Twilight Vendetta (36 page)

“Yes. She’s not doing well, I’m afraid,” Oliver said.

“Come on, let’s get her inside. I have a room all ready for her. Sustenance, too. Everyone on the island contributed.” He clapped Oliver’s shoulder, and led him away, sending a smile back at Emma.
I’ll take good care of them. Don’t worry.

“Thank you, Bell,
She called after him.

He nodded. “I’ve got plenty of food for you, too, sir,” he told Oliver as they walked away. “We’ve been keeping stocked up, in case the twins ever came back.” Then he looked over his shoulder again. “Welcome back, twins.”

“We planted vines,” Tavia said proudly.

“Grapes, you mean?” Devlin asked.

“Ivy.” She pointed at the plants that bordered the base of the house.

“It’s brilliant.” Emma said softly. “It’ll be almost invisible.”

Tavia shot her a look that was almost hateful. Dev didn’t miss it.

Emma didn’t miss it, either, and she frowned, clearly troubled. He imagined she was eager to talk to Tavia alone. But this wasn’t the time. He was about to say so, when Tavia did it for him.

“Why don’t you go inside wid your family, Emma, while I fill Devlin in on all dat has happened while he’s been away.”

Emma looked at Devlin as if to get his opinion on that, but he nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll find you soon.”

“Okay.”

As soon as she was inside, he turned to Tavia.

She blinked, pursed her lips, and said, “Let me tell you de good news first, mm?” Then she pointed. “We have Internet access dat is completely untraceable tanks to Taryn, a vampire communications genius. Dere are silent alarms and emergency escape routes all over de place. Dat’s de work of Lionel, who was a security expert in his mortal lifetime. De house is inside, like castle, tanks to Billy Boy, a vampire who was once a builder.

“A lot of new faces.”

“We did much recruiting.”

“But some old faces missing.”

“Only one. Andrew is gone, and good riddance.”

He frowned. “What happened between him and Bellamy...?”

“He was never good enough for our Bell. He was mean. It was time. You said yourself, you didn’t trust him.”

“I’d trust him more if he was here where we could keep an eye on him.” Andrew knew the location of their island. If he’d left angry.... Hell, Emma would say he was borrowing trouble, wouldn’t she? Which brought him back to the topic at hand.

“You’re still angry with Emma. It’s obvious.”

She lifted her chin. “You mean to say you are not? I showed you de blog. But you haven’t seen de notes on her Tablet–names, dates, places. Tings dat could get us killed.”

“She’s one of us now, Tavia.”

“She wasn’t den. But she was a writer. She was penning a book about us. Not just us, but every vampire she could find. Dat computer is like a, what you call it, a who’s who of our kind. I tink she planned to expose our secrets to the human world.”

“She was. But not the way you’re thinking. She was trying to help.”

“You should make her take her human fader and her half-dead moder and go away from here, Devlin. She doesn’t belong wid us.”

Devlin agreed completely.

Bell had got her parents settled into a room by the time Emma rejoined them. A vampire she didn’t know had set up an IV pole and started transfusing blood into her mother’s veins. And there was no longer any doubt in Emma’s mind that this was, indeed, her mother. Diana Benatar. Her skin was plumping more, right before Emma’s eyes, even starting to pinken a bit. Her hair was coming back to life too, the shock white starting to darken here and there. Not to red, more of a gray with hints of faded blond, and some of the locks were starting to curl.

Emma could see her mother in that face, and she couldn’t wait to tell Devlin. Almost giddy with her mother’s progress, she hugged her father, then ran to find Devlin and tell him the news. She had nearly reached the front of the house when she heard Tavia’s words very clearly.

“Make her take her human fader and her half-dead moder and go away from here, Devlin. She does not belong wid us.”

And then she heard Devlin’s reply. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Tavia. I’ve already decided to send them away just as soon as Diana is strong enough to travel.”

“Emma knows dis?” Tavia asked.

