Crimson Night Part 9

Lord Baldevar gave him one freezing glare before he swooped Meghann up off the floor with one hand under her chin so they were eye to eye, with Meghann's feet dangling almost a foot off the ground.

"Tell me, did you enjoy that netherworld I just sent you to? Was it a pleasurable experience having your consciousness ripped from you? Answer me!"

"No," Meghann panted, squirming furiously to get away from him.

"Would you care to spend your entire pregnancy there?"

Meghann went slack, her struggles turning to paralyzed horror when the enormity of his threat hit her.

"That's right," Lord Baldevar purred at her. "If you continue with your tantrums and defiance, I shall make you my little zombie and stuff a tube down your throat to give you blood and nourishment until you are ready to deliver my son. But don't worry; once my son is born, I shall bestow awareness upon you again. I want you lucid when I show you the heads of your insane lover and catamite friend. Since you show my son nothing but resentment, I don't believe I'll allow you to see the child before I slice your head from your shoulders. Now, are you going to behave yourself?"

Terrified, Meghann could only nod.

"Smart girl," he approved and let her drop to the floor. "I knew you'd become more amenable once I explained your position to you."

"Now as to that imbecile on the floor, of course you may come to my home any time you wish and apply your witchcraft to him." Lord Baldevar grinned at the shock she wasn't able to hide. "At least this project will keep you busy and I can keep an eye on you, make sure you don't get up to any mischief that might harm my son."

"I'm not leaving him with you!"

"Would you care to try and get him past me? Mr. Delacroix remains here, where I can make sure he does not harm you or my heir. Disobey my wishes and I'll have Vinny throw his worthless body to the sun. Good night, my sweet."

Meghann raised a trembling hand to her face and a green glint caught her eye the sparkle came from the light above hitting the emerald signet ring on her left hand, the ring Lord Baldevar had put on her hand the night he transformed her.

Funny, she'd been wearing it so long she hardly even noticed the medieval ring, set in antique gold with an emerald on each shoulder and old french on the bezel.

She'd never taken it off because Lord Baldevar had had it sized so she could only remove it by breaking the ring or her finger.

She twisted it experimentally; it was loose from all that weight she'd lost. She yanked for a few seconds and the ring slid off her finger.

"Hey!" she shouted and Lord Baldevar, already in the doorway, turned to give her a quizzical glance.

Meghann flung the ring at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. If there was any justice in the world, she hoped she'd hit the spot where her stake had scarred him permanently.

Lord Baldevar caught the ring before it could clatter to the floor and held it loosely, meeting Meghann's angry, defiant eyes. There was no need for her to speak; she knew Lord Baldevar understood all she said with this gesture that she'd no longer wear his brand, that he meant nothing to her.

He held the ring up to the light for one moment before it disappeared into his trouser pocket. When he spoke, his voice was calm but his amber eyes watched her with the keen alertness of a hawk about to swoop down on its prey.

"Soon, my love, you will regret your hasty action this evening and beg me to put this ring back on your finger."

"Arrogant motherf.u.c.ker!" Meghann shouted after he turned on his heel and left before she could respond. "I'd wrap a water bug around my finger before I wore his ring again!"

"I'm sure he's well aware of that, no matter what he says to save face," Charles said and took her hand. "Come on, honey. We're going home now." Meghann said nothing as Charles escorted her out of the house and then settled her in the pa.s.senger seat.

It was only after he'd driven a block from Lord Baldevar's house that Meghann began to speak.

"I can't do this," she said, her voice tight and high. "I can't G.o.d, it's just like it was before! That horrible beast, brutalizing me into following his every command "

"Meghann," Charles interrupted. "Don't you see? You won tonight."

"Huh?"

"Meghann, you scared him to death when you said you'd have an abortion if he didn't go along with your plan."

"But he "

"I know that spell or whatever he did to you, I can only imagine how horrible it was. But I was alert throughout the whole thing. Meghann, that wasn't easy for him to do. How do you think I got so close to you? He couldn't control you and fight me at the same time. I think he'd have to stand over you every minute for the next seven months to make it work. Who knows what condition that would leave him in? Don't let him trick you into believing he holds all the cards it was a scare tactic, that's all. What do you think he's letting Jimmy live as some favor? He would have decapitated him right there if you didn't convince him you meant what you said." Charles took his eyes off the road long enough to hold her eyes; he had to be sure she absorbed the full impact of what had just hap pened. "He wasn't able to read your mind when you said you wanted an abortion."

