Distant from the humans and much deeper into the forested margins of the huge Garden, the vampires slowed to a more sedate pace.
They walked side by side in the dark, Henry marveling at how quiescent his instincts lay.
"It is as though the newborn blood bond is in effect, and you are my Sire," Henry said in wonderment.
"Yes, it is a similar, though far more temporary effect," Adrienna replied. "When your body has processed my blood, the effect will wear off, but by then you will be back inside the safe zone."
"Marvelous," Henry said, "but I would imagine the effect would weaken over time."
"Yes," Adrienna confirmed his theory. "We might attempt this at most three, perhaps four times, but each time the effect would be weaker until, there would be no effect at all. I must say though, Henry, you did very well for a vampire of your age; remarkable control you have."
"I'm not exactly a newborn Adrienna," Henry replied. "But I will take it as a compliment nonetheless."
They approached a rose garden that was set out in a complete circle, each of the enlarging concentric rings sporting different colored blooms. In the outermost ring the roses were a frosty white under the moonlight. As they walked towards the fountain at the garden's center, Adrienna said. "We have but a few hours to spend in each other's company. Tell me Henry, did you ask for the blood, or were you turned against your will?"
Henry shook his head, "My Sire, Christina, seduced me into the blood. I was seventeen, a sheltered and cosseted boy. I thought I was in love. I gave up my family, my wife, and quite possibly the crown, in order to be with her. The choice was mine and…I made it freely."
They arrived at the bubbling fountain at the center of the garden, and leaning at ease and accompanied by the sound of the falling water, Henry told Adrienna the story of his turning. They walked onward a bit and eventually took a descending path into a sunken garden featuring all native plants, according to Adrienna.
She pointed out this and that one and then after a few moments she took up the conversation.
"You have been quite polite Henry, in not mentioning, shall we say, the advanced age at which I was turned," she said, smiling ruefully.
"Well, I didn't wish to pry," Henry replied gallantly.
Adrienna uttered that deep powerful chuckle again and commenced her tale.
"I was born in the highlands of Scotland in the year of our Lord 1142. Adrienna Frazer, my mother, died in childbirth and yet I survived. My father doted on me. He was a silversmith, a fine craftsman. I still have the brooch that he made me for my wedding. And that would have been to my first love, James Morris. Now my James was born on the wrong side of the sheets. His father was the youngest son of the Chief of the Morris Clan. James was acknowledged, but was never in line to inherit."
Henry nodded; he knew what it was to be the by-blow of a powerful man.
"James was a canny man though, and he eventually put enough by to take on a little public house," her face betrayed a soft pride at the ancient memory. "Well, and of course my bride price didn't go amiss either. We had a good life there, James and I, for all that the work was hard. I had three bairns, all of them bonnie." She wrapped her arms about her at the memory. My daughter, Margret, was lost to the croup, when she was six, but my sons grew into strong young men with families of their own." She sighed and she settled onto a stone bench beside a fish pond. The chorus of frogs which had fallen silent at their approach resumed their midnight serenades.
Henry lowered himself to the seat beside her. He watched the dappled bodies beneath the surface of the water as they drifted in slow circuits of the pond. "It sounds like a happy life," he said.
"Oh it was hard and cold and sometimes bitter," she acknowledged, "but yes, I remember that I was happy then. It was late, one night when three men came to the door. They wanted a place to sleep by the fire, in the big room, which we sometimes provided. They were strange and the tallest, dark-haired one was pale and fey. I didn't want them to stay, but James was ever softhearted. He said, 'tis cold tonight Addie, I canna put them oot. When there was no one there but James and I and the kitchen slave…well it was then that my Sire made himself known to us. He was dark-haired and bearded, a thin man and pale. I thought him just into his thirties, only a little younger than my own lads who, thank God, had returned to their own homes. I know now that his companions were thralls, bound to his service by compulsion, but of course then I had no such idea.
Henry's eyes were sympathetic as he listened to her tale; there were some of their kind who lost touch with their humanity, and were vicious and feral, savage. He was afraid he knew how this story ended.
Adrienna paused for a long moment, lost in memory, but then she continued, soft in the dark.
"Well, you can imagine the scene. They took my James…and bound him to a chair in the room. He was an old man! They had beaten him. Then they made him watch as they raped and then killed the kitchen girl. My Sire and his companions then all took their pleasure of my body, me, who was as old as their own mothers would have been. I wanted to fight them but I could not. The whole while James was shouting and begging until his voice was gone. It was then that I first saw the black eyes of the vampire, then that I first felt the terror of compulsion. My Sire, he made me do…things to his body, and with my body, that I had never dreamed of. I could not stop myself, and all the while his companions laughing and jesting."
Henry closed his eyes in sorrow.
"Then my Sire went to James, and twisting his head to the side, tore out his throat. I could see his eyes grow dim as his life fled, from where one of his companions held me on his knee." She swallowed heavily, and then began to speak again. "When they had finally tossed me aside to crawl to my poor dead James's side, I heard them make a wager. My Sire told one of his companions that he believed that his blood was strong enough and pure enough, to turn even an auld wife like me. They placed their bets and dragged me by the hair away from my husband's body. He forced me to my knees in front of him and there my Sire drained me." Her voice grew quiet.
"I can still remember how the edges of the world faded away as the cruel mouth worked at my throat, the burning pain where he bit again and again, the obscene sensations he forced upon me. I can remember the slowing of the pounding of my heart and then the respite of a dark nothingness. Then there was pain again as he slapped me to rouse me. Laughing, he said to his companions; let us see what the blood makes of the old bitch. He sliced his arm with his own teeth and held the bloody wound to my lips, forcing me to drink. I don't think that I took very much but…"
"It was enough," Henry said.
