Bitten & Smitten

by Michelle Rowen

  I leaned back in my seat. I’d always hated history in high school. Too many dates and people’s names to memorize. Now I hated it for an entirely different reason.

  “Why did you tell me this?” I wasn’t crying. I just felt sort of numb.

  She reached over and touched my hands, which were clasped together on the tabletop so tightly, I couldn’t feel them anymore. “Knowledge is power. But please don’t tell Thierry I told you any of this.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’d better go get the bar ready. We’re opening up in a little over an hour.”

  I nodded but didn’t look at her. She moved away from the table, leaving me there alone.

  And I’d never felt so alone.

  Thierry was a bad guy. A storybook vampire who bit necks, drank blood, and left dead bodies in his wake. The kind of monster who is hunted down and killed, after which the townspeople cheer his death.

  The kind of man who could kill a loving wife and mother and not look back.

  I found myself on my feet. I wanted out of there. I wanted to go home. No, I wanted to find Quinn. Yes, find Quinn. I had to talk to him. Tell him… tell him what? That everything he’d heard was true? That we should sell Thierry out so we could get the cure? Did he deserve to die for the crimes he’d committed in the past? And if so, did we deserve to profit from his death?

  I put my thoughts on hold. I couldn’t deal with them right then. I needed some fresh air. No, what I really needed was to wake up and have it all be a dream. Everything. Every last piece of it. I wanted it all to go away.

  Practically running for the back door, I pushed it open and felt the cold air sweep the hair back off my shoulders. Maybe if I started running, I could leave it all behind me. Put some serious distance between me and the monster I’d become. Run far, far away. I noticed the tears on my cheeks now as the temperature made them feel like streaks of ice. Christ, I’d cried more in the past week than I had in all of my twenties. I hadn’t even cried this much when my senior-prom date dumped me and stuck me with the limousine bill.

  I felt someone grab my upper arm and stop me in my tracks. He pulled me around to look at him, to make me stare directly into his strange silver eyes.

  “Sarah,” Thierry said. “What’s wrong?”

  Chapter 22

  "Thierry, I… I was just leaving.”

  “Did you need to speak with me again?”

  “No.” I didn’t know what to say to him. “I have to go.” I could see my breath in the cold air in front of me. His warm grip on my arm didn’t loosen.

  “I didn’t like how we left things last night,” he said. “There are things that must be addressed between us.”

  I shook my head. “I saw Eugene. I know you let him go. Thank you for that.”

  He studied me. “Then why are you acting this way?”

  “What way?”

  “As though you can’t bear to look at me.”

  I swallowed and glanced up from the ground, forcing myself to meet and hold his gaze.

  “Why don’t older vampires like to sire new ones?” I asked.

  I don’t know where that came from. The question surprised me as much as him, I think.

  “Pardon me?”

  “The night after we first met, you told me that there are reasons why those as old as you don’t sire fledglings. I just wondered what they were.”

  “Please come inside, and we’ll talk about it.”

  “No… I don’t think I will. I just wanted to know.”

  He sighed. “The older the vampire, the more powerful his blood. This can have certain side effects on the young ones that are not always desired or wanted.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as many things you have experienced yourself. Your reflection, for one. It faded many months before it normally would have. Your fangs also grew early. I suppose they’re inconveniences more than anything, but it is sometimes sad to lose touch so quickly with what you once were.”

  “And that’s all? Just a fast-forward button on the vampire VCR? I already know all that.”

  “No.” He paused and moved closer to me so his face was only inches from mine. “It is said that the psychic and emotional bond between an older sire and fledgling is stronger and deeper in some ways. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about this, as I am not your original sire. You will not be bonded to me any longer than you wish to be.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good, I guess. I’m not into bondage that much, psychic or otherwise, no matter what you’ve heard.” I stood there without knowing what else to say. And normally I was a blabbermouth. Thierry had turned into the one man, the one person in the world, who had me perpetually tongue-tied, especially when he stood so close to me.

  There was the smallest trace of a smile on his lips. “I think I shall miss you.”

  “Why? Where are you going?” His answering silence told me all I needed to know. I shook my head again. “Oh right. How could I forget about that?”

  “It’s not something to be sad about. It is simply an event whose time has come.”

  “Who said I was sad?” My words were harsher than I meant them to be. “I did promise to help you, didn’t I? Just name the place and time and I’ll be there. That’s what us fledglings are good for. I don’t seem to be good for much else around here.”

  He finally broke off our staring contest and put his hand on the partially open door I stood against. He pushed it wide open and moved away from me. There was still a smile on his face, but it felt like that was the wrong word. There has to be a better word to use than “smile” when it’s done with no joy or humor behind the expression. When it’s only a position your mouth chooses to be in at that particular moment.

  I realized then that if I didn’t know him—if I just saw him on the street and didn’t know he was a vampire or anything other than human—I wouldn’t assume there was anything unusual about him. Anything old and legendary. Anything evil, murderous, and cold-blooded. He simply looked like a very attractive man in his mid-thirties. A little sad, but perfectly normal.

