Even Vampires Get the Blues (23 page)

“. . . took it away from her when she was trapped in the web and hid it. Now I need someone to go in and get it for me. You're Fae, you should be able to retrieve it.”

A couple of soft raps answered the man's voice that emerged from the workshop.

“The curse means nothing in this instance—once a faery, always a faery, even if Oriens did turn you into a poltergeist. It's a simple enough job—all you have to do is find the statue where I left it in the beyond, and bring it out to me.”

Three sharp raps followed. Paen sidled around the door to peer into the room. I peeked over his shoulder, shivering again as the cold seeped out of the room and straight into my bones. Pilar stood in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips as he faced a familiar poltergeist.

“Don't be a fool—you know I was born of dark powers. I can enter and leave the beyond, but I have no power there, so you're going to have to be the one to fetch the statue. Just don't cock it up! I want something done right for a change.”

Whoa. It doesn't sound like he has the statue. At least I know I didn't lose it. He must have taken it without me knowing when I was trapped between realities, hauled it farther into the beyond, then not been able to get it out again.

Paen gave a mental shrug.
However it got there, it's to our benefit that he can't retrieve it easily.

A couple more knocks answered Pilar.

“Don't be foolish,” he snarled at the poltergeist. “It's not that easy to lift a curse, you know. The offer is simple—you bring the statue out to me, and I'll find a Charmer to lift the curse. Take it or leave it.”

It sounds as if he is having difficulties finding someone to bring it out
, Paen said.

I'm surprised he thinks a poltergeist can. Everyone knows beings born of the darkness have no powers in the beyond.

Reuben rapped out an answer that had Pilar snorting, “No. No one else knows where that half-breed elf was. It's safe enough until you retrieve it.”

If Reuben was cursed to this state, it means he wasn't born into it. It's probably entirely likely that he would have his full powers in the beyond.

I suppose, although there wouldn't be much he could do there even with them. I've never heard of a faery who was cursed, but I don't get around much in the Fae world. Regardless, what are we going to do now?

Find out just where it is so you can get it yourself.
Paen stepped into the room, his wide shoulders filling the narrow doorway. “Lost the statue, did you? That's too bad. Sam would like it back.”

Life suddenly took on a very abstract quality. In the fraction of a second after Paen's words were
spoken, Pilar spun around to find himself face-to-face with an angry vampire. But what he did next took us both by surprise. Rather than attacking Paen, or challenging him, or even laughing a mocking, superior laugh at Paen's bravado, he did something entirely different.

He killed me.

A voice screamed in the small, closed room, echoing over and over and over again, a horrible sound that made my brain hurt. It was only after the screaming stopped and Pilar stepped back from me that I noticed he held a knife in his hands. A knife covered in blood right to the hilt.

Warmth seeped into my sweater as an odd gurgling, rasping noise seemed to fill my ears. Paen roared a curse and tore off the poltergeist from where he was clinging, just as if he was nothing more than a troublesome burr. Reuben went flying across the room, hitting the wall with a solid thunk. Paen looked startled for a moment as one of Reuben's arms remained in his grasp, but he threw down the limb as he lunged for me, his beautiful silver eyes almost black.

Beyond him, Pilar fled the room, an injured Reuben crawling out after him, leaving a trail of oily black blood and apports.

“They're getting away,” I tried to say, but something was wrong with me, something was very
wrong. I couldn't speak, and my brain apparently had shifted into slow motion again. My legs buckled and I fell backward against the wall, Paen catching me before I could hit the floor.
Paen?

Dear god, don't speak. Don't move, Sam. It'll be all right. It's a lot of blood but I'll stop the bleeding somehow.

His eyes were so full of horror, they made mine blur with tears. I tried to touch his face but my arms didn't seem to work.
Paen?

I'll call Finn. We'll get you help. There's a hospital nearby. Don't leave me, Sam, just don't leave me. Swear you won't leave me.

I won't leave,
I started to say, but stopped because it wasn't true. The room telescoped, Paen at one end and me at the other, moving farther and farther away from each other until it seemed we were at opposite ends of a long tunnel.

Paen, where did you go? What's happening? Why can't I move?

Sam, damn you, don't leave me!
There were tears in his voice that spoke in my head, tears and anguish and pain so deep it cut through my soul.
Hang on to me, Sam. Stay with me. Don't let go.

I don't seem to be able to . . .

I drifted backward, as if my astral body had gone flying again, but this was different. Sheer terror filled me as I finally understood what was happening. I struggled to keep from drifting, but I was powerless.
Paen! I don't want to go! Please don't let me die! I love you! I don't want to leave you!

