Chapter 22
As the vampires had been rushing to break the bonds and lower the captives from the fence, Brigit had heard Utana begin his countdown and begged the gods not to let him do what she feared he was about to.
She spotted James leaping out a second-story window with Roxy, Jane and Melinda all attached to him, and then her worst nightmare came true.
The last thing she felt from her beloved was the desperately sent thought, Forever I will love you, Brigit of the Vahmpeers.
And then her gaze was drawn to the darkened glass just in time to see a beam, an unmistakably familiar beam blasting from one end of the basement to the other.
"Utana, please, no!"
Everyone turned.
There was an instant when the room beyond those skylights lit up from within, just a flash, and in that moment she could very clearly see Utana silhouetted in the light of the explosion he had wrought.
And then the explosion burst upward and the building came down. Someone was tearing at the bonds that held her, and she dropped from the fence onto the grass. She knew what he had done, even as she knew what the inevitable result would be. Clawing the goggles from her face, kneeling there in the grass while vampires and humans alike stampeded past her, on their way to safety, she wasn't aware of screaming his name over and over. She was aware only that her heart was shattered, blown to bits as surely as St. Dymphna's was.
Rising, pushing herself up from the ground, she lunged forward, arms reaching out as the building went down as if in slow motion.
Someone gripped her shoulders. Rhiannon, she thought, but she pulled free, sobbing the word "no" over and over again.
And then there was silence. Dust and smoke too thick to see through. And she stood staring at the clouds of dark ash where the building had been before.
The dust cleared slowly. And then there was the horrible aftermath. Six stories reduced to one pile of rubble that filled the basement and topped it like a small mountain. And beneath all of it, her one and only love was buried.
Again she felt Rhiannon's hands on her.
Again she shook them off. "We didn't deserve what he just did for us," she whispered. "None of us did. "
And then the tears came, and she dropped to her knees. "Utana. Oh, God, Utana, I love you so much!" She fell face forward in the dirt, and her world went black. She felt it slipping from her, and hoped she would never again be forced to wake up to this brutal reality that was life. Never again.
"I would rather die with you than live without you, my love," she whispered. And her eyes closed on the world.
James raced to where his sister had fallen and knelt beside her.
Around him there was chaos, as the vampires worked to help the Chosen who remained, though there were few enough of those. Most had fled.
Others had been caught in the rain of shrapnel, but he didn't think there were any serious injuries. And as the vampires tended them, helped them, told them what little they absolutely needed to know and sent them on their way, the crowd became thinner.
Soon only vampires remained.
"There will be a response to this," Rhiannon said softly. "Officials, firefighters. Already they approach. We must leave this place. "
"Not without Utana," James whispered.
"James, he's buried beneath tons of-"
"I can't leave him. " He looked up from the prone form of his sister to meet Rhiannon's eyes. "Look at her, Aunt Rhi. She's devastated. "
"I know. "
"I've got to get him out of there. I've got to try to bring him back again. We owe him that much. He saved our entire race tonight. He saved my sister. "
Sighing, Rhiannon nodded and looked at the devastated Brigit, unconscious now from pain too overwhelming to bear. "She was right, our little Brigit. None of us are worthy of him-our forebear. Creator of our race. Except, perhaps, for her. "
"Get the others out of here," James said softly.
"The others aren't going anywhere," said a deep voice from behind him.
It was Edge, his own father. Around him, the other vampires had all gathered, even the very eldest among them, Damien Namtar who'd been known once as King Gilgamesh. He was the first man with whom Utana had shared the gift of the gods-the gift of immortality. He was the first true vampire.
He stood shoulder to shoulder with Roland de Courtemanche. Eric Marquand. With Dante and Donovan, and with the prince, Dracula himself.
"We'll hold off the emergency workers as they arrive," Edge went on. "Enthrall them, if necessary. "
Dracula smiled sadly. "The glamour is, after all, one of my specialties. "
"Go on, James," Rhiannon told him. "Get our forebear out of that rubble, so that we can wipe the dust of this place from our feet. "
The vampires dissipated, Edge lifting Brigit in his arms and carrying her with him toward the road, to await the firefighters.
Alone in the backyard, at the rear of the destruction, James lifted his hands, focused his eyes and sent the beam of power he had once thought could be used only for healing into the rubble, clearing a path. He honed his senses to locate Utana's broken remains and blasted away debris, getting closer and closer.
He heard sirens out front, saw flashing lights beyond the wrecked building, but focused only on his grim task, trusting his family to hold up their end.
And finally he found Utana.
The man's body was broken so thoroughly that it seemed boneless as James used his vampiric strength to pick it up, wincing at the unnatural feel of it-crushed bones, flattened limbs.
He wondered if he would be able to raise the man again. Oh, he had done so before, but he believed now that he had been meant to. All of this had been part of destiny. And now that Utana's fate had been carried out, perhaps his job had ended. Perhaps, he'd been set free by his gods at last.
Lovingly, respectfully, James carried Utana out to join the others. They stood in a semicircle around the rubble. Around them, firefighters, police cars, a few ambulances, all stood still, lights ablaze, drivers sitting motionless and mesmerized in their seats. A few had already emerged and stood near their vehicles, as if frozen in time.
"One burst of motion," Dracula called, holding up his hands as waves of hypnotic force wafted over the rescue workers. "On my word, we leave here at top speed, all at once. We go in many directions, as a precaution. But we will gather once again at the plantation. Are we ready?"
They all nodded.
James wasn't as fast as the Undead. But he was fast enough. His father carried Brigit. And Dracula took Utana from his arms. "Fang up, J. W. You'll need all your power. "
James nodded and invoked his vampiric side from within. His fangs emerged, and his eyes glowed.
