The Meridian Gamble (69 page)

“You made her go to sleep?” Lenny
says, in disbelief.

“Well, of course. I wanted to save
some of my appetite for you,” Roland says. “Why don’t you come over here?”

“I don’t think that’s such a good
idea,” Lenny says, resisting him.

“Take off your shirt,” Roland says
in a commanding tone, one that’s almost a bark. And I can feel a little spark
of energy, no doubt because he’s upped the strength of his psychic influence.

Lenny rethinks his resistance, and
with a giggle, takes off the thin sweater he’s wearing, and the T-shirt he has
on underneath. He stands bare-chested before us, offering himself for
inspection.

“Well, do the pants too,” I say.

He looks to Roland, as if for
permission, and Roland blasts him again.

“Do as the lady says.”

Lenny slowly steps out of his
pants, and he just has boxers on now. He’s cute, though not my type. I don’t
like little squirrely guys, but Lenny does have a taut body. Yet, he’s also a
pretentious little jerk who’s been bragging about his success and money
non-stop since we’ve met him, and I’m not entirely against the idea of seeing
him humiliated.

“Now come to me,” Roland commands.

He reaches out, and Lenny gives him
his hand. Roland pulls him onto his lap, just as he did with Nivina, and Lenny
lands there with a childish giggle. But Roland pauses before biting him, and
turns to me.

“His mind is much more difficult to
control than the woman’s,” Roland says. “This one needs the bite, so he’ll be
more fully under my sway.”

“How is that going to affect him?”
I say.

“He’s going to have quite the crush
on me for a while,” Roland says. “And he may have a bit of confusion over his
sexuality. But it’s nothing that wouldn’t have hit him later on in life.”

And Roland bites down on his neck.
He drinks for a moment, and the doorbell rings. After a few long drinks, Roland
pulls away from him.

“Lenny, be a good boy and go pay
for the sushi.”

“No. I don’t want to go,” Lenny
whimpers in distress, no longer the least bit concerned over Nivina. And Roland
sighs.

“I’ll get it,” I say. “You go
ahead.”

“There’s money in my pants,” Lenny
says, absentmindedly pointing to where they lie on the floor. But he turns his
head back to Roland, offering his neck once more.

I grab the wallet, as Roland sinks
his teeth into Lenny again. I pay for the sushi at the door, trying my best to
block the view of what’s going on in the penthouse from the delivery guy. I
give him a generous tip. I’m sure Lenny would have wanted it that way.

As I go back to the table, Roland
finishes eating, and he tosses Lenny aside, onto the floor beneath the couch
where Nivina rests. And I set the beautiful tray of sushi our host’s money and
success have bought on the table, taking off the lid.

“Well, at least I don’t have to
share,” I say.

Roland laughs,
and he pours us both glasses of champagne.

We’ve been on the run for several
weeks, maybe more, almost two months. And I remember everything; every minute
of my life as Saga, the Luminos training, the tea parties Caroline attended. I
remember digging in the dirt for roots and picking fruit from the trees as a
cavewoman, all the while longingly staring at Adam, the version of him from the
past. It’s all come back to me during our journeys in South America.

We started in Rio de Janeiro, at a
luxurious hotel, where I spent several days lying in the sun, decompressing
from my adventures. And Roland was kind, he didn’t press me in any way. But the
Elders refusing him permission to transform me threw a wrench in his plans.
He’s been negotiating with other vampires, trying to find a house he can join
that will allow him to transform me. But he hasn’t had much luck, perhaps
because of our notoriety. It’s all he can do to be sure his contacts are loyal
enough that they won’t report our location to Marion.

After we arrived at the hotel, he
was forced to leave me for several days, and then several days again. It made
me nervous, especially since we could be chased, but Roland said it was
necessary. And I knew he was off making deals with other vampires. Since I was
afraid to leave the hotel on my own, I stayed by the private pool on the patio
of our suite. But there wasn’t much else to do, so I began revisiting the past.