I won't let you go, sweetheart,
his voice answered in my head, distant but calm, reassuring.
Forgive me, Sam.

Forgive you for what?
I asked, sobbing tears of
agony. I wanted to scream and yell and fight, railing against the cruelty of fate. Now that I had found Paen, now that he had accepted me and we had a life in front of us—for however long—it wasn't right that I should be torn from him.
Paen! Please! Help me!

Forgive me, my love.

Pain blossomed deep within me, a horrible, rending pain unlike anything I'd felt before, and for a moment I was thrilled to feel anything, because it meant I wasn't quite dead yet. Paen's silver eyes burned into mine a second before his teeth flashed and a streak of pain shot through my chest, a strange lethargy washing over me. He was feeding off me, drinking my blood, taking into himself everything I was, and had, and ever would have, leaving me . . . empty.

He dropped me, let the hollow shell of me flounder and sink into a black abyss, and with one last heartrending sob of sorrow, I was no more.

Sam?

Hmm?

How do you feel?

I'm not sure. Am I sleeping?

Yes. Wake up now.

All right.

I opened my eyes. We were still in the storage room beneath the streets of Edinburgh, faint light coming in through the opened doorway. An odd wind seemed to be howling somewhere in the distance, as if a storm was building. Beneath me, the ground was wet and sticky with blood. My blood.

“I'm not dead?” My voice sounded choked, hoarse and rough.

Don't speak out loud, not yet. Give your body time to heal the injury on your neck.

Memory returned to me.
Pilar stabbed me?

Slashed your neck. He cut your jugular, damn near decapitating you, otherwise I would have rushed you to the hospital. But there was no time, Sam, no time. You were dying. You were leaving me and I couldn't stop it.

The wind picked up, its shrieks painful to my ears.

But I'm alive now
, I said, still confused about what happened. So much of it was a horrible blur in my mind.

Paen said nothing, just watched me with a face that bore so much guilt, I wanted to weep for him.

I held out an arm. It was shaky and covered with blood, but it was my arm.
See? I'm here. I'm alive. I'm . . .
I stopped, horror crawling over my skin as I realized what was wrong. The wind that roared so loudly it hurt my ears wasn't coming from outside. . . . It came from within me.

From the place my soul used to reside.

“Sweetheart, if you keep trying to scream, you're going to bring the ghost hunters down on us, and you really do need to rest in order to heal up that neck wound.”

The horrible rasping, squeaking noise that was my attempt to shriek in horror stopped. I slumped back against the wall, panting with the effort and stress. “Where's my soul?” I croaked.

Pain darkened his eyes, pain and regret and pity. For me. “I'm sorry, Sam. It was the only way I could save you. I had no choice. It was either turn you or let you go, and I couldn't do that. You may hate me for the rest of your life, but at least you're alive. And I
swear to you, I'll find your soul and restore it to you.”

“Turn me?” My voice was still hoarse, but growing a bit stronger. “You turned me? You made me a female Moravian?”

“Yes,” he said, watching me carefully.

I shook my head, wincing slightly at the pain in my neck. “No. When I was a Beloved, you said that was the same thing as being a Moravian. But I had a soul then. I don't now. Where is it? Who has it? I want it back!”

“There is a price for everything, Sam,” he answered, his eyes sad, so very sad. “The price of turning a person is the loss of their soul. That's why it's so seldom done—the cost seldom outweighs the act.”

I digested that. I was weak from the loss of blood, hungrier than I knew was possible, but inside me, I was hollow. Empty of everything but that damned endless wind. Paen had done this in order to save me, in order to keep me alive. But was it worth the cost?

“Am I immortal again?”

His thumb stroked over my knuckles. “Yes.”

“Can I get my soul back?”

“I'm . . . not sure.” He didn't even try to disguise his hesitation.

“Has it been done before? Has someone who has been turned reclaimed their soul?”

His eyes were so polished, I could almost see my reflection in them. “Not that I know of.”

A tear rolled down my cheek. “I know you wanted to keep me alive, but Paen . . . I don't want to spend eternity without a soul.”

He pulled me into his arms so my face rested against his shoulder as I sobbed. His voice was rough with emotion, but thrummed inside of me like a thousand strings set vibrating. “I swear to you that you will have your soul back. I swear that on my own, Sam. You saved me when I needed you, now I will save you.”

A soul means different things to different cultures. To most, it's the thing that makes us more than just sentient, the part of us that lives on when our bodies fail and turn to dust. As Paen drove me home, I came to realize another function of a soul—it connected us to humanity, made us a part of a common experience. Empty as I was inside, I watched dispassionately as people hurried through the streets of Edinburgh. I felt detached from them all, an observer who found them interesting, but not particularly of any value. I didn't care about them.

