Immortal Beloved: Darkness Falls Part 13

"No, you're wrong," River said, seeming transfixed by the amulet.

The idea that my tarak-sin might be dark enough to seduce Diavola out of hiding revolted me as soon as I thought it-and I didn't know what to do. Everything I did was bad, with bad consequences. I was poison, as toxic as that stew downstairs, and I had to get out of here before I destroyed everything that River had worked for.

I'd never left my amulet-had always had it with me or nearby-and the thought of it staying in River's hands made me feel like shrieking. But I wasn't strong enough to deal with it-maybe River was. I hoped. If she wasn't- "I've gotta go," I said, and brushed past River. I opened the door and raced down the hallways even as River started to come after me again. I sped up, pounding down the stairs, and then shot through the front door into the night as if pursued by wraiths.

CHAPTER 16.

I ran.

I ran through the thicket where Reyn had kissed me just, like, last week. The cold air seared my lungs and made my eyes water. I'd hoped that running would warm me up, but I was already shaking with cold or emotion or fear.

Thin branches whipped against my face and arms. The snow crunched underfoot and deadened my footsteps. I had a sudden flashback to that awful dream I'd had about Incy, where I had warmed my hands on a fire made of my friends. I hit my shoulder hard against a tree and raced headlong out of the woods. I saw I was way at the back of the farm, in a pasture no one used. I ran along the fence for a long time, until each breath was like a shard of ice being shoved down my throat. Cold sweat froze on my brow; my lungs were working like bellows because I never run and was totally out of shape.

I staggered to a plodding walk, then finally stopped, unable to go on. I was horrified and panicked. I was outside alone at night. With humiliation I realized that a small part of me hoped that someone would track my footsteps and come find me-but then that would be worse because I would have to go back. Again. Have to face whatever awful stuff awaited me in Reality Land.

I started to cry.

Just a few weeks ago, I'd seen a tiny crack of sunny promise splitting through the dark tarmac of my soul. I'd been able to count the things I was doing right. I'd seen progress-I really had. What had happened? Everything felt ruined: my whole time at River's Edge, my relationships with everybody, my magick, my learning.... I'd faced so much-my heritage, my past, my emptiness. I had faced it all, and for what? I was worse off now than when I'd come, because now I actually understood how bad off I was.

What was wrong with me?

I slumped onto the icy gra.s.s, which crumpled stiffly under me. Freezing to death was, sadly, not a possibility. I would get hypothermia and pa.s.s out, but I wouldn't die. I blinked tiredly, feeling my tears ice-cold against my lashes. Just like in London, I'd reached a point where I couldn't handle the pain.

I cried until my ribs ached and I felt like I might throw up. The gra.s.s scratched my face, which already stung from the branches in the woods, and my salty tears burned in the scratches.

I closed my eyes. Maybe I would wake up, find myself back in Tahiti, find this had all been a wretched dream. I had been Sea Caraway, in Tahiti. Incy had been Sky Benolto. I'd made stuff out of seash.e.l.ls, sold it at local shops. This had been back in the 1970s. After I'd been Hope Rinaldi, in the sixties. Before I became Nastasya Crowe, in the eighties.

My head ached. The cold made it throb more insistently.

I just wanted to be happy. When had I been happy?

I remembered laughing.

When had I laughed?

My head swam and I tried to remember laughing, tried to hear what my laugh had sounded like.

I heard the tinkle of crystal champagne gla.s.ses gently touching one another on a silver tray. One of the servers was moving through the crowd, penguin-y and proper in his tux. I reached out and snagged my sixth gla.s.s, feeling the golden bubbles tickle my nose.

"Dearest." Incy smiled and raised his gla.s.s at me.

"Love." I smiled back at him. James. His name was James. We'd been friends for about thirty years. Best friends for twenty-eight.

"Prentice! Darling!" Sarah Jane Burkhardt pushed through the crowd and we air-kissed. Sarah Jane was a savvy, sophisticated twenty-one of the daughters of our hosts. We'd met some months ago at a house party out on Long Island. She held her ivory cigarette holder out to the side so it wouldn't spill ash on my gold evening dress.

