There was something about the tone of her voice that put Ben on alert.
“Is that supposed to explain everything to me?” He leveled a glare at her. “As far as I can tell, you were the last one seen with Nolan. People fingered a ‘Ginny,’ and you fit the description.”
“Yes, I do.”
Again with her tone. Ben had interrogated too many people to miss the subtleties of someone skirting the absolute truth.
Tired of her games, he thought about taking out the crucifix again, just to see if it would persuade her any. But then she leaned forward on the escape, alighting from it, her skirt billowing like red wings before she gently landed on light feet.
Fluid. Ben’s gut tightened with heat as he remembered how she had danced in his fantasy.
Naughty kisses, he thought. How would it feel to have her covering his skin with them?
His darker urges emerged, silvered by what he’d seen in Nolan’s death gaze. Had his brother been bitten to ecstasy by a vampire?
And what would it feel like?
Stunned, Ben headed toward the street. He had to be on drugs.
Ginny caught up in a flash, facing off with him. “So you’re going to go from building to building on West Fortieth until you find the pleasure house?”
“Yup.”
“A gun would only make most vampires laugh and a crucifix would only buy you time with them. You actually believe what my sister told you about where the place is, or if it even exists?”
“It’s a lead. More than I had yesterday.”
“And what makes you think your brother wasn’t just mugged and murdered in the Bronx?”
“Severe blood loss. Vampires. Math.”
“Okay, then why would your wonderful Nolan be in a den of iniquity, of all places?”
She’d hit one of the nails holding him together. “I don’t think he would go there on his own, but then again, I wouldn’t have ever believed that my brother would think about going to Studio 54, either. He was happily married with kids. He wasn’t like that.”
She paused. “And how much do you really know about Nolan, Ben?”
“I know enough.” He swallowed. Damn, his mouth was dry. “Nolan was a community icon. Graduated as a valedictorian from high school, then magna cum laude at Harvard. Came back home to found a computing hardware company, and his business has driven our town’s economy ever since.”
Ginny was watching him closely. If she had gone into his head, she would already know all this. Was she merely goading him and feeding off his emotions now? Did vampires drink more than blood?
“He was the brains and you were always the brawn,” Ginny said pensively. “While he was being lauded, you were quietly saving the world in his shadow. Isn’t that right?”
Her words cut surgically, deeply, but he remained expressionless. He wouldn’t allow her the pleasure.
“I never minded. He was my brother. I loved him.”
“That’s what we tell ourselves.”
Nearby, the steam from a subway grate hissed, scathing his nerves. “What do you mean?”
A melancholy smile settled over her mouth. “I know what it’s like to be connected to a sibling. If something happened to Geneva and I didn’t have all the answers, I’d search, too.” She paused, a shadow seeming to pass over her before she recovered. “Besides, I saw what you’re made of. Earlier, in your head.”
“I knew it. I don’t want you in there again, damn it.”
She flinched at that last part, and he wondered if it was because of vampire aversion to holiness. It would make sense in light of the fact that she wouldn’t look at a crucifix, either.
Ginny moved closer—enough so he could smell the magnolia remaining on her, even though the flower was gone. Desire gnarled within him, like an old branch twisted by bad nature.
“You’re a stand-up guy,” she said softly. “And to see you taken from this world so young would be unthinkable. Because that’s what’s going to happen when you stumble into the pleasure house—if you find it.”
“A vampire philosopher. I didn’t know you creatures had it in you.”
She tilted her head, as if reading him again, although he didn’t feel her in his brain this time. Plus, her eyes were true blue, and he suspected all the weird magic happened when they were silver.
“You’re headed for big trouble,” she said.
“Well, then escort me to this pleasure house and keep me from perishing at the hands of whoever runs it.” He was being half-sarcastic. “And answer my questions like a good vamp.”
Much to his shock, she actually seemed to consider what he said, folding her hands in front of her. Her red lips pouted in thought, still cryptic, still the stuff of sinful fantasy.
Blocking out what those lips might do to him in a private room, Ben avoided their crimson trap.
But then his thoughts turned silver, like the sometime-color of her eyes, like the fantasies contained within them, and excitement took him over.
Nolan’s gaze . . . The answers they were all looking for in this life. They were within Ben’s reach, weren’t they?
With a bite . . . ?
She interrupted. “I see you’re not going to quit, even if I beg you to.”
He shook his head, turning toward the alley exit, mostly so he wouldn’t be affected anymore.
She sighed. “If I did take you to this place, under my protection, just to satisfy your curiosity, will you stop?”
Was he hearing her correctly? “If that’s where I get my answers, then yes.”
“Would you go to the police then? Because I’m telling you now, they won’t believe you. They never do in this city.”
He’d suspected that, and he’d already decided that he would do anything the police wouldn’t.
Besides, what was stopping him from lying to her to get what he needed?
“I’d keep my mouth shut, Ginny.”
She blew out a bigger sigh. “I can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to you that I’m actually leading you into a trap.”
But Ben had considered that, and it didn’t scare him. Not with what he’d seen in Nolan’s final photos.
