Beyond the Night (20 page)

Rob looked at Rula. “Did you get any idea of what he wanted of you?”

“I heard the word
come
just before you took over. Could he possibly get to me that way?”

Rob shook his head. “I hope not.”

“If he can do none of these things,” Mirya put in, “then—”

“He can't use his body at all,” Rob finished.

“Which gets us nowhere,” Rula said. “If he is proficient at that mind probe, in theory he could touch anyone anywhere and make them do his bidding.”

“Which he did, didn't he?” Rob said. “All those people . . . But—” He looked at Mirya and she nodded. “I find it curious you haven't yet asked how I held him at bay.”

“That was coming,” Rula muttered. “I still haven't recovered from this afternoon, if you want to know the truth.”

“Yes,” Mirya said. “Of course you haven't. As Rob told you, there are other powers, some known, some unknown. Like mental powers. That is how Rob held Charles off. That is how you will outwit Charles when he comes after you again.”

“How? He nearly crippled me, and hundreds of other people.”

“It is already in your grasp, it is part of your makeup,” Mirya said. “But I can see, you are still distressed by all the day's events. There's time enough—”

“There is no time. What if he comes at me tonight?”

“You'll know what to do now,” Mirya said calmly.

Rob, who'd been sitting quietly listening to this, said, “I'll stay with you.”

Rula caught her breath. Stay with her how? By her side, in the room, or in her bed—could he read her mind?

“If I sleep, he could—” she murmured.

“He won't,” Rob said.

“You won't let him.”

“You won't,” Rob said gently. “Lie down.” He pushed her onto the narrow bed. He looked at Mirya, as if daring her to say something, then he slipped in next to Rula and wrapped his arms around her. “Mirya and I will keep you safe.”

The problem was, with him beside her like that, she sensed a different kind of danger. Man-to-woman danger. The kind for which Mirya had not prepared her.

If a man tells you he's been watching you, waiting for you, if he protects you and kisses you and covets you—and winds up in bed with you—what does all that mean, in the realm of fighting vampires?

More to the point, what did it mean to her to have his solid, muscular body pressed against hers so possessively? To feel the heat of him, the heft of him, his restive movements, the tightly restrained hunger in him. He'd watched her all this time. She'd felt a connection the first time she'd noticed him. She'd been raised in innocence and squalor. Why didn't she know by now what all women knew? Why had she never had a man?

What did she do about the intense little darts attacking her vitals?

He was holding himself more tightly than she. The hours passed wrapped in exquisite tension.

Mirya slept.

Rula felt the infinitesimal movements of his body seeking hers, his lips brushing her forehead, her cheek. her lips . . . “Rula,” he breathed, and she answered him mutely by lifting her head so he could ease his mouth over hers.

Then her life began.

He cradled her jaw as he rooted in her mouth. “Shhh,” he murmured as she responded with pleasure.
Shhh
because Mirya was steps away and he was supposed to be protecting Rula. She liked this so much better. The possessive kisses, the subtle undulation of his body against hers, the trickle of wet between her legs.

More of this. The heat and wet shut out everything but the pleasure. It was as if they were cocooned in the rickety little bed, in a world where vampires didn't exist. Couldn't exist because they together were invincible.

“More,” she whispered, she knew there was more, his hand rested on her hip, moving toward her thigh, and she felt this yearning need to bare her body to him. But then there was the impenetrable obstacle of the rags she wore.

He stiffened suddenly, and immediately the air around them felt charged.

“Gird yourself,” he mouthed in her ear as he wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “He's searching. He's coming . . .
now.
”

R
u-u-ula—come to me. . . .

The tendrils whispered around her consciousness.

Ru-u-la . . . I'm waiting . . .

She brushed them away.

He allowed it because he was easing his way into her mind slowly, with unusual patience. He didn't like that she could push his tendrils out of the way so easily. But then, he was exhausted from the afternoon's first foray trying to penetrate her mind.