"How did you ever get away from Sir Richard?" I giggled, remembering how I'd gaily waved good-bye as Sarah Jane had been forced to listen to that blowhard's war stories. It was 1924. The Great War was long over, never to be repeated. America had had five years of no longer conserving food, no longer being urged to buy war bonds or send extra grain to England or France. It was a time of beautiful parties, beautiful people, once again. Sure, the ridiculous Prohibition had required people to be careful about sloshing liquor around, but there were so many workarounds that it was almost as if it didn't exist for some people. People like us.

"I p.a.w.ned him off on Dayton MacKenzie," Sarah Jane said.

"She deserved it," James/Incy said. "Did you see what she wore to 21 last week?"

Sarah Jane and I both laughed meanly. Then Sarah Jane's eyes widened. "Goodness gracious. Who is that lovely man?" She drew on her cigarette holder and blew the smoke out through her nose, which we'd been practicing all day.

I looked. An unusually handsome man was standing in the foyer. A huge palm in a marble planter partly obscured his head, but he was tall and blond and wearing a beautiful, beautiful linen suit.

"I don't know," I said. "I've never seen him before. James?"

"No," said James. "But he looks like someone we ought to get to know. Do you agree, ladies?"

"Yes indeedy-do," said Sarah Jane, and James boldly led us over to meet the stranger.

The man turned, as if sensing us approaching, and I heard Sarah Jane's slightly indrawn breath. He was too pretty for me, with smooth skin, blue eyes, and long lashes that would have looked better on a girl, but clearly he was Sarah Jane's dream come true.

Sarah Jane held out her hand, palm down, at chest height. The stranger obligingly kissed it. She almost purred.

"Delighted," the stranger murmured. "I'm Andrew. Andrew Vancouver."

"Sarah Jane Burkhardt. This is Prentice Goodson and James Angelo."

I saw, when we met eyes: Andrew was immortal. He recognized us also-some instantaneous flicker of expression that no one else saw.

"Sarah?"

We turned to see a girl with Sarah Jane's features and coloring but more refined, prettier. Sarah Jane was attractive, elegantly dressed and skillfully made up. This girl was maybe sixteen, young and untouched, but she held the promise of becoming a truly beautiful woman eventually.

"Yes, Lala, what is it?" Sarah Jane's voice was kind.

"Is that champagne?"

Sarah Jane laughed and held out her gla.s.s. The girl named Lala smiled shyly and took a tentative sip while we all watched, amused. She swallowed and her large blue eyes became larger. "It's like... drinking flowers."

"What a pretty way to put it," said Andrew. "Miss Burkhardt, your guest is charming."

Sarah Jane laughed. "She's not a guest. This is my younger sister, Louisa. Louisa, say h.e.l.lo to Mr. Vancouver, Miss Goodson, and Mr. Angelo."

Louisa shook Andrew's hand, then mine, then took James's and looked into his eyes.

And that was how Incy had met Lala Burkhardt, and put in motion that awful scandal with that poor girl. After her suicide attempt, I think she'd ended up in a sanatorium in Switzerland. The whole thing had been abominable. She must be dead by now.

And Andrew Vancouver? That was how we had met Boz. Boz was working on another heiress at that party, very successfully, at least for a while. But just short of his completely ruining her, her father caught on and kicked Boz to the curb.

After that the three of us hung out together: birds of a feather.

The twenties had been such a fun, glamorous time. Parties and summer homes and all the brand-new cars (horseless carriages!) just starting to hit the market. Women were at last done with corsets for good, thank G.o.d, and in some places we could vote. Incy and Boz and I had had such a great time. The thirties were less fun, after Black Friday; the forties were grim; the fifties kind of weird and high-pressure and artificial. Things in America wouldn't get fun again until the sixties.

Lying here now, all my senses were deadened-I was practically frozen stiff. Moving was going to hurt. And I was still: alone, dark, homeless, coatless, and friendless. I took in another icy, shuddering breath, wondering dimly how this would all play out. I didn't have the energy to move or make any decisions.

Gradually I felt a p.r.i.c.kle of awareness, a very slight disruption in my field of energy. An animal? A person? River or someone from River's Edge? Reyn? I closed my eyes, awash with despair. Maybe if I was very, very quiet, they wouldn't find me. Such a pointless hope.

