Shades of Gray (20 page)

"No!" Edward grabbed Marisa by the arm, but she twisted out of his grasp and darted toward Grigori, who quickly enfolded her in his embrace.

"Leave her alone, dammit!"

"Ramsey, calm down. I'm not going to hurt her."

Edward backed up until his legs bumped into the bench. Then, without looking back, he reached for one of the wooden stakes he had fashioned earlier.

"You don't need that," Grigori remarked.

"Like hell."

"Ramsey, listen to me. I will not take her blood unless she's willing."

Edward snorted. "Look at her! She's already under your spell."

"I will release her. If she refuses me, I will go elsewhere."

Edward's hand tightened around the stake. "I don't believe you."

Grigori cupped Marisa's chin in his palm. "Marisa?"

She looked up at him, and he broke the bond between them.

"Marisa, I need your help."

"What?" Confused, she looked over her shoulder at Edward. She didn't remember moving. How had she gotten here?

"Marisa?"

"What happened?" she asked, frowning. "How did I get here?"

"I summoned you."

She shook her head, bewildered. "I don't remember."

"He can control you now," Edward explained.

"Make you do things you don't want to do."

She looked up at Grigori. "Is that true?"

Grigori nodded.

"Because you took my blood. You did, didn't you? Alexi said so."

"I'm sorry, but it was necessary."

"Why?"

"I'll explain it all later. Right now, I need blood."

She knew what he was asking. Wondered
why
he was asking. Moments ago, she had been in his power. Why hadn't he just taken what he wanted? she wondered bitterly. He'd done it before.

Grigori smiled faintly. "Blood freely given is all the sweeter, and more powerful."

"And you want mine?" Revulsion churned in her stomach. She stared at his mouth, imagined his fangs tearing at her throat.

"Trust me, Marisa, I will not hurt you."

"Don't do it," Ramsey said.

Marisa stared at Grigori, trying to see the monster that Edward saw. But looking past the pale skin and the dark eyes that smoldered with a hunger she would never understand, she saw a man in torment, a man who could take what he wanted without asking, a man who could have killed her long ago. A man who had never hurt her at all.

"Marisa?"

She heard the need in his voice, remembered the kisses they had shared, the night she had held him in her arms. Slowly, she nodded.

"Marisa, are you sure you want to do this?" Edward's voice was filled with disbelief.

"It's all right, Edward. I know what I'm doing."

Grigori took her by the hand and led her to the wooden bench. She sat down, and he sat beside her.

Edward stood nearby, the stake clutched in his fist.

"Relax, Marisa," Grigori said quietly. "I won't hurt you." He glanced over his shoulder at Ramsey. "If you're going to kill me, you'd best do it now, while you have a chance."

"Don't tempt me, Chiavari."

Grigori laughed softly, then turned toward Marisa. He brushed a lock of hair away from her neck, kissed the pulse beating there. He felt the hunger rise up within him, a darkness that threatened to overwhelm him, and he took a deep, calming breath. He could feel Marisa trembling in his arms, sense Ramsey hovering behind him.

His muscles tensed as he waited for the vampyre hunter to drive the stake through his back, into his heart, thus ending his existence once and for all. A long moment slipped into eternity. In that time, Grigori wondered what death would be like. Would his soul burn in hell for all eternity? Was there any chance he might find forgiveness on the other side?

He glanced over his shoulder at Ramsey, and then, with a sigh, he drew Marisa into his arms.

There was no pain. She knew he had bitten her, could feel the blood being drawn from her body, but she felt no pain, only a strange sense of weightless pleasure. She closed her eyes, and her mind filled with disjointed thoughts and images…. She saw Grigori as a young boy, saw him herding sheep, wrestling with his father, swimming naked in a small pool, kissing his mother good night. She saw him growing older, saw him sitting in a moonlit field with Antoinette, felt the excitement of young love, the awakening of passion as he kissed the woman who would be his wife. She experienced his pain, his rage, when he found the bodies of his children. She saw the vampire who had made him what he was, saw and understood why he had asked for the Dark Gift. Understanding, she discovered, was different from simply knowing.

