Somehow-he wasn't sure how-Will convinced them to let him leave the hospital on schedule. Though he was now expected to follow up by keeping an appointment Dr. Ashby had set up for him with a New York therapist. Therapy he didn't need. Didn't even believe in it. You were either sane or you weren't.
He was. If his little red caboose were capable of chugging around the bend, it would have been long gone by now. He was perfectly sane.
Except, of course, for the visions. But hell, under torture, the mind did what it had to in order to survive. If that meant creating a fantasyland with beautiful Gypsies and dangerous vampires, then fine. Those little flights to La-La Land were not signs of instability. Hell, they were probably the only things that had kept his crackers from crumbling.
Of course, that didn't explain the vampire who'd shown up in the hospital lab last night. Nor the fact that Will had...kind of liked the guy.
Making snap judgments about people was not unusual for him. He'd been trained for years to size a person up in a glance, so that wasn't an issue. The issue was that he'd believed the guy to be a vampire. A real one. At least until he'd gotten up the next morning to examine the theory in the full light of day and realized how ridiculous it was. Maybe it was easier to believe in fantasies when you were creeping around a shadowy lab in the dead of night. Besides, he'd been through the mill, and they'd been keeping him pretty drugged-up to boot. Far more than he liked.
That must have been it. He'd probably imagined the entire thing. Hell, it was a wonder he wasn't suffering far worse side effects after his weeks of torture, mangled foot and near-death in the desert. His brain had been baked, his body dehydrated, his senses deprived. Top all that off with a little morphine and you had a hallucination just waiting to happen.
The nurse pushed his wheelchair up to the double doors, which parted automatically. He took his first breath of fresh air in weeks, even if it was tinged with exhaust fumes. It was spring. God, how he loved the spring.
There was a taxi waiting at the curb. He glanced up at the smiling nurse. "I can take it from here, hon."
"I don't doubt it."
He got upright, his weight on the good foot. The nurse pulled the chair out from behind him, then handed him his cane and the plastic bag filled with his belongings. The few that were here, anyway. He didn't own much, or hadn't until he'd come home.
Uncle Sam had secured an apartment for him in the city of his choice, which was New York. They'd furnished it and told him there would be a car waiting in the parking garage when he arrived. His worldly possessions, most of which fit easily into a large Army-issue duffel bag, had already been sent on ahead of him.
He muttered his destination to the driver as he got into the back seat, then settled in for the ride to the airport.
It was a short, easy flight. The landing, though, was a bit of a surprise. When he limped off the plane, keeping to one side so the other passengers could rush past him in their hurry to the gate, he had no idea what was awaiting him in LaGuardia's main terminal. In fact, when he first glimpsed the press, the cameras, the people waving their tiny flags and holding up their signs, he wondered what celebrity had been on that airplane with him.
Then a reporter said, "Welcome to New York, Colonel Stone! How does it feel to be back home?"
The microphone hovered in front of his face, and he thought about laughing out loud. This wasn't home. Home was a camouflage-colored tent or sometimes a hole in the ground. It was men in fatigues carrying automatic rifles, and bad food and warm water, and anti-nerve-gas injections. It wasn't this.
But aloud, he only said, "Great. It feels great. I'm glad to be back."
"Colonel, how is your leg?" another one shouted, shouldering her way to the front of the pack.
"Foot, not leg," he corrected. "It's as good as can be expected, I suppose."
"What's your reaction to the news that earlier today a daisy-cutter was dropped on the caves where you were held?"
"I hadn't heard." He wondered if any of the men who'd held him were stupid enough to have remained in the same place this long and doubted it. "They get anybody?"
"A pile of them. They're still sorting through the remains."
He swallowed his reaction to that and wondered who'd been killed for the sake of avenging the latest American hero. He stopped answering questions, shouldered his way through the mob, not without effort, but they didn't give up until he got into a cab outside the airport.
It was only as the cab pulled away that he saw her.
She was getting into a long black limousine. She wore dark glasses and real fur, and her hair was wild and loose. Her pale, pale skin, like alabaster, was almost luminous in the dusky light of sundown. Her legs were endless, her nails as red as her lips.
"Stop the car," he told the driver. "Stop!"
The cabdriver hit the brakes, jerking the wheel to one side. But it was too late. She was in the car, drawing one long leg in after her and closing the door. Then the limo lurched into motion and took her away.
He squinted at the plate number, but the sun reflected off the rear window, and he couldn't see through its glare. Then he just sat there staring after her for the longest time.
"You wanna sit here all day or what?" the driver asked.
Will snapped his attention back to where it belonged. "No. Just...drive."
Again the cab was in motion. But Will knew, he knew deep down, that he had just seen Sarafina. His beautiful fantasy. And then he wondered if maybe he should take Dr. Ashby's advice to heart and get some therapy.