It was impossibly dark out here, with no moon, and clouds scudding over the stars. But I definitely felt someone moving closer to me, and I opened my eyes. I could barely make out the edge of the tall gra.s.ses, where they were bent and heavy with snow. Then a dark figure emerged from them, walking toward me.

Not Reyn. Not River.

I lay motionless, watching. It was Incy.

CHAPTER 17.

Incy.

I'd met him right before the turn of the century, in 1899. You'd think that with such a long friendship as ours, and how bound up we were with each other, we would have had some dramatic beginning, like he'd saved my life or I'd stolen his horse.

But we'd met when he was peddling forged artwork in New York City. I'd gone with a friend to examine a "recently discovered" print by del Sarto. This was before sophisticated forensic techniques were used to determine the age and authenticity of artwork. Though legitimate experts were often consulted, it was so easy to perpetrate fraud. Ah, the good old days.

"Mrs. Humphrey Watson," the doorman announced. "Mrs. Alphonse North."

I liked Eugenia Watson, and we'd been close friends for at least five years by then. There was no Mr. North-I'd made up a dead husband for myself because a married woman, even a widow, had more freedom than a single woman.

We took Eugenia's carriage to our friend's house, and her footman helped us haul our stupid full skirts and layers of petticoats down the little carriage steps and onto the sidewalk. Bustles were finally smaller, thank G.o.d, but my waist was cinched to a fashionable eighteen inches. Make a circle eighteen inches around, with your hands. Yeah. It was a wonder my digestive system worked.

"Coral!" Eugenia said, and did the double-cheek kiss with our friend Mrs. Barrett-Smith.

"Eugenia!" said Coral. "And dear Sarah. Thank you both for coming."

"Thank you for inviting us. We're most interested in this print you've found," said Eugenia, and I knew she was telling the truth: Her husband worked for one of the city's leading auction houses. If Coral had discovered a new source for previously unknown sixteenth-century European prints, Eugenia wanted to know about it.

"First may I introduce the man who has brought it into my life," said Coral. She gestured gracefully, and an elegant man stepped out of the shadows of an alcove. "Mrs. Watson, Mrs. North-this is Louis Carstairs."

And that was Incy. He was very handsome, beautifully dressed, somewhat foreign-looking, and, as I realized when he kissed my hand, immortal. The answering spark of recognition in his eyes went unnoticed by my friends.

Anyway. The print was fake, but no one told Coral that. She bought it and was intensely proud of it. She and Incy embarked on a torrid affair that lasted several years, and he and I became friends. We both liked living well, were amused by the same things, and generally got along like a house on fire. We had the occasional spat but would soon make up. Everything was more fun with Incy, more interesting, more outrageous. It was he who pushed me to be bolder in my personal appearance, and he who made me feel comfortable with increasingly outre behavior, both mine and his. I'd always loved traveling, but it was Incy who decided we should branch out of our comfort zones and go to Egypt, Peru, Alaska.

All those years I'd felt that being with Innocencio allowed me to be the real me, the full and complete me. It had really felt like that. How could I have been so wrong? We'd been stuck together like peanut b.u.t.ter to the roof of your mouth for a century. Could I really have been so misguided all that time?

And now here we were. And I'd been hiding from him for two months.

Seeing Innocencio's silhouette coming toward me over the white field didn't instantly put memories of all our fun times into my head. Instead my mind seized on all my devastating visions, my appalling dreams, my increasing fears about him. Were my nightmares coming true now?

My heart had slowed like a hibernating squirrel's, but it now gave a couple of thuds, kicking itself into gear. I was an emotional and physical mess-in no shape to fight Innocencio or outrun him, too far away for my screams to be heard. I drew in a breath of searingly cold air and tried, creakily, to sit up.

Innocencio. Every time I'd imagined him lately, he'd been covered in blood, pushed over the edge into stark, horrifying madness. Now he was here, my worst fears materializing in the darkness, as if my memories themselves had created him, brought him to me.

Ideally I would have been able to leap up and a.s.sume a threatening fighting stance, but as it was, I projected more of a victim vibe. I struggled to a sitting position and leaned heavily against the fence post, my hands fluttering nervously on my pants leg.

"Incy?" It came out as barely a croak.

The tall, slim figure came closer, and my breath clotted in my throat when I caught the first ribbon of scent from his cologne. He'd been using the same one since the thirties-it was called 4711. Every cell in my brain recognized it.

