Biting the Bride

by Clare Willis

  It was that spark that had drawn Richard to her, as a moth to a candle, and like the heedless fire that could either preserve or destroy life, Sunni could save him, by warming his chilled heart. Or she could draw him into the flame of daylight, where he, a creature of shadows, could not survive.

  It was not like him to entertain such negative thoughts, and he literally pinched himself to stop them, taking the soft pad of flesh between his thumb and forefinger and piercing it with a fingernail. Yes, Sunni Marquette might be dangerous, but to other, less experienced vampires, not to Richard Lazarus. He looked back at the lady in red. He could see her heart beating, causing the soft flesh of her chest to quiver. The woman gave him a tentative smile. His fangs descended, snapping into place like switchblades as he moved in for the kill.

  He left the lady in red in one of the bathroom stalls while her friend searched for her on the dance floor. After retrieving his coat and gloves and handsomely tipping the coat check girl, he strolled back toward the hotel. He had almost reached the lobby door when a black limousine appeared in his peripheral vision. He remembered seeing it parked across the street when he left the hotel. He cursed himself that he hadn’t thought to check inside it. Very sloppy, that was. The car screeched to a halt in front of him. The door opened and two vampires in dark suits jumped out.

  Richard nodded to one of them, a handsome Italian of about thirty years, with curly black hair and a sartorial flair, evidenced tonight in a hot pink dress shirt and emerald tie, with a gold cross lying on top of it.

  “Hello, Enzo.” He turned to the other vampire. “And you must be new. What is your name?”

  The yeoman had been young when he was turned, no more than twenty. He had longish blond hair and delicate facial features, but his biceps were the size of Christmas hams. He turned to Enzo for direction.

  “Don’t look at him,” Richard snapped, “you’re a vampire, for heaven’s sake. Show a little spine. What is your name?”

  “Patrick.”

  “Lovely. Would you like to come to work with me instead of the Council, Patrick? The pay is better and I’ll let you kill all the humans you like. What do you say?”

  Patrick looked at his partner again. Enzo twisted his handsome mouth in frustration. “Scipio would like to talk to you,” he said in a thick Italian accent, gesturing toward the car.

  Richard laughed, one quick bark. “Scipio, here to see me? What an honor! I assume you followed me from Europe?”

  “Will you get in?” Enzo asked, barely polite.

  “Or what?” Richard took one step closer to Enzo.

  To his credit, Patrick didn’t back away. But then again, he probably didn’t know Richard’s reputation. Enzo, on the other hand, faded toward the car door.

  “Oh, for the gods’ sake, would you stop this pissing match and get in the car?” A pale patrician face surrounded by loose gray curls poked out of the car.

  “Scipio!” Richard said. “If I’d known it was you I’d have come in immediately!”

  Richard offered a gloved hand to Scipio. After a slight pause, Scipio grasped Richard’s forearm in the Roman way.

  “Always the stickler for tradition, aren’t you? It’s quite charming, really.”

  He settled himself comfortably on the leather seat next to his nemesis. The two goons shared the opposite seat, their loglike legs spread wide. Why did Scipio persist in hiring these numbskulled musclemen for the protection unit? Had he forgotten that once one becomes a vampire, muscle size is as unimportant as whether one is right-or left-handed?

  Richard glanced at the old Roman, and then quickly looked away. He hated looking at the film on the fellow’s eyes. It made him feel ill. What aberration had occurred during the conversion process that Scipio had been left with such a human malformation? Richard would question whether he was even a vampire if Scipio hadn’t been alive when Richard was vampire-born, and aged not a day in the two hundred plus years since.

  “What are you doing here, Richard?”

  Richard crossed his legs. “I have business in the city. Why are you here?”

  “The Council warned you not to travel.”

  He blew an exasperated puff of air through his nostrils. “I do not recognize the Council’s jurisdiction over me.”

  “That does not mean we don’t have it.”

