With Claude’s accurate summation of the situation, all of the blood lust drained away from the Cat. Besides, it thought, the other fights well and our honor is satisfied. That will teach him not to hurt us again.
Mitch and I transformed to our human forms at the same time, both naked, both bleeding from slashes and cuts.
“I’m sorry,” he said, staring into my eyes. “I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. And then she drugged me and held me here. I just got out of the tank tonight.”
I nodded. “I understand. Now, at least.” I reached over and gently touched a particularly deep gash on his neck. “The Cat had other ideas, of course.”
He smiled at me. “I know. The cat always does.”
Claude cleared his throat, and I blushed. “I need some clothes. I am sure Lily has something that will fit me. But I am not too sure about you.”
“I’ll look around,” Mitch said, “and find something. You go get dressed.” He walked up to Claude and extended his hand. “Mitchell Greer. And you are?”
“Claude Adams. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“I’ll bet.”
I left them to their introductions and moved away. It was odd, walking into my daughter’s room for the first time. The bed was unmade; I sat down on it and looked around. The room was sparsely furnished, refreshingly so after the clutter of the living room. I studied her books, studied her choice of music, studied the pictures she had chosen to decorate her walls. I repented bitterly the years we had spent apart. I tried to determine why she had chosen a particular book over another by the same author, or why she had collected so many albums from a particular group. But she was a stranger to me. And probably always would be.
I sighed and opened her clothes dresser, found a pair of black jeans and a black T-shirt and put them on. They smelled clean and fresh and reminded me for some reason of Elly. I looked at myself in the mirror, dressed in my daughter’s clothes. Held my hair back away from my face. “I am sorry, Lily,” I said to my reflection as if it were her. “I did not know.”
The words sounded insincere even to me. I gave myself her response.
“Mother, you should have known.”
Mitch had found some clothes he said had been left behind by Angelo. The pants were too short for him, and the arms of the shirt were just a bit too long. I looked him up and down and started to give a little laugh.
He reached for the buckle of the belt. “I could take them off again, you know.”
“No. Stay dressed. Where’s Claude?”
Mitch shrugged. “He said he went out for some air and to watch the storm. That really blew up out of nowhere, didn’t it?”
I nodded. He crossed the room to me and touched my cheek. “You, on the other hand, look perfect in her clothes. You are so beautiful.”
I pulled away from him. “Do not try to sweet-talk me, Mitchell Greer.”
“Ah.” He went over to the window and looked outside. “Still mad at me?”
“Not angry, really, not anymore.” I went over to the altar and toyed with the image, picking it up and examining it, then setting it back down in its place amid the candles. “But I am hurt. It will take a while to heal, you know.”
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
“Good. I am afraid you will need it.”
“I hope Victor finds her. “He peered out into the night through the curtain of rain. Then he moved quickly away from the window to fling the front door open.
“Jesus Christ, Victor, what the hell happened?”
I turned and caught my breath. Victor was carrying Lily in his arms, her arms and legs limp, her chest covered in blood.
He looked up at me. I knew that vacant stare and my heart fell. “He’d already stabbed her before I got to her. I couldn’t stop that. But I killed the greasy little bastard.”
“Oh, God.” I bit my lower lip. “Is she dead?”
Victor cocked his head at me. “Hard to say, really. She has no pulse and she’s stopped breathing.”
“Victor?” Mitch’s voice sounded strained, angry. “So how does that mean it’s hard to say if she’s dead? Sounds dead to me.”
“You forget her mixed blood, Mitch. She is only part human, after all. And she has died before. This time, though”—he shot me a harsh glance—“there will be no burying.”
He carried Lily into her bedroom and laid her down on the bed, smoothing the hair back off her forehead, holding one of her tiny lifeless hands in his. “Claude.” His voice was commanding. “Make sure all the windows are covered. We may need to stay here after dawn.”
“But, Victor?” Claude’s voice was frightened. “How can we stay here? Where will we sleep?”
“The other bedroom is completely secure,” Mitch said. “I can vouch for that, having spent the last five days and nights there.”
“I don’t know,” Claude said.
“Damn it, Claude, it’s time you learned how to survive without your props.” Victor lifted his ravaged face and stared him down. “Either stay or go. It makes no difference to me. Or to her. But don’t bother me now with your choices.”
Claude looked ashamed. “I’ll stay.”
“Good. Now go away, get us a drink. Fix the windows. Make yourself useful.”
While Claude prepared the house for dawn, Mitch moved two of the chairs from the living room into the bedroom and placed them on either side of the bed. Victor took one and I took the other. And we waited.
Chapter 35
I let him wrap my lifeless limbs in black velvet wings, let him carry me off to death. I smiled. And my eyes closed.
Even with my eyes closed, I knew this place. I’d been here before. I remembered this halfway place between death and life. I hadn’t liked it much the first time, and I sure as hell didn’t like it any better now. But at least I knew it for what it was.
This time, though, there was no dirt to dig through. No wooden coffin to stand in my way. I knew that all I needed was the will to surface and it would be done.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to that world so full of pain and sorrow and the stench of death. They were waiting for me, I knew, hovering over my body. But here it was quiet and sweet and calm. No storms, no lightning. No pain.
And Moon and her mother and her grandmother and even Philomena were here in this place. I felt them as surely as I felt the others, just out of reach, whispering, comforting, singing. They would take me beyond, I knew, if I asked them. And I could be done with it all.
