Paris, 1811
"Beatrix…" The darkness in the
nave was not an obstacle. He could see her luminous skin,
the banked coals of her auburn hair, and those wonderful
brown eyes clearly.
She turned at the sound of his
voice. A smile trembled on her lips. "Stephan?"
"There are things that must
be said." He sounded
so sure of himself, when inside he was shakier than she
was.
She let out the breath she held.
"What can need to be said after all this time?"
"You thought I didn't love you.
But I did." Would that be a kind of vindication for her?
She started at the past tense.
Confusion shone through her eyes as she realized that
he had loved her once when she did not believe he had,
and that his love had died with time. The past tense was
a lie, but he could not let her know that. Not now when
he could see clearly how the land lay. "The hell of it
was," he forced himself to continue, "I wanted to love
Asharti equally. But I didn't love her. Not the way I
loved you. She knew it. That fact embittered her and turned
her onto the path she walks today."
Beatrix frowned. "You are responsible
for her path only because you did not kill her. And who
were you to say she could not find her way back from madness?
Her experience and her own tortured soul made her go mad,
not you."
"She was damaged, but love could
have healed her. I… couldn't, that's all." His emotion
nearly strangled him.
"That's why you never tracked
her down and called her to heel."
"That's why I never tracked
you down." He lied. He had thought because she left with
Asharti that she didn't love him, but telling her that
would lay the blame for six hundred lost years at her
door. Those years were his burden. A man of courage would
have tracked her down and declared his love. "I never
came for you because to love you was a betrayal of all
I intended. I wanted to save her, and my love for you
damned her." He took a ragged breath. He had to make it
seem inevitable that they had parted. That was the way
she could come to grips with it and move on to embrace
her love for Langley. "My love for you was never fair
or right." He realized it was true. The consequences of
that realization sat heavy on his shoulders.
"What do you mean?" She searched
his face.
"You were young. You fell in
love with my experience. You would have outgrown me, Beatrix.
First loves don't last. Asharti did you a disservice by
coaxing you away too soon. If you had time to realize
that, you would not have spent the years wondering."
He watched her accept that.
Acceptance was made easier by her love for another. The
cathedral smelled like stone and dust. Somewhere water
tinkled into the baptismal fount. Still, she felt an obligation
to him. "We can't come round to love again?" Her voice
was small. It was an obligation from which he must free
her, or she would miss the brass ring again.
He gathered his courage and
put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him
and he stroked her hair. "Let us rather come round to
the point we should have reached without Asharti," he
said. "Let us be friends. You have your own love now…"
She glanced over her shoulder
to Langley, standing, dejected, under the Rose Window
in front of Khalenberg and Asharti. She squinched her
eyes shut. "He will never love a monster. Especially one
who made him a monster, too."
So that was why she offered
herself to Stephan. "Nonsense. He's wild for you," Stephan
said. "He was ready to brave the den of the devil himself,
in this case, me, in order to save you. He volunteered
his life, if that was the price for my help. Don't tell
me that isn't love."
He could see her confusion.
He knew just how hard it was to give up something you
had wanted for so long. "John isn't you. He's just…"
"Just the man to whom you gave
your Companion. He is the first, isn't he?"
She nodded into his shoulder.
"Surely you know why you made
him." Stephan's voice was gentle.
She glanced up and he saw the
glow of love in her eyes. He put her head against his
chest so he wouldn't have to endure it. "Do you believe
in love, Stephan? I mean, that it can really last for
us?" Her voice drifted up to him in the darkness.
"Absolutely, kitten. I believe
in love." He meant it with all his soul. "Now, go and
make yourselves happy. The poor devil is looking quite
forlorn." He gave her a gentle push.
She turned to Langley, still
uncertain.
"Take the leap of faith, kitten.
You'll see." His triumph was that he did not choke on
the words.
She smiled. "Thank you, Stephan.
You are still the wise one." She
reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
And then she turned and walked
toward Langley.
Love was not for him. Had anyone
ever loved him? Not once they knew who or what he was.
Maybe no one had even known him, really. Even Beatrix
never understood why he took in Asharti, why he needed
to love her. He hadn't lied to Beatrix. He believed in
love. Just not for him.
Telling Beatrix the truth and
setting her free was the courageous deed. In the next
minute, he had sentenced Asharti to banishment, not death,
because Beatrix wanted it and because he didn't want to
kill her, and so condemned countless souls to torment
and endangered the balance between vampire and human.
That was his cowardice. His courage condemned him to despair,
his cowardice was what required atonement. He had exiled
Asharti to North Africa, the one place as it turned out,
she could get the power she required to feed her lust
to rule. In eight years, Asharti had made countless vampires
for her army. She had brought down governments, and challenged
the world. She had tortured and killed unthinkable numbers
humans. The balance of the world had nearly been upset.
She herself was dead nearly two years. Vampires from countless
cities had answered the call of the Elders and come to
clean up the remnants of her army, but they had scattered
like evil seeds to the wind, waiting to take root. It
was his task to eradicate them. What could be more fitting?
But first he must find them.