal. But she must not be allowed to interrupt Ian. He must get what strength he could before he faced her.

“You think because he was your slave he is still your slave?” she called.

Asharti turned, glanced once over Beth, and said, “Kill her, Fedeyah.”

Beth’s heart skipped. “He is not. I have set him free.” She had no idea what she was saying. She only knew she had to make them listen to her.

“You?” both Asharti and Fedeyah asked, one in derision, one with long-suppressed hope.

“Yes. Which makes me stronger than you are, Asharti.”

Asharti sneered. “A human?”

Beth managed a slow smile and nod.

“How?” the Arab asked. His voice was flat, but underneath some emotion surged and was checked. He was concealing his interest in the answer from Asharti.

“The . . . the power of love.” Would this woman believe that? Belief washed over Beth. Her voice grew stronger, as she remembered Ian’s embrace. “Enough love to erase the scars you left.”

“Set him before us,” Asharti smirked, “and see whose call he answers.” She looked at Beth curiously. “Do you know what he is capable of—the pleasures he can provide a woman?”

Beth flushed. “Yes, but for me he does it willingly.”

Asharti growled and it spiraled up until it was a bark of anger. Her fingers formed claws and she advanced upon Beth. Beth tried to stand her ground, wishing she had not gone so far so fast. What could she say to delay the evil goddess now?

“My queen,” Fedeyah called. “My queen, why not save her? If he loves her . . .”

Asharti stopped. Her claws relaxed and she tapped one grotesquely long nail on her chin. “You are right, Fedeyah.” She grabbed Beth’s wrist. “Come, girl. You will see the end.”

“Asharti stole peace from both of us when she gave us blood,” Ian said to the Old One. “Is the waiting easier when you feel every moment of the passing hours?” Back in England
he had imagined the Old One’s existence becoming a hell once the blood brought him back to time and need. Had it been mere wishful thinking or was he right? All depended on the answer.

The Old One stopped his incessant pacing. He fixed his basilisk stare upon Ian and lifted his tiny chin. “I refused the blood once,” he said, in that echoing rumble that never came from a human chest. “So long ago. I had the courage once to slow time. I no longer have the courage.”

“She created your need. Now only she can fulfill it. She exacts a price. She always does.”

“That which we long for becomes our curse.” The words rumbled from the hanging tapestries to the great throne. “A self-inflicted curse.” The Old One began his pacing again. The very air vibrated with a restless power.

“Let me lift the curse.” Ian pushed all his hope for the future into this one plea.

The creature stopped and turned. “You?”

“You cannot refuse blood when she brings it. If I kill her, there is no more blood.”

“Pain,” the Old One mused. “Denial.”

“For a while—short in the scheme of things. Then time slows. You can bear the waiting.”

“Ahhhh,” the creature sighed, and the longing Ian heard in that sigh made all human suffering seem transitory by comparison. The eyes fixed on him again. “You want my blood.”

“No, with all my heart. Would I could get rid of the damned Companion altogether. But it is the only way I can best Asharti.”

“Why?” The voice vibrated with the very stones of the temple.

“She is creating vampires everywhere. She will destroy the human race, the ones I love, me, unless you give me the strength to stop her.”

“You? You are but newly made.”

“But I am all there is.” He knew he was not adequate to
the task. She was still his master. He hated her for that more, for the first time, than he hated himself for succumbing.

The Old One lifted his stick-thin arms into the dim blue light. “Brothers!” he cried. “I stand at a crossroads. I crave the blood. Yet feeding makes the waiting torture and Asharti uses my strength against the very flock you shepherded for so long. She shares the Companion. What would you have of me?” He waited. The temple vibrated with his essence. No voices answered him. Slowly his arms lowered. His head bowed. “I am so alone. . . . When will you forgive?”

Silence stretched. Ian held his breath.

“It may be aeons until I can go home,” came the strange voice—a breath, no more, in the blue dark. “I must suffer the deprivation. How else can I endure the waiting?”

He stalked over to Ian. Ian stood his ground in the face of the overpowering vibrations. The being stretched above him, dwarfing his six feet. Those stick arms held the threat of fantastic strength. Ian had seen it. “You promise you will not bring me blood?”

Ian nodded. “I cannot prevent you from seeking it in the outside world.” There could be no lies in this bargain.

