The Demon Lover

by Juliet Dark

  “Anytime, Nicky. Really. If there’s anything else you’re worried about … anything that frightens you …”

  “Thanks. And Professor McFay? One more thing. I’ll take your advice about not jumping into bed with another guy right away, but I don’t think you made a mistake hooking up with Mr. Doyle. I think you guys are perfect for each other.”

  After Nicky left I stood in my empty classroom for a few minutes trying to decide what to do next. Normally, I went to the library for an hour and then met Mara in my office to go over the papers she had graded. Lately, though, I’d brought her back to Honeysuckle House in the afternoon to work on cataloging the Dahlia LaMotte papers. Mara had turned out to be an industrious and organized research assistant and had come up with a system for indexing the LaMotte letters and manuscripts. Because the papers couldn’t leave Honeysuckle House I’d invited her to work in the house. Instinctively, I’d shied away from having her come when Liam was there. There seemed to be some antipathy between the two of them that I attributed to Mara’s disappointment over losing Phoenix’s attention and her unfortunate way of expressing that disappointment when Liam took over the creative writing class. I’d chosen the hours when Liam was teaching his afternoon classes and conducting the independent class with Nicky, which I’d left to him to do himself most days, to have her come over, but it was becoming exhausting keeping them apart. And it meant I wouldn’t have a minute to myself for the rest of the afternoon. If I wanted to talk to Frank Delmarco about the rash of student illnesses, I’d better do it now.

  I took the back stairs so I wouldn’t pass Liam’s classroom. I knew it was silly—even if Liam saw me going up the stairs he’d just think I was going to my office—but I did it because I knew Liam would be jealous if he thought I was going to see Frank. I don’t know why I knew that. It had been Frank who’d acted jealous of Liam, not the other way around, but I guiltily remembered that first afternoon I’d met Liam (was it really only two and a half months ago?) and he’d caught me trading condescending jokes at his expense with Frank. I’d told him once that I was sorry about that but he’d only laughed and told me rather formally that he’d forgiven me. But he hadn’t said anything about forgiving Frank.

  Frank was in his office in his usual pose: feet up, newspaper spread in front of his face. The Jets paraphernalia was gone, though, since the defeat of the Jets in the AFC championship game several weeks ago.

  “I’m sorry about the Jets losing,” I said, hoping to soften him up before presenting my theory to him.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t really expect any other outcome. It’s the jinx. One of these days I’m going to find out who’s jinxing them and then watch out—they’ll win three Super Bowls in a row.”

  “Really? Sports jinxes are …”

  “Don’t even say it!” He dropped his newspaper and held up his hands, palms out. “Every time someone doubts the jinx it’s strengthened. What? You think Bill Belichick being the Jets head coach for only an hour was by chance?”

  “Huh.” I had to admit that made sense, but I hadn’t come to talk about sports jinxes. “Have you noticed that a lot of students are out sick?”

  Frank took his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “Yes, I have, but colleges are hotbeds of germs. The infirmaries are probably full at most colleges in the Northeast right now.”

  “Are they full of cases of unexplained fatigue, anemia, and weight loss?”

  “Truthfully, those symptoms could be caused by pulling all-nighters, living on bad cafeteria food, and dealing with negative body image … but wait.” He looked me up and down in a way that made me blush. “You’ve lost weight, too, haven’t you? And you look tired.”

  “I am tired, even though I sleep all the time. Could …” I blushed again. “Could a person be bitten by a vampire and not know it?”

  Frank got up from his chair and came around his desk. He brushed aside my hair and peered down at my neck before I had a chance to object to the examination. He swore, his breath tickling the skin behind my ear. “I can’t see in this light …” He grabbed me by the forearm, pulled me from the chair, sat me on the edge of his desk, and aimed his desk lamp at my neck. He tilted my head right, then left, his blunt calloused fingertips methodically palpating my skin, his voice crisp and businesslike as he gave me a run-down on the vampire modus operandi.

