Thirst

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Did he ask you about yourself?”

  “Well, yes. But—”

  “Then stop worrying. It’s a first date. The whole point is that you get to know each other and you can’t do that without talking about yourself. I’m sure he said a lot about himself too.”

  Renee frowned slightly. Come to think about it, he hadn’t had all that much to say about himself. He had kept steering the conversation to her. If they saw each other again, she would see to it that she got to know him better too.

  “Next time we’ll talk more about him than me,” Renee said to Emily.

  “Ah! So there is going to be a next time! Excellent!”

  “Yes, there is,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ll call him this afternoon.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good! Keep up the good work. I look forward to meeting him.”

  “Oh, Em! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll have to see him quite a few times before I’m brave enough to expose him to you!”

  Emily laughed uproariously. “This is so very true! Well, I have faith. I have a good feeling about this one.”

  “Calm down. It was just one date and it only lasted an hour or so. It was hardly a date at all.”

  “Didn’t he kiss you?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Then it was a date.” Emily chuckled. “And just how good of a kiss was it?”

  “It was…”

  “Divine” was the word that popped into her mind. And mystifying because she could barely remember anything that happened afterward. Should she be worried about that? Had something nefarious occurred that she simply couldn’t recall?

  No. She distinctly remembered falling into her bed and going to sleep. So what if she hadn’t undressed. She’d just been really tired was all. That must be it.

  No. She’d had a very nice time last night, and he had been a very nice guy. True, she didn’t know him well enough to know if that was going to stick, but she was willing to find out.

  “Em, I need a shower. We can talk some more later. Some of us have to brave this weather in order to get to work.”

  Renee glanced out the window and saw the world was caked in white and that it was still snowing. The roads looked terrible from where she was standing.

  “Be careful out there,” Emily said with concern.

  “I always am. Mwah! Later!” Renee hung up in tandem with Emily. She and Emily were two very different people, but they made good friends.

  As she stripped and stepped into the shower she was smiling. The date she’d had last night might not have been half so much fun if it wasn’t for Emily. As Renee washed her hair she gave a thought to all the men and relationships she had shared with Emily. The men had changed, but Em had always stayed steadfast. She truly was her best friend and she didn’t know what she would do without her.

  Renee dressed for work, fighting through a sense of lethargy that she couldn’t explain. If she weren’t required to make her shift at the precinct, she would have liked to have stayed home, curled under the covers with a good book and a cup of hot coffee. She settled for the coffee and went out into the still heavily falling snow. She woke up her smartphone and got the lowdown on the winter storm. They were expecting it to last another day. She had every intention of remaining inside the precinct until it was all over and a semblance of cleanup had been done, but odds were that wasn’t going to last. Murder didn’t stop for bad weather.

  A plow went by her as she walked to the subway, and as she went down the stairs she was bathed in the warmth of the trains racing by. She had a car, but living in the city she tended to walk everywhere or take a bus or train. Her partner had a car and she drove with him when they were working.

  The subway stop was right around the corner from the market she had shopped at last night. She was really quite centrally located, even if she wasn’t in Manhattan. Brooklyn was its own little city; it just happened to be connected to a bigger one that was within easy traveling distance.

  Renee got to the precinct and the first thing she did after taking off her coat was search for the coroner’s report on yesterday’s murder. It still was not ready but Stella promised her it would be there by that afternoon. They had done the notification of the next of kin yesterday and begun their interviews. So far the vic was well liked and didn’t seem to have any enemies. But it was still early in the investigation and some new leads might turn up. But as of that moment, it looked as though it might be a random killing; perhaps a robbery that had been truncated by the screeches of the witness who had seen the whole thing. Still, she wasn’t ready to discount all who knew him. There was a wife and an insurance policy and a bit of money involved. Quite a bit of money. All of which made for a good motive.

  She sifted through other cases during the morning, keeping herself busy and hoping she didn’t have to go out in the extreme weather. Luckily it turned out to be a quiet day for new murder.

  The coroner’s report came in around two P.M. She looked through it immediately and saw cause of death was an arrhythmia, a disruption of the electrical functions of the heart. In other words, a heart attack. But it was strange the way Stella had worded it. Why not just say it was a heart attack? She turned the page and read Stella’s further notes on the apparent bite marks on the victim’s neck. It was a human bite mark, likely done by someone with dental enhancements of the upper and lower canines. Stella had taken a bite-mark impression for use as evidence. There were no other wounds or injuries on the body.

  So was it murder? Yes. The victim had suffered a heart attack during an attack on his person. She would let the DA figure out the finer details of whether the attacker would be charged with murder or manslaughter, but in her book it was murder. She would treat it as such. She didn’t have much to go on, but she’d done more with less before. That part where he had bit his victim on the back of the neck—it couldn’t be the first time he had pulled a stunt like that. Maybe his MO was on file somewhere. Maybe it was some petty criminal who had never expected the man he was attacking would die.