  Scipio’s tone had hardened. Enzo and Patrick leaned closer, their hands on their knees. The driver, who had been given no directions, was circling Union Square aimlessly.

  “Do you mean to arrest me, Scipio?”

  “Not unless you do something to warrant it.”

  “Then I think our interview is over. ”

  They passed the Mandarin Oriental for the second time. “You can let me out here,” Richard said. He rapped on the glass divider and the driver pulled to the curb.

  “It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen. I hope you enjoy your sojourn in San Francisco as much as I shall enjoy mine.”

  He got out and gently closed the car door behind him.

  The sun was rising, a pale yellow wafer sharing the western sky with a waxing gibbous moon that had forgotten to go to bed. Jacob stretched and yawned, although he hadn’t been asleep. At first he had considered it a blessing when he learned that only young vampires were affected by the sun and required a daily hibernation, that eventually he would be able to function twenty-four hours a day, like a water mill or a cotton gin. It had turned out to be something else; not a curse, exactly, but a burden. He rarely slept, night or day, now that he was over two hundred and fifty years old, and when he did it was due to overstimulation, not exhaustion.

  He was lying on the couch in his apartment, with a book open in his lap, waiting for Sunni to wake up and go to work. She hadn’t spent the night in the boat; in fact she and the male had stayed barely two hours, a fact that Jacob was ashamed to feel pleased about. Even though the sofa was the longest one he could find, his ankles dangled over the arm. The apartment made Jacob feel like he was in a fish bowl, endlessly circling, looking for a small dark place to rest. He had a mattress in a closet for when it really became too much to endure. He hated the place, but it had a fine view of Sunni’s fifteenth-floor condo across the street, and it was busy enough that he could come and go relatively unseen.

  Someday perhaps he’d be free to go back to his small, cozy farm in Providence, but only when Sunni was safe, and that wouldn’t happen until she was in the grave, preferably of natural causes. How long that might take was the object of some debate among the members of the Council. So few of her kind had ever been created that there was very little understanding of how long their life spans might be. A vampire made in the Dark Ages remembered a dhampir who had lived four hundred years. Another knew a princess in seventeenth-century France who lived to be two hundred, though she was beheaded, and therefore useless statistically.

  He looked at the sickle-shaped moon, its lower curve obscured by a puffy cloud. He wondered if anyone these days remembered what a sickle was. He had swung one for years on his farm. He also remembered the half-size one that his son had used, working happily alongside Jacob as if farming was a game his father had invented solely to keep him amused. He heaved a deep sigh and tossed the book onto the coffee table. It did no good to reminisce this way. It just put him in a foul mood, and heaven knew a melancholy humor was his usual state these days, although he wished it were not so.

  He walked into the entry hall, where one of the only signs of habitation was a large bowl of yellow lilies on a side table. He had them delivered once a week, even though they made him miserable. Lilies made him think of his long-lost wife, Jane, but recently they’d been bringing Sunni to mind as well. She also loved flowers and often hauled huge bunches of them to her home or the gallery. He welcomed thoughts of his wife, the pain and regret of losing her palpable but muted, the ache of an old scar rather than a fresh wound. But thinking of Sunni this way, it was entirely unacceptable.

  “Sorry, Jane,” he muttered as he grabbed the flower
s. He took them out into the hall to dump down the garbage chute.

  Just before he turned the corner, he heard someone approaching his door. He slipped into the alcove of another apartment, cloaked his appearance so that no human could see him, and waited to see who would appear. The footsteps moved closer.

  Jacob stepped out of the shadow and uncloaked. The visitor was not human, so vampire trickery would not shield him. A man stood on his doorstep, short of stature but broad in his chest. His curly, gray hair was cut into blunt bangs across his forehead, a style that had gone out of fashion millennia ago.

  “Scipio?” Jacob said incredulously. “What are you doing here? You never leave Italy. ”

  A small laugh emanated from his chest, the laugh of a man who’d experienced a great many of life’s comedies and tragedies. “Good to see you, too. How are you, centurion?”

