by Pace, Pepper
There was a flash of movement that I sensed more than saw, and Tony was standing in front of me. He took hold of my arm and yanked my hand out of my mouth. “What happened?”
“Silver. I accidentally touched it.” I cursed again.
Tony exhaled. I wondered why when he didn’t have to breathe. He held my arm, examined my fingertips, and grimaced.
I grimaced, too. They looked like seared sausages! It hurt worse after seeing it. “Ow, ow, ow!” I cried.
He placed my fingers into his mouth. I could feel his tongue moving gently over my fingertips.
Oh my, my, my. The pain disappeared to be replaced by warmth that spread throughout my body. Each time his tongue moved over my fingertip it felt as if he were moving low over my body. I had to squeeze my legs together because it felt as if his tongue was between my thighs! My mouth hung open before I snapped it shut.
Tony released his grip on my arm. “Better?”
I nodded. I looked at my fingertips because they barely hurt at all. Hey! They were almost completely healed.
Tony had a strange smile on his face. I squeezed my knees together wondering if he had used some strange Vampire powers over more parts of my body than my fingertips.
I needed some air. My life—or whatever you wanted to call it—was taking a strange turn, and I didn’t need the complication of ... what? What is this? We’re both dead. I choked on the thought, and Tony patted my back.
”Let’s just go,” I said moving away from him.
When we walked through what was left of my door I sighed. Yes, even though my lungs were lifeless, I still sighed.
Tony propped the heavy door up into the jamb as if it was a toy. I headed to my car, but Tony didn’t follow.
I turned. ”What?”
”We don’t need a car to travel.”
Can I fly? Or did I turn to mist ... Oh no, not a bat! I didn’t want to turn into a winged rat! ”Tony, I’d rather just take the car.” Tonight I simply didn’t think that I could take another revelation.
Tony shook his head. “Can’t. There’s no time. We couldn’t drive to my house from here before dawn. I don’t live in the city.”
“So … how are we … going to get there?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do all of the work.”
He took hold of my arm, and I would have pulled back except I didn’t want to end up falling through Never-Never Land. “Relax,” he said.
I shivered at the masculine tone of his voice so close to me. How could I relax when I was going off somewhere with a man, vamp—whatever! -–who had just tried to kill me?
I wondered if I was making the worst mistake of my undead life.
CHAPTER 4
We were moving.
No, the world around us was moving.
I was getting a serious case of vertigo.
I felt as if I was on the verge of stumbling except I didn’t because Tony’s steadying hold on my arm. Okay, so maybe his hold on me wasn’t possessive, but I still didn’t like it. I tried to look around, but lights and sights sped by me too rapidly to make sense of them. I can’t say how long it lasted, but thankfully not long and we came to a standstill with a swish of air. I was no longer on my front stoop but was standing in front of a converted modern building.
“Okay?” he asked.
I looked at him and nodded. “So I’m going to be able to do that, too?”
“With some training.”
Wow…There was so much that I wanted to know. What else would I be able to do? So far I had the ability to hypnotize, I could move superfast, and I had super strength.
”Nice condo,” I said.
”This is not a condo. This is my house.”
My mouth made an O. “Oh.” Some Vampires had money. The Vampire who had made me didn’t seem to be rolling in the dough with his unkempt appearance and Blaxploitation Superfly attire.
Tony led us up the walkway of the modern mansion. It was chromed out with lots of glass. Hmmm. Glass meant sun. Odd. When we got to the big metal door it swung open on its own just as it had at the Council meeting house. Tony walked in as William had, knowing that it was going to open.
”Tony, did you open that door using telekinesis?”
He glanced back at me. No. Mei Wah opened the door.”
I saw a little Asian man standing inside the doorway. How embarrassing.
”Mei Wah is my assistant. Vampires do have a psychic link with their assistants.” He glanced at me with a slight smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll discuss it later.”
I nodded.
Wow. From the entryway I could see light marble floors with a lot of dark wooden pieces. It was beautiful.
Tony handed my bag to Mei Wah, who promptly disappeared with it. “Let me show you around. We won’t have time for a complete tour. But I’ll get you acquainted with where things are.” He gestured for me to follow him.
“Um …” I stopped inside of the entrance. “You’re going to tell me more about your house than I know about you?”
“Ah, well, let me correct that.” He waited for me to follow him into a living room decorated in earth tones but with splashes of crimson and cobalt blue. His style was decidedly African with strange wooden masks on his walls and sculpted figures of nude men and women. I even saw pieces that appeared to be sculpted of real ivory.
He sat in a wingchair with a huge back that reminded me of a throne.
He crossed his legs and stared at me.
“How long have you been a Vampire?” I asked, tearing my eyes from his sexy mouth. Could he tell the effect that he had on me? Damnit. I stared at him defiantly.
Tony watched me for another second or two. “Since 1929.”
My eyes bulged. It was difficult to imagine that this man was nearly 100 years old!
”I’m relatively young. Especially for a Council member.”
“You’ll have to tell me more about the Council but not now. I want to hear more about you. You were in Harlem during the renaissance?”
