“I know. It’s all right.”
Am I falling in love? But she knew the answer before she asked. She wiggled out of his grasp and ran to the window. She could see an owl sitting high in a tree, its eyes two little points in the darkness. Creatures of the night, both of us. We have no claim on the day, except that its creatures provide us food.
As if in answer, the owl swopped down from its perch. There was a flicker of motion, and then the owl swooped up. She felt a touch of pity for the mouse it had found hiding unsuccessfully in the grass, and she bit it back. I’m not the mouse. I’m the hunter.
She glanced back at Charles, still sitting there naked on the floor. Naked, he looked like a Greek god, but Greek gods never sat cross-legged on plush carpeted floors. He watched her. She knew he was waiting for her to come back to him. Doesn’t he realize I can’t? We’re of two worlds, he and I. He has me for just one week, but even if he didn’t, he only has one lifetime, and I will go on forever, not quite living.
She turned back to the window, looking in vain for the owl. The night was so still. She heard his feet on the carpet, even though he made only a little sound. Then he wrapped his arms around her from behind. He slid his hand up her body, over her breasts and lightly along her neck, until his finger was on her lips.
“Taste me,” he said.
She bit him, her teeth cutting into his finger. The taste of iron and salt filled her mouth.
“We are one,” he told her. “My blood runs in your veins, and you can’t escape me.”
She shivered and took one last suck before speaking. “I don’t want to escape.”
“You can’t. I’ll always be a part of you.” He lowered his finger and took hold of her hand. “Come. Let’s go to the bedroom and make sure the curtains are securely closed. I like sunsets better than sunrises, and I do like a good sleep-in on Saturday.”
She nodded and followed him.
* * * * *
Her eyes opened the next evening to see him sitting next to her on the bed, watching her.
“Hello,” she said, wondering how long he had to wait before she woke up.
He tapped his watch. “Right on schedule. There’s no sleeping in with you, is there? Or waking up early. Is it always right at sunset?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is. I always stay in a few minutes to make sure.” She stretched, becoming aware of her nakedness. He was dressed, of course—a nice white shirt, open at the neck, and perfectly tailored slacks. He’d probably been up for hours. “I’ll get up and get my clothes on.”
“Not yet.”
She pouted. “But you’re dressed.”
“Yes.” He grinned. “But I want you naked for a few moments longer. It’s not exactly equal, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” She scrunched her nose at him.
He arched his eyebrows. “Do you want it to be?”
Well, of course, she was about to say. “No,” was what came out. And she realized she meant it. He could turn her insides liquid by looking at her, and she didn’t want that to change. There was something about having him in charge that turned her on. It wasn’t that she owed him for feeding her when she was starving or for rescuing her. But if a man would do that much for her, she could trust him not to take advantage of her—unless it was a deliciously sexy kind of advantage.
Deliciously sexy. When did I start thinking that way? Sex had never been important to her, nice, but not important. Tonight it was the first thing she thought of when she woke up. She grinned at him. “What are you going to do with me, since I’m naked?” Fuck me, please.
Charles sighed. “I know what I’d like to do, but we need to talk. Best to talk from a position of more equality.” He got up from the bed regretfully and went to a chest of drawers. He tossed a huge black T-shirt her way. “Get this on. I doubt anything I have really fits you, but at least it will cover you.”
For a moment, she wondered if she could seduce him out of the impending conversation. She didn’t imagine it was going to go horribly well. He was probably still mad at her for walking out on him at the club. And there were other, worse things. But he was right. They probably could have gotten through a week with just sex, if other things hadn’t interfered. But she wanted more than a week, even if he insisted a week was all there was. I’ll always be part of you. Isn’t that what he’d said last night?
“Don’t you have any clothes, like you had for me at the club?” she asked.
“No girl clothes here, I’m afraid. I don’t usually bring women home with me, Doreen.”
She blinked. Now that was a surprise. Why not? Maybe I’m special. But no, he only took me here because he couldn’t send me home. She put the shirt on. On him, it may have been a shirt, but it came to mid thigh on her. She looked down at it. It was a concert T-shirt for a group called The Damned. How fitting for me.
“What sort of music is it?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Punk rock. They were one of the pioneers.”
“Interesting choice.”
“I had a youthful rebellion stage. Pretty much any kind of music is good as far as I’m concerned, if you know what sort of vibe you’re listening for. In this case, I got into the music from listening to my older brother’s collection of vinyl.”
“Vinyl. He must be ancient,” she said, her eyes dancing. Anything was better than a conversation about why she tried to help kill his friends.
“Twelve years older than me. Almost, but not quite, like having a third parent. The good news is he can’t take me one-on-one anymore.” He grinned.
Good. He’s still in a good mood. Maybe there’s a chance—no, who am I kidding? “You guys fought a lot?”
“I was talking basketball.”
“Oh.”
He sat down next to her. “So. What were you doing hanging out with Mario when he came to kill Kent?”
“You have your memories back?” Oh, please God, no.
