Dancing in the Shadows
Ayiana
Chapter 7
The morning sun pushed its first tentative rays through the windows of Diana's loft, covering everything inside with a golden haze. She was already up; she had been for hours. It got like that sometimes, her mind so busy working over the details of a case that it refused to rest. Mark had no such problems. He was still snoring in the next room.
"Did the second set of prints match the first?" Diana held the phone tucked into her shoulder while she snipped out another newspaper photo of Catherine Chandler. "You've had that lamp for a week now."
"Yeah, it looks like it. But Diana, I don’t know what they are." Billy yawned loudly.
She suspected the yawn was intended for her benefit, but she ignored it, more interested in his comment than his lack of sleep. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means I can’t identify them."
"That's what everybody keeps saying, but what does it mean?" She dropped the scissors and pinned the picture on her bulletin board. "How can they not know what they are? They'refingerprints!"
"I don’t know, yet." She heard a muffled thud followed by a clink of metal against glass. "We’re still working on it."
Diana stifled a frustrated curse. "Look Billy, just call Russ and have him take a look at them."
"Isn’t he retired?"
"Yeah, but he’ll come out for this." He'd be like a grizzly bear whose hibernation had been interrupted, but— "Just tell him I told you to call."
"Yeah, fine. Whatever. Now, what about the memorial service? You want pictures of everybody?"
"Yes, I want pictures of everybody." Stupid question of the day, she thought. Hopefully it would be the only one.
"You want the prints today, I assume?"
Or not. "Uh huh."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"No, that’s it."
"I’ll see you there, then."
She hung up the phone and took a long drink of coffee, her eyes on the picture she'd just pinned up. Where did you get those cuts? And what doctor stitched them up?
Behind her, she heard the faint sounds that meant Mark was up. A moment later, his hands settled on her shoulders and he began to knead the stress-tightened muscles. She leaned back, relaxing into him.
"Did you sleep at all?" he asked quietly.
"A little."
Sighing, he dropped his hands, and a moment later she heard a faint metallic clatter in the kitchen as he prepared his own mug of coffee.
Her eyes returned to Catherine Chandler's grainy image. Tell me your story, she thought. Tell me what happened to you.
********************
After breakfast, Catherine and Vincent found Father in his study. He looked up from a small piece of paper he'd been studying, concern in his eyes.
"Catherine. Vincent. Come in."
Vincent held a chair for Catherine, but instead of taking a seat for himself, he leaned against hers. Father waited until they were settled before handing a newspaper clipping to Vincent. "This arrived a few minutes ago."
Vincent read it without comment and passed it on to Catherine.
She noticed the picture first, a grainy reprint of herself from some society function a couple of years earlier. It was accompanied by a brief article. She scanned it quickly.
"A memorial service?" She handed it back to Father as a frisson of superstitious dread tingled along her spine. "But why?"
"I thought you might know," Father said.
"No, I don’t." Her arm throbbed beneath the bandages, and she shifted it in its sling, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"You were badly injured," Vincent said. "Perhaps they just assumed—"
"Joe would never give up on me. Never. And neither would Jenny." But if they hadn't given up on her, why would they plan a funeral? And then suddenly she understood. "What if the service is a ruse? A ploy to make people think I’m dead?"
"Why would anybody do such a thing?" Father asked.
"So that whoever's after me will stop looking." But as she looked at Father, a horrible realization came to her. "But it won’t work. Damn it!"
"Why?" Vincent asked.
"John Moreno," she said. "He’s dirty."
"The District Attorney?" Father was shocked. "But you’ve always spoken highly of him."
"I respected him. I thought he was one of the good guys." There was an old-fashioned fountain pen on the table, a match for the one Vincent kept in his chamber. Catherine picked it up, turning it end over end in her hand. "He was there the day I was taken," she said quietly. She put the pen down and pushed it away. "They came after me in the parking garage," she said. "But I ran. I thought if I could get back upstairs, back to my office, I could call for help. "
She remembered her relief when the elevator doors had opened and her dismay when she'd discovered the price of her misplaced loyalty. "I made it to the elevator, and when the doors opened at my floor, he was standing there." She shook her head. "I thought it meant I was safe, but there were two men with him. They’d been hiding around the corner, so I didn't see them until it was too late." The pain of Moreno's betrayal was almost as acute now as it had been then. "And he just turned and walked away. I couldn’t believe it."
