by Alyssa Day
I stopped and fought myself for almost a full minute before I turned around and grinned at him. "So. Carlos. Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
His silken dark brows drew together and then relaxed, and his dark eyes lit up with a glimmer of amusement. "I see you've heard about Hurricane Elvis. Is it going to be like this all week?"
"Sadly, I'm afraid so. Given that, do you still want my company? I confess, I wouldn’t mind getting out of town right now."
"Why is that?"
I glanced down at myself in my 'clean the shop' clothes and then at him in his jeans and black silk shirt. Maybe I needed to dress up a bit. I already had perfect makeup, that's for sure. I'd gone all out for our date. "Where are we going? What should I wear?"
His gaze traveled down my outfit and he blinked. "Ah, perhaps a little less casual. If you want to go into my club with me. If you'd prefer to stay in the car while I run in and take care of something quickly, you're fine as you are."
I hadn't even known he owned a club.
"I'll go in with you. Just give me a minute."
It took more like five, but I changed into jeans, sandals, and a cute blue lace top, ran a brush through my hair, and updated my lip gloss.
When I came out, my cat was sitting in Carlos's lap getting ear scratches.
My mouth fell open. "She's usually pretty standoffish."
He flashed a smile, and I tried not to look for a hint of fang. (I didn't see any).
"Your cat has no self-protection instinct. She is not at all afraid of the big, bad vampire."
"She's also not afraid of the big, bad tiger, even when he's in tiger form and outweighs her by five hundred pounds to ten," I said dryly. "She threatens him every time he sleeps over."
The vampire in my living room raised an eyebrow, making me realize how that had sounded.
"No, not like that. He just likes to be sure I'm safe when there are bad things happening, and there are an awful lot of bad things happening in Dead End these days. I'm sure Susan has told you some of it."
A flash of something dark and dangerous crossed his face, but he only nodded and then stood. "We should go, if you're ready."
"Yep. Good to go." I grabbed my purse, kissed Lou's head, and headed out for the second time that evening.
Hopefully, this time there wouldn’t be any amputated body parts involved.
Carlos went out the door first, and I was pleased to see that he was careful not to get close enough to touch me.
"Susan told you about me?"
He nodded. "I'm sorry you've had to cope with that, Tess. It sounds very difficult."
I stilled and looked into his serious dark eyes. "You know, I think that's the most perfect thing anybody has ever said to me about it."
He held open the passenger door to his sleek red BMW sedan for me, and within minutes we were driving out of town toward Orlando. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions, which I really appreciated. Sometimes I didn't mind talking about it, but I wasn't in the mood tonight. My life had changed so completely since that first day, when Hannah walked into the shop, but I'd spent so many years dealing with the fallout that I usually preferred not to think about it.
Not really surprising that I didn't want to think about the most traumatic experience in my life—and that included getting shot. A perfectly ordinary woman had walked into the shop, and I'd shaken her hand and told her how she was going to die.
Violently, at her husband's hand.
And then, after she'd run away from me, I'd almost died myself, on the floor convulsing with the aftereffects of my first violent vision of someone's death. If a customer hadn't wandered into the shop and called 911, that would have been the end of me.
Yeah. Not a big shock that I didn't like to talk about it.
We drove in silence for a while, and then I turned to face him. "I might be able to touch you without seeing how you're going to die. Or, I guess, how you did die. I don't see visions about everybody—it seems to be pretty random, really. It's not like I see all the violent deaths, or all the peaceful deaths. And sometimes I don't see anything at all. With Susan, I don't see anything." I took a deep breath. "And I'm so thankful for that. You can't imagine how hard it is … well. It's a lot."
He thought about that for a while.
"Since I don't see Susan's death, and I don't see your grandma's, maybe I wouldn't see yours," I finally said. "I don't know if there's some kind of familial component to it. I've looked and looked, but nobody that I can find has ever had this … gift … before."
