She focused, concentrated, drew from all the living, moving things around her. Closer. She cast the faintest of shadows, drifted gently across the tumbling water.
One with the water, moving through vibrant deep green, reaching up to the warmth of his body.
The energy vanished in a growling rush.
Shadowy and weak again, she drew back, but not before the wood fell silent. Everything frozen and still. The growl intensified.
The dog knew.
She circled him, keeping away from countless creatures that knew to watch for her now. Wanting to stay but unable.
The dog watched.
He sat up, and she knew his fear. Fear of the silence. Fear of her. That was more than she could bear.
She moved close again, drifting like mist along the ground. Floating to his side. Slipping easily into his flesh, calming his jangled nerves. The risk was terrible with the watcher close by, but his need too great to ignore.
The peace came back to her, threefold, tenfold. Peace and strength she never knew he had filled her. Restored her. Brought her closer to her mind and awareness of what she had to do.
Comforting him gave her more than it took.
She followed as they left, the man and the dog, getting closer whenever she could. The creatures and the dog knew her every time.
The man did too.
She savored his opening, his welcome, like a kiss in the night.
Chapter 27
Leo finally understood his brother's obsession with hiking. The trees were beginning to bloom with a rich, lush color and scent he'd always missed living in LA. He tried to resist the thought, but his eyes and nose brought it home to him over and over again. The forest teemed with growth and new life. The most natural thing in the world, no matter that it made him melancholy and lonely.
Rebirth after a time of dark and stillness.
The same quiet and lack of people that had so unnerved him in the village was soothing out in the woods with the mama dog by his side. No, not quiet. Not really. More birds than he'd heard in years chatted and darted around him. Maybe he only noticed them walking without another person to talk to, but their songs were sweet. Small creatures he never quite caught sight of rustled through the leaves and undergrowth.
His thighs and calves burned with the steady climb and heavy hiking boots he wasn't used to wearing. They were almost as new as when Brian sent them as a birthday gift years ago. How his little brother would laugh at Leo's sweat and heavy breathing. Even the dog was moving easily, obviously slowing down to stay with him.
"Your four-wheel drive has me beat, girl."
She seemed to grin up at him, ears perked up, before she went back to watching the squirrels or whatever they were. Leo laughed and shook his head.
A bit labored or not, his breathing felt smooth and easy for the first time in longer than he could remember. The sharp evergreens mixed with the fertile earth to clear his head, and somehow his mind.
Ana was right. Leo didn't yet know the size or shape of it, but life would go on. He would go on whether he wanted to or not.
A couple of hours later, when the gnawing in his belly overcame the burning in his legs, he spotted a broad, flat rock near the stream. More than enough room for him and the dog to relax in the sun and enjoy whatever delicacies Costel had sent along. Leo sat with a groan, leaning forward to stretch his back and legs. He pulled the boots and socks off, sinking his toes into the damp moss a few inches away from the water. The soft, cool massage was heavenly on the burning soles of his feet.
True to his word, the innkeeper had packed a feast that looked like it would feed at least four people. Two huge sandwiches, two vacuum flasks full of hot tomato soup, several small red apples, and a bundle of some sort of meat jerky.
"I think this is for you," he said, handing a piece to the dog. She made short work of it and waited for more. "Don't worry, there's more than enough here to share."
Before he realized it, Leo had finished everything but a piece of the bread the dog was happy to help with. The cliché about being outdoors building up an appetite seemed accurate, at least out in these woods. He stretched out across the warm rock, enjoying the soreness of unaccustomed motion in his legs and lower back. The dog curled up on a pile of leaves not far away with a sigh.
Leo didn't plan to fall asleep, but he had no idea how much time passed before he woke. He sat up, shaking his head. He'd been out hard. Nothing should have gotten him out of a state like that, certainly not out here with his belly full and his body warm. Maria often complained about him sleeping like a log when he took a nap.
He noticed the silence then, the lack of any noise besides his own breath and the creek behind him.
The dog was awake too, sitting right beside him and staring straight ahead. Leo reached down to pet her and felt a curious rumble in her chest. She was growling, low and soft.
"Something out there?" he whispered.
He thought he'd heard about bears up here, and maybe wolves, but he couldn't quite remember. His sleep-fogged brain was slow to get moving. The hair on his arms stood when the dog's growling deepened.
Were there mountain lions out here too? That he understood from living in California. He had no desire to run across one.
He didn't have a clue what to do about it.
The dog got up into a crouch, her head and ears shifting around constantly. She turned in a slow circle, the rumbling continuous.
Leo groped for his socks. He should at least get ready to run. Even if whatever it was caught up with him, he'd give it his best shot.
He still couldn't see or hear anything besides the dog and the water. The birds and other creatures seemed to have vanished.
"Which way is it?"
If the dog would just settle on one direction, they could head off in the other. Leo was afraid they'd walk right into whatever it was. She kept moving, staring in one direction, then shifting to another.
He finally got his boots laced and stood, managing not to groan this time. He picked up the pack, hoping his stiff legs would respond if he had to run.
