Part 27 (2/2)

She looked at Gian. He was gazing around, disoriented, and then his eyes found hers. He blinked several times. She saw the purpose rise in them like a tide.

”Let's get you out of here,” he said. His voice was startling in the new quiet.

Where? Where would she go? Her plan of living in a rural cottage seemed ludicrous. She stared around at the silent sand, not even the whisper of a sirocco to stir it. The certainty of who she was and what she wanted seemed lost forever.

The sky had gone red ahead of him. Gian's old enemy, the sun, would rise soon. There was no cover out here on the plateau.

They had trudged for most of the night in the vague direction of El Djelfa. The horse couldn't go on much longer. Neither could Kate. He had only pretended to drink this night, so as to save the water for her. But there was little left. She was nodding on the horse's back, so he steadied her with a hand on her lower back. The daylight would be merciless. He wondered if he could stand another twelve hours at the equator with sunlight sc.r.a.ping his skin even inside the burnoose, burning his eyes no matter how he squinted. He was almost human in his weakness. He'd borrowed power from the Old One, bent on retrieving his jewels, to set Elyta on fire, but it was a loan only, and it was gone now.

But while he had had it, he had controlled the power, directed it, and shut it off when it had done its work. The vortex would have taken Elyta anyway. He knew that now. But he had made her suffer. He should be sorry for that. Maybe someday he would be.

Using that power had taken its toll. It would weaken him for the fight against the sun. He required blood. And there was no blood. Kate needed all her strength. He had to get Kate to shelter. He must prevail, even if the horse faltered. He could carry Kate. They couldn't have survived a sandstorm, Elyta, and even the wrath of the Old One just to have her die on this endless sere plateau.Behind him, he felt the sun rise.

Chapter Twenty-one.

Kate cracked open her eyes. They felt swollen. All of her felt swollen. She was in some kind of dim room. The walls were whitewashed, the shutters drawn against the heat of the day. They cast bars of horizontal light across the dirt floor. She was lying on a pallet of some kind. Her mouth felt like she had inhaled sand. An old woman was holding up her head. The crone's wrinkles rearranged themselves into an almost toothless grin.

”Drink, English,” she said in that language. It was heavily accented.

Cool water poured down her throat. Kate swallowed until she gasped and choked.

”Enough. More later.”

”Gian?” Kate croaked.

”The one who carried you here?”

”Yes,” she whispered. She remembered sliding off the horse. She remembered the horse staggering. It had been so hot, so bright. Gian had picked her up, and dragged the horse along behind him. He must have carried her to here, wherever here was.

”He lives.”

Kate didn't like the sound of that. Only just living? ”Is he well?”

”He was burned as though he walked naked in the sun.”

Did his burnoose not protect him? She shoved up on one elbow. ”'I must go to him.”

The old woman pushed her back down, gently. It wasn't hard. Kate was weak as a kitten. ”You rest. Later more water and food. Then go.”

Kate had to find him. She remembered the bubbling of his skin with burns the night he had carried her from the lodgings in Rome. He had healed that. He could heal whatever he suffered in the desert now, couldn't he? Elyta had not weakened him that much. She couldn't have. Kate would not let it be so.

The room was swimming. Her vision blurred at the edges. She fought against the darkness that washed over her. But it was no use...

Gian tried to breathe. He'd heal. It was just taking longer because the stones and using the Old One's power had weakened him.

That was all. He could bear the pain. He always had. He was naked. The thought of cloth against his skin made him nauseous.

He lay on his back on a pallet of some kind. Even that was torture. An old woman came occasionally to give him water and thin gruel. She said Kate was well so he stopped trying to get up. He had not let her grease his flesh with animal fat though. That would only delay healing the burns. He'd heal faster if he had blood. But he was too weak to compel the old woman or even draw his fangs.

