"Not at all," Sebastian replied thoughtfully. "This Rosa that Klaus has become so enamored of has spoken of friends. Maybe we can find one of them, if they make a habit of visiting the mountain at night. They should be able to tell us just where in hell our vagrant vocalist is hiding. In any case, if we find someone up there tonight, we may be able to ease your mind somewhat."
Father Adolph did not look as immediately pleased by the idea as I felt. "I'm not sure it would be a good thing to find them," he began, a troubled look on his face. "I mean, perhaps we should ask around first, try a final time to get something out of the villagers to indicate why they are so afraid of the mountain. I can't bring myself to believe that they are this frightened of a pack of wolves."
"I'd forgotten the wolves," Sebastian admitted. "But, how much danger would such animals pose to a group of adults? I suppose we could arm ourselves, but it seems pointless. One lone man is one thing, but to believe that a wild animal would attack a group is entirely different."
"You are probably right," Father Adolph said, "but I'd feel better about it if I knew exactly what brought about the current strange mood in this place. Superstition often has its base in reality."
"Who would we ask? You tried with the widow of the man who was killed, and she seemed unwilling to talk about anything except exorcism. Who is there that might be more willing to help?"
"That is a very good question," Father Adolph said. "My church is full on Sundays, and they all respect me well enough, but I have no close friends here. It is as though they consider me necessary, and they appreciate my presence, but I am still an outsider. The Innkeeper would know if anyone would, but I doubt he'd talk to me. There are several older villagers, as well, but they are the most close-mouthed of the lot."
It was only a few moments later that a knock came at the door, and the question became moot.
"Come in," Father Adolph called out, and the door swung wide, revealing Peyton with a very agitated Claudia at his side. Before Sebastian could ask what was wrong, the Innkeeper's daughter blurted out her story.
"Father," she said, "I think something terrible is happening. I think maybe you should know. My friend Peyton, he tells me that the other young man is gone. They think he is only off with his new girlfriend, and that he will be back soon. I am not so sure. I think maybe he is gone to the mountain, and that he won't be back."
"What would make you think that?" Sebastian cut in. "Do you know something we don't? About Rosa?"
It was obvious that the subject was difficult for her, and she stuttered through her response, cheeks reddening with sudden color. "My father, he knows of this Rosa. Every few years she has come here, for as long as anyone can remember. Nobody speaks her name, nobody talks about her, but I live here. I know when she is here, and everyone is frightened.
"Maybe ten years ago, she was here last. There was a young man, Kurt, who loved to hunt on the mountain. One day he went off to hunt, and he never came back. I was his friend. I asked my mother, my father, and they told me 'don't think about him. He is no more. Put him from your mind,' and that was all. I asked again and again, but they would not speak."
"And nobody ever found a body, this Kurt just disappeared?" Father Adolph asked. "That was before I arrived here, but I've heard nothing about it."
"They will not talk, Father," Claudia cast her eyes to the floor in embarrassment. "They are afraid for their lives. This Rosa, she is evil. And she is not the only one. There are others. I know there is a black man, though I don't know his name, because whenever they arrive he comes to get keys from my father."
"Keys?" Sebastian asked, rising from his seat in excitement. "Keys to what? Do they stay at the Inn, then?"
"Not at the Inn, beneath it," Peyton chimed in, looking very eager to be a part of things. "Claudia tells me that there's a cellar down there, and rooms. There's also a garage. Nobody ever goes in there, and when these guys show up, nobody disturbs them. It's as if they put it all out of their minds and just pretend that the place, and the people in it, doesn't exist."
"So what do we do now?" Sebastian asked. "He's probably down there, since he doesn't seem to be anywhere else in the village. Now we know. I also know that he wouldn't stay there without letting us know if he wanted us disturbing him. Do we just bust in there and hope nobody gets upset?"
Nobody said anything at first. It was an impasse; Sebastian was worried, and it was obvious that 'worried' didn't go far enough to describe how Claudia felt.
"You must get him away from them," she said finally, as if she saw from their silence that they weren't going to act immediately. "You can't leave him there. He will never return; she will never let him go!"
"Now, now," Peyton said, putting an arm around her shoulder protectively and trying to calm her, "Klaus is a big boy. I say we give him today and this evening. If he doesn't come out tonight, or isn't in his cottage tomorrow morning, then we go in and we bring him out."
"But it will be too late!" she cried, pulling free and looking at them with such a beseeching, mournful expression that, if she hadn't have seemed so agitated, would have made them all laugh. "If you wait too long, he will be like them, part of the night. He will go away with them in their shiny black car, and you will never see him again!"
"In any case," Father Adolph said diplomatically, "we can't just barge into someone's rooms without evidence that there is something wrong. As you say, this Klaus is a grown man. If he wishes to spend the night with a woman, then there is not much we can do about it except to wait. I do agree, though, that he would not remain away more than one night and day without contacting one of you. I believe Sebastian is right. Tomorrow morning, if there is no sign of your friend, we will go and knock on these basement doors and we will see what we will see."
