Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

  I walked over to the bar and pulled out a bottle of red wine—not as good a vintage as I’d stocked when I lived here, but it would do. I opened it, poured myself a glass, and carried both glass and bottle to the couch where I curled up, my legs tucked underneath me. As the afternoon waned, I drank and I thought.

  Mostly I thought about Mitch. I had expected to feel guilt at his transformation. I’d introduced him to a life I’d always loathed. But what I hadn’t expected was his ready adaptation to the life. It was not that I loved him less, I reasoned, but that he had changed. I longed for someone in whom I could confide and realized with a flash of loneliness that I had few friends, that my closest ties were to Mitch. And he was a vampire.

  Draining my glass, I poured another. There lay the problem—as much as I’d like to deny the fact, Mitch was a vampire. And, ridiculous as it was, in my mind, vampires were to be held at a distance; they should be feared and hated, not loved. “Damn,” I said softly to myself, “this is getting me nowhere. I don’t even know where I want to go.”

  The note from Larry was lying on the end table where Mitch must have left it. I stretched over the couch and picked it up, opened the envelope and read it again. When I’d first seen it, I’d assumed it was a death threat. Vague and deceptive like its writer, the ominous words that finished it were chosen with care to impart a certain meaning. And yet, with the vision I’d had, I wondered now if it wasn’t a suicide note, if the soul I had witnessed in the sun hadn’t been him. Had I been the one to be confined to that hellhole in the Cadre depths, I knew I would do almost anything to avoid being caught and reimprisoned. Even up to causing my own death.

  So was Larry dead? I tried to reach out into the city and touch his mind. We are tied together, I thought, I should be able to find him. But I felt nothing except my own sadness, my own weariness with life. I put the letter away and held the envelope up to my cheek as if this touch would give me some answers.

  I was trapped, here in this city, where I had never intended to be again. I longed for the years and months I had spent in England. Even the time I’d been without Mitch now seemed idyllic, when my only worries were what sort of profit the pub was pulling in and when my next meal would walk in the door. I laughed briefly and wondered if I should call Pete. Maybe the sound of his voice, cheerful and normal, would dispel the clouds that seemed to be gathering around us.

  Mentally, I added the extra hours to the clock; the pub would be full now, the dart players would be arguing and the pints of ale flowing steadily. If I closed my eyes I could almost hear them, Pete’s thick accent cutting through the other voices, calling greetings to regulars and strangers alike. With a smile, I picked up the phone and dialed the number of the pub.

  I let the phone ring twenty times before I hung up, shaking my head. It was too early for them to have closed, especially on a Friday evening, unless Pete had somewhere to go and no one to cover for him. It hadn’t been that long since we’d left; he would hardly have had time to arrange for a replacement for me by now.

  I put my hand to the receiver and jumped when it rang. “Hello?”

  “Deirdre, it’s Victor. I thought when you didn’t return to your rooms that you might be there. Is Mitch with you?” His voice sounded cold and distant, angry.

  “Yes, he’s here. Is there a problem?”

  “I need to see you, both of you, as soon as you can get here.”

  I looked at the clock again. “We’ll be there in two hours. What’s happening?”

  “Larry Martin. All of the Cadre house members received odd letters from him, all different, revealing facts about them that he should not have known. But all similar in that they were death threats. He must be stopped.”

  “Yes. I received one, too. But what if he is already dead?” My words were tentative, testing the waters of this theory. “Suicide.”

  “Dead?” Victor seemed lightened by the words. “Suicide? Can you verify this?”

  “No.” And because I wasn’t sure myself, my voice quavered just a bit.

  “Then how can you say he may be dead?”

  “I felt something.”

  Victor laughed, a cold, hard-sounding laugh. “You felt something? Deirdre, I have all of the house leaders incensed, calling for blood, in some cases your blood, and I’m supposed to tell them you felt something? He has threatened our very existence. You must understand this is serious business. You and Mitch were brought here to do a job. If that job is not done, there will be serious repercussions.”

