Beauty and the Beast (15 page)

Angela helped Vincent get Geoffrey settled in bed.

Then they went into the girls’ chamber. All of the girls except Samantha were already asleep. Vincent tucked Samantha in and gave her a kiss on the forehead. She turned over and curled up. Then he stood up and listened.

Angela looked up at Vincent and asked, “What is it, Vincent?”

Vincent looked down at her and said, “Someone is talking in her sleep.”

Angela nodded her head, “That would be Lana. She just started doing that a couple of weeks ago.”

Vincent walked over to Lana’s bed and watched the pretty twelve-year-old brunette as she slept. Presently she talked again, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. Angela was standing by him, and he turned to her. “She doesn’t seem to be distressed. I don’t think she

is having a nightmare.”

Angela reassured him, “I’ve never seen any indication that she has nightmares. She just seems to talk.”

Vincent put his hand gently on Lana’s forehead, and she smiled in her sleep and turned over. Vincent smiled too. “You will let me know if she ever has a nightmare, won’t you Angela?”

Angela smiled at him, “Of course, Vincent.”

With the story over, everyone was filing out of the kitchen to begin their daily activities and to go to their school classes. Tall slender Olivia, with her long auburn hair a little more brown than Diana’s, came over smiling, picked up Luke from off Diana’s lap, and left with him.

Diana shook her head. “Vincent is like a shepherd gathering up all of his little lost sheep.”

Rebecca smiled at that apt comparison, “Exactly, little lost sheep like you!”

Diana echoed, “Yes, like me. Poor Vincent, no wonder he’s still in bed!”

Rebecca added, “It makes him happy to do that, Diana. He loves watching over us, and he never rests until he knows everyone he loves is safe and well taken care of.”

Diana got up and grabbed her coat, with the precious journal in the pocket, off the back of the chair. “Will you guide me to Vincent’s chamber, Rebecca? I need to talk to him and Father about the reason he had to come and rescue me last night.”

Meanwhile, in his chamber Vincent was dreaming again. This time he was reliving the events that had left him abandoned outside St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan thirty-five years earlier:

Vincent felt safe in his pretty mother’s arms. She had long soft honey-blond hair which he loved to stroke. Her laughing eyes were crystal-blue, and her voice was soft and melodious. She carried Vincent into a room filled with sunlight where the walls and roof were made of glass. Then she showed him a beautiful bush in full bloom with a flowering vine winding up through its branches. The sweet scent was intoxicating, and Vincent reached for the flowers.

Suddenly, glass was breaking and his mother was screaming. Strange men with angry faces were coming toward them, and his mother pulled him closer to her and backed up. Then he heard the angry roar of a wild lion.

Vincent’s father burst through the door from the main part of the house. His father looked like he did, except that his father’s hair was black and his eyes were dark grey. The men screamed in terror when they turned around to face his father. They pulled out guns and started shooting at his father, but that didn’t stop him from charging at them.

Vincent’s mother took advantage of their confusion and ran out the door to the outside and into the city beyond in the frigid January weather. His mother was very scared and so was Vincent, but he stayed quiet as she ran. It seemed like she ran forever, but then she paused in front of a sign. The sign read, St. Vincent’s Hospital.

“Look Vincent! They named the hospital for you.” She tried to sound reassuring for him, but he could tell she was still very frightened. She went into the alley behind the hospital to where there were several dumpsters.

There, she caught sight of an abandoned baby doll, and she knew what she must do. She checked the dumpsters and finally found some old linen bedding that had been thrown out. Vincent’s mother quickly took his clothes off him and wrapped him securely in the ragged bedding. Then she dressed the baby doll in his clothes. Next, she found a window-well behind the hospital where the window was heavily curtained, so no one could see what was outside. She placed Vincent, wrapped up like a present, down inside the window-well so he would be safe.

She told him to be very still and quiet, and she would come back to get him just as quickly as she could. She had kissed and hugged him, and that was the last time Vincent ever saw his mother.