Claudia looked far from satisfied, but there was nothing else to say
So there it was. There was another day of nothing ahead of them. There was no work, and nothing to do in the village that they hadn't done to the point of boredom. Peyton and Claudia left almost immediately, since she had to get back to the Inn, and Sebastian was left with Father Adolph and a hundred new questions with no answers.
"It is odd," he said finally, putting the water back on for more tea. "You young musicians come here, and all of a sudden every strange thing about this village comes out of the forest to be tied in together. So many questions may be answered by this time tomorrow."
"That doesn't make today any easier," Sebastian muttered. "This is beginning to worry me almost as much as it does Claudia. With all this business about old songs that play themselves and legends that leap from people's childhoods to steal them from mountain tops, I'm beginning to feel like a character in a bad novel."
The old priest chuckled at that, and refilled their teacups. They talked over and over the events that had led to that moment, but the conversation led nowhere. There were no answers to be found by speculation, and Sebastian's head spun from the effort of trying to figure out the possibilities. He left Father Adolph just after noon and went in search of Peyton.
The drummer was in their cottage, sitting and staring at the page with his lyrics on it, an intense expression of concentration making his face almost comical.
"Let's give that thing a once over," Sebastian offered, moving across the room to his keyboards. "We can get it polished up some before the maestro gets back. At least if I'm working I can get him off my mind for a while."
Peyton looked up at him gratefully, and brought the lyric sheet over to the table beside where Sebastian was sitting.
"I have a sort of a tune for it," he began, "But I can't figure out how the chorus should go."
And that was how the afternoon was spent. It was time to collect Damon and Melissa and go to the Flagon and Barrel for supper by the time they had the melody line and the chorus to Peyton's satisfaction. He was fairly beaming with pride by then. He'd seldom shown this much interest in the creative side of the band's music, and it made Sebastian smile.
/> "Do you think she'll like it?" Peyton asked eagerly as they headed for Damon's cottage. He rambled on, asked the same questions over and over, so distracted that he didn't even realize he was doing it. Sebastian placated him as best he could and assured him repeatedly that it was a lovely song, which, surprisingly enough, it was. Sebastian promised they'd show it to Damon so he could work on a guitar solo at dinner. It was distracting, and that was what they needed, what Sebastian had hoped for.
They collected the other two and headed for the Inn. Somehow Sebastian couldn't shake the feeling that in some way it was to be their version of The Last Supper. Darkness was falling fast.
Chapter Fifteen
If the coming of the daylight had weighed on Klaus' soul like an unseen burden, the falling of darkness was a breath of freedom. He woke to the double thrill of a thousand new sensations and the sensuous touch of Rosa's body molded to his back, her arm draped softly across his ribs and the scent of her surrounding him. His mind swam with the out-of-control sensory input of his transformation.
Sensing that he had awakened, Rosa lifted herself on one arm, traced a line up his throat with her tongue and slid it deliciously into his ear. He writhed at her touch; he pressed back against her. Turning, he lifted his face to hers, caught her in a long, slow kiss and pulled her back down beside him.
"Not now, my love," she whispered, sliding away and off the couch before he was even aware she was moving. She was so fast, and so powerful. He sat up, drawn to her like an addict.
"What have you done to me?" he asked, marveling at the textures and auras of everything around him. The others were awake, as well, watching him intently.
"You have received a great gift," the black man said, moving forward to offer Klaus his hand, "little brother. My name is Copper, and this," he gestured to the slender, darker-skinned woman who had glided up to stand at his side, "is Alicia."
He saw that Alex, the flautist from the clearing, was glowering at him from the corner. No love lost there.
Rosa stared at him with a feral, predatory gaze, but somehow he didn't feel threatened. He felt differently than he ever had, on the brink of some great discovery that he'd sought all his life and was only now coming to realize.
"We have preparations to make," Rosa said, taking his hand and drawing him to his feet. He was amazed at the facility of his own movement, at the sensation of tireless power.
"For what?" he asked, standing at her side and sweeping his eyes through the shadows. It was too much to take in all at once.
"We have somewhere to go, you and I," she answered. "The mountain. I promised you answers, and you shall have them. My home still stands there, and I think we should spend some time locked away there. I will tell you everything you want to know, and we will get to know one another. You have much to learn before you are ready to go out into the world."
"But," he said quickly, "my friends will be looking for me. We have an album to deliver; I have to at least let them know what is happening."
"You cannot." she said simply. "Klaus, you are one of us now, and you must sever your ties with the living world. We hunt among them, we walk among them, we even, on rare occasions, interact with them, but we are not like them. They would turn on you. They would hunt you down. It is always the same."
He stared at her uncomprehendingly. "Surely you don't think Sebastian would kill me?" he almost laughed. The idea was ludicrous. "He won't be pleased, it's true, but I don't believe any of them would wish me any true harm."
"And if they knew what you must do to survive, what you have become," she continued, holding his gaze easily, "would they not, eventually, begin to worry for their lives? For those of people around them? Do you truly believe that you can go among men, drinking their blood, and that they will accept you?"
The full implications of what had happened were striking home, and Klaus sat back down, his eyes wide. "What have you done to me?" he asked again.