”I was a teenager during the Harlem Renaissance. By the time I was twenty-nine I was a partner in a nightclub.” He smiled. “It wasn’t the Savoy—we did more Lester Young and Charlie Parker than Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy was like R and B where Lester Young was like hip hop.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Tony, it might surprise you to know that I love jazz, from Miles Davis to Coltrane. But I like the new jazz, too, like Boney James.”
He nodded.
I relaxed and listened to Tony talk about life in Harlem back in the ‘20s and ‘30s. He had worn a zoot suit and had conked his hair. He regularly saw Billy Holiday, who hung out at the Harlem Opera House, and was friends with many poets I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never heard of. Tony became less scary to me since I could put a history behind him. He was no longer Tony the Vampire but Tony Yates from Harlem. He was more than a Council member with a handsome face. He was a man who had a history.
He stood. “Shall we continue the tour?”
I nodded and followed him out of the room. We moved into a dining room large enough to accommodate a party of twenty-five or thirty. It was tastefully decorated with touches of tribal and African artifacts. The table was already set with gold plates and crystal glasses. I didn’t know why since apparently we didn’t eat or drink.
”Tony, why all the windows?” Both rooms had floor to ceiling windows that were the focal points of each room.
”Ahh, the magic of modern science. They are special windows that block the harmful rays of the sun.”
“But you’re asleep by the time the sun comes up. Why windows when you can’t even see out?”
Tony looked at the window. “Right before sleep takes me I can see, for just the briefest moment, dawn’s first pink glow.” He shook himself. “We have too much time talking about me. I should show you to your rooms or we’ll be asleep right here in the middle of the floor.”
He led me down a corridor whose walls were lined with paintings of beaches and natives
with children frolicking in the sunshine.
The corridor led to a thick wooden door. The door opened to a long, stone stairwell like the one in the Council house. Thinking about that made me wary.
Tony led the way but he kept looking back at me as if he thought I was going to chicken out. Hell, at this late hour I had no choice but to trust him.
We got to the bottom of the stairs. The temperature was much cooler, and it was definitely underground. I didn’t feel as if I was in a cellar, though. The space was very comfortable.
The stairs ended in a spacious room that had the feel of 1001 Arabian Nights. There were satin cushions and settees. Silks hung from the ceiling and walls. Colorful pendant lights provided splashes of brightness. The stone floor was covered in expensive throw rugs that at first glance appeared haphazard but were artful.
”Wow ...” I said, my mouth hanging open. “This ... is ... wow.”
A fireplace was burning against the far wall, a plasma TV suspended above it. I wanted to sink into the satin cushions and let my naked feet glide across the cool fabric with the heat of the fireplace to warm me.
Tony was watching me intently.
I gave him an embarrassed smile. “It’s great.”
He nodded. “I’ll show you to the bedroom.”
Another door with an intricately carved arch led to another room that was just as large. My eyes grew wide. This room had a ceiling of gold that glowed like the sun but not quite as bright. It arched like the ceiling at the museum of natural history and it was beautiful. The floor was covered in wall-to-wall carpet of the plushest white wool. The center of the room held a bed covered in white fur. Pillows of the palest satins were piled high on it. Fabric of the most delicate material draped the bed from invisible hooks in the ceiling.
I inhaled the fragrance of fresh flowers. There were vases of gardenias on the white dressing table, on the bedside table, and on the floor in the corner. It was so white and pristine that I could barely move.
”Tony ...” I whispered.
He took a step away from me. ”You’ll find a bathroom through the next door.” With barely a glance in my direction he appeared to dismiss me. “If you need anything, just pick up the phone and dial nine. Mei Wah is at your service.” He turned and walked out of the room, speaking over his shoulder. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.” Then he was gone.
I was a little disappointed at his abrupt departure. I had warmed up to him, or the image of the cool zoot suit wearing club owner. Okay, and yes I was attracted to the big bad Vampire. But one minute he was all smiles and courtesy, and the next he seemed bored with it all.
I dismissed him, too, and spent the next few minutes exploring my new quarters. It was definitely no crypt. I couldn’t resist taking a quick bath in the spa-like tub. The surfaces were made of marble and glass. Gardenias decorated every available space. Even the fear of falling asleep in the tub didn’t prevent me from stripping out of my clothes and luxuriating in the Jacuzzi tub. But somewhere deep inside I could feel the dawn approaching. It felt like a heaviness weighing at my limbs, the same feeling I got whenever I drank too much.
I off, thinking that it would serve me right if I woke up the next day floating facedown in the tub and wrinkled like a prune. I pulled on my gown and sank between the sheets where I spent my remaining conscious moments in another pity party.
My mama was going to be calling me soon if she hadn’t already because we never went longer than a week without talking to each other.
Thinking about Mama made my eyes sting. Damnit! Why is it that when things get hard your Mama is the first person you think of? I wanted her right now, not because she was the person who had given birth to me but because my mother is a strong woman who had raised my brother, sister and me singlehandedly after my dad’s death. She moved us to the projects when there was no other choice and had worked long and hard to see that we had what we needed in order to have a life like the one that we had been forced to leave behind.
