Afterimage

by Jaye Roycraft

  At the Jackson airport they retrieved Drago’s car and drove Callie home, just before dawn’s pale fingers reached over the eastern horizon. The next stop was Revelin’s office. Drago dropped him off and spent a half hour talking to Scott while Marya waited in the car and greedily downed a fast food breakfast big enough for a starving artist.

  Drago strode out of the office and to the car just as she was savoring the first bite of a biscuit with jelly. He slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car without a word or more than a cursory glance in her direction. She chewed on the doughy mouthful, washing it down with coffee. She sent darting looks Drago’s way. What does a vampire think about? Was he plotting for the future? Was he thinking about her? Or was his mind forever locked in some nightmare of the past he could never free himself from?

  She, for one, had thought of nothing but Drago and the way he had made love to her since it had happened. Yesterday she had never felt closer to anyone. Today never further away. Vampire or no vampire, how could he feel so differently about what had happened than she did? It had been a glorious joining of two bodies attuned to each other and needing each other, but it had also been a joining of minds. She had seen his past, as though he had seen each image, then closed his eyes and transferred each afterimage to her mind. Why was he so reluctant to share those feelings now?

  She dispatched the last of her biscuit with a final gulp of tepid coffee and cleared her throat, unable to stand the silence any longer. “What happens now? You said it’s not over, but what’s the next step?” He may not have thought about her, but she had no doubt he knew exactly what he was going to be doing next.

  “I’ll call my assistant Philippe to bring all my files from the past couple weeks. I’m sure something will enlighten me.”

  She drew a deep breath. Another slippery answer. “What about me? Surely my part in all this is done.”

  “Not until I find out who wished you dead.”

  Well, at least she’d be in her own house. And Drago, for all his hot and cold ways, wouldn’t be leaving her yet. She didn’t want to even think about his leaving.

  “So when will Philippe come?”

  “Tomorrow, if it can be arranged.”

  One more night alone with Drago. Don’t think about it. She tried instead to think what more to ask him. His Spartan answers weren’t doing much to feed the conversation. “What exactly will you be looking for?”

  “The lie. When it faces me, I’ll know my enemy.”

  Patience, patience . . . “And then what?”

  “One of us will be sent to the True Death. No quarter this time.”

  At least that was specific enough. “Just like Ilya. You’re going to keep traveling roads until you find it, aren’t you?”

  “Would you rather I allow my enemies to prevail without a fight, cherie? That would be a shorter road yet to la mort.”

  She was quiet after that, but the trip was a quick one to Vicksburg. When Drago pulled into her driveway and stopped the car, she jumped out, happy to see her cottage with its tin roof and French doors. She was even more glad to see green leaves instead of cactus spikes, and grass instead of sand and stone. Drago followed her into the house, but he clearly didn’t feel the same joy she did. She suddenly wondered if he had a home. Did he ever feel the same kind of delight she felt at being in a particular place? Did five hundred years on earth bind him more than ever to a certain city, or did he tire of places over so much time?

  She brought in her mail and her suitcase, and then she checked the refrigerator. There wasn’t much food, but enough for a day or two. When she went back into the living room, Drago was slumped on the sofa, his eyes closed. She sat down next to him. What she was beginning to think of as the ‘Ilya’ look was back. It was the look of the traveler, weary but determined to find what lay at the end of the road. The lines on his face were tight, not relaxed, and even in repose his brows were drawn together, creating twin vertical furrows between them.

  “Drago?”

  His eyelids slowly rose, almost mechanically, and when he faced her, the startling color of his eyes struck her anew. She realized that half the trouble in seeing into his soul, if he had one, was getting past the distraction of blue so clear and bright that, like a sunny sky, it hurt to look at it.

  “Do you have a home?”

  He closed his eyes again. “I call Paris home now.”

  “What’s there?”

  He opened his eyes and gazed out the French doors at her garden. “A chateau. It’s an old French castle, not a very big one, but I’ve scandalized the locals by turning it into a Russian palace rather than preserving it as a hallmark to French history.”

  There were a million questions she could ask him. And he seemed willing to answer as long as it didn’t involve his past. “How often do you go there?”

  “Usually twice a month.”

  “And for no more than a day at a time, I’ll bet.”

  He turned to her and his eyes flicked down and back up as if he could see her without her clothes on. If his memory was as good as he claimed it was, her naked body was exactly what he was seeing. “Actually, I was there on a very nice vacation when you called my number and left a very odious message about killing vampires.”

  She felt her face flame. “For which you can’t blame me.”

  A slow smile curved the chiseled mouth. “You don’t want to know what I thought of you at the time.”

  She decided to change the subject. “Do you ever visit Novgorod anymore?”

  “Sometimes. I try to visit Russia once a year.” A different kind of gleam came into his eyes when he talked about Novgorod. Something heavier, almost a burden, but something he embraced nevertheless. “Travel’s easier now than it used to be. Novgorod is a modest industrial center today, but it’s a wonder it has endured at all. The centuries have not been kind to the city, but every time it has been invaded and destroyed it has survived to rebuild itself.”

