“Until next time,” he said and left the room, relieved, for the first time since he had met Monique, that he had an excuse to leave.
Rhys joined him at the bar a short time later.
“So,” Erik asked, “what’s going on?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been a little distant the last few days.”
Erik shrugged. “So I wanted a little alone time. Anything wrong with that?”
Rhys rested his elbow on the bar. “It’s Mariah. She thinks you’re up to something.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Beats the hell out of me. You know Mariah,” Rhys said with a grin. “She’s always out for blood of one kind or another. She doesn’t think you’re taking the whole Blood Thief thing seriously enough, that maybe you’re hiding something.”
“She’s right,” Erik said. “I’m hiding the Thief in my back pocket.”
“Look, I know Mariah’s not your favorite person, but cut her a little slack. She’s worried.”
“Aren’t we all?” Erik muttered.
Rhys punched Erik in the arm. “So I told her I’d have a talk with you, and now we’ve had it.”
“Maybe I should be asking you what’s going on,” Erik said. “Since when do you worry about what anyone else—especially a woman—thinks?”
“Mellowing in my old age, I guess. Hell, I’m just trying to keep the peace. Oh, one more thing and then I’ll be on my way,” Rhys remarked, all humor gone from his eyes. “The Blood Thief has struck again.”
In an effort to buy a little time, Erik sipped his drink. He didn’t know which Blood Thief had struck again, but it couldn’t be the one living under his roof. Could it? He shook the thought from his mind. Such a thing was impossible. Daisy hadn’t been out of his house in days. Still…“How do you know?”
“I just got a phone call from Mariah. She was supposed to meet Tina at Craig’s place tonight. When she got there, they were both dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Though Erik had harbored no real affection for either Tina or her mortal lover, senseless death was always unfortunate. “What makes you think…?”
Erik swore softly. He had almost asked Rhys what made him think there was another thief in town.
“What makes me think what?” Rhys asked.
“What makes you think it’s the work of the Blood Thief and not some other hunter?”
Rhys looked at Erik, his eyes narrowed. “What makes you think it isn’t?”
Erik shrugged. “Maybe Tina and Craig had a fight and killed each other.” It was a slim possibility, but in his world, stranger things had happened.
“I guess Craig and Tina could have committed suicide, too,” Rhys remarked, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “but Craig had a ten-inch knife in his back and Tina had been drained dry and staked. Doesn’t sound like a double suicide to me.”
“Okay, okay,” Erik muttered. “Have it your way.”
Rhys nodded. “I always do.”
Erik grunted softly. If there was one thing about the Master of the City that annoyed Erik more than anything else, it was that, right or wrong, Rhys always managed to get things done the way he wanted.
“The Blood Thief’s never killed a mortal before.” Erik drummed his fingertips on the bar top. “Besides, if he wanted to destroy Tina, why didn’t he do it the first time he attacked her? Why take her blood and not her head?” Erik didn’t know who had killed Tina and Craig, but he knew it hadn’t been Daisy.
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“Doesn’t make much sense.”
“A lot of things in this old world don’t make sense,” Rhys muttered dryly.
Erik nodded. He couldn’t argue with that.
“Maybe somebody scared him off the first time,” Rhys said, thinking aloud. “But that’s neither here nor there. He’s as good as got.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Rhys smiled, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “I forgot to tell you the best part.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“The Blood Thief left his scent behind this time.”
Chapter 14
Erik went suddenly still, and then relaxed. It couldn’t be Daisy, but another hunter in the city was bad news for all of them. “Was it anyone you recognize?”
“No,” Rhys said, “but now we have something to go on.”
“You didn’t follow his scent?”
“I lost it on the freeway. If the murder had taken place at Tina’s, we’d have it on video.”
Erik grunted softly.
“I want a camera in your place by tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I don’t like the idea.”
“It was your idea!”
Erik shrugged. He couldn’t install a camera as long as Daisy was in the house.
“I don’t give a damn whether you like it or not. We all agreed it was the thing to do.”
Erik cocked his head to the side. “Is there a camera in your lair?” he asked, deciding to take the offensive.
Rhys cleared his throat before muttering, “No, not yet.”
“Well, there you go. When you get one, I will.”
Muttering an oath, Rhys pushed away from the bar and stalked across the room.
“Damn.” Erik finished his drink, then stared into his empty glass. If there really was another hunter in town, it would take the heat off Daisy. None of the vampires were aware of her or knew she was the one who had taken Tina’s blood, or that she had destroyed Saul. She hadn’t left her scent at either place. That being the case, she was probably safe from Rhys and the others. He could probably let her go home. He should have been relieved at the thought of having his house to himself again. He should have been, but he wasn’t.
Rhys returned to the bar a few minutes later, one arm draped around the shoulders of a leggy blonde. “We’ll talk more about our problem some other time,” he said. “Right now, I have some urgent business to take care of with the delectable Jean Marie.”
