Crimson Shadows Read online

  "Meghann! What is this?" Baldevar asked in annoyance but something in his tone made Jimmy think his pique was just an attempt to change the subject. Whoever this Mikal was, Baldevar obviously didn't want to talk about him.

  "Nighttime World,"Maggie said calmly. "It's one of Jimmy's collections. He's an excellent photographer—people are calling him another Ansel Adams."

  Jimmy smiled at the praise, feeling much more benevolent toward Maggie, as Baldevar ripped into her.

  "Indeed?" Baldevar queried acidly. "What people has that fool of a vampire exposed himself to? At the very least, any book involves a publisher, editor . . . perhaps an agent. Does the imbecile tour this book, promote himself so we must all stand on the precipice of discovery? And you! Have you forgotten everything I taught you of the discretion necessary to our existence? A coffee-table book accessible to millions is hardly discreet. How could you allow him to seek publication? Why didn't you guide him to a more circumspect diversion?"

  Now Jimmy was ready to stamp into the study, but Ellie grabbed his forearm, her eyes sending an eloquent message to calm down before he went inside.

  "I encouraged Jimmy because he has a brilliant talent," Maggie said heatedly. "And because he deserved something positive in his life after all you put him through. As for discretion, neither Jimmy nor I are the fools you think we are. Jimmy does no promotion whatsoever—no signings or speaking engagements, radio interviews, nothing. He won't even do gallery shows though people beg him to do them all the time. Even so, his books do well. Do you know he's rich now in his own right?" v

  "As opposed to leeching off your assets?" Baldevar replied sarcastically, appearing unimpressed by Jimmy's achievements. "Still, that you have developed Mr. Delacroix at all is a minor miracle. I truly did not think you would be able to make any kind of vampire out of such poor material."

  "Do you have any idea how insecure you sound?" Maggie retorted before Jimmy could kick the glass out of the French doors and use a shard to impale Baldevar. "An intelligent, artistic, sensitive man is not poor material. But I must say, I'm surprised you're even taking it this well that Charles and I decided to mentor Jimmy, that I let him come back here after you left."

  So was Jimmy—why wasn't the vampire lighting into Maggie for taking Jimmy back?

  The answer came immediately. "I would have been angered had you broken our wedding vows and allowed the dolt back into your bed. But I knew I could trust your honor, Meghann. Taking Jimmy Delacroix under your wing was inspired. As long as our enemies saw you with that fool, that would be the final assurance they needed that our relationship was no more. All the time of my unfortunate absence, Mr. Delacroix has served quite ably in his role of decoy but now we may rid ourselves of him once and for all."

  "Go straight to hell, you overbearing, arrogant motherfucker!" Jimmy screamed and stormed into the study, Ellie making a feeble effort to hold him back. "I'm not your fucking decoy and if you want to get rid of me, you'll have to kill me! Why don't you try, and show Ellie what you really are?"

  "Whatever I am, I have never been called a snoop," Lord Baldevar said and gave Jimmy a cool, mocking grin. "I was wondering when you would decide to step inside and cease lurking at the door like a beggar appealing for alms." ,

  Dismissing Jimmy with an arrogant turn of his back, Baldevar turned to Ellie and gave her a warm grin. "Good evening, again."

  "Hi, Daddy," Ellie said uncertainly and ran to Maggie. "Mom!"

  "Sweetie," Maggie breathed, letting her tall daughter grab her and spin her around before they sat down together on the couch.

  Look at her, Jimmy thought sourly, glaring as Maggie pushed a strand of hair off Ellie's face. No longer was Maggie the stuff porn movies were made of; now she wore a demure brown sweater, floral silk skirt and her wet hair was neatly held back with a tortoiseshell hair comb. From wanton whore to wholesome schoolgirl looking younger than her daughter in the space of an hour—Maggie wasn't a vampire at all, she was a witch.

  The witch fixed Jimmy with an icy green stare before her expression softened and she said, I'm sorry you had to see us like that, Jimmy. I meant to explain to you ...

  How could you possibly explain spreading your legs for that .. .Jimmy groped in his mind for a suitable pejorative before a foul voice intruded into his consciousness.

  Your jealousy will be the signature on your death warrant if you do not cease berating my consort.

