Beyond the Night (15 page)

He shouldn't have come here. The pain of the consequences of his decisions was too acute. He caught the faintest ripple of a breeze just as he heard a sound from somewhere deep in the recesses of the burn and ash.

A voice? A purr? A laugh? He checked his loft and angled back down to the stoop. Perched. Listened. He heard a voice, blurred and low.

He flew into the debris to get closer, wading through the dust, grit, dirt, smoke-larded ash. He surmised he was in the parlor, though every detail had burned away, the staircase was gone, and the floor had pancaked into the one below.

He heard faint, muffled sounds and followed them into the inky-dark devastation of the lower floor.

Charles had obviously decided that opportunity was at hand, and he'd brought Dnitra to this hellhole to roll around naked in the ash and dirt as he unleashed orgasm after orgasm into her accommodating body.

Dominick watched, his fury quickly inching into bloodred rage.

The son of a bitch. He felt his body unfolding, transforming, and shifting into a kill stance. He felt like attacking and ripping both of their bodies to shreds. But he waited as Charles kept banging away and Dnitra's screams echoed into the night.

The bitch. Betraying Iosefescu for the possibility of carrying a child of commingled blood. To be the vessel who bore the Eternal Ruler.

Or had Iosefescu planned it that way?

It was time Dnitra paid for her sins. He hadn't thought to kill them both tonight, but they were vulnerable in their nudity and their brazen coupling. And their certainty no one would ever discover them.

That deserved some acknowledgment. He would attack them at their most susceptible points, the places where blood would drain profusely and the body could not easily heal.

All he needed was a length of charred wood. He burrowed into the debris until he found one the size of a dagger that didn't crumble in his hand.

Not totally burned through. Enough heft to do some damage.

If he aimed at Charles's gutless heart.

He perched just above them, carefully calculating the right angle, just the right moment to launch the makeshift dagger.

He aimed it to pierce right to the small of Charles's back, to graze his spine, to stop his pumping. He aimed it to damage Charles to the point where he could never have sex again.

Dominick wanted blood, and blood he would have.

Charles howled, cursing to the night sky as he rolled off Dnitra's still undulating body and reached for the object impaled in his back, which he could not, as Dominick intended, reach.

Dnitra never saw Dominick with the burn-scuffed plank as he swung it hard and heavy at her head.

Blood and brain matter flew, and she collapsed into the muck of soot and ash, a naked rag doll.

Charles lifted himself on one elbow. “She's dead.” He was beginning to grasp just what had happened.

“That was my intention,” Dominick said flatly.

“Get this thing out of me . . . ,” Charles managed to say, before he slumped over trying to grasp the wooden dagger still impaled at the base of his spine. He was unconscious and dying and could not summon any kind of healing power to make a difference.

But just to make certain, Dominick swung the plank at Charles's head. Harder this time; the bastard deserved it. Dominick stoically swung twice more, drawing blood, guts, gore. There couldn't be enough blood. He wouldn't rest until Charles was dead.

Something stopped him. Something said it was enough.

He stared at Charles's inert body for a long moment. His half brother, heedless, feckless, narcissistic, irresponsible, grandiose, enamored of bloodshed, killing, and death long before he'd been turned into a monster, and on a rampage to gain power ever since. He had no feelings for Charles at all, in death or in life. No qualms about leaving him to melt into the scorched dust and ash of what had been Dominick's own fantasy life.

It was done. It was over.

He felt nothing as he transhaped once again and flew away from the fetid ruins of what had been his home.

It was done, forever over. No one would rise in Charles's place. No one who had died like that could regenerate. Dominick's children were safe and were now his first priority, while there was still some fatherly feeling in his gut.

He headed toward the green aura streaming through the outer roads, and the prospect of food for his son.

Dominick had lived like a man among them, aristocratic, self-made, wealthy. He had moved in their circles, attended their parties, their musicales, their theaters, contributed to their charities.

None of them knew of his secret life, his blood-saturated past. He had been respected, feared, and sought after.

And now everything was gone. That life was gone, his town house was gone. Vengeance was done. Nothing was left but a long slide into eternity.