It’s become strange, how easily I
can go back and sift through it. I don’t pass out for days, like I did before,
and I can just sit and meditate, and touch on it again. I feel like I can remember
Saga and Caroline’s childhoods better than my own.

I only wish I had experienced more
lives, so I could have developed more skills to defend myself with.

At some point, after returning from
one of his journeys, Roland looked off into the distance, staring at nothing at
all. And though I was becoming accustomed to the hotel in Rio and the idea of
staying there for a while, that one look changed everything.

“We need to leave,” Roland said.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It’s just a glimmer. But
we cannot be too cautious if we are to be safe.”

So we stole a rickety car and drove
off. Eventually, we arrived in a beautiful mansion in Argentina, where the
pattern started again. Roland disappeared to find a phone where it was safe to
call, or to go negotiate with other vampires. And sometimes, when we were
together, he would train me to fight, showing me skills that he claimed even
the Luminos could not teach.

And I would think of Adam. Roland
says that we may need him eventually, but he’s asked me not to contact him. And
it’s difficult. I want to meditate and go to the place where he will find me,
the cottage we share in the clouds. But I just can’t do it. Roland’s trying so
hard to protect me, and I know that soon enough, we’ll have a course of action,
and I’ll be able to see Adam again. I only hope he can forgive me by the time
that happens.

And then, when
we decided to leave Argentina, we would up here, in a penthouse in Mexico City.
And it’s strange, not knowing how long I’ll stay, or where I’ll find myself
next.

After enjoying the sushi that money
from Lenny’s wallet provided, I clean up a bit, and put what’s left of the meal
in the refrigerator. Who knows, maybe our hosts will be hungry when they wake.

Roland lifts Lenny from the floor
and drops him on the couch heavily.

“Is he going to be okay?” I ask,
even though I know the answer. Roland is an expert at this, and wouldn’t have
wanted to kill him. He hardly needs them wandering around in his mind.

“They’re fine, I barely took a sip.
Better to save some for later,” he says, winking at me.

And I’m not really sure if he’s
joking.

We get up and go to our bedroom.

This is the hardest part of our
journey, the intimate moments. And though Roland hasn’t pressured me, I see the
look of love in his eyes, the one I knew from the past. And I know he wants me
to succumb.

And maybe I want to, in my own way,
despite what I tell myself. Because tonight, I put on a lacy nightgown, after
washing my face in the bathroom. And when I come out, he’s lying on the bed, in
just a pair of sweatpants. And his eyes are locked on what I’m wearing, though
he doesn’t say it, what I know he’s really thinking.

“Shall I sleep here? Or on the
couch?” Roland asks.

“You can sleep here,” I say.

“Good. I’d much rather hear your
snoring than Lenny’s.”

I stare at him in shock, but he
only smiles.

“I do not snore,” I say.

“Oh, trust me, you do. You always
have.”

And I go to my side of the big bed.

“Never tell a woman she snores when
you’ve trained her to kill vampires. You’d think an immortal would be smarter.”

In an instant, I grab a pillow, and
with my best ninja cry, I hit him in the face with it, which Roland tolerates
with a bemused expression. And it’s ridiculous, like a kitten attacking a lion.

But his expression quickly changes,
and he looks to me with great seriousness.

“Meridian, we need to discuss
something. How do you feel about Asia?”

“Is that where we’re going next?”

“That’s where we’re going to stay.
For good. The Asian vampires have responded to me. They will allow me to
transform you, if we join their house.”

And I feel slightly confused. A
part of me hoped that none of the vampires would have us, that I wouldn’t be
allowed the transformation. It would have been easier that way.

“But it will be very difficult
there,” he continues. “They are different from the other vampires, and aren’t
afraid of the judgment of the Elders. However, it will be as if we’re starting
over, like young ones. We will be in service to them. We will be their
assassins for a very long time, but at least, we’ll be together.”

“And that’s it? Our only option?”

“That or kill Marion.”

And killing Marion is starting to
seem like a better plan.

But I don’t know what to say to
Roland. He seems so earnest in wanting to help me, so desperate to save my
life. But there is no other way to say it other than to simply let it out.

