Utana roused, but slowly. It felt as if his eyelids had been sealed shut, and his head-by the gods, his head pounded like a band of lilis drums. His knees had sunk down onto the hard, cold floor, his arms still stretched overhead and aching from being held so long in that position. His hands were numb.
And yet none of those things compared with his awareness of Brigit. She was near, and the realization filled him with an instant wave of joy and relief, which was immediately overwhelmed by horror. If she was here, she was in danger.
And even as he realized that, the door to his prison opened and she was brought in. Chained, as he was, at ankles and wrists, men holding her on either side. Utana rose and lunged toward her as the men shoved her inside and she fell to her knees, but his chains brought him up short.
She seemed unharmed, and fury rose from her like steam from a boiling pot as she lifted her head and turned their way. For the first time Utana saw the blindfold around her eyes.
"Well? Aren't you going to say hello to your boyfriend?" Nashmun said to her.
Brigit looked toward Utana, as if sensing him there. Her nostrils twitched as if she were sniffing the air.
"I am here," Utana said. "And more sorry than I can tell you that these pigs have you now."
"We would have had her sooner or later, anyway, Utana," Nashmun said. "Don't feel too badly. Besides, you're going to be able to make her stay with us a whole lot less unpleasant."
"No," Brigit whispered, her head swiveling to follow Nashmun's voice.
The man smiled, a grim, evil smile. "You see? She's figured it out already. But I suppose I'll have to explain it to you, Utana." He nudged Brigit with the toe of his shoe and leaned closer, as if sharing a secret with her. "He's a little slow, since we had to drug him. You know, to keep him from blowing us all to hell and gone." Then he shrugged and went on. "Tonight the Chosen are going to begin suffering untold agonies. Their cries will summon the vampires here. And when they arrive, you, Utana, are going to kill them."
"I have already told you, I will not."
"Yes, you will. Say it. Say, 'I'll do whatever you say.'"
"Never."
Nashmun nodded to one of his henchmen, who had come to join him, standing over Brigit, who was still kneeling on the floor. He drew a blade from his belt, then, bending, clasped her face hard in his hand.
"Leave her!" Utana shouted.
But the blade moved closer. Brigit flinched as its cold steel touched her cheek. Utana surged, yanking uselessly at the chains that held him, even trying yet again to drum up the power from within to blast the bastard into the next life. But it was not to be found. No beam emerged from his eyes. He could only watch in agony as the blade drew a bloody path from high on Brigit's cheekbone all the way to her chin, in a close imitation of the scar Nashmun bore upon his own evil face.
Brigit clenched her jaw, refusing to cry out. But Utana howled his rage. The blade moved away from her. The henchman wiped it against his shirtsleeve, first one side and then the other. And the cut in Brigit's cheek trickled blood, scarlet rivulets running down her beautiful face.
"I will kill you for this!" Utana promised. "You," he said with a nod at the henchman. "And then you," he added to Nashmun. "But for you it will be slow."
"It'll be slow for your mongrel pet here, too, Utana," Nashmun replied. "Slow and excruciating. Oh, wait, that's a pretty big word for you, isn't it? It means it's going to hurt like hell. And I promise you, I will make you watch me skin her alive if you do not do exactly what I tell you."
Utana drew a shuddering breath.
"I'll leave you two to think it over," Nashmun said. "The night is waning, so we're going to have to wait to begin the fun. It's nearly dawn. But tonight..." He laughed and rubbed his hands together. "Tonight we're going to wipe out every remaining vampire in this country and fulfill my life's work. Nice, huh?"
And with that he jerked his head toward the door. His henchmen left the room, with Nashmun following right behind.
Brigit lifted her head, brought her chained hands together and pushed the useless blindfold from her face. She blinked her vision into focus and saw Utana there, chained to the wall. Above him was the sloping glass of the skylights they'd seen from outside, darkened now, and opaque.
She lowered her eyes to the man again, happier to see him than she'd ever been to see anyone in her entire life.
Then she gasped at the sight of the deep, ugly burn on his abdomen, just above the hip bone. The sight of it made her wince in remembered agony. She'd felt that burn.
Lifting her gaze from his side, she met his beautiful onyx eyes, and she saw the anguish there. For her. She knew it was all for her.
But despite everything else, her dominant emotion was one of relief. She pulled herself to her feet and ran to him, pressing her body to his, running her manacled hands up and down his chest as she inhaled his scent. She tried to smile, but it hurt her wounded cheek. "I knew you weren't plotting against us with that scar-faced bastard."
He tried to embrace her, but the chains stopped his progress. "Is there someone who does not know this?"
Raising her head, looking into his eyes, she nodded. "My family. My brother, J.W.-excuse me, James." She poured on the sarcasm. "They all believe you returned here to help Gravenham-Bail plot our destruction."
"All...except for you."
She nodded. "All except for me." Tilting her head to one side, she asked, "But why haven't you blasted them by now? Was Scarface telling the truth about that? They drugged you?"
"I have tried to raise my energy, to send the beam from my eyes to destroy them. They have...done something to my power. Taken it with their...inject-shun."