“The nightclub, and then after, would’ve both been good opportunities for you to attack me,” Ben said, ignoring his true thoughts. “Why would you wait until now?”
Ginny started walking out of the alley, but then she held up a finger and said one last thing. “As long as you promise to go home and stay quiet after I show you the house, I’ll take you.”
“Then let’s get on with it.”
And with one last veiled glance, she guided him into the night.
Into a world that he’d never even suspected in his human innocence.
SIX
THEY HEADED TOWARD FORTIETH, SEEKING THE condemned apartment building where the pleasure house had been relocated after Nolan’s death.
Ginny had meant what she said earlier, about what a tragedy it would be if Ben should die during this crusade of his, so she had decided to be his protector. But it wasn’t as benevolent as it sounded.
She had a plan that would satisfy Ben Tyree’s thirst for knowledge while keeping him innocent of what had really happened. The truth would scar him, and she refused to be the one who stained his soul by allowing him to know the details of that night.
After all, he loved his brother, just as much as Ginny could recall loving Geneva. And for some reason, tonight she knew just how much discovering the truth about someone you adored could hurt.
So she would alter history, soften the story, give him the closure he longed for.
Then she would cover everyone’s tracks, just as she’d been doing all too often recently.
On the way, she kept Ben in the corner of her sharp gaze, drinking him in, an addiction. A growing need.
They got closer to their destination, dodging skulking cats and trash while their footfalls echoed against the sad-eyed buildings. Every once in a while, a cry in the night would ghost her hearing, and
she ignored what the blackened windows hid. She had that secure luxury as a vampire.
Meanwhile, she sensed Ben’s keening nerves, and she yearned to soothe him.
“Not everyone gets into Studio,” she said quietly, using her voice to put him at ease. “But you did. I guess Steve Rubell liked you.”
“Who?”
“The little man out front choosing who got in tonight. He mixes celebrities with lovely nobodies for the right party salad.”
“I don’t do many parties.”
“But you’re a looker. It got you through the door.”
“Got you through, too.”
He fixed his gaze straight ahead, as one-track-minded as Ginny had ever seen. Stalwart. A crusader.
“Gen and I cheat to get in,” Ginny said. “We give ‘the look’ and they unhook that rope for us. They’ll do it again the next time we want to go there, too, even though there’s a dent in the balcony wall, compliments of Geneva.”
“You get in because of your vampiric sway,” he said. “Or maybe it’s because you and your sister resemble Liz Taylor when she was young and so stunning.”
“She hangs out at Studio sometimes. Not with us though.”
Ben casually graced her with a glance. It abraded her skin, making her feel alive with its heat.
“There’s a big difference between you and today’s Liz,” he finally said, locking his gaze forward again. “You look like she did back when she was in movies like A Place in the Sun.”
“Yeah, that was back in the Fifties.” A wistful smile tugged at Ginny’s lips.
His mouth shaped into a question, but then he seemed to remember that she was capable of being forever young—but that would only last until her demise or the death of her maker, which would turn her mortal again.
“Gen and I used to run in the same circles as people like Liz,” Ginny added, “although you could say it was definitely a lower circle.”
“But she aged and you haven’t. Did anyone ever take you for the real thing in those days?”
The real thing. Ginny recalled something Geneva had said after recently seeing the lady herself across Studio. I’d rather always be a copy of Liz in her glory days than to get old as the real thing.
Ginny had agreed. It’d never occurred to her to do otherwise until . . .
She didn’t think about that.
“We tended to take advantage of the resemblance,” she said instead. “We would hustle movie producers for roles by catering to a certain Taylor-made fantasy, if they wanted. And they usually did want.”
“And nowadays?”
Ginny shrugged. “Geneva still talks about getting into films. That’s one reason we gravitated toward Studio—there’re connections galore there. But she never gets around to doing much about it now. As for me? Well, if I never saw Hollywood again, that’d be fine.”
Sorin was there, and it might as well have been jail.
Ben was trying to even out his breathing, but his stomping pulse told her he needed more soothing.
“Gen and I were turned into vampires in nineteen-fifty-four,” she said with her adjusted voice. “But we were humanly born over twenty years before that in a cramped Chicago apartment. Geneva and I shared everything there—a room, a bed, even clothing. We were the perfect candidates for seeking out the promises and riches of silver-screen stardom. Not that we ever ascended like we thought we would.”
“You get everything you want as a vamp though. Doesn’t that make up for it?”
“It did.” At first.
They’d turned a corner onto a street where homeless people sat bundled against walls and the trees seemed dead, even in late spring.
Ginny soothed Ben again, even though she knew he was a seasoned cop who dealt with violent domestic calls and even dead bodies. He’d seen blood spattered on the walls of a small house, a mouth gaped in a frozen scream, dogs barking in a field, where an open grave belched bare bones.
They were all open cases. The school teacher found slain in her home. The postman who never showed up for his route because he was found in his van around the corner from the post office. The mass grave in a field with victims who were still being identified.
