Life’s too short for chess.
— Henry James Byron, Our Boys
The moon and stars shone brightly from a black, cloudless sky. The hissing waves gleamed as they crumbled into foam. Nature was beautiful tonight, more beautiful than Dan could have imagined before Melpomene’s vitae had opened his eyes. Yet he found his gaze drawn, not to the heavens or the Gulf, but to the mortals on the beach: to the round-shouldered, shuffling old man walking a runny-eyed dachshund; the pair of giggling teenagers necking on a blanket; the three big-bellied anglers lumbering toward the end of the fishing pier.
After their victory over the rogue Tremere, the Kindred of Sarasota had forged and planted evidence implicating one of Durrell’s captured ghouls in the Dracula murders. Forcing the unfortunate prisoner to write a confession in the form of a suicide note, they had hanged him in his apartment. Now the local humans were venturing out at night again, and ridiculing anyone who’d dared to suggest that there were
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any such things as vampires. Dan rather wished he had the luxury of sharing their disbelief.
He wondered if Melpomene truly had summoned him here tonight. Shortly after sunset he’d thought he sensed a psychic call, but he supposed it could have been his imagination. At any rate, he’d know soon enough. He walked on down the beach, away from the mortals and toward the unfinished condominium and the spot where he and the Methuselah had consummated their bargain.
Her pale figure emerged from the darkness abruptly, as if she’d stepped through a doorway in the air, but he could tell that she was present in body as well as spirit. He could smell the sweet, exotic scent of her flesh, and her long, black hair and gauzy gown stirred with the salty breeze gusting in from the sea.
As usual Dan felt the tug of her supernatural grace and charm, but tonight the sensation was superficial; it didn’t reach into his heart. He was acutely conscious of the cold, hard weight of Wyatt’s little gun weighing down his pocket. After the fight with Tithonys he’d recovered the two remaining magic bullets, but now that the opportunity to use them was at hand, he realized he wasn’t going to do it. Not merely because he knew that, without Elliott and Angus to back him up, his chances of destroying a second Methuselah were pretty close to zip. Angry as he was, he was sick of fighting.
“I suppose you’d like an apology,” Melpomene said softly, “and an explanation.”
He snorted. “For when you Embraced, cursed and abandoned me thirty years ago, or for when you took the disk and left me to die the other night?”
“Both, I suppose,” she replied, “but let’s begin with the latter. It would have taken me several minutes to transport an object as large as you into my presence if, indeed, it could have been managed at all, and during that time my spirit
would have been vulnerable to an enemy’s magic. When I touched your prize, my clairvoyance revealed that Durrell was working for Tithonys, and that my ancient foe was nearby. After that, I was simply too terrified to take the risk. I’m sorry. I can see that you despise me now, and I don’t blame you.” Her lower lip trembled, and a crimson tear slid from her lustrous eye.
She looked so ashamed, so wretched, that Dan felt an urge to forgive her, but the impulse withered in an instant. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “1 mean, I think that even if you hadn’t sensed Tithonys’ presence, you still would have left me behind.”
Melpomene sighed, and her face assumed a more genuine expression. She still looked regretful, but composed now as well. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Either I’m not as adept a liar as 1 believed, or you’ve inherited my intuition. I never had any intention of bringing you to me. I was never willing to linger in enemy territory for as long as the operation would take. Besides which, if I had summoned you, you would have found yourself in my most secret haven. No one but me will ever enter there.” Out in the water, a fish jumped.
Dan shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, Mom.” Melpomene’s lovely mouth twisted. “Have you judged me, then? Have you ever considered how you’d answer if someone presumed to do the same to you? How would you justify yourself if an unsympathetic soul reproached you for all the mortal lives you’ve taken?”
“1 wouldn’t,” the younger vampire replied. “Sometimes 1 can’t help killing, because, thanks to you, I need blood to survive. But I don’t try to con myself into believing that it isn’t wrong.”
“But it isn’t,” Melpomene said earnestly. “You’re free to use humans as you see fit, because you’re more real than they are. Your immortality makes you so. Mortals are born, live and die so quickly that they can hardly be considered to exist at all. But creatures like you endure.”
