Blood Red Dawn

by Karen E. Taylor

  “Well,” Vivienne said, with a trace of her former vivaciousness, “Victor has certainly changed from the doddering old man we saw last time he came around.”

  I laughed. “Did you ever think that he was that senile?”

  She gave a little toss of her head. “I never thought it at all. I think perhaps he would be horrified to know how little he is able to trick us.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “he seems to be doing just fine.”

  Claude gave a rumbling chuckle. “You all forget that I was set the chore of watching him, back in the Cadre days. I knew there was nothing wrong with him then, but never saw the need to mention it to anyone else.”

  Mitch nodded. “And with that, I think Deirdre and I will try to get to our room. Maybe we’ll actually make it this time.”

  Vivienne looked away from us, thinking, I knew, of Sam. “And I think I shall still have that walk. Do you feel up to coming with me, Claude?”

  “Absolutely.” He reminded me of Moe at that minute, eager and happy to go with his mistress. Mitch winked at me and mouthed the words, “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  Claude, however, was oblivious to our exchange and I smiled. Yes, he was exactly like Moe. “Just let me stop by my room and change my clothes,” he said to Vivienne. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  The three of us exited the room, with Claude going on his way toward the elevators and Mitch and I heading to our room. When we stopped at the door, Mitch ran the key through the electronic lock and held the door open for me. He laughed, “I was beginning to doubt this room even existed.”

  He moved the Do Not Disturb sign from the inside doorknob to the outer one. Then he locked the door and the deadbolt and turned to me where I stood.

  “God, Deirdre, do you have any idea of how much I missed you?”

  I smiled and reached a hand up to stroke his cheek. “About as much as I missed you.”

  “Damn straight. Now”—he picked me up and carried me over to the bed—“let’s get reacquainted.”

  He lay me down on the bed and was starting to kiss me when the phone rang.

  “Damn it,” he said, picking it up. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Dad?” I could hear Chris’s voice clearly. “What’s going on?”

  Mitch sighed and ran his fingers through his hair—a gesture I remembered and loved. “Oh, Chris, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. But it’s been a horrendous day. Sam is dead, Chris.”

  “Dead? How?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t exactly know how to tell you this. There’s really no way to soften it. Your mother killed him.”

  “Mum?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause. “Mum killed Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, God. What happened? Where is she? Is she under arrest?”

  “No,” Mitch said. “Victor has her.”

  “Victor has her? What the hell business is it of his? I’d rather she were in jail.”

  I reached my hand out for the phone. “Chris?”

  “Deirdre? You’re back?”

  I gave a sad laugh. “Yes. As your father said, it’s been quite a day. But as for Victor, he’s keeping her safe from herself and from any of us wishing to seek revenge.”

  “But why would he do that?”

  “He told me Eduard was his brother. I’m not sure he meant it literally. Then again, I’m not entirely sure he didn’t. One can never tell with Victor. In any event, she’s safe and the rest of us are all right. Shaken and sad, but all right.”

  “Thanks.” He paused. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “As am I, Chris. Did you want to talk to Mitch again?”

  “No, tell him I’ll catch up with him later. You two probably have better things to do.”

  I hung up the phone. “He says he’ll talk to you later. Now I believe you said something about getting reacquainted?”

  “I did indeed.”

  We made love, frantic at first, as if we were starved for the taste and feel of each other. Although in actual physical time we’d hardly been separated for that long, emotionally it felt as if we’d been apart for centuries. I feared at first that perhaps my changed nature would detract from the experience, but instead it was as if my senses were newborn. Each touch, each kiss, each sound he made as he loved me with his whole being was intensified, until they culminated in a thundering climax, one which seemed to encompass and surpass at the same time all of our previous lovemaking. As if this were our first time together and our only time together. I etched each and every sensation on my soul and my heart.

  When we had finished, we lay as if glued together, panting and satiated, but each of us still striving to touch the other. And when we could speak again, we rolled apart but kept our hands joined. We talked for the rest of the night and spoke of our future together and the future of our child.

  Mitch fell asleep shortly before dawn. I lay for a while next to him, listening to the rhythm of his breathing, put a hand on his chest to feel the steady beating of his heart. He slept soundly and didn’t notice that I kissed his lips softly and got out of bed. I picked up my discarded clothes from the floor and dressed. “And now,” I whispered to myself, as I quietly opened the door and shut it behind me, “now I will see if what Sam and Victor believed is actually true.”

  The night shift front desk clerk was filling in the day shift person on the recent hotel events when I got off the elevator in the lobby. “Earlier this evening, we had another scare from the same floor, but it turned out to be nothing. Watch out for the woman in 701, though, she’s the one who lost her boyfriend yesterday. Miss Courbet is her name and she’s quite distraught. As you might expect. Other than that,” the clerk smiled at his replacement, “it was a fairly uneventful night.”

  “Yeah, right. You know damn well that’s the most excitement you’ve ever had in your life.”

  “True,” he said, and finally noticed me where I was standing in front of the counter. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but could you possibly tell me what time sunrise is?”

