PART TWO

NOW AND

FOREVER

Chapter One

Los Angeles, 1995

He stood on the upper balcony of a mansion located in the hills overlooking Los Angeles, staring at the lights that stretched away as far as the eye could see. So many changes in the world since he had gone to ground half a century ago, he mused. Miraculous changes in science, in people and places. So many changes, while he had remained the same.

Upon rising from his fifty-five year rest, he had spent weeks reading newspapers and magazines from the world over in an effort to bring himself up to date. Only when he felt he had learned enough to function in this new age had he left Salamanca. He could not bring himself to stay in the castle now that Sara was gone.

His first instinct had been to go home to Italy, but nothing there had seemed familiar; the village where he had grown up no longer existed, and so he had left there, as well, and come to the United States, where there would be nothing to remind him of Sara, or of the life he had left behind so many years ago.

He had been a part of this new and modern world for less than a year, and already he didn't like it. Everything seemed transient, rushed, tawdry. Twentieth-century man seemed to be in a terrible rush. Food was cooked in minutes in microwave ovens, clothes no longer needed to be ironed, airplanes carried passengers from one end of the world to the other in a matter of hours. Everyone seemed in a hurry all the time, almost as if they were afraid to slow down for fear they would realize they had sacrificed quality for quantity, serenity for chaos.

There were, however, a few things the modern age had wrought that he liked very much. Television was one of them. Sports cars were another. One of the first things he had done upon arriving in the United States was to buy an automobile. He had learned to drive as effortlessly as he learned everything. He loved the speed, the thrill of driving a sleek sports car at a hundred miles an hour down a narrow ribbon of road in the dark of night, the countryside whipping past in a blur.

And yet, as much as he loved fast cars, there was no spiritual communion between machine and man as there was between horse and rider. The dark red Jaguar didn't nuzzle his arm or whinny a soft welcome. He didn't find the same pleasure behind the wheel of the car that he found on the back of his horse, and yet he loved the soft purr of the Jag's engine, the feel of the wind in his face as he roared down the highway.

He had been shocked by the change in fashion. Women paraded around in scandalously short pants and tops that barely covered their private parts, flaunting their bodies. Even dresses revealed more than they covered. And hair styles - he had been shocked the first time he had seen a woman with her hair cut above her ears. The fact that it was dyed a bright orange had hardly registered.

It had taken less time to grow accustomed to the change in men's attire. His clothing was sadly outdated, his flowing cloak no longer in style. He glanced down at the black T-shirt and snug-fitting jeans he now wore. He had to admit there was a certain comfort to these clothes that he liked, though they seemed shoddy when compared to the fine wools and linens he had once been accustomed to.

Yes, the world had changed. At first, he had been sorely tempted to go to ground again, certain that a 493-year-old vampire would never be able to adapt to such a fast-paced life.

But then he had discovered there were hordes of homeless people living on the city streets, men and women who would never be missed. A human buffet of sorts, he mused with a wry grin. Had he been so inclined, he could have killed and feasted every night without fear of reprisal.

He turned his back on the view and stared through the sliding glass door that led into the dark house beyond. Dark, he thought, like his life.

She had been dead for more than half a century, yet he felt her loss as keenly as if she had passed away only the day before.

Sara Jayne. If she had ever regretted her decision to spend her life with him, she had never admitted it.

As the years began to take their toll, he had begged her to accept the Dark Gift, but she had steadfastly refused. He had watched her grow old, watched her hair turn gray and her eyes grow dim while he stayed forever young, and yet he had loved her till the day she died, loved her wholly and completely. Toward the end, when he knew she had only hours left, he had begged her to pray for him, to ask whatever deity she believed in to be merciful to him.

They had shared 54 years together before she died in his arms. Even then Sara's last thought had been for him. Remembering how alone he had been when he first came to her in the orphanage, she had implored him to forgive her for leaving him behind, had urged him to find someone else to love.

He had buried her in the small graveyard behind the castle, in the coffin he had never used. And because he could not bear to leave her there, alone in the darkness, because he could not bear to face the world without her, he had taken care of his financial affairs, sold all his property save the castle, and then burrowed into the ground beside the casket that held her remains. He had slept there for over fifty years, sleeping away the years in the hope that the pain of her loss would have lessened when he emerged again.

It had been a futile hope; he had risen to a changed world, but his grief remained the same.

Now, gazing up at the stars, he imagined his Sara in heaven, smiling and serene, forever young, forever beautiful.

More than once, steeped in loneliness and despair, he had considered ending his existence; had he believed he had any chance at all of being reunited with Sara, he would have walked out into the sunlight years ago.

But he knew that nothing good awaited him when his existence finally ended. The best he could hope for was eternal darkness; his worst fear was that he would meet Nina in the bowels of an endless, fiery, unforgiving hell.

Upon rising from the earth, he had spent a month in the castle, but the emptiness, the loneliness, the knowledge that she was forever gone, had weighed heavily upon him. It had been torment of the worst kind to walk through the rooms she had brightened with her laughter and know she would never return, to know that she would never again be there, smiling to greet him when he rose each evening. He had arranged with a lawyer to handle his financial affairs as needed, and closed the castle.

He had spent his last night in Salamanca kneeling at Sara's graveside, bidding her a silent farewell as he relived the precious years they had spent together, and then he had fled Salamanca.

For a time, he had wandered from country to country, marveling at the changes that had taken place in the world while he had rested in the earth. Empires had crumbled, civilizations had disappeared, countries that had once been enemies had become allies. There had been much to learn, and for a time he had managed to bury his grief in the need to know. But the emptiness remained.

With a sigh, he shook his morbid thoughts from his mind. It was getting late, and the hunger was gnawing at his insides.

That, at least, had not changed.