  But as the old cliché goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Thierry was a many-paged, leather-bound book with a mint-condition cover—but the pages were worn and faded. And the story inside would keep you up at night, afraid of what might be lurking in your closet.

  “Till then, Sarah,” he said before he disappeared into the club. The door slowly closed behind him and locked with a click.

  I stood there for a long time while large flakes of snow landed in my hair and on my face, melting thickly against my skin.

  I headed home. I couldn’t do anything by staying at Midnight Eclipse other than feel crappy, and I figured I could do that just as easily on my sofa curled up in the fetal position. There would possibly be some thumb sucking involved, too. The infantile kind, not the boss’s paper-cut kind, that is.

  I got off the bus in front of my apartment complex and walked steadily toward it, placing one foot in front of the other. If I concentrated on the easy things, maybe the difficult stuff wouldn’t feel so overwhelming.

  One foot in front of the other. One deep breath of cold-evening air after another.

  And a hand clamping down roughly over my mouth. I was so surprised that I didn’t even try to scream. Whoever it was had me locked tightly against him, with his arm around my chest like a safety harness on a carnival ride, the other hand pressed tightly against my mouth.

  He was strong, whoever he was, and he dragged me around the corner into a deserted alley. Then he let me go.

  I spun around to see who it was, a scream rising in my throat.

  Why wasn’t I all that surprised to see that it was Quinn? He was dressed all in black and wasn’t wearing a smile.

  “I am so going to kick your ass for that.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Just what in the holy hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of rope. I eyed it uneasily.
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  “What’s that for?”

  He met my eyes. “I know you’ll protest what I’m going to do, but I need you to come with me.”

  “I’ll come.” I held my hands up to ward him off. “No need to go all psycho on me. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on before I freak out?”

  He paused, wrapping the length of rope around his wrist in the same way a potential strangler might do. It wasn’t doing much to ease my mind.

  “We’re going to get the cure,” he said. “Tonight.”

  “No way.” My voice was firm, yet ever-so-slightly hysterical. “No, Quinn, you can’t do this.”

  “I’m doing it. It’s the best decision and it will benefit both of us. I’m going to get you the cure, whether you like it or not. Now, we can do this with or without the gag, Sarah. It’s entirely your decision.”

  Needless to say, the gag was required. As soon as he came toward me again, I started screaming, more from reflex than fear. Not that anyone came to help. Weren’t there any good Samaritans in the city anymore? Maybe they’d all headed south for the winter like birds do.

  In less than a minute he’d trussed me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He didn’t hurt me in the least doing it, though. Made me wonder how much practice he’d had tying women up in dark alleys.

  There was a car parked in the shadows. I thought for a second that this was going to be a mob-style kidnapping. He’d throw me in the trunk of an ominous black sedan or something. Turned out it was a rented silver Volkswagen Beetle, and I got to sit in the front seat. Lucky me.

  For a while I made as much noise as I could, calling him every name in the book, even though it was muffled by the gag, and the sounds I was making were more along the lines of “Mrrrghhh!” I struggled against the ropes. I probably could have thrown my body against his, but the best I could hope for by doing that would be his losing control of the car and possibly ending up at the side of the highway in a fiery, mangled mess.

  So, I ended up sitting still, with my eyes facing forward, and tried to relax. I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. But I couldn’t promise I wasn’t going to hurt him when he finally untied me.

  He was going to tell Dr. Kalisan about Thierry and where to find him so the hunters could go and make vampire mincemeat out of him. And he was doing it because Thierry killed his mother. After all that Zelda had told me, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on if I wanted to argue in Thierry’s defense. I’d like to believe he didn’t do it, that he’d never hurt anything larger than the odd spider. But I couldn’t.

  Quinn pulled up to the doctor’s trailer and put the brakes on so hard that the car lurched forward. Luckily, he’d made sure I was properly seat-belted before heading off on our little road trip from hell.

  He leaned over to unfasten me and finally met my angry gaze in all its intensity.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but this is for the best. And it’s not just revenge.” He paused as he unclicked me, and then with emphasis added another, “It’s not.”

  Right. And I bet he almost believed that himself.

  He came around to my side of the car and tried to help me out, but I wasn’t budging. He gave me zero choice about coming along, and I wasn’t about to make things easy for him.

  He groaned with obvious annoyance and then bent down to throw me over his shoulder.

  Okay, if I’d known he was going to do that, I might have agreed to walk on my own. He carried me to the doctor’s front door like an industrial-size sack of potatoes. If I weren’t already steaming mad, I’d be embarrassed.

  He knocked on the door so hard it shook in its frame, I could feel the reverberations going through me. A couple of minutes went by before Dr. Kalisan appeared. I’m not sure what the expression was on his face when he saw me—well, the back of me, anyhow, at eye level, but he quickly ushered us inside.

  Quinn carried me down the flight of stairs and put me down on the couch in the doctor’s living room. Then he finally removed the gag from my mouth. He probably expected me to unleash an immediate tirade of expletives, but I didn’t say a word.

  He didn’t make a move to untie me further. He just pushed some hair that had fallen across my face back and tucked it behind my left ear.

  “Are you okay?” he asked with concern as he knelt down beside me. “I’m sorry I had to do it this way.”

