Immortal Sins (5 page)

The wizard’s head jerked up, his eyes narrowing in disbelief.

Jason Rourke had attained his freedom! It was impossible, unthinkable, and yet, he felt the truth of it explode through him with undeniable certainty.

He stared at the vessel in his hand, and then, muttering an oath, he threw it across the room, where it hit the wall and shattered most satisfactorily. Why had he let Ana Luisa persuade him to add an escape clause when he cursed the vampire?

He laughed softly, mirthlessly. Perhaps he had acceded to her wishes because she was his only child and he loved her as much as he was able, in spite of the fact that she was female and therefore weak and of little use. Perhaps it was time to call her forth from her prison. Time had no meaning for him; he was surprised to realize that three hundred years had passed since the night he caught her in Jason Rourke’s arms. Ah, Rourke. It would not be safe to free Ana now, he thought, not when the vampire Rourke again walked the earth. She had no resistance to the creature’s charm. Should Ana Luisa meet him again, she would no doubt succumb to his supernatural enchantment once more. He would rather see her dead than prey to the vampire’s unholy lust.

Rourke. Where was he now? Vilnius closed his eyes and opened his wizard’s Sight. In moments, the vampire’s image rose in his mind, and with it, the knowledge that the creature was somewhere in America.

Perhaps, with half the world between Rourke and Ana Luisa, there was nothing to worry about. Then again, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

With a wave of his hand, Vilnius repaired the broken vessel and returned to the spell at hand.

Trapped in a painting located in a museum in Bucharest, the wizard’s daughter sensed a shift in the supernatural world.

It took her a moment to realize what it was, and then she knew. Jason had broken her father’s curse! A single tear slipped down Ana Luisa’s cheek. Did Jason still hate her after all these years? Would her father ever forgive her for what she had done and release her from this horrid captivity? Alive and yet not alive, she had spent the last three hundred years trapped in a painting behind a wall of glass, doomed to remain frozen in time until someone called her forth. She had long ago lost any hope of that happening. Save for Jason, no one now living even knew her name. How had Jason managed to escape? Of course, he was a powerful vampire, while she was just a young witch with abilities she was helpless to use.

Three hundred years, and she had been unable to move in all that time. The painting that imprisoned her had changed hands many times in three centuries. It had adorned the wall of a citadel in Spain, a tavern in London, a palace in France. Once, she had languished in a cellar for over a century, with rats, mice, and spiders her only companions.

These days, the painting hung in a small museum near the outskirts of the city. She stared at the night watchman, who was sitting in a wine-colored wing chair, his head bent over a book. He had been a young man when the painting had first come here. Now his body was stooped with age, his face lined by the years, his hair as white as winter snow. Years ago, she had hoped he might be the one to call her forth from her prison, but he rarely looked at her anymore.

She was doomed, she thought, doomed to spend the rest of her miserable existence sitting on the back of a unicorn.

Discouragement settled over her like a shroud.

For her, there was no hope of escape, no chance of reprieve.

Kari woke with a low groan. Opening her eyes, she glanced at her surroundings. Funny, she didn’t remember falling asleep on the sofa. Sitting up, she stretched her arms, back, and shoulders, then ran a hand through her hair. She’d had the strangest dream…. She shook her head, recalling how she had dreamed of Rourke standing in her living room in front of the hearth.

It was then that she saw the broken glass. The tiny fragments sparkled on the rug like bits of ice on a winter day. Where on earth had all that glass come from? She looked up at the blank space above the hearth.

The painting! Of course. She remembered now. The Vilnius had fallen off the wall last night. The frame had broken and the glass had shattered into a million pieces.

Rising, she picked up what was left of the canvas. It was ruined beyond repair. She shook her head. She could understand the glass breaking. She could even see how the canvas might get ripped in a few places. But this? The canvas looked like it had been run through a paper shredder. Remarkably, the notes he had written were unscathed. She stared at them a moment, then slipped them into her pocket.

So much for the fortune she had hoped to make from selling the Vilnius on eBay, she thought, and then shrugged. Who was she kidding? She would never have sold it.

Going into the kitchen, she spread the tattered painting out on the table, her brow furrowing as she tried to smooth out the rough edges of the canvas. Where was he? Had he been destroyed with the painting?

Another memory rushed to the front of her mind, the memory of a man standing in her living room in front of the fireplace. A man with hair the color of old gold and vibrant blue eyes. A life-size version of the man in the painting.

She shook her head. “Don’t go there,” she muttered. “It was just a dream. Anything else is impossible.”

Anything else was beyond impossible. The glass and the frame were just old, that was all. Old things broke all the time. But dream or not, she couldn’t shake his image from her mind. Real or imagined, he had been the most amazing-looking man she had ever seen. Tall and broad and long of limb, with long dark blond hair and mesmerizing blue eyes. Even in the loose-fitting white shirt he had worn, there was no disguising the width of his chest and shoulders. Now that the painting had been destroyed, she would never see him again. The thought saddened her more than she would have thought possible.

