Chapter Twenty-Six

SHE WAS NO LONGER LUCINDA. She was part of something dark and evil. She had become a vampire. She knew that she could not stay with her daughter, in spite of how much she loved her. She could not give her daughter the life she wanted, the life she needed, the life she deserved. Her daughter's father should have been Stuart Silver, not Michael. Her daughter should have been blessed with Stuart's gentle and loving brown eyes, not Michael's radiant green eyes. And she was a vampire, created by the beautiful immortal Damar, who wanted her. She had made a horrible and selfish decision. Never once-until it was too late-did she think about whom would suffer the consequences of her selfish deeds. She had screwed up her life and her daughter's and she did not want her daughter to suffer any longer, so she did the only thing that she could think of at the time. Lucinda left her daughter on the front steps of the cathedral that she had died in, the night that she had been turned into a vampire. The nuns there had taken her daughter in and all Lucinda could do now was pray that her daughter would suffer no longer because of her. She wanted so desperately for her daughter to live out the normal life that she should have. She wanted her daughter to enjoy Sunday morning picnics and to be surrounded by presents from her parents on Christmas morning. However, Lucinda made a vow to herself. She would return to her daughter. She would find her somehow, somewhere, some way. For when blood calls for blood, it answers back. She would call for her daughter and her daughter would reply. She would tell her daughter everything and explain to her how much she loved her and because of her love, she gave her up for adoption so that she could receive a chance at normalcy. She would come back. When she received the answers she needed to know, when she understood whom she really was, when she was ready, she would come back.

Velika grinned; her back turned to him, not allowing him a glimpse at the vampire that had murdered his beloved. "You've come to pay me a visit, Kristoff?" She was now dwelling in one of the many homes she owned in Sundry. She did not like being away from the dark vibe of Cimmerian, and the homeliness of a mortal's residence did not compare to her cherished mausoleum, but it would do for the time being. "I am certain that I told you to stay away from Meredith." Kristoff's voice was low and deadly in its volume, knowing that it would have a greater affect on Velika. She sensed his presence before he ever said a word. She could see, in her mind's eye, his black cloak of death he offered for centuries. She could smell the sweet angel blood from his pale lips, the blood that they had dueled over for months. It was evident who had won. "You did, but Meredith destroyed the rose," Velika reminded him. Kristoff had not forgotten, but Velika should have known better than to go against his warnings-black rose or not. "I hope she's dead, or bleeding somewhere," Velika uttered, confident that she had put Meredith Vandolah in the ground, or was at least close to it. "She's alive," Kristoff told her, gloating, knowing where to direct the blade. "And she will be alive for a very long time." Velika stopped and turned to face him. "What are you saying?" she regarded cautiously. Kristoff neglected Velika's question. "Stay away from Meredith," he said. "Or what?" Velika derided. "You'll kill me?" she inquired, pushing it just a little further until his breaking point. Kristoff made no movement as he declared, "I won't. But she will." Without warning, the glimmer of a dagger's silver blade pierced through the darkness that had surrounded them and cleanly drilled through the wall, half an inch away from Velika's neck. Velika did not need a light to see who had just nearly struck her. She was infuriated with herself at the fact that she had not sensed her sooner. She hadn't the faintest clue that Meredith Vandolah was within the walls of her home. Normally, Velika should have been able to sense any intruder-she had been able to sense Kristoff and he was powerful. If she had not been able to sense Meredith, then that meant that Meredith was more powerful than Kristoff. Usually the powerful vampires were able to mask themselves from being detected if they chose, but the younger, newer fledglings had a hard time doing that; Meredith had to be powerful in order to block herself from Velika's vampiric senses. Velika could sense every other creature, living or otherwise. She should have been able to sense Meredith, but she didn't. That was not a good sign. Meredith was a "newborn" fledgling. How strong could she be? "I didn't miss on accident," Meredith informed her. "Don't come near me and mine again, or next time, I won't miss." Kristoff spun on his heels and put his arm around Meredith. Velika was disgusted. Sons of a Mordecai, she cursed. We heard that. It was two voices that spoke to her mind at once, the voices of Meredith and Kristoff. Velika was taken off guard. She had never heard two whispers at once in her mind. Up until this point, she never thought it possible. Velika could only watch stunned as the pair vanished in the blink of an eye. That puzzled Velika even more. If Meredith was a vampire, and a new one at that, she should have had neither the strength nor the speed of the Fallen, but she did. That left Velika pondering . . . What is she?

Meredith traced her fingers along the polished curves of the silver statue that expressed the raw agony of a mortal in pain. Her eyes studied the other two figures, one woman, and one half-human, half-beast with a tiger's incisors, lion's mane, hawk's wings and talons, hoofed feet, and a man's body. She was not entirely surprised when she felt Kristoff approached her. Her whole entire body was still humming with the liveliness of Kristoff's expired blood, blended with her own angel blood. She felt like she could fly, or run from one side of the world to the other in two seconds. She remembered that, as a half-human, she had been able to run a mile in five minutes and fifty-two seconds, thanks due in part also to her angelic nature. Now that she was-what? Half vampire, half-angel?-perhaps she could run a mile in just fifty-two seconds. Her imagination was alive with brand new possibilities, knowing that her humanness no longer restricted her feet to the earth. What was she capable of now? She still only had a vague sense as to what she was. Meredith had glanced at Kristoff's chamber above the Night Viper. It was decorated to Kristoff's taste, mostly black with a combination of shades of red here and there. She liked it that way. Kristoff rested his head on Meredith's right shoulder. "You like my statues? I sculpted them myself, back in Paris, sixteenth century." "There's so much . . ." Meredith paused, hunting for the precise word. "Pain," she spat. "There's beauty, but pain in that beauty." "Humanity is beautifully painful," Kristoff whispered in her ear. "I made these for a reason." "Why?" He deliberated whether or not he would tell her the story of how these twisted figures came to be. "Maybe later, when you're old enough, I'll tell you." She turned to face him, and for the first time, she noticed the many words that were concealed behind his face-the scars, the wounds, and the sorrows. She smiled with a heavenly radiance he had never seen before in any woman. "And how old is old enough?" "When you get around to being my age," Kristoff replied. "How do you know that I'll be staying around that long?" Kristoff looked at her in the eye, dead seriously. "I have faith in you." "What's going to happen in between now and two millenniums from now?" Meredith asked him, making it sound like a lighthearted joke, but she was serious about it. She would like to know. "I don't know," Kristoff answered truthfully, pulling Meredith into his chilled embrace that warmed with her touch. "I honestly don't know. But what I do know is this: we're going to have a hell of a time." "Speaking of hell-not that it really matters to me-but do you think that I'll be going to hell or heaven now that I'm half-angel and half vampire?" Kristoff's black eyes bore into the chasm of Meredith's soul. "I don't believe in hell or heaven anymore. What I do here on earth is all that matters to me." "And what will you do here on earth?" Kristoff paused to gaze at her before his arm reached out and violently swept the three silver statues off his desk. The statues cluttered to the floor, clanging against each other, but then becoming silent and peaceful again, as if the calamity never occurred. To hell with human pain and misery, Kristoff declared with a fiendish smile on his pallid lips. Meredith gawked at the mess Kristoff had made and proclaimed, "Don't think that I'm going to-" Before she could finish her statement, Kristoff's cool mouth pressed against hers and she melted easily into his embrace and his sensual kiss, incapable of resisting, unable to do anything else but to relax into him. She was never going to finish what she wanted to say.

THE END