Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

  “Oh, okay.” He paused.

  “Well, if there’s nothing else . . .”

  “Tell Dad I want to see him . . .”

  We both laughed as we spoke simultaneously, breaking for a moment the uneasy tension between us.

  “So,” Chris said, “tell Dad I’d like to have lunch with him tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

  Now the silence was on my end. I couldn’t tell him that Mitch could never meet him anywhere for lunch, ever. And I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to break the news to Chris about what his father had become.

  “Deirdre, you still there?”

  “Yes, Chris, I’m sorry. Someone was outside the door, here, I thought it might be your father.” I laughed nervously. “False alarm, I suppose. He should be back anytime now; do you want him to call you?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good.”

  “Fine, and you take care. I hope we’ll be able to see a lot of you while we’re here in town.”

  “Yeah, that’d be nice.” Chris’s voice sounded reluctant, and I knew he didn’t want to spend time with me. The realization of what I was, of what sort of creature his father had married must still be fresh and horrible in his mind. “Talk to you later, then.”

  He hung up before I had a chance to say goodbye. I put the receiver down gently and lay back on the bed, my fingers crossed under my head, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the convoluted ties that entangled us all. Chris, Larry, Mitch, even Victor to some extent, and myself—all bound to each other, inexplicably and eternally. I found myself wishing for the first time in many years that I had actually died in the accident that had transformed me. That I had been allowed to bleed out my life with my husband on that rain-soaked road. That I had been buried with him and the seven-month-old fetus who would have been our child.

  I sighed and ran my fingers over my stomach, searching for a trace of that child, remembering its kicks and movement, and the feeling of total unity with it, the bond between mother and child that death could not erase.

  When Mitch finally came back into the room, I was still lying on the bed, clutching at my barren stomach, blood-tinged tears streaking down my face and moistening the red brocade spread beneath me.

  He did not notice me at first. “Hey,” he began, “look what the Cadre delivered while I was out. My very own coffin . . .” His voice trailed away as he looked at me and he quickly shut the door behind him. “Deirdre, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  I choked out the words between sobs. “Chris called.”

  “He made you cry?” Mitch came over to me, sat down on the bed and stroked my hair. “What the hell did that little bastard say to make you cry?”

  “Nothing,” I sat up and wiped at my eyes, giving him a little smile. “He started me thinking, that’s all.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “The baby I lost.” Getting up from the bed, I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, really, it was a long time ago.”

  He gave me a curious look. “Obviously it must matter some, for you to still cry over it.”

  “No, really it doesn’t,” I assured him. “It’s just that this trip back here has been rather depressing for me. Having to deal with Larry and everything.”

  “Speaking of that, it’s a fascinating setup the Cadre has here. Have you seen the cells, or as Victor called them, the retention rooms?”

  “No, I wasn’t permitted there, remember?” I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Picking up a towel, I walked back into the room, drying myself, glad that he had been sidetracked from the previous issue. “What was so interesting?”

  Mitch may have taken personal retirement from police work, but I could tell that he had lost none of his enthusiasm; of course he would find the Cadre judicial system fascinating, especially now that it no longer threatened me. “Well, there are all kinds of problems in retention, apparently, given vampiric existence and individual experience.”

  I wandered aimlessly around the room, clutching the towel in my hands. “So?” From my tone of voice I knew he could tell that I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Well, think about it for a minute. Older vampires have more powers than the younger ones, you know. But the security system has to be beefed up, to a level that can hold the ones who transform.” He shook his head. “Although from what I can tell, the older ones generally don’t need to be incarcerated. I gather that Max was an exception to that rule. You would have been too, I suppose, but you haven’t yet realized your powers.”

  I gave a small forced laugh. “And I don’t intend to do so, anytime soon.”

  Mitch shrugged.

  “And,” I continued, wanting to avoid that topic also, “I do not see how any kind of room could hold a creature who can transform himself into a mist.” I walked into the bathroom and hung the towel back up.