  “Not a bother, ma’am. Give me just a second.” He turned to his computer, called up the information and glanced back to me. “About fifteen minutes according to the weather site. And it’s going to be a beautiful day, sunny and clear, if a little on the cold side.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said and moved through the revolving doors to the street outside. The sky was tinged with the oncoming dawn and I felt the instinctive warnings of danger from deep within. But I didn’t care, it had been so long since I’d felt the sun on my upturned face, and the aching had plagued me for most of my life. To satiate that desire, I’d risk a burn. Or even death.

  I looked up and down the street until I found a building facing east with a wide entrance and a set of steps leading up to it. I settled in there, huddled against the railing, wishing I’d brought one of the coats Max bought me, watching the darkness of the night sky lighten.

  Everything around me grew quiet, almost as if the city itself waited in as much anticipation as I for this moment. For it, however, dawn was an ordinary occurrence. For me it was at once both profound and fateful, a test of my very being.

  My heart beat wildly, my palms felt sweaty. I hadn’t realized that I’d been holding my breath until the breath rushed out of me in a exhalation of surprise. The very first rays of the sun appeared, far away, behind layers and layers of buildings. By human standards this sunrise was nothing special, nothing like it would have been in the cabin in Maine where I imagined the sun would burst through the trees like a sudden flash of golden fire. But to me, it was a revelation. “Oh,” I whispered, “I’d forgotten how beautiful the sun is.”

  The noise of the city rose up around me, but I paid it no attention. Instead, I got up from my perch on the stairs and stepped down to the sidewalk, my arms outstretched and my face turned up to catch the first rays. I closed my eyes and spun ar
ound, feeling the sun’s warmth hit different parts of my face and body.

  “Beautiful,” I whispered again. “Just beautiful.”

  “Yes, it’s quite something, isn’t it?”

  My eyes snapped open and I turned around. Victor slouched in a corner between the door and the entrance arch, not totally in the sun, but not avoiding it either.

  I nodded. “Yes. It is. Quite something.” I walked up a few steps and sat back down again, my back to the railing and my knees drawn up to my chest. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Yes, we all do. So that the first reappearance is one of life’s special moments. And now, Deirdre, you are no longer a vampire. I don’t know what your life expectancy will be, but I suspect it will be longer than a normal human life span. The vampiric elements of the blood that made you into that creature of the night have burrowed deep within your tissues and muscles, carrying the natural immunities of the vampire. You’ll heal faster than a human, but not at the astonishing rate you once did. You should be immune still to normal human diseases. But you will also age. And you will eventually grow old and die.”

  As I sat there, drinking in his words on my new life, I felt the movement of the baby in my womb, only a gentle kick, a quiet reminder of its presence. Laughing out loud, I pressed my hands to my abdomen to feel again that small stirring of life. “And my baby? What will it be?”

  Victor shook his head. “As for that, Deirdre, I have no idea. As I told you, you are something different. And your offspring? Well,” he quirked his eyebrow, “your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.”

  I sat quietly for a while and wiped away a few tears. “It’s frightening.”

  He laughed. “Of course it is. It’s a new life. Now you have some difficult choices to make, while you are still dancing on the edge of that life. It is still possible for you to return to the vampiric ways right now, simply by drinking from any of your friends, or from your husband. I’m guessing that you’d have better than a fifty percent chance of surviving such an encounter. The baby, on the other hand, would die. Or rather, it would cease to age and live forever as an unborn fetus. You wouldn’t give birth, you’d simply carry it with you throughout your years.”

  I shivered. “That’s horrible.”

  He nodded. “It need not even be a deliberate taking of blood. One night during an especially impassioned lovemaking, you could accidently graze Mitch with your teeth. It would only take a drop to turn you back. And to kill your baby.”

  “But I’d be careful. I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the baby. And I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to what I was.”

  “Right now, of course, you wouldn’t. Being closer to human, being free of the ties of your vampiric nature—oh, yes, no doubt it all seems very exciting right now. But what happens when you notice that your hair is turning gray, when you see those first wrinkles around your eyes, when you can no longer rise in the morning without pain in your legs or your back? When your lifelong partner ages not one day and people begin to mistake him for your son rather than your husband? And then your grandson? That the two of you love each other, I have no doubt now. But twenty years from now will it be the same? How about in forty years? Will you constantly regret the choice you made to see the sun rise one morning in New York City, growing more bitter with every passing year?”

  I stared at him for a minute, then put my hands over my eyes.

  “I’m sorry to say this to you, Deirdre, but you have a decision to make. And you need to make it soon, before you forget what I’ve told you.”

  I uncovered my face. “What is that decision, Victor?”

  “To leave Mitch, to walk away from the vampire life you’ve led and go back to human ways.”

  “I can’t leave Mitch.”

  “Not even for the sake of your baby?”

  “Damn it, Victor, this isn’t fair.”

  “No, it is not fair, Deirdre. But it’s the way it is. Sam’s funeral is scheduled for tomorrow morning. It makes an excellent excuse for you to be away from all of them.”

  “But where would I go?” I asked in a small voice I barely recognized as mine.

