Nikola, of course, is fascinated by the laptop…but I’m jumping ahead, and I swore I wasn’t going to do that.
We got back to St. Andras about dinnertime a couple of nights ago. That was the same day that we found ourselves in Innsbruck (where the over-the-top lisping guy, whose name turned out to be Lemuel, had taken us), the day when I came out of my Taser-induced stupor to find Nikola being all brave and heroic and smart, and figuring out the truth behind his brothers and the whole deal with being made a vampire.
“It’s all very well and fine you knowing this,” I said quietly to him a couple of hours later while Ben drove us in our rental van back to St. Andras. It was even more cramped in the van because now we had Rolf with us, as well, but obviously we couldn’t leave him behind to sell out other vampires to the lichmaster dude. “But what are we going to do with him?”
Nikola instantly knew whom I was talking about. We will have to take him back with us, naturally. And I will see to it that he does not abuse the portal.
I bit my lip, a little queasy at the thought that Nikola was so calmly sure I would be going back to the past with him. I glanced around, but no one appeared to be paying attention to us as we drove through the mountains toward St. Andras. I thought we were going to stay here for a bit, so you could see how things worked, and appreciate all the technology and stuff that this century has.
We have stayed, he said with a little surprise. I have seen many things.
Yeah, but we haven’t been here for very long. Certainly not long enough to see everything.
He considered me, his icy blue eyes not so icy when you knew what lay behind them. You wish to stay longer? We have Rolf. We have protected the Dark Ones of this time, and found David for Benedikt. There is nothing more to keep us here, unless you are worried that Rolf and Arnulf will attempt to murder me again. I have told you that I will take care of that situation, too.
Yeah, by giving them more money.
He shrugged. I have more than I need, and they have not many years left to them. It cannot hurt me to give up a little more wealth to them.
I’m sure they had enough to begin with, but that’s not the point.
Then what is?
I made a vague sort of gesture. I just thought you’d want to stay here for a bit. There are so many wonders to be seen here.
But if I learn them all, what will I have left to study?
He had me there. I was left to gnaw my lower lip and keep my dark, unhappy thoughts to myself as we drove back into town.
It was dusk when we arrived at the fairgrounds.
“I thought David was following us?” Fran said as she got out of the van.
I took the hand Nikola offered, and got out, as well, stretching from the long ride.
“He will be along later. He needed some time with his pride before he rejoins us and we can go over all that happened, and what we’ll do next about de Marco,” Ben answered.
“I do not understand why you insisted on bringing me back here,” Rolf groused as he emerged from the van. “I do not wish to be here. It is not nearly as exciting as Innsbruck. I wish to return to Innsbruck. I wish to be paid the amount of money that is owed to me for the capture of my brother.”
“You’re going to be paid a knuckle sandwich and a two-by-four across the knees if you don’t knock it off,” I mumbled, evidently not soft enough to escape Nikola’s ears.
Woman, you are not helping matters.
Bah. He’s being a pain in the ass and you know it.
Yes, and you are inflaming his anger. I do not wish to have to separate you while we are here in your time, but I will if I must.
I couldn’t help but giggle at his stern-dad voice. You’re so cute when you’re fatherly.
I assure you, Io, at this moment I feel anything but fatherly toward you.
Oooh, someone’s hungry, I said, slinking toward him with a look in my eyes that should let him know just how much I wanted to sate his desires. All of them.
He started toward me at the same moment, but unfortunately, life or fate or whoever it is who dictates when things get messed up chose that moment to put a halt to what I hoped would be one hell of an evening.
It will be one hell of an evening, sweetling. Just one that is delayed for a short while.
“Imogen! Benedikt! You are back so soon?” Tallulah emerged from between two tents, holding a squirming pug puppy in her arms. “Have you run into trouble?”
