Forever and the Night (The Black Rose Chronicles) (29 page)

Chapter 17

A
lthough Valerian’s body was all but ruined, some essential part of him crouched inside the husk, a small spark of consciousness able to recognize itself and, however laboriously, to reason.

Fact by fact, Valerian pieced together what had happened to him. It had all begun with his love for Aidan, an emotion born long before, on that night when they’d met for the first time, in an eighteenth-century inn. Aidan had been new to blood-drinking then, bitter and afraid, wanting only to say farewell to his sister before seeking a way to destroy himself—actually believing it would be so easy to find peace and oblivion.

Soon after, Valerian had met the beautiful Maeve, still warmly human then, and been tempted to his limits. Maeve, after all, had been a female version of Aidan, and for that Valerian had adored her. When she learned what had happened to her beloved twin—convincing her of the truth had
been no small task—Maeve had demanded a transformation of her own.

She and Aidan had argued violently, because Aidan despised what he was from the first and could not fathom why his sister would willingly choose such a fate. Maeve had wanted to be close to her brother for eternity, but there were other reasons for her aspirations as well.

Valerian had recognized in her a fierce hunger for immortality, for the singular powers Aidan so reluctantly demonstrated, and from the very first he had taken note of her wild and adventurous nature. She was greedy for life, like Valerian himself, wanting to test every sense, explore every emotion.

After the shouting match, which took place in the moonlit orchard of the convent where Maeve had been raised since the age of seven, Aidan had vanished in a rage. Some things never changed; Aidan was forever acting on impulse and then living to regret whatever he’d done.

Maeve had turned to Valerian and begged him to make her into an immortal, and heaven forgive him, he’d done it. He’d taken her blood and then restored it to her, changed.

It still bruised him to remember how Aidan had hated him for that.

For a time Valerian and Maeve had traveled together. He’d taught her to hunt, to sense the presence of other vampires or such enemies as angels and warlocks, and to hide herself from the sun. They had been lovers, as well, in that unique mental way of nightwalkers that was so much more profound than the frantic, messy couplings of humans.

Eventually, however, Maeve had caught Valerian playing similar games with a fledgling vampire named Pamela. After that, they had not been truly intimate again, though they had finally established a bristly truce. For the most part, Maeve and Valerian had avoided each other, but their common weakness for Aidan often caused their paths to cross.

The glow of awareness inside Valerian’s devastated hulk began to gather strength, though the process was torturous and awkward, rather like trying to gather scattered buttons with bandages swelling one’s fingers.

His fundamental fascination with Aidan Tremayne had never truly left him. Perhaps, he reflected, Maeve had known that all the while, known the real reason for her appeal to Valerian.

Of course, Valerian had not been the only one obsessed with Tremayne; Lisette, Aidan’s creator, had regarded the lad as her own plaything. Had Aidan’s angry spuming not wounded the vampire queen to the point that she’d sought dormancy, open warfare between Lisette and Valerian would probably have erupted immediately.

He’d been such a self-pitying fool, he thought now, to curl up in a hole like a wounded rat and let his strength seep away into the rubble around and beneath him. If it hadn’t been for that very embarrassing mistake, he would still be a powerful vampire, and not this little flash of sensibility trapped inside a drying corpse.

It came to him then that perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn’t imprisoned after all. Suppose he could transmit himself to other places and times, as he’d done so often in dreams?

Valerian gathered his being together into a small, whirling nebula of light and remembered Aidan fiercely. If any bond still linked them, he wanted to travel along it, hand over hand, until he found his friend.

His friend.

That was all that would ever be between him and Aidan, and Valerian found surprising peace in accepting the bittersweet truth. In the next instant he felt himself spinning through space, through dark, mindless oblivion, and then crashing against something hard.

That something was the stone wall of a crypt or cellar.

For a few moments Valerian was disoriented. He collected and calmed himself. There was a creature huddled before him, and he recognized it, though just barely.

Lisette raised her head, aware of Valerian even though his presence was purely mental. She was a hag, charred and almost hairless, incomprehensibly ugly, and she shrieked and raised her hands, as if to hide herself from his view.

You’ve failed,
Valerian told her.
Plainly, I am not destroyed.

If you’ve come for vengeance, then take it!
Lisette responded in torment.
I have no spirit for battle.

I will have my revenge, Lisette—you may be assured of that. For now, however, I have more important things to attend to.

With her thoughts, not her melted, misshapen hands, Lisette clutched at Valerian.
Does he live? Does Aidan live? Tell me!

I don’t know,
Valerian answered,
but hear this, Queen of the Vampires: If you’ve harmed him—and I swear this by all that is unholy—your suffering will be without end.

Lisette snarled and batted at the ball of light that was Valerian with one blackened claw. It was the movement of an animal, cornered and vicious.
You dare to threaten me? You are an even greater fool than Aidan!

Valerian offered no reply; he was impatient to move on, to find the vampire he had originally sought. It didn’t trouble him that he’d willed himself to Aidan’s side and ended up facing Lisette instead. That was probably just some sort of psychic short circuit.

Once again Valerian focused all his energies on finding Aidan. On this second attempt he was successful.

Aidan was in a cavern, far beneath the surface of the earth, a dank place echoing with the sound of water dripping. He lay naked, except for a loincloth, on a table formed of natural stone, his still, pale form surrounded by robed members of the Brotherhood. The light of a few torches flickered eerily through the chamber, dancing with shadows.

The redheaded Viking whirled, sensing Valerian’s arrival, and called out, “Who is it?”

There would be no eluding these, the oldest and most formidable vampires on earth. Valerian volunteered his name readily.

