Books by Maggie Shayne (193 page)

"No!"
 
I cried.
 
"I'm not evil!
 
"Tis me, Donovan O'Roark... won't someone listen...?"

"Get the women and children out," Father Murphy shouted, and for the first time I thought he sounded like some mighty prophet of old.
 
His voice fairly shook the walls.
 
Or perhaps 'twas my hearing that was altered, for indeed it seemed every voice was sharper, clearer to me.
 
And the fiddle...

No time to dwell on that now, for my best friend Sean and some of the other young men began urging the women out of the tavern.

My ma stayed behind, glancing at me, then at my da.
 
"You know what must be done."

Da nodded, and Ma fairly ran from the room then.

I braced my hands on the sides of the coffin, making as if to get myself out, thinking how they'd all laugh once they realized how foolish they were being, and—

*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

Da shoved me back.
 
Hard.
 
Cruel.
 
Never had he handled me so roughly.
 
I blinked in shock.
 
Then froze—literally felt the ice creeping through my veins—as I saw Father Murphy take a wooden stake from somewhere nearby, muttering, "Your wife was right, O'Roark.
 
'Tis good we were prepared for this."
 
He pressed the tip of the stake to my chest, and my da,
my own beloved da,

handed him the mallet.

From outside I could hear my mother sobbing softly and the girl I planned to marry one day shouting "Kill it!
 
Kill it
now!"

Father Murphy lifted the mallet.

I don't know where the strength came from—or, I didn't know then.
 
I suppose I blamed it on panic or fear, rather than anything preternatural.
 
But when I shoved against the hands that held me—my father's hands—I felt little resistance.
 
I surged from that coffin with the force of a tidal wave, and landed on my feet beyond the two of them.
 
My trusted confessor and my flesh-and-blood sire.
 
My would-be executioners.

"Da, how can you do this?
 
What have I done to deserve—"

"He's not your son," Father Murphy said.
 
"He's evil, the same evil that took your son away.
 
Do not heed him."

"But I am your son!
 
Da, look at me!"

Da turned away.
 
"Get thee behind me, Satan."

"Da, 'tis me, your firstborn..."

He faced me again with blood in his eyes.
 
Yanking the stake and mallet from the priest's hands, my father surged at me, and suddenly there was no doubt in my mind he meant to do murder.
 
I spun away and ran.
 
Out the front door, the only door, and right through the midst of that crowd of mourners who'd called themselves my friends.
 
My family.
 
My woman.

"Get it!"
 
someone cried.
 
"It mustn't escape!"

And I fled.
 
Shoving them aside easily, I ran, faster than I'd known I could run.
 
I heard the pursuit.
 
Some had fetched dogs, others had mounted their horses.
 
I saw the flickering of yellow-orange torchlight coming closer as I ran for my very life.
 
And they kept coming.

Someone yanked me off my feet and into the bushes alongside the path.
 
I looked up, and saw the creature who'd brought all of this upon me, and I opened my mouth to curse his very existence.
 
He easily covered it, stilling me and drawing me deep into the cover of the greenery.
 
A second later the mob thundered past, shouting and cursing me, promising to destroy me in the most horrible ways imaginable.
 
Calling me "Satan."

My captor no longer needed to hold me still, for I had no will to move.
 
I relaxed to the ground, lowering my head as tears burned my eyes.
 
My pursuers were gone.
 
My assassin remained, but I no longer cared.
 
"Kill me if you will," I offered.
 
"I've no reason to wish to live."

"You have it all wrong, Donovan," he told me, and gripping my arms, he pulled me to my feet.
 
Strong hands, gripping me hard, but no pain as a result.
 
"You were dying before.
 
The weakness, the dizziness, the blackouts."

I looked up sharply.

"Oh, yes, I've been watching you.
 
You'd have been dead within a few more days, at most.
 
But you... you didn't want death."
 
He lowered his head, shook it.
 
