Ichor : Blood & Secrets

Chapter 37

“Do you want it?” Casie held out the hand to him uncertainly. What a poor scrap of a creature to be coveting other people’s blood, she thought. He nodded timidly as if he were sure she’d be angry. But Casie just smiled and he reverently held her finger and took the whole globe of blood at once, closing his lips like a kiss.

As he lifted his head, he seemed to have a tinge more color in his pale face. “You told me Klaus keeps you here,” she said, holding him again and feeling heat being sucked from her into his cold body. “Can you tell me why?”

The child was still licking his lips, but he turned his face toward her immediately and said, “I’m the Warden of Secrets. But”—sadly—“the Secrets

have gotten so big that even I don’t know what they are.”

Casie followed the motion of his head from his own small limbs to the iron chain to the huge, metallic ball. She felt a sinking inside herself and a deep pity for such a small warden. And she wondered what on earth could be inside that great stone sphere that Klaus was guarding so intently.

But she didn’t get the chance to ask.

Even as Casie opened her mouth to speak, she could feel herself lifted as if in a hurricane. For a moment she clung to the boy who was being torn from her grasp, then she just had time to shout, “I’ll be back,” and to hear his reply, before she was pulled into the ordinary world of baths and manipulation and motel rooms.

“I’ll keep our secret!” That was what the little boy had cried to her at the last moment.

And what could that mean but that he would keep their rendezvous from the real (or “ordinairy”) Klaus?

A moment later Casie was standing in a dingy motel room, and Klaus was clutching her upper arms. As he released her, Casie could taste salt.

Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.

It didn’t seem to make any difference to her attacker. Klaus seemed to be at the mercy of raw desperation. He was shaking like a little boy the first time he kissed his first love. That’s what’s driving the control away, Casie thought fuzzily.

As for herself, she felt as if she might faint.

No! She had to stay conscious.

Casie pushed and twisted, hurting herself deliberately against the apparently unbreakable grip that held her.

It held.

The possessor? Shinichi again, sneaking into Klaus’s mind and making him do things—?

Casie fought harder, pushed herself until she actually could have screamed with pain. She whimpered once— The hold broke.

Somehow Casie knew that Shinichi wasn’t involved in this. The true soul of Klaus was a little boy held in chains for God-knew-how-many centuries, who had never known warmth and closeness but who still had a tearful appreciation for them. The child who was chained to the rock surrounding was one of Klaus’s deepest secrets.

And now Casie was trembling so hard she wasn’t sure she could stand up, and she was wondering about the child. Was he cold? Was he crying like Casie? How could she tell?

She and Klaus were left staring at each other, both breathing hard.

Klaus’s sleek hair was mussed, making him look rakish as a buccaneer. His face, always so pale and self-composed, was flushed with blood. His eyes dropped to watch Casie automatically massaging her wrists. She could feel pins and needles now: she was getting back some circulation. Once he’d looked away, he couldn’t seem to look her in the eye again. Eye contact. All right. Casie recognized a weapon, groping for a chair and finding the bed unexpectedly close behind her. She didn’t have many weapons right now; and she needed to use all of them.

She sat, giving in to the weakness in her body, but she kept her eyes on Klaus’s face. His mouth was swollen. And that was…unfair. Klaus’s pout was a part of his most basic artillery. He had always had the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen on anyone, man or woman. The mouth, the hair,

the half-drooping lids, the heavy lashes, the delicacy of his jawline…unfair, even to someone like Casie, who’d long ago gotten past interest in a person because of some accident of beauty.

But she’d never seen that mouth swollen, the perfect hair disordered, the eyelashes trembling because he was looking everywhere except at her and trying not to show it.

“Was that… what you’ve been thinking about while you’ve been refusing to talk to me?” she asked, and her voice was almost steady.

Klaus’s sudden stillness was perfection like all his other perfections. No breathing, of course. He stared at a spot in the beige carpet that by rights ought to have broken into flames.

Then, finally, he lifted those huge dark eyes to hers. It was so hard to tell anything about Klaus’s eyes because the iris was almost the same color as the pupil, but Casie had a feeling that at this moment they were dilated so far as to be all pupil. How could eyes as dark as midnight trap and hold light? She seemed to see in them a universe of stars.

Klaus said, softly, “Run.”

Casie felt her legs tense. “Shinichi?”

“No. You should run now.”

Casie felt her thigh muscles relax slightly and was grateful not to have to try to prove that she could run—or even crawl—at this exact instant. But her fists clenched.

