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"Does something amuse you?"
"I have two moths crawling on my arm. " She laughed as a third, black moth joined them. "Make that three. "
He smiled. "They are attracted to your warmth. "
"Or my sweat. " She propped her arm against her thigh. "Who came up with the name 'Darkyn,' anyway? Sounds like something you'd title a bad B movie. "
"You have to understand that we were born in a dark age, surrounded by superstitious, fearful people," he said, and from there told her about the terrible plague that had turned infected humans into the "dark Kyn. "
Nick absorbed every word. Some of it made sense with what she knew about the vampires, but the rest sounded like something out of a historical-religious thriller.
"So you're a priest. " And she'd had sex with him twice now. More crimes to add to the long list she was hauling around. The moths flew from her arm as she opened and took a drink from the plastic canteen she'd filled with water at the inn. "Don't you think you should have mentioned this a little earlier?"
"I was forced to leave the church when I became Kyn," he told her. "I have not been a priest for many years. "
"Good. I mean, I'm sorry you quit or got fired or whatever happened. " High time to find out more details. "Are you married?"
"We do not marry. Sometimes we take a sygkenis, a life companion, but very few females rose to walk the night. Once I thought that I might…" He shrugged. "But there was never anyone who came into my heart. "
That odd hesitation made Nick think that there might have been someone special in Gabriel's past. He had been alive for so long; how could he have spent all those years alone? But at least now she knew she wasn't poaching on someone else's territory. "What was it like? Being a Templar?"
"Bernard of Clairvaux called us warriors who were 'gentler than lambs and fiercer than lions, wedding the mildness of the monk with the valor of the knight,' " Gabriel said. "But even he did not understand what we were. We took back the Temple of Solomon, but we adorned it with weapons instead of jewels. We went into battle not for fame, but for victory. We were taught to be silent, never to waste speech or action, never to laugh or gossip, never to embrace vanity or idleness. We protected the weak, the faithful, and those who could fight for themselves. We tried to take back all that was holy to us. Clairvaux said that we were many, but we lived in one house, according to one rule, with one soul and heart. Sometimes we were. "
"That's really pretty," she said, somewhat taken aback by the description of his former human calling, "but I just can't picture you reading from the Bible and handing out communion wafers. " Maybe because she'd gone down on him in the shower, and had been fantasizing about all the other things she wanted to do to him as soon as they got to his place. Do you go to hell for giving an ex-priest vampire an orgasm?
He smiled sadly. "I am sorry to say that I did not do much of that during my human life. "
She passed the canteen to him. "Can you still drink water?"
"In small amounts. " Gabriel took a sip before handing it back. "I spent most of my priesthood fighting alongside my Templar brothers in the Holy Land. We engaged in countless battles against the Saracens, but they proved too many for us. "
Too many. Nick remembered what the green man had said, and raised the canteen to her lips. "Do you dream when you sleep?"
"Kyn do not sleep, precisely. We rest our bodies. Our minds, our dreams…" He stopped and thought for a moment. "I cannot describe it adequately. I call them the nightlands. "
Hearing her own word come out of his mouth make Nick almost choke on the water.
"My friend Thierry, he can share the dreams of sleeping humans," Gabriel continued. "Even alter them. "
Had her dreams had been fiddled with? Had he manipulated her into falling in love with him? "Can all of you do that?"
"No, only Thierry. "
That made her feel a little better. "I know he's your friend and all, but that's kind of creepy. "
He made a negligent gesture. "That is being Kyn. "
"There's one other thing I don't get," Nick said, watching the moths march down her forearm in single file. "You said that your sister and some of your friend's relatives also changed into Kyn. But your sister and the others, they didn't go on the Crusades, right?" When he nodded, she added, "If this Darkyn thing really was a curse from God for what you did in the Holy Land, then they shouldn't have gotten it. "
"That has long been my own belief. " Gabriel turned toward her. "Have you found any female Kyn during your travels? My younger sister, she looks like me—"
"No. No women. Only guys. " Nick stood up, sending the trio of moths fluttering away. "We'd better get back on the road. "
Being abrupt with him made her feel like hell, but Nick had been on the verge of blurting out everything she knew about the Golden Madonna. Thank God Gabriel had reminded her why she had to keep her mouth shut. However nice and understanding he seemed, and however hot she got for his body, she had excellent reasons not to trust him. She couldn't let him get in her way, not when it came to the Madonna. If she told him everything, he might try to stop her. His own sister…
No, she told herself as she climbed on the bike. Don't go there.