"My G.o.d," Meghann whispered. "You're right he didn't know I was lying!

So he threatened me to make sure I'd think twice about doing it." She felt perfectly safe saying that aloud; in a moving car they had to be safe from Lord Baldevar's spying.

"Were you doing anything different when you threatened him?"

Meghann considered. "No just, there was nothing on my mind except a need to save Jimmy."

"Maybe that's what you need to do," Charles said. "Not think if you're going to lie to him he can't see what isn't there. Think of what we may have accomplished tonight you're alive, we might have a chance to heal Jimmy, and best of all, we may be on the way to discovering a way to s.h.i.+eld your thoughts from Lord Baldevar. Now, I know I saw a Friendly's on our way here. Why don't you let me treat you to a sundae to celebrate?"

Meghann smiled a small smile but an improvement over the sorrow that had been in her expression since the night Lord Baldevar kidnapped Jimmy.

There was hope, Meghann thought. Not only the things Charles had mentioned but him him and Lee on her side, helping her face down Lord Baldevar.

Time hadn't rolled back, after all. Those thirteen years had been awful because Meghann had been so alone no one to turn to, no one to comfort her after one of Lord Baldevar's vicious tirades. But now now she had her dear friend to support her. With Charles by her side, never letting her confidence deteriorate, maybe she could handle Lord Baldevar.

CHAPTER FIVE

July 20, 1998

"Does it make you feel better?"

Meghann smiled up at Charles as he settled beside her on the sofa. "Don't you look handsome tonight."

"Mmph," he muttered noncommittally but preened a bit at Meghann's compliment. "It's not too much?"

"For a romantic dinner out? Absolutely not you look perfect." He did, wearing the dark Saville Row suit Meghann had bought him for Christmas, his normally flyaway black hair slicked back into rippling, s.h.i.+ny waves.

"I'm still not sure about you going there by yourself," Charles fretted.

"Lord Baldevar hasn't been at the house when we've been there since that first night," Meghann pointed out. She'd seen very little of the fiend over the past two weeks and hadn't spoken to him at all. Even when he came to Lee's to give her blood, Charles stood by her side while she fed. Meghann had never imagined feeding could be as antiseptic as the impersonal wrist held out to her while she wouldn't even look at her feeder. "And I have a lot of work to do with Jimmy tonight. I told you I'm going to lower the amount of medication in his blood pack tonight so I need to watch him all night to make sure he doesn't have an adverse reaction. You don't really want to sit with my patient and me all night when you could be enjoying yourself with Lee? Now you're going on that date if I have to drag you to Fiore's bodily."

Charles grinned at her no-nonsense tone and gestured to the leather-backed diary Lord Baldevar had given Lee. "It rea.s.sured you?"

"Somewhat." At the very least, reading Infans Noctis made Meghann understand why Lord Baldevar was willing to attempt vampiric conception.

Basically, it told the story of Lucian, a Roman senator before he was transformed (how he was transformed he declined to say) and Melina, the beautiful Greek concubine he fell in love with and transformed so they could be together forever.

Like Lord Baldevar, Lucian was obsessed with the idea that a child with the blood of two vampires flowing through its veins would have all their strengths and none of their flaws, like the need to hide from the sun. Frustrated when Melina failed to conceive after one hundred years pa.s.sed, Lucian took her to a small island in the Aegean Sea dedicated to the wors.h.i.+p of Aphrodite, G.o.ddess of fertility. After spreading Aphrodite's altar with their blood as well as that of a human sacrifice, he and Melina made love before the G.o.ddess's statue and conceived their child.

"At least now we know where Lord Baldevar got the idea for the ritual he put you through on Beltane," Charles said, reading along with Meghann.

"And how he knew what was wrong with me," Meghann said, tapping her nail against the pa.s.sage where Melina became desperately ill whenever she tried to feed. In desperation, Lucian fed her his blood, thanking G.o.d effusively when she recovered.

