Companions (21 page)

Fortunately, she was involved with a mortal fully as mean and ruthless as his own dear Selena. Char would be okay, even if she did talk too much about vampire history, frequently at the wrong time, like he was doing now. Selena would probably like Char, and try to arrest the ex-con boyfriend.

Page 97

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Well?" Selena persisted.

He could continue being evasive. He could order her to leave it alone. He could get up and leave. But despite the impatience in her bright eyes, her concern washed over him like a balm. "I'm not sure how old I was. Eleven, twelve?" He shrugged. "There is a strigoi Law now, forbidding the taking of children. It is a new Law by vampire standards, only a couple of centuries old. It is a Law I enforce rigorously. Taking children has always been considered stupid, dangerous, unethical by the ones who have ethics, but it wasn't against the Law in my mortal time."

Horror and distaste roiled around her. "Rosho bit you when you were a kid?"

"Yes." His simple answer caused her a great deal of pain for his sake. Her sympathy hurt him. "No, he did not make me his companion," he told her, not for the first time.

"But, how — "

He could not bear to tell it, yet he wanted
her
to know it. "As I started to say, when I was eleven or twelve, my father took me to the vampire who made him. He presented me to her as a gift."

"What?"

He held up a hand. "He did it for my sake, or so he tried to believe. He told me he wanted to give me a good life, that the lady would give me a warm bed, fine clothes, that I would never be hungry or cold.

She gave me a warm bed, all right."

"Oh, dear."

Her understated consternation caused him to smirk. "My father also promised me that I would live forever. He didn't ask me if I wanted to live forever. And he didn't tell me the price. He was my father; I trusted him."

"Oh, dear," she said again.

"Being the victim of child abuse does not excuse most of the things I've done," he told her. "But as I said, I make very sure such things do not go unpunished these days."

"But nobody helped you."

He shrugged. "I helped myself."

Selena considered. "You killed her, didn't you?" Technically, he should not admit to a companion that a companion once actually killed a vampire master. Companions weren't supposed to know that even thinking about such a thing was possible. It might make them uppity. But Selena was already uppity, having attempted to rid herself of him twice. Istvan admired her persistence but was certain she'd never succeed. On the other hand, it wasn't as if he'd been a normal companion, now was it? "The one my father gave me to had no idea what I was. She knew I was a son of her gypsy lover, but she never bothered to count up the years. What are a couple of decades to an immortal?"

"They added up to a fatal mistake?"

Page 98

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Eventually." Memories he normally kept at bay vied for his attention. Too many of his kind got trapped in the past. They were always there, all those memories, crawling under the surface, building up behind the barriers built of magic and will. Some bad, some good, soft as down or sharp as blades, all memories were dangerous. You needed to live in the now, or immortality engulfed you. He concentrated on the here and now, on telling the story without getting caught up in it. "You see," he told her, "it took me a while to understand what I was, as well."

"Which is where Rosho comes in."

"You guessed it."

Selena watched him carefully, alive to the turmoil beneath his usual phlegmatic surface. She was more aware of him than ever before, wasn't she? Share the blood and you shared —

"Istvan," she said. How odd that she called him by that name.

He'd been looking at her all along, but when she spoke, he gave a gasping start, and their gazes met with dizzying impact.

Filthy hands, that's what he noticed about the strigoi first. The stranger's face and form were
masked by a heavy, hooded cloak when he entered the castle hall, but he stripped off his riding
gloves before throwing back his hood, and Istvan could not help but notice his hands. Caked with
old blood, Istvan saw, crusted and well worn into the unwashed skin, with blackened blood under
the long nails. The stranger was fine enough to look at when he finally revealed his face, but
Istvan already held him in contempt because of his filth. It was an arrogant thing to stink so of the
blood of mortals. The lady would not have approved, if the lady had been here.

When the stranger did take off his cloak and drop it carelessly to the floor, he looked around the
hall as if he owned it. He gave orders, and the slaves cowered and rushed to do his bidding.

Istvan tugged at old Mathias's sleeve as the lady's eldest slave went past. "Who is he?" he asked.

"The sire of our mistress," Mathias told him. "Rosho. We have long-standing orders to obey him
as we would her." The old man's eyes looked haunted. "He has not visited for a long time. I
prayed I would die before hecame again." With that, the old man went about his tasks.

Istvan might have followed Mathias toward the kitchen, but Rosho called out, "Music. Where's
the Roma musician I've heard so much about? "

There was nothing Istvan could do but present himself to this vampire lord.

Rosho grabbed him by the chin and turned Istvan's face to the light. "You're not a pretty boy,"

Rosho declared. '"You must have some other charms." He stroked Istvan's cheek. "Play for me."

Istvan made music, and the whole time he played, he felt the stranger's growing interest. The
strigoi's gaze slid over him, as intimate as a touch. Rosho's thoughts battered for entrance to
Istvan's mind. Istvan did not falter once, did not miss a note, or let his voice show any strain from
fighting off Rosho's attempts at intrusion.

This quiet defiance only made Rosho laugh. "You do have many charms, boy." He beckoned.

"Come here." The vampire was seated in the lady's carved chair at the high table. Istvan stood
Page 99

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

before the great hearth, cold despite the roaring fire at his back. He made no move when he was
summoned. "I belong to the lady," was all he said. It was the only defense he had.

Rosho was surprised that he dared to make a defense at all. Surprised and deeply amused. He
was smiling when he bared his claws. Within moments, Istvan understood why there was so much
blood beneath the vampire's nails.

Istvan sobbed and clutched the ruin of his face with his hands. Blood poured between his fingers.

Rosho laughed and batted his hands away, holding Istvan down on the floor before the fire as he
licked the blood fromthe deep cuts. Istvan screamed at this violation. No one had tasted his blood
but the lady.