Why he'd taken down everyone in the surrounding area with her, he didn't understand. Maybe it was just a blast of power he couldn't control. He had to fine it down, learn to pour all his energy into her. Catch her when she was most vulnerable. Such as when she slept.

He didn't expect resistance. Or the dismissive sweeping away of the tendrils. He probed harder, pushing her.

She moved restively, and he pushed again.

Let me in, Ruuula. . . .

She resisted, and he felt his temper rising. This was not supposed to happen. This foray was to have been simple. A push, a probe, a winding and twining of his tendrils with her consciousness, and over.

Ru-u-ula—I need you. . . .

He felt the pushback, the walls being erected.

Solely her, or did she have help, as she had this afternoon?

Blast her. His tendrils could not thrust forcefully enough to break her resistance. She was prepared this time.

He tamped down on his fury. It was his fault, he was tired. He could only do so much. But next time—she couldn't be on alert every minute. At times she'd be open and unwary.

This was only his second try. And he was exhausted. He wanted too much too soon.

He'd waited this long. He'd take her yet. Soon. And her resistance now would make that moment all the sweeter.

She slept tight against Rob's chest as he held her through the night. Guarded her. Made certain that Charles did not slip into her consciousness.

For the first time in her life she felt safe. Protected. Cared about.

She turned to the heat of his body, seeking it, seeking him, his strength, his certainty. All the things she didn't know, couldn't know, until now.

Now she had answers. She had family. She didn't have to claim the monsters as her own. She didn't even have to kill them. She could just be who she was, which was hard enough to comprehend.

She wrapped her arms around him. It seemed natural, as if she now had the right to embrace him and all that he was because it all belonged to her.

He held her just as tightly.

He'd been waiting for her, he'd said. She wondered what he'd meant by that. If it was what she wanted him to mean.

She felt his lips brush her forehead, and with that intimate touch she felt everything she'd been yearning for in a life filled with poverty and dross.

She understood finally that intimacy transcended all that. Two people wound tightly together, the deep possessiveness of a kiss, and she felt for the first time that there was a future, that better things were to come.

They'd deal with Charles. They'd vanquish the vampires. They could do anything, she and Rob.

She leaned into him even more, absorbing his heat, and she slowly fell back to sleep.

In the morning, she found herself hugging a pillow. Rob was up and gone, and Mirya was sitting with her usual cup of tea and stale bread, waiting until Rula wakened.

“There's fresh water in the ewer. I'll refresh the tea.”

Rula dutifully washed and took out the second of the three dresses that comprised her wardrobe and took her seat at the table as she had done for as long as she could remember.

Today, however, she had the distinct feeling things were about to change. And Mirya knew it. Rula felt a wave of pure gratitude that Mirya had taken her that fateful day when Senna had decided to give her up.

Mirya had not only kept her and nurtured her, she'd given her a safe haven—a hiding place among the street buskers, whom people rarely gave a second glance. A place Rula was comfortable. A way to earn money. A warm dinner every night. A veil over the truth of her parentage until she was ready to hear it.

Mirya had done everything right, and it still hadn't prevented Rula from learning the truth or becoming a target of a ghoul bent on vengeance.

Yet everything seemed as normal as always. The warm-water wash, the tea, the bread. Mirya bent over the table to pour, looking older every day. Scarily older, Rula thought, as she took a sip of tea. And Mirya had been old when she'd taken on the responsibility of raising her.

“Where's Rob?” Rula asked, to chase away those morbid thoughts.

“He will return soon.” Mirya stared at her with hooded eyes.

Rula knew that look. “What are you thinking?”

“Do not use him,” Mirya said finally.

Rula shook her head. “I would never . . .”

“You don't know. He seems like your rescuer now. What will he be afterward?”

A man I could love.

Rula stilled as the word crossed her mind. She had never given a thought to what her future would be before last night. She lived day to day with her sole goal to earn a ha'penny, a shilling. To have food, a place to live, a bed in which to sleep, some companionship.