With one exception.

Looking at Paen brought tears to my eyes. Not tears of sorrow or self-pity—I had shed the last of those crouched on the floor of Mary King's Close. What made Paen different from the rest of the world was his soul—it shone so brightly around him, giving him a corona of warmth and love that drew me like a moth to flame. I wanted to be close to him just to bask in the glow of life that radiated from him. Touching him, being pressed up against him made the howling inside me die down just a little, and warmed a tiny fraction of my cold being.

“How did you live like this?” I asked him as he helped me up the stairs to my apartment. “How did you live so long without going mad?”

“I didn't know anything else,” he answered, his lips brushing my temple. “Until I met you.”

Paen insisted I rest and have a cup of tea. “You've lost a significant amount of blood,” he said as he tucked a blanket around me where I sat curled up on the couch. “In addition, your body is using up a good deal of energy to heal your neck. You'll need fluids and sugar to help regain blood and finish the healing.”

I touched my neck, pleased to see that my fingers came away without any fresh blood on them. The wound was slowly closing, the bleeding having stopped a short while before. Tea didn't sound the least bit appealing. I craved protein instead. “What I could go for is a steak. A nice big, bloody ste—” I stopped, appalled with the image in my head, my skin crawling at the thought of what I'd become. “Dear god—am I craving blood?”

“I don't know. Are you?” He plugged the electric kettle in and rustled around the kitchen, finding mugs, the milk, sugar, and tea biscuits.

“You needn't sound so unconcerned about it. This is a big deal to me,” I said rather snappishly (allowable, I felt, given the situation).

He shrugged and brought the tea things out to the table next to where I sat. “It's not a big deal to me. I am and always will be a male Moravian—I must take blood from others, or I'll die.”

“Well, I hope you're not peckish now, because this diner is closed for repairs.”

He smiled and went to check the water. “I'm hungry, but I can wait.”

“For how long?” I touched my neck again. It was hot, as if the skin was feverish.

“For however long it takes. Here.” He thrust a cup of heavily sugared tea in my hands. “Drink.”

“Sam? Is that you—oh, good, you came back.” Clare traipsed out of her room, her long silk bathrobe almost exactly matching the shade of the pink rose she absently carried. “Finn and I were wondering when you would be ba—Goddess above! What happened to you?”

Clare stopped in front of me, striking a dramatic pose with her hand to her throat as she stared at me in horror. Behind her, Finn emerged from her room, tucking his shirttail into his pants. He, too, froze when he saw me, quickly turning his gaze to Paen.

“I turned Sam,” my lover said simply, sitting down next to me. “The man who had been trying to kill her was finally successful. Or he would have been if I hadn't turned her.”

I gave both startled faces in front of me a wan smile, waving Paen on when he offered to tell the recent events.

“We will find your soul,” Clare promised when he was done, my hand clasped between hers as she sat at my feet, the remains of a mostly eaten rose on her lap. “I have absolutely no doubt that we'll find it. Is there a soul repository of some sort?”

That last bit was addressed to Paen. He shook his head. “Not as such. Her soul exists still, but it is held in the Akasha.”

“Akasha?” Clare asked, puzzled.

“Limbo,” I said, my voice still husky. “You know the Akasha—it's the place where faeries are sent as punishment.”

The glare she shot me was fulminating but
short-lived. “How do we find Sam's soul?” she asked Paen. “Do we just go to this Akasha limbo place?”

“You could go, but Sam couldn't, and only she or I could reclaim her soul.”

“Then you go get it for her,” Clare ordered, giving my hand another supportive squeeze. “We'll wait for you.”

Paen rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired and hungry, facts I knew without even touching him. But his light and warmth drew me. His arm wrapped around me, holding me tight as I snuggled up against him, soaking in his heat with a relieved sigh. “It's not that easy. Beings of dark origins cannot enter the Akasha.”

“Sam isn't dark—she's an elf, a sun elf,” Clare pointed out.

“She was. She's Moravian now, and more importantly, soulless. All beings without a soul are by their nature dark. She can't enter the Akasha unless she has a soul, and she can't get her soul unless she can enter the Akasha.”

I pushed myself tighter against him, half wishing I could crawl inside him to where that glorious soul glowed with life and love and everything that had been stripped from me.

“You can get it, then,” Clare said, her face taking on a stubborn look. “You have a soul now, so you can enter this Akasha.”

Paen shook his head. “I have a soul, but my origins are still dark. I was born without a soul—I will always be tainted by that, at least so far as the Akasha is concerned. I am forbidden entrance.”