Part 15 (1/2)

When I thought of Darius, I felt betrayed and disappointed-I was angry with myself for not believing J, and I hated Darius for killing Bonaventure, for being a vampire hunter, for not being the man I wanted him to be.

To distract myself I turned to Catharine, who was crying quietly in the pa.s.senger seat, soaking through Kleenex after Kleenex. ”Do you feel like talking?” I said. ”It might help you to get it all out, and it might help me to listen.”

”I guess you of all people would understand,” she said, her eyes swimming with tears. ”Who else can, except someone who knows what Bonaventure was?”

”That's true,” I said. Only another vampire can truly understand what the life of a night stalker means. ”Did you ever care about him or were you forced into the relations.h.i.+p?”

She sniffed into the tissue. ”Oh, no, I loved him so much. When we first met, I was a waitress in a beautiful Dubrovnik restaurant, the Kon.o.ba Pjatanca. It's outside the Ploce Gate on Kilocepska Street. From its terrace you can see the old port and the city walls.” Catharine's voice became dreamy, nostalgic. ”I was still in school, but I needed the money, you know? He came in frequently and always sat at my tables. He ordered caviar, champagne. The cost meant nothing to him. He flirted with me. He was so charming. Finally, after coming in a few times, he asked me if I would go out with him.”

Catharine was whimpering just a little now as she focused on memories instead of the present. ”I was so flattered. He was a very important person. One night he had come in with Putin. I didn't wait on them. They took a private room in the back. Another time he was with the French prime minister. What is his name? I can't remember. But they all treated him with respect. And this important man who dined with heads of state wanted to go out with me, a student, a n.o.body.”

The roads were virtually empty of traffic as I steered the Mercedes toward the interstate. The way was well marked, and I was relieved. The car was big and comfortable, and having to drive kept me from thinking. Keeping Catharine talking helped too, so I asked her, ”How old were you?”

”Seventeen. Just seventeen,” she said, and began to cry again. ”So young and innocent. I had never even been with a man.”

I reached over and gave her hand a comforting pat. ”What happened when you went out with him?”

”He took me to a cafe for c.o.c.ktails, and afterward we walked along the old wall of the city. It is so beautiful in Dubrovnik. Like a fairytale.”

”Yes, I know. I've been there.” And I had been, both before and after the terrible sh.e.l.ling in 1991 from the Serbian and Montenegrin forces during the Balkan conflict. Since then that pearly city of marble sidewalks, palaces, bell towers, and green-shuttered houses had been carefully restored. Dubrovnik has been called the ”Venice of the Adriatic,” although it's much older than Venice. It is a breathtakingly beautiful city.

Remembering that and feeling in my heart what Catharine was describing, I paused, then said again, ”Yes, I've walked along the Dalmatian coast for miles. Its waters are so clear you can see schools of silver fish darting by. It reminds me of the Mediterranean as it used to be. The breezes are clean and pure. Cypress trees tower above, nightingales sing, and everywhere are wildflowers. It is a very beautiful place.”

”Oh,” she said, and clapped her hands. ”You know! You understand, then, how much I love it. And you will understand too the romance. Bonaventure and I walked through the Old Town. He held my hand. We'd stop and kiss in doorways. He asked me if I would go back to his hotel room. I hesitated. He said we would do only as much as I wanted. That he respected me. If I just wanted him to hold me, that was all he would do. I trusted him, and I said yes.”

”But of course, trusting some men is a bad idea,” I said sadly.

”I don't know,” Catharine said, ”about other men. But at first, when we got there, he kept his word. I was lightheaded from the drinks I had at the cafe. I was very dizzy-drunk, in fact. I couldn't seem to think clearly. He sat me down on his lap. I put my head on his shoulder. He began stroking me. I didn't stop him; G.o.d forgive me, I didn't stop him. He asked if that was okay. I said yes, that he could do what he wanted. That I wanted him too. But I didn't really know what that meant.

”He stood me up and began to unb.u.t.ton my blouse. I felt a little scared but I let him do it. Before I realized what was happening, all my clothes were off. When he started to undo his trousers, I got very scared. I told him no! I had changed my mind. But it was too late. He told me that. It was too late. He grabbed my arms and pushed me down right there on the floor. He pushed himself into me. It hurt. I screamed and he covered my mouth with his hand. He pushed and pushed. Finally it was over. Or I thought it was over. That's when it happened.”