The vampire only grew excited at the taste and at Istvan's protests. Eventually, he slung Istvan
over his shoulder and called, "Show me to a bed!"

The slaves dared not protest. Istvan hung like meat over Rosho's shoulder as Mathias led the
vampire to the lady's own chamber. The sheets were fresh, Istvan noted when he was flung down.

He felt the calm of deep shock, almost as if he were without his own body, looking upon the scene
and commenting. He could not escape the stink of Rosho, not of his body nor of his gleeful
thoughts. Rosho battered at him with those thoughts, seeking entry into Istvan's mind. Istvan
denied him that. He could deny him nothing else. Not his blood, nor his body. He could not even
stop the reflex to swallow when Rosho tore open his own flesh, held Istvan's jaw open, and poured
blood into his mouth.

As soon as the new magic of Rosho's blood mingled with the old spell cast on him by the lady's, all
that was real shattered around Istvan like a mirror smashed to bits, and he was trapped inside
each of a thousand pieces of broken glass. Rosho was with him, and so was the lady.

There was only a tiny, sane part of him left. That pain told him to hang on, that the nightmare
could not lust forever. Eventually it would be dawn.

But until it was dawn
—

Selena managed to make it to the sink before she threw up.

"I did not need to know that," she said when Steve came to hold her head. She really hadn't needed to go through the nightmare memory with him, but she had. His introduction to Rosho was burned into her now, as much a part of her being as it was his. "Thanks," she muttered, and not because he handed her a moistened dishtowel so she could wipe her face.

"I don't like him," she said after she wiped her face and thoroughly rinsed out her mouth. She didn't mind the taste of vomit as much as she did the memory of Rosho's blood. "I don't like him at all. It's a pity you weren't able to kill him then."

"Yes," Steve agreed.

She was still dizzy, and she could sense shadows and reflections of shadows moving just beyond the periphery of her vision. When she looked at his face, she expected to see the scars.

Page 100

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

His smile was gentle, affectionate, hardly cynical at all. "The wounds healed by the next night. The pain was bad for a few hours, but as it faded, I began to finally realize what I was. That I was different, I knew. That I had power, I never guessed. The powers develop with puberty. I understand that now.

And I think it helped that I learned how to hate. In a way, Rosho freed me. When the lady returned, I killed her and went home to my people."

Though Selena knew Steve wanted to let the subject go, curiosity drove her. "Then what happened?"

"Rosho and I didn't meet again until many years later."

"When you were a vampire?"

"No."

She looked at him sternly. "How'd a nice Roma boy like you get to be a vampire, anyway?"

"Rosho."

"Wait a minute. You said he didn't — "

Steve put a finger over her lips. "The way I met you," he said. "It was history repeating itself. Rosho set a trap for me. He meant to kill me, but it didn't work out that way. An Enforcer stopped him and claimed me as her companion. Her, I wanted."

She didn't mean to be jealous, she really didn't, but the emotion struck so hard Selena heard herself snarl. He chuckled and put his hands on her shoulders. His dark eyes glittered with wicked amusement.

"I know," he said. "It's terrible to think you aren't the only one I've ever loved. I wonder what she'd think if she knew about you. After all, you're the first one in five hundred years I've wanted."

She couldn't help but be flattered, damn it! "You didn't want me," she reminded him. "Any more than I wanted you."

"The bonding didn't give us a choice," he reminded her. "Any more than it gave the one who changed me a choice. She knew it was a mistake. I hated vampires. I killed vampires for my people and for the prince. We were enemies who were made to be lovers. It lasted only a few years; what we shared was too intense to last for very long. Only when she changed me did she learn what a great mistake making a
dhamphir
into one of them was. There was no changeling phase for me, and no need for a second rebirth into the Nighthawk line. I was reborn Nighthawk." He gave one of his depreciating, characteristic shrugs. "Well, there's a Law against it now."

"And just what was it that happened when she changed you?" Selena had her suspicions. He was so very different from the other vampires she'd met.

"I went mad for a while, for one thing," he answered. "Though maybe I was already mad and the magic only made it worse. My memories are vague… but my reputation lives on."

"You killed a lot of vampires?"

"So I've been told."

Page 101

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"By who?"

"By the one that finally volunteered to come after me. She came — "

"The Enforcer who made you came after you?"

"No. Do you want to hear this story or not?"

"Of course I want to hear it!"

'Then don't interrupt so much. I might not be so talkative ever again."

They were still standing by the kitchen sink. Domestic scene with vampire and girlfriend. Why was nothing weird to her anymore? "You want some more coffee?" she asked. "Want to move this into the living room and get comfortable?"

"Why not?" he agreed. He got the coffee, she put
Riding with the King
on the CD player. When they settled down next to each other on the couch, he went on. "The old one who found me, her name was Valentia then."

Selena was glad he abandoned the strigoi custom of ambiguity and concealment for the sake of pithiness.

Besides, she was willing to bet this Valentia didn't call herself by that name these days, if she was still around. In five hundred years you could cover a lot of tracks.

"Valentia was small and delicate and…" He traced a curving form in the air.
"Voluptuous,
I think the term is. With a beautiful mouth, huge eyes, and thick black curls all down her back. The one who made me was a beauty of edges and angles, one who wore her danger with outward pride. Valentia was lovely, laughing, soft to the touch in mind and body. I did not see her strength, did not sense it. She let me taunt her, attack her." He threw back his head and laughed. "Then she knocked me on my ass and sat on me."

"What?" Selena had been leaning against him. Now she sat up straight and stared in disbelief. "How could she knock you on your ass? You're the meanest mother in the valley."