"Rarely have I come upon a man as vividly alive and in love with life as you, my friend."

I frowned, shook my head.
 
"Then why did you try to kill me?"

"I wasn't trying to kill you, Donovan.
 
I was giving you life.
 
You'll never die now.
 
You can't."

"I...
 
I can't...?"

"Well, there are ways, but... listen to me, lad.
 
I took your blood, drained you to the point of death.
 
And then I fed you from my own veins and filled you once again.
 
It's how the dark gift is shared, how it's given."

"Dark gift.
 
I don't know—"

"Immortality," he told me.

I stood there, blinking in confusion and staring up at this man.
 
His dark head silhouetted by a Halloween moon, and bordered by the clawlike, leafless branches of slumbering trees.
 
A pumpkin patch at his back.
 
An owl singing of my death in the distance.
 
And I think I sensed then, finally, just what he was about to say.

"My name is Dante, and I am a vampire."

I gasped, but he took my hand in a firm grip and shook it.
 
"Your name is Donovan," he told me, patient as if he were a teacher instructing a slow student.
 
"And as of tonight, you are a vampire, too."

Rachel Sullivan waltzed into O'Mallory's pub as if she'd never been gone, and ignored the hush that fell as she passed.
 
Glasses stopped clinking, men stopped spinning their yams.
 
Eyes followed her when she sashayed to the back of the room and snatched a white apron from a hook.
 
Behind the gleaming mahogany bar, Mary folded her arms over her plump middle and smiled.
 
Rachel tied the apron on and turned around, eyeing the round, wooden tables and the familiar faces at each one.

"An' what's got you all so tongue-tied?" she asked, tossing her head.
 
"I told you I'd come back, and now I have.
 
So stop your gaping and drink your ale."
 
She turned briskly back to the bar, snatching up a tray with two foaming pints on it, and then unerringly spotted the pair who had empty glasses before them, and delivered their refills.

The talk started up again.
 
Mostly directed at her now.
 
Unshaven men who'd known her father, welcoming her home.
 
Curly-headed women asking her about the States as she hustled back and forth with her laden tray.
 
For the first time in what seemed like a long time, Rachel released a long, cleansing breath, and felt the tension drain from her spine.
 
She was home, truly home.
 
And it felt good.
 
Better than the degree she'd worked so hard to earn.
 
Better than anything had since... since before she'd left.

She'd been afraid, half expecting the locals to be wary of her now, but the rapid return to normalcy in the pub told her that fear had been unwarranted.
 
The people of Dunkinny didn't like outsiders, that much was true.
 
Oh, tourists occasionally found their way to the isolated village, particularly the ones with Irish surnames out to discover their roots.
 
The locals were polite enough, but always reserved.
 
Wary.
 
Rachel, though, had been born and raised here.
 
Orphaned here, and taken under the collective wing of these villagers.
 
They'd been sad when she'd left them, but not angry.
 
With one exception—Marney Neal, who'd been so determined to marry her.
 
But he wasn't here tonight, she noted with relief.
 
And the others welcomed her back into their midst without a second thought.
 
Eight years away, but they didn't see her as an outsider.

"Welcome home, Rachel."
 
Mary, who'd owned this place and the boarding house attached to it for as long as Rachel could remember, hugged her hard, slapping her back with enthusiastic blows.
 
"I've kept your old room for you.
 
I can already see you'll be takin' your old job back."

Rachel didn't have the heart to tell her it was only for a short time.
 
Only until she got her thesis written, the final step in earning her doctorate.
 
And then she'd...

What?
 
Become the world's leading social anthropologist?
 
Teach at an Ivy League university in the States?

She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of Russell Finnegan's stale pipe smoke, fresh beer, and the sheep manure on Mitch Marley's boots.
 
When she opened them again, she faced the window, and stared out at the worn track that passed for a road in this tiny village, and the rolling emerald hills, and the crumbling castle—Castle Dante—in the distance.
 