Without warning, Vincent spun away to pace the chamber with long angry strides.
"Vincent?" She stood up and stepped in front of him, putting her hand on his arm. "There was nothing you could've done."
"I should have been there, Catherine."
"You couldn't have known. The bond was closed, remember?"
"But why? Always before that we could rely on the bond, trust in it to keep you safe. And then suddenly it was gone and you were lost to me!" There was such anguish in his eyes as he covered her hand with his that she instinctively leaned closer.
"I've been thinking about that," Father said quietly. "And I believe I may know what happened."
Vincent turned without releasing Catherine's hand.
"Tell us, Father."
"Your pregnancy, Catherine."
Catherine blinked. "My pregnancy?"
"A woman’s body undergoes a great number of changes during pregnancy," Father said. "Physical and psychological. It's possible that some of those changes might have temporarily blocked your connection."
Catherine thought back to when Vincent had first commented about not being able to sense her. It had been shortly after his breakdown in the cave. Shortly after . . .
As the memories flooded her mind, Vincent tensed, his fingers tightening almost convulsively over hers. He was feeling what she was feeling, maybe even seeing flashes of the things that she had seen that day in the cave. Giving him an apologetic glance, she turned to Father.
"If it was the pregnancy," she asked, "why didn’t the bond come back after the baby was born?"
"It can take several days after a delivery for the imbalances to begin to correct themselves." He seemed quite pleased with himself, as though he had solved a great mystery. "Yes, I think that's exactly what happened."
Catherine felt a rush of relief. She'd been worried that the return of their bond might be temporary. But Father's explanation made sense. Maybe it hadn't been Vincent's illness that had caused their separation after all. At least, not exclusively.
And then, all at once, she realized what she had done.
Had the mysterious, empathic bond been a factor in any other relationship, she would have examined her own role in its existence. But because it was Vincent—because of the very differences in him that she so consistently ignored—she had arbitrarily assigned him sole responsibility for it. And when for some reason he could no longer sense her thoughts and feelings, she had assumed it was because of his illness, and therefore somehow his fault. It never even occurred to her to look for a different explanation—even when a perfectly reasonable alternative was staring her in the face.
How could she have been so self-centered?
Appalled by the injustice she had unwittingly committed against him, she dropped back into the chair, wincing when she jarred her arm.
"Catherine?" Vincent's voice came to her as though from a distance. "Tell me."
But could she tell him? And would he think less of her if she did? She was so caught up in her thoughts that she was only dimly aware of a murmured exchange between Vincent and Father, followed by Father's departure.
"All that time, Vincent. All that time I thought it was you. You couldn't remember things, and you were so weak. I just assumed—" She didn't know how to begin to explain what she had done, much less why she found it so upsetting.
She got to her feet, too restless to sit still. "I've always insisted that you were more human than most people I know, and when you tried to explain that it wasn't so, I brushed it off."
He was so beautiful, so kind and gentle, and he loved her—accepting her for who she was but always encouraging her to move beyond that, to grow and learn and experience the world in every way she could. How could she have done so much less for him?
"It was the same with our bond. I treasured it, reveled in it, sometimes even took advantage of it."
"Catherine—"
She interrupted him with a shake of her head, needing to say all of it before her courage failed her.
"But I never once wondered if there was something about me that made it work!" She shook her head in helpless frustration. "I just accepted it! As though I had some kind of right to it!"
She stopped her pacing to look over at him. "You deserve so much more than that."
He started to reach out to her, but she moved away, pacing again.
"And our bond isn't the only time it's happened," she said, quieter now as she began to understand, really understand, how hard she had made things for him. "Every time something happened that came from that other part of you, I either rationalized it, or ignored it, or took advantage of it—without admitting to myself where it came from or what part I played in it."
She looked over at him again, forcing herself to use the descriptors that gave the otherness about him rare voice. Tawny mane instead of golden hair. Leonine features instead of sculpted cheekbones. Feline grace. Fangs. Claws. Fur. These traits of his were visible, and in her eyes, beautiful. But there were other differences, too, differences she couldn't see or touch, and those were the ones she had ignored.
It was, ironically, a direct counterpoint to Father's own insistence on Vincent's otherness.
No wonder he struggled so. What chance could he possibly have to establish his own identity when he was caught between two such diametrically opposed viewpoints?