“Just the opposite,” Fran said, smiling. “We found David with Nikola and Io. And there were only two guys guarding them, one of which was Ben’s uncle, and—”
Tallulah held up her hand, glancing over at a group of tourists that were waiting for the ticket stand to open. “Perhaps we should continue this elsewhere? There is half an hour before the fair is to commence.”
We all followed her into her trailer, some of us more reluctantly than others.
“I hate to be a party pooper, or appear ungrateful that you guys came to save us, and now want to rehash the experience—not that we haven’t done that during the three-hour ride here—but Nikola’s hungry, I’m hungry, and we still have to figure out what we’re going to do with him.”
“Nikola, your woman is being rude to me,” Rolf said, sniffing when he was forced to take a seat next to Finnvid.
“In what manner is she being rude?” Nikola asked, smiling into my mind when I sat on his lap.
“Chairs are in demand,” I told Eirik the ghost when he raised his eyebrows.
He grinned.
“She keeps referring to me as him. With an emphasis on the word that is not at all pleasant, or even respectful.” Rolf sniffed again, and told Finnvid, “My father may not have been a baron, but he was very wellborn, and I will not be looked down upon by a whore.”
Finnvid looked at me in openmouthed amazement. “The Goddess Fran’s mother-by-marriage, soon-to-be my mother-by-marriage, is a whore?”
“OK, the next person who says that word is getting a punch on the schnoz,” I said, waving a fist in the air.
And you do not think you are bloodthirsty.
No, I’m not. You are, because you’re always thirsty for my blood. But me? I’m a pacifist through and through. I’m just not going to stand for your nasty little brother to keep saying I’m a slut.
I’ve explained to you that he heard that from Frau Leiven when we were all mistaken about you—
I know, I know, but he can just get with the program and realize that it was simply a matter of difference of apparel between centuries. Oh, hell, now Tallulah’s been talking and I haven’t listened to a word. Hush so I can listen.
Nikola gave a mental eye roll (it’s not as awkward as it sounds), and pulled me tighter against him.
“I don’t understand,” Imogen was in the middle of saying. “You told us that we needed to find Rolf to save people from being killed, and we have done so. Why is the world still unbalanced and in peril?”
Tallulah, who had given Imogen the puppy to hold in order to take up her bowl of water, consulted it. I leaned forward to see what it was that the bowl held, but all I saw was an inky blackness. “The balance of time is still skewed because the threat still remains.”
I looked at Rolf with mean eyes.
“Nikola!” he said, pointing at me.
“I’m not doing anything!” I protested.
“You mean Ben’s uncle?” Fran asked from where she was (once again, drat her young self) draped on the arm of Ben’s chair.
“He is part of it, but he is not the whole,” Tallulah intoned, staring at her bowl. “The means by which the deaths of countless souls can be made still exists, and will continue to exist until it is no more.”
“The swirly thing?” I asked, my stomach turning over. Oh, I wanted the portal closed, all right, with Nikola and me on this side of it, but I also knew just how much he wanted to go home. But this was my home, not his, my time, not one with which he was familiar.
“The portal that you summon
ed must be closed. It is known to too many people now.”
“The only guys who know about it are us, Rolf, and that Lemuel guy, and David has him, so I don’t imagine he’s going to have any opportunity to do anything but be mauled by a bunch of angry lions,” I pointed out.
“That is not true, sweetling,” Nikola said, looking past me to Rolf. “Is it?”
Rolf started, guilt chasing fear across his face. “Er…what?”
“Who else did you tell about the portal?” Nikola asked, his voice deceptively calm. I knew better, however. Beneath the surface, his anger was as hot as the hunger that he held at bay. “Who else did you give the means to destroy Dark Ones?”
“No one! I told no one! Er… I might have hinted at something like a portal to the demon lord Ashtaroth, but—”
Nikola gave a mental groan.
That’s bad, yes?
Very bad.
I glared at Rolf. “You bastard.”
“My parents were properly wed!” he snapped back, but the fire had gone out in him. He slumped back, his arms across his chest, and glared at us all.