They should go back, he thought suddenly as they sat around the bare wooden table in Mirya's hovel. They should go back to Lady Augustine's town house.

No one would question it. Everybody still believed Senna was her beloved ward.

And he'd have a new base, a place to return to, to suppress and hide the murderous ghoul he really was.

The plan came to him whole and complete.

They'd start by burying Peter in a public ceremony so it was clear that no one else could claim Lady Augustine's estate. And he'd consult the lawyers to make it ironclad.

Then when they took possession of the town house, he would have another chance to return to the life he'd known for the past twenty years.

With differences, of course. A helpmate, well-known to the stratum of society in which he and Lady Augustine had traveled. And the twins. It would be easy enough to compel their circle to remember that all of that had happened already in the normal course of events.

But first—he must see the state of Peter's body and if there was even enough of him left to bury. Then he'd arrange for the rooms to be cleaned and everything freshened for his family.

His family.
It sounded odd on the tongue.

Blood and bone—boy and girl.

What would they do about the girl?

In the wake of the pregnancy and births, he hadn't considered the ramifications of having a child who was not a vampire.

A normal child who couldn't possibly be expected to keep their secret.

A child who would be revolted by what went on behind closed doors. Or by having a mother who slept in a shroud in a bed of rotted burial dirt. How could she know these things and not be utterly repelled?

Not quite the happy family he'd envisioned.

What to do about Rula?

He stalked through the town house taking note of bloodstains, of dust, of dirt, of which room might suit Renk, which room to designate for Mirya. If Mirya would come. Mirya
must
come—she knew too much, but she was controllable whenever there was a subtle threat on her life.

She was also expendable.

Rula was another matter. They would need to provide food, clothes, schooling . . . they'd have to hire a cook, find a nanny, educate her, marry her off someday.

He couldn't conceive of a life that involved all those aspects of normalcy. Nor could he picture how they would keep her vampiric heritage from her, or how Rula would operate in the real world once she knew everything.

She couldn't possibly comprehend their life. For a time it would appear normal to her, but once she was beyond a certain age, revulsion would set in. He couldn't let that happen. He didn't want to see it. He didn't want Rula to ever see it. For her own good, and for her to live a normal life, the conclusion was inescapable. Rula couldn't ever know, couldn't ever be with them.

Even if she inherited inexplicable-to-her vampire traits.

For them to survive, Rula must leave.

It was a simple, rational, pragmatic, cold-blooded decision.

His next thought seemed inevitable: Rula could live with Mirya.

Or could she? Mirya wouldn't lie for them, but Senna trusted her; she had been Senna's protector and mother figure, she'd helped her survive. Wouldn't she do the same for Senna's daughter?

Did Mirya even feel any loyalty to Senna? Or was she just trying to endure, as he was?

He paced the parlor trying to resolve the inconsistency.

But that shred of humanity that still existed within him hated that he felt that cavalier about his daughter. He loved her. He would have given anything not to have to make this decision.

He had to do what was best for Senna and Renk.

Since they hadn't expected a second child,, and certainly not a girl with no clan scar, it came down to their survival with a member of their family an abject danger to their existence.

Maybe not immediately. But the way vampire babies grew, that was problematic.

Rula must leave.

Or Rula would die.

S
enna hadn't yet come to that conclusion. She sat stiffly, her expression implacable. She sat in a rocking chair beside the fireplace, Rula nestled in her arms, and Mirya in a corner tending Renk in his cradle.

“Rula lives with us,” Senna said stonily.

“It's too dangerous.”

“She's barely a week old. I can see how dangerous she is.”

“And when she realizes what this family is about?”

“She'd never betray us,” Senna said staunchly. “I know it in my heart.”

Dominick lost patience. “What you don't know is how fast a vampire baby grows. What we don't know is whether Rula will replicate that accelerated rate. In a year, it will be like they're two or three. In five years, fifteen. Furthermore, you can't predict how Rula will take the revelation that her parents, and her brother, are bloodsucking murderers.”

Senna flinched at his bluntness. “She'd never betray us. Never. I'll teach her, I'll tell her. It won't be so devastating coming from me.”

“When will you do that, Senna? While you're sucking up a corpse's blood?”