The next time someone picked Vincent up and pulled the bedding back from his face, he found himself looking up into the surprised but smiling face of Narcissa. She exclaimed, “There you are!”

Suddenly, Vincent was no longer a baby. He was standing by a pink rosebush in full bloom with honeysuckle vines growing up through the center of it twining around the branches with white and yellow blossoms. The blended scent of those two flowers blooming together smelled like—Catherine! Then Vincent remembered. These were the flowers his mother had taken him to see from the time they began blooming together in the solarium. He loved them so much that she took him to see them nearly every day. It had been an happy memory at the edge of his mind that he had not been able to quite reach until now, and he understood why. It was a memory which was also associated with the terrifying attack on his family.

More than thirty years later, Vincent had been drawn out of the Central Park drainage tunnel by that same smell of roses and honeysuckle, but he didn’t know why that sweet scent seemed so familiar. That was how he had found Catherine. The perfume she always wore smelled of

roses and honeysuckle. That day that wonderful scent of her perfume was mixed with the smell of blood from her facial wounds. That same scent of flowers in the solarium was also mixed with the smell of blood when Vincent’s father was shot.

He heard a woman’s voice speak softly to his mind, and it wasn’t Catherine or anyone else he knew. She said, “You are not some failed experiment dreamed up in the tortured mind of Paracelsus. You are a Tandin.”

Vincent awakened with a start and exclaimed, “Narcissa!”

Diana was watching Vincent as she rocked Little Jacob in the rocking chair. “That was some wild dream you were having. Are you OK?”

Vincent didn’t say a word. He sat up on the edge of the bed, pulled his boots on and stood up. He took the baby out of Diana’s arms, took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. “Come with me! We need to go see Father.” Diana was barely able to snatch her coat off Vincent’s table before he dragged her out the door.

Diana could clearly see that Vincent was too distracted to talk, so she just let him pull her by the hand through the tunnels toward Father’s chambers. When Mary came

upon them headed that way and saw the look on Vincent’s face she said, “I was just coming to get Little Jacob for his bath. Peter is sending down another bottle of breast milk. Why don’t you let me take him for now, and 111 bring him to you when he is all fed and bathed?”

Vincent smiled at her. “Thank you, Mary. That would be wonderful.” He handed the baby to her, and she headed for the bathing chambers.

When Vincent and Diana arrived at Father’s chambers, Vincent asked him, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that it was Narcissa who brought me to Anna?”

Father couldn’t conceal his surprise at the question. “Frankly, I’m surprised she never told you herself. You were forever sneaking down there to see her. I just figured if she wanted you to know, she would tell you. You actually remembered that?”

Vincent replied, “I just had another dream. This one was about how I came to be abandoned outside of St. Vincent’s Hospital above our world in Manhattan. No wonder I’ve always felt so close to Narcissa. I must go see her, but before I do that, I need to ask you if you have ever heard of the Tandins.”

Father wrinkled his forehead and queried, “Tandins?” Diana spoke up at that point. “That is actually why I am here, to tell you about what I found, and also to warn you about what I heard.” Vincent and Father watched her reach into the inside pocket of her coat and pull out the small journal. “You both need to sit down. My mind was

completely blown by what I read in this little book, but the information is both wonderful and tragic. Vincent, did I understand correctly that you just now dreamed about being abandoned at St. Vincent’s Hospital?”

Father and Vincent sat down in chairs around the table, and Diana sat down in the armchair next to it. Vincent answered her. “Yes, and it was a very vivid dream with details that were as clear as being here with the two of you.”

Father looked at Vincent intently. “Vincent, tell us what you saw!”

Vincent related his dream to Father and Diana, and then he said, “I can’t understand why I am remembering that now. I have never been able to remember anything about how I ended up being here before.”

Diana offered an explanation. “Vincent, I think you had help remembering that. According to what I discovered at Gabriel’s mansion, you are not alone. What I mean is that you are not the only one of your kind. In fact, you have a very rich heritage. Your people are telepaths, and I think they are trying to help you recover your lost memories now. I found a secret room behind an hidden wall panel in Gabriel’s mansion, and this journal was in it. It gives a very detailed explanation for Gabriel’s obsession with you and Little Jacob.”

