Fire Nectar (17 page)

Hope for relief driving her forward, Dani searched both
lofts for her sire. When she couldn’t find Elizabeth among the crowd, she left
to the building staircase and shot quickly up the steps to the roof.
 
Dani was sure she’d find her there,
talking to some pretty human under the night sky, but she was wrong.
 
No one was there.

Confused, she returned downstairs and went to Julian to
ask if he’d seen Elizabeth. He told her Elizabeth had left more than an hour
ago.
 
Her heart sank.
  
He saw her face and instantly knew
something was wrong. “You
alright
?” he asked.
 
She shook her head. “You want me to get
these people out of here?” She nodded.
 
“Done.”

He clinked a glass and stood up on the couch, demanding
and receiving quiet from the crowd. “Everyone, thank you so much for
coming.
 
It’s been a really great
evening and we hope you drive home safely tonight. If you need cabs, let the
valet know and he will provide them for you.
 
Thank you – good night.”
 
Everyone looked around at each other,
surprised.
 
Some moaned.
 
Some looked defeated, some annoyed.
 
Julian crossed to Jenn and told her he
needed everything cleaned up. Without questioning, she directed her staff to
move quickly.
 
Julian pulled out his
phone to tell the Valet service to get ready for a mass exodus.
 

Dani sank down on the couch and stared off into space,
allowing the cloud of depression to rise and protect her from her own emotions,
again.
 
People
who would have normally said goodbye, took one look at her and thought twice
about it, turning to leave with ceremony, instead. Anjelica and Stewart,
however, went against the tide of people, with effort, to get to her. They sat
down beside her on the couch, like bookends, one on either side.

 
“You okay,
honey?” Anj asked.
 
Daniella looked
at her friends and in her haze she could not see that they loved her.
 
She felt no connection to them, anyone,
or anything.

She shook her head. “I just want to be alone.
 
I’ll call you later.”
 

 
“Oh,
okay.
 
Um, Stewart, you wanna walk
out with me?”

 
“Yeah. Dan,
do you need any help cleaning up?”
 
Dani didn’t answer him.

Julian answered for her, “The staff will do that,
Stewart.
 
Thanks though.”

He’d just met them and he liked them, so he felt a twinge
of guilt when he saw how helpless and awkward they were.
 
They cared about Dani and he respected
them, but there was no way to make this situation more palatable. He told them
with his expression that he didn’t have the answer to their question; what
happened to make her change so dramatically? They understood and, despite their
desire to stay and help, they took the cue to leave her alone.
 
They stood up and said goodbye to him,
to her, and looked to him again.
 
All
Julian could offer was, “I’ll call you to set up pickup times for the
paintings, Anjelica, okay?”
 
She
thanked him and gave him her card.
 

As they walked away Dani called out, “Anj?”
 
Anjelica turned, surprised.
 
Dani’s voice was quiet when she asked, “Can
I buy The Sun from you?”

 
“Sure
honey.
 
I’ll just tell the other
buyer that I didn’t realize it was already sold. No problem.”

 
“Thank
you.”
 

 
“And it’s a
gift.”

 
“No, I’ll pay
you for it.”

 
“Are you
crazy? After this party you threw for me? Let me do this for you, as a thank
you.”
 
She received a blank nod from
Dani in acquiescence.

Julian sat with her in silence as the last of the party’s
evidence was wiped clean by the staff
who
bustled
around them with few words.
 
When
Jenn was satisfied, she was the last to leave and gave Julian and Dani a small
wave on her way out.
 
Her staff had
done a beautiful job of clearing away and cleaning both rooms.
 
All the furniture was reset and the
other loft was filled with paintings and rentals to be sent out the next
day.
 

Julian wanted to give Dani comfort.
 
The only way he knew to do this was to
let her know no work was needed of her and that he would take care of it
all.
 
“The rental glasses and plates
are stacked in the other room.
 
They’ll be picked up tomorrow.
 
I’ll contact Anj and coordinate pickups and payments for her work. I’ll
hold onto the key until it’s all set,” he said.
 
Dani smiled gratefully at him and
nodded.

 
“Thank
you.
 
Anjelica is giving you fifteen
percent of sales for your work. Don’t argue, please. And just so you know - I
really appreciate you, Julian.
 
Don’t think I don’t.” She watched him walk to the door and look around.

 
“You’ve got
the dead bolt?” he asked.
 
She
nodded and he locked the doorknob as he left.
 

Alone now, the silence grew louder by the second.
 

