Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

  The bartender shrugged. “Take your pick, the joint ain’t exactly jumping tonight.”

  “Well, then,” Mitch slapped me lightly on my backside, “let’s get going, woman. Seems to me I have a score to even up with you, a reputation to uphold. Last time we were here you managed to beat me by a close margin.”

  “Close margin, my ass, Dad,” Chris laughed, “she skunked you. Royally. And you know it.” He shook his head. “And I’ll bet you she does it again.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Chris. Maybe I’ve gotten better since I’ve been away.”

  “Wouldn’t count on it,” Chris said.

  I winked at Chris. “I’m afraid, Mitch, that you are going to have to prove that. And be prepared to put your money where your mouth is.”

  I was rewarded with a genuine smile from Chris, and the three of us left the bar to play pool.

  Ten games and two hours later, Mitch conceded defeat with a laugh and placed his cue back on the wall rack. “You’ll at least admit that I’ve improved, won’t you? I almost won that last game.”

  “Another century or two, Mitch, and you might even stand a chance of winning. But yes, you have improved. Your reflexes are much faster than they were.”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice side effect. Like being able to drink as much as you want without that happening.” He gestured to where Chris was slumped over a table, sound asleep. “I guess we’d better get him home,” he looked at the clock on the wall, “and then get back ourselves. It’s getting late.”

  “Yes.” Putting away my pool cue, I dusted the chalk from my hands. “The nights are getting shorter. And time seems to pass so quickly that the seasons blur into one another.” I stretched my arms over my head, arched my back and yawned. “I think I’m getting old. I tire so quickly these days.”

  “Well, it’s been a rough two days, you know.”

  I laughed a bit, then grew serious. “And there seems to be no relief in sight. I wish we’d never come back.”

  “I know what you mean,” Mitch went to Chris and shook him. “Up and at ’em, sonny boy. Time to go home.”

  “What?” Chris lifted his head and looked around. “What happened? Who won?”

  “Don’t ask.” Mitch took hold of his arm and helped him to his feet. “Let’s get you in a cab and home to bed.”

  “Skunked you again, huh, Dad?” We moved him out of the pool room and into the bar. “That’s what you get for playing with a vampire.”

  “Shut up, Chris.”

  “Night,” George called from the bar. “See you later.”

  “Hey, George,” Chris called, “you didn’t know that my stepmother was a vampire, did you?”

  “Yeah, Chris, I think you told me that after your third beer. Go home and sleep it off.”

  Chapter 13

  Chris muttered about vampires most of the way home. We didn’t try to quiet him; his drunken condition was fairly apparent. The cab driver snickered every so often when Chris’s voice grew loud, but for the most part he was concentrating on the road and not on his passengers. I had always been amused by the protection of people’s disbeliefs even when I’d thought I was close to the only one of my kind. And now that I knew the city was the headquarters for an international society of vampires, it amused me even more. If they only knew.

  Yes, I thought and sobered slightly, if they only knew, they’d be after the Cadre in no time at all, armed with stakes, holy water, garlic, and crosses. Not that anything but the first would do any good, the rest were common superstition. Or possibly not, for with the revelation of new powers, almost anything could be true.

  Chris wasn’t talking when we finally arrived at Mitch’s old apartment building. Instead, he was sleeping soundly, his head lolled on the back of the seat, his mouth hanging open slightly.

  I caught Mitch’s eye. “Maybe I’ll just wait here with the cab while you take him in.”

  “Fine,” he agreed. He opened the back door and halfdragged, half-carried Chris out, up the front stairs and into the building.

  The cab driver turned around and winked at me. “Your friend’s got a real snootfull. I wouldn’t want to be living inside his head tomorrow morning.”

  “No,” I smiled and settled back into the seat to wait for Mitch’s return, “I wouldn’t either.”

  “What’s his problem, anyway? All this talk about vampires?”