  Renee typed the details of the case into ViCAP and began a search for matching MOs. While she waited, she toyed with the embossed card sitting in front of her on her desk. She had taken it out of her pocket about two hours earlier and had been fondling it off and on since then.

  Should she call him now? He was probably back from lunch and in a meeting or something, she thought. She ran her fingers thoughtfully over the raised pattern on the card. She ought to have called at lunchtime when he might have been able to talk more. But she hadn’t wanted to seem too eager. She sighed, realizing she was playing games with herself in her own head. She picked up her cellphone and dialed the number on the card.

  “DaSilva,” he said in greeting.

  She didn’t know why she had been expecting to get his voicemail…or perhaps hoping to get it. That way she could leave her number and the ball firmly in his court. After all, she didn’t know how he felt about her after last night’s kiss.

  “Hello, Rafe?”

  “Renee,” he said on an exhale, as if he had been holding his breath waiting for her to call. It gave her enormous pleasure to imagine that was what he had been doing. Her ego was sufficiently pleased. “I’m so glad you’ve called.”

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “Yes, very much so. Did you think I would not wish to hear from you?”

  “I don’t know. You might have had a terrible time last night.”

  “I can assure you, I did not have a terrible time.” His voice lowered, though she couldn’t tell if it was from interest or because he was trying to make their conversation more intimate. “I’m pleased you called. I very much wanted to hear from you.”

  “You said that already,” she said with a chuckle.

  “Well then, it must be true. It must mean I am eager to see you again.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. Are you busy this evening? There is an opening at an
art gallery in SoHo. I know of an excellent organic restaurant right around the corner from there as well.”

  “Will the opening even happen with all of this snow?”

  “Last I checked they had no plans to delay it. Do you enjoy art?”

  “As much as the next person,” she said with a smile. “I suppose it depends on the art. I’m into classic paintings and sculptures. Nothing too avant-garde.”

  “I think you will like this artist then. He has a classical style.”

  “It sounds interesting.”

  “It will be. Can I assume then that you will come?”

  Renee smiled to herself. She was a simple woman when all was said and done. She liked her coffee and her paper. She liked Facebook and she liked her ten o’clock news. She liked a beer and a basketball game. She had never been to anything as exotic as an art gallery opening, but she had been to many museums. She figured one couldn’t be that much different from the other, and after all it was clear she was going there just to spend time with him. She didn’t need too many social graces for that.

  But she wasn’t exactly an upper crust type of person and it was becoming clear that he was. She should have recognized that simply from the job he held. It was obvious from the clothes he wore that he was made of more than a little money and the way he spoke and carried himself only supported that. It wasn’t as if she didn’t think she was good enough for him so much as it was she wasn’t sure she would fit into his life well.

  But there was only one way to find out.

  “Yes. You can. I am looking forward to it.”

  “I am looking forward to you. The art is secondary.”

  Renee felt herself warming beneath her clothes. “Charmer,” she accused him lightly.

  “Not at all. I speak from the heart. You will discover that about me. I am blunt, and I am honest about my feelings. I don’t cater to others. If I say I am looking forward to seeing you, then rest assured I am.”

  “I am the same. And I am very much looking forward to seeing you again as well.”

  “Then we make a perfect pair. Shall we say seven o’clock? The gallery opening is at nine. With seven-thirty reservations we will easily make it.”

  “Now all that’s left is for me to find something decent to wear.”

  “Wear whatever you like. I am certain you will be beautiful regardless.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile.

  “And now I have your number. Have I earned your surname yet so I can add you to my contacts?”

  “Oh yes!” she gasped. “I’m so sorry. I really should have left you with it and my number last night. It’s Holden. Renee Holden.”

  “Thank you, Detective Holden. I will add your number and address, thus permanently entrenching you in my life.”

  She laughed at that. “I will do the same, Rafe DaSilva.”

  “I’ll be on your doorstep at seven. All right?”

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  “See you then.”

  “Bye.”

  Renee hung up and sighed with relief. He really was shaping up to be too good to be true. Still, it was early yet. She had to keep the jury out until she had definitive proof as to what kind of man he was.

  She only hoped he didn’t let her down.

  —

  Rafe hung up the phone and stood looking at it for a moment. Why had he asked her out again tonight? He didn’t need to feed again for several nights and in any event he couldn’t take from her two nights in a row. Even though she was clearly able to regenerate her energy rather quickly—another person wouldn’t want to go out so soon; they would be more likely to stay in bed a day or two—he couldn’t risk draining her to the point of putting her in the hospital. He knew vampires who had what were commonly called limited sources that they fed on so regularly they showed signs of wear and illness, their natural bodies worn out and unable to defend against invaders like germs or viruses.

