Biting the Bride

by Clare Willis

  “Sorry, Isabel,” Sunni said. “What did you say?”

  “Richard and I are engaged.” Isabel shook off her crutches and sat down in Sunni’s visitor chair.

  Hearing it twice didn’t make it any less unbelievable, so Sunni decided not to make Isabel say it a third time. She just stared at her with her mouth open.

  “When it’s right, you just know it,” Isabel said.

  Sunni did a swift mental recap. The dinner at Gary Danko had been on Monday, Isabel’s date was on Tuesday. Today was Friday. It was absurd how fast it had happened. But of course it seemed absurd. It had happened in vampire time.

  “I didn’t realize you even saw him again after you went to the symphony. I know he asked you, but you didn’t tell me you’d gone out.”

  “I omitted a few things,” her friend admitted.

  “Why would you do that? ”

  Isabel shrugged. “You’ve been busy.”

  Sunni’s stomach felt like she’d swallowed a dozen live goldfish. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry, tell me about it now.”

  Isabel leaned back against the chair. A giant, bejeweled brooch in the shape of a leopard twinkled above her left breast, a gift from Richard, no doubt. It wasn’t Dennis’s taste.

  “We were at Jardiniere last night, and during dessert he got down on one knee. My heart almost stopped, I tell you.”

  “I believe it,” Sunni muttered, cursing herself for letting Isabel out of her sight.

  “‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘I would like to request your hand in marriage.’ Did you ever hear anything so romantic?”

  Sunni stared at her friend. Something about her was distinctly off. Even though she was talking about how wonderful everything was, her face was immobile. She barely smiled, and she spoke as if she was reading the words off cue cards.

  “We’re getting married on Sunday. Richard worked it out with the priest at St. Sebastian’s. The church was already booked up for the next six months, but Richard convinced him to add another slot at the end of the day. The ceremony is at seven o’clock.”

  So vampires could have church weddings? Sunni thought about the cross Enzo wore around his neck. It was starting to seem as if none of the stories humans told about how to vanquish vampires were true.

  “You’re getting married. At St. Sebastian’s. Great.” Sunni concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply while her stomach roiled.

  “And Sunni,” Isabel reached across the desk to touch Sunni’s hand, “I want you to be my maid of honor. ”

  “No,” Sunni blurted out.

  Isabel’s brows dropped in confusion. “What do you mean, no?”

  Sunni pulled her hand free. “Isabel, don’t do this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Sunni jumped up and circled around the desk. “It’s too fast, don’t you see? You don’t know the guy at all.”

  “Richard says we know everything we need to know about each other,” Isabel pouted.

  “He may know everything he needs to know about you, but you know nothing about him.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about our relationship.” Isabel’s words were angry, but her reactions still seemed muffled, as if she was half asleep.

  “I know a lot more than you think.” She lifted both hands. “Look, I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying take your time. What harm could there be in that?”

  “Richard says it has to be on Sunday. ”

  “It doesn’t have to be on Sunday. It doesn’t have to be anytime!”

  “I know why you’re doing this …” Isabel said slowly.

  Sunni felt immense relief. Maybe even in her altered state Isabel understood that Sunni always had her best interests at heart.

  “It’s because of my illness. You don’t think Richard could love me because I have MS, so you’ve decided he only wants me for my money.”

  Sunni looked at her friend’s glassy eyes and slack mouth. She thought about what Jacob had said about his ability to hypnotize people. Glamouring, he had called it. Richard had done it to Jacob’s wife in order to drink from her night after night. Realization slowly set in. Lazarus must have glamoured Isabel so deeply that she remained under his spell even when he wasn’t present. It would do no good to argue.

  “I’ve changed my mind.” Isabel stood up, gripping the back of the chair.

  “About what?” Sunni asked.

  “About you being my maid of honor. I don’t even want you at the wedding if you can’t support me.” Isabel shoved her arms into her crutches. Her long blond hair swung to the side, momentarily revealing her neck.