”What happened?”

”He lowered his mouth to my neck and bit me. He began drinking my blood. I couldn't believe what was happening. I tried to get away, but he kept drinking until I pa.s.sed out.

”When I regained consciousness, I was in a big bed. I was still naked, and I felt very weak. Bonaventure came into the room and asked how I was. I told him I was tired. He came to me and brought me a cup of tea. He sat on the edge of the bed while I drank it. After I finished I began to feel very strange. I think the tea was drugged.

”He took me again then. I couldn't resist. He was rough with me. And when he finished he lowered his mouth to my neck once more and began to drink. I don't remember much after that. Days seemed to pa.s.s. I don't know how long. I was delirious. I remember him coming to me again and again. He did things to me. I can't talk about them really. He said he was teaching me about love. Sometimes he tied me to the bed. Sometimes he hurt me, not much, just a little. It was so strange. The pain increased the pleasure, and when I told him that, he laughed and told me I was a good pupil. And always he drank from me. At last, though, I felt stronger and different somehow, powerful and new. And by then, when I finally felt better, I didn't want to leave him. I was bound to him by the things we had done, by what he had shown me, and by the blood we shared.”

My heart felt like stone as I listened to her. I pitied her. But I couldn't change what had happened. She went on, her voice more excited now, almost happy in remembering.

”He gave me beautiful clothes to wear and expensive jewels. He told me he was married, but that he loved me. He said he had left his wife, and that she had filed for a divorce. He told me we were going to America, where I'd be very happy and have a wonderful life. When I was lonely during his absences for business, he went and bought me Princess. He wasn't all bad. Miss Urban. He could be kind, and I do think he loved me in his own way. His servants adored him. Tanya loved him, I think. All of them were completely loyal, and that says a great deal.”

Yes, I thought, it says money can buy loyalty it says money can buy loyalty.

”And Bonaventure was telling me the truth. Anything I asked for, he gave to me. But I didn't understand what he was. One day I gathered up my courage and asked him about drinking my blood, why he had done that. I asked him what happened to me.”

Listening to Catharine's story I felt so terribly sad. For her. For myself. Even for Bonaventure, that damaged, stupid man. He thought you could force a person to love you, and that he could possess Catharine's heart by drinking her blood. He wasn't the first vampire to make that mistake. ”And what did he tell you?” I asked her.

”He said he was a vampire, and that he had been a vampire for a very long time. He said by biting me he had given me a wonderful gift: that I could never die-by natural means anyway. It also meant we could be together forever, literally forever. He said there was nothing wrong with what happened between us and apologized for his impatience in taking me by force that first night, but that he adored me. To face an eternity without me would be torment, that's what he told me. He didn't tell me, not then anyway, that he had to drink blood to live and paid poor souls to sell their bodies to him. Sometimes he drank too much and they died. He had people who helped him bury the bodies. Families were paid off. No one complained or stopped him. In Croatia they called him a great man.” She began trembling uncontrollably then.

”Catharine,” I said sharply, ”it's over. You are safe.” I wondered if I should stop the car and try to help her, but she rallied and, shaking, but less so, she continued.

”And he didn't tell me that I had to drink blood too.

But I was soon driven to it. I tried not to, but the hunger overwhelmed me. He brought me young men mostly. They were very sweet, really. They knew what I wanted and they let me do it. It seemed to excite them so much. I don't like to think about it. That's when I began to drink vodka, starting in the morning until everything was hazy and beautiful. I drank to forget and tried to stay drunk. What shall I do now, Miss Urban? Will I die? Will I have to go out wandering the streets looking for blood? I don't know what to do.” She began to weep again.

”I'll help you, Catharine. There are other ways. I'll send you to my mother. Stay with her until you can go home. She'll show you how to live without killing. You can trust her. She's helped others before.”

”I don't know how to thank you. You've done so much for me. I hope you don't think badly of me for not hating Bonaventure. I know he was a bad man. I know he made his fortune by selling weapons. I know what he did to me was wrong. But I loved him. At least, I loved him once.”