Going to him, she reached for his hand. "I once told you," she said softly, "that these were beautiful hands. That they were my hands." She examined the razor sharp claws and thickly furred fingers. "But they're not mine, they're yours. They are different, and they can be dangerous. But they're beautiful, too."
She took a deep breath and looked up to meet his eyes. "You aren't an animal, Vincent." She deliberately chose words he and Father had always avoided—clear, flat statements that didn't disguise the truth. "But you aren't entirely human, either. I know that. And I accept it as part of what makes you who you are. And however you choose to define yourself, know that I love you,all of you, and that I'll do my best to encourage you to seek your own destiny—whatever that may be."
There were tears in her eyes, and in his as well, and when he reached out to her, she allowed herself to be gathered into his arms.
"Can you ever forgive me?" she asked him.
"Catherine . . ." He sighed and rested his head against the top of hers. "You need only forgive yourself."
She leaned into him, wondering that he could dismiss such a terrible injustice so easily.
They stood together until a noise at the top of the stairs brought her head up. Father had returned. He balanced a tray with one hand while he leaned on his cane. "Vincent, would you mind—?"
But Vincent had already stepped away from Catherine to help, taking the tray from Father and setting it on the table. Father settled in his chair and set about pouring tea.
"One of our helpers sent this down," he said. "French vanilla." He handed a mug to Vincent and another to Catherine. "William assures me it tastes just like hot chocolate." His voice was light. Conversational. And Catherine was grateful to him for his tact. But before they could do more than taste the sweet-smelling beverage, there was a scamper of youthful footsteps and Kipper ran in, only to pull up short when he saw that Father had company.
"I'm sorry, Father."
"It's quite all right, Kipper. Do you have a message for me?"
"Oh. Yes." Kipper had been staring at Catherine, but at Father's words he hurried forward, coming down the steps to hand Father a slip of paper. Unfolding it, Father read the brief message.
"Yes," he said. "Please tell her I'll be there in a moment."
"Yes, Father." And with a final backward glance at Catherine, Kipper disappeared back into the tunnels.
"I don't think the children quite believe that you are real," Vincent said with tolerant amusement.
Catherine smiled. "I'm not quite sure I believe it myself."
"So," Father said. "What are we to do about the memorial service?"
Catherine had forgotten all about the service in the discussion that came after. Now her gaze slid back to the newspaper clipping.
"I think," she said, "that it might be best if we acted as though it were true."
"Yes," Father said. "That's what I thought, as well. Vincent?"
"For my part, Father, I'm only glad that she is safe."
Father nodded and pushed himself up from his chair. "All right, then. Those of us who are willing to take part in the illusion will attend the funeral. A good turnout might go far toward convincing people that you really are gone."
********************
Rain, Diana thought. There should be rain, not this bright sunshine that gleamed on the empty casket and made the mourners’ tears sparkle like shattered glass. The only good thing about it was that it gave her an excuse to hide behind the dark anonymity of her sunglasses while she observed the arriving guests.
Joe Maxwell already had a seat in the front row beside a pale, slender woman with short dark hair and red-rimmed eyes. Who was she? Friend? Relative? The two of them had their heads together, talking quietly about something while the woman dabbed at her eyes with a limp tissue. Diana made a mental note to ask Joe who she was.
More people arrived. Some came alone, others in pairs or small groups. A few cried openly, but most just stared at the casket for a while before finding seats in the rows of folding chairs. All of them looked shell-shocked. It was an expression Diana had seen before on the faces of those who mourned an unexpected loss.
Many of the mourners wore clothes from a bygone era. Faded, worn, and ill-fitting, the outfits looked like they'd been culled from garbage dumpsters and homeless shelters. Who were these people? And where did they come from? The distinguished-looking older gentleman especially, the one who stood for so long by the graveside. Was this the elusive Vincent?
Diana shook her head, discarding the idea. He didn't have the look of a bereft lover. Oh, he looked sad. And wise in the ways of the world. This probably wasn't the first time he'd been to a funeral such as this one. But he wasn't desolate, and Diana imagined that the Vincent who had written such beautiful words to his Catherine would be virtually unable to function beneath the weight of her loss.
Elliot Burch arrived, alone and late, in a chauffeured limousine. He stared at the casket for a long time, and there was something lost and broken in his eyes. He, too, had loved Catherine Chandler.
She must have been an extraordinary woman to captivate three such men—one who gave her a fulfilling career, one who gave her Shakespeare, and one who would have given her the world. Had it been difficult for her to choose among them? And what was it about Vincent that had ultimately captured her heart?
