"I remember you," Henry said hollowly, his eyes refocusing as he returned to the present. "I remember that night." He shook his head, his face pale under the caress of the moon, and Adrienna saw the ghost of the fair-haired boy Prince flit across his features.
"I was…I had nightmares for months afterwards, I couldn't sleep anywhere but my Nurse's lap for weeks."
Adrienna shook her head sadly. "Times were very much different then, in many ways and yet in some ways not so different after all." She glanced around the serene and silent garden. "Our ancient enemies still pursue us; they would hunt us to extinction if they could."
Henry nodded, "The only defense of our kind is secrecy, Adrienna, as we are solitary creatures and once found are easy prey for a determined enemy." He looked out across the moonlit landscape as they sat quietly in reflection for a few moments.
At length Adrienna rose, and brushing the front of her apron, she looked to the moon sailing above the dark trees at the garden's margin. She could see that though he controlled himself well, the territorial imperative was once again stirring in the younger predator.
"We should walk back. I am sure you are wondering how your Chosen is faring. We have a little time yet, do we not?" she asked, looking him in the face.
Henry shifted, purposefully relaxing his shoulders and shaking out the tension from his arms. "Yes we have a little longer," he agreed with a crooked smile. "But I think it would be best if we started back. While we walk, I'll tell you of my business on the Island, if you are interested?"
They began to stroll side by side out of the night garden and as they walked Adrienna inclined her head towards him as Henry began.
"When I first came to Vancouver I made the acquaintance of a young girl, a talented artist; Gillian was her name…"
Coreen sat on the sofa, with her laptop balanced on her knees; she was engrossed in the current search she was undertaking. Faced with Kevin's reticence to disclose anything about the Community, she had eventually given up grilling him, resolving instead to press Henry for details later. Now she was lost somewhere in the ethers, her fingers moving over the keys with an unconscious grace.
Doesn't she ever get tired? Vicki thought to herself, half resenting the girl's apparent calm and resilience. I just don't do waiting…
She paced up and down in front of the huge picture windows, with the dangerous energy of a caged beast. The measured repetitive pace of her tread was a counterpoint to the rapid tapping of Coreen's fingers on the keys. As Vicki looked out the windows she found the night to be impenetrable, dark. There was a blurry view of a few feet of clipped grass in front of the teahouse, bled to grey in the half-light and fading quickly into the dark nothingness of the night.
She was worried, in spite of what Henry said and with each passing moment, she found it harder and harder to keep her word.
God, when I saw her bite Henry. I…I don't know how I stopped myself, and then when he went to his knees in front of her, I was sure that…Fuck where the hell are they!
"Where the hell are they?" she finally ground out, pinning Kevin with a gimlet eye. "If anything happens to him, anything, you will wish that…"
Coreen had looked up from her screen at Vicki's outburst but she saw that Kevin seemed unperturbed.
"These things take time Ms. Nelson," Kevin said equitably, as though she hadn't just threatened his life.
"Anything could be happening out there," Vicki responded heatedly, swinging her arm out to indicate the darkness beyond the glass. "It's been more than three hours. It's nearly four; the dawn is less than two hours away."
"Calm yourself, please Ms. Nelson," Kevin said, crossing to her. He spread his hands wide at his sides saying gently. "You are Henry's Chosen; search your heart, would you not know if there was some harm that had befallen him?"
Vicki paused for a moment and examined what she was actually feeling. I want to be with Henry. I want him here, now. I want to see for myself that Adrianna has not harmed him; I want to see it with my own eyes. But am I really afraid that he is hurt or in danger? No, no, I have to admit, no I'm not.
"What the hell is this Chosen business, Kevin?" she asked.
Kevin's brows rose, "Has Henry not explained this to you?"
Vicki shook her head, "No, but he has…shown me a number of things since we reconnected last night."
"It is not mine to explain," Kevin finally said. "I'm sure that Henry has his reasons…"
Vicki turned away, frustrated by her lack of knowledge and information, but she was frightened by the seriousness of Kevin's demeanor. She looked back out the window, staring into the dark again. Come on Henry, come on…
As they neared the teahouse, Adrienna listened to Henry's tale of his arrival in Vancouver and of his subsequent meeting with Gillian and then of her loss to the criminal world of prostitution and drugs. Finally he conveyed his information in regards to Joseph Fletcher and Jared and the murder of Gillian here on the Island.
In MY territory, she thought; the idea did not sit well with her. She despised this kind of human, who preyed upon the young and weak of their own kind. That she was a predator herself troubled her not at all. She had long ago come to terms with her own requirements.
I must be honest with myself, the idea that this intruder…she caught herself glancing swiftly at Henry as he paced beside her. Ahh Adrienna, she chastised herself. If the youngster can control his instincts even as the bond fades, then shame on you that you cannot do the same.
The idea that…Henry…hunts this criminal in my territory bothers me, even though for years I have kept clear of the criminal element in Victoria. I will have to think more on this once the intrud…once Henry has gone into the safe zone.