"No, Utana. They don't have the know-how to take your power from you, only block it for a while." She stepped away from him regretfully, looking him up and down first, almost unable to look anywhere else, she was so glad to see him again. Still, she forced her eyes away and scanned the room around him. She spotted a hypodermic needle on the floor and bent to pick it up, her chains jangling. There were still droplets clinging to the inside. "Is this what they stuck you with?" she asked, holding it up.
He nodded.
"It's a drug. They have all kinds, you know. The DPI has been experimenting on captive vampires for decades. They have a tranquilizer that works to weaken them, to inhibit their powers. I imagine this is some variation of that same drug, only probably a hell of a lot stronger, to make it work on someone as powerful as you."
"Can it...?"
He was worried that he'd lost his power forever, she realized, and hastened to reassure him that wasn't the case. "It'll wear off. I doubt even they know how long that might take." She glanced at the door. "You can bet your ass they won't take any chances on any of them being in the line of fire when that happens, though. But then again, they can't keep doping you, can they? They need you up and running at full strength if they expect you to blast any vampires tonight."
He lowered his head, his jaw clenching.
"Don't look like that." She lifted her chained hands to touch his face. She couldn't seem to stop touching him. "It's not as if you're really going to do it."
He couldn't reach her, and she knew he wanted to touch her as badly as she did him. It must be so frustrating. She moved to his side, and immediately he pushed his hand through her hair, stroking it gently. "I cannot stand by and watch them harm you."
"They can't harm me. What the hell are they going to do? Cut me some more? Look, Utana. Look at my face." She turned her cheek toward him. "It's already healing. It'll be as good as new by the time they come back here."
"And yet you felt the pain of his blade."
"I will gladly feel pain if it means my people get to live."
He tugged her shoulder, so that she moved closer to him, and then she leaned against his body, resting her head on his broad, powerful chest. It rumbled beneath her ears when he spoke again.
"I have thought long on the things you told me, Brigit. About how no man can truly know the minds of the gods. About how the words inscribed in the tablets of old are no more than man's imagination, his attempts to understand that which is not meant for him to understand."
"I knew you would. You're one of the most intelligent men I've ever met. I knew you wouldn't just dismiss my opinions without thinking them over."
"I know the gods. They are not cruel without cause. I did disobey them, but the Anunaki as I know them would never punish an entire race for one man's crime. It makes more sense to believe that man misunderstood what befell me, then recorded his misunderstanding as if it were the truth."
"Because you were immortal, you could not die," she said softly. "If someone had come along after that beheading and put your head back on your body, maybe you would have healed and lived again. Like I said before, maybe it was because of what the desert witch did. Maybe burning your body as she did, believing that she was helping you, she actually doomed you to all those years of suffering. And maybe annihilating my people wouldn't make one bit of difference to your state of being, Utana."
"There is no way to know for certain," he said. "All the same, my Brigit, and whether your words are true or not, I had decided before I returned to this place that I could not and would not raise my hand against your people again. Regardless of the consequences to me. I told my gods as much."
She lifted her head from his chest, staring up into his eyes. "Why?"
"Because bringing you pain is more than I can bear to do."
He lowered his head until his lips brushed across hers. "Never," he whispered against her mouth, "has a great king been brought so low by one so slight. My heart, little Brigit, you hold in your hands. The mighty heart of an immortal king is more fragile than a butterfly's wings in your grasp. No arrow, no weapon, could pierce its stonelike shell. And yet at your touch, at your kiss, it quivers like a frightened lamb. I find there is nothing I will not do if you only ask it. These things I admit to you with great trepidation."
"Shut up and kiss me, King."
His lips pulled into a semblance of a smile, and he lowered his head and kissed her deeply and thoroughly. It killed her that he couldn't wrap his arms around her, but she twisted hers around his neck and kissed him back all the same. Passion rose up like heated mercury, filling her and spilling out. He obviously felt it, too, because he was as aroused as hell, and there was not a damn thing they could do about it.
Breathless, she lay against him and held him.
"I am sorry it has come to this, my love," he told her.
"Don't be sorry. This-" she said, touching his waist with her manacled hand "-this feeling between us...it's good. It's really, really good." She blinked back tears. "The best thing I've ever known. The best thing in my life."
"In mine, as well. Now and always."
Straightening, Brigit said, "All we have to do is figure a way out of this mess."
"If you can get the Chosens out by day, while the vahmpeers rest, so that there is nothing left to lure them to here, I can take care of the rest, my beautiful Brigit."
She saw him staring intently across the room and turned to see what he was looking at. A row of massive white tanks lined the far side of the basement room, the boiler sitting a safe distance from them.
What was he thinking?
"How the hell am I going to do that?" she asked.
"With your power."
She frowned at him, and he smiled softly. "I have learned much from you, Brigit. Now it is time for me to give you some knowledge in exchange. And it is knowledge you have been needing for all of your young life."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Utana."
"Your power. I began to tell you this before your brother arrived to interrupt me. Your power to... ''splode' things," he said, using her own childhood term and smiling. "You already have it. I gave it back to you when we were still in the palace house with Nashmun."
