Cloud City (Anna Strong Vampire Chronicles)

by Jeanne Stein

  “I’m going to sleep in your room tonight,” I tell her. “We’ll need to decide what to do about Prendergast. He can’t be allowed to go on thinking I’m the vampire he’s been seeking. Only Jonathan will be able to help with that.”

  “But I don’t want Jonathan to come back. I want to be myself again. I can’t stand what he’s doing to me. I can’t stand what I’m becoming.”

  “Jonathan didn’t do this to you, Sophie,” I remind her quietly. “You did this to him.”

  Her face is a blank slate, devoid of emotion, of comprehension, as if a switch had been thrown and her personality extinguished.

  Jonathan returns with a roar.

  What the fuck did she do to me?

  Jonathan’s anger is like a laser flare burning so hot even I feel scorched by it.

  Sophie is more desperate than you realized, I tell him. She wants to rid herself of you for good.

  Impossible. If she gets rid of me, she goes, too. Doesn’t she realize that?

  I press the palms of my hands against my eyes. How do I describe Sophie’s anguish? I don’t think she cares. She’s suffering.

  Suffering? The anger flares again. How the hell is she suffering? I’ve brought adventure into her life. I’ve opened doors for her. I’ve given her a home and a fortune. I’ve given her everything she wished for when she was an old, used up witch. What more does she want from me?

  She wants her freedom.

  The simple truth spoken in a whisper is met with silence. Jonathan’s rage dissipates. I feel the hollowness it leaves in his mind the same way I felt the heat of his rage moments before.

  I’m not sure which is more disturbing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sophie stirs. “Jonathan is here, isn’t he?”

  You bet your ass, sweet cheeks. Jonathan’s bitterness is caustic as acid. What did you do while I was under? Something stupid, I’ll bet. You want to tell me or should I ask Anna?

  Sophie looks up at me and I think she’s asking me to tell the story but instead she says, “I told Prendergast the book was Anna’s idea. That it was her story.”

  I expect an eruption. Instead, Jonathan’s reaction is uncharacteristically calm. Why did you do that?

  “Because I wanted Prendergast to go after someone else.”

  So you sent him after our friend?

  “Friend?” Sophie’s face darkens with anger. “She’s not my friend. She killed my sister after I begged her not to. Belinda was sick. She couldn’t protect herself. She was no threat to anyone.”

  You have no idea--

  I know what Jonathan is about to say. He knew the truth about Belinda’s vow to kill the sister she thought had betrayed her. I stop him before he goes any farther.

  “I’m sorry, Sophie. I did what I thought was right at the time. If you can’t forgive me, at least try to understand. None of this is Jonathan’s fault.”

  Sophie’s expression remains fixed, unmoved by what I’ve said. I wait a heartbeat before moving on to what must be resolved before this night is over.

  “What do we do about Prendergast? I think he originally planned to try to kill the vampire he blames for turning his grandmother. Since this is the first time face to face with a real vampire, though, he may be rethinking that plan.”

  Jonathan interjects. Sophie, what did you and Prendergast talk about after you got rid of me?

  His emphasis on the last words makes it clear that was a subject he’d be revisiting. In the meantime, though, I look to Sophie for the answer to a question I would have asked myself.

  She draws a breath. “After I told him the story was Anna’s, he wanted more details. Details I couldn’t give him but promised Anna would.”

  “But you knew that was impossible. I haven’t even read the stupid book.”

  Stupid book?

  You know what I mean, Jonathan. Out loud. “How did you think it would go when he started questioning me?”

  Sophie finally allows a bit of confidence to break through the gloom. “I knew it wouldn’t get that far. Anna would show her true nature and Prendergast would back down. Which he did. I also knew you’d get me out of there at the first opportunity. Prendergast is probably on his way out of town as we speak.”

  She had thought it through. A flicker of admiration blooms. Briefly. “If you’re right, and Prendergast decides it’s better to leave and let the family legend fade on its own, your plan worked. If not—”

  Sophie rises from the bed. “Well, we’ll know tomorrow, won’t we?”