“Really, Kari,” she muttered in exasperation. “Tricia is right. You need to get a life. A real life.”

Upon returning to the living room, she picked up the broken frame and the larger pieces of glass and tossed them into the trash, then pulled the vacuum from the broom closet and vacuumed the rug, wondering all the while how falling off the wall had torn the canvas to shreds.

The wall above the mantel looked naked without the Vilnius. Her house felt empty without the painting. Without him.

“You really are losing it.” With that cheerful thought in mind, she put the vacuum away and went into the bedroom to change her clothes.

The rest of the day passed quickly. She went out to lunch and a movie with Tricia, went to the video store to return some videos, then to the market to pick up a quart of milk, cleaning supplies, and some fruit. She stopped at the cleaners to pick up her dry cleaning, and then, deciding she didn’t feel like cooking, she made a U-turn and drove back to pick up some Chinese takeout from her favorite restaurant. One last stop at the gas station, and she went home.

The sun was setting in a spectacular blaze of crimson and gold as she pulled into the driveway. Getting out of the car, she paused a moment to appreciate the sunset. It took two trips to carry everything into the house, another few minutes to put her groceries away.

It was five minutes to seven when she carried her dinner into the living room, intending to watch a rerun of one of her favorite shows while she ate. She remembered the time distinctly because it was at that exact moment that fantasy became reality, and her life changed forever.

“Good evening, Karinna.”

She recognized his voice even though she had never heard it before. It resonated in her mind and in her heart and proved, once and for all, that she was totally insane.

Her dinner plate tumbled from her grasp, sending fried rice and sweet-and-sour shrimp skittering across the floor.

She stared up at him, at a strong handsome face and the vivid blue eyes that had haunted her day and night.

“You’re not real.” She shook her head in denial. “You’re not real.”

“No?” He held out his hand. “Touch me and see.”

Kari moved toward him as if drawn by an invisible string. She reached for him, her own hand shaking as she touched the tips of her fingers to his.

He was real. She had half expected him to be made of nothing but air and daydreams, but he was solid, his skin cool and firm.

“No.” She shook her head again. “It can’t be true. How can you be real?” She glanced at the place over the mantel where the Vilnius had been. “You’re…you’re not here…it was just a dream.”

She closed her eyes. She would count to three, and when she opened her eyes again, he would be gone and the Vilnius would be hanging over the mantel, where it belonged. She would take it back to the gallery first thing Monday morning and never look at it again.

She took a deep breath. “One.”

Another breath. “Two. Three.”

She opened one eye.

He was still there, only now he was grinning at her. His teeth were very white.

“You need not be afraid of me, Karinna,” he said, amusement evident in his voice. “I am not going to hurt you.”

“What…what do you want?”

“I want you to help me find my way around.”

“Around where?”

“I am new to this place, and this time.”

“What do you mean, this time?”

Taking her by the hand, he led her to the sofa and urged her to sit down.

“Who are you?” she asked tremulously. “How did you get here?”

“I am going to tell you a story.”

“What kind of a story?”

“Just listen. A very long time ago, in a small village in Transylvania, a man met a woman in the local tavern. He was smitten with her beauty, but even more than that, there was something exotic about her. All the women he knew had dark hair and dark eyes, but this stranger had hair like fire and eyes like a blue flame. She spoke in riddles, teasing him, tempting him. The women of his village smelled of sunshine and fine wine, but this woman smelled of silk and mystery. Knowing it was wrong and yet helpless to resist, he met her at the tavern every night for a week until he was completely under her spell, and then late one night, she invited him to her dwelling. He refused, and yet, without quite knowing how it happened, he found himself following her to where she lived, a solitary house deep in the woods.

“She offered him wine and refilled his glass many times. And then, when he was drunk with it, and with her, she took him to her bed.

“When he woke, he was in a cave. He remembered very little of what had happened the night before and what he remembered didn’t seem real. Glowing red eyes. The sharp prick of fangs at his throat. The taste of blood on his tongue.

“Feeling disoriented, he left the cave. As soon as he stepped outside, a sharp pain engulfed him. Frightened, he glanced around, wondering where he was, where the woman was.

“He was trying to find his way back to his village when the woman appeared at his side. She stilled the questions that poured from his lips with a wave of her hand and told him what had happened to him the night before.

“He listened in disbelief as she explained that he was now a vampire—”

“A vampire!” Kari exclaimed. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”

“Be still. She told him that he was a vampire. From now on, he would live only by night. He would need blood to survive. Human blood. She told him many other incredible things about his new condition, kissed him on the cheek, and vanished from his sight.

“Many years passed. The man didn’t age, though all those he knew and loved grew old and passed away. And then one night, centuries later, he met another woman. She flirted with him shamelessly, and because he was a man, and lonely, he agreed to meet her the next night. They continued to meet, and then, one evening, while making love to her, he took a little taste of her blood. It was sweet, yet it burned his tongue like fire.