  Not even deigning to respond to Baldevar, Jimmy decided if he couldn't kill the bastard, it was time to see if there were other ways to cut him down.

  "How was your class tonight, Maggie?" Jimmy asked in a pleasant tone, like there'd been no attempted double homicide earlier.

  "Fine," Maggie replied with equal civility, though her wary eyes followed his movements like she would those of a rattlesnake.

  "Let me give you a topic for your next class. Say one of your budding counselors sees a woman that was involved in a relationship with a sadistic creep that beat her regularly and raped her whenever the mood took him. For some bizarre reason, the ditz wants to get back together with the asshole—after he dumped her. How do you deal with a patient like that?"

  Ellie shifted uncomfortably next to her mother, glancing between Maggie and Baldevar to see their reaction to Jimmy's thinly veiled gauntlet. Maggie's lips tightened slightly and Baldevar's only reaction was to turn to Maggie, waiting for her response with the passive interest of someone listening to a stimulating discussion at a cocktail party.

  "First, I would advise them never to call a patient a ditz," Maggie said dryly. "Then I would remind them that if you pass judgment on a patient, there is a very good chance they'll abandon therapy out of a sense of shame and your role as counselor is hardly to bully your patient out of seeking help. Now, for the scenario you presented, background questions must be answered. Why did the parties separate? What does the patient feel she'd gain by resuming the relationship with her abuser? Has he sought therapy? If the patient has valid reasons for believing the abuse won't be continued and she feels she can forgive the past, I wouldn't automatically advise her to reject her partner."

  "So someone should only reconcile with their partner because any sort of abuse is over?" Ellie questioned.

  Those are the only circumstances under which I'd agree to reconciliation," Maggie replied and Ellie sent Jimmy a triumphant glance that almost matched the smirk on her father's face.

  Bullshit, Jimmy thought at Maggie, not wanting to yell at her in front of Ellie. What I saw upstairs looked pretty goddamn painful and degrading—would you want Ellie in that sort of relationship ?

  What Simon and I do for pleasure is our business, Jimmy, Maggie scowled at him. I've made my peace with Simon and I'd advise you to do the same. Maggie glanced meaningfully at Ellie. She's very dear to him ... he'll, leave you alive if for no other reason than just to please her. Please Jimmy, don't antagonize him any further. I have enough on my mind. . .

  And between your legs, Jimmy thought rudely, and then glared at Baldevar. You can't kill me for my thoughts unless you want to blow your Father of the Year carver.

  So you no longer seek protection from Meghann but now hide behind a child's skirts ? I would not expect such cowardly actions even from one such as you, Mr. Delacroix.

  Flummoxed, Jimmy could only gape helplessly while Baldevar crossed the room, sitting on an ottoman next to Meghann and Ellie.

  "Daughter, I must speak with you and your mother on a matter of grave importance," Baldevar said, taking Ellie's hand in his.

  "I want Jimmy to stay," Ellie said and even Jimmy couldn't see any shadow of disturbance or annoyance in Baldevar's inscrutable expression.

  "Certainly," Lord Baldevar said calmly and turned to Jimmy. "Please take a seat, Mr. Delacroix. Perhaps you'd like a drink before we begin?"

  Jimmy sat in a loveseat far from Baldevar, ignoring the subde dig at his mortal drinking problem. "I'm fine."

  I rather doubt that, the vampire said, continuing his clever
game of only insulting Jimmy out of Ellie's mortal scope, before he spoke aloud again.

  I'll be damned, Jimmy thought in wonder. The sonofabitch is beating me at my own game! Like Jimmy, Baldevar was trying to taunt Jimmy into attacking him in front of Ellie, so he'd lose her respect and love.

  "Elizabeth," Lord Baldevar said to his daughter. "I have come home, not only because I've missed you and your mother, but because you must transform immediately."

  "What?" Ellie stammered confusedly while Maggie leapt to her feet and Jimmy came over to Ellie, wrapping his arms around her protectively—Simon Baldevar would transform Ellie over his dead body.