  I turned my face away from him. I’d officially decided that I wasn’t speaking to him.

  “This is simply the only way.” There was no joy in his voice. No excitement at the prospect of getting the cure.

  Perhaps I could save the silent treatment for a more opportune time.

  “There is another way,” I said.

  “What? Tell me.”

  I took a deep inhale of stale subterranean trailer air. Not so surprisingly, the scent of wet dog was mixed in with it. I briefly wondered where Barkley was today. “I don’t know, but I’m sure there is one. There has to be. If we had a few days—”

  “But,” Dr. Kalisan interrupted me, “in a few days hunting season will be over, and the more affluent hunters will have moved on. They’ll still desire the information, of course, but it will be worth much less by then. Time is of the essence, I’m afraid.”

  Quinn stood up. “So, how does this work?”

  “Quinn!”

  “Sarah, I’m going to do this whether or not you want me to. I’m going to cure both of us, and when it’s all over, if you never want to speak to me again, well, I guess that’s just something I’m going to have to live with.”

  “There has to be another way. There has to be. I won’t let you do this.”

  “Look”—his voice was harsher this time—“I know you and Thierry are… close. He’s helped me, too. But I’m not damn well going to feel guilty about this. He killed my mother. Do you know what that woman meant to me?” I shook my head and lowered my eyes. “I was only five years old when she died. Even I don’t know how much she meant. But I remember a woman who’d give anything for me, for our family. By giving his location over, I’ll get my revenge and get us both the cure. There is more good to be had from this situation than bad.”

  I sighed, a slow, shaky noise. I wished I could argue with him, but the fight was draining from me. If Thierry had killed his mother, then he had every right to seek revenge. I wasn’t stupid; I got that. It’s just that the world wasn’t quite as black and white for me as it was for him. Whatever Thierry might have done in the past, I didn’t think he deserved to die for it now.

  The thing is, though, Thierry wanted to die. He was sick of living, and was possibly planning his suicide at this very moment. So, then, would it be so bad to do this? Well, not do it, but let Quinn do it without making it into a bigger deal than it had to be? After all, Thierry might beat the hunters to it in the end. What a disappointment that would be for them. Or perhaps they’d just believe that he’d vanished, safely keeping his reputation as a legendary master vampire intact.

  “It’s very simple,” Kalisan said. “You will give me the location of where he can be found, and I will get the cure for you. In a matter of moments all of this unpleasantness will be over.”

  That gave me an idea. What if Quinn went ahead and told him where Thierry’s location was? Then we’d get the cure immediately, like he’d said. Next thing you know, I’m on a phone warning Thierry to clear out. Yes, it made perfect sense. Nobody had to get hurt. We could all get what we wanted out of this. But I had to play it cool.

  “I have to know one thing,” Quinn said. “You have to assure me that no one else will be harmed. The place where you can find Thierry is populated by other innocent people.”

  “Don’t you mean populated by other vampires?” Kalisan laughed under his breath. “My, how things change. The mighty hunter becomes one with his former prey.”

  Quinn scowled. “It’s not that. It’s just that there’s no need for additional violence. Promise me that no one else will get hurt.”

  “I’ll do what I can.
But I’m afraid once the information leaves my hands, the control does also.”

  There was silence then, and I glanced at Quinn. His forehead was set in deep furrows; he was bothered by this. But that was the price he’d have to pay. Did he really think things would go completely smoothly?

  “Untie me,” I said, and Quinn’s gaze flicked to me. “I promise I won’t do anything.”

  He seemed to welcome the delay and began working on the knots he’d made. After a minute the ropes dropped loose and I rubbed my wrists. He met my eyes.

  “Remember, you promised.”

  “I know.” I felt a dull fog hanging over me that had been building for an hour. Hell, who was I kidding? That fog had settled in days ago, around the same time I realized that my being a vampire wasn’t just a crazy dream.

  So, we were going to be cured. Why didn’t I feel happier? Plan or no plan, this situation sucked. I decided that after it was all said and done, after I was back to normal—not that I was even sure what normal was anymore—I was going to move away. Start fresh somewhere else. Maybe I’d head out to Vancouver. I went there as a kid, and I remembered being thrilled by the mountains and the ocean. I’d be thrilled to be thrilled by anything again.

  Quinn turned back to Dr. Kalisan and took a deep breath. “Okay, here it goes. You can find Thierry de Bennicoeur at 217 Lakeside Drive

  in Toronto. He owns the tanning salon there called Midnight Eclipse. There’s a secret vampire club in the back.”

  Dr. Kalisan nodded. “Good. Very good.”

  I wiped a tear away. So, that was it. Hardly took any time at all. I wondered how much longer I could play it cool as a cucumber before I totally freaked out and ran for the nearest phone. The countdown began.

  “Now, the cure?” Quinn’s voice was strangled, fighting back some serious emotions of his own. “Please?”

  Dr. Kalisan nodded curtly. “I’ll go get it for you. I happen to have it on hand. I had a feeling that you’d be back this evening.”

  He turned and left Quinn and me alone in the living room. Quinn looked at me.

  “I’m sorry.”