Twilight Phantasies

Eric sighed, and took a seat in a claw-footed, brocade cushioned chair near the fireplace. Few coals glowed in this hearth. He really ought to kindle it. Should some nosy human manage to scale the gate and breach the security systems, they might well notice that smoke spiraled from the chimney, but no fire warmed the grate.

Reading his thoughts, Roland set his glass aside. “I’ll do that. You simply talk.”

Eric sighed again. Where to begin? “I came to know of a child, right after you left last time. A beautiful girl, with raven curls and cherub’s cheeks and eyes like glossy bits of coal.”

“One of the Chosen?” Roland sat forward.

“Yes. She was one of those rare humans with a slight psychic connection to the undead, although, like most, she was completely unaware of it. I’ve found that there are ways of detecting the Chosen, aside from our natural awareness of them, you know.”

Roland looked around from where he’d hunkered before the hearth. “Really?”

Eric nodded. “All those humans who can be transformed, those we call Chosen, share a common ancestor. Prince Vlad the Impaler.” He glanced sharply at Roland. “Was he the first?”

Roland shook his head. “I know your love of science, Eric, but some things are better left alone. Go on with your story.”

Eric felt a ripple of exasperation at Roland’s tight-lipped stance on the subject. He swallowed his irritation and continued. “They also share a rare blood antigen. We all had it, as humans. It’s known as Belladonna. Only those with both these unlikely traits can become vampires. They are the Chosen.”

“Doesn’t seem like an earth-shattering discovery to me, Eric. We’ve always been able to sense the Chosen ones, instinctively.”

“But other humans haven’t. Some of them have now discovered the same things I have. DPI knows about it. They can pinpoint Chosen humans, and then watch them, and wait for one of us to approach. I believe that is precisely what has happened with Tamara.”

“Perhaps you need to back up a bit, old friend,” Roland said gently.

Eric pushed one hand through his black hair, lifting it from his shoulders and clenching a fist in the tangles. “I couldn’t stay away from her, Roland. God help me, I tried, but I couldn’t. Something in her tugged at me. I used to look in on her as she slept. You should’ve seen her then. Sooty lashes on her rosy cheeks, lips like a small pink bow.” He looked up, feeling absurdly defensive. “I never meant her harm, you know. How could I? I adored the child.”

Roland frowned. “This should not trouble you. It happens all the time, this unseen bond between our kind and the Chosen. Many was the night I peered in upon you as a boy. Rarely to find you asleep, though. Usually, you were awake and teasing your poor sister.”

Eric absorbed that information with dawning understanding. “You never told me. I’d thought you only came to me when I was in danger.”

“I’m sorry we haven’t discussed this matter before, Eric. It simply never came up. You only saw me those times you were in danger. There was little time for discretion when a coach was about to flatten you, or when I pulled you spluttering from the Channel.”

“Then you felt the same connection to me that I felt for her?”

“I felt a connection, yes. An urge to protect. I can’t say it’s the same because I haven’t experienced what you felt for the child. But, Eric, many young ones over the centuries have had a vampire as a guardian and never even known it. After all, we don’t go to them to harm, or transform, or even make contact. Only to watch over, and protect.”

Eric’s shoulders slumped forward, so great was his relief. He shook his head once and resumed his story. “I woke one night to sense her spirit fading. She was slipping away so steadily I was barely able to get to her in time.” The same pain he’d felt then swept over him now, and his voice went lower. “I found her in hospital, her tiny face whiter than the sheets tucked around her. Her lips…they were blue. I overheard a doctor telling her parents that she’d lost too much blood to survive, and that her type was so rare no donors had been located. He told them to prepare themselves. She was dying, Roland.”

Roland swore softly.

“So you see my dilemma. A child I’d come to love lay dying, and I knew I alone had the power to save her.”

“You didn’t transform her! Not a small child, Eric. She’d be better dead than to exist as we must. Her young mind could never grasp—”

“I didn’t transform her. I probably couldn’t if I’d tried. She hadn’t enough blood left to mingle with mine. I saw another option, though. I simply opened my vein and—”

“She drank from you?”

Eric closed his eyes. “As if she were dying of thirst. I suppose, in a manner, she was. Her vitality began to return at once. I was ecstatic.”

“You had right to be.” Roland grinned now. “You saved the child. I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before, Eric, but apparently, it worked.” He paused, regarding Eric intensely. “It did work, did it not? The child lives?”

