Under Darkness Part 15

"It's a 1973 Harley-Davidson FL Electra Glide," Rogue said proudly. "A shovelhead with a batwing fairing. A big touring bike. Got an electric starter too. It'll be easier for you."

"I'll take your word for it" I said. I felt a little lightheaded and was tingling all over. I hadn't expected to be excited. I didn't think I'd even care. Instead I was breathless. I couldn't wait to try it out.

But I would wait. Rogue was not going to let me operate it until he gave me instruction. "You'd wipe out before you even got down the block," he said. I thanked him for the vote of confidence.

"Has nothing to do with you. It's a powerful machine. You got to learn to handle it. If you weren't so tall I wouldn't even have let you try it. Benny, here, her legs wouldn't reach the ground on this machine."

By this time Benny had come out the back door and stood next to Cormac, waiting to see how I'd react.

"That's the truth," she said. "You know what I'm getting, Daph? A trike. Brand-new. It's being delivered tomorrow. Harley just started making them. They're for older people. And even if I don't look it, you know, I am a senior citizen."

Benny's laugh was a merry trill up and down the scale. In years and spirit she was was over seventy. In body, which in her case was pretty spectacular, she was twenty. over seventy. In body, which in her case was pretty spectacular, she was twenty.

"Anyways, Daph. For somebody small as I am... well, I'll handle a trike better. It will be a lot safer-for my first bike, I mean."

"But I should risk breaking my neck, right?" I voiced my suspicions that there were strings attached to Rogue's generosity.

"You're a vampire. Breaking your neck wouldn't kill you," he said, getting on my bike and handing me a helmet from the handlebars.

"Yeah, but it would hurt like h.e.l.l."

"Climb on. This time you're riding b.i.t.c.h, Rambo. Next time, after I make sure you know what you're doing, you can go solo."

I got behind Rogue. I put my hands on his broad shoulders. My crotch was tight against his b.u.t.t, which I found uncomfortably intimate. He started the engine and pulled out of the little courtyard behind the bar.

From that point on I forgot Rogue was even there. The thrill of the ride swept me away. The liberation of speed, the heady rush of power, the sensual feel of the bike beneath me carried me toward euphoria. I never expected it. I never expected to love this. I certainly never expected me, a scion of European aristocracy, the daughter of a pope, a descendent of kings, to be bound to a group of outcast vampire biker "brothers" with a bond as powerful as blood.

Know thyself, Socrates said. What a laugh. I seemed to have no clue who I was. Again and again I surprised myself. Vain self-delusion, for a vampire, could be a very dangerous thing.

Since it was close to morning the ride was short. My regret at its ending was long. Rogue dropped me off in front of my building. I saw Mickey peeking at me from behind the gla.s.s lobby doors.

I pulled off my helmet, shook my hair loose, and looked at Rogue. "What should I do with the bike?" I asked.

He said he'd take my bike home with him for tonight.

"Home? Where is that?" I asked, realizing I didn't know where Rogue lived any more than I knew his real name.

"Newark, New Jersey," he said without hesitation.

"Do you have a garage?" I asked.

He threw back his head and laughed. "No. And I don't have no wife, kids, or dog either."

"Well, thank you for the information," I huffed.

"Rambo, you want to know something about me? You just ask. Now that you're a Blood, I got no secrets from you."

I was tempted to hand him a laundry list of questions, but I could see the sky getting light in the east. I settled for asking him where he was going to keep my my bike. Would it be safe? He was living in Newark, not Short Hills. bike. Would it be safe? He was living in Newark, not Short Hills.

"Don't you worry. I park my bikes in the living room, right next to the sixty-inch TV."

He wasn't being at all sarcastic. He meant every word.

We agreed we'd find some time tomorrow night for him to give me a lesson. Before I turned to go, I said I was concerned about his getting back to Newark before the sun rose.

Rogue laughed again, the sound rich and deep in his chest. "The sun won't catch me, Rambo. I'm not somebody you need to worry about." With a roar of the bike's engine he zoomed away, leaving me standing there, the helmet in my hands.

Immediately Mickey opened the lobby doors to let me in. I saw him staring at my leathers. I could see he was eaten up with curiosity about the way I looked, about the motorcycle, and about what I was doing with Rogue.

"I just got a birthday present." I smiled a secretive smile and headed toward the elevator. Before the doors shut I saw Mickey standing there, mulling that over, his mouth open.

I winked.

I had been wrong about a lot of things tonight. One of them was about Darius not showing up. I let myself into my apartment, preoccupied, thinking about Rogue racing the rosy fingers of dawn.

No dog came to greet me.

I looked around, my anxiety instantaneous. She had been stolen before. I hurried into the living room. Jade had climbed onto the sofa. One eye opened to acknowledge me. Her head was on Darius's lap. She was comfortable. She wasn't moving.

Darius had been waiting for me. He didn't look happy.

"What have you been doing?" he asked. He looked at me in my leathers. He noted the helmet in my hand. That must have given him a hint. He sounded majorly annoyed.