“No. But I’ve gotten a short rundown from his point of view.”
I don’t have to tell the truth, but he’ll find out in the end. And what’s the saying? Better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you aren’t? She wasn’t fully convinced, but she’d give it a shot. “Let me start at the beginning.”
He nodded, and she forced her mind to travel back. It wasn’t long ago, a few months, but she’d worked so hard at blotting the memories out. “Here,” she said. “I can do better than tell you. I’ll show you, and you’ll know I’m telling the truth. Look into my eyes.”
After a moment of hesitation, he did.
She hadn’t expected to ever wake up again.
Some of her friends had warned her that the University of Southern California was in a horrible neighborhood, but as far as Doreen had been able to tell, it wasn’t really that bad right around campus—like the area around most colleges she’d visited. And Doreen was cautious; she never ventured far, didn’t go more than a block or two off campus at night, and never walked south on Figueroa.
Walking north, it was never deserted at eight-thirty in the evening. Heck, the evening was just getting started. But that evening, it had been. There had been only her, a smiling man in an Italian suit, and those amazing eyes. Once she looked into them, she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
She woke up in a basement somewhere. It was cool, and there was hint of moisture in the air generally absent in Southern California except when it had rained or by the beach. She didn’t open her eyes right away. She was sick; she knew that right away. The steady slither of warm liquid in the back of her throat told her it was probably some kind of cold. Her tongue touched something plastic inside her mouth. She opened her eyes.
The plastic tube leading to her mouth was full of blood. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t coming out of her. Rather, it was coming into her, dripping into her mouth. Yuck. She tried to turn her head away, but it was held in place. The blood was gathering, pooling in the back of her throat, making her want to throw up. But she could
n’t. Finally, she swallowed. To her surprise, it settled in her stomach rather well.
“Ah, our patient is awake.” It was the man from the street. He walked over and peered at her. “Doing well, I see. Time for your draining.”
“Drang?” she asked. She tried to say draining, but the words were hard to say with a tube in her mouth.
“Yes,” he murmured. “I’m afraid you’re going to be a very special vampire. Usually we only have to do this once, to get all the humanity out of you before we bring you back from the grave. But you, you’re destined for something important.”
“Who are you?” she asked. Those words were easier to say.
“I’m Mario. I’m your master.”
“Doreen,” she said. I’m no one’s slave, but I think I need to get on your good side. She could say it clear enough if she pitched her voice lower. I sound like Darth Vader.
Her mind refused to comprehend the full horror of what was happening to her.
Mario didn’t acknowledge that she’d spoken. Nor did he seem to notice another voice, sounding weak, saying, “Please.”
Doreen moved her eyes, since she couldn’t move her head at all. It was being held by something steel around her skull, she realized. In the corner was a pale looking man, his cheek sunken, his skin yellowish. He was naked, and he was secured to the chair he sat in with iron manacles. In his arm was a needle, and from the needle, the tube led in her direction. Blood dripped into the tube at the same rate it dropped into her throat. Doreen was no expert, but she suspected there was not much life left in him.
She felt a sharp pain in her neck. Mario was biting her. And sucking. And with each strong pull he took from her throat, she felt herself getting weaker and colder.
“Please. He’s going to die,” she said. She was probably going to die, too. She welcomed it as an alternative to the blood dripping into her mouth.
Mario lifted his head. “Don’t worry, Dori. When he’s drained, we’ll bring another.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I’m full, however. We’ll have to let gravity do the rest.”
“Gravity?”
A knife flashed, and then slashed across her throat in a bright ribbon of pain. Somehow she stayed alive long enough to feel the blood flow down her neck, dripping down onto the floor below through a hole in the table she was strapped to.
This isn’t happening.
But it was. She got colder, and weaker, and colder, and weaker, until finally she lost consciousness. She dimly heard Lady Macbeth saying, “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” But it wasn’t the King of Scotland’s blood that flowed so freely. It was her own.
Charles was breathing hard, and sweat broke out on his brow. “You okay?” Doreen asked.
He nodded, putting his arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about.”
“Mario’s dead.”
“So am I.”
“He’s not coming back.”
Thank God. She nodded, smiling thinly. “Ready for more?”
He nodded.
She didn’t know how many times it had happened to her. A young woman, hale and hearty, replaced the old man, and Doreen could do nothing but watch as the life left her. She tried to stare Mario down the next time he used the knife on her neck, only to fall once again into unconsciousness. If he cared whether she stared or not, he didn’t show it.
One evening came that was different. It was not the first time she asked for a victim to be spared. But this time Mario smiled at her. Lately, Mario and the pretty vampire who worked with him had been gathering the blood that came from her in buckets.
“I’ll let him go. But you’ll do exactly as I say, until I have my revenge on the man who reduced me to this.”
“Yes.”
“Drink, then, from this cup. The blood of binding will bind any vampire to an oath she speaks. Swear you will help me until the death of Kent Carlisle is accomplished, and I am Lord of a city of my own.” He lifted a green plastic juice cup with red liquid.