  “Airtight,” he said simply.

  I stood in the doorway and stared at him for a time in shock. “Airtight? Then how do you breathe?”

  Mitch gave me a broad grin. “That’s the beauty of it, Deirdre, we don’t need to breathe.”

  “But,” I protested, “I breathe, you breathe. I don’t understand.”

  “Victor was kind enough to explain it to me, although he was rather horrified that I didn’t know to begin with. We actually only breathe for two reasons. One of them is force of habit, the other is so that we can speak. But our bodies don’t need the oxygen to survive, all we really need is blood.”

  Somehow, being sealed inside a room with no air struck me as more hideous than the starvation that would accompany it, and the very thoughts of it made me shudder. “You know, Mitch,” I said, changing the subject yet again, feeling the walls of this room close in around me. “You should probably call Chris now. I told him you wouldn’t be too long and he’ll be expecting you.”

  He went for the phone and began to dial.

  “And by the way, my love,” Mitch stopped when I spoke and looked over at me, “he wants to meet you for lunch. You’d better either tell him straight out why you can’t or have a good excuse ready.”

  “Damn,” he said quietly and hung up the receiver. “What the hell can I say?”

  “You could tell him the truth, I suppose.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, I can hear it now. ‘I’d love to meet you for lunch, son, but unfortunately I can’t go out in the sun anymore, because your stepmother has turned me into an evil creature of the night.’ That’d go over real well.”

  His words struck me hard. “Jesus, Mitch,” I walked to the door and put my hand on the knob, “that was a low blow.”

  Our eyes locked across the room. “Deirdre, I didn’t mean it like that . . .”

  “I know you didn’t. Why don’t you stay here and talk to Chris in privacy?” I struggled to give him a smile. “You could even try out your new coffin or get someone to teach you how to transform into a mist. I need to get out of here for a while, need to be alone in an open space. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

  I was sure he could hear the urgency in my voice, the desperation I felt locked away in this windowless tomb. He smiled reassuringly and nodded to me. “Walk softly this night,” he said, his tone husky and sincere.

  The traditional greeting of the Cadre from his mouth unnerved me and I fled down the corridor, rode up in the elevator, and burst through the back entrance into the comfort of the night.

  Chapter 8

  After walking several blocks, my claustrophobia faded somewhat and I felt sufficiently recovered to hail a taxi. Even at that, when I climbed into the back seat, I rolled down the window and breathed in the night air appreciatively.

  Managing to make the cab driver understand my destination, I finally arrived at the dreary brick building with barred windows. I paid the driver, watched him drive away and walked up the steps to the outer door. Pausing to take a deep breath, I sighed and opened the doors to the institution that had held a crazed Mitch not so long ago. The nurse at the
reception desk greeted me with a warm smile, and I laughed inwardly at the difference between her and Jean, Mitch’s favorite nurse, who, we discovered later, was also a member of the Cadre. I wondered how Jean would take the news that we were back in town, and together; how she would react to the fact that Mitch had been transformed.

  The current nurse interrupted my thoughts. “May I help you?”

  “Yes, I’d like to speak with Dr. Samuels if he’s in.”

  “He is.” She picked up the phone. “May I give him your name?”

  I nodded. “Deirdre Greer.”

  There was no recognition of the name in her eyes, she merely smiled again and buzzed Sam.

  “Yes?” Sam’s voice sounded tired and slightly depressed.

  “There’s a,” she stopped and glanced at my left hand, seeing my wedding ring, “Mrs. Greer here to see you, Dr. Samuels. Shall I show her back?”

  “Mrs. Greer?” he questioned, paused and then laughed. “Oh, yeah, of course, Mrs. Greer. Certainly, Susan, bring her back right away.”

  The nurse got up from her desk and motioned me to follow her down the hallway.

  Sam stood waiting for me just inside his office door. “Deirdre,” he said, all traces of weariness vanished from his voice, “when did you get back? Is Mitch with you?” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, then took my arm and guided me into his office, closing the door behind him.