“Roland, I don’t think you should
transform me.”

“But I must. The vampires of South
America are giving us a certain degree of protection within their borders as a
courtesy to me, but it won’t last forever. Others will come for you as long as
you’re here. Marion will not stop. They will kill you, or do worse, because you
are Luminos. Even Vincenzo might hunt you down out of some twisted sense of
revenge. The blood is the only way to protect you.”

“There’s another option. You can
take me back to the Luminos.”

He says nothing for a moment,
gritting his teeth, ever so slightly.

“Is that what you really want?”

“No, I don’t want to go back to
them at all, especially with what they’re doing. But they might be able to
protect me, and give me the chance to stop whatever it is the Elders have
planned.”

“If you won’t join me in my
immortal life, than would you do it for Adam?”

And I’m taken aback for a moment,
hearing Adam’s name.

“No, I won’t,” I say. “Whatever it
is that they want, whatever they have planned for me, it’s tied up with Adam. I
know it.”

“How so?”

“It’s something the ugly one said,
about my never giving up until the bitter end. And he’s the one I’m not giving
up on. I keep coming back here, to find him or save him somehow. And it’s a
mistake. I should have stayed away, because my feelings for him could destroy
us all.”

His eyes shift down and away, and
Roland can’t look at me.

“So it really is him? The one you
love and want to save. It’s not me and it never will be, I’m just fooling
myself.”

And I reach out my hand, and touch
his face.

“I would gladly spend an eternity
with you, Roland. Maybe you are the one I’m meant to be with. Because whatever
I have with Adam is wrong. It’s dangerous, and it could bring about a truly
horrible end. But I just don’t see how becoming a vampire will help me destroy
the Elders. I don’t see how dragging you down with me will help. And it’s
because I care about you that I don’t want to see that happen.”

And he stares off with a stony
expression, making it hard for me to tell exactly how he feels about what I’ve
just said.

“The Golden Realm. I wonder what it
is that they want from it.”

In our journeys I’ve told him about
it, how I can see it from the place where I go with Adam, which I’m sure Roland
didn’t like to hear.

“I don’t know. But I think that
they want it all. They want to rule that place. And maybe from there, they can
conquer every dimension.”

“That’s a chilling thought. And one
we will stop. Which means I’ll have to negotiate even more, if I’m to broker
your return to the Luminos. Because if you’re going back to them, it won’t be
without me.”

And I’m stunned by what he says.

“Roland, are you serious? The
Luminos won’t have you amongst their ranks. They’ll kill you.”

“They’ll need me, if they’re going
to keep you alive. They’ll need more than me, if they’re going to kill the
Elders.”

And Roland smiles.

“I’m your protector, remember? And
I’m not going to give up on you now.”

And that’s all
it takes, to finally weaken my resolve. I lean over and kiss Roland, and his
strong arms are finally around me, pulling me toward him. He slides his hand
under my flimsy nightgown, and pulls it up over me. And I melt into the
familiar pleasures of his warm embrace.

I wake up early the next morning,
feeling groggy. And I immediately remember what happened the night before,
making love with Roland. But I don’t have much time to mull over my guilt,
because he’s hovering above me. And I smile for a moment, thinking he wants
more.

“Wake up,” Roland says. “They’re
here.”

“Who’s here?”

“Vampires. They’re coming for us.”

I get up and follow him out into
the hallway. Nivina bursts out of the door from the master bedroom, wiping her
eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“Nivina, go back in your room. Go to
sleep,” Roland says.

“Don’t you want to have some fun,
first?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer.
Roland plunges his teeth into her neck, and drinks from the girl. And she
quickly falls back asleep. He pulls himself away from her, and wipes the blood
from his mouth, though some is still smeared across his face. Roland takes her
back into the bedroom, and places her on the bed next to Lenny, who lies there,
comatose.

And I follow him back out into the
living room.

“Roland, who are these people?”

“I don’t know, their minds are very
well-protected.”

“And what are we going to do? Run?”

“No, I think it’s best that we face
them here.”