  An obvious signal that it’s time for me to leave. I reach out to Jonathan. Go easy on her.

  No reply. I release a breath and wave a weary hand. “Good night, Sophie. Sleep well.”

  Even as I say it, I know that’s unlikely. She seems aware of it, too, and I wonder if Jonathan has already begun haranguing her.

  I wish I could muster up pity.

  Nothing looks so inviting as the bed in my hotel room. I shower, slip into shorts and a tank top and settle myself under sweet-smelling sheets. It’s still early, only about ten, but weariness washes over me. Tonight has been laden with emotion—more exhausting than a day of physical exertion. I don’t have the energy to sort through what’s happened or brain storm solutions. Blissful sleep comes easily.

  # # # #

  The vampire hears it first. A scratching at the door lock, a twisting of the knob.

  She awakens the human Anna, dragging her unwillingly from a dream until the fog clears and she’s aware, too.

  I sit straight up in bed, my eyes on the door. Vampire is already roused for action. Teeth bared in a snarl, fists ready to claw the throat of an intruder.

  Stealthy as any predator, I slip out of bed, go to stand just behind and to the left of the door.

  The scratching continues, a clumsy attempt to pick the lock. I’m tempted to grab the door and pull it open, but I want to see what the late night visitor intends. I wait and watch and listen until the tumblers fall into place and the door opens on silent hinges.

  I recognize his smell. Carnivore, reeking of the steak he consumed and the wine he drank. Probably for courage. He is still hidden from sight, but his breathing is ragged and fear exudes from his pores. With a sharp intake of breath, he bursts into the dark room, heads straight for the bed, plunges something into the bedclothes not aware in his frenzy that the bed is empty.

  He raises his hand to strike again and I still the hand in mid-air. The wooden stake falls to the floor when my grip threatens to break his wrist.

  Prendergast looks at me with eyes wide with surprise and panic. His mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air. I swing him around and throw him down on the bed.

  Vampire wants to finish him off. She lusts for his blood. He attacked us and it is our right to defend ourselves. It is the way.

  The human Anna is reluctant to interfere. But there are practical considerations. Disposing of a body is difficult. Better to let him go. For now.

  I grab Prendergast by his jacket and haul him into a sitting position. “You missed.”

  He blinks at me as if surprised I haven’t killed him.

  “Sophie lied to you. I’m not the vampire you seek. If I let you go, and you promise to be a good boy and go to your room, you will live to hear the truth. If you don’t, we will end it here and you’ll die never knowing it.”

  He still can’t find his voice. A shaky nod, a two-handed push off the bed, an awkward stumble toward the door is all the answer I get.

  I beat him by five steps and hold open the door. Vampire shows her serious face. “Remember what I said.”

  I think he will.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sophie is pale, her manner remote when she opens the door to me the next morning. I can only imagine the hell Jonathan put her through. I wonder if she got any sleep at all.

  I don’t make things better when I recount my encounter with Prendergast. It’s not my intention to make matters worse between Jonathan and Sophie but they nee
d to know he’s still here and that I told him I was not the vampire he’s been seeking.

  “So,” she says. “What happens now?”

  “We meet with Prendergast and let him ask his questions.”

  “I won’t tell him about Jonathan being a part of me.” Sophie rouses enough to put heat in her voice. “I won’t have him coming after me again.”

  Since Jonathan doesn’t respond and I can’t come up with a reply that would do anything except incite more antagonism, I change tactics. “Jonathan, do you have any information that is not in the book? Information that might make Prendergast let go of his vendetta?”

  The silence stretches on so long, I begin to wonder if Sophie’s done it again, trapped him in some deep corner of her psyche. But her demeanor is too subdued for that to be true and at last, Jonathan speaks.

  Yes. I changed some of the facts in the book.

  “Changed them how?”

  To add more drama to the story.

  “In what way?”

