Ryan began climbing the steps that were cut into the green hillside. She sensed eyes upon her and looked upward as she climbed. Victor waited for her at the castle gates, his white shirt opened at the collar, revealing his tan throat. The sight of him was achingly beautiful, and Ryan welcomed the comforting pain it caused her.

Ryan bowed her head, unwilling to share or confront the burden she had carried with her from Wurzburg. Although in a sense she had been dead for many years, this was the first time she truly felt so.

She came to the castle gate and went to move past Victor when he stepped in her path. They stood at an impa.s.se for a moment, Ryan with her head still stubbornly lowered. Victor grasped her chin and raised her head so she was forced to look up at him.

There was none of the usual sardonic humor in his dark eyes, no hint of mocking. Instead, there was a deep compa.s.sion, as if he knew the road she traveled because he himself had been there before.

Ryan gazed into his eyes and the ache in her heart flared. There were times when she had little understanding of their strange, powerful relationship, and other times when such understanding was not even necessary.

Victor pulled her to him, comforting her as he would a child.

Ryan joined him later in his quarters as he stood gazing out at the sudden spring shower. The sky was dark with thunderclouds and the rain fell in heavy, fat drops. Victor sat in the sill of the window and Ryan moved to settle in front of him. They moved as one, as they had for centuries, and no outward communication was necessary. Ryan leaned back against his chest, melding her body against his.

Ryan allowed Victor's influence to settle over her like a cloak. Her eyes drifted closed as she sought peace in the blackness only he could give her. She felt the slightest pain as his teeth brushed her neck.

Although Victor always hungered for her, it was not his intent at this moment to satisfy himself. As her blood flowed into him, so did her Memories, and her pain. He saw her failure at Wurzburg, saw the deaths of the children, saw the revenge she had taken against the town.

Ryan had seen many, many things over her lifetime. She had been witness to the worst of atrocities, and been little affected by them. She had killed hundreds, maybe thousands of men, and had done so indiscriminately in battle and in brawls.

But Victor sensed something different in Ryan this time, and it took him a moment to identify what it was.

She had lost hope for this people.

Ryan had always faced the world with an astounding nonchalance, as if nothing affected her. It was the mark of her time, the mark of her people. It was the mark of the powerless, and even after Ryan was no longer powerless, she still bore the att.i.tude. And beneath that att.i.tude was the belief that one day things would be better, either in this life or the next.

Ryan no longer believed this. She had no next life, only this one, and it was filled with short-lived, brutal people who existed soullessly and mindlessly. Victor gazed into her mind's eye and saw her shattered faith.

Victor raised the arm that held her and Ryan took the proffered wrist. His blood poured into her, offering an unholy salve to her soul. She saw he had no faith in this people, and therefore no faith to lose. He held himself apart from the human race because to embrace humanity was to embrace their weakness.

CHAPTER 29.

RYAN SPRAWLED, BOTH CASUAL AND ELEGANT in the oversized chair. Susan watched her, examining the fine features. She had become aware of how people watched Ryan, and were drawn to her. Ryan greeted this continual interest with a profound indifference; she was aware of it but did not care.

Susan examined the woman, trying to figure out what exactly it was that attracted so many people to her. Certainly Ryan was physically attractive but there was much more to it than that. She had a subtle sense of power about her, a charisma that could be devastating when fanned from spark to flame.

"What?" Ryan asked her, slightly bemused at the attention from her companion.

Susan shook her head as if clearing it. "Nothing," she said.

Ryan gazed at her for a few seconds with her unblinking gaze, then turned back to her own thoughts.

A large bird of prey landed on a statue outside. Susan thought at first it was a raven, but it was larger than a raven and not as darkly colored. It preened itself for a moment, peering into the French doors as if it could see the occupants inside.

Ryan's parrot stretched itself to its full height, then fluffed all of its feathers in indignation. It settled back down, pretending it was unruffled by the raptor's intrusion. The falcon flew off.

Ryan gazed at the parrot fondly. "It's just a kite, Teddy."

Susan thought about the woman's words. She had never heard "kite" used in that sense, at least not in spoken language. She thought about Ryan's voice, the way she spoke so smoothly and melodically, like polished stained gla.s.s. It was a young voice with an old inflection, as if the mouth had tried billions of words and now a mult.i.tude of sounds poured forth effortlessly Susan Ryerson came to a startling conclusion. It was one she had superficially accepted, one she had discussed and acted upon, one she had supposedly already grasped. But it was only at this moment she grasped the idea in its totality.

"You really are 700 years old."

Ryan glanced at her with amus.e.m.e.nt, realizing Susan had just reached some private epiphany.