"Working," I answered.

"Nice work," he said.

"I didn't think you'd be here," I responded, my hands now on my hips, my stance wide. "Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you send me a text message? I would have tried to get home sooner if I had known you were coming over. I haven't heard from you since yesterday." I was feeling a little p.i.s.sed off myself.

"I just got here a couple of minutes ago. I did plan on calling you. I couldn't."

"Why not? My cell phone was working. I know. I checked it often enough." My voice sounded shrill. I realized I was preparing to hear what I referred to as one of his bulls.h.i.+t excuses.

Darius gently dislodged Jade and rose from the sofa. He started toward me, his step slow. Fatigue made his shoulders sag. His face was pale and gray.

"I couldn't reach you because my phone was confiscated," he said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Your mother had me arrested. I thought she was going to have me staked."

Chapter 14.

Bring me my how of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! Bring me my spear!O clouds, unfold!Bring me my chariot of fire!-William Blake, "And Did Those Feet"

It was another oh-s.h.i.+t oh-s.h.i.+t moment. moment.

I dropped my helmet on the floor, rushed over to Darius, and put my arms around him. He held me tight, his cheek against my hair.

When would I get it through my thick skull that Darius was not my enemy? He was a man, doing all the stupid, screwed-up stuff men did. But he was my guy. He loved me. And when it came to our problems, I had to take at least equal responsibility for our rocky road.

My mother was a different story altogether.

I had known that my mother would move swiftly once she received the Khan letter. I never suspected, not once, while Benny and I were with her in Scarsdale, that events were already in motion.

She already knew about Darius's kidnapping of the cleric and the loss of the bottle because because she had just interrogated him. She knew Opus Dei had orchestrated the invasion of the vampire hunters and not Darius she had just interrogated him. She knew Opus Dei had orchestrated the invasion of the vampire hunters and not Darius because because she had just interrogated him. she had just interrogated him.

Was that the real reason she had agreed to see me? Did she fear I somehow knew she had Darius and was coming to confront her? I was her daughter. She knew I would get him released. I would insist on it-or I would fight her.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My feelings writhed and whirled. My thoughts went to dark places.

Should I ask what methods she had used to extract the information? Had she used me as leverage? Did I really want to know?

And where had Darius been when we stood in my mother's kitchen and she told us about the hair of the Prophet? Confined in the bas.e.m.e.nt beneath the floor where I stood? Or was he in the Flatiron Building, in the agency's secret offices there?

"Are you all right?" I said softly, hiding the anguish I felt at that moment.

"Now I am," he said.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Later, maybe. Maybe never." He sighed. "Your mother, she... Never mind. It's more important that you and I talk about what's going on. I'm making some coffee."

We went into the kitchen. Jade's tail thumped expectantly. She had retired to her doggy bed. Now she got up to greet me. I stroked her head for a moment and looked toward the window. A weak glow fought the darkness behind the shades. It was too close to morning to walk her. I'd have to ask Mickey to do me the favor.

I slipped onto a high stool next to the granite countertop while Darius poured two cups of coffee. Steam rose from the cup he handed to me. I felt chilled now, and wrapped my cold hands around the cup and sipped the liquid, glad to feel the heat.

Darius hadn't skimped on the Gevalia coffee beans. The brew was strong and bracing. With this much caffeine in me, I wouldn't be falling asleep anytime soon. He must have a lot he needed to discuss.

He pulled another stool close to mine. Its legs sc.r.a.ped the floor. He sat down, his eyes weary.

It was time all the cobwebs got brushed away. I needed truth. I needed answers. The first thing I asked Darius was, "Why did my mother let you go?"

"I don't know," he said, and kept eye contact when he answered. "I really don't. Your mother had been there-during the interrogation, I mean. She left for a while. When she came back she told my captors to release me. Maybe she believed me that I didn't know anything else. Maybe she figured I'd lead her to something or somebody if she let me go."

I thought about my mother's motives. I guessed she couldn't terminate Darius and get away with it, that was all. Since Darius was working for another U.S. agency, it would be a dicey act for my mother to kill him, especially if J knew she had Darius in custody.

J might be a son of a b.i.t.c.h, but he was a by-the-book son of a b.i.t.c.h. He'd turn Darius over to a military court; he wouldn't let him be a.s.sa.s.sinated. And J was one of the few humans or vampires who had the guts to stand up to my mother. After all, he had stood up to me-even when he believed I was about to bite him.

"I've got some other questions too," I said.

"I bet you have. Let me get the kidnapping out of the way first, okay?" Darius reached out and took my hand. "I need to make something clear. My coming to see you had nothing to do with that mission. Nothing Nothing. Let me tell you exactly what happened."

He told me his band had been outside Hamburg, playing in a hole-in-the wall to a rough crowd, when he received orders to leave Germany immediately to carry out a s.n.a.t.c.h. Julie received the same orders. It was black ops, of course. But very high priority.

