Duncan (Vampires in America #5)

Duncan (Vampires in America #5) Page 46

“But you already know what I’m thinking!”

“I don’t. Not really. I’m a fairly strong empath. I read emotion. I’ve always had some ability along those lines, even when I was human. But with becoming a vampire, my ability to read the emotions of others is nearly perfect. And, as I told you when we first met, I have decades of experience reading the human body language that goes with those emotions.” He shrugged. “It’s only the words that are missing.”

His fingers were still playing along her upper arm, but she felt the rest of him go still, as if waiting for her reaction. She frowned, thinking about what he’d told her, about what it meant. He knew her emotions, her feelings . . . about him. That she loved him. Emma knew she should be embarrassed, but on the other hand, he knew she loved him, and he wasn’t running away screaming. So, okay, then.

“Hardly seems fair,” she muttered, pulling the small hairs on his chest.

“Ow! What’s not fair?” he asked, rubbing his abused follicles.

“That I can’t tell what you’re feeling, too.”

“You know how I feel, Emmaline. You’re mine.”

Emma sighed softly. Maybe it was a vampire thing, this whole mine hang-up. “So, who do you think the woman was?” she asked, changing the subject. “The one Violet heard yelling that night.”

“Tammy Dietrich seems likely,” Duncan said. “Powerful men always call their lawyers first when they get into trouble. And it might explain why she was at Lacey’s service. Grafton would have been too obvious, but Dietrich could show up to check things out, and no one would notice.”

“But why would she sign the mourner’s book? It would have been smarter not to leave a record like that.”

“Who knows? Force of habit? Maybe there was someone who knew her and she thought it would look odd if she didn’t sign it. Besides, who looks at those things afterward? She probably didn’t give it a second thought. They had to have known by then that Victor had disappeared, or at least couldn’t be reached. And with Lacey’s body being found, I’m sure they were eager to know what story was being given for her death, and whether the police were involved.”

“Well, that’s one thing we all agree on. No police.”

“No police,” Duncan confirmed. “I’ll take care of this myself.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Emma said firmly. “Lacey was my friend.”

“And you’re not a killer, Emma.”

“But you are?”

“When I need to be, yes.”

Emma considered all the years Duncan had been alive, and how different justice might have been back . . . She frowned. Back when?

“How old are you, Duncan?” she asked, wondering if he’d tell her. “I mean how old are you really?”

“I was born in 1836.”

The unreality of that took Emma’s breath away for a moment. Duncan was nearly two hundred years old, which meant that even when he’d been human, he was already old enough to be married, to have children, especially back then.

“Did you have a family? I mean before you became a vampire. Were you ever married?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, then he got up and left the bed. Emma thought she’d gone too far, that she’d touched on another vampire taboo, or maybe something that was too painful for him to think about. Duncan crossed over to a tall dresser, opened the top drawer, and removed a wooden box about the size of an old cigar box. Emma watched curiously as he lifted the lid and took something out, then stood staring down at whatever it was before finally turning and coming back to the bed.

He held it out to her, and she saw it was an old-fashioned photograph, the kind they called a daguerreotype. It was a portrait of a young woman and two small children—a boy somewhere around four years old, and a second child of indeterminate sex, maybe a year old, sitting on the woman’s lap. Emma stared at the photograph, then looked up at Duncan.

“My wife and children,” he said simply. “They died while I was at war.”

Emma’s heart clenched in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “What happened?”

“They were murdered.”

She stared at him in sudden understanding. All along, Duncan had been the only one who understood her need for revenge, her need to be a part of the search for Lacey’s killer. And maybe that was because he knew firsthand the thirst for justice, not at the hands of the law, with its process and protections for the killers, but up close and personal. The biblical, eye for an eye, cold-blooded vengeance.

“What did you do?” she asked.

1836, Nashville Basin, Tennessee

Duncan stared at the ruin of what had once been his family home. It looked old and tired, despite the cover of night. It had never been a grand building, but it had been filled with life once upon a time. No more. He was the last of his line, and now that he was Vampire there would be no one after him. And no one to care either way.

