Crimson Vengeance (21 page)

Against the dark skin of Adriana’s throat, gold glowed and a colored stone flashed. “Is that new?” Ivy asked.

Adriana nodded and held it out. “A gift from my beautiful lover, who’s playing innocent.” She nudged Riah with a shoulder.

Her smile still lit up her face, and no amount of glowering on Riah’s part seemed to be able to dampen her joy.

Ivy’s gaze shifted from the necklace to Riah’s face. What she saw there wasn’t what she expected. A look of horror replaced her recent confusion. For a woman who was already pretty damned white, Riah paled even further. What was going on? No one was acting normal and everything seemed…well, wrong.

It seemed to take a huge amount of effort for Riah to get a single question past her lips. Her voice cracked as she asked, “Where did you get that?”

Destiny waited until the attractive black woman drove away before she went to the back of the house. She didn’t bother with subtlety. Instead, she shattered the back door with a kick. There was something very satisfying about the sound of breaking glass.

Stepping over the splinters and glass shards, Destiny looked around as she walked through the house. An unremarkable kitchen, a very colorful living room, a couple of bedrooms, and a roomy bathroom.

She was missing something. Ah, yes, the basement. She still liked to think of rooms belowground as dungeons, but that was just her. The modern folks liked their basements and didn’t appreciate the comparison to dungeons.

Destiny went back to the kitchen and quickly scanned the room.

A door against the far wall opened to a staircase leading down. Pay dirt. The room was large and open, and served as the well-stocked working laboratory she’d glimpsed earlier. Gleaming machinery, glass tubes, stainless racks, computers, and whiteboards made a nice facility. This home operation was well-appointed, and Destiny didn’t have to be told who the benefactor was.

“Nice try, Catherine,” she said as she walked through the room, tipping over bottles and tubes. She yanked cords from the wall and toppled the computers to the floor. No carpet here to soften the impact or save the precious equipment. Good old seasoned concrete made her one-woman party a huge success. The explosion of broken glass, shattering plastic, and draining liquids delighted her.

The mess was fantastic. The room changed from sterile order to odorous chaos. It gave her a nearly orgasmic rush. How she’d love to go through the entire house and blow off steam. Alas, time was a luxury she didn’t possess at the moment.

Back outside, Destiny grabbed the can of gasoline she’d earlier stashed in the shrubs. It took less than ten minutes to liberally pour the gasoline throughout the house. The fumes made her eyes water but didn’t slow her down.

Once the can was empty, Destiny dropped it to the kitchen floor and made her way outside again, careful not to step in any of the gas.

From the back porch, she peered at her handiwork. Her father would be so proud. He liked to tell her being rich was no excuse for being sloppy. Any job was worth doing right.

“Bye-bye,” she whispered as she struck a match and tossed it through the frame of the broken door. Flames burst five feet high before spreading like a golden wave as far as she could see. It was a shame she couldn’t linger to enjoy her handiwork.

With one deep inhalation, she backed away and smiled wider as she faded into the shadows. She was driving toward the city when the boom of an explosion shattered the quiet night air. A huge burst of light flashed in the rearview mirror.

The blood in Riah’s veins turned to ice. It all came to her in a flash and everything fell into place. The insight shook her so deeply, her knees almost buckled.

“Take it off,” she rasped.

Adriana tilted her head and peered at Riah as if she’d lost her mind. Her smile faltered for the first time since she’d entered the room. “I don’t understand.”

Riah’s laugh held no humor. “You weren’t supposed to understand. You were supposed to put it on and parade it in front of me.”

She knew they were all looking at her like she’d gone mad.

She didn’t blame them. They’d never seen her in full battle mode.

They’d never seen her lose it so badly her voice shook and her body trembled.

The Riah they knew was a calm, rational, and conservative doctor, and very real to Ivy and Adriana. Even to Colin for the brief amount of time they’d known each other. In reality, Riah Preston didn’t exist. Riah was the personification of everything she wanted to be: the doctor, the researcher, the saver of lives. She was good and kind, and in love.

She was also a big, fat liar.

Adriana studied Riah’s face. Something must have clicked because she undid the clasp and slipped the gorgeous piece into Riah’s outstretched hand. Riah closed her fingers over the stone.

