He didn’t speak for a moment. “Very dark. Jelak wasn’t far off about the vampire gods.”
“And the power,” Jane said. “I was thinking about what you said about Jelak believing that invisibility was part of the powers he’d attain after resurrection. That was too over-the-top for me to accept. But then I started to think about the way you could move around wherever you wanted. If anyone stopped you, then you just changed their perception. That’s a form of invisibility.”
“Legend has a habit of twisting truth,” Caleb said. “But Jelak had enough truth mixed with legend to fuel that ambition.”
“You’re a member of the Devanez family Megan told us about?”
“Yes, the Ridondo brothers fled Spain during the Inquisition and settled in Fiero. They decided that the only way they could keep themselves safe from informers to the Church was to keep the villagers terrified of retribution.” He shrugged. “It worked, but how much blackness can a soul take? When they decided that they would leave the village and try to start a new life, it was almost too late. They settled, they had children, grandchildren, time passed.” His lips twisted. “With only minor episodes that could be called totally wicked. But the call of the blood never entirely goes away. Neither does the knowledge that the power is there ready to be tapped. Most of the Ridondo descendants found it was safer to become hunters to expel some of that passion and leach away the darkness.”
“As you did.”
“As I did.”
“Your sister,” Eve prompted.
“I was never home much. I was always away from the time I was a teenager. My parents sent me to live with my uncle because they decided that he could handle me better than they could. He was a hunter.” He shrugged. “I don’t blame them. I was showing signs of being a throwback to the first Ridondos and that would have been awkward for them.”
“Yes, I’d describe a tendency toward vampirism as being very awkward,” Jane murmured.
“And they didn’t think I’d be a suitable guardian for my sister, so before they died they set up a trust find and made arrangements for her to go to a series of private schools. I admit I resented that lack of confidence. I loved Maria. I would have seen that she had a good life. But Maria was years younger and very different from me. No darkness about her. She wanted to live life and drain every minute of pleasure from it.”
“You did love her,” Eve said, her gaze on his face.
“Oh, yes. As I said, there weren’t many people that I did care about. Anyway, she met a young man while on vacation in Paris. Carlo Givano. Handsome, charming, hardworking, totally devoted to making her fall in love with him. He persuaded her to elope and took her back to his home, a vineyard outside Genoa.” He paused. “When I went to visit her, I liked him. I went away convinced that she’d made a decent marriage.”
“And did she?” Jane asked.
“No.” He looked out at the lake. “Givano was a member of the cult. He’d been sent to track down members of the Ridondo family, namely, female members: the males might have proved too difficult. There were still stories being repeated in the cult of the Ridondo brothers’ powers. They didn’t want a confrontation, they wanted a victim.”
“Why?”
“They were experimenting, trying to find the strongest bloodline to lead them to their resurrection. They thought it logical that since she was a descendant of the Ridondos, her blood would be almost magical. That it might even give them instant resurrection.”
“And Givano lured her to them.”
“Jelak was on the scene by then, and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. He paid Givano to give her to him.” His lips tightened. “He was clumsy. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He kept her alive a long time before he realized she wasn’t going to let him win the game.”
“So you set out to find Jelak,” Eve said. “What about Givano?”
He turned from the lake to look at her.
He didn’t need to answer, she thought. It was all there in the stark brutality of his expression. She had seen what he had done to Jelak. What he had done to the man who betrayed his sister would have been equally horrendous.
She looked down into the coffee in her cup. “I’m sorry about your sister. I can see why you would have been so bitter.”
“Can you? Yes, you know what it’s like to lose someone you love.” He smiled. “Well, is your curiosity satisfied? Are you ready to let me go off into the sunset?”
“No.”
His brows rose. “No?”
She looked up at him. “You may have done it for your own purposes, but you saved Joe, and you saved me. I can’t forget that. I feel a certain bond.”
“What?” He shook his head. “You’re much more clear thinking than that.”
“Maybe I’m not.” She got to her feet. “But I don’t think that we’re through with each other, Caleb. I don’t know what you’re going to be to us, but we’re going to have to play it out to the finish.”
He suddenly chuckled as he stood up. “I told Quinn that you’d want to put a period to the episode. You’re not doing that, Eve.”
“Just a comma.” She smiled faintly. “I may have need of a hunter.”
He turned to Jane. “What about you? A period?”