But something was different.
Despite the dog's unrest and the unnatural silence, now that he was awake Leo was feeling calmer. Nothing bad was going to happen to him out here.
There was no reason to think that, not so far away from any houses with no one else around. He'd gotten the feeling that morning that no one down in the village besides Costel and Ana would care if something did tear him to shreds.
And still, Leo knew he was safe, as sure as he knew his own name.
"Come on, girl," he said, scratching between her ears. "We're fine. Everything's going to be fine."
She looked up at him, her cloudy eyes wide, nostrils flaring as she sniffed in one direction after another. She whipped her head around at a rustle on the other side of the stream. Leo saw a squirrel run halfway up a tree before it turned to watch them.
"See? Things are moving around again. It's all good."
The mama dog started panting instead of growling, and her tense legs and back relaxed a little. Leo knelt beside her, wincing when his knees crackled. They didn't hurt at all despite the noise. He just hated to see the dog jump because of him.
"Whatever it was has moved on. Either that or it decided it likes us too much to eat us. Ready to head back?"
She glanced around one last time, then looked into Leo's eyes. She drew a deep breath and sighed as plainly as any human could before she turned toward the village.
A few birds twittered, echoing each other on either side of the little valley. By the time Leo and his companion got back to the trail, their songs were nearly as loud as before.
The silence descended several more times on the much easier walk back down the mountain, but Leo never got the same uneasy sensation. The dog stopped for a few seconds each time, growling with her hackles raised all along her back. She let him comfort her, though he was sure she thought he was a fool for not getting upset.
> Even after he walked back through the gate to Costel's inn, the sun setting behind him, Leo wondered whether he or the dog had been right.
Chapter 28
The satisfaction was deep. The renewal was strong.
Even after so much searching, so many decades of need, she'd never imagined the substance and joy she could draw from the life of another. As long as that other was the one she needed most.
For the first time, she was fulfilled by drinking, not drained. Invigorated, not tranquilized. She drank until the body had nothing left to give her. Nothing but the filthy blood that she didn't need.
Not yet.
So close, almost what she needed for the true recovery. There was more all around her, waiting for her to take it. And another she'd longed to destroy was near. One who'd worked to destroy her.
The taste was almost as sweet.
And still it was not enough.
The thinnest layer of ice, the slightest mist, kept her from her true form. Her whole form for the first time since she was barely old enough to walk.
She didn't need another soul to destroy, but one to love. One to cherish, one to hold dear for the rest of her long, long life.
She found him, and she went to him. And she gained recovery at last.
Chapter 29
The dream started as so many others had since she died. The dream that always turned into Leo's worst nightmare. Maria was naked, so warm and soft and sweet against him. Leo knew it was a dream as he took her into his arms. Even in his sleep, he always mourned her.
They fell into the familiar pattern, the habits of decades together, his body anxious to join with hers. Making love to Maria had always been easy, from the first time they touched. That didn't change even in her darkest times and deepest addiction. Not until she was so sick and weak that he was afraid to touch her at all.
Maria moved on top of him as she often did, the favorite way for both of them. She was light and ethereal, barely there, hardly enough to touch or even feel against his skin. Still he responded, his whole body straining toward her. Maria groaned and moved with him, reaching down and gripping his shoulders.
The pressure increased, growing slowly until Maria was no longer like a breath of air across his flesh. Leo felt the echo of her weight pressing against him, pushing him down into the hard mattress.
He grabbed her hips, shifting her a tiny bit. He cried out loud as the whispery warm air across his cock turned into the firm, moist, high intensity grip of his lover. Maria leaned forward and ground against him. He bent his knees and raised his hips underneath her, moving more quickly. She dug into the back of his shoulders, her fingers sinking into the muscles.
Maria opened her eyes. The squeeze on his shoulders deepened into pain, but Leo didn't care. The same squeeze, rhythmic and growing stronger, started up within her. Leo watched as Maria's mouth dropped open, and she never looked away from him.
Her body grew more substantial around him, moving out from that heat and grip and release. She rode the wave of her orgasm, groaning low in her throat. Leo had no choice but to go with her, moving her against him, squeezing her hips and thrusting until he joined her in ecstasy.
Before he was ready, Maria moved away and got to her feet, standing beside the bed watching him. In the light of dawn coming through the open window, Leo wondered in his dazed and sluggish mind if this were somehow real, her way of saying goodbye before he left this place forever.
Maria stepped closer to him, and he reached up and touched her belly. Her pale, smooth, unscarred belly. All the marks of her childhood surgery and all the attempts to repair the damage done were missing in this half-dream. Even her forehead was smooth and pale, the pitted dark scar missing. She leaned down and brushed the shaggy hair away from his face.
"Thank you, my love," Maria whispered, taking his hand.
Before Leo could respond, she was gone.
He drew in a deep breath and stretched. Echoes of pleasure still moved through his body. His raging and confusing wet dreams as a teenager had never come close to this. She'd felt utterly real at the end. He could smell her in the room, half of the sweet aroma they made together.