“Not yet,” he said. “I’ll tell her soon.”

Emma staggered backward, Devlin’s words hitting her like a blow to the solar plexus. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could he be planning to send her away? He’d said he understood her motives for the bblog and the book.

She didn’t know what to do, where to go, and when she turned to bolt back up the stairs, she ran smack into Bellamy, just coming down, a smile beaming from his angelic face. He caught her shoulders, then frowned, searching her eyes. “What’s wrong, Emma? Hey, everything’s okay. You’re home now.”

“Am I?”

“Um, yes. Hello, look around.”

She did, seeing the beauty of the restored mansion. The crystal chandeliers, completely repaired and glittering, the high sheen of polished hardwood everywhere, the fresh paint and billowing linen drapes. “It’s a vampire’s paradise,” Bell said. Then he sighed. “But you’ve been through hell, haven’t you honey?”

She met his eyes, tried to speak, but tears choked her.

“Oh, come on, Emma, come with me. I decorated your room myself. I can’t wait to show you. You just need some you time, that’s all. Come on, it’s right next to the one I put your mother in. Your dad’s on the other side. Um, unless he wants to share with your mom.” He winked. “I couldn’t figure out a tactful way to ask about that.”

He led her to the wide, curving staircase and up it, then down a long hall, around a corner, then another, and finally past her mother’s room to the one next door. “It’s right in here. You just rest, take some time. Oh, and there’s a mini fridge with a few bags of A-poz, in case you need a snack.”

He left her outside her door and headed back the way he’d come. Emma went into her room and looked around. It was beautiful, all done in bright cheerful yellows and greens, like springtime and sunshine and baby grass. And yet, all she felt was heartache.

She had everything she had wanted. She’d fulfilled her heart’s desire. She’d found her mother. She’d achieved her most recent goal, by rescuing her dad. She’d walked with vampires and learned their ways. And the choice she’d been anguishing over making had been taken from her hands. She was a vampire now. It was a done deal. And she didn’t regret it.

She had absolutely nothing to angst about now.

Except for Devlin.

He was, she realized, the love of her life. And he always had been. That was why she’d been unable to get him out of her mind from the first time she’d seen him as an impressionable teenager. That was why she’d dreamed of him, even found him as if drawn by some invisible force right to his side. Everything that had happened told her that they belonged together.

And yet he was planning to send her away.

She went to her window, looked blindly out, saw people everywhere. How could he not feel what she did? How could he just send her away after all they’d been through?

Letting the curtain fall into place, she squared her shoulders and left her room, heading into the adjoining bathroom to take a long, luxurious, steaming hot shower, and when she still felt the need for more soothing, she depressed the plunger and let the tub fill, then lay there soaking and asking herself over and over again, why?

She tried to put herself in Devlin’s shoes, to see their relationship from his eyes. He’d been married once, that was the first bit of light that seemed to shine through the mire of questions swirling in her head. He’d had a wife. And he’d lost her. He’d loved her and he’d lost her, and he didn’t think he could live through that again. He had given her a laundry list of reasons why they couldn’t be together, but the more she mulled on it, the more certain she was that there was really only one.

She lay back in the deepening water, closed her eyes, and imagined herself as a handsome, strong vampire with a wife and little baby boy who were still human. It must have been a lot like her own mother’s situation. He, like Diana, had tried to keep living his life. To hold onto his human existence.

He’d trusted someone with his secret, his friend, he’d said.

And that friend had gathered a mob of frightened, ignorant humans, gone to his home while he was away, and murdered his family. Torn his entire life away from him. Although, he couldn’t have known then that life had been gone from the moment he’d been turned. A vampire couldn’t live a mortal life in the mortal world. Her own mother had tried. Just like Devlin had.

Hours passed as she mulled on this. If she were in love, if she’d had a child, and they had been murdered because of what she was, would she be able to love again? And even if she was able, would she be willing to take the chance? Maybe not.