She dropped into a chair and stared at the necklace glittering in her palm. The hardness of the precious metal and the coolness of the stone took her into the past and she had to blink back tears.

“I owe you all an explanation,” she said when she could talk without her voice breaking.

Ivy put a hand on her shoulder. “Riah, you don’t owe us anything. Besides, whatever it is, we’ll understand.”

Her stomach rolled as she took a deep breath. “I doubt it.”

Both Adriana and Ivy were incredible women. They were smart, dedicated, and understanding. What she was about to tell them would stretch even the most understanding of people. She’d tell them the whole ugly truth. It was time to stop hiding.

“Don’t sell us short,” Adriana said as she knelt next to Riah and took one of her hands. “We’re all in this together.”

For the first time in many, many years, tears formed in Riah’s eyes. She took a deep breath and plunged forward. “My name isn’t Riah Preston.”

At the base of the steps, Colin paused. Time was running out and it wasn’t a good idea to spend any of it here. Yet he didn’t seem able to walk away. He ran a hand through his hair, then started to climb past the statues and toward the huge carved doors. Our Lady of Lourdes was carved into the granite over the entrance.

He could use the Lady’s wisdom tonight. If little Bernadette Soubiroux could go searching for firewood and encounter the Blessed Virgin Mary back in 1858, why couldn’t he when searching for enlightenment?

In the far back and close to the exit, he slid into a pew. For a minute he simply sat there with his hands folded. Though he felt peaceful, nothing else filled him.

Colin sighed and lowered the kneeling board. On his knees, he rested his head on his hands. “Give me something, God,” he whispered. “Show me the way.”

Footsteps fell lightly in the quiet. Colin raised his head. A priest walked his way, tall and smiling, his sandy hair cut short and close to his head. The man wasn’t much older than Colin.

“Welcome.” He extended his hand. “I’m Father Jason. Is there something I can help you with?”

Colin shook the offered hand. “I don’t think so, but thank you.”

Father Jason studied him closely, and the scrutiny made Colin want to squirm.

“You’re a hunter,” Father Jason said as he sat in the pew next to Colin.

The surprise brought Colin up from the kneeling board.

“Excuse me?”

“A hunter,” he said patiently, as if talking to a small child.

“You know?” Colin sank slowly to the pew again.

His blue eyes were earnest. “I could lie and say I’m all-knowing, except I’m not. I’m a simple parish priest. The truth is, Monsignor called me earlier and told me to expect you.”

“How?”

“I said I’m not all-knowing. I didn’t say Monsignor wasn’t.”

Colin leaned back and shook his head. “Impossible.” Yet it wasn’t. Monsignor possessed the most uncanny ability to understand what people needed even before they knew it themselves. He’d been proving that to Colin for a great many years. Today was no exception.

Father Jason laid a hand on Colin’s arm. “He said you’re having a crisis of faith.”

Colin shook his head slowly. “Not exactly. Faith isn’t the problem right now.”

“No?”

“No. It’s everything else.”

“I have time,” Father Jason told him.

“Unfortunately, I don’t.”

Colin stood and started to move out of the pew. It might be nice to talk to the man, but he was tempting fate as it was by stopping.

Destiny was out there, and until she was taken down, no one was safe. He had to go. His personal struggles would have to wait for another day.

Father Jason’s voice followed him as he walked back toward the doors. “Recall the words of Psalms 85:10-11. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.”

At the door Colin stopped and looked back to the priest who stood at the end of the pew, his hands folded. It was as if the man could read his mind. He met the priest’s eyes, nodded, and left.

All the way to the morgue, those words rang in his mind. If only things could be easy. He’d been in numerous battles and not one had filled him with such chaos. Tonight, it was all about taking Destiny down. If he concentrated on that one goal, everything else would work out…he hoped.

The gate was unattended when he arrived at the
PSB
, and any other time he would find it suspicious. Nothing was ordinary at the moment, not even security. He drove through and parked his car.

Inside he followed the low murmur of voices and slowly pushed open the doors to the autopsy suite. Riah, Adriana, and Ivy stood talking. He glanced briefly at Riah and Adriana, his gaze coming to rest on Ivy. She didn’t look at him.