  Well, I may have embellished my part somewhat. There were others involved.

  Sophie sits up straight. “What are you saying? The story wasn’t about you?”

  Of course it was about me. But, as I said, there were others involved.

  “Would that make a difference to Prendergast?” I ask.

  Another protracted silence. I can’t penetrate Jonathan’s thoughts so I have to wait. But it’s making me antsy and that he does pick up on.

  Yes.

  Now it’s my turn to show my agitation. How will it make a difference?

  I don’t ask the question aloud, afraid to send Sophie into another fury.

  Jonathan cloaks his reply to me, too. I imagine he’s afraid of the same thing. It didn’t happen quite the way I said.

  Then how did it happen?

  I didn’t turn Prendergast’s grandmother. He pauses. She turned me.

  Sophie is aware some exchange is going on that she’s not privy to. She rises from her perch on the end of the bed and faces me. “Stop it. I know you and Jonathan are talking. If you don’t include me, I’ll send him away again.”

  You have to find out how she did it. Jonathan sounds nervous.

  Finding that out will be a subject to pursue once we get Prendergast out of the way, I fire back.Not now.

  I raise a placating hand. “Sorry, Sophie. You’re right. You should be a part of this since you’re going to have to be the one to convince Prendergast of the truth.”

  She sets her jaw. “I told you, I won’t tell him about Jonathan and me.”

  “Maybe you won’t have to. But before we know for sure, Jonathan, tell us the real story.”

  Better take a seat, he says. This will take some time.

  Reluctantly, Sophie and I sit down. She takes the foot of the bed. I plop onto the divan facing it.

  Jonathan spins his tale.

  Prendergast’s grandmother was not a paragon of virtue brought to ruin by a seductive vampire. Just the opposite. Long before I came to Leadville, about 1861 or so, Leticia Hurlburt ran one of the first bordellos in the city. She and her business partner found whiskey and whores such a lucrative business, they soon accumulated fortunes of their own.

  I came to Leadville attracted by the same thing. The promise of wealth, the lure of gold. Wasn’t long before I began frequenting Leticia’s establishment. I was young, handsome and generous with my gold. I soon became a favorite, not only with her girls, but also with Leticia herself.

  I had no idea of Leticia’s true nature until the night I got into a drunken brawl with another miner outside the saloon. The miner drew first. He shot me in the chest and pain was the last mortal sensation I was to experience.

  I learned from Leticia later that she had my body brought to her room. There was a faint heartbeat and her first inclination was only to drink from me as she had so many fatally wounded humans who fell at the steps of her establishment. But my will to live was strong and when she bit through the fragile layer of skin at my jaw line and began to drink, I stirred in her arms. She was overcome with another desire. She had no companion to share her life or her wealth. I was handsome, young and strong. Her human family all lived far away and had cut off ties because of what she chose to do with her life.

  Jonathan pauses as if sorting memories. Leticia had been turned when she was twenty-one, a young widow with a son, and leaving him with her family was the hardest thing she had ever done.

  But she was vampire and when the one who sired her moved on, she followed. They parted ways in Leadville. He moved on to California, where rumors of even richer strikes meant fortunes to be made and miners in lonely, isolated cabins an easy food source to be tapped.

  Leticia set down roots in Leadville. Her business flourished. There were enough killings to keep her well fed and her true identity concealed. For that was the nature of a mining town. Disagreements were settled with a gun or knife. Bodies would be left on the sidewalk. Leticia saw that they were properly buried. After she’d fed.

  Now here I was, a young man, in her arms, moaning with pain and the pleasure of her teeth at my neck. She decided I would become her companion. She hesitated only a moment before tearing open her wrist. She held my head with one hand and pressed her wrist against my lips, keeping it there until she saw my throat move. I came to gradually, drank slowly, hesitantly at first, but as my life force grew stronger, so did my demand for the blood. Soon I was holding her wrist to my mouth, greedy, insatiable. When she knew the change had taken place, she pushed me gently away.