“Oh, I get it,” he said dryly. “And since you Methuselahs are so much older than the average Kindred, we’re not real compared to you. You’re as free to jerk us around as we are to mistreat the kine.”
“Ultimately,” Melpomene replied, the wind spilling a lock of her raven hair across her alabaster brow, “in a certain sense, yes, that is what I mean. It’s not that I’m cruel, or incapable of compassion, or that I think anyone should be. You know that 1 cherish my Toreador. But not because they’re the same manner of being as myself. My peers are the ocean, the mountains and the first-growth forests, the great tales, songs and paintings that live forever. Manifestly, my desires, my happiness, my survival, are more important than those of more ephemeral creatures.” She peered at Dan appraisingly, then sighed once more. “You just can’t comprehend, can you?”
“No. I guess the problem is that I feel pretty damn real to myself. Maybe you should check back with me when I turn five thousand.”
“I’d like to,” she said.
“Come again?”
“If I care for Roger Phillips and Elliott Sinclair,” Melpomene said, “think how much more I must love you, who are not merely my descendant but my progeny, the only childe I’ve made in hundreds of years. With the threat of Tithonys hanging over my head, I had no choice but to use you harshly. But now I’ve decided to make it up to you. Abide with me, Dan. Let me share my secrets with you. Most Kindred never become real. They never fathom the deepest mysteries of the world or of their own natures either, and in consequence, eventually, they perish. But you can live forever.”
“I guess it gets lonely, being the only honest-to-God person in a world of mayflies.”
“It does indeed,” Melpomene said.
“Well, get used to the feeling,” Dan said coldly, “just like I had to. I would like to learn what you have to teach, but how could I ever trust you? I’d never be anything more to you than a tool, a toy, or a pet. You just told me as much yourself.” He grinned mirthlessly. “Hell, if I did get to five thousand, I’ll bet you’d tell me that only ten-thousand-year-old vamps are really real.”
The ancient Kindred studied his face for a moment and then murmured, “So be it. And if you wished to revenge yourself, know that you’ve grieved me.” Her lips quirked upward in a sad little smile. “Despite your scorn, I’m glad that you’ll part from me possessing the reward you coveted. True friends, and a place of honor in the Camarilla. Prince Roger and his followers dote on you now.”
“I kind of got used to them, too,” Dan said, “but I’m not staying in Sarasota. I’m going to wander for a while and see where I end up. I’ll hit the road tomorrow night.”
“But why?” Melpomene asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.
“For one reason: if I stuck around and got to be Roger’s asshole buddy, it would mean that I took payment for killing Wyatt and Laurie, to help you win your stupid feud. And I don’t want to do that. Now that I don’t have magic B.O. anymore, maybe I can make friends someplace else, the way normal people do.”
“You’re being foolish and quixotic.”
Dan shrugged.
“You must want some reward,” Melpomene insisted. “At least let me purge the effects of my tampering from your mind. You want to recover your empathy for the humans, don’t you? I can see from your aura that you do.”
“Yeah,” Dan said, “but I don’t want you messing around in my head anymore, for any reason. Now that I know you screwed me up, I’m hoping my attitude will get better by itself. If it doesn’t, I’ll live with it.
“Look, here’s how it is. As long as you haven’t paid me anything, you still owe me. And as long as you do, maybe you won’t feel like it’s okay to use me in any more of your dirty little Jyhad plots and games, even if I don’t quite exist. Maybe you’ll leave me alone. And that’s what I really want.”
He wheeled and marched back up the beach. For a few strides he was glad he’d vented his resentment, and then the feeling gave way to a twinge of guilt. Perhaps he’d been lonely and frightened too often not to feel a certain pity for anyone, even a goddess, whose existence seemed dominated by the same emotions. Maybe he ought to make it clear that he didn’t actually hate her. Finally he glanced back over his shoulder; but by that time, Melpomene was gone.