Good god, if I was a vampire, I’d have a better sense of the dramatic than a juice cup. “I swear it,” she said. I am a vampire.
Mario bit his thumb and dripped a little of his own blood into the glass. He ripped the tube away from her, and poured the liquid on her lips in a thin stream. She thought of closing her lips, but she knew it would do no good, and besides, she was hungry. Her hunger was an urgent thing, far beyond anything she had felt before her world had shrunk to the basement she had been in for days, weeks, or months. She drank the blood down, and it satisfied her.
“Blood of binding,” she said, at last. “How is that made?”
Mario smirked, but didn’t answer. The other vampire took out the current captive, and she saw neither of them ever again.
“How long was it from then to when you came for Kent?” Charles asked.
“A month and a half. I didn’t have any idea who Kent Carlisle was, only that Mario hated him. I shouldn’t have promised.”
“The man’s life was at stake. You did what you could to save him.”
“Did I?” asked Doreen. “Did I save his life by promising to help Mario kill your friend? I have no idea what happened to him, not really. Mario didn’t drink his damn blood of binding, after all. And I don’t think he’d have any trouble leaving. I don’t even know if saving his life was why I really did it. Maybe I was tired of being bound to that table, and of being force-fed blood.” If I don’t know now, I won’t ever really know. All I remember was the overwhelming feeling it all had to stop.
“No one would hold up to what you were going through forever, anyway,” Charles said. “If you’d taken much more, I think you’d have gone insane. And a crazy vampire, well, more than one person would die from that, I think.”
His words were soothing as he held her, and she leaned against him. For a long minute, they said nothing. Then Charles murmured, “Show me the rest. Show me the night you and Mario came for Kent.”
Doreen nodded, and looked up again, until their gazes met.
“Come, Dori.” Mario’s voice, again.
“I don’t want to.”
“You have no choice. You’re bound by a blood oath.”
“I think I’ll just sit here.”
“No, you won’t. The outfit I’ve selected for you is hanging on the chair. You want to break free, don’t you? This is the way to do it. This is half of your promise. And there is one there whose blood will help make you stronger.”
“I don’t want to be stronger.”
Mario smirked. “Only the strongest can stay free, Dori. You’re a bit slow in the head, aren’t you? Get dressed, and come.”
She shook her head. He walked out of the room, not sparing her another glance. I’m not going. I’m not going. But five minutes later, she was dressed in the leather cat suit he’d laid out for her, and sitting in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car. The clothes made her think of Emma Peel. Another time, other circumstances, and she might have thought it was sexy. Now, it only seemed menacing. There was a zipper that could take the neckline as low as she wanted. No doubt Mario wanted it pulled up to make her look more dangerous. She pulled it down as low as she dared, out of sheer obstinacy. Mario didn’t give her a second glance. If he had, no doubt she would have pulled it up again.
Charles broke her reverie. “So then you came to Dark Xanadu the first time.”
“Yes.”
“And you say this blood bond had a hold on you?”
Her heart beat faster. It must sound so improbable to him. “Please, believe me. That’s what happened.”
“Until last night, I would have said magic was even less likely than the existence of vampires. So he singled out me as someone whose blood would make you stronger?”
Doreen nodded. “Maybe because of your magical ability. You were really great last night in the basement, and I have noticed something. You taste better to me.”
“Are you biased?” His e
yes glittered with amusement. Maybe he believed her after all.
“Absolutely. And becoming more so all the time. But, I’m afraid it’s not only you. The woman who had the wand tasted extra good too, and I suspect it was because she could do magic as well, had magical potential, or whatever it is. I may be biased, but a gourmet meal tastes good even when it’s made by an enemy. Or in this case, made of an enemy.” She turned away from him. He watched me feed on them. He knows what I really am. A hungry, bloodsucking animal. “If I could live on nothing but you, I would.”
“So why didn’t you jump on me and start feeding?”
Doreen thought about that. “That was what Mario expected, I think. He made sure I hadn’t had anything to drink for a while, so I was definitely hungry. But he’d have made me drain you dry, Charles. If I could seduce you first—hold you under the sway of my gaze—then I could easily make you forget everything that happened, and then we could leave you alive.”
Charles nodded. “But maybe Mario was lying.”
“Excuse me?”
“He could have made up the whole business about me being the right person to make you stronger. He wanted to take me out, and he used you—as the weakest of his team in combat at least—to take out the enemy’s weakest piece.” Charles paced the floor. “I suppose his motives don’t matter a lot now. Kent sent him straight to hell.”
“You think I’ll go to hell when I die, too?”
“Hmm?” It took Charles a moment, and then he chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. I was using a metaphor. I don’t really believe in heaven and hell. Still, if there’s vampires and magic, who knows?” He reached up to brush a lock of hair that had fallen over her eye and sighed. “I think you’re heavenly.”
“I’m all yours.” She shifted her legs, until they were under her, and her bottom was resting on them in a kneeling position.
“Holy—“
“What?”
Chilled to the Bone Page 8