"I think perhaps we will not experiment," he said, in his rich, deep voice. "I would hate to cause you that pain and since I already know how I died, the information would be useless to me."
We drove in silence for several minutes, and then I sighed. "I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. I'm sorry. It's not like you asked about the dark secrets of Tess Callahan when you invited me along."
"Secrets are often easiest when told in the dark; especially to one who is all but a stranger. There are things I can feel scratching at the corners of my mind, begging me to share them with you," he said, and I could hear the regret in his voice. "But I would neither burden nor endanger you with them. I am sorry for this curse—or gift—you bear, though, Tess. You're too good a person to have such a heavy weight to bear."
I sighed. "I'm not that good of a person. I charged a tourist almost a hundred dollars for a stuffed raccoon Rooster Jenkins sold me for thirty-five bucks."
He threw his head back and laughed, and his laughter was quite possibly the sexiest thing about him. Which, since the rest of him was downright gorgeous, meant that he was unbelievably hot. Like, almost Jack hot.
Speaking of, I reached in my bag for my phone, to see if I'd missed any texts, only to discover that I'd left my phone at home.
"Crap."
"What?"
"I left my phone at home."
He glanced at his watch, then at me. "I don't really have time to go back right now, unless it's an emergency, but you are very welcome to use mine."
"No, it's fine. I just—I'm worried about Jack. And Susan and Andy and the Misters Peterson, really."
He whipped his head around to stare at me. "What about my sister?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I always assume everyone knows everything before I do." I filled him in on the events of the evening, and he immediately pushed a button. In seconds, his sister's voice filled the car, and she sounded harried and irritated, but fine.
"What do you need, Carlos? Pretty busy right now."
"So Tess tells me," he said tersely. "You could have let me know."
"Bro. Are you kidding? I'm the sheriff. I was the sheriff before you wandered back into town, and I'll still be the sheriff once you get tired of playing small town boy and leave town," she snapped. "I don't report to you when things get dicey."
"Tess is in the car with me."
Thanks a lot, I mouthed at him.
"Tess." We heard her sigh. "Sorry you had to hear that. Do you know where Jack is? I need to talk to him about what he found at the bank before he went running off."
"No, sorry. I forgot my phone at home," I said, worried. "Hey, if you see him, will you tell him I went to Orlando with Carlos, but we'll be home … " I looked the question at Carlos.
"Perhaps midnight," he said, shrugging.
"Midnight? Tess, be careful around my brother. He can be … unpredictable."
I rolled my eyes. "Susan. There was a dead vampire foot in my drawer. I think I can handle your brother."
Carlos smiled but said nothing.
Susan came back on the line. "Fine. Just as long as you realize that he can trap you in his vampire thrally thing without even meaning to do it. I'd hate to explain to Jack why you came home with your clothes inside out."
I made a weird squeaking sound, since this was one of the most awkward conversations I'd ever had, and before I could think of anything to say, Carlos said goodbye and disconnected the call.
A
fter Carlos's reaction to Dave, I had no clue why Susan would think I'd be in any danger from him …
Oh.
"She doesn't know you're gay?" I patted his leg. "I'm sure she'd understand—"
"I am not gay, lovely Tess."
I yanked my hand back. "But—that time in your house. With Dave. I thought—"
"I find pleasure in many people, of many genders. Life is too short for limits. There is only one thing I demand in a partner."
I didn't ask, I didn't ask, I didn't ask.
I had to ask. Curiosity killed the pawnshop owner, probably, but what the heck.
"What is the one thing?"
He flashed a perfectly wicked grin at me. "Simple, my lovely Tess. I only demand that he or she …"
He paused for a long moment.
"That he or she what?" I finally blurted out, dying to know.
"Love Me Tender."
For the first time—ever—in my life, I punched a vampire. Right in the hard-as-a-rock upper arm.
He laughed for five long minutes.