  “Victor,” I began, but he cut me off.

  “No, I will not listen to your persuasions or your excuses any longer. You were to have killed Larry Martin and you brought him back for judgment instead. That was acceptable in a way and would have been workable, but then you got involved where you should not have. And you released him—accidentally, or so you say.” His sarcastic emphasis on those last words caused me to shiver and his distrust of me echoed from every word he spoke. “He is your creation, Deirdre, and your responsibility. And you will be held liable for his crimes should you not be able to stop him. This is not a game we play here. I advise you not to rely on blood ties and sympathies to extricate yourself from this situation. You miraculously avoided punishment for Max’s death, but I assure you the Cadre will not be as lenient this time. And we will not be toyed with.”

  Had Victor not been so angry, I would have laughed at his pompousness. As it was, I began to shake, feeling the full impact of his words. If Larry were not found and brought to justice, I would pay for his sins, trapped for centuries in the airless glass booths of the Cadre. I drew in a deep breath in anticipation of that incarceration. And knew then that Larry was not dead, he could not be dead. He had engineered this situation, deliberately and with malice, with the very personal intent to make me suffer. I could almost hear his laughter.

  “Deirdre? Do you understand? If any member of the Cadre is harmed by Larry Martin and you do not bring him to justice, you alone will be held responsible. The ghost of Max Hunter will not save you now. And neither will I.”

  “I understand, Victor. Believe me, I understand.” I hung up the phone and turned around to see Mitch standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

  He came over to me and wrapped his arms around me. “I heard everything,” he said, “you don’t need to repeat a word.”

  “Mitch,” I said, “I won’t let them put me in their cage.”

  “I know, Deirdre, I know,” he smoothed my hair in a gentle gesture. “They won’t put you in any cage. I won’t allow it. We’ll find that bastard and we’ll kill him. Or we’ll tear the whole Cadre down and scatter their fucking ashes over the city.”

  “But,” my voice got softer, sadder, “you’re one of them now.”

  He held me out at arm’s length and stared at me for a long time, speaking my name softly. His eyes, which had always held a compelling intensity, now shone unnaturally; their effect seemed to be multiplied tenfold by his new vampiric nature. And the emotions of which they spoke were so strong they would have been terrifying, except that the strongest of these was love for me. Mitch pulled me deep into himself as if our souls had been merged.

  Our souls were merged. I felt my body flow into nothingness, all physical sensations faded, and there was nothing left in the world but Mitch, his eyes and his love. And they held me as my grasp on the material world faltered and drifted, dissipating into a mist. A momentary panic flooded my mind and my disembodied voice called his name.

  His answer to my distress flowed around me, flowed into me. He came to me and we were one; one in a nothingness that was everything, drifting and entwining, folding into one another. It was a union beyond anything I had ever experienced, beyond the enraptured bond of feeding, beyond the imperfect unity of sex, beyond even the compelling call of a dead soul. It simply was. And in its existence it was perfect.

  I became Mitch and he became me and we were one. There was no other way to describe the feeling. We had become a hybrid creatur
e, a blending of all that we both were. The inner doubts and fears that we each hid were revealed and channeled back and forth between us—they were swallowed and digested and fed back in almost incomprehensible forms of reassurance and love. I found strengths within him barely untapped. I found insecurities that I would never have expected to have existed. And they were also mine.

  “You fear me?” It was not a vocal comment and it did not come solely from my mind.

  “No longer, my love.”

  Then there was laughter and joy, flowing through the particles that had once been our bodies. And love so strong it threatened to be overwhelming in its intensity. But the threat did not matter; we would never be alone again. Unless we should die.

  “Then we must not die,” came the united thought. “We will not die.”

  “But we must still go back. We must make it all right.”