"Do you think he'd have attempted conception without Lucian's diary?"

Charles asked.

"No way," Meghann answered. "He'd never chance a deformed child our perfect fiend can't have some misbegotten offspring. No doubt he'd leave it on a hillside to die like they used to do in ancient times. Isn't it funny, though, how vampires are the opposite of humans? All those vampiric pregnancies we read about resulted in deformity because the parents weren't of the same bloodline.

Only Lucian transformed Melina. It never would have occurred to me that vampires must be of the closest blood relation to produce healthy children."

Meghann looked up. "Do you suppose that's why I got sick that in some twisted way it's a good sign, since Melina had the same problem?"

"Maybe. After all, morning sickness that's a sign the hormones are coursing through a woman's body normally. Maybe you're developing antibodies perhaps they help the child's development in some way."

She turned back to the book, skipping through Melina's uneventful pregnancy until she came to the pa.s.sage where the child, after a hideous labor of five nights, was born absolutely perfect, though Melina died of hemorrhaging a few minutes before the child was born. The cla.s.sical Latin prose raved about his cherubic good looks the blond hair with a tinge of red, dark lashes against snowy white skin, the infant boy's perfectly shaped limbs and fine weight. The only thing wrong with the child was that he was born dead. Unable to take the loss of his consort as well as his son, the grief-stricken father recorded the tragic events in Infans Noctis and then committed suicide by greeting the sunrise.

Oddly, Meghann wasn't overly upset when she read that Melina died. Lee could cauterize her easily, or give her a caesarian before she lost too much blood.

But she felt sad when she read about that perfect, stillborn child. What would he have been like if he lived? Would he be able to tolerate daylight? Would he develop blood teeth would he need to drink blood at all? Could he grow up and pa.s.s for a human child? Play with other children? Poor thing "Breech birth hung on his own cord," Charles observed, reading over her shoulder. "At least we know now vampires that you have a chance for healthy offspring."

Meghann took his hand. "Charles? You know Jimmy might not recover. If if he doesn't make it, would you please raise this baby with me?"

"Meghann." Charles clenched her hand, tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. "Are you asking me to be a father to your baby?"

Meghann nodded. "You and me and Lee. How could this baby ask for better parents?"

Charles caught her in a fierce hug. "Thank you." Then he shoved her away and gave her a sardonic grin. "How do you think Lord Baldevar will react to the idea of two f.a.gs raising his son?"

"It's a girl," Meghann corrected. "And he's never going to know unless he can see us from h.e.l.l."

Meghann and Charles heard Lee bidding his last patient a pleasant good night.

"Wish I still had patients," Meghann grumbled. More than that, Meghann wished her life hadn't changed that she were still counseling battered women from the home office she'd established in her ramshackle, comfortable beach house. She conjured up a pleasant scene saying good night to her last patient and then diving into the ocean for a moonlight swim with Jimmy.

"I know you miss it," Charles said, patting her hand. "But you'll get it all back you'll see."

Meghann kept silent, but she had her doubts about that. Aside from Jimmy's state (she still couldn't look into those blank eyes without wanting to cry), unless Charles managed to kill Lord Baldevar, there was no future for her he'd kill her after she gave birth so she wouldn't interfere with whatever horrid plans he had for her child. And that would be the kind fate he might just keep her alive and try to force her back into the role of his meek, brainless little plaything. No doubt if she resisted his wishes, the fiend would either beat her or threaten to kill all her friends, or maybe he'd be low enough to threaten the baby to get what he wanted.

Meghann shuddered and tried to force her thoughts out of their miserable ruminations.

Lee came into the living room, all ready for his big date with Charles, and Meghann looked on in amus.e.m.e.nt as her normally glib friend stared speechless at Lee.

"What he'll say as soon as he gets his tongue back in his mouth is that you look wonderful, Lee." Meghann thought Lee, in his neatly tailored charcoal-gray suit, with his ash-blond hair that had a sprinkling of silver, was every inch the distinguished professional, certainly what people referred to as a "great catch."

"Thanks." Lee may have been speaking to her but his eyes were on Charles, who got up and took his lover's hand.

Meghann dropped her eyes, feeling more and more she shouldn't be here. Of course she was happy that Lee and Charles had found each other again she knew how hurt Charles had been when he'd been forced to leave Lee because sooner or later the mortal would question his odd hours.