She pulled herself up off the couch and walked into her
bathroom to wash her face in hopes of clarity. She didn’t recognize her
reflection in the mirror. Her eyes looked vacant, detached and hollow, as if
caring had abandoned her.
 
She
didn’t want to be there anymore.

The look on Adrian’s face haunted her, how he’d longed
for her to ask him to stay. There were people everywhere and he’d just thrown a
bomb on her senses, revealing he was on to her and knew more than he
should.
 
How could she, under the
pressure of the moment have said, “
Stay.
Don’t go with
Brian.”

She opened her mouth and let her fangs grow to sharp
points as she watched.
 
Her teeth
bared, she stared at her own reflection.
 
What was she supposed do, verify his instincts, confess to him that on
more than one occasion she’d had to force herself not to take his life? Tell
him she was a vampire and had been alive for two hundred years?
That she’d killed people?
 
Would he find comfort knowing she’d only
killed those whose absence would benefit society?
 

She’d never told a human what she was, save for one
person.
 
Elizabeth had and there had
been repercussions,
betrayals, that
forced fatal
decisions. She didn’t want to compromise her safety.
 
When she slept she was vulnerable,
unable to protect herself. That’s what she’d been told and she’d never seen
contradicting evidence.
 
When
betrayals are absent and trust is rewarded with loyalty, the closeness of
sharing oneself, telling all and trusting the knowledge to be held dear –
that is real intimacy. With real intimacy comes vulnerability.
 
With vulnerability comes the probability
of pain and heartbreak, especially when the human you’ve taken into confidence
grows old and dies, leaving you alone, unchanged and unmarked, back to the
beginning where you have to do it all over again.

She disrobed and stood naked at the mirror, her skin
unblemished and
pale
as she turned round in very slow
circles, her fangs shining and exposed. She looked at the curves of her body,
the flow of her form. Adrian’s blue eyes had been curious, confused and angry.
No detail of his leaving had escaped her. His right hand, and how it had
clenched with his jaw.
 
The sound of
his left boot as it turned on its heel in exit.
 
His heartbeat as it faded with his
footsteps.

She stood still and stared at her exposed body. Would he
accept who she was?
 
Could he become
her lover, a human who she could confide in,
her
savior who would eventually die and leave her alone again? She brought her left
wrist up to her mouth and dragged a fang through the tender skin splitting it
open as blood dripped down her arm.
 
Like a cat, she licked herself clean and watched the skin bind again and
heal.

Elizabeth’s face sprang to the forefront of her
thoughts.
 
Would she come back soon?
 
The idea that it was possible not to see
her again for another forty plus years sliced into her heart. Resentment burned
hot as she remembered Elizabeth’s confession that she’d watched over Dani, but
had not come forward or made
herself
known in any
way.
 
Daniella had needed her on so
many nights when the feeling had come, when loneliness had been everything. Why
hadn’t she come to her? What kind of family doesn’t sense it when you need
help?

She bit into her wrist again and as the last bit of skin
sealed shut once more, as it would do again and again for eternity, she looked
up and met a stranger’s eyes in the mirror. She watched red tears pour down the
stranger’s perfect face.
 
Her wrists
bore no evidence of the cuts she’d self-inflicted, but her eyes belied
centuries of pain, pain she had not caused.

7 June 1814

Daniella knelt by her father’s side in the alley behind
Tallerton’s
. It had not taken her long to find him upon her
return to London.
 
His scent was more
familiar to her than any. Her heightened senses could now locate him from two
blocks away, but it was the educated guess of which part of town she would find
him, that sent her searching there.

 
“Father
– dearest father – come, let me help you,” Daniella bade him,
lifting the old man to a seated position as she brushed sweat-matted hair from
his eyes.
 
He blinked at her in
disbelief.

 
“Daniella?
 
Daniella? Is that you, child. Am I
dreaming?” His eyes opened wider, then closed again, exhausted. “Marriage does
you well, my dear. You look as though you were in your first bloom. Or is it
the waters of India?” He coughed and the sound was harsh upon her ears. He
smiled weakly in delirium and said her name quietly to himself as though in a
dream.

She looked down the alley to gauge what next to do. Did
she dare use her true strength to speed him away from this place?
 
She didn’t think it wise to chance being
caught, for both their sakes.
 
He
opened his eyes and took in the vision of her.
 
He searched her face, incredulous and
sad as he whispered, “It’s so good to see you, my daughter. I cannot believe my
eyes or ears.
 
I’ve not heard your
gentle voice these two years past -”

A cough overtook him, bending his body forward,
mercilessly. When he returned upright, she saw, aghast, that blood had risen
from deep inside him and rested on his lips. For reasons unknown to her, the
sight of his blood did not carry power. It did not spark her thirst;
an immunity
was granted her and she was grateful for
it.
 