  Marya thought that the city and its one-time prince had much in common, but she kept the thought to herself. No doubt he would only chide her for how little she really knew.

  His cell phone rang, startling her.

  He pulled it from his belt and answered. “Alek Dragovich. Ah, Philippe!”

  The rest of the conversation was in French. When he disconnected the call ten minutes later, she looked at him expectantly.

  “That was my assistant. I had left a message for him to call. He’s on his way. In the meantime we have a day or two of rest. Starting right now. Do what you want, cherie, but heed two things. First, don’t leave the house, and second . . .”

  She put up a hand. “I know. Don’t disturb you.”

  He finished the thought anyway, gazing into her eyes. “Let me sleep until six tonight.”

  She nodded. She was catching onto the drill.

  He reached out and stroked her cheek twice, once with the back of his hand and once with his fingertips. She closed her eyes. His touch was cool, but far from dispassionate. Did he know what he did to her with just the slightest contact?

  By the time she opened her eyes, he was already gone.

  She unpacked her suitcase and did a load of wash. She thought about working on her art, but Drago wasn’t the only one who was tired. She had been up all night with the flights from Phoenix and hadn’t nodded off for more than a half hour in the lounge at the Memphis airport. Finally she gave up trying to stay awake and lay down on her bed.

  I’m as bad as a vampire—awake all night and sleeping all day.

  SLANTING RAYS OF afternoon sunlight crept into her room and woke her. Unlike the vampire, she was too unused to resting by day to get a full complement of sleep. The first thing she did was check on Drago in the guest room, but she was careful not to do more than crack the door. A glimpse of dark hair and pale skin
in the dim of the curtained room was enough.

  She put on old clothes, ate a late lunch, then cleaned and scrubbed her bedroom as thoroughly as she could, trying to remove all trace of the strange vampire she had killed. She changed all the bedding and opened all the windows to air out the room.

  A shower and another change of clothes later, Marya wandered outside to sit on her back patio. The warm sunlight felt good after being cooped up in the suffocating, closed rooms of vampire houses. She glanced around at her carefully tended garden and spacious yard. Drago was right. She did have a good life. She had her nice cottage in a lovely, quiet spot on the edge of town. She had her talent and her art, and she was able to support herself doing what she loved to do. And now she had freedom. Once this was over, she could do what she wanted. She could travel and forge as many or as few new acquaintances as she wanted. Would it be enough to make up for Drago’s absence?

  Like it or not, she had to face his leaving. One or two days more, and this whole affair would end. Drago would be gone forever, one way or another, either having finally found the end of the road, or off to do battle again somewhere else. You can’t love me and hate the vampire. Did she love him? She had never felt such an attraction to any man, not even Jaime. But was it love? She wasn’t sure. He’s leaving. Better that it’s not.

  She smiled as she realized a more appropriate thought would have been, “He’s a vampire—better that it’s not.” Had she truly accepted the vampire side of him? She thought about her grandfather, Nicolai, the vampire, wishing for the first time that she had known him, but he had died at the hands of his own son before she was born. Her mother had never told her anything about Nicolai, and when she had asked, curious, her mother had hushed her and recited a quick prayer against evil.

  Marya retrieved her father’s journal from a cabinet in the living room and looked through it, hunting for entries Andrei had written about Nicolai. There were very few, and those that did exist detailed the dhampir’s search for his father and his eventual execution. Unable to live life as a mortal after crossing to the Other Side, her grandfather hadn’t stayed with his wife after siring Andrei. But the journal detailed very little written in the way of thoughts, feelings, or anything that gave Marya insight into the character of her vampire grandfather.

  She read part of the longest entry.

  August 5, 1968

  It is done. The Evil One is dead. Death itself is unnatural, but in this case, death could not be a better or more fortunate happening. The Evil One will prey no more upon the innocent who were once his own people. He seemed surprised to see me, but quickly hid his astonishment in mockery. He was strong, but young, and with youth he was careless and overconfident. He did not believe his own blood capable of killing him. His mockery died when he did, but it would not have been so with one wearing the experience of more years.

  It would also not have been so had he taken a Master to properly instruct him, but it is the way of the Roma to be independent of the shackles of another. Thus, there is no one to mourn him. For I will not.

  The rest of the entry detailed the exact time, place, and method of execution. She skipped down to the method, lines that she had already read over and over, when she had been searching for a method to kill Drago.

  I emptied my revolver into his chest, and it took all six of my silver children to knock him down. The Vampire Hunter piercing his heart prevented him from rising up again, and the following was done to the body in the grave to stop him rising in the future: I placed bits of iron between his teeth, fingers, and in his ears and nose, placed a rosary on his chest, and covered the body with a fishing net. When the grave was filled in, I sealed it with boiling oil and pounded hawthorn stakes into the ground over his head and stomach.

  The grave is well hidden. My work is done.

  Marya wondered if it was just coincidence that Nicolai was the last vampire that Andrei killed. Perhaps her father felt more for the vampire than he let on in his writing. How could anyone, even a dhampir, think of his own father as nothing more than an ‘Evil One?’