It had been two months-two months that he'd been trying to banish thoughts of his make-believe woman from his mind, but he'd only become more and more desperate to see her again.
Well, today, dammit, he would. If it were possible to find her again, find that place again, then he would. He stopped taking his pain meds, walked excessively and left his cane at home. By the end of the day, Will's foot was screaming in unmitigated agony. He was damp with sweat, his entire body shaking with pain by the time he got back to the Manhattan condo his dear Uncle Sam had bought and paid for.
He went straight to the bedroom. The drapes were drawn, no lights on, and it was well past sundown. Now. Maybe now.
He fell onto the bed, closed his eyes and drew his mind as far away from the pain as he could. He'd been determined to let her go, to just get on with his life. But she haunted him. Her eyes. Her smile. Her hair.
Part of him was afraid that he might get trapped in his own fantasy-become so enmeshed that he spent the rest of his life in a mental ward somewhere, living only in his mind. But the craving for her, the need, only grew stronger. He had to see her again. And so he tried, just as he had tried a thousand times before.
Nothing. Nothing. Dammit to hell!
Eyes still closed, he reached out for the cane that leaned against the headboard, where he always kept it. His hand closed around the cool shellac-coated oak, and he brought the cane around fast and hard, smashing it into his bad foot.
Pain ripped a scream from his chest. He dropped the cane to the floor as fireworks went off in his brain. Mentally he skittered into the darkest corner of his mind and cowered there, where the pain couldn't reach.
And then he found her. He saw her eyes, gleaming in the darkness, and then he fell into them, into her world, or her past, or whatever the hell this place was.
Sarafina.
She was sitting in a room, lit only by the glow coming from the dying fire in the hearth. It startled Will at first, that he could see the room so clearly in such dim light. The antique furniture looked new, and the oriental rug that covered the hardwood floor showed its vibrant reds and yellows as brightly as it would by full daylight. But then he reminded himself that he was seeing her, and everything around her, as she would. And she, apparently, could see quite clearly in the dark.
She felt stronger, more alive, than she ever had during his previous visits. But there was a hardness about her now that he'd never sensed before. He remembered her anguish on learning of her lover's betrayal, and that of her own sister, and he thought that might account for the change.
She sat in a velvet-covered chair, with a small, round three-legged table beside her. She wore full, flowing skirts of jewel-blue, a turquoise-colored satin blouse that bared her pale shoulders. Jewels dangled from her neck and her ears, and decorated every scarlet-tipped finger as she absently shuffled a deck of cards. Tiny silk slippers covered her feet. Her hair was long and loose, curling wildly around her shoulders.
"Sarafina, I'm here," he whispered. "Can you feel me?"
Sarafina frowned, a tiny furrow appearing between her full, dark brows. She turned her head to look about the room but saw only the man who had transformed her that night in the cave so long ago. Bartrone.
He sat in a chair much like hers, only larger, and placed closer to the fire. He didn't seem vibrant or alive, as she did. He seemed...tired. Exceedingly tired.
"Did you hear something just now?" she asked him.
He didn't answer but remained as he was, his shoulders slightly slumped, gaze turned inward as if he were deep in thought.
"Bartrone?"
His head came up slowly. "Yes?"
"Did you hear anything just now?" He only stared blankly, and Sarafina finally shook her head in frustration. "No, of course you didn't. You barely hear me. What is wrong with you, Bartrone?"
He shrugged. "Do you know how old I am, my Gypsy love? Have I told you, in all the years you've been my companion?"
All the years? God, Will wondered just how many years it had been at this point.
She blinked slowly, searching her mind. "You... no. I don't believe you have. Though I've asked many times."
He sighed, seemed to think a long while before answering. "You've heard of Babylon?"
Sarafina sat up a little straighter, widening her eyes. "How could I not, with all the books you've made me read, all the lessons you've insisted I complete?"
"Immortality spent in ignorance is wasted."
"So you've been telling me these past fifty years."
Fifty years? That long? But she didn't look so much as a day older!
Bartrone nodded, drew a breath. "I was born there."
She blinked slowly. "In Babylon?"
"The year of my birth, by the modern calendar, would have been seven hundred and one, before the Common Era." He lifted his gaze to hers slowly. "I am more than two thousand years old, my precious Sarafina. And I have come to understand that, in truth, there is no such thing as immortality."
She stopped shuffling the cards, a larger deck than the modern ones Will had seen, and simply held them in her now-still hands. "That's ridiculous, my darling. You yourself are the proof of it."
"I'm afraid I am the opposite of that." He lowered his head. "I'm tired, Sarafina. Tired of never seeing the sunlight. Of killing in order to live."
