by Sky Winters
These men were different from the elegant older gentlemen who’d spoken with Kieran. They were younger, dressed in flashy suits of jackets with paisley inlays and shirts of bold reds and greens. They wore watches and necklaces of gleaming gold, and black loafers all polished to a mirror-shine. One of the men stood in front of the group, his curled hair slicked back, and his face wearing the same impudent smirk as the rest of them.
Nora, after a brief moment, recognized the man: He was the other man who’d bid on her.
“Three hundred thousand?” he said, walking toward them with a short-stepped strut. “I don’t know about that. But a fine little chickadee nonetheless.”
“I don’t have time for this, Marcus,” said Kieran, his voice low, nearly a growl.
“Hey, no need to get hostile on me,” he said, moving in a loop around Nora, looking her over in a way that made her feel exposed and uncomfortable. “I just wanted to make sure to congratulate the man who so completely outbid me.”
But when he moved behind Nora, he stopped, moved in, and took a closer look at the side of her head. At her hearing aid. “Ah, but what is this? It looks like this girl of the night is, ah, defective merchandise.”
Nora’s hand shot up, covering her hearing aid with a cupped palm.
“Maybe if you talk to the daddies in charge, they might, ah, let you swap her out for store credit.” His voice was muffled through Nora’s covered hearing aid.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but he didn’t have the chance. With blinding speed, Kieran moved to Marcus, stopping only when he was mere inches from his smirking face.
“Last chance to get out of the way,” said Kieran.
The two men stood like this for what seemed like hours.
Finally, Marcus stepped back, his hands raised in mock defeat. “Always so serious, Kieran. I say you come out with us some night, enjoy the city. Maybe bring this little one along before, well, you do with her what will need to be done.”
Nora looked at Kieran, shock on her face. He said nothing, still glaring at Marcus, his jaw tensing and releasing.
What does he mean by that?
Not saying another word, Kieran grabbed Nora by her slender wrist and led her through the throng of Italians. This was the first time that Kieran had touched her since the auction, and the sensation of his skin, cool and smooth, against hers sent a surge through her body like electricity as they strode down the amber lights of the hallway.
Chapter 8
Eventually, after turning a few corners, they reached a small, steel door. Nora could feel the air grow colder as they approached it and knew that they had reached the exit. Kieran leaned forward and pushed the door open, and a whoosh of chilly evening air rushing into the hallway. Nora braced against the cold, which Kieran noticed. A twinge of annoyance on his face, he slipped off his suit jacket and draped it over Nora’s shoulders. The silk lining felt luxurious on her cold skin, and that same musky scent rushed up and around her face. The scent was so overwhelming that the discomfort of the cold slipped her mind for a moment.
When the intoxication from his scent faded, Nora looked beyond the door and saw that a sleek black car was waiting for them, another one of the suited men standing in front of the passenger’s side door. They stepped out into the parking garage, which was lit with long lines of soft orange lights that lit the area without giving the feel of a dirty concrete parking area. This was clearly, to Nora, the luxury edition of parking garages.
The man gave a soft nod as he handed Kieran the keys. Kieran unlocked the doors with a button press on the fob, opened the driver’s door, and, with a gesture to Nora, got in. She slid into the soft, leather seats of the car, and noticed right away that they were heated. The car’s dashboard was crossed with various numbers in soft, blue LED lighting and made of polished dark wood. It was a luxury sports car, and Nora wondered what was worth more, it or her apartment.
Kieran revved the engine before proceeding. As they made their way to the exit, Nora noted the other cars in the garage. All were expensive, sleek, and dark-colored.
What’s going on here? What the hell is this society? she wondered as they passed the rows and rows of toys for wealthy, elite men.
They exited and pulled out into the cool New York evening.
Not wanting to wait another moment for answers, she turned to Kieran, his handsome face in a tight, focused glower as they turned down the city streets.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Nora said.
“I’ll explain when we’ve arrived,” he said, still looking forward, his voice terse.
“Explain now,” she said, her voice a firm tone that she wasn’t used to hearing coming from her mouth.
Silence filled the air as Kieran drove down the Brooklyn streets. The orange lights of the city night went up and down the towering buildings on both sides of the road, and through the grid of the city Nora could occasionally see the twinkling waters of the East River as they reflected the light of the full moon above. The amber rows of the buildings around them were a soft blur as Kieran peeled through the lanes of Williamsburg.
“It’s a gentleman’s society,” he said, his voice calm atop buried frustration from the encounter with the Italians.
“Bullshit,” said Nora, “tell me what kind of society.”
Kieran said nothing, instead keeping his eyes forward as the sports car made the turn from the Williamsburg Bridge onto FDR drive. Now the East River was completely visible to Nora’s right, the Brooklyn skyline now fading into a mass of twinkling rows behind them. Driving was a luxury that she couldn’t afford in New York, and part of her wanted to simply sit back and enjoy the ride. But the need to know where she was, where she was going, and just who this man driving her was won out over any other desire.
“I’ll tell you when we get to my apartment,” he said, “but right now I need to focus.”