Senna blinked. He was obviously determined to be as crude as possible to jolt her out of her fairy-tale ideas. “That isn't fair.”

“It is too fair. That will happen sometime, and then what? How do you explain that? And the shroud and dirt bed hidden in the armoire? And the sickening bloodlust of her parents that will leave a trail of deaths all up and down the Thames? How do you explain all that?”

“She'll understand. She's
ours
.”

“It doesn't mean she was bloodborn with understanding.”

“I won't give her up. Not to anyone, and you're talking about strangers. What if she does have otherworldly traits?”

“Unlikely, and if so, very minimal. Maybe enough to give her advantages here and there, but nothing like what Renk will have—or you and I do.”

“I don't care.” Senna looked down at Rula, so peacefully sleeping. “I really don't care.”

“And there will be the need for outsiders to care for her—she must be fed, clothed, taught,” Dominick went on relentlessly. “We'd need a cook, a nanny, a teacher. We'd have to fake our life while strangers are in our house—and how long will it be, do you think, before the cracks show? A slip-up. A spatter of blood. A body somewhere it shouldn't be.”

That wasn't quite how Senna had pictured their life, but the stark recitation of what would be necessary for Rula's well-being gave his argument the edge. Only she wasn't ready to capitulate.

“I still think we can manage it.”

Dominick ran his hand over his face in frustration. He looked down at Rula, and he thought abstractedly,
She's changed already, and not in the typical baby way.
Rather, she seemed bigger, more aware, and those blue eyes looked at him as though she had understood every point of their argument.

“She's grown,” he said quietly. “Look at her carefully—her limbs, her eyes . . .”

“I don't see that,” Senna said instantly. But—maybe she did. Rula's body already felt longer, more substantial, and, yes, the eyes—the eyes had a knowledge in them that seemed beyond babyhood.

She offered another solution. “We'll send her to boarding school. That way she'll have all she needs and we can still—”

“Her growth spurt will cause problems. Raise questions. Make everything more complicated.”

“You have an answer for everything,” Senna grumbled.

“No, actually, I didn't have any answers for an unexpected daughter with no clan imprint on her. I only know what I fear now, that our survival is at stake if we take on the task of raising a child who isn't of the blood.”

Senna went silent. The problem was real, perhaps insurmountable, but—to give up Rula? Forever?

“Senna—”

“I can't.”

Dominick pounded the table impatiently.

“You must,” said Mirya, who had until then been stolid and silent. “He is right. There is no other choice.”

Senna turned her head away to hide her tears. “Tell me why.”

“For all the reasons he said.”

“And the things you can't anticipate,” Dominick added. “The anger, the questions . . . a list of things you won't want to explain. And eventually you'll—
we'll,
” he amended quickly, “lose her anyway.”

Mirya nodded in agreement.

Senna could not control her tears. “And do you have someone in mind to take our child?”

Dominick grimaced. He wasn't about to offer up Mirya. “Not yet.”

Senna turned to Mirya. “Would you?” It was an impulsive question, born of Senna's need to keep Rula as close as possible so she might see her sometimes, even if she couldn't reveal herself.

Mirya stared at her as if she were peering into the future and seeing beyond the night.

Finally she nodded. “I will take the girl.”

Senna felt a sudden shudder of apprehension. She should have thought this through before asking—Mirya was too old, too infirm, too poor.

But now the die was cast. She and Dominick would live in Lady Augustine's town house with their son, and their daughter would be raised by a Gypsy who would probably send her out in the streets to scam money for them to live.

And how would Mirya provide the milk Rula needed, the food, the clothing, all the things that Dominick had pointed out vampires couldn't provide? Her heart felt leaden. Mirya continued staring at her.

It was better than leaving Rula with a stranger, Senna consoled herself as she met Mirya's hooded gaze. She knew Mirya. Mirya had saved her life more than once. She must believe that Mirya would do her best for her child.

“I'll see that Mirya has money,” Dominick added. It didn't make her feel better or wipe away Mirya's frown.

“Settled,” Senna said reluctantly.
It would never be settled. It would just be something she would live with to eternity.

She wondered if she'd ever forgive Dominick for this. She wondered how many years it would be before she even saw Rula again. She wondered if it would matter in the end, after all.