"Apparently so," Adrienna said calmly. "He threw me into the root cellar behind the stable; I suppose he forced his companions to dig the shallow grave there. I lay senseless, for what I now know would have been at least three days and three nights. When I rose, casting aside the earth he had buried me in, it was to a new world, the old one was shattered. Of course, my Sire was long gone; something as unimportant as a newborn to the night would have been of no matter to him. Or perhaps he stayed to see the results of his wager; I would have no way of knowing, for I was a wild and dreadful creature, to be sure."
"He abandoned his Childe?" Henry asked. "How did you survive the…transition?"
"Yes, he abandoned me. As to how I survived…" she smiled, no more than a rueful twist of her lips, "I am a practical woman Henry. I wanted only one thing, had only one focus…"
"Revenge," Henry stated.
Adrienna nodded. "I did what was necessary, leaving the shards of my old life behind. I learned quickly the rules of my new existence. I did not resist, but followed the dictates of my new instincts, and I survived. It took me eight months to find him; he was careless and arrogant and he left a trail of whispered tales behind him. When I came on him one night, he was sitting alone in a tavern and watching a young barmaid through slitted eyes. What had become of his companions, I can very well imagine. The blood bond between Sire and Childe was still in effect and he was so focused on his prey that he did not sense me. I waited until he attacked the girl, outside the tavern and then I…well he never even saw it coming, the stake that ended his wickedness."
"I'm sorry Adrienna," Henry said softly. "I know that it doesn't help, but I am sorry."
Adrienna cleared her throat, returning to the present in a rush. "Yes, well it was a long time ago now."
Henry nodded, "That is certainly true. Times change and as they do, we must change as well."
Henry tipped his head back to watch the unchanging stars, high above the cloud-cast moon on her journey across the sky.
"Let me take you to the Grotto, Henry, there is the most beautiful nocturnal garden there. I have been working on it for years."
Henry rose and extended a hand to the other vampire, filled anew with wonderment at the quiescence of his instincts. As they began to stroll again he asked, "How is it that you come to be in this wonderful garden at night? Do you own it?"
Adrienna smiled and said, "Oh no, that would be far too public a position, I prefer the safety of anonymity. I did however know the man who built it. He was quite the visionary; it is actually built on the site of an old quarry. I find it amazing how industrious humans can actually be. I have a friend who works here as a night-time security guard. You would probably have seen him at the gate when you arrived this evening."
Henry nodded remembering.
"Well Vince, that's his name, he passed me off as his maiden aunt, and he arranged for me to volunteer in the potting sheds and greenhouses while he works his night-time shift. The owners were most…amiable…to the suggestion," she smiled guilelessly.
"Hmm, I'm sure that they were," Henry responded, a smile tugging at his lips.
"I really do love the gardens here, I have seen so many of the specimens grow into beautiful mature plants, and I've been able to watch the garden spread out across the landscape from its modest beginnings," Adrienna mused.
"I can see how that would bring a great deal of…satisfaction," Henry said. "And it is so; peaceful, so timeless…" he paused and glanced around him. "My own roof garden seems miniscule by comparison."
"You have built a garden?" she asked, interest blossoming in her voice.
"Well the garden was there when Augustus acquired the property for me, but I have adapted the plantings to be more in line with when I am able to enjoy it," Henry said.
"A night garden?" Adrienna asked. "Then you will be very interested in the Grotto," she said as they descended the railroad tie steps. Henry could scent the sweet cool fragrance of the flowering beds of nicotiana, pale under the moonlight.
As they began a leisurely walk through the Night Garden, Adrienna said. "I saw you once, you know, when you were human."
Liath and Orion flew through the water, high and level with the silvered surface or flashing low over the rumpled bottom. They twisted and turned through the majestic kelp forest off Ogden Point, the long strands waving gently with the currents and with the wake of their passage.
There were fish aplenty, and yet they did not tempt her.
They had hauled out briefly onto the granite steps of the breakwater and for a time Orion had feared that she would return to the human she had left on the shore. She lay silent and subdued and all Orion could do was to drag his bulk close and lay his head on her coat as she watched the moon sail past. Finally she slipped into the water again and headed out around the curve of the shore. Orion followed her lead, once it became clear that she would not be drawn into any of the games and sport that they usually enjoyed in this form.
They hauled out again on the rocks at the headland of the Inner Harbor. They lay panting and awkward on the shore. The liquid brown eyes gazed up at the constellations that spun slowly past overhead and then they watched a small plane descend from the distance to touch its pontoons down to the ocean's surface with a roar.
Liath was heart-broken, in human form or in seal form, her anguish continued unabated. She rolled off the rocks and into the water, hearing the splash of Orion behind her. She began to swim towards the open water, flying along at the surface, cutting through the water faster and faster. The seal's heart beneath her pelt pumped harder, stronger, as she pushed herself to the limits of her speed as though she would outrun her sorrow. She kept on until all she could sense was the flow of the water past her flippers and the pounding of her heart, as she lost herself to the night.
The hotel room was dark and cold when he pushed open the door; pressing it closed behind him, he leaned his head back against the wood.
It seemed an insurmountable effort to cross the distance to the bed, the linens still mussed and rumpled from where he had risen earlier, driven out into the night by his suspicions.
Well now you know, he thought. Now you know.
He staggered across to sit wearily on the edge of the bed, slowly stripping off his clothes. When he was down to his shorts, he rolled into the bed. He drew the blankets up over his body and turned to clutch the pillow in his empty arms.
His heart was broken and his anguish continued unabated. He stared off, empty-eyed, into the dark.
When it was near to dawn, a restless and exhausted sleep finally claimed him, he fell into a dream.
The endless vista of the open green ocean, the pounding of his laboring heart and the smooth caress of the cool water slipping past his lithe body…