Lynn Viehl - Darkyn 1 - If Angels Burn (v1.1) (27 page)

She had no intention of explaining what she was to Liliette or anyone. “It’s okay; Cyprien filled me in on things and is making me”—what did he call it?—“a tree thing.”

“
Tresora
.”

“Right.” Alex gently bent the older woman’s arm at the elbow to check her range of motion. “So the revolutionaries, they went after you guys in France, huh?”

“They hunted us through our families,” she corrected. “Rome commissioned Joseph Guillotin to find an efficient way to dispatch our kind. We discovered this only after he submitted his proposition to the Assembly in 1789, recommending decapitation as the standard form of capital punishment in France.”

“Nice guy.”
If she witnessed the French Revolution, Cyprien must have been there, too
, Alex thought. If they weren’t all pathological liars, well, it boggled the mind. “Everything seems to be working okay now. Try to get some rest, and take it easy on your arm for the next twenty-four hours. I’ll want to check it tomorrow.”

“Doctor—Alexandra—I have something to say to you.” Liliette put a gentle hand on her arm. “I love my nephew Thierry.”

“That I could tell.”

“I know you doubt what I say, but I did live through that time. I watched nearly all of my family and friends go under the blade. The only reason Marcel and I survived was Thierry. He escaped the mob, and he and Michael and our other Kyn, they came for us. They could not save everyone, you understand? There was not enough time. So they had to choose. There were people who had been tortured, whose minds…” Liliette looked suddenly very tired and old. “I pray you never have to make such a choice.”

“Me, either.” Alex stuck her head out into the hallway, and saw Éliane talking to two of the guards. “Yo, Blondie. Madame is ready to go back to her room.”

Éliane dismissed the guards and walked over to her. “While we have a moment, I would speak to you. You should be aware that Mr. Cyprien is in the midst of delicate negotiations at this time.”

Alex guessed she was supposed to be daunted by this. She wasn’t. “Does he need to borrow some antacid, or my calculator?”

“You do not realize how important this is. Michael Cyprien will soon be named seigneur.” She made a broad gesture. “He will have power over all
les jardins
in the U.S.”

“And?”

Éliane gave her a pitying smile. “He does not have time to dance attendance on you. He is only using you to gain favor with Tremayne, high lord of the Darkyn.”

“The high lord, huh? Here I thought Mike was all hot for my gorgeous bod. I’m devastated.” Alex yawned. “You can take Madame back to her room now, and go find that nurse.”

The blonde drew herself up like a cat doused with water. “Do you know who I am?”

“You mean, besides a boil on my butt?”

“I am Michael Cyprien’s
tresora
. We
tresori
have served the Darkyn since the fourteenth century, when the first of our kind swore an oath of loyalty to protect our dark lords. We are their eyes and ears; we keep them from harm and oversee their holdings. We assure no one discovers who they are, and we recruit other humans in positions of authority to protect the
jardins
.” She made a contemptuous sound. “They do not know, as we
tresori
do, whom they protect, but we assure that they do as they are told. We have kept the Darkyn safe for centuries, and in return they grant us great wealth and power.”

“I’m so happy for you.” Alex tapped the floor with one foot. “Can I have a nurse now?”

“My own family, the Selvais, have served the master faithfully since he first rose. I am the thirty-fifth of my line to become
tresora
.” Éliane patted the side of her hair. “Now that perhaps you understand better who I am, you will—”

Alex made a cutting gesture. “You’re Renfield. I got it. Still need a nurse.”

“I am explaining to you why I am not here to run errands for you.”

“Look on the bright side.” Alex patted her shoulder. “I won’t make you eat bugs.”

Marcel limped in after a fuming Éliane escorted Liliette back to her room. “My eye was burned out of my head. You cannot fix that.”

Alex nodded toward his cane. “What about the limp?”

“I am cursed by God.” He scowled and paced, spreading the scent of fresh-cut grass in the room.

She studied the line of his leg, saw how he rolled his hip. “God must have been really ticked off during the Dark Ages. Bring it over here.”

He glowered and avoided her. “I do not trust leeches, or humans.”