"Why yes," she said, "yes I am."

Susan sat back in her chair, unaware she had sat bolt upright. Ryan gazed at her curiously. "What?"

"They missed it," Susan said, half to herself, "they all missed it."

Ryan sat patiently, allowing Susan to continue.

"All the writers, all the filmmakers, all the people who ever tried to envision what you would be like, they all missed it."

Ryan shrugged, as if Susan were stating the obvious. "I believe I already told you that."

"No!" Susan shook her head, unwilling to let Ryan minimize her sudden prescience. "No, you don't understand. It's not the obvious things," Susan trailed off, then spoke to herself, "and of course, it wouldn't be."

Susan looked over at Ryan and Ryan maintained her polite silence.

Susan's thoughts raced furiously. It wouldn't be the obvious melodramatic things humans always tried to envision. It wouldn't be the hopes and dreams that mortals projected onto immortals, nor would it be human weaknesses manifested and magnified over time.

It would be the subtle things. Things like a certain way of speaking. From a voice that had been shaped by hundreds of languages, from a mouth that had articulated nearly every sound possible. It would be a certain way of moving, from muscles and joints untouched by the ravages of time, and yet blessed with centuries of neuro-muscular development.

It would be a sense of time fundamentally different from human beings, a temporal sense tied not to 70 or 80 years on this planet, but to an unlimited number. It would be a total lack of fear, not the bravado demonstrated by so many immortal caricatures, but a genuine lack of fear.

Because Ryan had nothing to fear.

Susan gazed at her, at last understanding. "You're never in a hurry, are you?"

Ryan shook her head. "Why should I be?"

Susan was quiet for a long moment. "You must find *Dracula' pretty amusing."

Ryan shrugged. "It's a morality play. I found it interesting, but not particularly accurate. It seemed very much tied to the time and place in which it was written, not the time it was supposed to have occurred. But it's always this way with human writing. It's easy to write about dates and places in history because those are recorded. What it was really like is much more difficult to capture."

Ryan was thoughtful a moment. "I'm always struck by human portrayals of immortality. I have nothing in common with these characters. Why do they always long for their mortality? Is this simply a human's idea that there is some sort of n.o.bility in death? It seems to me they're trying to convince themselves. And why do these characters always whine so?"

Ryan was silent for a moment, amused by this thought. She continued in a more serious vein. "I don't comprehend how this entire race marches blithely towards a blackness that none truly understands, and yet all live as if they will never die. *Waste time' has no meaning for me, but I understand it. It has a very specific meaning for humans, yet very few grasp it." Ryan turned to look at Susan. "Even you will one day walk into a blackness and not return, and you don't know if you'll come out the other side."

Susan did not wish to contemplate her mortality at this moment. "So you don't *long for your humanity,' like so many of these tortured characters?" she asked, attempting to bring back the lightheartedness of their earlier discussion.

Susan's question was lightly phrased, and she was unprepared for Ryan's reaction. Ryan looked almost as if Susan had struck her. She looked away, her eyes filled with sudden unwanted memories. Susan was not certain if it was the question itself which elicited such a response, or if the question simply triggered some deeper battle within Ryan.

Ryan turned her unblinking gaze back on Susan, but this time her eyes mirrored a rare indecision. When she finally spoke, her words were quiet.

"I was never human."

Susan was startled. Ryan had told her much of her past life, and yet she had never given her any indication of this revelation. Susan did not understand how this could be, considering the stories Ryan had told her. Once again she had the feeling Ryan was leaving significant parts of her life out of her account. Susan had a sudden suspicion. She knew she would be treading on dangerous ground probing into Ryan's past, but the question began to burn inside her, demanding to be asked.

Ryan turned to her in resignation, waiting for the question she knew was coming.

"Ryan," Susan asked quietly, "what happened to Victor?"

Ryan stared at her for a minute, then in a completely uncharacteristic gesture, covered her face with her hand, rubbing her forehead. After a long moment, she raised her head and the unblinking gaze returned. All indecision was gone from her eyes and her voice was devoid of emotion.

"He's dead, " Ryan said simply, "I killed him."

Susan stared at the woman, stunned. Everything Ryan had told her had just been contradicted by this single statement. And although Ryan seemed perfectly aware of the paradox she had just presented her companion, she stood and left the room without another word.

Susan was gone by the time Ryan returned, and she was left to stalk through her mansion alone. She whirled on her heel, staring into the licking flames of the fireplace.

"Time is the fire in which we burn," she said bitterly to the flames, "but it does not burn me."