  Sunni gasped. She skirted the chair and grabbed Isabel by the arm, pulling her hair aside. Two tiny wounds two inches apart, pale pink like the inside of a seashell, adorned Isabel’s soft white neck. Richard had left her a calling card.

  Chapter 17

  Fifteen minutes later Sunni charged through the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. She was at the elevators before she realized that she had no idea which room Richard was in. She took a deep breath and walked to the reception desk. A balding, middle-aged man wearing mascara held up one finger as he spoke to someone on the phone. Sunni shifted from foot to foot. She was afraid if she had to wait too long she would lose her nerve. The man put the phone down.

  “How may I help you?”

  “Could you give me Richard Lazarus’s room number, please?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t give out that information.” He smiled apologetically.

  “Right, of course. Could you call him for me?”

  “I can do that. Who shall I say is here?”

  “Isabel LaForge.”

  The flicker of his eyelids told Sunni that he knew the name. Of course he did. Dennis owned the Mandarin Oriental. Sunni looked away, wondering if the man knew what Isabel looked like, but he seemed not to know or care. He dialed the phone. After a few words he hung up and smiled at her.

  “Mr. Lazarus says you can go right up. Room twenty-two twelve.”

  The hallway was long, quiet, and lavender scented. The door to 2212 swung open seconds after Sunni knocked. Richard looked at her with an implacable expression, and then stepped back to admit her.

  “Surprised to see me?” Sunni asked.

  “Not at all,” Richard said.

  He was wearing a blue silk smoking jacket over a blindingly white shirt, open at the collar. His hair was not its usual perfect shell: it looked mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. Sunni looked at Richard’s handsome face and realized that it was a mask, hiding his true nature from his victims. Sunni had previously considered herself a good judge of character, but Richard had duped her. Maybe not as completely as he’d fooled Isabel, but enough that she had let her guard down long enough for him to take over her friend’s mind. And just because she now knew what he was didn’t make him any less dangerous. Richard was a viper, and as long as he was alive he was deadly.

  Sunni followed him into a living room that overlooked Union Square. He walked to the window and pointed to the statue in the center of the square, a female figure in flowing robes mounted on a pedestal several stories high.

  “Do you know what that statue is called?” Richard asked.

  Sunni shrugged.

  “Victory,” he replied. “I’d like to buy her, but I don’t suppose the mayor would part with her. Can I offer you a drink?”

  “Yes, I’ll have a whiskey. Do they have single malt in that little wet bar?”

  He laughed quietly. “Are you mocking me?”

  “How so?”

  “That’s Jacob Eddington’s drink.”

  “I would never mock you. This is far too serious. ”

  “Fine.” He opened the cabinet and pulled out two little bottles. Without asking he added ice to a glass and poured the whiskey over it. He gave her the glass and sat down next to her on the couch. “What do you want, Sunni? I thought you made your position quite clear ear
lier.”

  “I want to know why you asked Isabel to marry you,” Sunni demanded. “What does she have to do with this?”

  When the vampire smiled it was like a wolf baring its teeth. Sunni could barely hide the shudder that went through her body. How had she ever found him charming?

  “It’s not Isabel I want, although I admit, her fortune will be a nice dividend.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You, Sunrise, you’re all I want.”

  Sunni fought off the fear that threatened to overwhelm her by focusing carefully on his words. “What are you planning to do with me once you have me?”

  He came even closer and she forced herself not to move away. Now his face was inches from hers. It was masklike in its perfection, smooth and hard as stone, with not a hair or a pore in sight.

  “I want children.”

  Sunni gulped hard. The air in the room had just gotten considerably thinner.

  “Your bloodline, combined with mine. Our offspring would be undefeatable. All I would need was one or two and I could rule the vampire world.”

  “My bloodline?” Sunni jerked backward. “You know who my father is! Tell me!” She grabbed his lapels and shook him. “Tell me!”

  Richard gripped her hands so that they were immobilized. “Oops,” he said. “I slipped, didn’t I?”

  Tears leaked out of Sunni’s eyes. “Please,” she begged.