Dracula raised a hand. "Now!"
And in an instant, in a blur, the vampires were gone.
In their wake, the human emergency workers blinked out of their stupor and refocused on the demolished hospital.
"God help whoever was inside," said one. "It doesn't look as if any of them survived. "
The Virginia plantation was still a safe haven, though they would be forced to leave it behind soon, as they'd been forced to leave so many other places. Until then, however, it would do.
Brigit lay on a bed, staring sightlessly into space.
Her mother had bathed her, dressed her in a soft white nightgown, draped a blanket over her, upon their arrival. The other surviving vampires had gone in many directions, as Vlad had suggested. It had taken some time for them all to convene here, but they had finally done so, and not a moment too soon. The sun would soon be rising. The vampires must rest.
Stroking her daughter's cheek, Amber Lily leaned close and kissed her. And then the bedroom door opened and J. W. came inside.
"He's here," he said softly.
"Thank God," Amber Lily said. "She's not responding to anything. Where did they put him?"
"In the next room. "
"Good. " She leaned close to her daughter again. "Do you hear that, Brigit? They've brought Utana here. He's here, my love. "
But there was no response. Brigit only stared sightlessly at the far wall.
Sighing, her mother battled tears.
"Go to bed, Mom. The sun's rising. I'll take care of her. "
"Do you think it'll work?"
He nodded. "It has to. "
The two embraced, and Amber Lily left the room.
J. W. bent closer to the bed and scooped Brigit into his arms. And then he carried her into the bedroom next door. He placed her in a chair, then dragged it up beside the bed.
Somewhere deep inside her mind, Brigit sensed that Utana was near. But dead. Lifeless. Or trapped, conscious, within a body that no longer lived. She couldn't bear the thought. J. W. sensed all of that moving through her mind.
"You have to come around now, Brigit," J. W. said. "I know it's painful to see him like this, much less to face the fact that it might not work, that his task in this world might finally be finished. But the faster we try to revive him, the easier it will be. And besides, if it isn't going to work, isn't it better to know?"
She blinked. Her vision swam into focus, narrowed in on her brother, then shifted to the man in the bed. She emitted a yelp at the sight of him, her hands flying to her mouth. Utana's body was destroyed. Utterly destroyed.
"He was ash when I found him the first time," J. W. told her. "Remember? I brought him back from that. "
"It was his destiny. " She reached out a trembling hand, laid it upon Utana's arm, then jerked it back when she found it cold. "What if his destiny is fulfilled? What if he's found peace at last? Can we really risk pulling him back from that? Do we have that right?"
J. W. knelt, then turned Brigit's chair to face him. He clasped her hands. "If it had been you who'd died, and he was alive and thought he had the power to bring you back, what would you want him to do?"
She held her brother's eyes. "I would want to be where he was. Wherever that might be. "
"So you'd want him to try?"
"Yes. "
"Even though he might fail?"
"Yes. "
"Even if you were in. . . paradise?"
She shifted her gaze to the battered corpse in the bed. "Yes. "
"And do you think he loves you every bit as much as you love him?"
Her eyes welled with tears. "He died for me. How can I doubt it?"
"Then you have to try to bring him back. "
She shot him a look. "Me? James, you're the one who heals. You're the good twin. The healer. I'm the destroyer. I can't-"
"It has to be you, Brigit. I don't know how I know that, but I do. Now get to work. Go on. Drum up the energy, focus it through your hands, and lay them on your man. "
Trembling, she looked again at Utana. Then, leaning forward, she closed her eyes and laid her hands on his chest. She opened her senses and felt the energy streaming down into her from somewhere above. She reached out with everything in her, and the power shot up into her body from somewhere below. The two beams of light, opposite and yet the same-twins, like she and her brother-met in her center, swirling in her solar plexus and pulsing there so strongly that she thought her body would burst with their combined power. But she mentally guided the melded beams up into her chest, into her heart and then split them and sent them barreling down her arms and into her hands.
The light burst forth from the centers of her palms with so much force that her body recoiled and Utana's sank into the bed.
"Heal," she whispered. "Heal, my love. Return to me. I will not live if you die. Accept the gift I would not have known I possessed if not for you. Heal, Utana. My one and only love. Mend your body and your mind. And come back to me. Return to your woman. "
The light spilled out of her, from her hands, from her heart, seeming to bleed from her, and filled him. She kept her eyes closed, but she felt the energy doing its work. She could hear the crackling sound of bones mending themselves, could sense the straightening of broken limbs, the plumping of flattened ones. His organs regenerated; his skull sealed over. All the cuts and scrapes in his flesh grew together, and then she felt his skin grow warmer and felt, in her own heart, the echoing beat of his.
Brigit opened her eyes to find Utana's, alive with light, staring up at her. And the wave of emotion that surged forth from her was enough, she thought, to drown them both. She opened her lips to speak his name, but no words emerged. And she heard her brother quietly leaving the room.
"You. . . brought me back. "
"I. . . could not let you go. "
"I was counting on it. " He smiled, slowly and gently, and he reached for her. "Brigit. My love, my life from now on is at your side. "
"You're damn straight it is. "
He pulled her on top of him, his powerful arms wrapping tightly around her, and rolled her over in the bed as his mouth captured her lips and refused to let go. But at last he broke the kiss. "This is the beginning of our happily ever after, is it not?"
She smiled so hard she thought her face would break. "That's exactly what it is. "
And she kissed him again.
Brigit did not know what the future held for her people. But she knew what it held for her. A lifetime-or several-of absolute bliss, with the only man she had ever-or could ever-love. And that was enough for her.
That was enough. . . for anyone.