  I shrugged when I saw Mitch coming back down the stairs. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “No,” the driver said as Mitch got back into the cab, “I probably wouldn’t. Where to now, folks?”

  Almost without thinking, I told the driver my old address. “Righto,” he said and we started off.

  Mitch gave me a questioning look. “I don’t want to go back to the Imperial, my love, I’ve had enough of that place for one night. But you may go back if you like.”

  “Why would I want to go back without you, Deirdre? There’s nothing there for me.”

  “Nothing?” My voice was sharp, distant.

  He laughed. “I thought you weren’t jealous anymore.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not jealous of her so much as of the entire situation. You love the life, the environment, and the possibilities. Sometimes I feel like I’m holding you back.”

  He thought for a long time, staring out the cab window. As we were nearing the hotel, he spoke. “It’s not love, Deirdre, not really. It’s pretty close to a morbid fascination and a desire to push everything to the limits. Quite frankly, I don’t understand it myself.”

  The taxi pulled up to the front door. I touched his arm lightly. “I think I do, Mitch, but we can talk about it later. Just for fun, why don’t we see if my old room is free?”

  The driver turned around and accepted his fare. “Lady, nothing in this city is free.”

  “So true,” I said to him as I got out of the cab. “Everything has its price.”

  Mitch put his arm around me and we went through the revolving door and over to the desk. “May I help you?” I didn’t know the clerk at the desk, he was young and awkward.

  “Well, yes, I hope so. Can you tell me if room 2154 is available?”

  The clerk seemed to be startled by the request and looked uneasily around him. “I just got here so I don’t know for sure. Let me check, okay?”

  I nodded and he turned. “Hey, Frank,” he called toward the half-open door behind him, “there’s someone here asking whether 2154 is open.”

  “What?” He came out of the door and saw me, his face turned pale for a second and then he smiled. “Miss Griffin?” He came around the front desk toward us. “Miss Griffin, oh, my God, it is you. This is really strange that you should come back tonight.” His arms came up as if to hug me and then dropped as he seemed to remember his place. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, “it’s just that it’s been so long and it’s so good to see you.”

  I laughed. “It’s nice to see you, too, Frank.” I reached up and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “But why should it be strange? I lived here for almost ten years, it’s only natural that I come back to visit if I’m in the city, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess so, but that’s not what’s strange.” He looked over at Mitch for the first time.

  “Frank, this is my husband. Mitchell Greer.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Frank shook his hand. “Say, I remember you. So you two got married, huh? Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” Mitch said. “You have a good memory. I wasn’t here all that often.”

  “Often enough,” Frank started, “I mean before you showed up Miss Griffin never had any visitors . . .”

  “Thank you, Frank,” I interrupted him after taking a glance over my shoulder at the outside sky. I’d lost track of the time, but knew that dawn was close. “We’re tired, and we’d like to check in immediately if you don’t mind. We’ll have time to get reacquainted later.”

  Instantly his years of subservience resurfaced. He was no longer
an old friend, but an old servant. “Oh, yes, of course. Sorry to keep you waiting.” He motioned to the young man behind the desk. “Get the keys for 2154, Eddie, and let Mr. and Mrs. Greer sign in.”

  Eddie reached under the counter and came up with two sets of keys, laid them on the counter next to the register and handed Mitch a pen. While he was completing the needed information, Frank turned to me. “I’ll see you up to the room. Where’s your luggage?”

  “We don’t have any luggage,” Mitch said, turning around and walking with us to the elevator. “We left it at, um, a friend’s house.”

  “Fine,” Frank said, “that makes it easier then, doesn’t it? But I’ll still take you upstairs, if you don’t mind. Personal service is what we’re known for here.”

  After we’d gotten on the elevator and the doors closed, he reached into his pocket, extracting a small white envelope. “This,” he said, holding it out to me, “is why it was strange to see you tonight. Someone left this on the front desk earlier this evening; no one saw him come in and no one saw him leave. All of a sudden there was this envelope with your name and number, like it had appeared out of nowhere.” He laughed nervously. “It spooked the hell out of Eddie and I was having quite a time trying to figure out how I was going to get it to you.”