“Confused, he started to put her away from him, but it was too late. Her father burst into the room and found them lying together. Enraged, her father called down a terrible curse upon the young lovers….”

Rourke paused, his gaze on Karinna’s face. She was watching him intently, her eyes wide.

“What was the curse?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper, as if she feared the answer.

“The father was a powerful wizard. He cast the woman into one painting, and the man into another….”

She shook her head. “No, that can’t be true.”

“Another painting,” he continued, “where the man stayed for three hundred years until a woman with hair like black silk and eyes the blue of the sky called him forth and broke the curse.”

“What happened to the wizard and his daughter?”

“I know not, but I intend to find out.”

“It’s a nice fairy tale, but I don’t believe a word of it.” But even as she said the words, she recalled Tricia telling her that the painting was three hundred years old, the same number of years Rourke claimed to have been trapped inside. “What was the name of this wizard?”

“Vilnius.”

“No.” She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, no! It’s impossible.”

“It’s very possible,” he said quietly. And to prove it, he bared his fangs.

Karinna stared at him a moment, then fainted dead away.

With a sigh, Rourke carried her up the stairs and put her to bed.

Upon regaining consciousness, Kari sat up and glanced around the room, relieved to see that she was in her own room, in her own bed.

After rising, she moved cautiously through the rest of the house. He was gone. But of course he was. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be real. Vampires, indeed!

Returning to the living room, she picked up the phone. Tricia answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Tricia? Did I wake you?”

“No, I was just watching the
Late Show
. What’s up?”

“Can you come over?”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“What’s wrong? You sound…what’s wrong?”

“Please, just come over.”

“All right, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

Kari hung up the receiver then got to work cleaning up the shrimp and rice scattered on the living room floor.

Tricia arrived ten minutes later. “All right, girlfriend, what’s going on?”

“The painting…”

Tricia glanced at the space over the mantel. “What happened to it? Don’t tell me you sold it! How much did you get…?”

“It broke.”

“Broke? How did that happen?”

Kari sat down on the sofa and Tricia sat beside her.

“Is the canvas ruined?” Tricia asked. “I know an art restorer who might be able to salvage it.”

Kari shook her head. “You don’t understand. He broke it.”

“He? He, who?”

“The man in the painting.”

Tricia sat back, her brow furrowed. “Kari, what are you trying to say?”

“The man in the painting. Either he’s real, or I’m going crazy.”

“Well, one of us is,” Tricia said dryly. “’Cause you’re not making any sense at all.”

Kari clasped her hands in her lap. “He was very handsome and I…well, I sort of talked to him sometimes. And last night I was looking at the painting and I said I…I wished he was beside me and the next thing I knew, he was.”

Pity and concern played over Tricia’s features.

“I know you don’t believe me. I know how crazy this sounds, but it’s true. Earlier tonight he showed up and…you won’t believe this either, but he told me he was a vampire and…”

“This just gets better and better,” Tricia muttered.

“And that he’d been cursed by a wizard. A wizard named Vilnius…and that he’d been inside that painting for three hundred years. And…”

“Kari, honey, have you thought about seeing a doctor?”

“You mean a psychiatrist, don’t you?”

“Well…”

“I can prove it.” Reaching into her pocket, Kari withdrew the notes Rourke had written. “Look at these,” she said, a note of triumph in her voice, and handed them to Tricia.

Frowning, Tricia spread the notes on her lap, and then shrugged. “So, what does this prove?”

“They’re notes. From him.”

Tricia ran her fingernail over one of the pieces of paper, frowning when the ink flaked off. “This looks like blood.”

Kari nodded. “I thought so, too.”

Tricia shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

“He wants me to show him around.”

“He does, huh? Well, that should be interesting.”

With a sigh of exasperation, Kari said, “You’re humoring me, aren’t you?”

“Can you blame me? This all sounds so far-fetched.” Tricia glanced around the room. “So, where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He was here earlier.” Kari shrugged. “I guess I fainted….”

“Well, I can understand that!”

“When I woke up, he was gone.” She lifted a hand to her neck. “I think he bit me last night.”

“What?” Tricia was on her feet in an instant. “Where? Let me see.”

Kari pulled her hair back and turned her head to the side, wondering how she could have forgotten such a thing. “Right here,” she said, pointing.

Tricia leaned forward. Two small red marks could be seen just below Kari’s left ear. “They don’t look like bites, exactly….” She sat down heavily. “Have you told anyone else?”

“No, just you.”

“Why don’t you come home with me tonight? I don’t think you should stay here alone.”

“So, you believe me?”

“I don’t know what I believe, but I suppose those marks could be bites.” She nodded. “Yes, I think coming home with me is the best thing for you to do.”

“I don’t want to intrude….”

“Don’t be silly. It’ll be fun. Brent’s at a convention in Chicago, and the kids are at my mom’s for a few days. It’ll just be the two of us.”