"We're right outside the city," she told him. "So tell me how to get to your place from here. "
Gabriel gave her simple directions on how to reach his home, and added, "Dalente will have the grounds secured. The code for the front gate is six-one-four-seven. "
Rather than ride through Toulouse and risk drawing any unwanted attention, Nick took a narrow, winding utility road into the hills, past the pretty houses and shaded gardens of the Côte Pavée and into a more affluent, exclusive area where the homes were more of the mansion variety and the properties extended for dozens of acres.
When she found the turnoff for the dirt road Gabriel had described, she saw two old statues of lions carved from some dark marble at the other end flanking an open, rusting gate.
So much for the secured grounds.
She slowed to a stop in front of the gate and looked down a trail of weeds sprouting from the rose brick-paved drive. The house stood dark, with no lights inside or out.
It looked like utter shit, too.
"Gabriel?" Maybe she had the wrong place. "Is there, like, a huge forest behind your place?"
"Yes. Also two lions by the front gate. "
That clinched it. "Uh, how long has it been since you've seen your house?"
"I was taken in Marseilles, while I was spending the winter with my friends. Almost three years now. " He took a deep breath. "Do you smell that? Rosemary and thyme. Dalente still tends to his herb gardens. "
Nick glanced down at the fragrant herbs, which were growing wild and woody in a drainage ditch. "Uh-huh. "
She drove down the drive and parked in front of the house, which looked as if it had been completely abandoned. Most of the windows on the first floor had been broken or left open. She'd seen nicer crack houses in Paris.
Without saying anything to Gabriel, she took out her crowbar and stuck it in her back pocket along with her lock kit. "This servant of yours, does he live in town?"
"Non. He lives here. " He started toward the door and stumbled over a loosened paving stone. "Will you lend me your arm, Nicola? I do not wish to fall on my face before I step foot in the house. "
"Sure. " She grabbed her flashlight and switched it on before putting his hand on her forearm and guiding him up the stairs. "Hang on. " She pulled one of the lock picks she carried on her belt and used it to open the entry door.
"You have only to ring the bell," Gabriel told her. "My tresora will hear it in his room. "
"It's almost midnight. Let's not give the guy a heart attack. " She swept the empty front foyer with her flashlight. Mud and dirty footprints soiled the light tile floor, and spray-painted graffiti of various colors decorated the peeling wallpaper. The faint, ugly sme
ll of garbage and human waste colored the air.
"Dalente imported all of the antiques from Italy," he said as they walked inside. "As you can see, I have a particular fondness for marble statues. "
Nick aimed the flashlight's beam all over the interior, but didn't see so much as a kid's bag of marbles.
"That one. " Gabriel pointed to an empty space beside a wall scrawled with obscenities. "That is the Aphrodite I commissioned Rodin to sculpt for me. Not what the classic Greeks imagined her to look like, I know, but she is my favorite marble. Is she not lovely?"
"I've never seen anything like it. " Nick had to get him out of here. "Listen, I don't think this Dalente guy is here. Maybe we should stay in the city tonight, and deal with this tomorrow. "
"Paolo must have moved to town so he would not be so lonely. I cannot blame him; I have been absent too long. But come. " He tugged on her arm. "Let me show my home to you. "
In the receiving room, Nick ducked to avoid a snare of cobwebs floating down from a smashed chandelier and nearly tripped over a pile of crumpled bags and empty soda cans.
"The family rooms are upstairs, but most of my personal art collection is kept on display in the room to the right of the stairs. " He gestured in that direction. "I have a small arrangement of Pissarros and Renoirs over the fireplace, but with all the statuary my tresora insists on calling it 'the marble room. '"
She stopped him at the threshold and looked down at the crumple of tinfoil and an empty, broken syringe glittering next to her right foot. The room, like the foyer, had been stripped.
She trained her flashlight on the walls and saw some piles of rags and an old crate topped with candle stubs. Along the walls were rows of light, square-shaped patches where paintings had once hung. A splash-shaped stain and a lingering odor indicated someone who had recently occupied the room had been violently sick. Another person had answered an urgent call of nature in the corner, several times.