  “Hello, Sam,” I said, settling into the chair facing his desk, wondering why I had felt the need to come here. “Mitch is in town, but didn’t come with me tonight.”

  Sam sat down behind his desk and his eyes raked my face. “Then I guess this isn’t just a social call, is it?”

  “Well, no,” I started, “I don’t quite know why I’m here, except for the fact that I needed to talk to someone. And you seem to be the only person that I know and trust in this city who’s not dead and not a . . .”

  He gave me a quick glance, reached into his top drawer for his ashtray and lighter, opened a new pack of cigarettes, and offered me one. It was a ritual we’d instated while Mitch was a patient here and signaled the switch from social pleasantries to serious discussion. I accepted the cigarette and he lit mine, then lit one for himself. He inhaled deeply, then blew the smoke out before speaking again.

  “Not a what, Deirdre?”

  “Not a vampire,” I said in a small voice.

  “You have trouble saying that word, don’t you? A problem admitting to anyone, even yourself, what you are?” His manner became at once professional. “Would you like to talk about why this is?” He took another drag on his cigarette, paused, then choked a bit as the ultimate meaning of my words seemed to hit him. “But you said Mitch is here with you. You can trust him, for God’s sake, and he’s not a . . .”

  I laughed a bit at his hesitation. “You see, Sam, I’m not the only one that seems to have a problem with the concept. But unfortunately, Mitch is a vampire, now.”

  “Jesus.” He stubbed out his cigarette, only half-smoked. “How did that happen? I wouldn’t have thought that you could do that to him, knowing the way you feel about your life.”

  “It’s a long story, Sam.” I took a drag on my own cigarette and flicked the growing ash into the ashtray. “And,” I had a sudden thought of Victor’s security measures for the Cadre, and how he would react to my revealing its secrets to a stranger, “most of it, I should probably not tell you. I’m not at liberty to reveal certain details to you.”

  “Tell me what you can,” he said, sharply. “I’m pretty good at piecing puzzles together.”

  Skipping the preliminaries, I started right in. “I transformed Mitch because I had no choice, he would have died had I not. To this day, I still wonder if that was a mistake.”

  “He’s having trouble adjusting to the life?”

  “Mitch?” I gave a low laugh and crushed my cigarette out. “Actually, he’s adjusted quite well, perhaps all too well.”

  “Too well?”

  “There are times when I hardly recognize him,” a note of panic entered my voice, “when I feel like I don’t know him at all. I’ve never had the company of my own kind before. And Mitch is undoubtedly that.” I sighed. “To be perfectly honest, Sam, he frightens me. It wasn’t too bad, when we were in England and alone, but now that we’re back here and surrounded by . . .” I broke off, realizing that I was saying too much, “well, surrounded by memories and the like, the reality of his, or our, existence hits me hard.”

  Sam gave a noncommittal grunt and cleared his throat. I looked away from him and reached across the desk to help myself to another cigarette. As I lit it, our eyes met, locked together and I felt myself blushing under his close scrutiny.

  “That wasn’t what you were going to say, Deirdre. You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Only with you, Sam. I never seem to have this problem with anyone else.”

  “Including yourself?”

  “Especially myself. I’m very good at lying to myself.” I grinned slightly and he grinned back briefly before growing serious again.

  “Surrounded by what, Deirdre?”

  I gave him a long, calculating look, took another drag on the cigarette and exhaled slowly. “You must promise to keep whatever I tell you in the strictest confidence. To do otherwise might have dire circumstances for you.”

  “Of course.” Sam nodded, his voice pained. “I’ll treat everything you say as patient confidentiality. I would’ve anyway, you should know that you can trust me.”