When he shared the information in regards to the small group of Selchies on the Island she was not surprised. She already knew of them. A great deal of information made its way to her eventually, but she was fairly certain they knew nothing of her existence. She had been and still was extremely cautious.
The younger vampire at her side drew to a halt at the edge of the trees; he hung back in the shadows, his posture stiff and conflicted. He had forced her to halt and she watched him as he raised his chin testing the night air. She did the same, separating easily the intertwined scents carried on the breeze and identifying specifically the one she knew he was seeking.
His head was turned to the windows of the teahouse where a trim silhouette could be seen standing gazing out into the night. She could scent the onset of his hunger, his heightened state of arousal and it prickled against her slumbering instincts, rousing them.
She steeled herself, for she knew that their time of truce was running out, yet it had been so long, so long since she had spoken at ease with one of her own kind, and she wanted to share this last thing. She touched his arm and he turned with a snarl, his fangs running out. She held herself with an iron will, spreading her hands out to her sides and waiting. After a moment, he swallowed, looked down and said, "Your pardon, Madam."
"We are pushing our limits here Henry, but seeing your Chosen," she paused at his low growl and then pushed doggedly ahead, "I wanted to try and share this with you, before we run out of time."
Henry yearned towards the building. He could see his Chosen; she waited for him. She was worried, fearful and he wanted to go to her and get her far away from the threat that this ancient one represented. Yet he knew, he knew that the other, that Adrienna, could tell him, could share with him information.
He had taken a Chosen, had done so unwittingly, while still in Toronto, then he had been parted from his Chosen and had suffered months of unnamable grief and torment. He knew why now, but he was in new and uncharted territory here, his understanding of his relationship to his Chosen untried. He needed, they needed the other's experience.
So he reined in his anxiety and his growing irritation and crossing his arms over his chest as though to hold himself in place, forced the words out. "Anything that you can tell me, anything that will help me to understand…this," he nodded towards the silhouette in the window.
Adrienna took a deep breath. It tried her controls but she began to speak quickly and quietly.
"When we are safely apart, distant, I will contact you and answer any questions that I may. You can communicate with me through Augustus and the Community, if that is easier for you." At Henry's brusque nod, she continued…
"As I said, I have taken in all my long life two Chosen. Ellen, the first has been dead for almost a century now," the vampire's eyes grew tender with remembered grief. "I loved her dearly and we had thirty-eight precious years together. I watched her, I watched her age and fade." The vampire's voice strengthened with her message. "Understand that it meant nothing, she failed daily but she was my Chosen and I loved her. In the end, she died at the age of eighty-seven, slipping away from me even as I held her in my arms."
Henry's ebony eyes blinked slowly, but he made no sound.
"I thought then, I thought that I would wait for the sun, the pain was so great, I thought…I thought…" Adrienna glanced down, "But Ellen always was too smart for me, and she made me promise, promise that I would continue. She said that she could not rest if she knew that our love had cost…"
Adrienna paused for a long moment, painfully aware of the youngling who stood stiffly across from her, vibrating with the tension of the blood. "She is buried in the Ross Bay Cemetery; I visit her grave often, even now." Henry's hands loosed their desperate hold on his arms and he swiftly crossed himself.
"The second Chosen I took was a young boy; I will not share his name with you. I had sworn that I would never take another after I lost Ellen. I swore my heart could not bear it. Yet not quite twenty years after Ellen's death, I adopted a young orphaned boy whose parents had been in my service. The bond, the bond I formed to him was as strong as ever I felt to any of my own children, when I was alive. Before I knew it, I had chosen him. He grew into a fine young man," she said, shaking her head.
"But he is not still with you," Henry said bluntly, his struggle to remain calm robbing him of his usual sensitivity and finesse.
Adrienna sighed, her fangs dropping into view as she smiled sadly. "No, when he reached the age of twenty-nine, he asked me to turn him, and as ever, I could refuse him nothing."
"You turned him? You turned your own Chosen?" Henry asked, his voice low and gravelly.
Adrienna nodded, "Yes, as he wished, I gave my Chosen the blood, and he became my Childe. A year is such a short time."
The Prince's head nodded mutely in agreement.
"He is settled in his own territory now, we still correspond, letters and e-mails. The telephone is a little too difficult for him, but then he is still very, very young. I want you to know Henry, that you can ask me what you wish; I will try to answer if I can."
Adrienna stepped back further into the shadows under the trees, moving away from the needling, thrumming tension of the younger vampire.
"Now go…go to your Chosen, and keep to the confines of the safe zone Your Grace."
With a growl and a stilted nod, Henry was gone in a blur.
The door of the Teahouse slammed open, causing the humans to startle. There was the clean moist breeze of the forest air as Henry blurred past. Before she could so much as blink, Vicki felt the sensation that she had been craving since Henry had walked off with Adrienna. Henry's arms came around her and she felt him bury his face in her hair, inhaling her scent. Then he kissed the tender thin skin below her ear.
He raised his face to gaze midnight-eyed at Kevin. "We have to go, now," he said past his fangs. He gathered Vicki to him and was grateful that for once she did not fight his embrace.
"We need to go now, Kevin. The time is up."