Io—
I know, I know. I cleared my throat, not wanting to say what had to be said, but seeing no other way around it. “I have to close the swirly thing. I don’t know how to do that, though.”
“You will find the way,” Tallulah said, pushing back the bowl. I was uncomfortably aware of her gaze on me.
“I’m glad someone has faith in me, because I have to admit that right now I don’t.” I took a deep breath and glanced at Nikola. “I don’t suppose you know how to lock up a portal?”
“Lock up? No.” Tallulah rose to her feet, her hands flat on the table as she leaned toward me. “You cannot simply close the portal, Io. You must destroy it for good so that no one may ever use it again. That is the only way to bring back balance, and to ensure it remains.”
I felt literally sick to my stomach with the knowledge of what this would mean to Nikola. I looked at him, taking in those bright pale blue eyes ringed with impossibly thick black lashes, his long, straight aquiline nose, that chin that I loved biting so much, and felt a few tears burn behind my own eyes. I’m sorry, punkin. I’m so sorry.
He gave me a supportive squeeze. I know you are, and I will do what I can to make your life a happy one.
“You will…huh?”
“I will do everything in my power to make sure that you do not regret the choice to stay with me,” he answered, filling my head with all sorts of erotic promises.
“You think I’m going to go back with you before I destroy the swirly portal?” I asked, knowing the answer even as the words left my lips. Of course he expected that—he always intended on returning back to his time, and assumed I’d be going back with him. “But…we’re here now. Couldn’t we just stay here?”
“Uh-oh,” Fran murmured, getting up and pulling Ben up after her. “I think this is where we make ourselves scarce.”
“I believe that would be wise,” Tallulah said, glancing at her watch. “You may make use of my trailer as long as you need it. I will be in my booth, should you wish to consult with me again.”
“Where are you taking me?” Rolf said in an outraged voice when Finnvid, after a whisper from Imogen, yanked him to his feet and shoved him along the aisle. “Unhand me, you deranged spirit!”
“Come with me, Uncle Rolf,” Imogen said in her soothing voice. “Papa and Io need a few minutes alone.”
“I don’t care what they need, I will not be treated in this manner—”
In a matter of seconds, the trailer was cleared of everyone, the puppy included. I stroked a hand along Nikola’s cheek, relishing the emotions that rolled through me when he turned his head to kiss my palm.
“You do not wish to return with me.”
It was a statement, not a question, and behind it was an entire world of pain.
“I want to be with you. I want to spend my life with you. Dammit, I already told you that I was in love with you, and I don’t have any idea how or when that happened, because everything was just fine with us being fond of each other, and now I just want to cry because I do love you, Nikola. I love you so much I want to stand on top of this trailer and yell it out to everyone.”
“But you do not wish to return with me to my home.”
“It’s not that. I liked your castle. But you haven’t spent as much time here as I spent in your time. There’s so much more to see, Nikola. So many cool gadgets and scientific crap and advances that you can’t even dream of, and you’ll never know about them if we go back to your time. We’ll never have a microwave, or a laptop, or even a hair dryer, and let me tell you, I miss my hair dryer almost more than I do modern underwear and toilet paper. Well, OK, not more than toilet paper. That really is something that is missed once it’s gone.”
“And what of Andras Castle?”
“Well…we can rebuild it, and live there.”
“What of the servants? How will they go on without me to provide for them?”
“They’ve been dead three hundred years, Nikola.”
“But they were alive when we left. It’s not that I care about them, you understand. I simply do not like shirking my duties.”
I shook my head at him, warmed at the genuine concern for others that he felt. “Oh, come on. I think we both know that you are Mr. Pushover when it comes to any misfit you run across. Why else would you have that motley collection of servants? But honestly, I’m sure they got along just fine before they met you, as they did after you went through the portal.”