We tried to make it in the ‘burbs, but Daddy had no life insurance. When it was all said and done, we had to give up our house. We lived with Grandma for a while, but with public assistance we were able to get our own place. I was young enough to be happy that I had my own room. I had a hard time understanding why everyone else in the family thought having our own place was a bad thing. I’m not going to lie. I love my grandmother, but I did not like living with that old stern lady who made us eat stewed vegetables every single day until they made us puke.
Yes, I noticed that we didn’t have a nice yard and that people were always hanging outside, but there were plenty of kids to play with. At the age of nine I adapted well to my lively surroundings. I preferred the ‘hood to the ‘burbs. I knew who and what to avoid, and school was only a place to hang out because, for the most part, the teachers didn’t care whether or not we did our work as long as we kept quiet and didn’t cause trouble.
You didn’t have to put on airs when you lived in the ghetto because everybody knew that everybody else is just as broke or they’d live up on the hill and not down in the projects. I learned how to fight. I learned how to run. I even learned how to steal from the corner store. But when my mother threatened to send me to a private school if I didn’t keep an A average, I also learned how to read, write, and speak properly.
Unlike my dumb, dumb brother, I was proud to be smart. People would say, “Listen to that baby girl spill some knowledge.”
I liked being the one people turned to when they needed someone to use semi-correct grammar or to write out a résumé.
My brother Terrence ended up getting into trouble and going to jail over something stupid, and my sister Jeannette married some knucklehead and started having a bunch of babies. But I listened to my mama and recognized that she didn’t need me to add to her stress. She worked hard to give us what we had, and I decided long ago that I would never follow in the footsteps of Terrence and Jeannette.
How disappointed she would be to know that I am now dead.
CHAPTER 5
My eyes opened to what at first appeared to be the sunshine. I blinked in confusion until my vision cleared. I knew that I wasn’t in my bed though I didn’t immediately remember why.
My fingers brushed the soft fur of the comforter, and I remembered the events of the previous night. Tony Yates. This was his house. I sat up and allowed my legs to swing over the side of the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in.
I dressed and examined myself in one of the many mirrors. My eyes weren’t as vibrantly gold as the night before, but nothing else about my look had changed. I puffed my hair. Damn, but I was loving this two-toned gold hair. My skin had even taken a slight golden sheen. I didn’t need even a touch of makeup. I rubbed my hands down my toned belly and thighs. I did a little spin to admire the shape of my butt.
A woman cleared her throat behind me. How the hell didn’t I hear that with my new hearing?
It was the Asian Council woman, the one who had called me out for using the word “Vampire.” Uh oh.
”Can I help you?” I said, making sure to put a bit of attitude in my words to mask my unease.
She looked at me intensely from my feet to my hair then to my eyes. It took a pretty minute for her to appraise me while I appraised her.
She wore cream-colored evening gown that brushed the floor. It shimmered as if it was made of little diamonds. It had a simple neckline, not too risqué which made it all the more sophisticated. Her hair was up in loops that reminded me for some reason of Princess Grace, and her makeup was tasteful and flawless.
I wore the black jeans that I had carelessly packed so they were a bit wrinkled and the button-down silk blouse meant to be both casual and dressy depending on the accessories, but no number of accessories would put me in the same league as Girlie.
”I see Tony put you in my old room,” she said. “Were you comfortable?”
Her old room? I glanced around. “I thought the ceiling was a bit gaudy, but it’ll do
,” I replied, trying to mask my disappointment.
She didn’t frown or move in any other way, but the blood must have rushed to her face because she turned three shades darker. Even with her too pallid skin, the look wasn’t complimentary.
I braced myself to jump either on her ass or out the door.
”I see,” she said, barely moving her lips. She turned her head away from me and walked across the floor to the dressing table. I had placed my lotion, deodorant, jewelry box, and perfume there. She gazed at them with a look of distaste.
I folded my arms. “Did you want something?”
She ran her fingers over the items on the dressing table. “Just to welcome you,” she said. “We were a bit ... hard on you before.” She glanced at me.
I smiled. “No harm no foul. Well, Johan might not think that.” Then I smiled even brighter.
I don’t really know why I was tripping. But somehow I sensed that Girlie was looking for my weakness, and I wasn’t about to show her any.
I could see her steel herself as if she wanted to strike out at me, but something held her back from doing it.
She glared at “Johan was a founding member of the Council. He ruled over thirteen hundred Neratomay. His lineage can be traced back to Caesar.” Her eyes narrowed as she gave me a contemptuous look. “And you,” she almost spat, looking me up and down, “are just little Kim Russell from Cincinnati, Ohio.”
”More than that.” I narrowed my eyes at her in that same chilly way that I’d seen Tony do so well. “I am bad enough to kill a Neratomay who could trace his lineage back to Caesar, who had ruled thirteen hundred Neratomay and who helped found your Council. And I’ve been a Vampire less than forty-eight hours.” I swore that I would never refer to them as Neratomay again. They were fucking vamps—we were fucking vamps!
”So you believe yourself more skilled than Johan?” Her voice sounded like a growl.
”I told you then like I’ll tell you now. Bitch, I will do what I need to do in order to survive.”