It had taken him and Raphael several nights to get this far. Raphael had told him that their ultimate path was westward, all the way to the western ocean. The journey back to what had been Duncan’s home was a detour, but Raphael had never voiced a word of protest. He’d seemed to accept Duncan’s need for vengeance as if it were his own. At first, Duncan had thought it was simply the bond between a vampire and his child, but he’d soon realized it was more than that. It was a measure of the man Raphael had been and the vampire lord he had become. He would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those he took for his own. And Duncan felt the ties of loyalty growing stronger with each step he took beside the vampire who was now, and forever would be, his Sire.

“What happened?” Raphael asked quietly, staring at the abandoned house.

“This infernal war happened,” Duncan said. He walked over to the tall chestnut tree in the front yard, bent over and picked up the torn remains of a thick rope. It had adorned the tree once upon a time, a swing fashioned anew every spring for his children to play on. He dropped the rope into the dirt and turned away, heading back toward the road and the nearby town.

Raphael kept pace with him without comment, though Duncan could feel his Sire’s curiosity through the bond they now shared. It was a strange feeling to be so tied to another man, but there was nothing sexual about it. If anything, it made him stronger, as if Raphael were a reservoir of strength that Duncan could borrow from at will. Or perhaps it was the certain knowledge that Raphael would always stand with him against his enemies. And those enemies were in the town a few miles down the road.

“I didn’t join the army at first,” Duncan said as they kept walking. “The people around here were as content to remain with the Union as not, and many of us felt it wasn’t our battle. But then the Confederacy came looking for troops and we had to choose.” He shrugged. “We voted and the Confederacy won, or so the town fathers told us. I’ve no idea if they were truthful in that, or if it simply suited their interests better to have it so. In any event, those of us young enough and strong enough were recruited and sent off to be soldiers. And we were given assurances that our families would not suffer, that the town would stand together.”

Duncan bent and picked up a rock, bouncing it in his hand as they walked.

“And did they?” Raphael asked.

Duncan considered the question. “They stood together. But not in the way I expected. My wife was a beautiful woman and I was a poor farmer. She married beneath her station in taking me for a husband, but she loved me, and God knows I loved her. There are times I think she’d still be alive if she’d married someone wealthier, or just someone else.” He sent the rock arching into the moonlit darkness of the surrounding field. “Before we married, she had a suitor. The banker’s son, a young man of money and privilege whom she rejected in my favor. He was offended, of course, and while I was gone to war, he came to our house, drunk and angry at what he considered her humiliation of him.”

It was not necessary to spell out what had happened next. Any man would know without being told what would have come of such an encounter.

“Your children?” Raphael asked.

“My son tried to protect his mother and was clubbed aside. My daughter was a baby, little more than a year old, not even walking yet when I saw her last. She lay next to her mother for days before anyone discovered what had happened. My wife’s father came looking for her eventually and found them like that. The children were dead, my wife nearly so. But before she died, she told him what had happened, and who had done it. He went to the town law, but the brute was long gone, sent off to the war before his crime could be exposed. I was sent for, of course, but returned only in time to visit their graves.”

“And is this killer still alive?” Raphael asked in a cold voice.

“He is. But not much longer.”

Raphael grunted his agreement. They walked another mile in silence, until the buildings of the town came into sight, candlelight flickering in distant windows. They stopped on the outskirts of town, and Raphael did a slow turn as he surveyed the cluster of buildings. “His house is here somewhere?”

“His father’s house.That one, near the stand of hickory trees. You can’t see it from here, but there’s a small lake, too. It’s quite lovely in the summer, though the common folk are discouraged from using it now. It was open for all before he built his house there.”

The banker’s house was brightly lit, lanterns burning on the porch, candles glimmering in every window. Duncan started for the steps, Raphael beside him. They reached the front door and rang the small bell hanging to one side. This was the part of their plan that had Duncan most concerned. The banker’s house was a private residence, which meant, as vampires, he and Raphael would need to be invited inside.

A uniformed maid opened the door. She was young and pretty, and African, which meant she was probably a house slave. She stared up at them, her gaze going from their faces to their dusty clothes.