BloodlustBundle

by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor

  He lowered his voice. “Then at least let’s discuss this in private, not where anyone could overhear.” He lightly grasped her elbow and steered her toward the room.

  “Fine. Sure you won’t run away again the minute things heat up?” Hearing that phrase slip out, she blushed. Though she’d intended heat in the sense of anger, the other meaning pounced on her at once, and she could only hope he hadn’t thought of it, too.

  As they entered the room, she got a closer look at Max. His shirt was not only rumpled but stained. Dark red stains.

  “What’s that?” She reached for him but stopped midway, remembering the last time she’d touched his chest. “Are you hurt?”

  “No!” He turned from her to bolt and chain the door.

  “Then what happened? Whose blood is that?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. For one thing, I have to know if I’m going to need a lawyer when the police barge in here any minute to arrest you for assault.”

  Max sat down with a decisive thud in the armchair by the curtained window, running a hand through his hair. “That won’t happen. Damn it, woman, all this would be so much easier if I could hypnotize you into believing every word I say.”

  “The way you did poor Fred, and Nola did to Deanna and the other kids? Thank heaven you can’t.” She stood over him, her arms folded. “Give.”

  “Very well. Remember what I told you about Nola’s blood fetish?”

  “Yeah. She likes to drink blood.” A lump of sickness congealed in the pit of Linnet’s stomach. “And you said she’s a cousin of yours. Blood on your shirt—you’re like her?”

  “It’s more than a preference. It’s a biological need.”

  “You’re crazy.” Linnet backed up until she hit the mattress, and then her knees buckled. Sitting on the bed, she stared at Max, who looked as cool as ever. “I’m alone with some kind of bloodsucking pervert.”

  “I concede the habit might constitute a perversion for a human being. Although there’s some question about that. Certain African tribes who herd cattle use their livestock’s blood, mixed with milk, for nourishment.”

  “Don’t confuse the issue. The customs of exotic cultures are beside the point.”

  “So they are. Not that consuming blood is entirely exotic. Surely you’ve known people who eat blood sausage.” He held up a hand to forestall another protest. “However, these facts have no direct relevance to Nola and me. We are not human.”

  She thought of his peculiar habits, his avoidance of sunlight and solid food, his aversion to garlic, his preference for sleeping in the daytime, his extraordinary talent for hypnosis. He really meant that incredible claim. Whether or not Nola was playacting, Max wasn’t. He believed what he’d just said.

  “You are nuts!”

  He sighed. “The expected reaction. I suppose I should prefer it over an immediate rush for stake, cross and torch.”

  “Stake?” Now that he obviously wasn’t preparing to leap on her and rip out her throat, fear gave way to outrage. “What are you saying? You’re a vampire? How gullible do you think I am?” What she’d just seen in the corridor flashed into her mind. She smothered the thought. Now that she’d had a few minutes to recover, she knew she must have imagined that incident. She had to believe that or decide the universe, not just Max, had gone crazy.

  “On the contrary, I think you’re too intelligent to discount the evidence of your own eyes, even if it contradicts your ingrained beliefs about the nature of reality.”

  “You said it yourself, I’m trained in science. I don’t believe in the supernatural. You’re trying to scare me away with this wild story, aren’t you? Well, it won’t work.”

  “No, what will no longer work is trying to hide the truth from you. These few hours have shown that we can’t share close quarters without the truth of my—anomalies—becoming obvious. Since I can’t mesmerize you into ignoring an accumulating list of oddities, the simplest alternative is to reveal the truth. Then we can get on with the job at hand.”

  “Good grief, you really believe this stuff. You actually think you’re a vampire.”

  Chapter 8

  He shook his head. “We do not have time for this. After spending a night and a day trying to keep you from finding out what I am, must I now expend almost as much effort to convince you of the truth?”

  “The way I see it, there are only two possibilities. You’re feeding me this line to chase me away, so I won’t slow you down going after Nola. Which I don’t buy, because you’re too serious about it. So you’re mentally ill, a blood fetishist who thinks he’s not human.”