"Marisa?"

She looked up at him. She had known Grigori was a vampire, she had seen the proof, heard it from his own lips, but only now did she truly realize what he was.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded.

He caressed her cheek, ran a finger over the mark his bite had left in her neck. He had taken no more than a few sips, yet the purity of her blood, her generosity of spirit, had taken the sharp edge off the hunger burning through him, filling him with a sense of warmth, a sense of light he had never known before. Never, in two hundred years, had he tasted anything so sweet, so satisfying, and yet the little he had taken wasn't enough to quench his thirst. He wanted to hold her in his arms and drink and drink, until he had taken all of her into himself. "Thank you."

Marisa nodded again, and then looked up at Edward. He was standing as before, the stake clutched tightly in his fist. There was pity for her in his eyes, revulsion and hatred for what Grigori was, what he had done to her.

"It's okay, Edward," she said, surprised at how difficult it was to form the words, how weak her voice sounded. "I'm fine."

"Ramsey, get her something to drink."

"I'm not your slave," Edward muttered, but he went to do as he'd been told.

"What happened to Alexi?" Marisa asked. "Where's Antoinette?"

"Here," Edward said. He thrust a glass of red wine at Marisa. "Drink this."

She sipped the wine slowly, feeling its warmth spread through her.

"All right, Chiavari, spill it. What aren't you telling us?"

"He's got Antoinette."

"How do you know?"

"I know," Grigori said.

"What's he done to her?"

"He put a stake through her heart. Her body lies in a crypt behind the church."

"Then she's dead but not destroyed," Edward remarked.

"What do you mean?" Marisa asked.

"All we have to do is pull the stake from her body and she'll rise again."

"She does not wish to rise again," Grigori said quietly.

"How do you know?" Edward asked, and then wished he hadn't. The vampire looked at him through the eyes of one enduring the pain and damnation of hell.

"I know."

"She said she wanted to avenge her children."

"She is at peace now. It is time to free her soul, before she takes a life, before the darkness destroys the light within her." Grigori paused a moment. "The name on the vault is Amadeo. I want you to make sure she can't rise again; then see that she's buried properly." A sadness shadowed his eyes. "My children are buried there, under a tree near the back wall. Put her beside them."

"Me? Why me?"

"I thought you would be eager to do the job," Grigori retorted caustically. "Isn't that what you live for, destroying my kind?"

Ramsey nodded. He would do what had to be done, but it wouldn't be easy. He had never dispatched a vampire he had known personally.

"The church is located about two miles south of here. You can't miss it."

"I'll take care of it first thing tomorrow morning. Where's Alexi?"

"I don't know. Antoinette drove a stake into his back, but she missed his heart. I think he has gone farther into the past to lick his wounds."

"So, we've accomplished nothing," Edward muttered.

The words
nothing but Antoinette's death
seemed to hover, unspoken, in the air.

"I want to go home," Marisa said softly. She gazed up at Grigori. "Please take me home."

"Tomorrow night," Grigori promised.

"And until then?"

"Until then we stay here."

"Well, I'm beat," Ramsey muttered. "I think I'll turn in."

"Good night, Edward."

"Don't fail me tomorrow, Ramsey."

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

Grigori nodded.

"See you tomorrow," Edward said. He started out of the room, then paused and glanced over his shoulder at Marisa. "Which room do you want to sleep in?"

Marisa thought of trying to sleep in one of the children's beds and knew she couldn't do it, couldn't sleep in a bed where someone had died. Nor could she bring herself to sleep in the bed Grigori had shared with Antoinette. "I think I'll sleep out here on the bench."

"Okay. Good night."

"Night."

Grigori went to the tiny window in the front of the house and stared out into the darkness. As clearly as if it were day, he could see the fields beyond, the weeds that grew in the furrows where he had once planted the crops that had sustained his family. He heard the beat of mighty wings as an owl plummeted earthward, talons outstretched, heard the terrified shriek of the bird's prey. The hunter and the hunted. Predator and prey. The endless cycle of life and death.