  "Who do you think you are," Maggie cried indignantly, "to just come back and demand Ellie transform without even consulting her as to whether she wants to! You didn't even have the basic respect for me, her mother, to ask my opinion. You don't make a decision like that and then expect the rest of us to follow you blindly. If Ellie ever transforms, it will be when she makes that choice as an informed adult, knowing the drawbacks as well as the advantages to being a vampire. But she will not transform now . .. she's only seventeen! Ellie has a full life ahead of her, a promising career that I will not allow you or anyone else to rip away from her by taking the sun from her like you did to me!"

  Jimmy wanted to leap up and applaud. All right, Maggie slept with the asshole ... so what? She was still willing to go the mat for her daughter, that was far more important than anything she did in bed with Simon Baldevar.

  "What do you mean, 'if' Elizabeth transforms?"

  Baldevar demanded incredulously. "Do you think I would sire a child and then allow mortality to steal her away? Of course Elizabeth will transform and take her rightful place in our world as my heir. Stop shouting, Meghann! There is no time for petty squabbling. Elizabeth must transform, not merely because it is her birthright, but because it is the only way to protect her from the threat Mikal presents to her life."

  "Why would Mikal threaten Ellie?" Maggie cried just as jimmy jumped up and demanded plaintively, "Who the hell is Mikal?"

  Lord Baldevar's eyes cut between Maggie and Jimmy, finally settling on Maggie with pleased smugness. "I owe you an apology, Meghann. You have not forgotten discretion at all but behaved with admirable prudence. But the time for subterfuge draws to a close. Please feel free to tell Mr. Delacroix who Mikal is."

  "Jimmy," Maggie said in a faltering, uncertain voice, her cheeks flaming red and her eyes filled with guilty discomfit. "I haven't been honest with you and for that, I've always been sorry. Whatever anger you feel, I deserve. All I ask is that you allow me to explain myself."

  Jimmy nodded dumbly, wondering what secrets Maggie had kept from him.

  "Ellie isn't my only child," Maggie said, the words tumbling out of her mouth as though they were something toxic she had to purge herself of before they poisoned her. "She's just my only daughter, my mortal child. When I was pregnant, I was carrying twins. One was Ellie and the other was my son, Mikal."

  "You have a son?" Jimmy was too amazed to be angry. "What happened to him?"

  "He was born a vampire," Maggie said, her green eyes tearing up and Jimmy thought he might finally have the answer to that inexplicable longing he'd sensed in her all these years—she'd missed her boy.

  "You may remember that I once told you Simon believed the offspring of two vampires would have all our strengths and none of our flaws, that when the child grew up, it would be able to walk in daylight

  "Our enemies were frightened of Simon ever having that power, obtaining it by drinking a small portion of his son's blood. We knew they'd try to kill Mikal if they found out about him. So Simon and I separated the children, Ellie remaining with me while Simon took Mikal into hiding. In a way, having twins was a godsend because everyone expected a single birth from my pregnancy and assumed that was Ellie, a mere mortal. That's why Simon left... to make everyone believe he had no use for Ellie while he raised Mikal. He had to keep Mikal hidden until he was old enough to defend himself against anyone that would try to destroy him."

  "And you thought I'd try to destroy your precious son?" Jimmy cried, the full impact of Maggie's confession and its betrayal of their friendship hitting him far harder than Baldevar's assault had in the bedroom. "Why the hell didn't you tell me all this when I came back?"

  Numbly, Jimmy remembered that night when he came back after a year of floundering around by himself, trying to find a way to cope with the vampirism Baldevar had forced on him. He'd come to Maggie believing she was his friend and now he found out she'd taken him in so she could use him to carry on her ruse that Ellie was her only child and Baldevar had disappeared for God knows where.

  "Jimmy, I couldn't tell you ..."

  "Why not?" Jimmy cried, ashamed of the tears he couldn't control, wanting to scream out his agony when he saw the pity in Maggie's eyes and the compassion shining in Ellie's. "How could you keep something like that from me? How could you lie to my face for seventeen years? My God, Maggie, you put me in the same category with the kind of sick piece of shit that would kill a baby because it might grow up to hurt them? How could you do that, how could you not tell me you have a son? Don't you trust me at all? Didn't I ever mean anything to you?"

  "Jimmy..." Maggie said and tried to take his hands but Jimmy flung her off and ran out the French doors, not stopping until he reached the tide line on the shore.