“I can prevent that.” The Old One held his own wrist to his needlelike canines and ripped a wound there. “Drink,” he commanded, and extended his wrist. Blood seeped into Ian’s upturned mouth, thicker than any human blood. Its intense taste was sour metal on his tongue. Like rich copper pudding, it slid down his throat, burning. The taste combined with the putrid rotting smell underlying the reek of cinnamon and ambergris. Ian almost gagged and turned away, but the Old One’s long, attenuated fingers snaked around his neck and held him there. Ian had made his choice. Now the Old One would hold him to it. He gulped convulsively.

Behind him, the vortex burbled. The Old One was letting someone through. Beth? The Old One might want no witnesses to his gift. He tried to look, but still the Old One held him. Still he was forced to drink the metallic blood.

“Betrayer!”

Ian’s heart sank. Asharti! The Old One loosed his hold on Ian, and Ian dropped to his knees and hung his head. The Old One’s blood coursed through his veins, burning.

“You give your power to another? It is I who bring you blood! We made a bargain.”

Ian raised his head. Asharti stood in front of the vortex, Fedeyah by her side. Her fist was wrapped in Beth’s hair as Beth fell to her knees.
No
, he thought, through the fire in his body.
Not Beth
. He struggled to his feet. Why had the Old One let Asharti through the vortex? Ian knew he could control the entrance. One thing was clear. Whatever happened, Ian could not let Asharti hurt Beth. “A bad bargain,” he choked. “It’s been renegotiated.”

“You challenge me?” Asharti spat. “A drop of his blood is not enough.”

Ian straightened. Asharti had been given but a drop. He had just gulped more than a cup. Even if she had been back again and again . . . But perhaps volume didn’t matter. The burning in his veins and the weakness he felt said that the effect, even of so great a dose, was not immediate. It might actually weaken him to begin with. Yet Asharti was here, now, spoiling for a fight, and she was strong enough to kill Beth with a single blow. Could he keep her at bay until his body could assimilate the blood? He was about to find out. “I challenge you,” he managed.

Asharti looked at the Old One, wary. “What outcome do you favor?”

“What will be is now and ever shall be.” He sat on his throne. “It is not for me to decide.”

A dreadful smile spread across Asharti’s face, even as her eyes went red. The Old One would not take sides. She cast Beth aside and pulled out her gleaming sword. With a cry she sprang forward, slashing at Ian.

Ian stepped to the side and her slice hit only air. He would have to sustain some damage to hold her off. First, deprive her of her weapon. She whirled in rage and came after him again. This time he stepped into her swing. The
blade sliced his shoulder, but he caught her wrist. She was incredibly strong. He could not win a straight-out contest of strength, so he brought her fist down and jerked his knee up. The blow caught her off-guard. The sword clattered to the stones.

Asharti threw herself against him. Ian braced himself for her weight and got his forearms up even as he kicked at the sword. She would try for his head. The sword went spinning away. She clawed at him, reaching around his defense, leaving bloody tracks on his face and neck. She ripped his burnoose, baring his bloody shoulder. Using all his weight, he crashed his body into hers. She fell back. The fire in him was shooting pain throughout his body. He could hardly see for the veil of black gauze that seemed to fill his head. Asharti threw herself on him again. He lashed out in an uppercut that had his hip behind it. Gentleman Jackson would be proud. Now was not the time for half measures. She staggered back again, but his blow had little effect. Dazed, he stumbled forward to pursue his momentary advantage, but she was up. She hit him a stunning blow to his head. He staggered. She followed with a kick to his ribs. He could feel them break. He fell to his knees. Somewhere he heard Beth crying his name.

Beth! If he succumbed to Asharti, Beth would bear the brunt of her vengeance. He staggered up and turned. The burning in his veins subsided into something bearable. His vision cleared. He could feel his ribs knit, almost instantaneously. His shoulder tingled with healing capillaries. And he felt strong. Maybe not as strong as Asharti, but he was not an easy kill.

He straightened and looked at Asharti, filling his gaze with derision. Asharti made a sound in her throat like some wild animal and threw herself on him once again. She held her fingers with their long nails like a scoop and went for his belly. Disembowelment might not kill him, but it would weaken him. He hit her hand aside and stepped to the left, trapping her other wrist in a grip that was growing stronger. But she twisted away.