It stood amid a ghostly mist as haunting as the tale that went along with the place—the tale she was basing her thesis on.
 
Beyond the castle were the cliffs, and the green-blue sea far below.

And that was the other reason she'd come back.
 
To see that castle one more time.

As a child, she'd believed in the tales.
 
But in her heart, she'd never accepted the villagers' condemnation of the men who'd once lived there.
 
One of them, she swore, had come to her.
 
Twice in her childhood she'd met him, or so she'd believed for a long time.
 
The first time had been when she'd nearly drowned in the river one night long ago.
 
A dark stranger had pulled her from the water, breathed into her lungs, cradled her gently until others arrived, and then disappeared before she'd even had a chance to thank him.
 
The second time was after her parents' deaths, when she'd lain awake and afraid in her bed, unable to sleep, feeling more alone than any being ever had.
 
He'd come to her, held her hand, and told her she wasn't alone at all.
 
That she had a guardian who would watch over her, protect her always, and that she must never fear.
 
She'd barely seen his face in the darkness, but in her mind, she'd believed him to be Donovan O'Roark, or his ghost.
 
And she'd loved him.

Always, she'd loved him.
 
Even later, when she'd realized her childhood memories were only dreams, and that there were no such things as vampires, she'd nurtured a tender place for the fictional legend in her heart.
 
And while she was home, she'd visit that castle once more... perhaps just to assure herself that he wasn't truly there, awaiting her return.

*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

She'd been home for two weeks when he came.

The air was brisk, with the cold taste of winter on its
  
f the pub were propped open all the same, to let the pipe smoke out and the fresh air in.
 
And the fire snapping in Mary's cobblestone hearth kept the chill at bay.

When the silence fell this time, it was uneasy, rather than the friendly hush that had fallen upon Rachel's unexpected return.
 
Then, she'd felt the smiling eyes, the welcome.
 
Now she felt a frisson of something icy slipping up her spine.
 
And when she turned to follow the curious gazes, she saw the stranger walking along the darkened road.

He paused, and stared off in the distance, toward the dark hulking silhouette of the castle.
 
Mitch Marley gasped.
 
Russell Finnegan gaped and his pipe dropped from his lax mouth to the table, unnoticed.

The tension that filled the room, filled
her,
was ridiculous, and unnecessary.
 
"I'd forgot," she muttered, "just how superstitious you all are.
 
Look at you, gawking at that fellow as if he's Donovan O'Roark come back from the dead!"

Mary crossed herself.
 
"You saying you don't believe the old tales now that you're educated, Rachel Sullivan?"

"Old tales are just that.
 
Old tales.
 
Nothing more.
 
I'll prove it, too."
 
Rachel stepped into the open doorway, hands braced on either side, and leaned out.
 
"I don't know where you're going, stranger, but if it's food and a warm bed you're lookin' for, you won't find it anywhere but here."

"Lord preserve us from that saucy girl," Mary murmured.

"Feisty as she ever was," someone agreed.

But Rachel ignored them, because the man was turning, looking at her.
 
It was dark tonight, no moon to help her explore his face.
 
She could only see dark eyes gleaming the reflection of the soft, muted light spilling out of the
  
pub.
 
Firelight and lamp glow.
 
Mary detested bright electric lights at nighttime, though Rachel often suspected it was the bill she truly disliked.

"Come inside," Rachel said again, more softly this time because she sensed he could hear her very well.
 
"Warm yourself by the fire.
 
And show these friends of mine that you're not the monster from their favorite folktale."

*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

I stood there, stunned to my bones.
 
Amazed first that she'd spoken to me at all, for I knew the people of Dunkinny to be a superstitious lot, untrusting of strangers.
 
Or they had been when I'd first left here, nigh on a hundred years ago, and they had been so still each time I'd returned since.
 
But people in solitary villages like this one never tend to change overmuch.
 
She was different, though.
 
She'd always been different.