"Nas-I can't believe it. It's really you. I've been looking for you." Now he was upon me, and I pointlessly tried to throw my arms up to somehow protect myself. But my muscles were sluggish and cold and I could barely move. I tried to project strength, but every fear I'd had coalesced into a barbed-wire whirlwind that was shredding my ability to think.

At that moment, the heavy bank of clouds suddenly drifted past the moon, and the fingernail-thin crescent shone an anemic light on us. I looked up at him, my heart in my throat... and blinked. Incy seemed... amazingly normal. In my visions he'd been like a wild man, an asylum patient, his eyes too bright with anger and intensity. But he looked fine-well dressed, hair brushed back from his elegant forehead. He was clean-shaven, with calm, concerned eyes.

"I've been searching everywhere for you," he repeated. "Then I was driving past, and I... just felt you." He gestured to the great outdoors. "I thought I was going crazy, but the feeling was so strong-and now here you are." He peered at me and frowned. "What are you doing out here? And what happened to your face?"

Freaking out and car accident didn't seem like smart responses. But he didn't wait for an answer.

"Oh G.o.d-look at your hair!" He chuckled softly. "I haven't seen that color since-ever. But you're freezing!" he said, and slid out of a thick cashmere overcoat that probably cost four thousand dollars. He draped it over me, and I was reminded of a time not too long ago when I'd been outside crying, and River had draped her coat over me. Like then, I was immediately shocked by its warmth.

"I was just going back in," I said, and cleared my throat. "They're expecting me at any second. So what do you want?" My voice was shaky and rough from crying.

He gave a laugh, slightly embarra.s.sed. "I'm sorry, babe. Not to do the whole stalker thing." He knelt down in the snow, beautiful handmade boots crunching on the frozen gra.s.s, and offered me his hand. I was leery of touching him and instead struggled to my feet, every muscle protesting and calling me bad names.

Incy stood also. I was more alert now, thawing under the incredible toasty warmth of his coat. I examined his face carefully, but if he had gone completely insane since I last saw him, I could find no evidence. Then maybe all my dreams and visions were, as I'd feared, only a projection of my own inner darkness-products of my deep, previously hidden well of self-loathing? The thought was crushing, and I almost groaned.

"The thing is, Nas," Incy went on, "that, well, I was just really worried about you."

"Worried? Why?"

"Nas-you disappeared without a word." His tone was kind and infinitely reasonable. Of the two of us here in this G.o.dforsaken field, I was the one who seemed crazy.

When I didn't say anything, he went on.

"Look, we've always taken little trips on our own. But I'd leave you a message. Or you'd call me from Bali or whatever. This time you simply disappeared, and no one knew why or where or if anything was wrong."

An icy wind crept under the edge of the coat. I saw Incy shiver, and he rubbed his hands together.

"We've hung out, you and me, bread and b.u.t.ter, for a century, darling. If you've moved on, if we've broken up, okay. But tell me, you know? Don't let me worry about if someone came and chopped your head off." He sounded so rational. Confusion crept into my brain. It seemed unbelievable that he wasn't as I had pictured him. I'd run away from him in fear and disgust because of the cabbie. But the Incy that night bore no relation to the man standing in front of me. Had I truly just imagined everything?

I licked my cracked, dry lips. "I just needed a little break."

He held out his hands: a sane man dealing with a wing nut. "Okay. That's fine. I accept that. But do you see why I was worried about you?" He exhaled, leaving a roiling smoke trail in the night. "I've been asking everywhere for you. I even tried scrying!" He laughed, showing even, white teeth. I remembered when he'd had them fixed, in the eighties. "Of course, that got me nowhere. But, honey-I've been so worried." He shook his head. "I couldn't rest until I made sure you were all right-saw you with my own eyes. Even if you've just wanted to go off and do a walkabout-I had to make sure that nothing horrible had happened to you." He blew on his hands, rubbed them together. "If I'd just blown it off and found out later that you'd needed my help-I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

"How could you live with yourself after what you did to that cabbie?" I blurted.

He c.o.c.ked his head, thinking back, then his face cleared. "Oh, the cabbie," he said, as if things were falling into place. "Why, Nas-were you upset about that?"

"You crippled him! Forever!" I stood up straighter, my blood starting to run warm in my veins.