“Too bad, I’ve been hired at the group discount rate. And if you call me a leech again, I’ll hurt you. Now get up on the exam table.” She changed her gloves, and when she turned around, he hadn’t moved. “I’m sorry,” she said, very loud. “Did they do something to your ears, too?”

He trudged over and planted himself on the table, sweeping back the robe. Instead of the wounded leg Alex expected to see, he showed her something quite different.

She went and took his foot in her hands, and manipulated it gently. “No midtarsal mobility, transverse crease, displaced navicular, calcaneocuboid, and subtalar joints.”

“What does that mean?”

“You weren’t cursed by God, Mr. Durand. You were born with a clubfoot.” Alex thought for a moment. “Under the circumstances, I should be able to perform an osteotomy of the distal part of the calcaneus combined with a plantar fasciotomy and posteromedial release. I’ll need a couple hours to correct and rearrange your joints, maybe a little wedge of skull bone, and a whole lot less lip from you.”

His one eye rounded. “You would do this for me?”

The man had a congenital birth defect that predated his growing fangs. Alex could fix that without a crisis of conscience.

“Sure.” She stood and tapped his eye patch. “Want to show me what’s under here now?”

He untied the black ribbon holding it in place. His eye and eyelid were missing, evidently violently removed but completely healed. The eye socket had rough edges, and it was easy to tell what were gouge marks and what were burn marks.

Alex tilted his head up and used a scope light to probe the cratered socket. “What did they use?”

“A knife and a poker heated in the fire.”

She gently lowered the eye patch back into place. “You’re right; I can’t help you out with this eye. Your tissue will reject any type of prosthesis I try to implant. I’m sorry.” She felt someone watching them, and saw Heather and Jamys hovering in the doorway. “Here’s my next patient.”

“I should tell you what happened to Jamys,” Marcel said as he climbed down from the exam table. “We were kept in the same room for a time. They only took him away the night before Lucan came.”

Who is Lucan
? “It’s okay, Marcel. Jamys can tell me about it himself.”

“No, Dr. Keller, he cannot.” The big man took the boy’s hand from Heather, who was looking very pale and somewhat shaky.

“Hang on, you two. Heather, sit down.” Alex steered the nurse to the exam table and checked her pulse. It was rapid and thready. “Look at me.” The nurse was having trouble focusing. Alex caught a faint trace of a flowery scent and felt her jaw lock. “What happened to you?”

“He said it was nice. One for the road.” Heather smiled, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped over.

Alex did a quick check and found her blood pressure bordering on nonexistent. Dull fury rose inside her as she considered the only possible reason for it. “Shit.”

Marcel came over and touched the nurse’s pale throat, then found the wound on her wrist. “Four punctures, all fresh. She will need blood, and soon.”

“Oh, you think?” Alex went over to the door, stuck her head out, and shouted for Phillipe. When he appeared, she dragged him into the room and showed him the nurse. “My nurse, minus a few pints.” She poked him in the chest with her finger. “I thought Nurse Heather was safe here. I thought we played nice and didn’t kill humans anymore.”

“We… do not.”

“Well,
someone
treated her like a Big Gulp.” And if it was Cyprien, Alex would personally kick his ass from here to the Mississippi. “It wasn’t you, was it?” When the seneschal shook his head, she glared at Marcel and Jamys. “Or you?”

“We would not,” Marcel assured her. “It is not polite to do so in the house of the master of the
jardin
.”

“What does that mean?” Alex demanded. “I have to look for a
rude
vampire?”

Phillipe lifted Heather into his arms. “I will care for her.”

“Do you know her blood type? Can you give her a transfusion?” He blinked at her. “I thought not. Put her back down and get Cyprien up here right now. Marcel, I’ll have to talk to Jamys later.”

“Doctor, you cannot,” Marcel told her, and showed her why.

M
ichael could not understand how Heather had been used twice by one of the Kyn. “Heather was brought to nurse Thierry. She only had one time, with Phillipe, when she first came here.”

“Wrong. She was tapped twice today.” Alex checked the bag of whole blood hanging from the pole beside Heather’s bed. The nurse was still pale but had fallen asleep. “Whoever it was also had sex with her. There’s semen all over her panties.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” She walked out of the room.