Leo hoped he would somehow still be able to catch that scent when he finally woke.
Chapter 30
The first rooster of the morning startled Leo, jerking him into awareness. He grunted as he sat up, dream fog still clouding his senses. The odd soreness in his hips and back was strange and unexpected. Even his shoulders hurt. He stood under the hot water in the tiny open shower, not much more than an overgrown sink with a hand spray, hoping the muscles would loosen up.
Probably the long hike with a backpack yesterday, carrying food for himself and the old mama dog. He'd be back to his LA routines of aches and pains from sitting in too many meetings and way too damned much traffic, followed by the gym and endless massages soon enough.
He pulled on the door twice before he realized he'd locked the door instead of unlocking it, turning the knob the wrong way without thinking. That had to be the first time he had ever left it unlocked overnight here. Maybe he was ready to get back to his real life and routines, lonely as that life would be.
Low voices stopped Leo before he got to the stairs. No one else had been getting up for breakfast, much less even earlier for coffee. He caught himself hoping no one else had arrived before he realized how selfish that was. Much as he appreciated Costel and his family for taking such good care of him, Leo held no illusions that he was on a private retreat.
Life did go on, at least outside of his lonely little room and his lonely little mind.
He stopped halfway down, this time with his mouth hanging open, when he saw Ana sitting with the innkeeper. She was dressed, but Leo didn't think she'd combed her hair. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she clutched a handful of tissues. Costel sat with his blond head down, turning Leo's unease up a notch higher. When Ana saw him, she started crying and stood.
"Leo, Leo," she said, meeting him in a hug at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm so sorry. It's too much."
"Shah, what's too much?" he said, watching Costel for clues but not getting any help. "What's going on?"
Ana only cried harder, and Costel got slowly to his feet.
"It's Elena," he said, still not meeting Leo's eyes. "She's gone. She passed away."
The floor seemed to drop away from Leo's feet. He grabbed one of the high-backed wooden chairs to keep from falling with Ana's weight.
"I don't understand," Leo whispered. "What happened?"
"I'm not the one to tell you," Costel said, finally looking at Leo. "You need to speak with Igor. I will take you if Ana cannot."
"Wait, slow down," Leo said, stepping back from Ana. "Just tell me what happened. Ana?"
"I will take you, Leo," she said, trying to catch her breath. "She died overnight, at her sister's house. I can't say more, but I will take you to Igor."
"I'm not going anywhere until one of you starts making sense!"
Leo regretted his shout a second too late to stop himself. Ana was shaking her head and crying again, twisting a guilty knife into his heart. Costel pulled out a chair.
"I am sorry, my friend, but we cannot. Let me bring you coffee and food if you want. But it is Igor's place to talk to you."
Leo sat, mainly because his legs weren't willing to hold him any longer. He kept hearing the whispers of the villagers yesterday morning, seeing the old women crossing themselves when he walked by. The lovely walk in the woods beyond the inn with the ancient dog had given his mind a break, but he couldn't pretend their suspicious response to him had never happened.
And he couldn't pretend the almost painfully intense dream this morning hadn't happened either. The two didn't go together, not logically, but his mind didn't seem to care about that.
"Is this because of whatever happened yesterday?" he said. He took the coffee, his hands trembling enough to make the white cup clatter against the saucer. "Whatever everyone was so upset about?"
"Please, my friend," Costel said. "Promise to listen to Igor. I have no wish to hurt you, but troubles like this are his place."
Leo drank his coffee, watching the other two. Neither of them showed any signs of giving in, and he didn't want to upset them any more than they already were.
"I don't trust that guy," he said. "Igor. I'll talk to him if it will help you two, but I don't have to like it."
"No one likes any of this," Ana said, stirring her own coffee. "It's out of our hands now."
"Then talk," Leo said. "One of you, please. Tell me whatever you can. Don't make me go in there without a clue what I'm facing. I've had enough of that over the past two years."
"I told you as much as I could yesterday," Costel said. "This changes everything, and I can say no more. I am sorry."
Anger twisted up from Leo's gut to his head, the strongest anger he'd felt in months. The only anger he'd felt at someone besides Maria in longer than that.
He got to his feet. "Great. An old woman dies and everyone wants to take it out on the foreigner. Whatever works, huh? Just take me over there."
Shame tried to overtake the anger as the innkeeper and Ana both bowed their heads, but Leo refused to give it any hold. He'd known both of these people for more than half his life, and they were sending him off to some stranger over a damned superstition. Anger was the only thing that could possibly get him through such an absurd situation.
"I'll take you now," Ana said, wiping more tears from her cheeks. "I'm sorry too, Leo."
"Let's get this over with."
Chapter 31
Leo managed to keep quiet until he was in Ana's cramped sedan. She drove for several minutes without saying a word, heading through the village shrouded in heavy, thick fog. When she touched his arm but kept her silence, he'd had enough.
Until Death Page 9