  “I’m sure you were.” I accepted the envelope and stared down at it, barely controlling the impulse to crumple it in my hand and throw it to the floor. I knew the handwriting and could sense the hurried desperation that drove the pen, but the recognition did nothing to quell my nervousness. How could he have known I’d planned to come here? “I’m sure you were. Thank you, Frank.”

  “No problem, but it was real fortunate that you decided to show up tonight. What a coincidence, huh?”

  Mitch snorted. I caught his eye and gave him a smile, remembering his theory on the subject, remembering with amusement the moments when his human mind had struggled with the inhuman and came up frustrated and confused.

  “Coincidence?” he said with a catch of laughter in his throat, “there’s no such thing.”

  “No?” Frank said as the elevator stopped, holding the doors open for us to pass through. “Maybe just luck then?”

  I looked at the black writing one more time and slapped the damn thing up against my thigh. “Luck?” Shaking my head, I watched Mitch open the door to my old suite of rooms. “I wouldn’t count on it, Frank, but thank you for thinking it.”

  Dropping the envelope on an end table in the sitting area of the suite, I looked around me. The furnishings were the same, but had grown shabbier over the years that I’d been gone. It made me feel old. But Mitch seemed very much at home and moved to the bar, slowly, idly checking inside the refrigerator. Frank came in after us and made a move to open the curtains. “Leave them closed, please,” I stopped him, my voice harsh. “I suspect we’ll want some rest.”

  “Whatever you say, Miss Griffin. You’re the boss.”

  “Thanks, Frank,” Mitch walked over to him, and handed him a tip. “We’ll be fine now.”

  “Thank you, and sleep well. I’ll be going off duty soon,” he said, checking his watch, “but Charlie, he’s the day guy now, will be on. Call him if you need anything.”

  When we were finally alone in the room, I sighed.

  “Glad to be home again, Deirdre?”

  “This is not my home, anymore. I have no home.” I stared at the end table holding the envelope.

  “Well, aren’t you curious about who sent that? Aren’t you going to open it?”

  “It can’t be good news.”

  “No, but the sooner we know, the sooner we can deal with whatever it is. You never used to be so cautious, Deirdre.”

  “I’ve always been cautious, Mitch.” Then I met his eyes and smiled. “Except where you were involved. I do love you.”

  “I know you do.” He walked across the room and picked up the envelope. Some of my wariness must have influenced him, he acted as if the thing could bite him. “Want me to open it?”

  “If you’d like.”

  “Well, I’m sure not going to go to sleep with it unopened. It’ll make me crazy.”

  “We don’t want that to happen now, do we? Yes, open it. Besides, I already know who sent it. Which,” I laughed humorlessly, “is why I know it can’t be good news.”

  He slid his finger under the flap, pulling out the single sheet of paper. He unfolded it, read it once, twice, then held it out to me. “It’s from Larry Martin.”

  “Of course.” I took the page from him.

  “It’s odd.”

  I laughed for real this time. “What else would you expect, my love?”

  “Read it.” His voice was stern. I gave him a curious glance and began to read aloud:

  “Deirdre, I can’t go back to that place. I know you understand. And you have to know that my only response to all of this is death. I don’t really have any other choice, and I’m sorry, but I won’t forget you.”

  I folded it back up and handed it to Mitch. “Not quite what I expected, but it will do, I suppose.”

  “Will do for what?”

  “A declaration of intent.” I turned away and walked into the bedroom, sitting on the bed, taking a quick glance to verify that the curtains were safely drawn in this room also. Mitch followed me and stood in the doorway.

  Dawn was close, so close I could see the rising sun as if it were in front of my eyes, feel the scorching heat and the agony of seared flesh, the burning away of skin and muscle and blood and bone.