“Leave this place,” ordered one of the elders with an impatient wave. “We have important rites to perform.”

I want to stay,
Valerian responded. He could not speak audibly as they did, for he had no body, and thus no throat muscles or voice box to form the words.

For a few moments there was utter silence, except for the incessant
plunk-plunk-plunk
of water droplets striking stone.

“What is your business here?” one of the other elders demanded. They were being remarkably patient, but Valerian took nothing for granted.

The wounds Aidan suffered, he suffered because of me,
Valerian said.
I was Lisette’s prisoner, tied down to be burned alive in the sunlight, and he tried to help me.

The Viking gestured toward Aidan with a meaty, hair- covered hand. “Would you have us stand about yammering with you while he perishes? He, too, was injured by the sun, but that is the least of his problems. The Vampyre Tremayne drank the blood of the warlock, and he is filled with poison.”

Valerian would have sworn it was impossible to feel more pain than he already had—until now, that was. Through a new and excruciating baptism in despair, he learned that he had not even begun to suffer. He receded into a corner, pulsing with private anguish, to watch the proceedings.
Damn you, Aidan,
he told die inert being on the slab of stone, furious in his grief,
I warned you about warlocks. I warned you!

Just then Tobias appeared, sparing not so much as a glance for Valerian. He took Aidan’s limp hand into his own, but his question was addressed to his companions. “Are we ready?”

One of the others sighed heavily. “Yes.”

While Valerian watched, helpless, yearning as he never had for his lost right to petition favor from heaven, the mysterious ceremony began. A golden chalice was taken from a blue velvet bag, along with a gleaming knife with a whisper-thin blade.

The Viking was the first to grasp the knife, slice deeply into his own wrist, and allow some of the blood to drip into the chalice. After that, the others did the same, one by one. Then, when the cup brimmed with crimson nectar, Tobias took a small vial of distilled herbs from his tunic pocket and added the contents to the cup.

That done, he lifted Aidan’s head and held the chalice to his lips.

Nothing happened at first—Valerian was certain Aidan had already perished. Then Tobias muttered some quiet urging. Aidan began to drink, though in the vampire way, drawing the liquid through his fangs instead of over his tongue to be swallowed.

Valerian drew nearer—he could not help himself—and hovered just behind Tobias’s right shoulder. Aidan had taken all the chalice held, and there were crimson specks of blood on his mouth. Before Valerian’s eyes, he turned the blue-gray color of death.

What will happen to him?
Valerian demanded. Tobias was not truly his friend, for vampires did not generally form such maudlin attachments, but the elder had been Valerian’s rescuer not so long ago. There must be a shred of pity or understanding somewhere inside the ancient creature.

Tobias heaved a mental sigh.
I do not know—we had to act quickly to counteract the effect of the warlock’s poison. Even if our efforts have succeeded, Aidan must endure other ordeals and move through passages none of us can imagine.

Valerian wanted to take the potion and walk through the Valley of the Shadow at Aidan’s side, though he did not form the desire into words, even in his mind.

The wise vampire, so deceptively youthful in appearance, read the emotion and responded,
Come, Valerian. Would you truly give up all that you are, all that you have, even now, to be a man again? To live a few brief years and then perish? I think you are neither so noble, nor so stupid.

Valerian recognized the truth in Tobias’s words and was shamed by it. He drifted into the shadows again and fretfully kept his vigil.

Aidan wandered, as if in a dream, back and back, through foggy drifts of time and memory. He did not suffer, and yet he was suffering itself, pain and struggle embodied. While on some level he knew exactly what was happening— his body was lying in a cavern, with the blood of the oldest vampires on earth sustaining it—other elements of the experience were more nebulous. This other self, this mental energy gone traipsing on its own, was as much his true being as the form on the stone slab.

He saw himself, long ago, lying in the undertaker’s back room, undead and yet certainly not alive, either. He felt the horror again, and the helplessness, and cursed Lisette from the core of his soul.

Aidan did not expect to travel farther; he’d always understood that such a feat was impossible, except to the most accomplished and reckless vampires, like Valerian. To his surprise, he heard a whistling sound, shrill and harsh, and felt himself plunging through wisps of moonglow and sharp, splintered stars.

His stopping was a collision, not an arrival, and it was several moments before he recovered his equilibrium. He was in a pit, dark and cold, echoing with the screams and rustlings of beings he could not see.

This, then, was hell, or its anteroom. Aidan stifled a wail of his own, for his despair was crushing, unbearable, and worst of all, almost surely eternal.

In desperation he dared what no vampire would and cried out from his heart,
God of Light, have mercy on me
—/ was
condemned on the whim of another, and not by my own choice!

Silence. Even the moaning of the lost souls haunting the darkness was stilled.

Aidan waited.

Valerian remained in the cavern as long as he could, keeping watch, but he soon discovered that this separate, mental self could not long survive apart from the body. He returned, or rather was wrenched back, to that lonely, moldering place, and there he waited. There, almost against his will, he began to heal.

Neely did not trouble Maeve at her weaving, but instead took a bath, put on one of the nightgowns she’d left behind, in the guest suite, and collapsed into bed. She slept deeply, dreamlessly, and awakened to a foggy morning and a ringing telephone.

The jangling stopped and presently there was a tap at Neely’s door. “For you, miss,” Mrs. F. called breathlessly from the other side. “Your friend Miss Browning, I think.”

Neely sat up and reached for the receiver on the bedside table. “Hello?” she mumbled, rumpling her hair with one hand and feeling as befogged as London itself. Beneath that murky layer was the terrible longing for Aidan, and the unfaceable fear that something was dreadfully wrong.