“You mean this is just you being a bastard?” she said. “Have you decided to hate me again? Did you enjoy—?”

Klaus whirled again, stillness into motion faster than her eyes could track it. He hit the frame of the window, once, pulling the punch almost completely at the last instant. There was a crash and then a thousand little echoes as the glass showered like diamonds against the darkness outside. “That might…bring some people to help you.” Klaus wasn’t trying to make the words seem more than an afterthought. Now that he was turned away from her, he didn’t seem to care about keeping up appearances. Fine tremors ran through his body.

“This late, in this storm, this far away from the office—I doubt it.” Casie’s body was catching up with the adrenaline spurt that had allowed her to fight her way out of Klaus’s grip. She was tingling all over and she had to work to keep it from turning into outright shaking.

And they were back to square one, with Klaus staring into the night and her staring at his back. Or, at least, that was where he wanted them to be.

“You could have just asked,” she said. She didn’t know if this was possible for a vampire to understand. She still hadn’t taught Lucien. He went without things that he wanted because he didn’t understand about asking. In all innocence and with all good intentions, Lucien left things until she, Casie, was forced to ask him.

Klaus, she thought, didn’t usually have that problem. He took whatever he wanted as casually as if picking items off of a grocery store shelf. And right now he was laughing silently, which meant that he was truly stricken.

“I’ll take that as an apology,” Casie said softly.

Now Klaus was laughing out loud, and Casie felt a chill. Here she was, trying to help him, and—

“Do you think,” he broke into her thoughts, “that that was all I wanted?” Casie felt herself freeze again as she mulled this over. Klaus could easily have taken her blood while he held her immobile. But—of course—that wasn’t all he wanted from her. Her aura…she knew what it did to vampires. Klaus had been protecting her all along from other vampires who might see it.

The difference, Casie’s native honesty told her, was that she didn’t give a damn about any of the others. But Klaus was different. When he kissed her she could feel the difference inside her. Something she had never felt before…until Lucien.

Oh, God—was this really her, Casie Malrux, betraying Lucien by the simple act of not running away from this situation? Klaus was being a better person than she was; he was telling her to take the temptation of her aura away from him.

So that she could start the torture anew tomorrow.

Casie had been in many circumstances where she’d judged that it was best for her to leave before things got too hot. The problem here was that there was nowhere that she could go to without turning up the heat— putting herself in greater danger. And, incidentally, losing her chance to find Lucien.

Should she have gone with Matt? But Klaus had said they couldn’t get into this Dark Dimension place, not two humans by themselves. He’d said they needed him with them. And Casie still had some doubts as to whether Klaus would take the trouble to even drive to Arizona, much less search for

Lucien, if she wasn’t with him every step of the way.

Besides, how could Matt have protected her on the dangerous road she and Klaus were following? Casie knew that Matt would die for her—and that’s just what he would do, too, if they came up against vampires or werewolves. Die. Leaving Casie facing her enemies alone.

Oh, yes, Casie knew what Klaus did each night when she slept in the car. He put some kind of dark spells around her, signing them with his name, sealing them with his seal, and they kept random creatures of the night away from the car until morning.

But their greatest enemies, the kitsune twins, Shinichi and Misao, they had brought with them.

Casie thought about all this before raising her head to look Klaus in the eyes. Eyes which, at that moment, reminded her of those of a ragged child chained to a rock.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?” he whispered.

Casie shook her head.

“You’re really not afraid of me?”

“Oh, I’m afraid.” Again Casie felt that inward shiver. But she was flying somewhere now, she had set the course, and there was no way that she could stop. Especially not when he looked at her like that. It reminded her of the fierce joy, the almost reluctant pride he always showed when they took down an enemy together.

“I won’t become your Princess of Darkness,” she told him. “And you know that I could never give up Lucien.”

A ghost of his old mocking smile touched his lips. “There’s plenty of time to convince you to my way of thinking on those matters.”

No need, Casie thought. She knew that Lucien would understand. But even now, when it seemed the whole world was whirling around her, something rose up in Casie to challenge Klaus. “You say it’s not Shinichi. I believe you. But is all this because—of what Caroline said?” She could hear the sudden hardness in her own voice.

“Caroline?” Klaus blinked as if thrown off his stride.

“She said that before I met Lucien I was just a—” Casie found it impossible to get the last word out. “That I was…promiscuous.”