She'd never given one thought to the concept of
love
—perhaps until last night when she'd burrowed into Rob's body, reaching for his heat.

That moment, she understood there was something more to her hunger to be held, to feel close to someone. Emotions were involved that she was feeling for the first time. For a man. In herself.

For Rob.

Her eyes wide, she stared at Mirya.

“Yes,” Mirya said. “This you never asked.”

Nor could she now. What she felt for Rob was too new, too delicate to be defined. It was something to be held close, a beautiful secret, perhaps never to be revealed. Rob was that much older than she, and thus that much more experienced.

She could not know what he felt, nor would she ever ask.

It was enough he'd held her through the night, that he'd protected her from Charles. That she knew the taste of his kisses, the shape of his body, the sound of his breathing.

That he would return.

“Where is he?” she asked finally.

Mirya shrugged. “The Vraq are constantly in motion. You must learn to live with that.”

“Assuming I join them.”

“You are them. This is not a club or secret organization.”

“This is a coven of killers. I can't—”

“You will,” Mirya said simply. “You'll have to.”

Nothing had changed even though everything had changed. Rula took her cards and her folding table and chair and went out late in the morning and headed toward Victoria Station once again.

“See your future in the cards. Come see what good fortune the cards predict for you.”

No one stopped. Everyone was in a hurry. She moved her table to another location.

“Read your palm? Palm reading here. The future is in the palm of your hand. Palms read here. . . .“

Several people lined up. Poor people. People who worked menial jobs and wanted hope. People like her.

Mirya had done this for years, moving in the morass of day-to-day humanity, hiding, hoping to pocket a coin or two supporting
her
.

She read palms, ramping up a good fortune even if a palm predicted a dire future. Why discourage hope?

As she worked, she reached within to feel whether she sensed Charles hunting her. But she felt nothing except wariness and weariness, his or hers, she couldn't tell.

Suddenly, a woman was standing before her, smiling tauntingly in a way that turned Rula's blood cold. She looked up, and her whole world jolted in a most unpleasant way.

Behind her, Renk smirked at her, goading her, daring her to acknowledge him. Waiting for someone to comment on how alike they looked.

No sign of blood, of fangs, of vampiric villainy. Just a woman with her palm stretched out, her smile inclusive, as if she knew that Rula had no foreknowledge of anything to come, but she was willing to play along because Renk had asked her to.

In her mind's eye, Rula saw blood everywhere. This woman was doomed. Renk meant to kill and feed on her, and she had no idea of the danger.

He didn't look dangerous; he was a well-dressed stranger she'd met—in the park, at a restaurant, a museum, the home of a friend—someplace legitimate that she thought made his acquaintance the beginning of an exciting love story.

A reading of her palm only added to the titillation—she had probably suggested it, and Renk undoubtedly thought it was an amusing irony, given what he knew was to come.

Rula took the woman's hand. Immediately she saw the life line was abbreviated. How could she not tell her? How could she?

She felt Renk's eyes on her—those deep cobalt eyes so like her own. It was as if he could read her mind. He knew what she was going to do. He thought she was a coward.

Or she was too kind. Why distress the woman?

And she could write a different ending to this story. She could interfere, she could prevent the carnage somehow. Except she didn't know how. The best she could think to do was follow them after she finished the woman's reading.

“You will live a long, happy life,” she told the woman. “You will have three children, your husband will be successful in business, you will be admired in society, and you will do good.” She pointed to lines randomly as she told this fortune. It didn't matter which lines, what predictions.

She needed to finish fast and follow them.

She wondered how many women Renk had met and macerated in a day, a night, a week, a year. Not this one. This one was hers. This one could be saved.

The woman tossed a couple of sovereigns on the cards, and as she turned away, Rula pocketed the coins and began folding her table and waving off the disappointed crowd.

“Come back tomorrow, I'll be here with more fortunes, more predictions, more messages of hope.” She couldn't pack up fast enough as Renk and the woman turned away. Nor could she carry the table and her props and keep Renk in sight.