“And I went outside and threw up.”
“That may be, but from that moment, my life—my unlife—began to change. Before I met you, I had only one emotion: hate. And only one desire: vengeance. You destroyed them. And rather than having nothing, I had everything—including a student I didn’t want, whose only ability is his charm. You challenged me and I discovered I was still curious, still passionate about something other than my desire to see Edward destroyed. Then you made a proposal that no one had ever made before.”
“I did?”
“Yes. You suggested that even a vampire who had no ability with magic might still exert pressure upon it, because we exist as magical creatures. That through one such as me or Mara Danziger it might be directed, rather than passive. And you were correct. It is that which makes Cameron the better leader—because of your suggestion I trained him to enhance what is natural in him. My fascination with you grew and other things became less important. I ceased to see myself only as the creature that Lenoir and Edward had made me. The rift between Edward and me seemed smaller, less . . . worthy of my energies. Every question you brought to me challenged me and whetted my desire for knowledge and greater consequence as nothing had in centuries. Cameron was hopeless as a mage, but as a leader, he is passionate, mindful, and fair, and determined to make us all better than we were—which he learned from you.”
I had fought—usually in blind ignorance, fear, and fury—to wrest my fate from the control of others and do something better with what I had become. Cameron had been led to it. “You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I murmured.
“I promise you, I am neither decent nor humane and my passions are far too dark to be reflected in what Cameron has become. Except for one. In both of us, there is a high regard for you.”
“Oh no . . . not that . . .”
“No, not that. Not what you feel for your husband-in-soul—whose true name is almost too painful to utter—not even lust.”
“Are you making fun of my beloved He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Called-After-His-Father?”
Carlos curled his lip in disdain at my attempt to derail the uncomfortable conversation. “Perhaps. Your empathy, your foolish, irresponsible compassion, even for walking horrors like Ian Markine, drew me to watch you, to help you, even when I wanted to take your light from you. That is why I did not kill him and it is why I broke his mind. You believed he should be stopped because you believe—you know by your own action—that there is such a thing as justice even if it isn’t what the laws of man would prescribe. You imagined he could be saved, made whole, because of your burning, beautiful compassion, but he would not have stopped in his plans to murder you and all the rest. He intended it—I saw it in him the way you see the fire in the warp and weft of the world. I recognize evil too well. I cared nothing for the fates of the others, but I could not let him live to kill you and I could not let him die and damn you. For its own sake, because it fed my own power, I destroyed him, but because it preserved you, it was a pleasure to drive him mad.”
The emotion that colored his voice then ran over my skin like a caress, a hedonistic thrill more erotic than simple flesh. Shivering, I had to look away and watch the people at the tables as the sun began to slide down in the west, turning the sky to gold.
I watched the limping man catch up to Nelia and turn her around for a kiss, which she returned, laughing. He ran his hand into her hair, which she had let down to tumble in dark curls onto her shoulders. He bent to kiss her again and then pulled back, leaning away, staring at her, his expression changing from ardor to anger. He spoke sharply to her and I couldn’t hear what he said, but the way he leaned toward her and the color of his aura, suddenly flushed red, was enough. Nelia glared back at him. I turned my gaze aside.
I felt Carlos step up close behind me and I winced as the almost-forgotten cold of his aura enclosed me in nauseating discomfort. “I have told you these things because I am falling away,” he whispered. “This gift of yours is flickering out. By Monday night I will be what I was. I will not forget what you gave me and I will not profane it by doing you harm. But if you don’t say yes to your lover’s proposal, I may—”
Quinton walked out of the house and toward us, calling out, “Harper?”
It didn’t take Carlos’s unfinished threat to decide me and I turned toward Quinton, smiling, happy. “Yes!” I called back.
Something shrieked and a whirlwind of mist and malice descended on us. “No! No, no, no!”
Amélia swept between us, throwing Quinton into the pool and pushing him down. “She is not for you!” the ghost screamed into my head.
I winced at the eldritch sound and dove toward the pool.
Carlos spun and plucked me out of the air. “No!”
“She’ll drown him!” I shouted back.
“And you also, if you go in now.”
He reached forward, the jet-black shroud of his aura expanding like wings and folding over us, and yanked Amélia backward by the clawed extension of his power.
She screamed and thrashed in his grip as I dove into the pool and grabbed hold of Quinton. I pulled him up under one arm and kicked for the surface, giving no thought to my injured hand, even as it throbbed and stung. Through the water I could see Carlos holding Amélia down while she continued to fight him.
I broke the surface and gasped for air, squeezing my arm tight around Quinton’s chest as I made for the shallows. He coughed and sputtered, gasped, then kicked and fought me for a moment before he realized I wasn’t the one trying to kill him. I could hear Amélia screaming, her words in Portuguese and echoing in English in my mind, making a clamor that made my head ache.
Quinton got his feet under him and pulled free of my arm. “I got it. I’m all right,” he panted, slogging for the nearest rail.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah. What the hell was that?”
“Amélia.”
“Still here?”
“Yes, and wants to kill us both.”
“Jesus, everyone wants us dead except us. Go. I’ll get myself out of the pool. You go deal with the ghost.”
I pulled myself out of the water, clumsy with only one good hand, and dripped to where Carlos was struggling with Amélia. She fought and screamed at him, tearing at him with taloned hands, her face distended into a horrifying visage full of fangs—the expression of her rage.
“She is for you! For you! Not for that weak creature! I did this all for you, Carlos—my love, my curse. . . .”
“It is not for you to determine my life, Amélia. You are dead! Your power on Earth is passed,” Carlos said, his voice sharp. He shook her and she diminished, becoming more human-looking, but no less disturbed.
She giggled a shrill, mad sound. “I brought her to you! I gambled your life, my beloved, so she could save you. So you could take her. You should have taken her then! Why did you not make her yours at Carmo?”
“At Carmo?” he asked, and now his voice trembled at the edge of rage. “What had you to do with that, Wife?”
Amélia laughed hysterically, sliding to her knees in front of Carlos as if begging him for something. “I found Lenoir and I spoke with the woman who wanted you dead. I tricked them! They thought they controlled me, but I was the one who turned them to my purpose! They lured you out and tried to kill you, but I knew you could not die. Not my love, my Carlos. And she would save you and you would love her and be happy! I tried to make you happy. I tried to give you a son. I failed and failed and failed. . . .”
Carlos shook his head. “Foolish woman . . . You failed at nothing. Look out there, in the field. Who are those people?”
Amélia turned her head toward the tables under the trees and the diners all stared back. I don’t know what they saw, but it must have been strange, judging by the expressions they turned our way. Carlos sank to one knee beside his wife’s shade and pointed at the family and neighbors. “Who are they?” he repeated.