Jean Marie looked up at Rhys. Her face was extremely pale, her expression rapt with anticipation. Erik wondered how many other vampires had fed off her that night. There were deaths at the club from time to time, mostly accidents that happened when a mortal got so caught up in the thrill of consorting with a vampire that they let too many take too much. Such deaths were quickly hushed up. The victims were disposed of, their bodies never found.
Erik watched Rhys and the woman disappear into one of the rooms. He sat there a moment, thinking how complicated his life had suddenly become, and then, smiling inwardly, he hurried home, eager to see the woman who was the cause of it all.
Daisy was stretched out on the sofa, drifting toward sleep when she sensed Erik’s presence in the house. Bolting upright, she glanced around the room, fearful that Rhys might have come home with him.
“It’s just me,” Erik said.
“What did he want? Does he know who I am?”
“No. Apparently there’s another hunter in town. Rhys got a whiff of him at Tina’s boyfriend’s house.”
Daisy wrapped her arms around her body, relieved that Rhys didn’t know who she was. “Is Tina…did the hunter destroy her?”
“Yeah, she’s dead for good this time, and her boyfriend, too.”
“Was he a vampire?”
“No, just a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Daisy bit down on her lower lip. She was sorry to hear about the deaths, but at the moment, the only thing that mattered was that Rhys didn’t know who she was.
“I can go home now, can’t I?” she said, thinking aloud.
“I suppose so.” He dropped into the chair across from the sofa. She was so beautiful. How could he let her go? He had known her little more than a week, but it seemed like she had always been there, a part of his life. He was going to miss her company and her conversation, the scent o
f her shampoo, the sound of her laughter, the sexual awareness that flowed between them.
Daisy stared at Erik, wondering why she suddenly felt so depressed. She should have been thrilled that she was out of danger, delighted at the thought of going home and sleeping in her own bed, living in her own house. Why wasn’t she?
“I can take you tonight, if that’s what you want,” Erik remarked.
“Well, I need to pack, and…and it’s late. I can go tomorrow, if it’s all right with you.”
He nodded. “Sure. Anything you want.”
“Thank you for looking after me. For protecting me. I…I appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
“You’re not going to leave town, are you? I promise not to tell anyone where you live, or come here again.”
Leaning back in the chair, Erik crossed his arms over his chest. Leaving LA would be the smart thing to do. He knew Rhys wouldn’t like it, but it wasn’t Rhys’s decision to make.
“Erik…please don’t go.”
“Why? I’m evil, remember? You said so yourself. Vampires are horrible monsters.”
Daisy felt her cheeks grow hot as he parroted the words she had said. “I was wrong about that, at least where you’re concerned. You’re not a monster.”
“Oh? What am I?”
There was no way to answer that without making a fool of herself, she thought frantically. She knew he was a vampire, a creature who existed on the blood of others, but it no longer seemed to matter. She had grown inordinately fond of him in the last few days, so much so that she couldn’t imagine her life without him. But she couldn’t say that, because no matter how much she cared for him, how attracted she was to him, they were worlds apart. They had no future together, yet she couldn’t abide the thought of his leaving town.
“What am I, Daisy?”
“You’re…you’re my friend, and I don’t have many of those and I’d hate to lose one.” She blurted the words in a rush, then lowered her gaze, afraid he might laugh at her.
“Daisy, look at me.”
Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his.
“I don’t have any friends.”
“What about Rhys?”
“I guess he qualifies, in a way, but I don’t trust him, not the way I trust you.”
“Then you’ll stay?” she asked hopefully.
“Yeah.” He would have stayed whether she wanted him to or not, Erik thought, because there was no way on earth that he could leave the city as long as Daisy was in it. “I’ll take you home tomorrow night.”
For Daisy, the next day passed slowly, and yet all too quickly. She wandered through the house, then went upstairs to Erik’s studio. It was a large room, unfurnished save for a long wooden table that held palettes and tubes of paint, brushes and palette knives, cans of gesso and linseed oil, paint-stained rags, an easel. A stack of blank canvases stood in one corner. She paused to admire the painting of the castle that she liked so much. Was it a real place, she wondered, one that held some special significance for Erik?
Later, she went into the bedroom to fold her clothes, only then realizing she had no suitcase in which to put them. She took a shower and washed her hair, spent a pleasant two hours watching a love story on TV, and then went into the kitchen to make lunch. It was while she was making a sandwich that it hit her—she was going home. Tonight, she would fix dinner in her own kitchen. It had been days since she had been outside. Perhaps tonight she would go out to eat.
After fixing a tall glass of iced tea laced with lemon and sugar, Daisy sat at the kitchen table to eat lunch and contemplate her future. She had always thought of vampires as evil creatures, monsters beyond redemption. She had never felt the least bit of guilt at taking their blood; she had always been proud of her brother Alex. While she and Brandon collected vampire blood, Alex took heads. He was one of the best hunters in the States, maybe the world.