I stood, silently, precariously balanced, fearing a move in either direction. I heard my mother’s voice, whispering over my body. I heard Victor’s voice respond. But that way was pain. And behind me was peace.
“And death, Lily child, make no mistake about that.” Moon’s voice tickled my ear, and I felt the weight of an invisible arm on my shoulders. “We all of us here already lived and it’s no crime to die after life. But you ain’t never lived. You only existed. Go on, girl, take a chance. It won’t be easy and it won’t ever be exactly what you expect. But you are a wonder, like the rising of the moon and the setting of the sun. The world needs wonder. That man needs you. Even your mama needs you.”
“Don’t you need me, Moon?”
“Child, I love you. More than I ever loved another being in that wicked world. You were my life, my reason for living. But I’m dead now. And so, no, I don’t need you. Not like that. Not the way they do.”
“Moon?”
“You’ll be okay, girl. I promise. And I need you to live for me; otherwise there’d be no sense in my life. Move forward, Lily. It’s the only way.”
I nodded. Took a deep breath. And opened my eyes.
Chapter 36
The body lying on the bed took in a huge, shuddering breath. Her eyelids fluttered and opened. “Victor? Are you here?” Lily’s voice was soft and uncertain.
“Yes, Lily.” The relief in his voice was wonderful to hear. “Welcome back, little one.”
“I feel
strange,” she said, “and scared. Everything looks different. Intense.”
“Yes. A lot of things will seem different to you now. I can’t say that I am glad for that. Perhaps we should have let you go. I am just an old selfish man, Lily, but I am glad to have you back.”
“Old, my ass.” She gave a weak smile. “You are not old, Victor.”
“No, right now I am as young as I have ever been.”
“So,” she said, and raised her hands to her face and her mouth, “what does this all mean? Have I changed? Am I like you now?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I never liked that goddamned halfway shit. And now you won’t be able to patronize me like you used to.” She snorted a bit. “So this is what being a vampire is like.” She ran her fingers over the blankets on the bed and looked around her room with new eyes. “It’s all so intense, so real. Or surreal. I wonder how you can stand it.”
He laughed. “Sometimes I can’t.”
I started to move out of the room. I was not needed here. But then Lily turned her head and looked at me.
“Mother.”
Not a question, but a guarded naming.
“Yes,” I said, and she nodded.
There was so much I wanted to say to her. So much I needed to say to her. It could wait; it would have to.
The sun rose and her eyes filled with pain. “Victor?” she rasped, turning away from me and reaching out to him. “What is that?”
He gripped her hands. “Only the sun, Lily. Sleep now. I’ll be here when you wake.”
“Promise?” She smiled at him with such trust and love, it nearly broke my heart. She was my daughter, true, but somehow I knew she would never smile that way for me.
“Promise.”
I turned away and walked out of the room.
Epilogue
Victor remained behind after all the others left. “You’ll need training, Lily,” he’d said. “We don’t need another like your mother. And if I go crazy again”—he’d laughed—“at least you have a place to keep me safe.”
“You were never crazy, Victor. Were you?”
“Close, perhaps, but not entirely, no.”
Even so, I look over at him sometimes from my position behind the bar and I wonder. There are still times when the vacantness shows up behind his eyes, when the countless years of his life seem to sag off him like a skin too large. But then he’ll look up at me and smile and at that moment, he is all there, alive and vibrant. I don’t worry about the occasional blank stare. He’s Victor and he’s here. That is all that matters.
He bought me The Blackened Orchid. At least, he insists it was for me. My name is on the deed, but he runs the restaurant and takes care of it all. I just tend the bar, moving into Moon’s space quite easily, reading shells and palms for the customers on occasion. It adds color, Victor says. And it’s good for business.
He takes me out hunting every couple of nights. “It doesn’t pay,” he says, “to go hungry at first. Hunger, like every other emotion, makes you careless.”
The hunger takes some getting used to, there’s no question about that. It takes hold, deep down inside, and won’t ever let go. And the feeding is incredible. Nothing I ever imagined came even close to that first rush of hot blood. It makes me shiver to think about it.
Victor says that I am a natural. “I have never trained someone as quick to pick up on the whole thing, Lily. If I weren’t a tired old man, I’d be frightened.”
I have never seen him as old. “You can’t be all that old, Victor,” I tease. “What’s six or seven centuries anyway? Just a drop in the bucket of eternity.”
Angelo seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I picture him sometimes, his curved legs running in fear from that night, brandishing the hand at a sky filled with lightning and rain. But he’s part of my other life. And that’s all gone now. There’s no room for anything in my life but the hunger and the blood and Victor.
As for my mother, well, the way I see it, we’re even. I don’t like her much. And I don’t understand her. But all of my anger bled out of me that night, rolling away like the red crystal beads on the sidewalk, washing away in the storm with the rest of my human blood.
We didn’t speak much while she was here. I was ashamed and she was ashamed. And while we could agree that we’d treated each other abominably, we couldn’t seem to get past the walls we’d both erected against each other.
The night before she left, though, we stood, side by side and silently, in front of the mirror in my room, and stared deeply into our images’ eyes. After a while, she reached out and touched my reflection. Her hand was shaking and I saw blood-tinged tears begin to streak her face. I reached over and touched my hand to them in the mirror. It was as close as we dared get to each other, I guess. Then, at least. And maybe always.
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Compilation copyright © 2011 by Kensington Publishing Blood Ties copyright © 1995 by Karen E. Taylor Blood of My Blood copyright © 2000 by Karen E. Taylor
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