  I remember looking at her with eyes full of questions. My body hummed with new life and I felt stronger than I’d ever felt before. I was sexually aroused, too, and she felt the stirring of my lust.

  He sighs as if the memory still filled him with pleasure. She opened her gown and welcomed me in.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jonathan stops. The story of his becoming provoked in him a far different response than the story of mine does in me. His voice is filled with wonder reflecting the depth of feeling he still has for the woman who turned him. I was taken by force by a rogue who intended to rape and kill me. The only thing I feel for that bastard is hatred.

  Jonathan’s story raises so many questions. Why did they part ways? What became of Leticia? Is she still alive? My head swims with possibilities. Vampire relationships seem short-lived at best despite the prospect of immortality making ‘til death do you part’ more than just a cliché. Or maybe it’s because the prospect of spending eternity with one person too often becomes a cliché of another sort: familiarity breeding contempt.

  Sophie shatters the fragile shell of silence with a snort. “So the story you had me write was a lie. Prendergast is right. Your fortune belongs to him, the human descendant.”

  I blink over at her. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

  She glares at me. “Isn’t it obvious? Jonathan isn’t a blood relative. He’s not even a bastard child. He’s the product of an unholy alliance between a vampire whore and –”

  She stops suddenly with a gasp, clasping her hands to her midsection and doubling over.

  Jonathan’s fury radiates outward, a rabid, raging storm that he is using to cause Sophie physical pain. I’m frozen in shock. I didn’t know he was capable of such a thing.

  Sophie has fallen back on the bed, drawn her body into a fetal position. She is moaning, a terrible keening sound that sets my teeth on edge. It rouses me to action. I start for her, sending a message to Jonathan, yelling at him to stop.

  Suddenly, the tone and timbre of Sophie’s cries change.

  She sits up, eyes flashing, the guttural sounds from her throat morphing into a language I don’t understand. Her words spew forth like a geyser, as if by the sheer force of their intensity they are unleashing an internal defense against Jonathan’s attack. She is no longer in pain. She is wresting control from Jonathan.

  She is casting a spell. I feel Jonathan’s presence slip away as she continues the incantati
on. Her eyes are closed, her hands clasped in supplication. I don’t recognize her. An aura of magic, dark and ominous, surrounds her. Her face is a mask of grim determination, all vestiges of softness and compassion gone. The Sophie who saved my friends and was willing to sacrifice her life to right a wrong committed by her sister is swallowed up by this other. Watching her, dread chills my bones. At this moment, she reminds me of Belinda, the black magic witch who stopped at nothing to get her way.

  A shiver of repulsion makes me move away from the creature on the bed. Even vampire is reluctant to interfere. We can only watch and wait and hope reason returns to Sophie before it is too late.

  I remember what Jonathan said. If he dies, Sophie does, too. Is she aware that her own fate is tied to his? And what if Jonathan is wrong? What if she can rid herself of him and continue on as before? Would she revert to her real age? Would she care? The frustration I felt in her makes me believe that life or death may make no difference to her. Her only goal is to be free.

  Finally, the chanting stops. Sophie’s body relaxes as she slumps back against the pillows. The sphere of sinister light that surrounded her is gone. Her eyes remain closed, but her face softens. A small smile touches the corners of her mouth.

  “Sophie?”

  Her eyes open, her expression is at once surprised to see that I’m still in the room and pleased that I am. “I did it,” she says. “How long?”

  At first I’m confused by the question, but then a flash of understanding. “Five minutes. Maybe less.”

  The smile widens. “I’m getting better. The first time it took almost twenty minutes and I was exhausted after.” She stretches, languid as a cat. “I feel fine.”

  “Jonathan?”

  “He’s where he can’t hurt me. I think he may be gone longer, too. The magic felt more potent. It was wonderful.”

  I don’t know how to respond. “Is he aware?” I ask.

  A shrug of indifference. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “How did you learn to do that without Jonathan knowing?”