Daisy put her half-eaten sandwich aside. Since meeting Erik, she no longer thought of all vampires as evil. How could she? True, he had tasted her blood, but that was what vampires did. Might as well hate cats for hunting birds, or lions for hunting gazelles. It was the nature of the beast. Erik had kept her there against her will, but it was only to protect her from Rhys.
“Erik…” She whispered his name, jumped when he appeared before her as if she had wished him there. And perhaps she had. “You’re up early.”
“You’re leaving tonight. I wanted to spend as much time with you as possible.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” She was tempted to ask him if she could stay a little longer, but what was the point. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be to go. Instead, she reminded herself that they were worlds apart. She was the Blood Thief. He was a vampire. She sold the blood of the Undead; he drank human blood to survive.
Looking at him, she wondered how any female in her right mind could ever think of leaving. Every time she saw him, she was struck anew by the chiseled masculine beauty of his face and form. Maybe what she felt wasn’t affection. Maybe it was just plain, old-fashioned lust. After all, no woman over the age of twelve could look at Erik Delacourt and not want to run her hands over his arms, or feel those arms around her. Just thinking about being in his embrace brought a rush of heat to her cheeks.
Giving herself a mental shake, she watched him stride across the room. Pulling a chair out from the table, he spun it around, then straddled the seat.
“You okay?” he asked. “You look a little flushed.”
“I’m fine.”
Grunting softly, he reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew her cell phone and her tool kit, and slid them across the table. Reaching into another pocket, he ran his fingers over her compass. He was reluctant to return it to her even though there was no point in keeping it. If she was determined to hunt vampires, all she had to do was ask her grandmother the witch to make her another one.
“Any chance you’ve decided to stop being the Blood Thief?”
“No.”
“Just because Rhys doesn’t know who you are now doesn’t mean he won’t find out. You’ve been lucky up until now.”
She lifted her chin in a gesture he was becoming all too familiar with.
“I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”
Daisy shook her head.
“I didn’t think so.” Pulling her compass out of his pocket, he tossed it on the table. “You might need that.”
“Thank you.” She rubbed her hand over the compass, remembering the day Nonnie had given it to her…
“Are you sure you want to follow in your father’s footsteps?” Nonnie asked. They were sitting in her screened-in porch. Below, the waves made their endless journey to the shore and back to the sea. A gull floated in the air; a dolphin surfaced in the distance.
“Yes,” Daisy had said confidently. “It’s what we O’Donnells do.”
“It is a course fraught with danger and very little reward,” Nonnie remarked.
Daisy shrugged. “Dad’s been preparing me for this since I was a little girl. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do. The only thing I know how to do.”
“Now, Daisy, child,” Nonnie said, giving her a skeptical look, “I know that’s not true.” Nonnie picked up the compass and rubbed her gnarled hands over it. “This will guide you, but it cannot protect you.”
“I understand.”
“If you follow it, it may guide you in paths you never thought to follow.”
Daisy frowned at her grandmother. “What does that mean? Are you having one of your visions?”
“You will know, in time.”
Daisy looked at Erik. Was he the path she never thought to follow? She shook her head. As much as she had come to care for Erik, their lives were miles apart. If she was smart, she would keep it that way. She had heard stories through the years of mortals who had fallen in love with vampires. None of them had ended happily; most of the time, the mortals ended up dead by the hand of their lover, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by acciden
t. Dating a vampire was like bringing a wild animal into your house. You just never knew when it was going to turn on you.
Erik rested his folded arms on the back of the chair. “So, are you in a hurry to go home, or can I persuade you to go dancing at the club?”
“I’d like that.” One last night together, she thought glumly, before they said good-bye.
“Are you packed?”
“Sort of. I don’t have a suitcase.”
“Come on. I’ve got a couple you can have.”
She followed him up the stairs to the bedroom she had been using. Going to the closet, he pulled down a large navy blue suitcase and another, smaller one.
She had expected him to leave, but he stood in the doorway, watching while she packed, putting her clothing into the larger case and her toiletries and make-up in the smaller one.
“I guess you’ll be glad to be rid of me,” Daisy remarked as she closed the large suitcase. “Glad to have your house all to yourself again.”
“I thought I would be, but now…I think I’m going to miss you.” Picking up both suitcases, he walked down the hall to the room where he kept his paintings. “Take whichever one you want.”
“Oh, I couldn’t…I mean, they’re so…do you mean it?”
He nodded. “Consider it a peace offering for keeping you here against your will.”
“That one,” she said, gesturing at the painting of the castle. “It’s my favorite.”
“Mine, too,” he said, smiling. “Go on, take it.”
Unable to believe he was actually giving her one of his works of art, Daisy picked up the painting and carried it down the stairs and out of the house.
Outside, Erik stowed her suitcases in the backseat of his car, then opened the trunk so Daisy could place the painting inside. She looked at it a minute, thinking again that she had never seen or owned anything so beautiful.
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