Now Comes the Night (3 page)

Not that he should have been surprised. Why, look how quick Conrad had been to risk Damian’s life by asking for his aid in the first place! And he hadn’t even blinked when Damian had stipulated they not be lovers. If Damian had been hoping Conrad would protest Damian’s decision to keep himself out of Conrad’s bed, that he might beg for a return to their previous intimacy, he’d have been sorely disappointed. Even the speed with which Damian had agreed to throw in with Conrad, the way he’d immediately dropped everything he’d been doing for the chance to put himself once again at Conrad’s beck and call, had earned him no praise, no gratitude. Conrad hadn’t even seemed particularly pleased by Damian’s alacrity. Perhaps he thought it no more than what was owed him as Damian’s sire?

A brooding silence settled over the room, broken only by the small, sucking noises of the children. Damian waited, biding his time, gauging his companion’s mood, finally asking, “So have you given any more thought to what you might want to name the children?”

Conrad sighed. “How is it you are not yet tired of the subject? How many times must I repeat myself? What’s the point of giving them names when it’s by no means certain they’ll live long enough to even use them?”

“Conrad,” Damian chided softly. “There’s nothing in life that’s truly certain, is there? Does that mean we should never hope for the best? How is one to live like that? What chance have we to succeed at anything if we can’t even—”

“Stop it,” Conrad growled angrily, cutting him off. “You sound like a child yourself when you talk like that. Do not speak to me of hope. It’s one of life’s cruelest jests, the most dangerous, destructive emotion that could ever exist. To live without hope is
precisely
what we should be attempting to do—especially at a time like this.”

Damian stared at him. “Live without hope?” How did one even survive without hope, without some faint belief that tomorrow might yet prove better than today? He’d rather kill himself. If he had to resign himself to the idea that even eternity would not be long enough to make Conrad love him again, if he had to give up his belief that, together, the two of them could accomplish anything, even this, what would be the point of even waking up on the morrow? “You can’t mean that.”

“Why should I not mean it, when doing anything else is to court disaster? How many men have clung to false hopes and so wasted their lives, holding out for a dream that was no more than a chimera—and dying miserably because they’d refused to resign themselves to the reality of their condition?”

Damian shook his head. “I have no answer for that. But I do know I’d rather count myself in their number than attempt what you’re suggesting.”

Conrad sighed. “Has it really not occurred to you, my friend, how foolish we both are for even attempting this venture? Or how infinitesimally small are our chances of succeeding with it? Not just because of the endless need for secrecy and the constant possibility we’ll be called upon to fend off attacks, perhaps even kill those we’d once thought of as friends. Merely keeping the children alive will take a miracle.”

Damian chuckled. “More like a series of miracles. I consider it quite an accomplishment we haven’t killed them already—with all the best of intentions.”

Conrad eyed him bleakly. “Do not celebrate that victory just yet. The decision to put them out of their misery might still have to be made.”

“What?” Damian felt the blood drain from his face. His pulse began to pound. He clutched the girl in his arms a little more tightly. “No. Conrad, you-you can’t. Don’t even say such things.”

“I will not allow them to suffer unduly. I tell you this now, Damian, and make no mistake for I will not change my mind. If it becomes apparent to me that our mishandling of them has gone too far, that we ourselves are endangering them or that our ignorance has caused them irreparable harm, I will have no choice but to end this…experiment.”

“Stop it.” Damian swallowed hard. He did not like where this conversation was headed. Time to return it to his original point. “I believe you may have misunderstood me,
querido
. I was not giving the credit for their continued survival to either of us, but to the children themselves. I believe it is their own will to live that is keeping them alive—even with all of our ‘ignorant mishandling’ of them, to use your own words. And for that valiant struggle, if for no other reason, they deserve the dignity of a name. It is far too easy otherwise to discount what they have accomplished.” It was far too easy to talk of
ending
them. “You owe it to them to call them something.”

Conrad didn’t answer right away. He gazed pensively at the child in his arms and Damian, with equal intensity, and more than a little fear, gazed at him. The minutes ticked steadily by. “Marcus,” Conrad murmured after a little while had passed. There was a note of finality in his tone.

Damian frowned. “What’s that?”

Conrad smiled fleetingly, a somewhat sheepish expression on his face. “Marcus Maximilian. I thought it would make a good name for my…for my ‘grandson’ here. What do you think?”

So, he did know which twin he held. Damian felt weak and almost giddy with relief. He smiled. “
Bueno
. I like it very much. We can call him Marc, for short.” He nodded at the girl. “What about this one?”

“I thought…Augusta, perhaps?”

Damian studied the little girl he held, still greedily attacking her meal. Poor child, she deserved to be called something far prettier than that. “It’s certainly an unusual name,” he answered diplomatically. “Especially in this day and age. But it’s not particularly modern, which might cause comment. What on earth put it in your head anyway?”

Conrad shrugged. “It was my mother’s name.”

“Was it?”
Should I have known that
? Damian wracked his brain in an attempt to remember, but in five hundred years, he was almost certain this was the first time he’d ever heard Conrad speak of such a thing. Perhaps this was yet another sign he was mellowing with age? “Well then, why not give it to her as a middle name? Surely that would be better, don’t you think? That way, we can call her by something that, while not as special, would be less likely to cause awkward questions as to how she came by it.”

An expression of grim amusement curled Conrad’s lips. “If you’ve another name in mind, my dear, why do you not simply tell me what it is and have done with it?”

“Are you asking for my opinion in this?” It wasn’t the first time he’d done so—not exactly, anyway—but Damian was still getting used to this new Conrad who did more than issue orders and announce decrees, who occasionally took someone else’s opinion into consideration and even asked for things as well, things like assistance, thoughts, advice.