He looked at me, just looked at me for a few minutes, keeping his thoughts closed off so I couldn’t hear what it was he was thinking. But I felt his emotions. I felt the pain, and the doubt, and the need to protect. I felt his innate nobility of character, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“Then we will stay here, in your time. We will take up our lives here, and begin again.”
“Nikola—”
“No.” He laid a finger across my lips. I bit it. “I did not think I was capable of it, but somehow, it has overtaken me, as well. You are my life now, Io. You are my heart and being and I cannot think of existing without you. You say you love me so much you wish to yell out your feelings—I love you so much that I am willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy. We will remain here, in your time, and you will spend endless nights making up to me the sacrifice I have made because I love you so greatly.”
I laughed and kissed him, tears spilling over my eyelashes as I let him feel the depth of my emotions for him. And I love you so much that I’m going to let you get away with that wholly and utterly outrageous statement. Come on, lover boy, let’s go back to the hotel so I can feed you. Then we’ll go do a bit of shopping.
“Shopping?” he asked, allowing me to escape his lap. “More presents?”
“More presents. But this time, I think, we’ll get me some. And I need to call my cousin. But mostly, I want to shop.”
He said nothing, but gave me a long look as I left the trailer.
“I don’t know why, but I feel kind of sad,” Fran said softly as, several hours later, we stood before the swirly portal.
“He made his choice,” Ben told her, giving her a squeeze.
“Yes, but it seems kind of sad that he’s going to give up his home just to stay here. I mean, I totally understand, because now is much nicer than three hundred years ago, and of course, he has Io and you and Imogen and everything, but it still seems kind of a shame.”
I set down the large carrier bag that held a bit of shopping we’d done before the shops all closed. We’d come straight to the clearing from my shopping spree, stopping only long enough to pick up Nikola’s children and brother before heading for the portal.
I stared at the swirling smoke as it twirled and twined around on itself, marveling once again that such an ethereal thing could work such miracles.
And be the tool of unspeakable horrors.
“This
portal is going to be destroyed,” I said loudly, my eyes on Rolf. He was extremely grumpy, having been woken up from where he was sleeping in Imogen’s trailer, Finnvid having remained behind to guard him. “Your demon lord buddy won’t be able to use it to do squat.”
“You woke me up for this?” he asked, his voice shrill in the night air. “You dragged me out of a warm bed to be shown this portal? I have already seen it, woman!”
“I just want to make sure that you understand that it’s not going to be functioning anymore. No one will be able to go through it. You got that?”
He said something in German that I suspected was very rude. Nikola gave a start, and answered back in a manner that had Rolf sniffing to himself and wrapping the blanket he held tightly around him.
So you think all I have to do is focus on this portal, and will it destroyed?
I believe if you focus all your attention on that, yes, you will be able to seal it forever.
I looked deeply into his eyes. I love you, Baron Nikola. I’m going to expect you to marry me.
So you can be a baroness?
So I can be your baroness.
We will do so immediately, then. “Imogen, Io has proposed marriage to me, and I have accepted. You will enjoy witnessing our marriage ceremony.”
I laughed out loud. “You aren’t supposed to tell people I proposed to you, you big oaf.” I moved around the portal to hug Imogen, who was offering her congratulations. “I was wrong about your father. I am madly in love with him, even though I just know he’s going to tell everyone that I proposed to him. Despite that, I will make him very, very happy. I promise.”
“I think that you already do,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
I hugged Fran, as well, since she was standing next to Imogen. “And I forgive you for being mean to my future husband.”
“Mean? Me?” She giggled. “I would never!”
I laughed with her, passing Ben and the two Vikings, stopping at Finnvid, who stood with one hand on Rolf. “My name is Iolanthe,” I told the former, giving him a little hug, too. “Note the consonants in it. Just don’t name a girl Yolanda, OK? Rolf. You know, I can’t think of a life more annoying than having it filled with you. So I think I’m going to take pity on everyone.”
A Tale of Two Vampires Page 27