  It was the sadness of that thought, the cruelness of having to leave this perfected unity that brought us both back down to earth, trapping us once more within imperfect bodies. I felt an indescribable coldness wrap around my being and I was torn apart from him, thrown back into the shell of skin and bones and blood.

  I was the first to solidify back into material flesh. I watched as he began to materialize, the mist that contained his soul sluggishly re-forming, gelling. His eyes glowed as if from nothingness, then his face grew apparent, his hawklike nose, his strong mouth and chin. His torso came next, and his legs. Until finally Mitch stood in front of me again. He reached out to me and I fell into his familiar arms. We both shivered then moved apart.

  We stood, facing one another, not touching. After a while we found the strength to meet each other’s eyes and smile.

  Then I began to laugh and so did he. Shaking our heads at all of the misconceptions we’d held between the two of us.

  “I only tried so hard to be the perfect vampire to make you proud of me,” he said, his voice raspy and low.

  “I know, my love.” I faltered slightly. Words were so difficult to form. “I know. But I don’t want you to be the perfect vampire, I just want you to be Mitch.”

  He nodded, “I know that now. And I’ll not let you down.”

  “You could never let me down, Mitch.”

  He reached over and rubbed my shoulders. “I won’t. Now, let’s go get the bastards.”

  Chapter 15

  I realized with a shock that hours must have gone by. The sun had been at least two hours from setting when Victor had called. Now it was fully dark outside.

  “Damn.” Unbuttoning Mitch’s shirt, I slipped out of it and handed it to him as I passed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re late.” I turned in the doorway and smiled at him. “Victor will probably have his bloodhounds out after us if we don’t get there soon. Why don’t you call down to the desk and ask them to call a cab while I get dressed.”

  “Fine.” He held his shirt up to his nose, sniffed, then smiled. “Smells good,” he said, as he went for the phone.

  I retrieved the jeans and sweater I had worn the previous evening and dressed hurriedly. Before he was off the phone, I stepped out of the bedroom, fully clothed, running my fingers through my tangled hair. “I’m ready. Shall we go?”

  When we got on the elevator, I met Mitch’s eyes, and to my surprise I found myself blushing. He gave me a sheepish smile and I knew he must be feeling the same as I. Our newfound unity was wonderful, but embarrassing. We were like lovers opening our eyes to each other after making love for the first time. All of our virginal inexperience and clumsiness had been exposed, not during the passion of the act itself, but afterwards, as we fumbled for something to clothe our nakedness.

  I reached over and took his arm, rubbing my head on his sleeve.

  “That whole thing will take some getting used to,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s an experience we’ll want to do very often.” He whistled. “It’s way too hard coming back.”

  “Yes.”

  The elevator doors opened on the lobby and after stopping at the desk to keep the room reserved for our use later, we went on to the street and into the waiting cab.

  The Imperial was crowded, a line forming up outside, so we instructed the driver to take us to the back entrance. After we paid him and he drove away, Mitch touched my arm.

  “Call me cautious,” and I smiled, because he always was, “but I don’t think we should confide in Victor what just happened to us.”

  I looked at him questioningly. “Why not?”

  “I have the feeling that what we experienced is not a common occurrence.”

  “Oh, how would you know?”

  “Well, for one thing, other than us, have you seen any others keeping constant company?”

  “Well,” I hesitated, thinking, “now that you mention it, no. But I can’t say that I ever noticed or even considered it.”

  “I have.” Mitch’s voice was quiet but emphatic. “I’ve been studying them all and have spent more time with them than you have. They’re solitary and distrustful of each other. If they were bonding into pairs, I would’ve noticed. I haven’t. And they aren’t.”

  He stopped, running his fingers through his hair. I prompted him to continue. “And?”

  “And on top of all that, they fear us. I can smell it on them. We are an unknown quantity and they’ll admit that. Have admitted that. It’s the reason why they are normally so polite. Because they can’t gauge us and have no idea of the depth of our powers. And I’d sort of like to keep it that way. Shield yourself from their thoughts if you can.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Mitch opened the door and we descended again into Cadre headquarters.