Michael rubbed a hand over his face. “Who could have done this?”

“Not one of us.” Phillipe came to look down at Heather. “The
jardin
follow your laws. They would not use any human under your roof for sex without permission, and they would never take blood twice in one day. To do either would be…”

A deadly insult as well as a risk of rapture and thrall. Michael went over and carefully sniffed the wound site. The scent of jasmine was unmistakable. “Lucan.”

Phillipe used the handheld radio he carried to alert the staff and have the men search the house. “If he is still here, we will find him.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Alexandra was very angry.”

“She believes that you or I did this.” No wonder she had walked out on him. “Stay with Heather. Don’t leave her alone until the house has been completely checked.”

Michael went upstairs, retrieved a canister and two glasses, and then let himself into Alexandra’s room. It was empty, but he heard the sound of the shower, and sat down to wait.

She didn’t look at him when she emerged from the bath. She had wrapped herself in a large, dark green towel, and her wet hair streamed in dripping curls over her shoulders.

“Get out,” she told him as she went to the closet. She didn’t touch the clothes he’d provided for her but took out the suit she’d been wearing before her shower.

He saw the towel gape and expose a smooth stretch of thigh. Instantly he wanted to run his hand over it, feel the firmness. He remembered how the insides of her thighs felt, against his hips. “I know you’re upset with me.”

“Oh, I’m way past upset. I’m cruising right around fully homicidal.” Alex marched back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Michael filled the glasses while she dressed and tried not to think about her thighs.

“Why are you still here?” Alex demanded when she emerged, fully dressed. Her gaze fell on the glasses. “I told you, I don’t drink blood.”

“It will calm you.” He waited a minute, then sighed and set the glasses aside. “Very well, I apologize again. I did not mean to offend you. We must talk, Alexandra.”

“Why, did you run out of nurses to hypnotize and assault?”

No one would dare speak to him with such scathing sarcasm, nor had anyone. Not in seven centuries. He did not know how to respond to it. “I did not do this to Heather, and neither did Phillipe.”

She went over to the window and kept her back to him. “How many people have you killed over the years, Cyprien?”

The abrupt shift in subject caught him off guard. “I never counted.”

“No, I guess
the master
wouldn’t.” She made a contemptuous sound. “What about the Durands? You figure, four vampires, they’ve probably wiped out the equivalent of a small city by now, right?”

“We don’t kill humans anymore.” Did she think him completely devoid of emotion? He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “We did not hurt Heather. We would not. I promise you this.”

She turned around and looked up at him. “
I
was human. You hurt
me
. You tried to kill
me
.”

“Yes, I did.” In that moment, Michael would have sold his soul to take back what he had done to her. “But I did not touch Heather.”

She seemed to relax then, and even bent forward a little until her forehead rested against his shoulder. She always fought him so valiantly that to see her like this was like taking an arrow through his side.
Alexandra, when will you trust me, and permit me to trust you
?

“Will you give her four million dollars?”

He touched her hair, stroking his hand over the back of her head. “If you want me to, I will.”

“You can make people forget things, Cyprien, but you can’t buy forgiveness.”

“I know.” He hated the truth of that, and didn’t say anything for a long time. “If it were in my power to take back what happened to Heather, or make you human again, Alexandra, I would. Please believe that. But I cannot.”

She gave him a wry look. “So the master isn’t all-powerful. Good to know.”

Michael didn’t make the mistake of lowering his guard. As much as he wished he could trust her, and bring her fully into his world, there was still much more to settle.

“I did not intend to impose myself on your life again”—that was a flat lie—“but it is for the Durands. They are your people, your Kyn, and they need you desperately now.” As he did, Michael realized. She had created a space in his carefully planned world for herself, and he was beginning to see that no one and nothing else would fill it.

“I made my peace with this, you know?” She toyed with a button on his shirt. “I made up my mind; I wouldn’t practice medicine anymore. I figured if I stuck to needle transfusions and did some research, tried to figure out what this thing is, that would be enough. If things got unbearable, I could even end it.”