Part 2 (1/2)
Her father came beside her as well, holding her. ”No, Magdalena!” he whispered to her.
But she could see.
Oh, G.o.d.
There was no corpse. No corpse.
No body, no blood. Where her lover should have lain, the floor seemed burnt, with only black ash in the shape of a winged creature remaining. She started to scream again.
And her scream faded away, and the world with it.
”She has died; she will become one of the creatures!” G.o.dwin told them all firmly.
”She sleeps!” Jason protested.
”The sleep of death.”
”She sleeps!” Robert Canady thundered.
”The sleep of life! She is my child, my flesh, my blood, I will heal her!”
He swept his daughter into his arms, taking her even from Robert.
And he carried her away. Walked away from the white manor made red by the glow of the moon. He stumbled, nearly fell. He rose and carried her again. The blood-red moonlight seemed blinding.
He looked up then, and realized that the moonlight was fading. It was a red streak of the sun beginning to burst forward that so plagued his eyesight.
The sun. The daylight was coming.
He began to run to his carriage.
She lay in a strange, icy world of darkness. She knew that she should fight the sensations of utter blackness and absolute cold that settled upon her like an unearthly blanket. People called to her; their voices seemed so far away. From somewhere she could see a distant ray of light, but she could not seem to reach it. Someone was holding her, she realized. She wanted to cry out. She wanted to reach the light. She could not. Let me go! she thought. But it was a soundless plea in the vast darkness, in the void, in the loneliness beyond death ...
Once again, there was sensation. So strange. She thought that the chill that had settled upon her would never go away, but there was something like warmth surrounding her, countering the bone-deep chill. Even the blackness was different.
There were shades of gray within it.
Time, she thought distantly.
Time ...
Shadows, light, darkness, shadows, light, darkness ...
The nights ... they came and went.
Finally, there came a moment when she felt her father's hands, and knew that he was with her. She felt a liquid warmth coming down her throat. Felt, yes she felt, and felt things that were real, tangible.
Time ...
It pa.s.sed more easily. She grew stronger. She could lift her head. Feel the texture of the cup from which she drank, touch her father's fingers. She lay in her own bed. Its softness surrounded and embraced her. Candlelight flickered, gentle upon her eyes.
She kept drinking, not recognizing what strange potion he had given her while she lay so sick, what warmth it was that had summoned her back from the cold. At last, she found the strength to become curious.
”What is it?” she whispered to her father. ”What is it that I'm drinking?” ”Blood,” Jason said flatly.
She turned her head into her pillow. She cried, but tears would not come.
”For the love of G.o.d, Father!” she whispered.
”No,” he said softly, ”for the love of my child. Hush, now, sleep.”
Her eyes closed again. She lay in a misery worse than death.
But in time, as he had gently commanded, she slept.
Jason rose with a heavy heart, pulled the covers high around her. She did need that warmth so desperately!
He walked downstairs to where his friends waited and strode to the mantel, pausing there, leaning upon the carved wood for support as he met their questioning stares.
He weighed his words carefully.
”I believe that she is going to live,” he said very softly. Then he hesitated, knuckles white as he prayed that he was now making the right move in saying what he would say. He inhaled deeply. ”And I believe that she is going to have a child.”
CHAPTER 1.
”Oh, Christ!” Jack Delaney swore, turning from the corpse into his partner's arms, his face a strange, pale shade of green. He was a young cop, just turned twenty-five, a good- looking fellow, six feet, with light-brown eyes and sandy red hair.
”Let the rookie by, guys, have a heart here,” Sean Canady said, supporting his new partner for a moment.
”You gonna be all right?” he asked quickly, the question low and spoken for only Jack to hear. For a brief moment, Jack leaned on Sean, the older cop, two inches taller than he, and at forty a broad-shouldered, tautly muscled, impressive figure with ink-dark hair and sharp, dark-blue eyes. Sean usually kept a tight leash on his emotions, preferring to work out his frustrations at the gym.
Jack inhaled quickly, glad of the break. He drew strength from Sean, nodded, and knew that the teasing he took from the other men would be light because Sean had supported him.
”I'm fine,” Jack said.
Sean nodded. ”Make way there, fellows. Delaney needs to start asking some questions in the neighborhood. Make sure we've got men combing these streets; someone must have seen something!” Sean said firmly, making sure that his partner made it through the rows of cops out in their rain gear circling the stretch of narrow roadway where the body had been found. The area was now all nicely roped off with yellow crime tape. Jack had arrived at the scene just moments before Sean had reached the corpse, and turned away. Jack was new to homicide, only a few years on the force, a young Irishman turned over to Sean because, the captain had said, of his name. Put the ”Micks” together, that had been Captain Daniels's comment. Sean didn't deny Irish roots-they were mere somewhere- but the Irishman who had brought the Canady name to New Orleans had done so nearly two centuries ago, and Sean himself was a mixture of the many blends that made up the city.
He had French blood, English, Cajun, and who knew? Probably a little Caribbean mixed in there, too. It didn't matter. Sean liked Jack Delaney, and knew the captain liked him, too.
And that was why Jack had been a.s.signed to Sean.
”Make way for the rookie,” someone else called, and Jack was on through to the other side of the barricades. No matter what Jack had said, Sean was certain his partner was about to be sick.