Maybe Devlin wasn’t either.

She didn’t get out until the water was cold. And then she took her time, browsing through the bottles and jars of creams and lotions and cosmetics Bell must’ve chosen for her. Her love for him grew even more.

Eventually, she got dressed–her room was stocked with clothes, too–and went to the room next door, clasping the knob and turning it gently, pushing it open.

Her father sat in the chair beside her mother’s bed. Her mother’s eyes were still closed, but her face was almost fully restored. More than before, the vampiress in the bed looked like the mother Emma remembered. Her hair was a pale yellow orange now, and beginning to take on the familiar spiral curls again. “Come back to me, Diana,” her father was saying. “I know you can do it. Look at you. Look at you, as young and beautiful as ever.”

She wasn’t, Emma thought. But another day of restoration, and she just might be.

“And I’m old,” Oliver went on. “I’ve aged. I’m just a mere human. But come back, my love. Come back all the same. I won’t make you stay if you don’t want to.”

Emma’s heart jumped as her mother slowly opened her eyes. Hints of their former color were there, though dulled and muddy. She blinked three times, then shifted her gaze to the man beside her and whispered, “Oliver?”

Oliver lifted his head, tears on his cheeks.

Weakly, Diana lifted a hand and reached out to press her fingertips to those tears, absorbing them. “You foolish genius,” she whispered. “Do you think... I would walk away...from the only man I ever loved?”

A smile came to his lips, all tremulous and uncertain.

“No one will ever...take me from you again, my beautiful husband. No one who tries...will live another hour. I swear.”

He clasped her hands, brought them to his lips.

“Where is my...little girl?” she asked, her voice weak, raspy. “Where’s Emma Louise?”

“I’m here, Mom,” Emma said, stepping the rest of the way into the room. “I’m right here.”

Her mother looked her way, and her eyes registered surprise, shock. She blinked rapidly, and recognition came very slowly. “But...but....”

“You’ve been away a long time,” Emma said. “I’ve grown up.”

Diana blinked rapidly, her eyes shifting back and forth between Emma and Oliver. “No,” she said softly. “I missed it. I missed it all.” Her entire body was beginning to shake, her eyes were darting back and forth, her vision turned inward. “How long? How long...was I in that box?”

“We don’t know exactly. But it’s been fifteen years since you disappeared.” Emma went closer, sliding onto the edge of the bed opposite her father, and clasping her mother’s cold, trembling hand.

“They stole those years from me! I can never get them back.” Diana’s tears choked her, and her trembling was getting worse. Her whole body shook.

“They stole time from you, love,” Oliver said softly. “But time is something you’ve got plenty of. Time is eternal for you, now.”

“But not for you,” she whispered, turning to gaze into her husband’s eyes with so much adoration spilling from hers that it almost brought Emma to tears.

“There are ways, Mom,” Emma said. Her own voice was hoarse.

They both looked at her, startled and curious.

She shrugged. “I’ve spent my entire adult life researching vampires, in hopes of finding some clue that would lead me to you. I even planned to turn it into a book, tell the world the truth about the Undead, make people realize they aren’t monsters at all.” She sniffled, shook her head at the idealistic notions she’d once held. “I’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot more I don’t know, but I do know some things. I met the woman who changed you, Mom. I met Sarafina.”

Diana blinked at the name, her eyes revealing the connection she felt to her maker.

“Her husband is an ordinary mortal. But he’s alive and well. Thriving. And they’re happy together. So there must be a way.”

Oliver searched his daughter’s eyes. “Are you saying you think they have some way of…extending an ordinary’s mortal lifetime?”

“I don’t know, Dad. But I
will
find out. Mom, you and I, we’re vampires now. We have access to this information. I won’t have to sneak around gleaning it in bits and pieces, reading tabloids and sensationalistic books trying to pick out the crumbs of truth between the chapters of hype. We have access now. We can find out everything the vampires have learned in centuries of existence.”