But with this blood came a
warning that although he was safe from her, he was not safe from his disease.

She searched for ideas of how to remove him from this
dark and dreary alley without drawing unwanted attention.
 
She feared using her vampyric speed and
strength. If they should be so lucky as to pass through the streets unseen,
there was the probability of frightening her ailing father who would indeed
need an explanation, an explanation she could not give.

He whispered with labored breath, protectively, “You should
not be in this part of town, dear, not at all the thing, you know!
 
Oh. I feel so very tired, Daniella.” He
fainted, falling forward, his weight against her as it had been many times
before. This time she held him up with ease.

At that very moment a finely attired gentleman passed the
alley by way of the street. His eyes caught site of them and he rushed forward
to lift the filthy man off what he observed to be a delicate lady of
refinement, in distress. “Here now! Can I be of some assistance! My lady, you
should not be in a place such as this alone at night –“

 
“He’s my
father!” she said, swiftly correcting his presuppositions. The paradigm shift
reflected in his eyes, his demeanor changed to show compassion and he tenderly
lifted the man’s weight from her. He was kind, she could tell, and in this
knowledge found the solution to their problem. She begged his assistance,
“Please, do help us! I must get him to a bed and summon a doctor at once! Think
naught of his appearance for he is a respectable gentleman, I assure you.” She
handed over the person most dear to her to the arms of this stranger, this Good
Samaritan, grateful that luck had delivered him and not a scoundrel to their
aid.

When they entered a nearby inn, the keeper of the house
looked with disgust upon the dirty mongrel of a man carried into his
establishment by two persons of quality.
 
His objections were interrupted by the gentleman
carrying the burden, who ordered a doctor and a room with stately authority
.
 
Grumbling to
himself
the innkeeper did as he was bid, and sent one of his hired hands to find a
doctor whom he knew to be dining at White’s, just down the street. The boy had
been
staring, eyes
rounded at the spectacle, and he
was slow to move. “Well, no time to lose!
 
Be gone now!” nearly shouted the innkeeper, betraying his irritation to
a high degree.

 
“My father
has taken ill and we will need to stay the night, maybe two. Please show us to
a room and send hot water, cleaning cloths and some nourishment,” Daniella said
with calm authority to the odious unhelpful creature before her. He grumbled as
was his natural way, and stammered something along the lines of, “Yes, yes,” as
he led them down a hall.
 
The
floorboards creaked under his girth as he deposited them in an empty room where
he shot the unconscious old man a nasty look and left.

Coming from good breeding, the kind Samaritan ignored
what could not be helped and kept to the task at hand.
 
He carried Lord Henry, with some effort,
into the modest room and placed him on the bed as gently as he could. Daniella
nodded her gratitude to him and pulled blankets up over her sleeping father,
tucking them around him with care. When she’d finished, she turned to the
Samaritan and forced her frown into a smile. “My deepest thanks to you, sir. It
was most advantageous that you appeared precisely at that very moment”

 
“Much
obliged.
 
Have a father myself, you
know.
 
Sir John
Combcrest
at your service,” he said with a low bow.
 
This move proved to be unfortunate in that it offered her a very clear
view of his vulnerable jugular vein. She moaned as the desire to launch herself
onto it overcame her.
 
Exerting a
great deal of will power, she stepped back in caution, the words of Elizabeth
fresh in her memory: “Fear and distress will weaken your resolve and challenge
your discipline.
 
You must always
guard against these.”

She steeled herself against her instincts and out of her
new habit, offered her fake married name in response, “Daniella
Sherringham
. And this is my father, Lord Henry Harcourt,”
she added quietly, motioning to her father. The look in her eyes told a
gentlemen, which he most thankfully was, that the time had come for him to
leave.

 
“I should be
off. Would you like me to stay with you, until the doctor arrives? And shall I
send for your husband?”

Daniella blinked at him in confusion. Oh yes, of course -
her imaginary husband.
 
She shook
her head no, and said hastily, “Tis not necessary. He is away. I’ll send for my
uncle and I’m sure all of my needs will be met until then. Thank you, sir. You
are most kind. Truly.”

She meant what she said but her cast-down eyes conveyed
innocence, inaccurately. An overwhelming desire to protect her flooded him, but
he checked the urge at once as he sensed she would not take kindly to his
overstepping her husband’s bounds. He nodded politely, bowed again, and bid her
farewell.
 