Conrad seemed to hesitate—as though he found the concept strange as well. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Since it appears likely you’ll be using their names as much as I, it seems only fair that you at least be allowed to offer suggestions.”

“Very true. So I should be. And, that being the case…I was thinking that Juliet was a very pretty name, especially when shortened to Julie, and romantic besides.”

Conrad frowned. “I’ve never understood that. What’s so romantic about flouting your family’s traditions, defying your parents’ wishes and then killing yourself when it all goes horribly wrong—as anyone might have predicted it would?”

“Well, nothing, if you put it that way,” Damian answered crossly. “But, risking everything, or perhaps even dying for love’s sake? Is that not the essence of romanticism?” Was that not exactly what Damian was doing now? What he’d done countless times over the centuries? But perhaps Conrad didn’t see it like that. Would he ever?

“Very well.” Conrad turned his attention back to the child he was feeding. “Marc and Julie they shall be. And now at least that subject’s settled.”

“Is it?” Damian blinked in surprise. Given Conrad’s unenthusiastic reaction, Damian had assumed he’d intended to reject the name.

Conrad glanced sharply at him, his expression annoyed. “Unless you’ve some other objection to make?”

“N-no.” Damian shook his head. “It’s just… I mean, well, what about their surname? We haven’t discussed that yet. It really wouldn’t do to give them yours, I suppose?”

“No.” Conrad grimaced. “Not if we’re ever to have any hope of one day convincing the rest of our people that I’d no connection to them, prior to turning them.”

Damian bit his lip to keep from smiling. So, it seemed they were allowed to have a little hope after all.
Bueno.
“Well then? What are you thinking? I assume you have something else in mind.”

“Fischer.” Conrad shrugged briefly. “After their mother. It’s on their birth certificates already anyway, so I see no reason to change it. And it seems the least I can do to honor her memory. I just wish I could do more.”

“What more could anyone ask of you?” Damian protested. “You’ve already committed yourself to keeping your promise to her, which many would not have done, and at great personal risk. You’re caring for her children as if they were your own.”

Conrad shrugged again. “Aren’t they though? In a way? You can’t deny it was I who made them what they are. It’s my blood running through their veins.”

And through mine as well, thought Damian. “But is it safe to give them a name that would still allow people to connect them to you through her? I know we’ve still a ways to go before we reach that bridge, but surely it’s best to begin to prepare for it now?”

“It’s safe enough, I’d imagine. It’s not a particularly uncommon name and since she was no longer even using it herself when I knew her, I doubt it’s a connection anyone of my acquaintance will ever think to make.”

“
Bueno
. Then I guess we really have settled it.”

“Yes.” Conrad sighed. “May God have mercy on their souls. And who knows? Perhaps, if we’re really lucky, once we actually do reach this bridge of which you speak, we’ll be able to safely navigate our way across and not find ourselves being thrown off of it instead.”

Damian smiled. “
Sí
. That would indeed be better.” And Conrad must be feeling better too, if he was capable of making even so small a joke as that. Surely that was a good sign, was it not? As well as an omen of more good things to come. Why should it not be so? It was the start of a new year, after all. A new year, a new decade and, perhaps, a new and happy life for all of them. “Happy New Year, Conrad.”

A faint expression of surprise crossed Conrad’s face. Then he inclined his head and almost returned the smile—which, for right now, was enough. “Thank you, my dear. And to you as well.”

Chapter Two

San Francisco, California

December 21, 2009

The sun had finally set. Conrad didn’t have to pull aside the drapes to know that was the case, he didn’t even have to open his eyes or stir from his bed. He felt it in every cell of his body. He felt it in the faint easing of electromagnetic pressure as the solar rays were deflected off into space, in the slight cooling of the atmosphere—sweet, blessed benediction. Most particularly, he felt it in the incipient hunger that was just beginning to gnaw at the edges of his consciousness.

While no more than a mild, almost pleasurable ache at present, the hunger was what would all too soon draw him out into the night in search of sustenance. For the moment, his hunger was mostly quiescent. His world was calm, peaceful and as close to perfect as anything he’d known in many years.

He stretched contentedly, enjoying the slight protest in his powerful muscles. When his limbs brushed against the sleep-warmed body of another, he paused, allowing all the seemingly disparate little details to coalesce within his mind and blossom into full awareness. The soft cadence of another man’s breath. The steady thud of a familiar heartbeat.
Damian
.

Conrad eased himself onto his side and propped his head on his hand so that he might better observe his lover. Damian lay on his back with one arm stretched above his head, his long, dark hair spread out across the pillow. His eyes were closed. His handsome features were in repose. His lips, from which Conrad had received more kisses than either of them could ever hope to remember at this point, were slightly parted, hinting at the possibility of more kisses to be had. Conrad smiled.
An eternity of kisses, all his for the taking.

Still asleep, my love
? Well. This
was
a momentous occasion then—for several reasons. It marked the first time since Conrad had had him in his bed again that Damian had not been the first of them to awaken. The first time since being injured that Conrad had managed to sleep until full dark and not been immediately and dangerously ravenous upon awakening. It was the first hopeful sign he’d had to indicate that his strength was returning, that his disordered nervous system was finding its balance and starting to heal. That he might yet recover from last summer’s ordeal.

Given that it was Damian who was largely responsible for his recovery, it was also another debt to be added to the vast amount Conrad already owed him. A debt it would be his great pleasure to repay.

Conrad slid his hand across Damian’s midsection, thrilling not just to the sweet sensation of bare skin, warm and alive beneath his palm, but also to the joy and amazement of knowing he was, once again, entirely within his right to do so. He could give his hand free rein tonight, let it roam wherever it pleased and play however it liked.

Moving his hand to Damian’s chest, Conrad lightly flicked one of the gold rings piercing Damian’s nipples.