  Marya herself had been raised to think of all vampires, including her grandfather, as evil. Dhampirs, especially those like her father who took to vampire killing, were revered almost as saviors. And while she had never actually cherished her dhampir blood, she had accepted it and had thought of her father with pride.

  Yet what really distinguished the blood of one from the blood of the other? Nothing. My grandfather’s blood flows through my veins. Am I any different from him?

  She was different. She didn’t kill people for need. Her human blood gave her the control to make choices. But was that alone enough to separate herself from those the Roma considered ‘evil?’ Even if it were, could Nicolai, who she believed killed only as a result of an uncontrollable need, truly be deemed wicked?

  Could she ever again think of her grandfather as evil? And what about Drago? For all her initial hatred of l’ enforcier, if she no longer thought of Nicolai as evil, how could she think of Drago as malevolent? She couldn’t.

  She closed the book and put it away. She had never questioned any of these things before. She wasn’t sure she had any of the answers now, but there was one thing of which she was certain. No amount of logic, no adherence to the teachings of her youth, could continue to make her believe Drago was evil. She glanced at the grandfather clock. It was after five. She stepped softly into the guest room and pulled up a wooden chair next to the bed. She had left the door open, and enough light poured through the doorway to illuminate the subject of her fascination. He rested on his back like a corpse. At first appearance he certainly looked more vampire than mortal. His skin clung to his facial bones with a translucent pallor. Life, as well as humanity, seemed to have sunk far below the surface of his being. If he breathed, she couldn’t tell.

  But try as she might, even with the mask of the vampire so evident, she couldn’t think of him as either dead or evil. Stillness bathed his features, but it was a tranquility of peace and innocence, and she associated these things more with the life she couldn’t see than the death she could. She craved nothing more than to touch him, to break the calm and swirl the current of life to the surface. She wanted to see his energy breathe animation into the handsome features. She yearned to see his desire for her again, and she wanted to know that it was stronger than his death wish.

  Most of all she wanted to see all the parts of him kept hidden from the world under the layers of denial and deception that she surmised had only hardened more and more over time so that they were nothing less than rock now. What magic could she or any mortal wield that would be powerful enough to shatter those defenses?

  She pulled her chair closer yet to the bed and reached her fingers toward his mouth, stopping them just inches short of their destination. Suddenly she saw his bare chest expand with the inhalation of a deep breath, and his lips parted to exhale. His eyelids slowly lifted, exposing the blue sentinels that guarded the entrance to those depths she so wanted to explore. Her hand froze in midair, and she felt like a thief caught trying to steal a sacred treasure.

  Wakefulness pumped life into his face, and the waxy translucence of vampiric sleep melted away to reveal the firmness and texture, if not the rosy glow, of living tissue.

  “Go ahead, cherie. It’s all right.” His whisper, like a newborn creature, snuggled against her and sent shivers cascading down her body.

  She stretched her fingers forward until they grazed his mouth, and his lips parted again under her touch. The corners of his mouth curved slightly upward, giving the appearance of wry amusement, but the full lower lip seemed firmly anchored in solemnity by the shadowed cleft in his strong chin. His skin felt cool, and yet she sensed an underlying warmth that, like his features, just needed the stimulation of life to awaken.

  “What do you find so fascinating in my appearance, cherie?”

  “You�
�re beautiful.” She felt strange saying such a thing to a man, and the amused bow of his mouth under her fingers only strengthened the feeling.

  “I have been called many things over the centuries, cherie, but I don’t think beautiful has been one of them.”

  She pursed her mouth in skepticism. “I don’t believe that. With all the women I’m sure you’ve made love to . . .” She swallowed. “What female wouldn’t be mesmerized by those blue eyes or pulled under by those waves of black hair? Not to mention sex appeal that goes off the scale.”

  Something in his eyes shifted. “All those who know what I am.”

  The words were stated so matter-of-factly that an almost uncontrollable sorrow gripped her. She rose from the chair so quickly it toppled over backwards, and she fell against the edge of the bed, her mouth seeking his. He pushed himself up to meet her, but the momentum of her weight drove both of them to the mattress. His arms snaked around her and pulled her entire body onto his, and she groaned in between his kisses. She drew on him as fiercely as he did on her, determined to invoke the spell necessary to break through to those parts of him he so zealously guarded.

  He rolled her over so that she was beneath him, and it was he, rather than she, who worked enchantment with his hands and lips. Desire immediately flared deep within her, a result not only of his current endeavors, but of the memory of yesterday’s union, still so fresh and powerful in her mind. Tingles surged outward in waves to the tips of every extremity, sensitizing her to his slightest touch. Other parts of her body reacted in different ways to the anticipation of what was to come, and an ache almost painful in its intensity made itself known in a most pressing way.

  There was nothing slow or easy or controlled in either her movements or his, but a desire and need that wove together and drove both of them to abandon the luxury of ease and leisure. His fingers, usually so deft, tripped with the recklessness of hunger and tore one of her buttons. She didn’t care. His goal was hers, his impediments hers as well.