I fancied it ironic; I'd been one of them once, and that wariness, that mistrust of strangers, was still with me.
 
But I'd been betrayed too often to let it go.
 
It was, in fact, stronger than ever.

So then, why did I stop?
 
Why did I turn and look at her when she spoke to me, when my natural reaction would have been to keep walking, never so much as pausing in my gait.

But I did pause.
 
Partly because of her voice, pure and silken, with the lilt of Ireland, of this very village to it.
 
So familiar and dear to me, that accent.
 
And frightening at the same time.
 
'Twas the voice of my own people, the ones who'd called me evil and tried to kill me.
 
The ones who'd later murdered the best friend I'd ever had.
 
But 'twas also the voice of the little girl I'd watched over long ago, but grown up now.
 
And somehow, still the same.

She spoke again, her tone haughty, mischievous, almost taunting.
 
And then I looked, and saw her silhouetted in the
  
doorway, surrounded by a golden glow.
 
Raven hair, long and wild.
 
I'd seen Gypsies less mesmerizing.

She held out a hand to me.
 
"Come," she said.

And as if her words held some sort of power over me, I went.

She clasped my hand as soon as I came within reach, and she drew me inside.
 
She had long sharp nails.
 
Red nails.
 
I liked them, and the warmth of her small, strong hand.
 
And the tingle of sensual awareness I felt passing through her body.
 
I liked that, too.
 
Knew better than to indulge it this close to what would soon be my home... again.
 
But liked it all the same.

Over the years, I had changed, but not drastically.
 
My skin was paler, yes.
 
It hadn't felt the touch of the sun in nearly two centuries, after all.
 
But its pink, healthy glow remained intact for several hours once I'd fed.

And I'd fed well tonight.

So when she drew me inside, there were no gasps of shock at my appearance.
 
She settled me into a wooden chair near the fire, and that's when I realized this pub was in the exact place that other one had stood long ago.
 
O'Connor's tavern.
 
The site of my funeral.
 
The place where my father had tried to murder me.

A lump came into my throat, but I forced it away.

"There, you see?" the girl was saying, hands on her hips, which moved enticingly whenever she did.
 
She waved a hand toward me.
 
"Just a tourist, not a legend come to life."
 
She faced me again.
 
"Tell us, stranger, what's your name?"

I cleared my throat.
 
"O'Roark," I said, waiting, curious to see their reactions.

The plump woman dropped a tankard of ale and it crashed to the floor, spewing amber liquid and odorous foam around her feet.

The girl stared at me, searching my face with an intensity that shook me.
 
But she couldn't recognize me.
 
She'd never seen my face clearly enough to know it again now.
 
And finally she grinned, a twinkle in her eye, and tilted her head to one side.
 
"O'Roark, is it?
 
Another one?
 
Tell me, Mr. O'Roark, have you come travelin' from the States in search of your family history?"

I smiled very slightly, unable to help myself.
 
Such a spirited girl, she was.
 
"Has my accent faded so much that I sound like an American to you?"
 
I asked her.

She gave me a sassy shrug.
 
"I only know you're not from Dunkinny.
 
For I know everyone in this town."

"You've lived here that long, have you?"

"Born here, as were my parents and theirs before them for five generations."

"Mine, too."

She frowned at me, and I took my time studying her face.
 
Small features, fine bones.
 
But her lips were full and her eyes large in that small face.
 
"You're saying you're descended from
our
O'Roarks?"

"So much so that I've inherited the castle."

At last, I'd shaken her.
 
The others had been uneasy from the moment I'd set foot inside, but not her.
 
Now, though, I saw it.
 
The widening of her deep green eyes, the loss of blood's glow in her cheeks.

"You're making it up," she accused, but softly.

I shook my head.

"He'll be wantin' to know about the legend then," Mary called.

"Aye, tell him the legend, Rachel!
 
Stranger he may be, but no man ought to risk dallying about that place unwarned."