Diana then read them the entries from Dr. Dominik Vlas’journal. When she had finished she said, “Vincent, your dream completes that tragic tale. I think it is also apparent that your Uncle Tanimus knew about Father’s world before you and your mother were attacked. He must have contacted Narcissa telepathically to rescue you, because he was too far away to get to you in time. Also, he would have had the same handicap you have with the danger of being discovered above ground.”

Vincent stared at her trying to absorb it all. Hearing his dream confirmed by the journal gave him a feeling of peace he had never experienced before. “I have another family. I have a twin sister! I wonder if it was her voice I heard in my dream. I actually have an history and heritage to offer my son.”

Diana and Father looked at one another, and both of them were thinking the same thing, “And your wife.”

Diana said with sadness in her voice, “Remember when you gave me Snow’s opal ring to research, so I could try to find out who Gabriel was? It’s unfortunate that Gabriel took that opal ring away from me. I know that Dr. Vlas would have wanted you to have it.”

Vincent looked at her and smiled. “Actually, I do have that ring, Diana. Gabriel gave it to me as proof that he had killed you. Seeing you alive was all that saved him from me.”

Diana closed her eyes in relief. “That ring actually belonged to Dr. Vlas, Vincent.” She then related to them the sordid details of the murder of Dr. Vlas by Gabriel as she had heard them from Adrian while she was in the secret room. “That ring was a family heirloom meant to

inspire the search for truth, not evil crimes. It certainly was never intended as a means to reward an assassin for covering up Dr. Vlas’ murder! I know he would be really happy to know that you have it. His final wish before he was killed was that the crimes against your family would somehow be made right.”

Father looked at Vincent and said, “Vincent, that journal answers the question you have always had about whether you are a man or not.”

Diana nodded her head. “You’re a man all right. You are just human plus! We are ordinary. You and your people are extraordinary!”

Father added, “That also explains why Little Jacob looks so human. He is only one-quarter Tandin. It also explains why you became so sick after Narcissa brought you to us and why you cried for three days straight. I was sure you were going to die. I held you and talked to you almost non-stop, and then on the fourth day you suddenly became well. Without understanding what I was doing, I guess I managed to make an empathic connection with you which you needed. You haven’t had the telepathic support and training you would have received if you had grown up with the Tandins. It is no wonder you have had such terrible mental struggles all of your life.”

Vincent smiled at Father. “No child was ever more loved and supported than I was, Father. Apparently Uncle Tanimus had confidence that you were providing me with what I needed, because he decided that it wasn’t

necessary to interfere.”

Diana smiled at Vincent as something else occurred to her. “You know, Vincent, your dream about the rosebush explains all of the pressed roses I found at Catherine’s apartment when I was profiling her. I think she must have kept every rose you ever gave to her, and they weren’t just a few. Many of the books you inscribed for her had passages marked with pressed roses.”

Vincent smiled at the memories. “Yes, any time the rosebushes in Central Park were blooming I would pick one to take to her or would press one to save. I always marked my favorite passages in the books I gave to her with those pressed roses.”

Diana then dropped the bad news on them. “Unfortunately, Gabriel’s empire didn’t disintegrate with his death. As I told you, his older brother, Adrian, is very much alive and well. He is even worse than Gabriel and is still obsessed with finding you, Vincent. I saw that one of the police officers who escorted me yesterday morning is on his payroll. They have my apartment staked out with orders to report to Adrian as soon as they locate me.” Diana deliberately left out the personal threat Adrian had made against her life. If Vincent knew about that, he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, and then he would be in dire danger.

“We have that problem covered now.” The three of them looked at the doorway where the voice was coming from. In stepped Chuck Johnson. He came down the

stairs to them and sat at the table.

Diana looked at Father with her eyebrows raised and Father explained. “We sent a message to Chuck early this morning about the nasty surveillance situation at your loft. What did you come up with, Chuck?”