"Is it your conscience that's troubling you, then?" She got to her feet and went to him, leaning over his chair and running a hand through his long, dark hair. "You kill only those who need killing, my love. How many times have you explained this to me? That we must kill in order to survive, but that we must never harm an innocent? Goodness knows there are criminals enough to sustain us. Abusers of children. Murderers."
He nodded. "We are natural predators, like the lion or the shark. But unlike them, we have a conscience and, I believe-though many others do not-a soul." He heaved another heavy sigh. "It is unnatural for a human to live forever, Sarafina."
"We're not humans. We're vampires. It couldn't be more natural to us."
"We're humans. We were born humans. This... this condition of ours is no more than an aberration. A curse, perhaps."
She wanted to lash out at him for those words. Will felt the anger rise up in her. But she banked it, held it in check. And he realized suddenly all the things this man-this monster-had been to her over the years. A teacher, a mentor, a protector and guide, a companion and friend. She loved him-not passionately, but deeply.
"You've never believed these things before, Bartrone. You taught me to embrace my preternatural strength and power. To relish this life and all it offers."
"I know, child, I know. But with age, comes wisdom. And a new knowledge has settled on my heart these past few months."
"Wisdom, is it?" she snapped, nearing the edge of her temper. "Or perhaps a simple case of melancholia?"
He drew a long, slow breath. "I'm sorry I brought you into this life, Sarafina." Lifting his hand, he touched her face. "I need you to forgive me."
Sarafina drew away from the cool touch of his palm on her cheek. "Forgive you? Bartrone, you saved me from certain death. Already I was weakening with me symptoms of the illness. And had it not killed me, my faithless sister surely would have. She and my betrothed-plotting against me all along. You showed me the truth. You gave me the power to outlive them all. So don't ask me to forgive you. I can only thank you for the gift you gave to me."
He smiled slowly, though the sadness he'd been describing still shadowed his eyes. "So alive. Such a fiery thing you've become. Maybe for you it will be different. By God, I hope so, Sarafina. But for me...it's over."
She stared at him, her entire body having gone still. "What do you mean?"
"I've taught you well. You'll be fine on your own."
"On my own? Bartrone, you are making very little sense. Perhaps you need to feed, or rest."
"I've fed for the last time, Fina." He glanced at the clock on the mantel, as its pendulum swung slowly back and forth. "It's nearly dawn. I intend to see the sunrise today."
"Don't be foolish. You can't. You mustn't even try." She dropped the deck of cards as if she had completely forgotten them. Letting them fall and scatter upon the carpet, she took his hand, drew him to his feet. "Come to bed, love. You'll feel so much differently when you wake tonight. We'll do something fabulous. We'll take a trip, that's what we'll do. We can travel into the desert lands, and you can tell me about Babylon. What it was truly like to live there. You see? There is still much you have to teach me."
As she spoke, she drew him across the room, through a doorway that led down into the basement. She looked back as she did, toward the cards that had fallen upon the floor. For just a moment, she stilled, her gaze riveted to the two cards that had fallen faceup. One depicted the pathway between heaven and earth as a beautiful woman with her feet in the one and her head in the other. The second card showed the reaper in a black cloak, wielding a scythe.
She wrenched her gaze from the cards, her mind shouting a vehement denial. It meant nothing, she told herself, and she drew Bartrone on.
He followed without argument, nodding and muttering, "All right, my love. All right, I'll come with you."
Will could feel the fear in Sarafina's heart. Fear of being alone, it was nearly paralyzing in its power. She was trembling, close to tears at the thought of it.
She drew Bartrone into the basement, through a hidden doorway, into a pitch-black room with a dirt floor. Will gasped in surprise when she lifted part of the floor upward, and he realized it was a hinged trapdoor, only made to look like the rest of the floor. Another set of stairs was below, spiraling downward into the belly of the earth itself.
"I have had word from my spies," Bartrone said. "Your wretched sister is old now. Her husband died young, fulfilling the first part of the curse you placed upon them. The second part has now come to pass."
She moved only a few steps down, staring back up at him.
"A child has been born, a great-great-grandson to your sister. His name is Dante, and he is one of The Chosen."
Her heart quickened. "I have family again?" she whispered.
He nodded. "His blood is like ours. He is one of the few who can become one of us. But he is still a suckling babe. Think carefully about what you do with this information, Sarafina. Allow the child to grow to manhood, and remember what I've told you-that this life we live is as much a curse as a gift. Think on that before you decide whether to bring him with you into darkness."
Blinking, she shook her head. "The only alternative is to watch him weaken and die in the prime of his youth, Bartrone."
"That may be his preference. Let him decide."
She nodded, thinking it through. "I'll think on it. We have many years during which to discuss this. It will be a long while before he's adult enough to even consider..." Her head came up, eyes bright. "Oh, but we must visit him! To have family again. Real family, from my own Gypsy clan."