  “It is possible for a vampire to drink a victim’s blood without him or her knowing. They would come at night, of course, but they must have previously been invited in. Have any of the Russian studies professors been to your house?”

  “No,” I answered, and then yelped as Frank slid his hand under my shirt.

  “Sorry, just trying to be thorough. I don’t see anything, but I’m afraid you’ll have to check the femoral artery. Do you know where the femoral artery is?”

  “Yes,” I said, blushing even more.

  “Do you sleep alone?” he asked.

  “Uh … no …” I could feel the blood heating my whole chest now. I hoped Frank didn’t think it was a reaction to his touch. Because it wasn’t.

  “Then it’s probably not a vampire attack. Still, I’ll look into it.”

  The only thing he was looking into right now was my cleavage.

  “Hey, I don’t think vampires bite there.”

  Frank’s mouth quirked into a crooked grin. “No?” he asked, straightening the collar of my shirt. He was just stepping away when I heard a step behind him. I looked up, over Frank’s shoulder, and saw Liam standing in the hall, his face white, his eyes wide.

  I opened my mouth to call his name, but he was already gone, vanished so quickly I almost thought I’d imagined him. But that was just wishful thinking.

  I pushed Frank away—or tried to. Frank’s chest was a solid obstacle. “Liam?” he asked, pursing his lips to keep from grinning. “Uh-oh. That probably didn’t look so good from his angle.”

  “I’ve got to catch him.” I tried pushing Frank again and this time he stepped aside.

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with a very reasonable explanation for why I had my hand down your shirt.” He was grinning now, not trying to hide his amusement. “Let me know what you come up with. I’ll be happy to back you up.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but realized I didn’t have time to spar with him. “Just look into why all our students are getting sick,” I snapped as I left the room. “I’ll take care of Liam.”

  I didn’t look back, but I could hear Frank’s laughter echoing in the stairwell as I ran down the four flights. I was hoping Liam had gone back to his classroom as there were twenty minutes left to his class period—what had he been doing upstairs anyway? Maybe he’d come up to get a book from his office?—but I found his classroom empty except for a tow-headed boy sleeping with his head pillowed on his arms.

  “Hey.” I shook the boy’s shoulder. When he looked up at me blearily I recognized him from his tattoo as the Weezer fan who’d been snoozing in the infirmary earlier. “What happened to the creative writing class that meets in here?”

  “Yeah, that’s my class, man. I’m here. I made it to class.”

  “Uh-huh, good for you. So where are the rest of the students and where’s Mr. Doyle?”

  “Liam? Hey, he’s cool …” The boy rubbed his eyes and looked around the empty classroom. “Hey, where’d everybody go?”

  I sighed with frustration and turned to go but the boy grabbed my hand and pointed at the chalkboard. “Look, they left me a note. How cool is that?”

  Written in Liam’s elegant old-fashioned script were the words: Wilder, I canceled class due to low attendance. Go back to your room and get some sleep.

  I felt a lump in my throat reading the cheerful, bantering note. Liam must have written it minutes before he went upstairs and saw me with Frank. “How long ago …?” I started to ask Wilder, but when I turned around I saw he’d already fallen back to sleep.

  I left Fraser Hall and crossed the quad, scanning
the paths for Liam, but it was hard to make out the faces of the muffled pedestrians bowed under the heavily falling snow. I stopped in the library to see if he’d gone there, but the rooms where he usually sat were empty save for studying—or napping—students. His independent study with Nicky wasn’t for another hour. There was no place else to look but home.

  I started off fast down the path to the southeast gate, but slowed when I went through it. I could see footsteps in the snow leading up to the porch steps, but none leading away. There was a light on in the front bedroom Liam had made into a study. So he was home. I clasped my hand to my chest, conscious for the first time of how hard my heart was beating, how afraid I’d been that he’d be gone. But my relief was quickly replaced by uncertainty. What was I going to say to him? How could I explain what he’d seen in Frank’s office? I could try telling him that Frank had been looking for a tick in my hair—but down my shirt? No, I’d never be able to tell that lie with a straight face.