Then Mirya said, “She must be with me when he comes.”

Senna understood much later, when, after two years, Renk was the size and had the intellectual capacity of a six-year-old. After four years, an uncontrollable twelve-year-old, despite all Senna's best efforts to teach and contain him. After eight years, he'd already started rooting and ravaging victims far from London in the countryside.

Senna finally saw when Renk would return, his jaws, neck, and clothes saturated with blood, and sprawl in the parlor, exhausted. Renk cared about nothing except filling his daily needs.

There was no pretense with him that he was anything other than a bloodsucking monster, and that he enjoyed every minute of it. He was, to all intents and purposes, a younger version of Charles.

All Dominick's dire predictions had come true.

Eight years ago, Dominick would have hated that, Senna thought. Eight years ago, he'd still had some conscience, some humanity lurking below the surface of his vampiric civility.

To Senna's deep regret, that was now gone, a facade that was impossible to keep up forever in the maw of his now-unfettered vampiric urges. For the first years after they'd taken over the town house, they'd attempted to take back their place in society, even though Dominick had closed his business. But the society they knew had been democratized. England had changed, and once the Queen died. they briefly mourned the loss of that society, but after a while, it didn't matter. They could remain in the town house or repair to some other place, some other country. It was all the same.

The one thing they had decided was they would stay together no matter what. And they would remain at the town house so that Senna could occasionally catch a glimpse of Rula working her cons on the streets.

But there was also that warning:
She must be with me when he comes.

Mirya didn't have to elaborate. Senna was determined to be there when
he
came.

While she waited for that day, Senna caught those fleeting glimpses of Rula that she so coveted.

It appeared that she had grown at the same rate as had Renk. Because when next Senna saw her, she was a beautiful young woman with thick, black hair and cobalt-blue eyes who could have been Senna's twin.

Rula knew nothing about her parents or her past. The woman who raised her, she called grandmother. She'd known no other life but the poverty of the hovel and her grandmother's teaching her how to work the streets and earn a tuppence.

Her grandmother never told her she was beautiful, but she could see that for herself, and that it was a definite plus now that she was eking out a living on the street.

Her grandmother never talked about family, or who was Rula's mother, or why she had no other relatives or siblings, or why Grandmother had raised her and not her family. And she never explained how Rula aged so quickly in only eight years.

“It is the way it is,” her grandmother would say dismissively, as always, when Rula asked. She had finally stopped asking.

Her grandmother was not a strict disciplinarian; she didn't need to be. She'd instilled in Rula when she was quite young the debt she owed her, and how to repay it.

Yes, Grandmother had some little money with which to feed and clothe Rula. They could have had better quarters than a decrepit, old alley hovel. They could have had a lot, had grandmother spent the money that mysteriously appeared under the door once a month.

Instead, Grandmother sent Rula out on the streets to perform basic magic tricks, and she taught her to read palms by teaching her to read her own.

“Lines, you see? Heart line here. Life line there. Right in your hand.”

Rula studied her palms with great care. It seemed important somehow. But then Mirya taught her the secrets to fortune-telling, where she supposedly sensed things about her victims by parsing clues from body movements, dress, and the expressions on their faces, and how to tell fortunes with regular playing cards.

Mirya taught her a lot. She had every reason to be grateful to the grandmother who raised her.

And yet, she wasn't. She sensed that Mirya could tell her a lot more, but Mirya discouraged questions.

“It is the way it is,” she'd always say, leaving Rula seething in frustration.

Was she some by-blow of royalty? She liked that idea a lot, but it didn't explain the impulses and nightmarish, dark dreams that haunted her sleep. The sense that she was not fully whole, that a part of her was missing.

“Grandmother, why do I so often dream of death?” she'd ask.

“How should I know? It's your dream.”

“I feel like there's a part of me that's missing.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Why can I see so clearly at night?”

“You are blessed.”

Rula didn't feel blessed. She felt as if her life was one big mystery to which Grandmother had the answers. And Grandmother was old. That scared Rula the most. At least now, with some pestering, she might get some answers from her. But if Grandmother died? All her secrets would die with her.