  “I’ve had your cabin in Maine rebuilt. You were comfortable there, happy there. You even have a friend still living close by.”

  “Elly.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll think about it, Victor. But that’s all I can promise.”

  “That’s all I ask. For your sake and for the sake of the baby.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes, raising my face again to pull in the warmth of the sun. When I turned back to where he’d stood, he was gone.

  “Damn it, Victor,” I said again as I got up and walked back to the hotel. “You’re still pulling the strings, aren’t you?”

  Chapter 28

  Mitch still slept when I crept back into the room. I sat in a chair next to the bed and watched him, thinking about what Victor had said. I didn’t want to believe that what he said was true, that the decision facing me now involved my leaving the one person I’d ever completely loved for the sake of a child I never in my wildest dreams ever conceived would exist. On the other hand, I had not even a single reason to believe that Victor would lie to me. There was no sense in it, for one thing; removing me from the society of vampires would garner him nothing. Therefore, I had no choice but to believe that he offered this advice for my benefit and the benefit of the baby.

  “But I don’t want to go, my love,” I said softly. “I thought we would spend eternity together.”

  Mitch rolled over and felt for me on the other side of the bed. “Deirdre?” he mumbled. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here, Mitch. Sleep.”

  His mouth curved in a smile and my heart fell. Victor had to be wrong.

  Just then there was a soft knock at the door. Mitch stirred, but didn’t wake. I got up and opened the door quietly. Chris stood there.

  “Deirdre? You really are back! Is Dad sleeping?”

  “Yes,” I said, “he’s exhausted. It’s been a hard time for all of us.”

  “Yeah,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “I’m really sorry about Sam.”

  “Yes, we will all miss him. Vivienne especially.”

  Chris shook his head. “Somehow I can’t help but feel partly responsible. I knew how bad she’d gotten, but I didn’t ask for help from anyone. Instead I just ran away.”

  “Do you want to talk about this?” I asked. “We could go for a walk or something. I really don’t want to disturb Mitch.”

  “A walk? How can you . . .”

  “I’ll explain everything,” I said, scribbling a note for Mitch on the hotel message pad by the phone. “But not in here.”

  We left the room and rode on the elevator. “It’s supposed to be a nice day out,” I said with a smile. “The sunrise was gorgeous.”

  “Then it’s true? You’ve become human again?”

  I gave a short laugh. “I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what I am. At the very least it’s been proven that I can walk in the daylight again. It’s probably best to avoid labeling the phenomenon, at least for now.”

  We exited the elevator and walked through the lobby. “Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked, standing out of the way to allow me to go through the revolving door first, then joining me on the street. “Or can’t you eat breakfast?”

  “I have no idea, Chris. But coffee is always good.”

  “Coffee it is, then. And I might have a donut or something. I’m always hungry.”

  “Yes, I knew that about you. As Chris, anyway. Phoenix was a bit different. Do you remember much of all of that?”

  “Some of it I remember clearly. The rest is pretty much a blur. And you? I take it your memory has been completely restored.”

  “So far so good,” I said. We passed a small diner with tables outside. “Shall we stop here?”

  “And sit outside? Isn’t it a bit cold for that?”

  “Is it? I was just thinking how wonderful it
was to sit in the morning sun again.”

  Chris nodded. “Of course. Here is fine.”

  We sat outside for a while, until a man cracked open the door and called to us. “Outdoor tables are closed for the winter, folks, but there’s plenty of room inside.”

  “See, Deirdre”—Chris said, getting up and holding the diner door open for me—“no one else cares at all about the sunshine.”

  “Silly people,” I said.

  I ordered coffee, Chris ordered a full breakfast. The smell of the food made me feel hungry and sick at the same time and the coffee, when it came, tasted odd. When the waiter brought Chris’s breakfast, I asked for a glass of ice water and sipped it slowly while he devoured eggs, sausage, hash browns, and a double order of wheat toast.

  “So,” he said when he’d scraped the last of the egg yolk from the plate with the last piece of toast, “how are you feeling? Really?”

  “I don’t want to talk about me, Chris. Didn’t you want to talk about your mother?”

  “What’s to say? She’s a murderer and Victor’s taken her away. I would have liked to say good-bye, at least.”

  “It’s better this way, Chris. Vivienne wanted to kill her, but he stepped in and intervened on Maggie’s behalf. Victor will take good care of her.”

  “But Victor’s senile. Isn’t he?”

  “No, Chris, not at all. And for what it’s worth, I trust his promise to keep her safe. He knows what he’s doing.” I grew quiet, not much liking the place these thoughts were taking me. I didn’t want Victor to be right.

  “Well, I’d feel better if I knew where she was, you know? But if you say it’s okay, I guess I’ll not worry about it. I’m glad Vivienne didn’t hurt her, at least. And maybe time away from all of this is exactly what Mum needs.”

  “I’ll be seeing Victor tomorrow at Sam’s funeral,” I said, dreading the words, since it meant I was one step closer to the decision I didn’t want to make. “I’ll ask him if you can visit Maggie or something.”