“Your apartment?” said Nora. “What makes you think that I want to go to your apartment? Or that you have any right to take me there?”
“Well,” he said, his voice lowering to a smooth honeyed tone, “in case the events of the last few hours were unclear to you, you’re now my property.”
“Well, in case what country you’re in is unclear to you, you can’t own someone as property. All I need to do is find the nearest NYPD officer and tell him that some psycho thinks he bought me and I’ll be back home, and you’ll be in jail.”
“Try that, see how far it gets you,” Kieran said, with a condescending tone, as though speaking to a stubborn child. “You’d be hand-delivered by the city’s finest to my apartment within an hour.”
“What are you talking about?” Nora asked as they peeled off FDR Drive and entered the maze of glistening skyscrapers of Midtown.
“This isn’t some gentlemen’s club you’ve gotten involved with; this is something bigger,” he said, whipping onto 42nd Street and weaving around the slower-moving cars, who honked at him as he passed.
“Then tell me.”
“In time.”
Nora was brimming with frustration, but she sensed that continuing to press Kieran for more information before he was ready to give it would be like wringing water from a dry towel. Instead, she slumped back into her seat and crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling a combination of scared, angry, and ridiculous.
They went along 42nd until they reached 8th Avenue, which Nora recognized from the glittering marquee of the Majestic Theater.
Yeah, I could really go for a Broadway show right about now. Nora kept her thoughts dry in order to avoid sinking into the feeling of terror that bubbled like a swamp at the pit of her stomach.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” she asked.
“Hell’s Kitchen.”
Nora didn’t know much about this part of town. She knew from stories her grandmother told her about the history of her Irish immigrant relatives that it was a hotbed for crime and violence back in the 18th century. Gangs like The Gophers and T
he Parlor Mob kept a strict, if blood-soaked, order around the area back when the police didn’t have the manpower to be everywhere at once. Though make no mistake, she remembered her grandmother telling her, this kind of order had nothing to do with the justice system.
But Hell’s Kitchen was a different story now, and Nora could tell this by the clean manicured look of the streets as they made their way into the neighborhood. The area was a different sort of hotbed now: One of gentrification. The few times Nora had been here, she’d seen that the gangs of her grandmother’s stories had been replaced by attractive young couples pushing strollers. It was a prime spot for the gay community as well; Nora sometimes wondered if there were more French Bulldogs and Shih Tzus here than people.
Nora gazed out the window at the reflection of the amber lights of the city on the random puddles of water on the streets and sidewalks. Eventually, Kieran made a sharp turn into a small side street. Then they stopped, and before them was a massive, metal door. Kieran reached up, pressed a small button on the sun flap, and the door rumbled up and into the roof of the building.
Of course, this guy’s got a private parking garage. Nora realized that she’d seen more wealth up close in the last few hours than she’d probably seen over the course of her life up to that point.
Kieran slid into his parking spot, and they both exited the car. She followed him to the dark mahogany doors of a private elevator, which slid open as they approached. The elevator walls were lined with red satin that was soft against Nora’s still-bare shoulders. The doors slid shut, and the elevator began to rise with a hum that increased in volume. Nora looked over at Kieran as the elevator ascended; the tension that marked his face during the drive over seemed to be dissipating, though his brow remained tight and knitted.
The next seconds passed in silence as the elevator rose, and the questions that Nora had were roiling in her like crashing waves. Now that they were about to be alone, he had to explain to her what was going on, why she was kidnapped, why she was put in lingerie and made to walk a stage in chains, why this strange, handsome man leaning against the elevator wall spent so much money on her to… what? Have a live-in maid? Or a sex slave? But as those last words crossed her mind, as she spoke them in her mind’s voice, she felt that same hot, tight feeling, the words lolling in her mind as she looked at his outline out of the corner of her eye—the strong, jutting jaw, the piercing gaze that could melt steel, the body of dense, taut muscle obvious under his suit.
Then the elevator emitted a soft ding, and the doors slid open.
Nora’s apartment was small, cozy, and, though she had only been there for a time, was on the verge of feeling like home. But it wasn’t much, just a studio of a few hundred square feet, a simple bed, a small TV, and a handful of Ikea furniture that she was able to buy with the money she scraped together before moving here. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.
Nora’s cozy little apartment, however, could’ve easily been tucked away into a small corner of Kieran’s penthouse home and forgotten.
The first thing she noticed when the gold doors of the apartment slid open was the view. The walls to Kieran’s apartment were glass from top to bottom, and the glittering, golden skyline of lower Manhattan seemed to sprawl on forever against the deep black of the night sky. Then, when the automated lights of the apartment blinked on, the rest of the home became visible to her.
The apartment was a wide, open room, decorated in a clean, simple style. In the center of the room was a recessed middle wherein sat several couches of deep, black leather. The ceiling was high and flat, and traced with lines of soft, clear lighting fixtures, and when the lights turned on, the black marble fireplace crackled to life. There were a few pieces of minimalist art here and there, along with sculptures of designs of strange, hard angles, but beyond that, there was very little in the way of adornment, as though Kieran realized that nothing he could put on the walls would match the splendor of the view.