“You think you can best me?” she panted as they circled each other. “You who serviced me as many times a day as I demanded it? You who came only when I let you come?”

The old feelings of shame welled from his center. To have Beth hear it said, so bluntly . . .

“Ancient blood makes no difference. I am a master, you my slave,” Asharti snarled. Ian felt her will wash over him. She was right! He was nothing. How could he stand against a goddess? He staggered and recovered. But he knew he could not win this day.

“Ian, don’t listen!” Beth cried. “She’s afraid of you. You aren’t the man she could compel anymore. You are vampire.”

Ian glanced over to Beth. A trickle of blood from her temple coursed its way down her cheek. In the bluish light the blood was black and her eyes glowed with . . . faith. Faith in him.

“Don’t you feel that strength?” Beth asked. “You have ancient blood.”

Ian looked back at Asharti. Yes. He did feel strong. The song in his blood was rising.

“The blood is the life,” Beth said, dragging herself up to stand against the wall. “That’s what Beatrix said. It’s not wrong to feel that strength.”

“The blood is the life,” Fedeyah whispered beside Beth.

“The blood is the life,” the Old One breathed.

“She can’t compel you,” Beth insisted, her voice urgent. “No one can.”

Ian felt the breath whistle in and out of his lungs. Blood flowed in him, through him. The Companion hummed in a vibration that ramped up some scale he could not hear. He turned to Asharti. The fire flickering through his veins flapped up into anger. How dare she!

Asharti must have seen his eyes harden, for she threw herself at him with renewed fury, clawing at his body. “You are nothing!” she shrieked. He felt her nails stab into his belly and he thrust her away from him before she could push
her whole hand up under his ribs, grabbing for his heart. She slid over the floor just in front of Beth. Ian felt the power shushing through the muscles in his arms. He knew his eyes were red, his canines sharp. The bloody hole in his abdomen was knitting. He was vampire, and he was strong with ancient blood and with his own determination. He would finish it.

Asharti did not attack him. She whirled and grabbed for Beth.

No!
Ian lunged forward, but it was too late. Asharti had Beth by the neck from behind. Her other arm embraced Beth’s waist, almost like a lover.

Ian went still. He willed the blood song back down the scale. “Kill her and it solves nothing,” he said. To his surprise the words seemed to boom inside the stone room. Asharti and Fedeyah both started at the sound. “I will kill you anyway.”

“Perhaps I’ll take her with me. I enjoy being serviced by a woman once in a while.”

“If you escape, I hunt you. You will pay, now or later. Think of it as being written.”

Ian saw the speculation in her eyes. Then they flared red. “What have I to lose?” She tore through fabric and through flesh. Blood bloomed across Beth’s abdomen. She shrieked in pain. Ian yelled his protest and the temple tolled with it. Asharti leaped for the black vortex. Ian sprang to catch Beth as she fell.

“No, God no, what have I done?” Ian cried, eyes only for Beth and the blood, blood everywhere. An inhuman shriek behind him brought his head around. He saw Asharti stumble back from the vortex. The Old One had closed it.

Asharti turned, her eyes big. The Old One rose from his throne, a grotesque shadow in the dim blue light. A rumble ground out from the narrow chest and turned into a roar. Ian hunched over Beth as if he could protect her. If the Old One was going to kill them, there was nothing Ian could do and he knew it. A feeling of helplessness washed over him as the Old One stalked forward.

“Beth,” he whispered, though it was lost in the roar above him. “Beth, I’m sorry.”

The Old One loomed above them now. Asharti began to laugh, that throaty laugh. But it had never before sounded so insane. Ian held Beth close and turned his back like a shield as the Old One strode . . . by them. Ian looked up in astonishment. He was closing on Asharti. He had spared Ian and Beth. Asharti wailed, then looked behind her. She was caught between the vortex that wouldn’t open and the ancient horror that now hung over her, roaring. Ian saw it all. He knew what would happen here with dreadful inevitability. The Old One had decided he couldn’t risk Asharti surviving to bring the blood that made his waiting torture. Ian bowed his head over Beth as Asharti’s wail cycled up the scale, along with the roar. The noise was deafening in the stone room.