B00528UTDS EBOK (20 page)

As the light faded, she heard Darrien stirring from within the shadows of the cave. From behind, she felt him wrap his arms around her.

His touch and the desire in his voice sent shivers through her body. They had made love before she’d gone to sleep, and everyday since leaving Reno. Still her need for him was as great as it had been the first time they’d come together.

Being the object of his desire was pure heaven, but Sarah could not shake the feeling that he wanted to make love to her so much, because he knew there would be no tomorrow, at least not for them. Sarah would not voice her doubts - she would not taint their time together with regret.

Sarah leaned her head back to look at him, and she felt his lips on hers. His kiss was tender, but with an underlying heat that could not be denied. When the kiss ended, Sarah smiled at him.

“I’m starving. We can’t live on love alone,” she told him.

“I know … unfortunately,” he scowled. “What do you want to eat?”

“A cheeseburger,” she told him mischievously. She knew that he would have much preferred to go in search of a rabbit, and cook it over a fire for her.

“A cheeseburger?” Darrien drew his brows together. “And which hamburger stand did you want my dear? The one at mile marker 128 … or the joint near mile marker 150?”

Sarah stuck her tongue out at him and giggled. “I can wait until the next town.”

A wicked gleam entered his eyes and he started moving toward her. “I don’t know if I can wait that long to eat.”

Sarah laughed and backed away from him, but Darrien quickly tackled her to the ground. “You would be a nice little scrap to tide me over,” he whispered.

Sarah placed her hands on both sides of his face, and peered into his dark eyes. “I love you.”

The laughter fled from his eyes. “I know you do,” he told her, and then his lips devoured hers as he kissed her hungrily.

Sarah pulled away so that she could catch her breath. “Darrien … I don’t want to live without you.” The tightness in her throat made it nearly impossible to say the words.

Darrien rolled off of her and sat up. “Sarah, please don’t ask me to do it again. I love you too much to see you die, or to witness the ravages of time take you from me.”

“But what about what I feel? Doesn’t that matter?” Sarah shot back angrily.

“Yes, of course it does.”

“Then stay with me Darrien. There has to be a way for you to turn me. Maybe that would make you feel better about it, but do not make me endure life without you,” Sarah pleaded.

“We should be going,” Darrien told her as he stood up.

Sarah frowned. With a sigh, she began gathering the few belongings that she’d been able to bring with her.

Every time she brought up the subject, Darrien would clam up on her and become distant. Sarah was finally beginning to see how her mother could have been so possessed with her need, that she would risk anything to be with the man she loved.

Suddenly a thought occurred to her. “I know that you mentioned my father, but you didn’t say anything about my mother. Is she with him?”

Without saying anymore, Sarah continued to watch him. He was hiding something from her, and from the look on his face she suspected that whatever he was keeping from her, was not pleasant.

* * * *

The rope around his neck made it impossible to move without cutting off the blood flow to his brain. According to myth, the vampire does not live, so there is no blood flow. If only that were true he would really be invulnerable. Unfortunately for Dash, the slayers knew which myths were true and which were simply stories told over hundreds of years - years in which the human population had grown to hate and fear the creatures of the night.

In the flickering candlelight, the chapel above the catacombs of St. Domitilla seemed far more sinister than holy.

“You must listen to me,” Dash’s voice was weak as the slayer pulled the noose tighter.

The end of the rope was draped over the rafters above the altar. When they tired of torturing him, they could simply pull on the rope and hang him until he lost consciousness. They would then decapitate him and burn his remains. This way they could be sure that he would not reanimate.

When Dash had emerged from the catacombs below, and entered the chapel in search of help for Nicole, the two men came out of nowhere. They were slayers, the worst kind of killers. They killed mercilessly if you were a vampire.

With the two slayers was a priest, and though he was an older man, he was no less formidable. It was the priest that had recognized him for a vampire, when Nicole approached the man to ask him about Alec. Though Dash had hung back, what he was had been obvious to the priest. But Dash hadn’t guessed that the man was also a slayer.

“My friend is in trouble down there.” His words were cut off as one of the slayers pulled the rope tight.

The priest’s hard eyes rested on Dash’s face. “Why would we care what happens to a vampire? You are the spawn of Satan, and we must send you back to the hell from which you came.”

“I know of no Satan,” Dash strained against the unyielding noose, forcing the words from his mouth. “And hell … hell is the curse of eternal darkness.”

“Repent now! Beg God to have mercy on your soul!” the priest roared.

A laugh escaped his dry and injured throat. “Sorry … I did that a long time ago.”

An instant after the last word left his mouth, a spray of holy water hit him in the face, but his flesh did not blister and burn.

“Two that I know of. They drug her away and I could not keep up. When I searched for her, she was gone. I think they have her hidden,” Dash explained, his face twisting into a painful grimace. The effort to speak was almost too much - the pain too great.

“Why would you care what happens to her?” Rovati narrowed his eyes, suspicious of Dash’s words.

“She’s my friend,” Dash told him.

The priest’s eyes rested on the two slayers that had accompanied him into the chapel. “Let him go. He can lead us to these other vampires, and the girl.”

