by D. D. Syrdal
Neko gave up trying to make conversation with Anne-Marie while they waited at the airport. If she was going to trust him, she would have to come to it in her own time. She was too distraught over being separated from Andrej to pay much attention to anything he said anyway. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as she rummaged in her handbag for something. As far as he was concerned, Andrej was making a mistake by putting her off-limits for feedings. Once every few weeks wouldn’t hurt her. She was young, strong, healthy. And not half-bad looking. She caught him looking at her, and he grinned. She frowned in return.
“Just because Andrej’s not here doesn’t mean I’m suddenly back on the menu,” she said.
“Oh come on,” he said, “I wasn’t even thinking that.”
“Yes you were. I know that look.”
“Ha, ok, busted.” He leaned over to whisper in her ear, saying, “Maybe just once? Just a little bit?” He winked and sat back in his chair.
She stopped rummaging through her bag, narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Andrej can be here very quickly if I call him.”
She sat back in her chair on the verge of tears, and swallowed hard before saying, “You know, I wouldn’t be here with you if Andrej hadn’t insisted. You don’t understand how important he is to me.”
“Yes I do.”
She shook her head, not wanting to explain.
“Yes I do,” he repeated gently. “You don’t see this often, your attachment to him, but it happens occasionally,” he said. “You’re in love with him. I know it, you know it, he knows it.”
Her mouth fell open, horrified at the idea of being so transparent, and embarrassed to think Andrej knew. She turned her face away, feeling her cheeks burning.
“He cares about you, you know,” he said. “There aren’t many like him. Come to think of it, I don’t know any others like him. You’re not worried about him, are you?”
“I guess I am. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him.”
“Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to him. We’ve been through worse than this, he and I,” he said smiling broadly, trying to lighten the moment. He pushed his sunglasses up on his head. “Andrej’s smart, that’s why he’s lasted this long. These boneheads are out of their league trying to take him on. We’ve run into them before and they’ve never been more than a temporary annoyance to us. And besides, you’d still have me.”
She gave him half a smile, but he could see the tears she was trying to blink back.
They arrived in Athens while it was still dark and found there was a car waiting for them. The driver took the luggage, said something to Neko in Greek, and held the car door open for Anne-Marie. Neko handed Anne-Marie into the car, like a knight of old escorting a princess. She was beginning to be less distrustful of him, although his cultivated persona of a criminal, cutthroat biker and mob hitman still made her uneasy. Where Andrej was confident, cultured and suave, Neko’s chosen lifestyle had left him coarser, hardened. In a way he was Andrej’s alter ego, the more primitive side that Andrej hid until he needed it. Still, he had been nearly as kind and protective of her as Andrej was, and as yet had not attempted to take advantage of the situation. She knew Andrej would not sit idly by if Neko tried anything. Or would he? Their friendship was of a special kind, and ties like that were not easily broken. Would a new assistant be enough to drive a wedge between them, she wondered. On one hand, she hoped not. She wanted to believe they were capable of deep abiding friendship, even real affection. She hoped it wouldn’t be put to the test, and that she wasn’t going to find herself his next meal. Somehow she doubted Neko was as kind to his victims as Andrej was.
They arrived at the house in Alimos just as dawn was breaking. The house dominated a hill, with a long winding flagstone staircase leading to the front door. It was a modern structure, with angles and walls designed to maximize privacy and draw on the sun for power. The grounds were manicured, clean, with small hedges and flowerbeds. There was nothing large enough for anyone to hide behind, should someone attempt to breach the defenses, which Anne-Marie would come to learn were considerable.
“This is what you call an average suburban house?” she said sarcastically.
Neko grinned. “Well, yeah, in a very upscale sort of way.”
Anne-Marie rolled her eyes. Once inside, she found the house more impressive than the exterior hinted at. The floors were polished marble, the walls a pristine white plaster. Framed artwork decorated each wall of the foyer. She had no idea if they were originals, only that they were oils on canvas. She kept looking around, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of anyone having been in the house recently.
“Who lives here? I thought you said I’d be staying with a family to make it look like I was visiting relatives?”
“That was the original plan, but they had this house available and decided they preferred that you not make contact with any of their people.”
“Suits me. I didn’t want to meet them either,” Anne-Marie said. “So I’ve got the place to myself then?” The more she thought about that the less she liked the idea. “What happened to keeping me under surveillance?”
“Oh you’ll be watched,” Neko said, nodding in various directions. “The whole place is loaded with surveillance equipment.”
Anne-Marie shuddered. Having strangers, lethal ones at that, watching her at their leisure, unseen, was more frightening than the night she first met Andrej and found out he was a vampire.
“Neko, I don’t like this. Can’t we just forget the whole thing? Let me come back to Prague with you. I’ll find someplace else, a hotel out in the countryside to stay in, until you and Andrej do whatever you have to do.”
He pulled his glasses off, and with his perpetual grin still smugly in place told her, “I’m not going back to Prague. I’m staying here with you until Andrej calls the ‘all clear.’”
Anne-Marie stepped back. “What?” she shouted.
Neko feigned a stricken face. “Now if I didn’t know better I’d think you didn’t like my company.”
Anne-Marie looked at him with undisguised horror. She started backing away from him, shaking her head. This whole thing had been a ruse to get her away from Andrej.
“Oh come on, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” He was slowly walking towards her, his hand outstretched to her. She was starting to go into a full-blown panic attack, her breathing coming in ragged gasps as she sank to the floor, and passed out. Neko jumped to grab her as she fell.
“Shit.” He lifted her and carried her upstairs to the room that had been prepared for her. It was at the back of the house, but one of the largest suites in the sprawling manse. No sooner had he deposited her on the bed than his communer buzzed.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he said in frustration, seeing it was an incoming call from Andrej. He clicked it on and said, “Hey, buddy, don’t worry. She kind of freaked out at the change of plans, but she’ll be ok. She just passed out.”
“All right, when she wakes up have her buzz me. How’s the house?”
“As advertised: All ours and wired to the gills. I still think I should have told her before we got here.”
“No, you saw how she reacted. You wouldn’t have wanted to deal with that on the plane or in the airport. It was hard enough to get her to leave town at all. If she’d known you were going to be chaperoning her she never would have agreed to go.”
Neko looked at Anne-Marie lying unconscious on the bed. “You’ve got a point there. I don’t get it, why doesn’t she like me? What’d I do wrong?”
Andrej laughed. “She’s got good instincts.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You gotta talk to her when she wakes up. I can’t have her fainting like this on me all the time.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Andrej said, still laughing.
Chapter 18