Klaus’s jaw hardened and his cheeks flushed quickly—as if he’d been struck from an unexpected direction. “That girl,” he muttered. “She’s

already fixed her destiny and if it were anyone else I might be inclined to take some pity. But she goes…beyond…she’s…beyond…any propriety…” As he

spoke his words slowed, and a look of bewilderment clouded his face. He was gazing at Casie and she knew he could see the tears standing in her eyes, because he reached up to brush them away with his fingers. As he did, however, he stopped dead in midmotion, and, his face suddenly bemused, he brought one of his hands up to his lips, tasting her tears.

Whatever they tasted like to him, he didn’t seem to believe it. He brought the other hand up to his lips as well. Casie was openly staring at him now; he should have been put out of countenance—but he wasn’t. Instead a kaleidoscope of expressions passed over his face, too quickly for her human

eyes to catch them all. But she did see astonishment, disbelief, bitterness, more astonishment, and then finally a kind of joyful shock and a look almost as if there were tears in his own eyes.

And then Klaus laughed. It was a quick, self-mocking laugh, but it was genuine, euphoric, even.

“Klaus,” Casie said, still blinking back tears—it had all happened that fast—“what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong, everything’s right,” he said, while raising a scholarly finger. “You should never try to fool a vampire, Casie. Vampires have many senses humans don’t—and some we don’t even know we have until we need them. It’s taken me long enough to realize what I know about you. Because, of course, everyone was telling me one thing, and my own mind was telling me something else. But I’ve figured it out, at last. I know what you really are,

Casie.”

For half a minute Casie sat in shocked silence. “If you do, then I might as well tell you right now that no one will believe you.”

“Maybe not,” Klaus said, “especially if they’re human. But vampires are programmed to recognize the aura of a maiden. And you are unicornbait, Casie. I don’t know or care how you got your reputation. I was fooled by it myself for a long time, but I’ve finally found the truth.” Suddenly he was bending over her so that she could see nothing but him, his fine hair brushing her forehead, his lips close to hers, his dark eyes, fathomless, capturing her gaze.

“Casie,” he whispered. “This is your secret. I don’t know how you’ve managed it, but…you’re a virgin.”

He leaned in toward her, his lips just brushing hers, sharing his deliberate breaths with hers. They stayed like that for a long, long time, Klaus seeming enthralled to be able to give Casie something from his own body: the oxygen that both she and he needed, but acquired in different ways. For many humans, the stillness of their bodies, the silence, and the sustained eye contact, for neither of them had shut their eyes, might have been too much. It

might have felt as if they had plunged themselves into their partner’s personalities too far, that they were losing definition and becoming an ethereal part of each other before one kiss had even been completed.

But Casie was floating on air: on the breath that Klaus gave her—and in the literal sense. If Klaus’s strong, long, slender hands had not held her shoulders, she would have escaped his grip entirely.

Casie knew that there was another way that he could keep her down. He could Influence her to let gravity have its way with her. But so far, she had felt not the slightest touch of attempted Influence. It was as if he still wanted to give her the honor of choice. He would not seduce her by any of his many accustomed methods, the tricks of domination learned over half a millennium of nights.

Only the breathing, which was coming more and more quickly, as Casie felt her senses begin to swim and her heart began to pound. Was she truly sure that Lucien wouldn’t mind this? But Lucien had given her the greatest honor possible by trusting in her love and her judgment. And she was beginning to feel Klaus’s true self, his overwhelming need for her; his vulnerability because that need was becoming like an obsession to him.

Without attempting to Influence her, he was still spreading great soft dark wings all around her so that there was nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. Casie felt herself begin to swoon with the intensity of the passion they had wrought between them. As a final gesture, not of repudiation, but of

invitation, she arched her head back, exposing to him her bare throat, and let him feel her longing.

And as if great, crystal bells were ringing in the distance, she felt his jubilation at her voluntary surrender to the velvet darkness that was overtaking her.

She never felt the teeth that broke her skin and claimed her blood. Before that happened she was seeing stars. And then the universe was swallowed up in Klaus’s dark eyes.

The next morning Casie got up and dressed quietly in the motel room, grateful for the extra space. Klaus was gone, but she had expected that. He usually got his breakfast early while they were on the road, preying on waitresses at all-night truck stops or early-morning diners.

She was going to discuss that with him someday, she thought as she put the packet of ground coffee in the little two-cup percolator the motel provided. It smelled good.