  Jacob threw his arm around the smaller man’s shoulders. “I’m fine, Scipio, but I never fought in Caesar’s army, have you forgotten?” Jacob was delighted to see his old friend. It had been years since he’d had a friendly conversation with another vampire.

  “You were born in 1750, in Providence, Rhode Island, many miles and many years distant from the Roman Empire.” Scipio squinted at Jacob. His eyes were the color of the sky at high noon, but his corneas were like tattered lace curtains drawn across the view. His eyesight had been damaged when he was human, and although he had perfect vision now, the scars remained. “I have not forgotten anything, although some things I wish I had. I use the term for any commander of armed forces: forgive me for this, it becomes difficult to keep all the vernacular in order.”

  “Please, come inside and take a refreshment. Are you alone?” Jacob glanced down the hall.

  Scipio nodded. “I am.”

  He took Scipio inside and seated him on the couch. The Roman declined all alcoholic beverages but accepted a glass of cold water. Jacob sat next to him and stretched his long arm across the back of the couch.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call, Scipio?”

  The Roman turned the water glass in his hand, presumably admiring the clarity. “Ah, I wish it were good tidings, Jacob, but it is not. I am here on behalf of the Council.”

  “Have I done something wrong?” he asked warily. For years he’d worried that the Council might decide that he was “too close” to his case, and transfer him to some dull, impersonal task, like guarding blood banks. Was it possible they were aware of his error at the wedding?

  “We did not come for you. We came here for Richard Lazarus. ”

  This was worse than everything he had feared. Cold sweat beaded under Jacob’s arms. He tugged on his beard, a habit so old his wife used to tease him about it. Except he no longer had a beard, and his fingers slid off his smooth chin. So many years had passed that he had allowed himself to believe that perhaps it would never happen, but the moment he had been dreading had arrived.

  “Lazarus is in San Francisco? What is he doing here?”

  Scipio sipped the water before he answered. “We don’t know yet. So far all he’s done is kill two humans and check into the Mandarin Oriental hotel.”

  Jacob swallowed hard, looking out the window at the sea of lights, each one representing one or more beating human hearts. So many, but only one he cared about. “Does Lazarus know about my assignment? Is that why he’s here?”

  “We never found out. “ Scipio pulled at the collar of his white shirt as if it was strangling him. Clothing styles might change with the times, but the vampires wearing them often didn’t. It was the rare vampire who didn’t prefer the clothes of their human era, even if their era included corsets or powdered wigs as tall as fire hydrants. If Scipio hadn’t been trying to blend in he would have been wearing a toga.

  “He must not be allowed to get to her, Jacob. “ “Don’t worry, I won’t let him.” Scipio placed a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “I worry that you have gotten too close to her. ”

  “Too close? I’ve only spoken to her once since she was eight years old, and that was an accident. It won’t happen again.”

  “If he gets close to her, if it looks like she will join him, she will have to be eliminated.”

  “No!” Jacob leaped to his feet. “That’s not going to happen. Even if he makes contact with her, she’ll see him for the evil, malignant creature he is.”

  Scipio’s gray eyebrows drew together. The concern in his eyes was obvious, even covered with that strange lacework. “Can I trust you to do this job, Jacob, whatever it may demand of you? ”

  Jacob snapped to attention, standing tall and throwing his shoulders back. “I am a yeoman, Scipio, I know my duty. ”

  The old vampire’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. “I hope so, my friend. I hope so.”

  He pressed a small card into Jacob’s hand. “Here’s the number of my telefonino. Call me if you find out anything.”

  Chapter 5

  Union Square was filled with people who seemed to be in no hurry. Sunday shoppers loaded with bags gawked at the mannequins in the windows of Macy’s and Nieman Marcus, tourists waited in the wrong places for the cable car as it made its noisy, clanging progress up Powell Street, and homeless people stood on the corners with their hands or paper cups extended. Sunni weaved impatiently through them all to get to her gallery.