Maybe, Diana thought as the simple service got under way, Vincent hadn't been able to bring himself to come at all. A man who loved a woman as much as he seemed to have loved Catherine might find it impossible to accept her death. The thought was an interesting one, and she looked up, her eyes drifting past the mourners to the city beyond.
No, Vincent wasn't here. Vincent was out there, somewhere. Searching for his Catherine.
********************
While the rest of the community attended the service Above, Vincent and Catherine visited the Chamber of the Falls. The stone cavern with its high cliffs and tumbling waterfalls was a magical place, a safe place.
Vincent sat on the floor with his back against a granite boulder and his arm around Catherine, cushioning her from the unforgiving stone. He sensed that she was deeply content, and yet there were shadings of sadness too, like dark threads in a golden tapestry. Those dark places were with her always, now, and he knew that they would remain until their son was safely home.
He reached into his pocket and gathered her necklace in his hand. The crystal caught the torchlight, fragmenting it into a rainbow of colors as he held it out to her.
"My necklace!" She sat up and turned, cupping her hand around it. "I never thought I'd see it again."
That she placed such value in his gift warmed him. "I found it," he said, "in a cave, far beneath the catacombs."
Her eyes darkened with concern. "You went back?"
With gentle hands, he lifted the chain over her head and settled the crystal into place against her throat. "I thought perhaps I would find some sense of you there." He had hoped he might also find his memories, but instead he'd found only shadows.
There were marks," he said, "in the dirt. Where we—" He looked away, his eyes going to the waterfall. "I found it there. And it reminded me of how your love opened the world for me." He had come dangerously close to giving in to his darker side that day, to leaving his very humanity in the ancient dust of that dark and silent cave. "Finding your necklace, and remembering all that it meant, gave me the strength to go on."
"Then I'm glad I lost it," she said softly. "Because if you hadn't found it, and I had lost you . . ." She lowered her head to his shoulder. "I can't lose you, Vincent. Not ever again."
"Never again," he agreed. His mouth brushed against her hair, and when he inhaled, her scent filled his lungs. He closed his eyes, every sense attuned to the wonder of her presence in his arms.
For a while, they listened to the underground river in silence, but there was something he needed to say to her, something he'd never said before—not because he hadn't wanted to, but because it was so important that she be free, always, to pursue her own destiny.
"Catherine," he said, and her name felt like moonbeams on his tongue. "There was a moment, when the way was still new, and I was afraid to hope. You put your hand on mine, and nothing ever felt like that to me. Like your touch."
He still felt that sense of wonder sometimes. She would touch him, or smile at him, and for an instant it would be as if he were no different from other any other man.
"I wanted to weep. But you turned. And you looked at me. Your eyes were filled with dancing light, and I was bathed in your warmth. And I believed, in that moment, that even for me all things were possible. In that moment, in your light, I felt what it means to be beautiful."
Catherine tilted her head to look up at him. "You are beautiful," she said. "And all the things you want are possible."
Her eyes were clear and bright, and as he looked into them, he thought he saw eternity in their depths. He pressed a kiss against her hairline.
"We promised always to share the truth," he said. "Always. But there is a truth beyond anything . . . beyond everything I've ever known, ever dreamed. A truth—" He lifted his gaze to the waterfalls with their shifting patterns of light and shadow. "—that I could never share with you."
"Why?" There was no accusation in her voice, only curiosity.
"Because in sharing it, I risked tying you to me forever."
"And you didn't want me?"
"No." He was quick to reassure her. "Never that." Her uncertainty disturbed him. It was unlike her to have such doubts.
"These tunnels are my home, Catherine. My destiny. I will never live beyond their boundaries. But you—" despite himself, his arms tightened around her. He knew what he was about to say was true, and yet his heart cried out against it. "You deserve to be free."
"Vincent . . ." She waited until he met her eyes. "Don't you understand yet? When I'm with you is the only time I feel free, the only time I'm truly happy."
For an instant, it was all he could do not to crush her against him. Did she know how deeply she affected him? He didn’t have the words to tell her, and yet somehow, looking into her eyes, he sensed that she understood.
"Now." She settled back against him again with a small sound of contentment. "What is this truth you've been keeping from me?"
"It is the truth," he said, drawing her close and resting his cheek against the silky softness of her hair, "of how deeply I love you."