5
"So, since we're sharing stories, why did you become a vampire? Or is that one of the dark secrets you don't want to burden me with?" It was too nosy of a question, and Aunt Ruby would have threatened to blister my behind for it (she never did, but she talked a good game), but I was smarting about being laughed at.
"You assume I had a choice," he said, a trace of bitterness in his clipped words. "But that is Susan's story to tell, and since you don't know it, I'm guessing she hasn't chosen to share it with you yet."
Susan and I were building a friendship, lunch by lunch, but we weren't at the "share personal things about our pasts" stage yet. I knew she'd had a really bad ex, and that he'd been a vampire, but no details. And, of course, I hadn't asked her about it.
"If she wants to tell me, she will. And if she doesn't, that's okay, too. We don't need to air all our dirty laundry to be friends."
He signaled the turn onto Wall Street, and I looked around in surprise. I'd been so involved in our conversation, I hadn't really noticed we'd made our way to downtown Orlando.
"Your club is in the Wall Street Plaza?"
"It is," he said. "Have you been here before?"
I started laughing. "Well, only as often as I could sneak out during my senior year, or at least before … before being me, near a crowd of people, became a problem."
Wall Street Plaza was the heart of downtown night life, at least for the young and the young at heart. It was all bars, all fun, all brightly dressed people, all the time. Like a giant block party.
But I 'd never heard of a vampire club here.
"When? I mean, which club is yours?"
We pulled into the parking garage, and then into a very sweet parking space marked RESERVED FOR C. GONZALEZ, and soon after that we were taking a door marked PRIVATE into a quiet hallway on the second floor of the Plaza building compound.
"It's just through here. After you." He held the door for me, and I walked into a large, austerely furnished office that was fairly quiet and dimly lit. Then he turned on the lights and I gasped, because the floor disappeared beneath me.
I grabbed for his sleeve-covered arm, and he smiled.
"What the heck?" I pointed down but then realized that the floor was still very much in place. The transparent, glass floor that I could see through, to the large, laughing, dancing crowd below, but none of them seemed to be able to see us. At least, nobody was staring or pointing.
"It's one-way glass. A previous owner installed it to keep an eye on his employees. I find it to be weird as hell, but it's expensive to replace."
"Is it dangerous?" I bit my lip. "I mean, all that glass. If you're here in the daytime …"
"I'm never here in the daytime," he said gently, and I felt stupid. Of course he wasn't. I mean, we in Dead End had known that vampires, shifters, the Fae, and other supernatural creatures existed long before they "came out of the coffin" to the rest of the world. I knew about vampires. They weren't exactly dead during the daylight, but they weren't exactly alive, either.
It was a kind of half-sleep, half-coma, from what I understood.
"Do you miss it?"
I hadn’t even realized I was going to ask the question until I heard it come out of my mouth, and now I felt awful. "I'm sorry. I didn't—long, terrible day. My mouth is running ahead of my brain. I'm sorry."
"Tess, it's okay." He walked to his desk and pulled a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer, poured a splash into a glass tumbler, and tossed it down his throat.
"Yes, I miss it. But let's talk about happier things. I need to go downstairs and talk to my manager about some billing problems we've been having. Would you like to go with me and have a drink? Or you could wait here, if there are too many people downstairs."
I glanced down again, uneasy. There were a lot of people, and I didn't want to accidentally touch them. On the other hand, most of them were on the dance floor. If I stayed with Carlos, I could probably avoid them.
"I have a private table just there, in the corner," he said, pointing. "You'd be out of the flow of traffic there, and I can tell the staff to steer people away from the adjoining tables."
"Oh, no! That's a lot of effort. I don't want you to go to any bother."
He smiled at me. "Tess. We're neighbors. That's what neighbors do."
He had me there, and I was curious to see what his club was like close up, so I pulled my sleeves down as far as they'd go over my wrists, shoved my hands in my pockets, and followed him out of the office and down the stairs into, as the bright red letters proclaimed,
BRAM’S
"Nice. Are you going to name the next one Mary's?"