  “Can you honestly say I look deranged?”

  “How would I know? I’m not a psychologist.” She had to admit, though, that Max looked more composed and rational than she imagined a raving psychotic would. After all these hours together, wouldn’t she have noticed some hint of insanity? Or mental disability, or whatever the politically correct term was?

  “Consider the things you’ve seen.” He leaned forward, hands on his knees. In the shadowed corner, his eyes gleamed with crimson-flecked silver.

  “Your eyes,” she said. “I didn’t want to admit how they looked, but I’m seeing it right now.”

  He nodded. “Very good. You don’t let preconceptions blind you. Normally that would be inconvenient for me, but in the present situation, I want you to make these observations.”

  “Doesn’t mean you’re a supernatural being. Could be tinted contact lenses.”

  “Why would I go to that trouble? And I do not claim to be supernatural.”

  “Whoa! Vampires are supernatural, right? Last I heard, anyway.”

  “Only in superstition. This is reality.”

  “Using the term loosely.” Her heartbeat slowed to its normal rate. How could she fear a man who could argue so coolly on such a weird topic?

  “The truth behind the superstition is that we’re another species who prey on your kind. We look like you in order to pass unnoticed among you. Nothing that your science can’t accept.”

  “I’m still not accepting.”

  “The blood.”

  Her stomach churned. She dug her nails into the bedspread. “You’re admitting you attack people for their blood.”

  He frowned. “I did not attack the woman I just drank from. I lured her. She enjoyed the experience, and she won’t remember it.”

  “Enjoyed? That’s probably what every rapist thinks.” Her protest lacked conviction, though, undermined by the memory of the way his lips had felt on her neck.

  “Not rape, damn it, seduction. We give our donors pleasure, and they don’t miss the small amount we take.”

  Trying not to squirm under his stare, she said, “So you’re a blood fetishist, the way you claimed Nola was. That doesn’t prove you’re not human. Like you said, ordinary people can drink blood, too.”

  He leaned back, watching her. “You’ve seen other strange events in the last twenty-four hours.”

  She forced herself to consider the evidence impartially. His compliment on her powers of reasoning and observation had pleased her more than she wanted to admit, and she didn’t want to destroy that impression. “The hypnotism thing. From all I’ve read about psychology, hypnosis doesn’t normally work that way.”

  He encouraged her with a nod.

  “And either I’m going nuts too, or I saw you appear out of thin air. Twice.”

  “Again, have you noted any other symptoms of incipient madness in yourself?”

  “Sure.” She dredged up a grin from somewhere. “To come here with you in the first place, I have to be crazy.” The flash of humor faded. “At Fred’s house, you moved so fast. I didn’t see you, and you were suddenly—there.”

  “Not many people would allow themselves to notice that. We rely on human observers’ inattentiveness, plus their eagerness to explain away anything that doesn’t fit. Most ephemerals don’t want their concept of reality overturned.”

&nbs
p; “Ephemerals? Oh, I get it. Us. People who don’t live forever.”

  “Exactly.”

  Linnet shook her head. “You’re losing me again. How can I seriously believe you aren’t human?”

  “You touched me.” His low voice seemed to stroke her nerves.

  Shivering, she wrenched her eyes away from his face. “You’re always cold. That could be some obscure chronic condition. But I tried to feel your pulse…” With a jolt, she remembered the extended pause between breaths and heart-beats. On top of all the other anomalies, that one sent the final gust of wind blowing toward her mental house of cards. Could he be telling the truth? Inhumanly fast and strong, with psychic powers of which she’d probably glimpsed only a fraction, he could rip her to shreds on a whim. And if he were actually a member of another species, an intelligent predator, his motives might bear no relation to anything she could understand. How could she trust him not to turn on her?

  She stood up, inching around the bed to put more distance between them.

  He, too, slowly rose to his feet. “Come, Linnet, if you seriously think you have reason to be afraid, do you believe you have any chance to outrun me?”