All these years he had thought Antoinette dead. In his mind, he had buried her and grieved for her when she hadn't been dead at all. She had lived as Alexi's creature for two hundred years, and now, because of him, she would have to be destroyed. He wished that he had the right to pray, wished he could go into the village chapel where their children had been baptized and light a candle for Antoinette's immortal soul. But he had no right, no hope of being heard.

"Grigori?"

Slowly, he turned around to face Marisa. What a rare and wonderful creature she was. Such a fragile being, wrapped in her humanity. And yet her life, her warmth, drew him like a hearth fire on a winter night, beckoning to him, inviting him to come in from the dark and the cold.

"I'm sorry about Antoinette."

"It's not your fault."

"It's not yours, either."

"Isn't it?" Grief and guilt settled over him, entangling him in a web of regret from which there was no escape. He had given her the Dark Gift. He should be the one to destroy her, yet he dared not go into the crypt at night, not when he might encounter Alexi again. He was not strong enough to withstand another attack by the vampyre. And, deep in his heart, he feared he lacked the courage to do what must be done. How could he cut out her heart, take her head? How could he desecrate the body of the woman who had shared his bed, borne his children?

"You should get some rest," Marisa said quietly.

"I'm fine."

"Sure you are."

"Marisa — "

"I'm here." She held out her arms. He looked at her a moment, and then, unable to resist the comfort she offered, he crossed the floor, felt the burden of his guilt ease a little as Marisa wrapped her arms around him.

They stood there for a long while, his forehead resting on the top of her head, her hand lightly stroking his back.

"I've got to go out," he said at length.

"Why?"

He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes.

"Oh, but I thought — " She lifted a hand to her neck.

"It was sweet,
cara,
but it wasn't enough."

"I don't think you should go out there. Can't you wait until tomorrow night when we're back home?"

"I am home."

"You know what I mean."

Grigori shook his head. "I can't wait."

"Why not?" She looked up at him, not understanding.

"I need to feed," he said, wondering how to explain it to her. "It isn't like the hunger mortals feel. It's… it's a need that won't be denied. Especially now. I need it, Marisa, in ways you can't begin to understand."

"Does it hurt, when you don't… drink?"

"You have no idea."
Hurt
didn't begin to describe it. He doubted if there were any words that could fully portray the agony that came with abstinence. The hunger was a craving that could not be denied, a need that went beyond mere physical agony, especially now, when he had been badly hurt, when his strength was at a low ebb.

"Then drink from me."

"No."

"Then take some of Ramsey's blood."

Grigori grunted softly. "Yes, I'm sure he'd like that."

"Well, this is an emergency. I don't want you going out there, not tonight. You're too weak."

He raised one dark brow. "You sound like my mother."

"You wait here. I'll go talk to Edward."

She didn't wait for Grigori's assent, but hurried out of the room.

Ramsey woke the minute she opened the door to the bedroom, his hand clutching his cross. "What's wrong?"

"I need your help."

"Sure." He sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "What is it?"

"I want you to give Grigori some of your blood."

"Are you out of your mind? I'm not feeding that ghoul."

"Please, Edward. I don't want him to go out tonight. He's too weak. He'd never be able to fight off Alexi."

"That's not my problem."

"Oh, yes, it is. Have you forgotten he's our ticket back to the twentieth century?"

"Yes, I guess I did." He ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head. "I can't do it. I've spent my whole life destroying his kind. I'm not about to start feeding them."

"Please, Edward," she implored softly.

"You still care for him, don't you? How could you? You know what he is."

"I know," she replied miserably. "But I can't help it. He's so alone."

"Marisa — "

"Please, Edward."

He swore under his breath. "All right, all right, I'll do it. For you." Rising, he tucked his shirt into his pants, ran a hand over his hair. And then, grabbing a stake from the foot of the bed, he followed Marisa out of the room.

Grigori grunted softly as Ramsey emerged from the bedroom. Even if he hadn't been able to hear the conversation in the bedroom, the look on Ramsey's face would have said it all. He was doing this for Marisa, and for no other reason.