He laughed. "Sadly, since I've never run into a Frankenstein creature or a modern Prometheus, probably not. You'd be surprised how many idiots claim to be Dracula, though."
This fascinated me. "Really? Seems like that one would be easy enough to disprove. If 'Dracula' has a driver's license that says 'Billy Soccer Dad, from Nowheresville, PA,' then you're pretty safe in counting him out as the ultimate ancestor of all the vampires."
"You'd think so," he said grimly. "But I've met just such a man, with just such false identification, and he was a four-hundred-year-old vampire who very nearly killed me when he drained me and left me for dead."
I shivered, suddenly not having as much fun.
Suddenly not as fascinated.
"Hey. Maybe I should wait upstairs, or even in the car," I said. "I’m over my limit for excitement tonight."
But either he didn't hear me, or he chose to ignore me, because he kept right on going, into the throng of partiers in his club. And the first thing I noticed—after goggling at the beautiful clothes and the beautiful jewels and the beautiful people—was that very few of them were human.
Apparently, Bram's was a club for vampires.
I put a hand up to my bare throat, suddenly feeling desperately underdressed. "Um, Carlos …"
"Don’t worry, neighbor. I won't let anyone near you." There was laughter in his voice, but that wasn't all that reassuring after what his sister had said on the phone. I didn't want to be enthralled by Carlos or any other vampire. I very carefully did not meet anybody's gaze, which meant I tripped and nearly fell on my butt on the ramp by the dance floor, but Carlos took my arm again and smoothly navigated us past the crush.
He nodded to people as we went, even smiled at a few, but talked to none, even though a lot of them clearly wanted to talk to him.
"Later. I'm with a friend," he kept repeating, in a polite but cool tone, and several people—both men and women—gave me very dirty looks when he said it.
I wanted to jump up and down and say "I'm not dating the vampire. No jealousy needed!" but I wasn't sure anybody would believe me. They might even think I was dancing.
Well, I amended mentally, watching the people on the dance floor. They might think I was dancing—badly.
He showed me to the secluded table in an area which
was actually roped off with a red velvet rope, and waved over a server who looked like she was taking a short break from her career as an international supermodel to serve drinks. I suddenly wished fiercely that I was wearing The Dress, or at least something more exciting than jeans.
"I'll be right back. I just need to talk to my manager about a few things. Please order food if you're hungry, or at least dessert. The desserts are phenomenal."
The supermodel, who had to be six feet tall and maybe a size zero, which really didn't encourage me to order dessert, had a beautiful, friendly smile.
"The french fries with truffle oil are amazing," she said, green eyes sparkling. "The burger's huge, but there's a mini version that's a reasonable size. And you have to try the chocolate torte."
She handed me a glossy silver menu. "What can I get you to drink while you decide on food?"
I wasn’t a big drinker, especially on an empty stomach, but what the heck. It wasn't every day I got robbed and then went to a vampire nightclub.
"A glass of champagne?" I realized I didn't even know if I could order it by the glass, and felt stupid, but she just grinned, told me her name was Trinity—of course it was—and floated off, her silver dress swirling around her like a dream of a cloud.
I held the menu, almost forgotten, and stared out at the party. I'd never really thought about what it would be like to see vampires dance. I'd heard that the American Ballet Company in New York now had a special cadre filled with only vampire dancers, but of course I'd never been to New York.
I needed to look it up online to see a performance. It must be absolutely spectacular, because just these random people dancing in a club were more graceful and seductively beautiful than anything I'd ever seen.
"Is this seat taken?"
I looked up to see that a tall, extremely handsome man had gotten far too close to me without me noticing it, since I'd been lulled into a false security by Carlos's promise and the velvet rope.
The newcomer was dressed in a black suit and white shirt and looked as elegant as his voice, which sounded vaguely British or European, but in a James Bond kind of way, not an "I vant to suck your blood" kind of way, so human, maybe?