  Once a source became sick they were off-limits, of course. Just like any source who took drugs was off-limits to any clean vampire. Phants not so much. Sycophants would feed off anything, sick or well, addict or clean. It was what made them what they were. As a clean vampire he had to be far more judicious. And he had to protect his sources. The best way to do that was to keep a variety of sources in a variety of locations, taking from no one source more than once a month. Of course, a source could theoretically be used once a week, but it was best to play it safe.

  So, no matter how sorely Renee and her abundant energy might tempt him, he would not feed from her again for quite a while. Besides, if he showed partiality to a source it could arouse the interests of his enemies or another vampire. Competing for a source was the last thing he wanted. Putting Renee in the crossfire of a war she had no part of would be unconscionable.

  Yet he was compelled to see her again. He told himself it was to keep abreast of the police investigation, not because of her beautiful face and her winning smile.

  Not to mention her oh-so-sexy kiss.

  He had kissed her to give her something to remember even as he made her forget his feeding from her, but he had been taken by surprise by the heat and passion of the kiss. The way it made him crave more still stunned him. And that was to say nothing of the unadulterated pleasure of taking her abundant energy into himself. Her energy had been bright and clear, sexual and sweet, wild and then satiating. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like that. He wanted it again. Craved it again.

  It was dangerous to want something so badly, and yet it made him feel alive. More so than he had been feeling while struggling in a job that could sometimes seem so pointless.

  Strange. It had been such a simple date. So calm and quiet and free of trouble. That was perhaps what had appealed to him most about it. It was normal. Innocent of the war his people were a part of.

  It was an illusion of course. Stolen moments. But was it a crime for him to want to steal a few more? Perhaps not a crime in this instance, but maybe unwise. There was no sense in him trying to reach for something he could not have.

  Still, he was going to do it all the same. Just for a little while. He needed something fresh and pure and void of all the darkness in his life. It was, perhaps, unwise on many levels, but he was going to defy his common sense. Just for tonight.

  Rafe put his phone into his pocket and walked into his afternoon meeting.

  Chapter 6

  Rafe acknowledged the other players in the room with brief nods. Most of them nodded back. But his attention was focused on the center of the room, on the most important player of all. The queen of the vampires was the sort of woman to whom others gravitated. Dynamic and proud, she arrested the attention of everyone in the room.

  The others were equally arresting, but in very different ways. Halo was there, his casual attire in stark contrast to the business suits and higher fashion around him. He wore faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt that clung to the well-defined muscles of his chest, shoulders, and abdomen. The man was fit and strong and he did everything in his power to advertise the fact. Rafe supposed it was part vanity and part intimidation. Anyone going toe-to-toe with the bounty hunter would be scared witless before the fight even began. Of course, Halo’s reputation as a dark and dirty fighter would only add to that. There wasn’t a phant alive who didn’t know who Halo was…and didn’t fear him coming after them.

  Then there was Danton, the leader of the authoritarians—the vampire force whose sole job was to keep law-abiding vampires doing just that, abiding by the laws that Simone and the lawmakers passed. Danton was a dark-skinned man with a clean-shaven head and a neatly trimmed goatee. His dark brown eyes could stare right through a soul. He wore slacks and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his arms. He didn’t wear a watch, as was true of all e-vamps because they could tell time intrinsically, but he did wear a gold bracelet with three rubies spaced apart in the gold. It was some kind of family heirloom, Rafe had been told. Whatever its value, t
he vampire wore it well. He too had an aura that said he was not a vampire to mess with.

  Also in the room was Skye, Simone’s closest friend and confidante, and also one of her business heads. The vampires had a vast amount of wealth in their dealings with the human world, mostly via banks and intricate stock portfolios. In that building alone there were several incorporated offices of businesses designed to make money and support the e-vamps in style and comfort. Skye was in charge of coordinating these efforts, helping Simone keep track of their investments. Skye had a team to help her do this and they worked seamlessly with human companies, making money and protecting the nature of the e-vamps at the same time.

  Then there was the ambassadorial team, of which Rafe was the head. Much of his team was in the room as well, simply to cut down the need for them to hold duplicate meetings as instructions filtered down the ranks. Besides, they were at a critical juncture with the treaty. Everyone needed to be on point and freshly updated.

  “We were waiting for you,” Simone said to him without censure.

  “Sorry. I had an important call. Please, continue.”

  “Thank you. As you all know the treaty is going to be signed at the beginning of next week provided the weather eases and the planes of all our diplomats are able to arrive.”

  “The weather shouldn’t be a problem by then,” Rafe said. “Reports say that this will have long passed and cleanup should also be complete.”

  “Good. I am glad to hear it. I am determined that nothing will get in the way of this treaty. It is the biggest one of its kind in fifty years and princes from all over will be here to sign it. Finally there is hope that, if we work together, we can eradicate the sycophant threat once and for all.”

  “We are already trying our best to weed them out,” one of Rafe’s team members said cautiously. “I don’t see how this treaty will allow us to be any more or less effective at it.”