She frowned. "No. No, you gave me James's power. The power of healing."
Utana stared into her eyes, willing her to understand something, she thought, and yet she didn't.
"Are you saying I can use the power of healing to get us out of this mess?"
"I'm saying that you can use your power of ''sploding' to get us out of this mess."
She blinked rapidly. "But I don't have it."
"Yes, you do. Your power and your brother's are one and the same."
She felt her eyes widen, her brows rise. A hum filled her head as she felt her reality beginning to tilt on its axis. "Our powers are opposites."
"They are but opposite ends of the same stick," he said.
"I don't...I don't understand."
"Brigit, when you call up that beam of light...of...energy..."
He was taking his time, she knew. Searching for the right words to make her understand what he was trying to tell her.
"When you channel it through your body and out through your eyes, it comes to you from the very same source that your brother's power of healing comes to him. It is no more than your intention and focus that determines what the power can do."
She actually staggered backward a few steps, blinking almost sightlessly at Utana. "That can't be true."
"It is true, Brigit. You are no more the bad twin than James is the good one. You never have been. You are both channels for an energy that is neither good nor bad, but simply is."
Brigit felt as if her head was swimming. She was actually dizzy, and her eyes were watering with tears at the enormity of what he was telling her.
"Try," he said. "Prove to yourself it is so. But...quietly, if you can."
Blinking, still stunned, she was determined to put Utana's revelation to the test, though nearly certain it would fail. "What if they're watching? Listening?"
"Already I have determined there are no such devices in this room, as there were in my former bedchamber," he said. "Go ahead, try it. Direct the healing beam out through your eyes, instead of your hands. Keep the beam narrow and tight, and only emit a little, lest you alert them."
Nodding, nervous, Brigit held her wrists up in front of her and focused her eyes on the clasp that locked the iron manacles around them. She opened her channels, as she had before. The energy flooded into her, both from above and from below. It met and melded in her center, and then she mentally guided it upward, to her eyes. The beam shot from her killer gaze just as it had before-but milder. It emerged soft and yellow-gold, then turned orange and then red as she poured more force into it. And still she kept it tight and thin, controlling the stream in a way she had never been able to do before. Sparks rained from the iron bracelets, and then they fell to the floor at her feet.
She was breathing heavily, rapidly, staring at her bared wrists and the iron on the floor at her feet. "This isn't possible."
"It's more than possible. It's true."
"But...but this changes everything." He nodded at her as she shifted her gaze back to his eyes again. "It changes my entire life. Everything I ever thought I was is...it's different now."
"I am sorry I did not tell you sooner. I only realized in the mansion after I was injured, when you asked for your brother's power instead of your own, that you did not know they were one and the same. And to tell you then would have allowed you to kill me."
Tears were brimming in her eyes now, hot and acidic. She quickly divested herself of her leg irons, burning her foot a little in the process, and then she flung herself against Utana, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his face. "Thank you. You can't know what this means to me."
He smiled into her eyes. "Finally I have given you something besides grief and anger."
"More than you know." She let go of him, then stepped back and aimed her deadly stare at the chains that held him. "Wait, Brigit!"
He barked the warning so suddenly that it made her jump. She shot him a questioning look.
"Nashmun told me there were...sen-sores within my chains. He said he would know if I broke them free."
"Who cares if he knows? We'll be long gone by then. I'll blast them, and we'll get the hell out of here."
"And then what will we have gained? He will still have the Chosens to torture, to use as a lure for the vahmpeers. No. We must not alert him. We must let him believe we are contained here. I will stay, to keep that illusion intact. Perhaps he will not return to this room until he is ready to use me-in case the...inject-shun has worn off and my powers have returned. You must go."
"Go...where?"
"Up," he said. He nodded toward the tanks, and she looked farther this time, seeing the furnace and the wide ductwork leading up to the hospital above. "You must go up into the higher levels of this tower. Up to where the Chosens are held. And you must remove them. Return for me only when they are safe."
"But what if-"
"Perhaps you will not even need to return for me. Perhaps this...drug will wear away as you have predicted and my strength will return. Either way, we must not alert Nashmun that you are free until the Chosens are safe."
"Utana, I don't want to leave you here!"
"I know." He smiled, lowering his head and kissing the top of hers. "I know, but your people must be saved. Please, do as I say, Brigit. It is my way of making amends to those I have wronged. Please?"
She lifted her eyes to his, tears streaming now. "If anything happens to you, Utana, I don't think I can-"
"I feel...love for you, my Brigit. A love more powerful than armies or kingdoms or the gods themselves. Know that. Know it well."
Tears streaming, she pressed her face against his. "I love you, too, Utana. Never thought I'd be saying that at all, much less to you, but it's true. I love you."
He kissed her. She tasted the salt of her tears on his lips-perhaps mingled with some of his own. For a long, long time he kissed her, and when he lifted his head at last, she saw him blinking quickly to dry his eyes. No doubt in his time kings didn't cry.
"Now," he said softly, his voice thick and hoarse, "I will tell you all I observed when I walked among the Chosens."