None of it ever ended for Ben, she thought, analyzing what she’d seen in his mind. The gloomy, dead eyes that were so empty and devoid of meaning.
Except for what he’d seen in Nolan’s pictures.
“Are we almost there?” Ben asked.
“Just a block more.”
They stopped talking, giving in to the dead-of-night atmosphere. His heartbeat spiked, his breath coming faster.
She echoed him, knowing that she shouldn’t be absorbing him like this. But tonight had been full of mistakes, the worst being Geneva’s loose-lipped prey games with Ben.
Before he had awakened, Ginny had thought hard about what to do with him. Besides this solution, she’d thought of a mind wipe. With it, she could make certain that he would never recall tonight.
But she’d been taught not to steal parts of a person that could never be replaced, such as a memory. Not unless it was absolutely necessary. Also, from only one attempt at doing it about a year ago, a wipe took so much energy that she would be drained for the next twenty-four hours.
Yet there was a third option. She could always exchange blood with Ben Tyree, turning him into one of her kind.
Not a choice at all.
So why did the notion still linger?
Was it because Ben carried such pain within him, and she wished she could put an end to it?
As they drew up to a condemned brick building with black paint and boards covering its windows, she reached out to stop Ben by grabbing his shirt.
“This is it,” she said.
“Doesn’t look so pleasurable to me.”
Brave fool. “Are you sure about this?”
After a pause, he nodded. “As sure as anything.”
His wild pulse jabbed her eardrums and, automatically, her gaze strayed to his neck, where his veins stood out in relief against his skin.
Her mouth watered. Blood. Hot . . . his. What flavor would he carry?
What would it feel like to have his goodness fill her up?
She released his shirt.
Ben remained impassive, even though his heartbeat betrayed him.
“I looked up to Nolan,” he said softly. “I went to his baseball games and then his kids’ games years afterward. Maybe it looks like Nolan strayed a little on this trip, since he was seen with you or Geneva outside the club and then ended up here, but I’m willing to bet he was baited.”
He gave Ginny a hard look, as if fighting a personal battle. Was he telling himself not to go in?
Or was he still too curious?
A scream from behind the walls pierced her sensitive hearing, and she closed her eyes. Ben wouldn’t have been able to catch the sound, but she certainly did.
When she opened her eyes again, he was looking at the doorway, which was edged with flaking paint and snags of rust.
She went forward, guiding him, ready to do what was needed.
But then a thrust of awareness came to her from Geneva, who had to be nearby.
Where are you—?
Ginny blocked her twin out, and the choice to do so hacked into her. It was almost as if she’d amputated some part of herself, a part she already missed.
Later, she thought. She would apologize to her sister after Ginny wiped her hands of Ben and went home.
He moved ahead of her, reaching out to open the door, but finding it locked. However, with a twist of her wrist, she easily opened it, then rested a hand on his arm as the door opened to darkness.
SEVEN
BEN COULDN’T EVEN SEE TWO FEET IN FRONT OF him as Ginny led him inside by taking his hand.
Obviously, her sight could cut through the pitch, and all he could do was trust her, concentrate on the softness of her skin and hope that it wouldn’t be the last sensation he experienced before going lights out himself.
>
Was this the biggest error of his life?
Or was he getting closer to the best choice he’d ever made?
He felt her beginning to climb something—stairs—and he lifted his foot to find one step, then another, as she pulled him along.
A sharp wailing sounded from an upper floor, and adrenaline sawed through him.
Screams, he thought, his breath coming quicker. Wasn’t this supposed to be a pleasure house?
Suddenly, his brother’s death gaze took on new meaning.
And how much do you really know about Nolan? Ginny had asked.
Ben told himself that he knew his brother very well, that he was still the guy he’d idolized while growing up.
They climbed to another floor, the stench of metal—no, blood—attacking him. He pulled back from Ginny, burying his nose in the crook of his arm.
He knew the smell. How could he ever forget those bodies back in Holstead County? Especially those from his open cases?
Coughing, Ben cursed himself. Nolan, what did you do? What am I doing?
He forged on, continuing to follow a cool Ginny.
They came to the top of the staircase, and she brought him to a halt. Still dark, but there were no screams now.
He suspected more would be coming though, especially since one was strangled in his throat, dying to get out.
Her voice was a whisper. “Here we are.”
“So start talking, Ginny.”
She let go of his hand. “I met your brother in front of Studio, and he caught my fancy with that . . . Well, something close to that same innocence you have.”
She sounded odd, and he couldn’t put his finger on the reason.
“He was with his business buddies,” she continued, “doing his best to impress them.”
“Tabu-Cal, Incorporated,” Ben whispered, recalling this meaningless detail about the account Nolan had been trying to secure. But it was so real, where as everything else didn’t feel anywhere near it.
Ginny continued, her whisper gentle and harsh at the same time. “Geneva stayed with the group and I took Nolan to the velvet ropes since he wanted to talk his way into the club for him and all his pals. They wanted to see the celebrities, he said.”
First Blood Page 17