Kieran strode past her and into the open expanse of the apartment. He rolled his sleeves up, exposing his forearms, which were as white as cotton, but thick and toned. He turned to Nora and beckoned her with a flippant “come here” flick of his fingers.
Her eyes still wide from the view, she obliged, moving into the space with small steps.
“Welcome,” he said, his voice a low purr.
Nora said nothing, instead walking around, her mouth agape.
Who is this guy? Nora wondered, looking over Kieran as he fixed a pair of drinks. He can’t be any older than thirty; how could someone so young afford a place like this? Is he one of those finance guys? Or maybe just someone with a lot of family money.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, placing another one of those small, red capsules in his drink before gesturing to the longer of the couches in the recessed section of the room. Nora obeyed and slid into the soft leather, which was cool against her skin. Kieran came over and handed her a drink, which she took, against her better judgment.
She took a small sip; it was vodka and some kind of lime flavoring. She allowed the sweetness of the lime and the sharp astringency of the vodka to wash over her palate for a moment. But as soon as she drew it down with a heavy swallow, she snapped into awareness of her situation, and her eyes began to narrow.
“Okay,” she said, setting down the drink onto the glass coffee table with a clink, “tell me just what the fuck is going on.”
Kieran made a slight exhalation through his nostrils and took a sip of his drink. He reached over to the far end of the coffee table, took a pair of black coasters, and tossed them onto the table before setting his on top of one. He then looked at Nora with an insistent glare, and with a sigh, she placed her drink on the coaster closest to her.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I like my place to be in order.”
“Fine,” she said, “but tell me what’s going on.”
Kieran crossed his legs, exposing his socks, which were black with thin white stripes, and sat back into the couch. “You’re meat,” he said, a slight twinge of pain to his voice, as though admitting a long-kept secret.
Nora’s vision became blurry. She fell back into her seat, a feeling of lightheadedness overwhelming her. “M-meat?” she said, her voice weak. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Where to begin?” Kieran said, his voice trailing off.
Nora regained her bearings, and her eyes went immediately to Kieran’s glass, red-tinged, just like the drinks of everyone else at the gathering.
“Start with that; what’s that? Why is your drink red?”
Kieran leaned forward and traced the rim of his glass with the tip of his index finger. “It’s blood.”
Nora’s eyes widened. “Blood?”
“Yes. A blood extract, essentially.”
Nora leaned forward. “And why are you drinking blood? Is this some kind of fucked-up cult?”
“Something like that,” he said, taking another sip of his drink. “We’re what you humans know as vampires.”
Nora became even more dazed. This must be some kind of joke. “Stop this bullshit right now and tell me the truth.”
His eyebrows raised. “But I just did.”
Nora was unconvinced, but decided to not press the point. “And what was tonight? Why was I kidnapped? Why was I sold? Why am I here?”
Kieran stood up, took his drink, and walked over to the glass wall, the towering spires of the city glowing against his silhouette. “We have something of an arrangement with this city. As I’m sure you know through your movies and books, consuming humans is an important part of the vampire way of life.”
Nora tensed, wondering if running for the door was an option. But she decided to listen.
“We came here from the old world over a hundred years ago, when immigrating to America was the dream of every heart in Europe. And our people had power. We ruled the nights, and our wealth and influence affected the course of nations. But just as we had our lineage, so did the hunters. And their numb
ers grew with each generation as those who wished revenge for their slain kin joined their ranks.
“And then there were those of us who gave themselves over completely to the blood. They embraced the death, the destruction of life, the light of life draining out of their victims’ eyes as they drank the last drops of blood that coursed through their veins. They had no place in our society. But despite our total disavowal of them and their ways, we were still considered one and the same by the humans who knew of us.”
He took another drink and closed his eyes for a moment, his face cast in a ghostly orange pallor from the city lights.
“So, toward the end of the nineteenth century, many of us, from different nations, decided to start new societies in the New World, to leave the mistakes of the past in the nations of Europe.”
Nora sat back once again, taking a sip of her drink and letting what Kieran was telling her settle in her mind. “And you’re the Irish?”
“Yes,” he said, “the Irish settled in this part of the city, in Hell’s Kitchen. The Italians are in the East Village, the Ukrainians in the West, and the Polish across the river in Greenpoint.”
“And the city knows about you?”
“As much as we wanted to stay hidden, we could only lurk in the shadows for so long. Eventually, those we drained were found in large enough numbers for the police to notice a pattern, and we were discovered.”
“But… why didn’t they just make you leave the city? Or kill you?”
“By the time they learned of us, the wealth that we had brought to New York had already worked its way into the city. We owned property… and politicians. To leave would’ve sent the city into a tailspin. So, we came to an arrangement with humans. We would cease regular feedings. In their place, we would have a yearly auction in which hundreds of humans would be bid upon. And those humans would be the only feedings of the year.”
Nora knew that she should’ve been feeling fear at this revelation. After all, Kieran had just admitted that he’d purchased her for the purpose of killing her and drinking her blood. But something put her at ease. Something in the way he was openly offering this information gave her the impression that he had other plans for her.