  “You’re on the wrong track, Sunni. It’s not your father who gave you the vampire genes,” he said. “It was your mother. ”

  Sunni sat on a bench in Portsmouth Square Park, across the street from the Golden Dragon restaurant, waiting for Delia to come out and meet her. It was a cool but sunny afternoon and the park was full of people. A cluster of older men played chess under a pagoda-style roof and another group of elderly people performed tai chi exercises under a cherry tree. She could hear the happy shrieks of children in the playground nearby.

  Sunni stared at the pebbles set in concrete under her feet, chewing an already ragged fingernail. Richard had given her just enough information to shatter her equilibrium, but not enough to do her any good. Rose had been a vampire.

  Thinking back, it made sense of certain things, like the fact that Rose never ate with her. She made sandwiches and bowls of canned soup, and then sat, absently smoking cigarettes while Sunni ate. As an adult Sunni had rationalized that it was the drugs that robbed her mother of her appetite, but now she knew the truth. But who was her father, and was he still alive?

  Richard had also, perhaps inadvertently, let loose one other fact. His story, coupled with Jacob’s, led Sunni to the inevitable conclusion that Richard had killed her mother. Jacob had failed to save her, but Richard had actually squeezed the life out of her. When that knowledge burned its way into her consciousness she had looked long and hard at Richard, smug in his smoking jacket, and resolved that she would have to kill him. And for that she would need help.

  Delia hurried across the park, shivering in her short-sleeved cheongsam dress. She sat down, looking longingly at a refreshment cart parked nearby. “Man, I wish I’d brought my wallet. I could use a hot dog.”

  “I’ll get you one. Do you want a soda?”

  Sunni bought two hot dogs and two cans of Sprite, and then led Delia to a distant bench under some trees, out of hearing distance of the other people in the plaza. She knew many of them didn’t speak English and the rest of them didn’t care, but she just couldn’t risk it. She popped open her can and took a long drink, buying time to organize her thoughts.

  “Delia, I need to ask you some questions that might seem strange.”

  “Shoot.” Delia spread the pickle relish more evenly on her hot dog and then took a bite.

  Sunni inched closer and spoke softly. “Are you half one thing, half something else?”

  “Half Chinese, you mean?”

  “No. I mean half human, half… vampire.” It sounded so absurd that she half expected Delia to laugh in her face

  Delia spoke through a mouthful of food. “You’ve figured it out, have you? You know you’re a dhampir?”

  “You knew what I am? Have you always known?”

  “Duh.” Delia slurped her soda. “Daddy knew as soon as he saw you.”

  Sunni put her hot dog in its little paper bowl on the bench. “So Sherman is a vampire?”

  Delia looked around, making sure no one was within earshot. “Don’t use names. Everybody knows him around here.”

  “Why didn’t you guys say anything?”

  “Daddy’s on the down low.”

  Sunni peered at Delia in confusion.

  “The vampire world thinks he’s dead, and he wants to keep it that way. ”

  “Not all of them. Jacob Eddington said I should go to your dad for help.”

  Delia’s expression went from confused to angry. She grabbed Sunni by the collar of her fleece jacket and twisted it so that it choked her. “If you’ve put Daddy in danger I’ll kill you.”

  Sunni coughed. She reached up and gently removed Delia’s hand.

  “Jacob’s been watching me for years, Delia. He’s probably known about Sherman for years as well. If he was going to get him into trouble he’d have already done it.”

  Delia licked her lips. Her red lipstick was smudged from the hot dog. “Okay. What did this Jacob Eddington think you needed help with?”

  “A vampire showed up in San Francisco last week. His name is Richard Lazarus. He seems to be very powerful, and he’s planning to kill Isabel if I don’t do what he wants.”

  “Planning to?” Delia interrupted. “What kind of vamp ‘plans’ to kill people? They just do it.”

  “Not this one. He likes to play with his food.”