He was unaware that as he walked away from them - down
the hall, out the foyer where he paused for a time before finally departing the
building altogether – she’d listened to him, smelled the air he’d left
behind. If her father had opened his eyes he would have seen her clutching for
support onto the bedpost, grimacing as her primal urges waged war inside her.

Discipline comes with age and she had only two years
experience to call her own. It wasn’t until he was a safe distance from the inn
that the thirst released its grip. She would later learn that the reason Sir
John
Combcrest
had paused in the foyer was, on his
way out, he’d stopped to pay for two night’s lodging in hopes of relieving her
troubles a bit in the only way he knew how.
 
He did not leave his card
nor
any way for her to thank him, as a sign of gratitude
held no interest for him.
 
He had
helped as a token of friendly human kindness.
 

It would be in that moment of discovery that Daniella
would understand the full weight and importance of Elizabeth’s rule number one:
Never take the life of “the good.”
 
They help the world by existing, and it is not ours to steal all the
good they will do.

Dipping the cloth into the water basin, she wiped her
father’s sleeping face. The innkeeper knocked and dropped off bread and jam
plus some water for refreshment.
 
The cook had gone home for the night and would return by morning, he
informed.
 
She declined the tea he
offered and he left, his demeanor softer now that his palms had been greased.

Quietly wiping away sweat and dirt from her father’s
brow, her thoughts swam reluctantly around the truth. Consumption. It was clear
to her that he had Consumption and from the looks of him, might not live
through the night.
 
His filthy
clothes betrayed his financial situation. The money she’d quarterly sent to his
accounts had not done the good she’d intended. Indeed it had probably drawn out
his gaming habit more, having coins with which to play. Her heart broke and she
understood that she had given him enough to hang himself. A lifetime of
experience should have warned her to set up a trust two years ago when she’d
left London. If she’d not been so selfish in her escape of all that bound her,
she would have hired someone other than her father to pay the bills and give a
weekly, comfortable allowance.
 

She swore under her breath as she wrung out the cloth in
the basin, his human soil spreading in the water. To him aloud these next words
she spoke, “If I had taken but a moment to think of how it must be, Father, I
would have handled my departure more carefully.
 
I was not in my right mind when I left.
 
Please forgive me.”

She stared at his passive, sleeping face, then bent and
kissed it. He stirred and his eyes opened in tiny slits of confusion.
 
Seeing her, they opened wider and he
stared, shocked, disoriented. “Daniella! My daughter!
 
Am I dreaming, my dear girl?” he
repeated, not knowing he’d said the same two hours ago.

She smiled lovingly and shook her head, “No father.
 
You are not dreaming.
 
I have returned.
 
I am here. You are safe now.”

 
“Daughter…”
He looked downward and caught sight of his grimy shirt under the blankets of a
bed unknown to him. His face filled with the shame she had seen him conceal,
time and again, when she was a girl. He stuttered and pulled the blankets up
tight beneath his chin, “Oh my dear. Must have fallen down. Devilish scrape, it
seems. Must have torn my clothes and muddied them.
 
I…I’m afraid the money you’ve sent me is
gone away again.
 
Bad luck at the
tables.
 
Just a bad run, you
know.
 
It’ll turn around.” A
coughing fit overtook him as she wiped away the blood his wracks produced.
Still, at the sight of it, she felt no pull. For this, she thought, there must
be a God.

She’d returned to London for her mother’s
rubies which
she’d left, nearly forgotten, in the dusty vase
where they’d last lived. Upon retrieval from their secret hiding place, with
her mother’s jewels again safely in her care, she’d stopped to pay a visit to
her father.
 
She’d knocked upon the
door, but it was not he who answered. The faces of strangers stood before her
and bore the terrible news that her father had not lived there these six months
past.
 
It was now their home, and
they knew not where he was.
 
These
words ignited a frantic search, his smell leading her to him two hours before.

His struggle for
breath
, as he
gasped and reaching for air, filled her with deep shame and guilt.
 
She took full blame, gave not an ounce
of it to him.
 
This was her fault,
she told herself, and vowed to do all she could to make it right.
 
She could not let this be the end for
him.
 
She could not let him
die.
 
She could not live with the
fact that she’d spent two years exploring Europe’s beauty and decadence, while
her father’s health declined, with no one to love him through the pain.
 

At once the answer came to her.
 
She would give him the gift. She would
turn him and bring him with her.
 
Yes, that was what she must do.
 
It was the only solution.
 
Her heart lightened and she smiled a smile of joy as she leaned forward
to include him into a secret world. “Father, let me help you,” she said, love
shining upon him.
 
“I can help you.
You will never feel pain again.”