Alec shook uncontrollably - the grief and the self-loathing too much to endure. Tears spilled from his eyes as he stared down at the unmoving form in his arms. She was so pale - so lifeless. He knew it would only be a matter of moments before she succumbed to the ultimate sleep. Death would claim her, and it was he that had brought it to her.

This is what Julia wanted. She wanted him to feel this self-hate and disdain for what he was. She was amused by the fact that it would ultimately be his hunger that would steal the last breath of his humanity.

A small amount of blood still oozed from the wound on her breast, it lay scarlet against her pale skin. The sight did not invoke his hunger, only the pain of knowing that he had killed the only person that mattered to him. He had doused the single flicker of light that had still illuminated his world of darkness.

His hunger had been too great. He had tried to withdraw from her, but his need to feed had consumed him. When he’d finally come to his senses, Nicole had grown limp and pale - her life essence nearly gone. She’d sacrificed herself to ease his suffering, but the pain of taking her life was far greater than the agony of starvation could ever be.

Alec closed his eyes so that he would not need to see her face as she died. But even then he could still see her beautiful - pale face in his mind’s eye. Nothing would take away this moment. He did not even have the blissful nothingness of death to look forward to.

Nicole’s breath rattled deep within her chest, and with one last gasp it, was gone.

Alec cradled Nicole’s body while she suffered through the throes of death. The only way he could have saved her was to turn her, but he knew that is not what she would want. How could he condemn her to the same hell that he wished to end for himself?

* * * *

Nicole looked down on the scene below. She saw her own body and Alec’s unbearable grief. She could feel his pain and wanted to comfort him, but he was oblivious to her presence.

She knew her body had died, but somehow that didn’t matter. All that mattered to her was the pain that her death was causing to the man that was her heart - the one being that had mattered to her more than life itself.

Nicole drifted down from the ceiling and reached out to touch him, but her hand went through his arm. She was nothing more than energy now. He would never hear her words again, nor feel her touch.

“Nicki.” The small voice seemed to come from everywhere at the same time. It surrounded her with warmth.

There was a golden light - a light so bright that it should have blinded her, but she no longer had her mortal eyes. She looked upon the light with the eyes of the dead. Silhouetted in that light, was the form of a small boy. Nicole knew it was her little brother, Jay. She could feel the love within him radiate toward her - showering her soul with a love so complete that it could not be experienced in life.

“Jay,” Nicole called to him - not with her mortal voice, but with her mind.

Then he was there - standing right in front of her. As he held out his small hand to her, it occurred to Nicole that he appeared as beautiful and healthy as he had in life, maybe even more so.

“Nicki … you should not be here.” His small voice was just as she remembered it, but so crystal clear, and loving that she knew it was truly the voice of an angel.

“I’ve missed you so much.” Nicole’s words were pure thought, but she could still hear them in her head as if she were speaking them.

Jay shook his head. “Come with me.”

The instant Nicole took his hand she was gone from the tomb where her life had ended, but the part of her soul that could not let go of Alec, yearned to stay behind.

“Come Nicki … come and see.” Jay’s voice was a melody of heaven. For so long his voice had been inaudible to her in life, and she could not help but submerge herself in it now.

Then she was somewhere else. It was dark, but flickering candlelight cut through that darkness. On the stone floor, a young girl lay curled up in a ball, sleeping. Right now the girl was alone, but Nicole sensed that someone had been there. The darkness of the immortal still hung in the air like a black fog that no light could penetrate.

* * * *

Dash walked ahead of the slayers, a rope wrapped around his upper body to keep him from trying to escape. Every few moments one of them would prod him with a wooden staff that they each carried with them.

Never before had he come this close to a slayer. Father Rovati was in the lead, carrying a torch to help light the way. If the vampires were still in the catacombs, the priest would see them first, but he seemed to have no fear of the immortals.

“Hey father, do you think it such a good idea to go ahead of us?” Dash asked.

“They can take my life but not my soul. That is all that I need worry about.”

Dash wished that he had the confidence of the priest, but he knew better. The vampires could take your body and soul - at least to the point that heaven no longer mattered - if it existed at all.

“How much further?” Rovati asked him.

Up ahead of them, Dash saw that the tunnel curved to the right. “It was just after that turn that they grabbed her. They drug her for a bit before I lost them.” Just as he spoke the last word, Dash felt the air stir in front of him, and he heard Father Rovati cry out.

There was a blur of movement and he saw the priest pull a machete from his robes. With liquid-smooth movement, the blade cut through the vampire’s neck, and his head rolled to the ground.

Just beyond the light of the torch, there was more movement and the two slayers moved past Dash to run into the darkness. The sounds of struggle echoed through the tunnels, and Dash felt the dread of someone that would soon be facing his executioner. If the slayers failed, he would be killed as a traitor.

To lead a slayer to another vampire was an unforgivable sin among the immortals. He’d only done it to save Nicole, but that wouldn’t matter in the end. None of it really mattered. Even if the slayers did kill the vampires, the humans would destroy him. The only real difference being that if he were killed by the slayers, death would be quick - not so with the immortals.

The howling scream of a vampire could be heard over the commotion ahead of them. There was another scream. This scream was different - it was a scream of pure anguish, and with that scream the howling of a single word - a name.

Nicole.

* * * *