The two of them went to Turkey, something I already knew, and met with some people. From there they took a military transport to Islamabad. From that point they traveled by jeep and on foot, moving only at night, until they could cross the border into the Indian Kashmir.

Darius said more than once that Ha.s.san Omar was a key man in Al Qaeda. As a popular cleric, he also commanded tremendous power. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims followed him. A fanatic-the worst kind, blind to reason-he had financed suicide bombers against Israel for years.

Omar, although he was educated at Virginia Tech here in the United States, was extremely hostile to the West. His capture had been on U.S. intelligence's wish list since 9/11. No one could get to him. He kept himself carefully guarded.

Recently U.S. intelligence had caught a break. Omar denounced a more moderate faction of Sunnis. He insisted they adopt his extremist version of Wahhabism or he'd issue a fatwa against them. The moderate faction couldn't openly strike back against Omar. They hoped we could.

Then Darius said, "Julie and I were given a small window of opportunity in which to carry out the mission. A h.e.l.l of a lot could go wrong. We knew that. We went for it. To tell the truth, Daphne Daphne, I didn't know if I'd get back. We were supposed to work at night, but I figured there was at best a fifty-fifty chance I'd get caught in the open after dawn with no shelter. I didn't really give a s.h.i.+t."

He poured more coffee. He stared down into the cup. Then, for the next half hour, he told the rest of his story, what happened in Hazratbal and afterward. He seemed driven to talk. It was the first time he'd ever discussed his work with me. But he had to tell me his side of things, he said. I wondered what my mother's version would be.

Darius, Julie, and their escorts got to Srinagar, a small village near the mountains that rose up to become the Himalayas, shortly before dawn. He could see the white marble dome of the Hazratbal mosque and the black-gla.s.s surface of Dal Lake beyond it. One of the conspirators hid them in a storage area behind his home. He locked them in with a small radio, promising to come back at dusk. Darius tuned in to the weather forecast: temperatures in the region would reach 104 degrees Fahrenheit. A dust storm threatened the region from the north.

Darius's hiding place was close enough to the mosque that he could hear the men being called to prayers throughout the day. Other sounds filtered through the cement-block walls: water splas.h.i.+ng, music playing, salesmen haggling, and children laughing. A fair had been set up nearby. It was a holy day on the Muslim calendar.

In the hidden room Darius had no air. He needed no light. He was a night creature now that I had transformed him into a vampire. He said he still missed the sun, even though its rays were now his enemy.

I noticed some lingering regret, or was it bitterness?

Exposed to the sun he still craved, he would soon be dust. The words of one betrayer to Ha.s.san Omar would bring a.s.sailants through the door he watched, letting the light flood in and making that windowless room his tomb.

Julie was there too. In a native sari, her skin darkened, her hair covered with a scarf, she slept despite the stifling heat. She never showed fear, Darius said. Or conscience. She was no vampire, he added, but sometimes he wondered whether she were human.

As the hours pa.s.sed Darius sat on the floor, watched the door, and thought. Once during the afternoon the door opened. Darius shrank back into the shadows. A servant had brought afternoon mint tea.

Meanwhile, in the mosque at Hazratbal, Ha.s.san Omar went through the ritual of obtaining the hair of the Prophet. He locked its bottle around his waist, then went out on a flat walkway above the quadrangle where people had gathered below. Seven mosque officials accompanied him. Two armed guards carried AK-47s.

Omar addressed the crowd in the way he always did, but even as he spoke the wind started to pick up. The dust storm arrived in what has been called paradise on Earth with a howling vengeance.

Visibility quickly dropped to near zero in the open courtyard. Most people scattered even before officials cut short the viewing of the hair of the Prophet. Guards dispersed as many of the others as they could. They tried to convince wors.h.i.+pers to go back to their vehicles. Those who had walked or come by boat to the mosque took shelter inside the walls.

Normally, following the ceremony, Omar would have returned the relic to its cabinet immediately. But the dust storm had knocked out the electricity. The power failed.

Newly installed electric locks on the four chambers malfunctioned.

Omar decided that until the chambers could be secured, the bottle containing the hair should remain chained to his waist.

Darius's coconspirators didn't know that. They had a.s.sumed the relic was back in its cabinet when evening arrived, and they went ahead with their scheme.

As night fell, Julie, screaming in Hindi, caused a diversion outside the mosque. It involved a lot of noise and interaction with the guards. While they were checking out the woman complaining about a thief, a van pulled up nearby. Its driver fled the scene and escaped in another vehicle. Guards raced over and discovered the van was loaded with explosives. As they ran, its blast rocked the street.

A few blocks away a second van exploded. In the confusion that followed, Omar's guards went to secure the building. The conspirators inside the mosque knocked Omar out with chemicals. He was delivered, unconscious, blindfolded, and wrapped in a straitjacket, to Darius. At this point no one knew the cleric still had the relic on his person.

Darius discovered the bottle hours later, after searching Omar for weapons and doc.u.ments. Darius couldn't get back into the Kashmir. And by this hour an alarm would have been raised about Ha.s.san Omar's disappearance.