  Delia scratched her chin pensively. After a long moment she looked back at Sunni. “I’ll talk to my dad. If he wants to help you, he’ll find you. If he doesn’t, then you’ll have to let it go. Don’t come around us anymore. Don’t look for us.”

  Sunni nodded. “Okay.”

  “Promise me, Sunni.” Delia squeezed Sunni’s hand.

  “I promise.”

  The winds the next day were a little stronger than Sunni would have liked and the temperature hovered in the low sixties, but the sky was clear and the sun was shining, so by San Francisco Baystandards it was an ideal sailing day. She called Carl and told him to cancel her appointments, that she would be out of the gallery for the morning. One of the virtues of being the boss, Dennis had always said, was that there was no one to stop you when you wanted to play hooky. When she called Dennis, he agreed to meet her at the dock in an hour.

  They didn’t have to talk as they maneuvered the Rose out of the harbor. Replaying roles they’d acted out countless times before, Dennis unfastened the dock lines while Sunni fired up the engine. When they had cleared the mooring area Dennis let out the mainsail while Sunni manned the helm. When they reached open water Sunni turned the boat toward the Golden Gate Bridge. She filled her lungs with fresh ocean air and her eyes with the panoramic views: the jagged skyline of San Francisco with its distinctive pyramid-shaped building, the art deco–fluted cylinder of Coit Tower standing alone on its tiny hill. On the right the mountains of Marin County were still verdant from the spring rains. The towns of Sausalito and Tiburon stepped down the hillsides like Mediterranean villages.

  The wind was strong out of the west, and fifteen-foot waves dashed the boat from side to side like a giant cat was batting it between its paws. Sunni tacked toward Ocean Beach, hoping to find calmer water. Dennis appeared and handed her a mug of coffee, then he tossed himself onto a seat, adjusting his sailor’s cap against the glare.

  Sunni adopted the sailor’s posture, her knees pointed out, legs curved like parentheses for maximum stability. Salt spray stung her face. The smooth wooden wheel felt comfortable in her hands, familiar as her favorite coffee mug. Seagulls circled above, screeching their discordant cries, keeping an eye out for food, whether it was fish in the water or sandwiches in the
hands of sailors.

  “So, how’re you feeling about all of this?” Dennis shouted over the roar of the wind.

  Sunni sipped her coffee. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  In fact it was the reason she’d asked him to come sailing with her. Sunni planned to unburden herself as much as possible to Dennis and enlist his help. He was human, but his wealth gave him access to unimaginable resources. She had never seen him encounter a problem that he couldn’t solve. Perhaps it was naïve of her, but she hoped he could fix this, too.

  “It’s awfully fast,” Dennis said. “I’m trying to get her to give it a few months, but she seems to be in an awful hurry. ”

  “Can’t you just forbid it?”

  Dennis gave a dry laugh. “She’s thirty-two years old. How much good do you think it would do?”

  “Is there any way you could make Richard go away?” Sunni knew it was a shocking suggestion, but she felt she had to make it.

  Dennis came to stand next to Sunni at the rudder. He put one hand on the wheel and helped her steer, as he did when she was first learning how to sail. “Spill it, Sunni. What do you know that I don’t?”

  Sunni glanced at Dennis’s profile, his jaw line still strong at sixty-four, his hair gray but abundant, blowing in the strong wind. She had never told Dennis about Jacob, although it had crossed her mind many times. She had always known the old man had connections, that he could set a private detective on her “guardian angel” and probably find out who he was in less than a day, but when she thought about it she realized that if Jacob’s presence in her life was a mere coincidence she really didn’t want to know. But this was a different story. This situation was dangerous, and she needed help.

  “Dennis, Richard isn’t what he seems. I’ve learned some things about him over the last few days that are very disturbing. ”

  Dennis dropped his hand from the wheel. “Does he mean her harm?”

  “That’s not his main purpose. He’s using her as a part of a bigger plot.”

  “To do what? Get our money?” Dennis’s face was getting red.

  “Yes, among other things.”

  “Sunni, you’re being obtuse. Just tell me what’s going on!” Dennis shouted.