  “Intent to do what?” Mitch’s voice came to me as if over a great distance, his words made meaningless by the vision that was forcing itself into my mind: There is a sadness that calls to me and ties me to the soul within—the strange and familiar sadness of life lived too long. There is an ache for the denied fire of the sun, an urge to hold my face up to the sky and feel its rays caress my skin with burning fingers, an overwhelming wish to fall deep into oblivion and live no more.

  “Sleep,” a voice says, “sleep.”

  The voice is calm and the eyes in the vision close in peace, a peace unlike any I have ever known. Sins and the guilt of sins fall away before it, hunger has no hold and the self is no more.

  All that exists is the peace, the oblivion and the cleansing fire of a rising sun.

  Mitch was grasping my hands tightly when my eyes opened and he shook me roughly. I noticed with shock that I was no longer sitting on the bed, but instead stood in front of the bedroom window. “Deirdre?” His voice was harsh. “What the hell is happening?”

  I blinked my eyes and shook my head, squirming slightly against his tight hold on me. “How did I get here?”

  “You got up from the bed, walked over here, and started to open the curtains. You would have been fried to a crisp if I hadn’t stopped you. What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He loosened his grip on my wrists, but still controlled my movements. “Do you feel better?”

  “I don’t want to open the curtains now, if that’s what you mean. Why on earth would I want to do that?”

  Mitch let go of my hands, but stayed close to me, poised and watchful. “Beats me. You muttered something about sleep and smiled, then came over here. I only managed to stop you a second before you reached the window. What do you remember?”

  “The sun.” I shivered. “I remember the sun. I wanted to sleep in the sun.”

  “But that would have killed you.”

  I shivered again and hugged my arms to myself. “That, if I remember correctly,” I gave him a rueful smile, “was the whole point.”

  “But why would you want to kill yourself? I thought you were happy with me; thought you loved me.” Shock and hurt showed in his eyes and I reached a hand up to touch his cheek.

  “Oh, I am happy, Mitch, and I do love you. But it wasn’t me, you see, who wanted to sleep in the sun. It was someone else.”

  “Someone else?” Mitch’s voice rose in anger now, not at me, I knew, but in
frustration and fear. “It would damn well’ve been you anyway, if I hadn’t been here.”

  “That could be.” I fell silent for a while, staring at the closed drapes, remembering the purifying pain of the vision with both dread and desire. “Thank you.”

  Stripping off my clothes, I walked over to the bed and pulled the covers down. “I’m tired, let’s sleep.”

  “You sleep.” He walked out of the bedroom and came back with one of the chairs from the sitting area. He placed it square in front of the window, then sat himself in it emphatically. “I’ll watch.”

  “There’s no need, my love, everything is over now.”

  “I’ll watch anyway.”

  I stripped off my clothes and crawled between the coolness of the sheets. Just as I was drifting off, I heard his soft question.

  “Who was it, Deirdre?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled, falling into a blissfully dreamless state. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 14

  Sometime during the day, I became aware that Mitch finally lay sleeping next to me. I woke and looked over at him, pulling the covers down to study his transformed body, something that I had been avoiding since his change. I remembered standing in front of the mirror with him in this room, comparing the difference between his mortal body and my supposedly perfected one. Then his skin had color and texture and scars. I’d lain in bed with him, tracing the welts and tracks of past injuries, listening to his brief descriptions of how they’d occurred. I’d loved his scars, loved the stories they’d told about the truth of him. I’d loved his humanity.

  Now his skin glowed with the same translucency as my own and our glorious contrasts were gone, wiped away. I had singlehandedly destroyed his past. A tear rolled down my cheek, but I ignored it and closed my eyes, placing my hand softly on his chest, imagining the feel of him as he was before. He stirred in his sleep and I moved away, got up from the bed, and picked up the shirt he’d left draped over the chair. I put it on and quietly closing the door behind me, left the room.