  As before, Victor was waiting for us at the elevators. But this time he wore a broad smile and his manner was completely at ease. “Deirdre,” he took my hand and kissed it, “and Mitch. I’m so glad to see you.”

  The change in his manner was amazing. I could only shake my head and stare at him in disbelief. “Victor?”

  “Ah, my dear, you are confused. Please accept my apologies for my recent unpleasantness towards you. Perhaps we can put it all behind us. You see, I have received good news. Larry Martin has been found dead.”

  “Dead?” I thought back to my vision. “How?”

  Victor laughed, “Just the way he deserved, burnt to a crisp on a park bench. Nothing much left of him but charred bone and teeth.”

  “Then,” said Mitch, his voice suspicious, “how do you know it’s him?”

  “His watch.” Victor reached into his pocket and brought out a heavy gold wristwatch. “Nice piece, too. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have such good taste.” He turned it over to show the name engraved on the back. “We have this,” he playfully tossed the watch into the air, caught it and put it back into his suit coat, “we have the dead body, we have Deirdre’s feelings, and,” he paused, seeming pleased with himself, “we have a witness.”

  Mitch’s attention snapped in on the last word. “A witness? That’s good,” he said, barely hiding the scorn in his words, “because everything else you have is nothing. The body could be anyone’s, the watch could have been planted and Deirdre’s feelings, while I have more trust in her than anyone else, are still just feelings. Can I talk to this witness?”

  “Mitch, your diligence does you justice. But the entire experience was so traumatic for her that she’s requested to be left alone. She is fairly new and very unsettled. It cannot have been a pleasant experience to witness the death of another.”

  “I’ll bet.” Mitch remained unconvinced. And on the strength of his skepticism, I began to doubt myself. Remembering my vision, I shuddered. That it had happened, I felt sure. But to whom?

  Victor gave me a curious glance. “Trust me. The dead body belongs to Larry Martin. Our witness gave testimony to the house leaders and they all agreed on her testimony. In fact, after we’d gotten together and compared the letters we received, we realized that they could just as easily be considere
d suicide notes as death threats.”

  “So I thought, too, Victor,” I said, unsure, “but now I don’t know. Maybe Mitch should speak to her anyway.”

  He looked at me, “Deirdre, I should think that you of all people would be happy about this. Why would you want this any other way? And why wish up circumstances that are not true? Larry Martin is dead. You are freed of responsibility for him.”

  “I don’t feel free.”

  “Give it time, my dear, and you will. This whole thing has been hard on you, I’m sure.” He put his arm about my shoulders for a second and gave me a brief hug, before pushing the elevator button. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned your duties are done here. You are free. You and Mitch may leave at any time you wish.”

  I opened my mouth to protest and caught Mitch’s warning glance, deliberately forced myself to relax and to smile. “Thank you, Victor.”

  “Until then, you are still our honored guests. Now if you will excuse me, I have a full house upstairs.”

  We watched as he got on, then linked arms and walked down the hallway to our room. It wasn’t until we closed and locked the door that we turned to each other to speak.

  “So, what do you think?”

  I shook my head with a grim smile. “I have absolutely no idea, Mitch. None whatsoever. The vision I had was true. We know that now. One of us died this morning in the rising sun. But I can’t know who it was. Or even why it happened. What do you think?”

  He laughed. “Me? I think the whole thing stinks of a setup. By whom and for what reason, I don’t have a clue, either. It doesn’t matter; it still seems like a setup to me. And even if it’s just a gut reaction on my part, they tend to be correct more often than not. Then again, if the Cadre has a witness they trust . . .” His voice trailed off in thought, then resumed. “It’s their lives that seem to be endangered. I guess, if they’re satisfied, I should be, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not sure either, are you?”