But more urgently, she needed to talk to someone about what had happened last night. Lucien was her first choice, of course, but she’d found that out of body experiences weren’t just to be had for the asking. What she needed to do was call Octiva and Meredith. She had to talk to them—it was her right—but now, of all times, she couldn’t. Intuitively, she felt that any contact between her and Fell’s Church might be bad.

And Matt had never checked in. Not once. She had no idea where he was on the road, but he had better be in Sedona on time, that was all. He had deliberately cut off all communication between them. Fine. As long as he showed up when he had promised.

But…Casie still needed to talk. To express herself.

Of course! She was an i***t! She still had her faithful companion that never said a word, and never kept her waiting. Pouring herself a cup of scalding black coffee on the way, Casie dug her diary out of the bottom of her duffel bag and opened it to a fresh, clean page. There was nothing like a fresh page and an ink pen that ran smoothly to start her writing. Fifteen minutes later there was a rattle at one window and a minute later

Klaus was stepping through. He had several paper bags with him and Casie felt unaccountably pleased and homey. She had provided coffee, which was rather good even if it came with dried cream substitute, and

Klaus had supplied…

“Gasoline,” he said triumphantly, raising his eyebrows significantly at her as he set the bags on the table. “Just in case they try to use plants against us. No, thanks,” he added, seeing she was standing with a full cup of coffee held in his direction. “I had a garage mechanic while I was buying this.

I’ll just go wash my hands.”

And he disappeared, walking right past Casie.

Walking right past her, without a glance, even though she was wearing her only clean pair of clothes left: jeans and a subtly colored top that looked white at first glance and only in the brightest light revealed that it was ethereally rainbow-shaded.

Without a single look, Casie thought, feeling a strange sensation that somehow her life had just lapped itself.

She started to throw the coffee away but then decided she needed it herself and drank it in a few scalding gulps.

Then she went and stood by her diary, reading over the last two or three pages.

“Are you ready to go?” Klaus was shouting over the sound of running water in the bathroom.

“Yes—in just a minute.” Casie read the diary pages from the previous entry, and began skimming the one before that.

“We might as well go straight west from here,” Klaus shouted. “We can make it in one day. They’ll think it’s a feint for one particular gate and search all the small ones. Meanwhile we’ll go on heading for the Kimon Gate and be days ahead of anyone tracking us. It’s perfect.” “Uh-huh,” Casie said, reading.

“We ought to be able to meet Mutt tomorrow—maybe even this evening, depending on what kind of trouble they cause.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But first I wanted to ask you: do you think it’s a coincidence that our window is broken? Because I always put wards on them at night and I’m sure—” He passed a hand over his forehead. “I’m sure that I must have done that last night, as well. But something got through and broke the window and

got away without a trace. That was why I bought all the the gasoline. If they try something with trees, I’ll blast them all back to Stonehenge.” And half the innocent residents of the state, Casie thought grimly. But she was in a state of such shock that not much could make an impression on top of it.

“What are you doing now?” Klaus was clearly ready to get up and going. “Getting rid of something I don’t need,” Casie said, and flushed the toilet, watching the torn-up bits of her diary swirl round and round before disappearing.

“I wouldn’t worry about the window, though,” she said, coming back into the bedroom and slipping her shoes on. “And don’t get up for a minute,

Klaus. I’ve got to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, come on. It can wait until we’re on the road, can’t it?”

“No, it can’t, because we’ve got to pay for that window. You broke it last night, Klaus. But you don’t remember doing it, do you?”

Klaus stared at her. She could tell that his first temptation was to laugh. His second temptation, to which he gave in, was to think that she was nuts.

“I’m serious,” she said, once he had gotten up and started to pace toward the window with a distinct look of wanting to be a crow flying out of it. “Don’t you dare go anywhere, Klaus, because there’s more.”

“More stuff I did that I don’t remember?” Klaus lounged against the wall in one of his old, arrogant poses. “Maybe I smashed a few guitars, kept the radio on until four A.M.?”

“No. Not necessarily things from—last night,” Casie said, looking away. She couldn’t look at him. “Other things, from other days—”

“Like maybe I’ve been trying to sabotage this trip all along,” he said, his voice laconic. He eyed the ceiling and sighed heavily. “Maybe I’ve done it just to be alone with you—”

“Shut up, Klaus!”

Where had that come from? Well, she knew that, of course. From her feelings about last night. The problem was that she also had to get some other things settled—seriously, if he would take them. Come to think of it, that might be a better way to go about this.