  "Damn you, damn you, damn you! "Jimmy screamed at the aloof moon* staring down at him. Foamy black water lapped at his feet and ruined his shoes but Jimmy was oblivious to everything except a tiny voice whispering to him that the worst mistake he'd ever made in his life was the night he returned to this house and Maggie O'Neill.

  Five

  February 14, 2000

  Jimmy Delacroix puffed uneasily on his cigarette, automatically hunching over to avoid the harsh, biting wind blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. Cold didn't affect him much anymore but the awful low- pitched moan of the winter wind made him shiver anyway—a mental reaction instead of physical. The howling wind brought back all too plainly memories of the night he'd escaped the shuttered house a few yards in front of him. When Jimmy thought of that terrible night, his first memory was always the wind keening outside the tiny room where he'd regained awareness after spending almost a year in a stupor, brought on after he'd been transformed into a vampire by Simon Baldevar.

  Baldevar!Jimmy spat on the sand—even thinking the name of the warped psycho who'd transformed him and deliberately botched the process so Jimmy would spend eternity as a mindless vegetable left a sour taste in his mouth. He stomped the butt of his cigarette beneath his boot and then cupped his hands around a silver Zippo lighter to light a fresh cigarette, reflecting on how thoroughly that bastard had ruined his life.

  Before Lord Baldevar, life had finally been taking a turn for the better. It took time, but Jimmy was finally getting over the death of his young wife and infant son, killed by a demented vampire. Everybody thought Jimmy was crazy when he insisted he'd been a petrified witness while Amy and Jay were mauled by the thing... everybody but Maggie O'Neill, the enigmatic redhead he'd met eight years before.

  She'd picked him up in one of the many bars he frequented, unable to face the night and the things he knew were out there unless he drank himself into insensibility. At first, Jimmy only thought he'd been lucky enough to find a pretty, funny, sexy-as-hell girl who could match him drink for drink. But it turned out Maggie had her own secret that she revealed when he told her what had happened to Amy and Jay. Maggie believed Jimmy's story because she was a vampire, transformed against her will by Simon Baldevar in 1944.

  After getting over his shock, Jimmy moved in with Maggie, allowing her to teach him all about vampires and their vulnerabilities so he could avenge Amy and Jay by slaying the sick creatures that murdered their human prey during the day. Maggie did nothing of the sort, telling Jimmy any vampire could feed without resorting to murder, if they had the will to do so.

  Those were good ye
ars, Jimmy remembered sadly, the six years they lived together and healed each other. With Maggie by his side, Jimmy could face the dark without getting blind drunk. As for Maggie, she told Jimmy she'd never expected to find a lover who could also be her friend; she never thought she'd trust a man again after suffering through the pain and humiliation that characterized her years with Simon Baldevar.

  But then Baldevar resurfaced. It turned out he wasn't dead, as Maggie believed, killed the night she escaped him by putting a stake in his heart. No, the vampire had apparently bided his time and when he felt strong enough, he came back from the dead to reclaim Maggie and destroy anyone that tried to stop him.

  Like me, Jimmy thought, a sick feeling building in the pit of his stomach when he remembered how the vampire tortured him and then, when he was on the edge of death, transformed him, leaning back and watching with immense satisfaction as Jimmy tried futilely to battle the chaos that overtook his sanity.

  Goddamn him, Jimmy thought furiously and took several long strides toward the cobblestoned terrace, rage giving him the courage to face down his enemy. Goddamn that monstrous fiend to hell! Jimmy had become a catatonic simply because Simon Baldevar didn't want any competition for Maggie's affections, thinking she'd pity her mortal lover once he lost the ability to think or speak or do anything but drink blood and kill Jimmy herself to end his misery.

  Jimmy snorted, thinking in that situation Maggie had gotten the better of Baldevar, telling the sono- fabitch she'd abort the baby he'd impregnated her with by raping her if he didn't allow her to try to bring Jimmy back from the madness Baldevar had plunged him into.

  And Maggie did fix Jimmy's mind through a combination of psychoactive drugs mixed in the blood she fed him and ceaselessly talking to him the way people did with coma victims. Awareness returned and brought with it the devastating news that he was now a vampire and had to call the creature he despised master. As if that wasn't bad enough, Jimmy had to sustain the blow of discovering Maggie and Baldevar had been lovers practically the whole time Jimmy lay mindless and unaware.