"Your sister is the elder woman as well as the Shuvani now, my love. She won't likely let you near him."
Sarafina's eyes turned dark, her face deadly. "Nor will she stop me."
He nodded. "Remember the things I've told you. And remember that I love you, Sarafina. In all my centuries of life, I have never loved another the way I have loved you." He held up his free hand. "No, don't reply in kind, my love. I know it has never been the same for you. It doesn't matter. You've been kind to me, been my companion, my friend and my lover. I'm only sorry that I have to repay you so cruelly."
And with that he yanked his hand from hers, and, with his other, he shoved her. Sarafina stumbled down the stairs, falling the last few steps. She scrambled to her feet at the bottom, hiking her skirts in her fists and racing upward even as the trapdoor slammed down. "Bartrone!" she cried. She pushed against the door, but he had apparently blocked it from the other side. "Bartrone, don't do something foolish! Please!"
"Goodbye, my love," he called.
She heard his footsteps retreating back up the stairs. "No," she shouted. "No! I won't let you do this!" Turning, she ran back down the spiral staircase, seeing as clearly as a cat in the darkness. She was moving with such speed that the walls around her blurred. The sensation, to Will, who felt as if he were being propelled along in her wake, was dizzying.
Then she was at another door, jerking it open.
Sunlight streamed in on her, burning her as if she were on fire. Will felt it. Her arms flying up to shield her face, she staggered backward into the shadows. And then she lowered her arms slowly, breathing hard. There were burns on her skin. Will heard her thoughts. She would be all right. The burns would heal with the day-sleep, as all wounds to her kind would do. As Bartrone's would, if she could only get to him in time.
Then she looked up, through the open doorway, that threshold of yellow light, and she saw him. He stood on a small, grassy hillock in the distance, his back toward her, arms wide-open to the rising sun. As that glowing golden sphere rose higher, his form became only a dark silhouette. And then...a flaming one.
A cry burst from Sarafina-the keening wail of one in unbearable pain. She fell to her knees, watching in anguish as her companion seemed to dance in the flames, turning this way and that as his flesh was devoured. He never made a sound. He burned alive and never made a sound.
Then his form was no more, and the flames grew lower, nearer the ground. They flickered there only a moment, then died altogether, leaving only a scorched patch of earth where he had been.
Sarafina curled onto the cold floor, sobbing.
The door was still open, the sun rising ever higher in the sky. Its rays crept across the floor, closer and closer to where she lay.
"Sarafina," Will said. "Sarafina, you have to get up. Now, dammit, or you'll burn as he did!"
"Leave me alone, spirit," she whispered, the words coming very slowly, broken by sobs. "Allow me my grief, for I've lost my only companion."
"No. You haven't I'm here. I'm with you."
She shook her head where it lay against her folded arms on the floor. "You lie. I've not heard your voice nor felt your presence for fifty years. I don't even know...I don't even know what you are."
"For me, it's only been two months, Sarafina. And I'm not a spirit, I'm a man. I live in another time, a far distant time in the future. In a place called New York. I don't know how or why I find you this way, no more than I can understand why I love you so desperately. But I do. I do, Sarafina."
Sniffling, she lifted her head. "Everyone who has ever claimed to love me has betrayed me. They win my heart, my trust, my love, and then they take theirs away and leave me alone." She closed her eyes.
"I won't. I swear it."
Shaking her head, she lowered it again, weeping. "Oh, Bartrone, why? Why did you leave me all alone?"
"You're not alone."
"You do not count, spirit. Who knows when I will hear from you again? A day for you could be a century for me!"
Will racked his brain to think of something he could say that would give her something to cling to. Anything. And then he hit on it. "There's the child," he said quickly. "The one Bartrone told you about. Dante. Surely you can't give up without at least seeing him?"
She was silent for a moment, except for the sniffling. Then, finally, she struggled to her feet, pressing her palms to the walls to help her stand. Will wished with everything in him that he could help her, put his arms around her and hold her, carry her away from that dangerous sunlight.
She went to the door and closed it, secured the bolt from the inside, then slowly made her way into the depths of the underground lair. "Spirit? Are you still there?"
"I'm here."
"Stay with me until I sleep. And...try to come to me again-sooner, this time? Can you do that?"
"I don't know if I can. But I swear I'll try."
She nodded, then stopped beside a huge hardwood box. It wasn't a coffin. It was twice as wide, nearly twice as deep. She opened the lid, and he saw that the thing was lined with white satin sheets and pillows. And he knew with a stab of pain that Bartrone used to lie there beside her.
She lay down, lowered the lid and closed her eyes. She whispered Bartrone's name as she fell into a deathlike sleep.
Will let himself slip into sleep, too.