  “Well,” I leaned back in the chair, “trust, as you should know by now, is an extremely rare commodity for me.” But I proceeded to relate the story of the Cadre, how they had been wrongly persecuting Mitch for the murder of Max Hunter, how, when they had discovered that I had actually been the one to kill Max, I was put on trial and escaped their sentence only through Max’s ghostly intervention. By the time I reached the end of my story, involving Larry’s attack on Mitch and my frantic attempt to transform him before he died, we had smoked at least half of the pack of cigarettes; the room was filled with a cloudy, gray haze. Sam’s eyes were red and teary, perhaps some of that was due to the smoke.

  “And now?” I jumped a little at the sound of a voice other than mine.

  “And now we have been brought back to New York to kill Larry Martin.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “How the hell do you think it makes me feel?” I glared over at Sam from where I sat. “I don’t want to kill him, or anyone. But,” I shrugged away the thought, “it’s out of my hands now, anyway. Mitch and I found him tonight and delivered him to the Cadre; other than speaking for him at his trial, I need never see him again.”

  “You’re speaking for him? Why?”

  “I must. He’s my child.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you really?” I got up from my chair and walked around his desk to the window. Pulling aside the venetian blinds, I studied the night streets. “If you do, then you’ll be the only one so far. Even Mitch wants him dead.”

  Sam rose from his desk and came to stand next to me. He put an arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him. Just the warmth of his human body and the fact that he showed no fear of me was comforting. I sighed, thinking that maybe it was this human contact that I missed in Mitch. Even as it crossed my mind, the disloyalty and the inherent betrayal in the thought distressed me. I loved Mitch, he was my mate, my lover, my husband. And if now he was something other than he used to be, I knew fully where the blame rested. “Damn.”

  “Deirdre,” Sam moved away from me, seeming embarrassed by our physical contact, “I’d like to help you. I really would. But I don’t quite know what to say, what to do.” He gave a small laugh. “All of this is just a little out of my area of expertise.”

  “Yes, Sam, I know. Like I said, I’m not sure why I came here tonight.”

  “You already answered that question yourself, you know. You needed someone to talk to, needed a friend.”


  Friend? the bitter thought jumped to mind, this man is not a friend. I have no friends. This man is prey, nothing but blood for the taking. “Yes, well,” my voice trembled with the desperate strength of that thought and I felt a tingling in my jaws. “I must go. I’ll call you later, maybe we can all get together sometime, before Mitch and I leave.” I moved away from the window and quickly went to the door.

  “But you can’t be leaving so soon. You just got here.”

  “Our work here is practically done, Sam, now that Larry is in Cadre custody. I need only stand for his trial. And there are too many painful memories in this city for me now, too much death, too much guilt.”

  “But none of that is your doing, you should know that.”

  I gave him a hard look as I opened the door. “I only wish that were true, Sam.” Then I hurried down the hall and moved out into the streets.

  I couldn’t return to Cadre headquarters, not while it was still night; couldn’t lock myself into the tomblike room Mitch and I had been assigned. Just the thought of it made me shudder, made me want to run screaming down the streets. I felt confined, pent-up, suffocated. Hungry. The human scent of Sam still lingered in my nostrils. Oh, God, I was so hungry. I wanted to live the word, wanted to glut myself on blood, any blood. And as that thought took hold, so did the hunger, a blinding, burning-red wall that loomed before me, cutting me off from the rest of the world. There was, at that moment, no one who loved me and no one whom I loved. Nothing existed but a raging hunger, gnawing my stomach, and the hot wild visions of teeth tearing flesh.

  I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing the crowd of evening pedestrians to swear and part around me. My eyes were closed, fists clenched so tightly that my nails dug deeply into the flesh of my palms. I centered on the pain, smelled the rich warm scent of blood dripping onto the concrete under my feet.

  Concrete, I thought scornfully, what business did I have here, in this city, surrounded by concrete and glass and steel? A hunter was what I was: predator and creature of the night. I craved clear night skies and wide forests to run, with wild, swift and velvet-skinned prey to pursue through the evening shadows. Not puny humans with their pitiful limbs and tamed blood.