  Or I could tell him the truth: that I’d gone to Frank because I suspected the college’s resident (and tenured!) vampires were helping themselves to student blood—and maybe mine, too. Why not? I thought defiantly, marching across the street. No one had told me I had to keep the college’s secret. I could take him to Liz and Soheila to back up my story …

  I stopped halfway across the street. Even if I managed to convince Liam that Fairwick was populated by witches and fairies, I could only explain what happened in Frank’s office by blowing Frank’s cover—first to Liam and then potentially to anyone I asked to confirm my story. If Frank’s cover was blown he wouldn’t be able to investigate what was making so many students—and myself—sick. And while I might find Frank annoying and arrogant, I also suspected that he was the most competent and efficient man to get that job done. I couldn’t compromise his ability to do it.

  I walked the rest of the way across the street and up the porch steps more slowly. I opened the door, still without the slightest idea of what to say to Liam, and tripped over something in the foyer. Looking down I saw that it was a bird’s nest with a cracked blue egg inside. I stared at it, trying to figure out how it had come to be in the foyer, and then remembered that it was one of the “finds” that Liam had brought back from his poetry walks and left on the table in the foyer. I glanced at the table and saw that all the other objects that were usually there—the wooden bowl where we left our keys, the pile of spare change, the basket full of takeout menus—had been swept onto the floor. Clutching the house key in my hand because I didn’t know where to put it in all this chaos, I followed the debris up the stairs, my feet crunching on shards of blue glass from a bottle that had once stood on the windowsill on the landing, to the doorway to Liam’s study. He was at his desk, which was empty save for the round gray riverstones he collected and used as paperweights, gazing vacantly out at the falling snow. The cold gray light had washed his face of all color, blanching his skin as white as the cotton shirt I myself had washed and bleached and ironed. His black hair and eyes—sunken deep in their sockets—looked like part of the gathering afternoon shadows, as did the loose folds of his dark wool coat. He looked, in the pitiless winter light, as if he might vanish if I blinked my eyes.

  “Liam …” I said.

  He raised his hand without turning to me. “Don’t,” he said. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”

  “You do?” I stepped softly into the room and perched on the edge of the chair we’d bought in Bovine Corners a few weeks ago.

  “Yes. I know we’ve gone too fast … that I never gave you time to get over breaking up with Paul. It’s natural you should have second thoughts.”

  “But I don’t!” I cried, getting to my feet. “What you saw … It’s not what you think. Frank …”

  He winced at Frank’s name and held up his hand again. I noticed this time that it was trembling. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about what you may or may not have done with Frank Delmarco. It’s what you said to Nicky Ballard that upset me.”

  “What I said to Nicky?” I sank down into the chair, searching my mind for what he could mean. “I talked to Nicky about her breakup with her boyfriend …” And then I remembered. “She thought that finding a new boyfriend was the best cure for heartbreak because she thought that’s what I had done.”

  “And is it?” He turned now. His eyes were rimmed with red, the only color in his face. “Is that why you’re with me? As a cure for heartbreak?”

  “No,” I said. “I know that’s how it might look from the outside, but you and me coming together … I know that had nothing to do with Paul.”

  “But you said we might be a mistake.”

  “Nicky said that to you?”

  “She wrote about it in the journal she turned in today.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to recall exactly what I’d said to Nicky. “I think what I actually said is that you and I are old enough to deal with the consequences of our mistakes. I didn’t mean that us being together was a mistake.”

  Liam tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “From what I saw in Frank’s office today you seem to be having second thoughts.”

  “Hey, a minute ago you said you didn’t care about that! Anyway, it wasn’t what it looked like.”

  Liam laughed. The sound startled me. “That’s exactly what the unfaithful lover always says in the movies when he or she gets caught.”

  “Oh Liam, please, this isn’t a movie!” I was beginning to get exasperated. “Sometimes I think you’ve learned everything you know about love from the movies.”