Her anger grew and she was unaware her language was returning to an earlier time. "Nor does it provide me any heat or any light."

She whirled on her heel again, stalking the shadows as her Memories began to stalk her.

She remembered the first time she had felt any anger at Victor, the time he had taken her against her will in front of the Borgia Pope. Although she had seen through his mind later that he had sufficient reason for doing so, she never completely forgave him for his deception. He in turn had seen the subtle invitation she had offered Marilyn, and had been furious at her.

Although Ryan had felt a p.r.o.nounced sense of fear at Victor's fury, she also felt the slightest sense of power over him because of his jealousy. This did her no good, however, as he sensed everything she felt and could take her thoughts simply by feeding off her. He took these thoughts from her and laughed, giving her nothing in return. He was not weakened by his jealousy; it only made their bond more powerful.

But as the bond between them grew, Ryan began taking Victor's thoughts as well. Much of his Memory was unclear to Ryan, as Victor thwarted her efforts when he felt it necessary.

But Ryan continued to probe his mind over the years and their second great fight occurred when she discovered he had been the instrument of her parent's destruction. She had always a.s.sumed Derek had acted alone. But in one unprotected moment, Ryan peered into the recesses of his mind and discovered he had sent Derek to find her.

Victor had not understood her anger. In a way, Ryan did not understand it herself. She had felt no great love for her parents, and Victor had given her much more than Hans and his wife ever had. Even at her young age several centuries ago, Ryan was already accustomed to death and destruction.

For years, Ryan was uncertain why she had reacted so violently to the knowledge that Victor was responsible for the death of her parents. She did not understand the rage that circulated through her body like the blood of a stranger, a stranger that neither she nor Victor had ever Shared with.

This thought infuriated Ryan and she sprang to her feet, lifting a vase from a nearby table. She threw the vase with such force against the hearth it shattered into dust.

As quickly as it had come, the fury vanished, replaced by a sadness so profound it would have killed a normal human being.

Ryan collapsed onto the couch, her head in her hands. She reached out, as she often did, into a void that would never be filled again. All that greeted her was a black emptiness.

Even from a great distance, many of the Others would feel an anguish that none would understand. Only a dark-haired woman, one of the greatest of their Kind, fully understood and gazed thoughtfully into the darkness.

CHAPTER 30.

THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. Susan was glad because between the foul weather and the luxurious accommodations, she was not inclined to get out of bed.

She went downstairs and found Ryan sprawled in the great room. Her clothing was wet, as if she had been outside. She seemed unconcerned with her damp attire and sat gazing mutely into the fire.

Apart from the wet clothing, Ryan looked no different from any other time Susan had seen her. But it appeared almost as if Ryan was tired, although Susan had seen her like this only once before, recently. If she did not know better, she would say Ryan had been spending a few "sleepless nights."

Susan moved to her side and on impulse, put her hand to Ryan's forehead. Susan was shocked at the temperature. "How are you feeling?"

Ryan looked at her curiously. "I'm fine, why?"

Susan shrugged. "No reason, I just thought I'd ask."

Ryan started to say something, then stopped.

Susan looked at her expectantly. "What is it?"

"Actually," Ryan said slowly, "I have a headache."

The significance of Ryan's admission did not register on Susan, but Ryan seemed oblivious to this as she puzzled over the malady. "I have not had a headache in over 200 years."

Susan's concern deepened as Ryan settled deeper in her chair, shivering slightly. "Not even when you were recovering from your injuries?"

Ryan shook her head, then shrugged the entire matter off. "I'm probably adapting to something my other senses are unaware of."

Susan was not satisfied with Ryan's explanation, but Ryan did not seem to want to pursue the subject further. Besides, the conversation had led in a direction that Susan had wanted to explore for some time.

"What exactly happened to you the night you wound up in the morgue?"

Ryan turned her unblinking gaze on Susan, and for a moment Susan thought she would not answer. When she finally did, her tone was expressionless.

"I had contact with some of the Others."

"Contact?" Susan's words were filled with slight dismay. "Is that what you would call it."

Ryan gave a short, bitter laugh. "We are predators, remember? The reunion was not particularly joyous." Ryan was silent a moment, then said off-handedly, "Besides, most of my wounds were self-inflicted."

Susan turned to her, incredulous. "What do you mean, self-inflicted?"

Ryan was patient with her. "Surely I've told you enough of myself for you to realize there's no one out there who could do that to me."

"I have been curious," Susan admitted, "But I still don't understand."

"I came in contact with some of the Others. I don't think they realized who I was, but I was not taking any chances. Not only did I destroy all of them, but I faked my own destruction as well."