  Tourists rarely passed through the gleaming glass doors of the Marquette Gallery—Fine Art and Antiques, unless they were very rich or very confident. Everything about the place, from the blond wood walls sparsely punctuated with art, to the spiral iron staircase that looked vaguely like prison bars, was designed to intimidate the gawker and the dilettante. Not that Sunni had anything against those people. They just had greasy fingers and an overwhelming urge to touch everything they saw.

  Carl, Sunni’s assistant, was part of the ambience. He was a pale young man with shoulder-length hair that was as black as Clairol could make it. He favored shirts with ruffled collars, dark, Victorian-style suits, and thick eye makeup. He spoke with a fake British accent, acquired during a year in Cambridge as a Rhodes scholar.

  “Carl, did the Giacometti sculpture come in yesterday … what the hell did you do to your ears?”

  Carl’s black-painted fingertips flew from the computer keyboard to his earlobes, where rings the size of Lifesavers had been inserted into the lobes, which were red and swollen.

  “I had ear stretchers put in. Do you like them?”

  “Do I like them? What part of ‘what the hell did you do to your ears?’ did you not hear?” Sunni came closer and delicately put her pinkie finger through the ring in one of his lobes.

  “Every two months they put bigger rings in. You can make your earlobes this big.” Carl made a C with his hand.

  “That’s just gross.” Sunni shuddered. “Listen, I’m fine with the makeup, the tattoos, the fingernail polish, the outfits, but you cannot make your earlobes the size of softballs and expect to work here. You’ll alienate the customers.”

  “Ping-Pong ball?” Carl asked hopefully.

  “Gumball. If that. ”

  Her assistant sighed wistfully.

  The electronic doorbell rang. Sunni turned around and automatically moved toward the door, as she always greeted every guest personally, but when she saw the man she stopped moving. He was tall and elegant, wearing a three-piece suit with a red bow tie. He looked European, and wealthy. All of these attributes were not unusual in people visiting the Marquette Gallery, but this man had something special, a presence, that was so powerful it seemed to fill the room. It took her several seconds to recover her composure enough to continue across the floor.

  “Good morning,” Sunni said. “I’m Sunni Marquette. Is there anything in particular I can help you with?”

  “I’m Richard Lazarus. Such a pleasure to meet you.” The accent was British, the voice one of the most pleasant she’d ever heard, creamy and soothing as a cup of hot chocolate. Sunni tried not to stare at the man, but failed. He managed to look both entirely
up-to-date and as if he’d time-traveled out of another era. Even his suit—an impeccably cut herringbone tweed with narrow lapels—looked stylish now, but could just as easily have been worn in the 1950s or even the 1930s. Likewise his dark hair, which was combed back from his forehead and gelled in place, Cary Grant–style. He was probably in his forties, but he would be handsome in twenty years, or thirty. He was a man you could look at forever.

  “I’ve just flown in from London, especially to come here.”

  As he shook her hand she breathed in deeply. He smelled wonderful, although she couldn’t possibly have described or defined the fragrance.

  “Oh, really? I’m flattered, I must say.” And confused, though she didn’t say that. “London has such fine galleries.”

  “Yes, but none are yours, I believe?”

  His smile caused Sunni’s stomach to tighten. She could feel her cheeks turning pink. “That’s true. What in particular are you looking for, Mr. Lazarus?”

  He paused before answering, as if considering several possibilities. “I’m enamored of the baroque decorative arts. I have a country house in the Cotswolds that I’ve been furnishing.”

  Sunni thought of the porcelain vase that was sitting in the viewing room waiting for Dennis LaForge. She hadn’t exactly promised it to him, had she? And, as Izzy said last night, Dennis already had plenty of vases.

  “I have a lovely Qing dynasty vase with Louis XV bronze mounts. It’s in the back. Would you like to see it?”

  “I certainly would. ”

  “Wonderful.” She led him toward the back room. “Can Carl bring you a beverage while you’re viewing the piece?”