He had never been affected so by sunlight. It was as though he was newly made, not more than eighteen hundred years old. By the time night fell on the plateau, he had been nearly crazed with pain. The tiny village, cl.u.s.tered round the date palms and the pool of brackish water, had seemed a hallucination brought on by pain. It wasn't, thank the G.o.ds.

But the pain from burned flesh was not the worst. The worst stretched out ahead, in an infinite future devoid of meaning. The stones were returned. The vampire wars were over. They had receded into the past instead of being a series of ever-present nightmares that dogged his every move. Elyta was gone. The Old One had returned to waiting.

And Gian had no purpose. He could not go to the Elders at Mirso Monastery and ask to serve on other missions. There was a reason the stones had not wanted to fall into the Elders' hands, crazy as that seemed. The concerns of the Elders might be just as political as Elyta's ambitions, if to a different end. And there was the fact of his unusual powers. Had they really destroyed that other firebrand because he was uncontrolled, or because he had learned to control it, as Gian thought he had, and that made him a threat? He didn't know.

And then, when he finally healed, when he got Kate back to Algiers or Amalfi or Rome or Firenze, she was going to go to England to be unhappy in some rural backwater. He would be left, at best being allowed to exist on the fringes of her life, helping her where he could, watching her age. That was the only purpose his life could have. He twisted against the pallet and the coa.r.s.e canvas cover tore at his flesh.

He dozed sometimes and dreamt, fevered dreams of Kate being hara.s.sed by village ruffians, himself unable to protect her.

Sometimes he dreamed about the Ruffords, strange as that was. He didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to dream. But waking was a nightmare too. Sleeping or waking, all he felt was pain.

”How are you?” That was a stupid question. Kate carefully erased the horror from her face as Gian turned his head in her direction. She hated to think he had been healing as the old woman had promised her. Because in that case, his burns must have been even more appalling than they were now. His body was blotched with open sores weeping serous fluid. His vibrations were so low as to be almost imperceptible. She felt better after sleeping, water, and food. That seemed a betrayal.

He smiled, his blistered lips cracking. ”Good,” he whispered, his voice hoa.r.s.e.

She wanted to burst into tears. That would never do. She couldn't burden him with her need for rea.s.surance. She managed a tentative smile. ”Liar.” She knelt beside him. ”Water?”

”Thank you.”

She lifted his head and scooped water from the bucket next to him with a wooden ewer. He slurped the ewer dry. She laid him down carefully. Why was he not healed? It had been what-three days?

He must have read her thoughts. ”It's going faster now.”

”Not fast enough.”

”Faster and the villagers would cast us out,” he mumbled through swollen lips.

”You need blood.”

His eyes registered-what? Longing? He turned his head away. ”I won't die.”

Kate turned and pulled the fluttering fabric that formed a door across the entrance to the hut. ”But it will save you suffering. And you can't take it from a villager or they would do considerably worse than cast us out.” She knelt again beside him.

”You're not strong enough.”She smiled at him. ”I'm much better. If you can't draw your power, I'll get a knife.”

”I won't take blood from you.” This was said through fitted teeth.

”So, you can carry me across the desert, but I can't help you in return?” She raised her brows. ”Arrogant, Urbano. Very arrogant.” If she could provide blood, maybe his need would overcome his resistance. Getting a knife from one of the villagers might rouse suspicion though. Very well. She looked around. How did one draw enough blood to feed a vampire? She glanced around the tiny hut. She needed something sharp. A crockery bowl sat near the door. She took a breath and rose. She hit the bowl against the doorpost. Shards cascaded to the packed earthen floor. G.o.d, grant me courage. Taking up a triangular splinter, she sat beside him, careful not to touch his ravaged flesh.

”Kate, don't do this.”

”And how, pray tell, are you going to stop me?” She braced her wrist on her thigh and sliced across it as hard as she could. The shock of pain immobilized her for a moment. Then the blood welled. Gian moaned. Was it in protest or antic.i.p.ation? The blood began to spurt. She'd done it. ”Drink,” she whispered, holding her wrist to his mouth.

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