♦
Looking idly about, Elliott decided that the victory celebration was the most lavish party Roger had ever given. A horde of elders from across the continent and even Europe had turned out to partake of the festivities. Some of the lean, pallid guests were admiring the treasure trove of stolen art on display all around the grand saloon. Others were contemplating the skulls of Dracula and Durrell, exhibited with equal prominence in a display case by the main entrance. Many were murmuring together, gossiping, conspiring, exchanging witty barbs and sizing each other up. Quite a few were clustered around the prince himself, congratulating him on his recovery. Though Roger undoubtedly discerned the malice and hypocrisy that underlay many of their felicitations, he acknowledged each with impeccable grace and only the subtlest irony.
Loitering unobtrusively by the kitchen door with his arm, wounded during the raid on Camelot, in a sling, Lazio kept a watchful eye on Roger as if expecting someone else to try to lay a curse on him, right here, tonight. Over by the bar Gunter was haranguing Walter, the hawk-faced, long-haired
Brujah whom the prince had chosen to replace Judy among the primogen. No doubt the Malkavian was attempting to forge an alliance. Beside them stood Lionel Potter, sullenly sipping vitae from a goblet, glowering as if he resented the fact that his ministrations had ultimately played no role in his illustrious patient’s cure. And near the gleaming black grand piano, where a Toreador was performing a Cole Porter medley, Otis and Catherine were chatting once again. Elliott wondered if they actually had made peace. Maybe animosity between vampires could end somewhere short of the grave; though God knew, you couldn’t prove it by the Methuselahs.
For his own part the actor was pleased to see the domain restored to its customary splendor. Yet he felt edgy and vaguely alienated as well, from himself as much as from the throng around him. The demands of the crisis he’d just weathered had forced him from his lethargy and despair, and even led him to a cathartic vengeance. Yet now that the emergency was over, he felt somehow hollow and incomplete, a stranger to himself, uncertain to what extent his spirit had truly healed, or whether he’d actually be able to pick up the threads of his former existence.
Across the room, Angus disengaged himself from a circle of sycophants and made his way over. Though the giant Gangrel’s tuxedo was well-tailored, somehow it still looked about as natural on him as it would on a gorilla. He stuck out a hairy hand. “Good-bye, my friend.”
Elliott clasped the other Kindred’s powerful, callused fingers. “You’re leaving?”
“Why not?” Angus replied. “Everything’s back to normal, isn’t it?”
Elliott nodded; with DurrelPs notes in their possession, it had been easy to dismantle the last remnants of his organization and thus bring an end to the destruction of art and the legal and financial chicanery. “And a party like this is way too refined for a crude Outlander like me.”
“Where are you headed?” Elliott asked.
“I haven’t decided,” Angus said, the gold ring in his ear gleaming in the soft glow of the sweet-smelling white candles and the crystal chandeliers. “Maybe I’ll take up my Justicar duties again, or check in with my own clan, or go back to the wilderness. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not going down into the ground, not yet. I’m not ready to be like her.”
Elliott wondered what Angus meant, but he sensed that the shapeshifter wouldn’t want him to inquire. “Well, good luck, and thank you from the bottom of my heart. You saved us all.”
“You’re welcome,” said Angus, grinning. “It was a grand hunt. It was fun.”
Elliott lifted an eyebrow. “That’s not the description that would have sprung to my mind.” Angus laughed, gripped his shoulder and then strode out the door.
The actor lingered in the hall for another few minutes, chatting when someone spoke to him, but approaching no one himself. Gradually he came to the realization that he’d rather be alone with his thoughts. He caught Roger’s eye, smiled and waved, then slipped through the exit.
Outside the Performing Arts Center the night was cool, and the breeze bore the scents of verdure and the sea. Elliott could still hear the bright melody tinkling from the piano, now muted by the building’s marble facade. As he removed his car keys from his pocket the full moon caught his eye.
It was perfectly round, its radiance sublimely pure, its surface mottled with exquisite shadings, altogether more beautiful than anyone but a Toreador could appreciate. Dimly, through the haze of his rapture, he realized that now he had finished healing. He had his birthright back. He continued gazing skyward until one of the parking attendants hesitantly shook him out of his trance half-an-hour later. Only then did the actor realize that his cheeks were streaked with bloody tears, his shirtfront sodden with it — but for once, he didn’t mind being disheveled.