I understood her more than she could ever know. Pain struck me like an arrow through my heart. When I answered her, I was fighting back the tears. ”We don't love with our reason and intellect, Catharine. We love with our souls. It doesn't always make sense. Women love bad men as well as good men. We sometimes can't help loving them even when we know it will bring us pain. We love them even when we know we shouldn't.” I thought of Darius then, the memories flooding my mind, remembering him telling me how much he felt for me, and then remembering his shock when he saw who I really was. Tears spilled over my lower eyelids and rolled down my face. I would never be held by him again. It was over. And I would never stop wanting what I had lost.

Before we got back into Manhattan, I made Catharine write down Mar-Mar's phone number. My mother may drive me crazy, but there's no better person to have in your corner when the chips are down. Mar-Mar knows everyone-everyone of importance, that is. She has connections that reach into the highest circles of governments all around the globe, and she always has, starting back when she lived in the Vatican hundreds of years ago.

Mar-Mar may look silly, with her hippie clothes and peace signs, but my mother is one of the shrewdest manipulators I have ever met. She has run great businesses as far back as the merchant guilds in medieval Europe, and probably countries, too, although she won't usually talk about it. From what I have found out about her, I know she was always behind the scenes, pulling the strings, and more than once she told me what Margaret Mead said: ”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” I wouldn't want to be her enemy, but if I weren't her daughter, I would be proud to be her friend.

I planned to give her a call too, explaining what Catharine probably wouldn't tell her-that this fragile woman needed some time in detox, and rape counseling too. When Catharine got her head together, Mar-Mar would help get her back to Croatia and set her up in a nice villa. Prices have skyrocketed there, but money wouldn't be a problem for Catharine. Even if she merely sold all the jewels that Bonaventure had given her, she'd be set for life. And she had confided in me that he had made sure she had safe deposit boxes filled with gold coins and ingots. She might not think so now, but she could be happy. And Mar-Mar could help her find a purpose in life too. Her country needed rebuilding. She could become an important woman there, a respected woman. When I told her what I was thinking, her eyes no longer were filled with tears.

We pulled up in front of the Park Avenue apartment house, and the doorman came out to open the car doors for us. Catharine told him to put the Mercedes in the garage, so we left it running while he called someone on his cell phone. I was so exhausted I was running on fumes by this time. I didn't have much time to get home before six A.M., but Catharine said she could find Bockerie's address and phone number for me. So I took the elevator up to the penthouse with her.

When we got in, she went right over to the phone table that I had searched last night. I hadn't found anything except blank pads and pens. She pushed a b.u.t.ton underneath, and son of a gun, a secret drawer popped out. She copied down the information and handed it to me.

”Come with me a minute,” she said. ”I want to give you something. But first let me let Princess out.” She stooped over, opened the cat carrier, and Princess went scampering down the hall. Then Catharine led me through the apartment. She stopped in the dining room and opened the doors of a built-in cabinet. She took out a blue box from Tiffany's and handed it to me. ”I bought this,” she said. ”Not Bonny. I thought it was beautiful and wanted it.”

I opened the box. A huge opal in a platinum filigree setting hung from an intricate platinum chain. Catharine reached into the box and took it out. She stretched her arms up and slipped the necklace over my head. ”Please,” she said. ”Take this to remember me. A girl whose life you saved. A girl who will never, ever forget you.”

”Thank you,” I said. ”It is so kind of you. It is magnificent.” I had learned long ago that to accept a gift gracefully is as important as giving one. I understood Catharine felt she was in my debt, and so I accepted her generous present with my whole heart.

I hugged her, and her thin body felt as delicate as a bird's beneath my hands. It was then I noticed that Princess was pacing back and forth in front of the door to the library. She was meowing and making a fuss. The door itself was ajar, and the lights inside were on. The apartment had been dark everywhere else when we entered. I wondered why that room was lit. A chill pa.s.sed over me. I had a terrible foreboding.

”Catharine,” I said. ”Stay here. I want to look in the library.”

”Is something wrong?” she said nervously.

”Probably nothing. But let me look.”

I went into the library. I walked past the table where I had sat with Bonaventure not so very long ago. As I rounded the table I saw it. There on the pale pink and cream of the Chinese rug was a wooden stake lying amid a pile of dust. I inhaled sharply. Who? What?