  The minute the words were out I remembered Jeannie and the things Liam had learned from his time with Moira, but it was too late to take it back. Liam was already getting up and reaching for the duffel bag at his feet, which I’d missed seeing until now.

  “Liam,” I cried, reaching for him, “I didn’t mean …” But when I laid my hand on him he jerked his arm away as if my touch had burned him. He held his hand up in front of his face, fingers clenched into a fist, his eyes dark and wild in his pale face. Then he turned and left, so quickly that I felt the air stir from his coat as he whipped around. I stood staring after him until a sharp pain in my hand drew my attention. I looked down and saw that I’d slipped the toothed end of the house key between my fingers the way Annie had once shown me to do if I was afraid someone was following me. Part of my brain had been so frightened by Liam’s reaction to my touch that I’d been ready to attack him.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I didn’t get much chance to dwell on the fight—or on that surprising flash of violence I’d seen in Liam’s eyes—because fifteen minutes after Liam left Mara showed up for her work-study assignment. Most college freshmen would have taken my failure to show up at my office as an opportunity to take the afternoon off, but not Mara.

  “I was sure you’d want to get some more work done on the Dahlia LaMotte papers. They are so very fascinating.”

  Normally I would agree, but the last thing I wanted to do that afternoon was catalog the romantic fantasies of a reclusive spinster—especially with Mara, who had a way of zeroing in on the most erotic passages of LaMotte’s fiction. I hadn’t really intended for Mara to read the more salacious material in the handwritten manuscripts; I’d only asked her to make a record of how many pages LaMotte wrote each day. I wanted to see if LaMotte wrote more as the book progressed, if she was sometimes blocked, and how much time she took off between books. But it was impossible to keep Mara from reading the material and she often picked the raciest scenes to read aloud, asking for embarrassing explanations of sexual terms. Whenever she came across a word she didn’t know she would come sit beside me—quite close—and point to the word. I wondered sometimes if she wasn’t deliberately trying to make me uncomfortable, or if she might even be trying to make a sexual advance. It made for some long, awkward afternoons, but on this afternoon she did make an interesting discovery.

  “I’ve noticed,” she said, looking
up from the yellow legal pad on which she kept her page tallies, “that there’s a correlation between Miss LaMotte’s output and the sex scenes in the book.”

  “Really?” I asked, intrigued—and impressed at her use of the word correlation.

  “Yes, look …”

  Mara came over to where I was sitting on the floor and knelt beside me. She put the yellow legal pad in my lap and reached across me, her arm brushing against my shoulder. “I’ve put asterisks wherever a romantic interaction occurs, one for a meaningful glance, two for a kiss, and three for actual intercourse …”

  “I think I get the idea. What exactly is the correlation you see?”

  “Well, look at the page tallies. In between the meaningful glance and the kissing scenes Miss LaMotte writes an average of ten to fifteen pages a day. For every book, see, I’ve cataloged them all this way.” She flipped the pages of the notepad and I saw scores of asterisks dotting the pages. So many kisses, I thought, trying to remember the last time Liam had kissed me. Would it be the last time? “Then between the first kiss and the intercourse, she writes an average of twenty to thirty pages a day, the number escalating sometimes to as many as sixty pages a day as she gets closer to the intercourse scene.”

  “Really?” I asked, distracted from my memories of Liam’s kisses by Mara’s discovery. I picked up the pad and shifted my weight so that Mara wasn’t quite so close. “That is interesting.”

  “What’s really interesting is that after the intercourse scene the page tallies decrease again. Sometimes she doesn’t even write anything for a few days. It’s as if she’s worn out.”

  I flipped through the pages, each one representing one of Dahlia LaMotte’s novels. Mara was right. There was a definite pattern. It was as if Dahlia LaMotte became increasingly excited as the sexual tension between her characters mounted and then suffered a sort of sympathetic postcoital slump after they finally made love.