“Do you think that your feelings about Lucien—well, have changed at all recently?” Casie asked.

“What?”

“Do you think”—oh, this was so difficult looking into black eyes the color of endless space. Especially when last night they had been full of myriads of stars—“do you think that you’ve come to think of him differently? To honor his wishes more than you used to do?”

Now Klaus was openly examining her, just as she was examining him.

“Are you serious?” he said.

“Completely,” she said, and, with a supreme effort, she sent her tears back where they were supposed to go.

“Something did happen last night,” he said. He was looking intently at her face. “Didn’t it?”

“Something happened, yes,” Casie said. “It was—it was more of a—” She had to let out her breath, and with that almost everything went. “Shinichi! Shinichi, che bastardo! Imbroglione! That thief! I’m going to kill him slowly!” Suddenly Klaus was everywhere. He was beside her, his hands on her shoulders; the next minute he was shouting imprecations out the window, then he was back, holding both her hands.

But only one word mattered to Casie. Shinichi. The kitsune with his black, scarlet-tipped hair, who had made them give up so much just for the location of Lucien’s cell.

“Mascalzone! Maleducato—” Casie lost track of Klaus’s cursing again. So it was true. Last night had been completely stolen from Klaus,

taken from his mind as simply and completely as the interval when she had used Wings of Redemption and Wings of Purification on him. The latter he had agreed to. But last night—and what other things had the fox been taking?

To cut out an entire evening and night—and this evening and night in particular, implied that…

“He never shut down the connection between my mind and his. He still can reach inside me any time he chooses.” Klaus had finally stopped swearing, and stopped moving. He was sitting on the couch opposite the bed with his hands drooping between his knees. He looked singularly forlorn.

“Casie, you have to tell me. What did he take from me last night? Please!” Klaus looked as if he might fall on his knees in front of her, without melodrama. “If—if—it was what I think—”

Casie smiled, although tears were still running down her face. “It wasn’t— what anyone would think, exactly, I suppose,” she said.

“But—!”

“Let’s just say that this time—was mine,” Casie said. “If he’s stolen anything else from you, or if he tries to do it in the future, then he’s fair game.

But this…will be my secret.” Until maybe someday you break into your huge boulder of secrets, she thought.

“Until I tear it out of him, along with his tongue and his tail!” snarled Klaus, and it was truly the snarl of an animal. Casie was glad it wasn’t directed at her. “Don’t worry,” Klaus added in a voice so chilling that it was almost more frightening than the animal fury. “I will find him, no matter where

he tries to hide. And I will take it from him. I might just take his entire little furry hide off with it. I’ll make you a pair of mittens out of it, how’s that?” Casie tried to smile and did a pretty good job. She was just coming to terms with what had happened herself, although she didn’t believe for a minute that Klaus would really leave her alone on the subject until he forced the memory back out of Shinichi. She realized that on some level she was punishing Klaus for what Shinichi had done, and that was wrong. I promise no one will know about last night, she told herself. Not until Klaus does. I

won’t even tell Octiva and Meredith.

This made things a lot harder on her, and therefore probably more equitable.

As they were cleaning up the debris from Klaus’s most recent fit of fury, he suddenly reached up to brush a stray tear from Casie’s cheek.

“Thank you—” Casie began. Then she stopped. Klaus was touching his fingers to his lips.

He looked at her, startled and a little disappointed. Then he shrugged. “Still unicorn bait,” he said. “Did I say that last night?”

Casie hesitated, then decided that his words didn’t fall within the crucial time limits of secrecy.

“Yes, you did. But—you won’t give me away, will you?” she added, suddenly anxious. “I’ve promised my friends not to say anything.”

Klaus was staring at her. “Why should I say anything about anybody?

Unless you’re talking about the little redheaded one?”

“I told you; I’m not saying anything. Except that obviously Caroline isn’t a virgin. Well, with all the ruckus about her being pregnant—”

“But you remember,” Klaus interjected, “I came to Fell’s Church before

Lucien did; I just lurked in the shadows longer. The way you talked—” “Oh, I know. We liked boys and boys liked us, and we already had reputations. So we just talked any way we felt like talking. Some of it may have been true, but a lot of it you could take two ways—and then of course you know how boys talk—”

Klaus knew. He nodded.

“Well and so pretty soon everyone was talking about us as if we’d done everything with everyone. They even wrote stuff about it in the paper and the yearbook and on the bathroom walls.