"Nothing you did not desire," she answered, and he knew she spoke the truth. "You have eternity before you," she soothed, running her nails through his hair and sending tingling electric sparks up his spine, "how can you mourn the passing of a single life?"
"If I could only let them know," he said softly. "If I could just leave a note for Sebastian, tell him that I'll be all right. They're going to tear this place apart. Then the producers and promoters back in the city will get involved."
"They won't find us," Rosa said with conviction. "Nobody can find us, once we are on the mountain. The villagers won't come there, and they won't mention the place to outsiders. We will be safe."
"But you don't understand," he said, turning to her with his eyes blazing. "There will be those who will follow. I have millions of fans. What do we do when they start pilgrimages up the mountain to look for me, convinced I'm only hiding out? They'll think it's some kind of promotional stunt."
"Then we deal with them as they come," she smiled, and that smile revealed her true answer. Her fangs gleamed wetly in the faint light of her "aura", and he felt a sudden overwhelming bite of hunger.
He lowered his head into his hands, shaking it back in forth in negation, but he knew she was right. They would never be found on the mountain, and if anyone did manage to find them, well, that person would become dinner. Simple. Safe. Wrong!
"We will discuss all of this later," she said, her voice softening deceptively and her hand once more on his shoulder. "Perhaps we can find a way to contact your friends, send them a letter from some far-away city, or some such thing. You could always send them lyrics and pretend you have just become reclusive. Eventually, they will forget. Trust me, they always forget."
There was a melancholy ring to her voice that he had never detected before. How old had she said she was? He couldn't recall. He hadn't really believed her at the time. It had seemed like some lover's fantasy that they were just living out. Now he sensed the weight of decades behind her voice, though there was no evidence of them in her visage. She was lovely, no doubt lovelier than she had been in life. To his newly sensitized eyes, she was almost painful to look upon. Or was that because she held some kind of sway over his mind? One thing she'd said was definitely true; he had a great deal to learn.
"It is a long journey," she said, smiling. "Even for such as we it will take a good deal of the night, and I want to hunt on the way. You are strong now, but you will need to feed soon. It is always so at first."
Becoming aware of the other eyes in the room, all fixed on him in varying degrees of curiosity and anger, Klaus looked about himself. "What about you?" he asked Copper. "Will you come with us to the mountain?"
"No," the black man smiled, his teeth gleaming large and white against the backdrop of his face, "we have our own road to travel. We, too, will be gone by morning light."
The man drew closer to the one he'd called Alicia, and his arm snaked around her back. Leaning against him, she smiled, and Klaus looked to the last figure in the room. "And you?"
"I will do whatever pleases me," Alex replied haughtily. "I owe you no answer. There will be new terror in the night, you may be certain of that. The blood will flow. I think, perhaps, that I have been too withdrawn these past few decades."
Rosa laughed mirthlessly, and Alex's eyes flashed dangerously. "Little brother," she said, "If I were you, I would not hit the world like a meteor. You may find out that, though the fires burn very brightly, they plummet to the ground all too soon, and nothing is left but cinders. Caution and discretion are the lessons I've tried to teach…you would do well to heed them."
Alex didn't answer. There was hatred in his eyes that glittered like honed razors, and it was directed at all of them. Klaus got the sudden impression of a cornered beast. Fear. That was what those eyes were trying so desperately to cover with arrogant bravado. Alex was to be alone, and he was afraid.
"We have waited long enough," Rosa said. "It is time for us to go, Klaus. Copper, I remind you again. You asked, and you received. If the time comes that you r
egret your decision, do not hate me. You have made your own choices. As I once told you, I may collect the debt one day."
Copper's eyes glittered, but he didn't speak. He held Alicia more closely to his side. It was obvious that it was wrenching at him in some powerful, inner space of his being to be separated from her. It was also obvious that he had the strength to pull it off. Rosa smiled at him, and turned away.
"Come, she said," taking Klaus by the arm and propelling him toward the door. "We must go."
And she was gone. For the briefest of moments, Klaus stood staring at the others, unsure of what to do next. Then, willing himself past the door, he felt a strange undulation and he stood outside. Then he was on four legs, pounding swiftly after Rosa's retreating form through the trees and into the darkness beyond.
They paralleled the trail that led to the shrine, moving more rapidly across the terrain than he had ever moved. It was an odd, disorienting effect, the sight of the ground flowing so close beneath him, and the rhythm of the four-legged gait. It wasn't cumbersome, nor did it cause him undue difficulty, but it was new and very different. The first, he thought, of his ‘lessons.'
They hesitated on the small plateau at the top of the stone steps of the shrine, and he momentarily locked with her gaze. Her mind reached out to his then, and he recognized what he should have known all along.
"The altar," she said, her canine lips curling in a snarl that must have been meant as a smile, "it was built to me."
Then she whirled and was gone, loping up the hillside beyond and he was left to scramble after her, stunned at the implications of what he'd just heard. What in hell had he gotten himself into? Even as he thought this, he felt the tug of her on his body, on his soul. Whatever was to come, he was bound to her now, good or ill. Whatever else had happened to him, the one certain thing was that he was hers.
Darkness Falling Page 15