  “Good point.” She drew a deep breath to stop her voice from trembling. “And you haven’t tried to hurt me. Yet. But whether you’re a vampire or just a lunatic, I know you could.”

  “We can’t work together if you’re terrified of me. You’d better save your fear for Nola.” He took one step toward her. “Nor can we achieve our goal if you’re confused. Frankly, I’d rather you consider me an alien monster than a lunatic. You’ll be more likely to listen to my advice.”

  The remark startled her into a shaky laugh.

  “Unfortunately, as we’ve already established, I can’t calm you with hypnosis. And I’ve gone too far to back off and make you think the claim of vampirism was a joke. So my only choice is to show you something you can’t explain away.”

  “Huh?” She lowered herself into the other chair, farthest from the bed, keeping her eyes fixed on him.

  He didn’t make any sudden moves, though, or even try to get closer to her. Instead, he peeled off his shirt.

  “What now?” Surely he didn’t plan to resume the interrupted seduction!

  “Just watch, please. I can’t do this in sunlight, but this late in the day, with the drapes closed, I can just manage it.”

  His outline blurred. Patches of darkness spread like spilled ink down his neck, over his shoulders and arms, across his chest. Linnet blinked, trying to dispel what must be an illusion. She found herself standing up, edging toward him to get a better look. His eyes glowed with brighter red at their centers. His ears grew pointed. Something in the collarbone region seemed to melt and reshape. She glanced in the mirror. There his image didn’t blur and flicker. Instead, it changed from one stage to the next in fits and starts, like stop-motion photography. So part of what I’m seeing is subjective perception.

  He turned his back to her. Wings sprouted from his shoulder blades and expanded until their mistlike outline coalesced into a fixed shape. Pale gray, they looked more like moth wings than bat wings. They unfurled to a six-foot span, flowing behind him like a cape.

  “Oh, God.” Openmouthed, she stared at him. Her legs crumpled.

  Max glided across the floor and caught her. When he set her on the bed, she noticed a dusting of fine hairs on his face, not as heavy as the velvet fur that now covered the rest of his body. He flashed a sardonic smile that revealed a feline mouthful of fangs. “You won’t faint, will you?”

  “I’ll try not to.” She clutched his arms. “You have wings. And fangs. Is that how you bite…?”

  “Certainly not. This shape is normally used only for hunting animals in the wild. Actually, it’s seldom used at all in this civilized age, except for recreational purposes.”

  “Recreational,” she parroted. It seemed strange to hear Max’s resonant, faintly British-accented voice coming from that half-animal form. The now-familiar tone reassured her that he wasn’t going to sink his teeth into her in the next few seconds. “You can’t fly. You’re too heavy. I don’t believe you have hollow bones like a bird, or you couldn’t be as strong as you are.”

  “We levitate. The wings are for gliding and steering.”

  Feeling dizzy, Linnet closed her eyes and bowed her head on one clenched fist. “Okay, I can accept that you have psychic powers like hypnotizing people. But levitation? That violates the laws of physics.”

  “Like the transformation itself? In both cases, I’m using my mental powers to alter my physical substance.” He slipped out of her grasp, and she heard him move back. “I’m old enough to include clothing in the change, but it’s more difficult. I wouldn’t bother except in an emergency.”

  “That doesn’t sound very scientific to me. Sounds more like magic.” She opened her eyes to look at him. The wings were still there. Since she didn’t believe she was losing her mind, she had to accept them.

  He shrugged, making the silver-gray membranes shimmer. “Don’t you have a saying about sufficiently advanced science being indistinguishable from magic? Anyway, many of your psychologists believe in extrasensory abilities.”

  “Yeah, and many more of them believe it’s a lot of hooey.” She rubbed her forehead. “Wow, what I could tell them.”

  His expression hardened. “I trust you’re not one of those people who would jump at the chance to sell a story to the tabloids. I wouldn’t have confided in you if you were.”