There had never been any question of him telling Lee what he was. Two centuries before they were born, Alcuin had decreed no new vampires should be created. As for telling mortals while it might ease the vampire's loneliness, it put the mortal in an awful position. He or she had to carry around an explosive secret, s.h.i.+eld it from other humans. And it was only a matter of time before the mortal became so poisoned with jealousy that his lover never aged while he withered away, that the relations.h.i.+p would fall apart.

The only reason Meghann had been allowed to confide in Jimmy was that he knew about vampires before they met one had slaughtered his family and left him only able to face the dark blind drunk until he had met Meghann. Then they had six wonderful years together and Meghann's only sadness was that her best friend couldn't have a lover like she did one who knew all his secrets and loved him anyway.

Yes, she was very happy Charles found someone, though she wished it hadn't been her own miserable circ.u.mstances that led to the reunion.

"I'm gonna get going," Meghann announced, knowing they'd be on top of each other the second she walked out the door. She wondered if they'd even make it to dinner.

"Are you sure?" Charles questioned, reluctantly pulling his eyes from Lee.

"You've never gone over there alone. Meghann, please, Lee and I can go out you just stay here in the house or maybe go to a movie."

Meghann gave a short laugh. "You think if Lord Baldevar really wants to find me he'll wait for me to show up at his house? I am not going to spend my life in fear of him. Look, I swear I'll call out to you if I need you not that he'd harm a hair on the head of his pregnant brood mare anyway." She walked out the door before Charles could present her with another argument, and willed herself not to cry. Tears never helped anyone. The thing to do was just sublimate her misery, work on helping Jimmy, and not dwell on how much she missed having someone look at her like Charles had just looked at Lee.

As Meghann strolled up the now familiar path to Lord Baldevar's house, she noticed the mansion was shuttered and dark. Hardly a surprise, though she sometimes wondered where Lord Baldevar took himself on the four nights he allowed her to visit and work with Jimmy. No doubt he oozed around the strip, terrorizing young women (prost.i.tutes barely past their adolescence being his favorite prey, if she remembered right), and drinking their blood.

Sometimes Vinny was around to welcome her, but the servant's schedule was erratic what with having to dispose of corpses in the vast desert around them.

Meghann opened the front door with the key Vinny had given her. Out of habit, she waved her hand to light up the foyer and the living room beyond. No matter that vampires saw as well as cats in the dark, a well-lit house was a comfort to Meghann, who had never cared for the dark.

She strained her ears for activity upstairs but the house was silent she'd been hoping Jimmy might be moving around but no such luck. With a sigh, Meghann mounted the marble staircase and headed toward Jimmy's room.

"Hey, sweetie," Meghann greeted when she opened the door to Jimmy's room.

She plastered a huge grin on her face, ignoring how her heart lurched when the apathetic gray-blue eyes didn't even move toward her.

Jimmy, lying curled up on the foam bed Meghann had brought, didn't acknowledge her until she moved closer and he smelled the blood in her canvas bag.

"Towel," Meghann said sharply and pointed to the beige towel lying next to the bed. For the past several weeks, she'd been trying (without success) to reintroduce Jimmy to performing simple tasks for himself.

Whining with frustration, Jimmy made a lunge for her but Meghann shoved him back and then picked the towel up herself, tucking it under his chin like a bib so he wouldn't get any blood on his clothes.

"Now," she said and gave him the transfusion bag.

Jimmy began gulping thirstily, blood teeth shredding the plastic while he made feral growls deep in his throat.

"Jimmy," Meghann said patiently, "we're not savages. There's no need to behave like a wild dog protecting his meat from the rest of the pack. I'm not going to take the blood from you."

Jimmy ignored her and wrapped his hands protectively around the pint of blood.

While he drank, Meghann removed a few containers of takeout from her bag, placing it on two paper plates. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple pie that used to be Jimmy's favorite meal. A few weeks ago, she'd informed that low-life snake (the kindest term she had for Lord Baldevar) she'd be responsible for Jimmy's meals as well as his blood she wouldn't have him reduce Jimmy any further by making him cannibalize his prey.