Eric nodded. “Before I left her bedside, Roland, she opened her eyes and looked at me, and I swear to you, I felt her probing my mind. When I turned to go she gripped my hand in her doll-sized one and she whispered my name. ‘Eric,’ she said. ‘Don’t go just yet. Don’t leave me.”’

“My God.” Roland sank back onto the settee, blinking as if he were thunderstruck. “Did you stay?”

“I couldn’t refuse her. I stayed the night at her bedside, though I had to hide on the window ledge every time someone entered the room. When they discovered the improvement in her, the place was a madhouse for a time. But they soon saw that she would be fine, and decided to let the poor child rest.”

“And then?”

Eric smiled softly. “I held her on my lap. She stayed awake, though she needed to rest, and insisted I invent story upon story to tell her. She made me sing to her, Roland. I’d never sung to anyone in my existence. Yet the whole time she was inside my mind, reading my every thought. I couldn’t believe the strength of the connection between us. It was stronger even than the one between you and me.”

Roland nodded. “Our blood only mixed. Yours was nearly pure in her small body. It’s no wonder…What happened?”

“Toward dawn she fell asleep, and I left her. I felt it would only confuse the sweet child to have contact with one of us. I took myself as far away as I could, severed all contact with her. I refused even to think of seeing her again, until now. I thought the mental bond would weaken with time and distance. But it hasn’t. I’ve only been back in the western hemisphere a few months, and she calls to me every night. Something happened to her parents after I’d left her, Roland. I don’t know what, but she ended up in the custody of Daniel St. Claire.”

“He’s DPI!” Roland shot to his feet, stunned.

“So is she,” Eric muttered, dropping his forehead into his hand.

“You cannot go to her, Eric. You mustn’t trust her, it could be your end.”

“I don’t trust her. As for going to her…I have no choice about that.”

Even while Tamara was arguing with Daniel and Curtis, he’d been on her mind. All day she had been unable to get that mysterious stranger—who didn’t seem a stranger at all—out of her thoughts. She’d only managed to cram him far to the back, to allow herself to concentrate on her work. Now that she was home, in the secure haven of her room, and now that she’d wakened from her after-work nap, she felt refreshed, energized and free to turn last night’s adventure over in her mind.

She paused and frowned. Since when did she wake refreshed? She usually woke trembling, breathless and afraid. Why was tonight different? She glanced out at the snow-spotted sky, and realized it was fully dark. She normally woke from her nightmare just at dusk. She struggled to remember. It seemed to her she had had the dream—or she’d begun to. She remembered the forest and the mists, the brambles and darkness. She remembered calling that elusive name….

And hearing an answer. Yes. From very far away she’d heard an answer; a calm, deep voice, full of comfort and strength, had promised to come to her. He’d told her to rest. She’d felt uncertain, until the music came. Soft strains she thought to be Mozart—something from Elvira Madigan—soothed her taut nerves.

She allowed a small smile. Maybe she was getting past this thing, whatever it was. The smile died when she wondered if that was true, or whether she was only exchanging one problem for another. The man from the ice rink filled her mind again. Marquand—the one Daniel insisted was a vampire. He’d kissed her and, much as she hated to admit it, she’d responded to that kiss with every cell in her body.

She rose slowly from her bed and tightened the single sash that held the red satin robe around her. She leaned over her dressing table and examined the bruised skin of her neck in the mirror. Her fingers touched the spot. She recalled the odd, swooning sensation she’d experienced when he’d sucked the skin between his teeth, and wondered at it.

Lack of sleep, and too much stress.

But he knew my name….

Simple enough to answer that one. He’d done a little research on the man who’d been harassing him. Daniel was her legal guardian. It was a matter of public record.

Then why did he seem so surprised when I told him that?

Good acting. He must have known. He just assumed I’d be the easiest, most effective way to get his point across.

She frowned at her reflection, not liking the look of disappointment she saw there. She tried to erase it. “He only wanted to scare Daniel into laying off, so he followed me to the rink for that little performance. Imagine him going so far as to actually…”

She pressed her palm to the mark on her throat, and turned from the mirror. She’d failed to convince herself that was all there had been to it. So many things about the man defied explanation. Why did he seem so familiar to her? How had he made her feel as if he were reading her thoughts? What about the way she’d seemed to hear what he said, when he hadn’t even spoken? And what about this…this longing?

Blood flooded her cheeks and a fist poked into her stomach. Desire. She recognized the feeling for what it was. Foolish though it was, Tamara was lusting after a man she didn’t know—a man she felt as if she’d known forever. She had to admit, at least to herself, that the man they called Marquand stirred reactions in her as no other man ever had.