  “Of course not. I can just imagine all the lunatic-fringe elements coming after you with stakes, and the biologists locking you in a lab to experiment on. Not to mention the CIA trying to turn you into a secret weapon.”

  “Exactly. We have many reasons to hide our existence. Now that the various human ethnic groups are widely distributed and the average human height approaches ours, we don’t stand out the way we used to. It is much easier to pass for your kind.”

  “How long have you existed?” Now more fascinated than afraid, she stood up and moved closer to him.

  “At least ten thousand years. Perhaps longer. We have no culture except what we borrow from your kind, so perpetuating our own history is of little interest.”

  “I can understand your being evolved to live on blood.” She reached out to run a fingertip along his arm. The hair, or fur, did feel like velvet. The temptation to stroke him like a cat struck her so forcefully that she had to pull back to keep from yielding to it. “But why would evolution give you wings?”

  “We think this shape duplicates an ancestral form whose memory, so to speak, is stored in our genes. We can use hypnotic influence to make ourselves appear as other creatures, similar to the way I used that power to make myself invisible, but this is the only true shape change we can perform.”

  “So what good is it? Aside from recreational?” She folded her arms to resist the urge to touch him again.

  “Most likely, in the hunter-gatherer and early agricultural stages, when human populations were small and scattered, we needed the ability to soar long distances in a single night, searching for prey. Then, as now, we probably didn’t kill our human donors, nor did we want to frighten them by feeding too often in one settlement. We could glide over large areas using our night vision and infrared sense to find our targets.” He must have sensed the chill those words gave her, because he quickly added, “Not that we feed on human prey every night. Much of our nourishment comes from animal blood and, as you’ve seen, milk.”

  She had to suppress a giggle. “Milk-drinking vampires?”

  “A good many of your legends mention that.”

  “I wouldn’t know. My vampire expertise pretty much begins and ends with the movies.”

  He bared his lips in a silent snarl. “The only good thing about that nonsense is the way it misdirects people so that they don’t recognize the real thing when they meet it.”

  “You’re an endangered species,” she said. “Like most large predators in today’s w
orld. And I can’t deny that predators are as much God’s creatures as any other animals.”

  “Quite so, but few of your people would see us that way.” His eyes raked her up and down. “You aren’t afraid now.”

  “Not as long as you keep talking like, well, a normal person.”

  “You may touch me.”

  She felt a blush rising. “Do you read minds, too?”

  “Only emotions. And yours are obvious enough.” He flashed a teasing smile. “To read thoughts requires a two-way exchange of blood, the kind of bond young Fred had with Nola.”

  “Oh, yeah, he said something about that, but it didn’t make sense to me at the time.” Linnet took a step closer to Max, who moved toward her at the same moment. She skimmed her hand over his chest. The fur felt smoother than any cat’s.

  “I broke that bond with the posthypnotic command I gave him. She doesn’t have access to his thoughts anymore.” Max’s breath caught in an audible gasp as she repeated the long, slow strokes. “I’m sure Anthony did the same thing with Deanna.”

  “Hold it.” Her hand stopped moving. “You mean she drank his blood? They drank each other’s?”

  “Not for power and control, as Nola did with her followers.” Taking her hand in his, he guided her fingers to the center of his palm. There she felt a patch of fine hair, sparser than anywhere else. He sighed when she explored it. “Enough,” he said. “It’s very sensitive, like a cat’s whiskers. Pressure overwhelms the nerves so that I don’t feel much, but light contact—”

  She transferred her attention to the most fascinating feature, the wings. They felt like silk and quivered at her touch. “If Anthony didn’t do that with Dee to control her, then why?”

  “For intimacy.” Max sounded faintly surprised that she had to ask. “To share their inmost thoughts along with the blood. It’s said to be the most intense experience possible between lovers. I wouldn’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t, huh?” She couldn’t stop running her hands over the upper curve of his wings. Their responsive vibration felt almost hypnotic in itself.