He forced his attention away from Ivy to concentrate on what Riah was saying and was shocked. The last thing he expected to hear coming from her mouth was the truth.

Colin stepped farther into the room until he propped himself against a cabinet with his arms crossed over his chest. “Catherine Tudor,” he said, his deep voice echoing in the large room.

At the sound of Colin’s voice, Riah snapped her head up. “How did you know?” She honestly believed the truth of her true identity had died hundreds of years ago.

“I wasn’t sure. Not until this morning.”

“Your superiors with their archives and their vault full of secrets?” Even though she believed her identity was lost to the ages, at the same time she didn’t underestimate the resources of his church.

It was Colin’s turn to nod. “We’ve known for a good many years of your existence, we just couldn’t find you. You’ve done a very good job of hiding in plain sight.”

“It’s been my dirty secret for nearly five hundred years and, frankly, I’m tired of it. My whole life, both as a mortal and as a vampire, has been nothing but lies. I don’t want to lie or hide any longer.”

Adriana stroked Riah’s head. “I don’t believe that. Maybe your name is a lie, but your heart isn’t. I’ve never met anyone as honest as you.”

Riah wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “Just another deception, Adriana. Sad but true. It started from the moment I was born. My father, my birth father—King Henry VII—didn’t want me. The queen was gravely ill and there I was, a puny little girl. I was exactly what he didn’t want, especially if the queen was to die.

If I’d been a boy, things would have been much different.”

“I’m no history genius,” Ivy said, her forehead creased in concentration. “But I don’t remember Henry
VIII
having a baby sister.”

Riah nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s because I supposedly died at birth. If you go back into the history records, my father sent a message to his people about the sad passing of his infant daughter. It was all very formal and very much false.”

“So how…” Adriana tilted her head and studied Riah.

“Father used me as ante in a card game. A fine Lord, one of my father’s trusted confidants, won the hand and a baby girl. His Lady desired a child and couldn’t have one of her own, so voila, I was bundled up and smuggled out of the castle to be raised as the daughter of the Lord and Lady.”

“That’s fucked up,” Adriana said as she stroked Riah’s arm.

Riah barely felt the touch of her lover’s hand as she began to speak slowly. “It was all fine until I turned seventeen and Mother died. Once she was gone, my adoptive father was less than interested in his
daughter.
He’d cared enough for his wife to provide her with a child, but he cared nothing for me. He’d keep up appearances only because of his agreement with King Henry. If not for what happened the night Rodolphe turned me, I’d have been married off to some old geezer and out of his hair for good. Either way, it worked out for Father because I was gone. My so-called death didn’t send him into mourning.”

“What happened?” Colin’s question was soft, without the hard edge she expected.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Honestly, she didn’t want to remember. For five centuries, she’d embraced a self-imposed amnesia, though the ploy didn’t work well and too often the memories assaulted her anyway. Not once had she ever told another living soul what happened to her or to Meriel.

Times change. People change, and it was past time for her to change. She began to talk. “Meriel, that is Lady Meriel Danson, my best friend…my lover, and I were in the back of the carriage.

We were on our way home from a ball held at the country home of Lord Clifford Savard. It had been a glorious party, and both Meriel and I were very popular. You must understand, we were at the most desirable age and at the height of our beauty. I remember dancing and laughing, and leaving the party happy. We’d made love in the carriage and then I fell asleep. I awoke when the driver brought the horses to a stop, and after that everything happened in a blur.”

“You were attacked.” Colin wasn’t asking a question this time.

Riah nodded. “Rodolphe.” His name tasted bitter on her tongue.

“I know of him,” Colin said thoughtfully. “Destroyed sometime around the time of the American Revolution. Not a nice man either before or after he was turned. Cut quite a bloody path through Europe.”

“Your records are accurate,” she told him. “Rodolphe was a cruel man in life and merciless in undeath. But he was beautiful and persuasive. He made you want to be with him. I was just as susceptible to his charms as any other woman or vampire, and I wasn’t into men, if you get my drift. Do they mention me at his side?” Riah asked quietly.