Nick chuckled. “You said you wanted something to do.”
Alex rolled his eyes and barely refrained from punching Nick in the shoulder. Nick smiled back as though he could read Alex’s mind. “Okay, but don’t be a stranger. You can come see us in town, you know. Or invite us back for something other than moving heavy furniture or hunting.”
Alex walked them to the door. Outside, the air was cool and crisp, tempting him to walk out into the night with them. Peter hesitated on the way out, standing in the light spilling out onto the porch. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right? Seriously, the papers can wait. I didn’t mean—”
Alex waved him off. “I’ll be fine. Go home, Peter.”
He watched as Peter and Nick left, taking the moving van back to town as they had agreed. The house felt colder in their absence and, as he shut the door, he wondered about their lives. Nick’s little group seemed devoted to one another. Alex wondered what it was like to have those kinds of bonds. Alex’s people were solitary by nature. One day, he’d have to ask Nick how his friends had come together. None of them were typical of Nick’s kind and yet the misfit little band worked somehow. He found himself envying the solidarity and affection they shared.
With a little snort, he brushed aside such sentiments. Yeah, like he’d ever envy werewolves.
HE SEEMED unable to settle down to any one task that evening. He would open one box and start to put the items within away, only to become sidetracked by something else. He quickly became annoyed at the fact that he was unable to complete a single objective. What’s your hurry? You’ve got forever. He shut the thought out as unproductive. That was half his problem. When you had all the time in the universe on your hands, it was difficult to stay on track. He was restless and bored and had felt this way for what seemed like centuries. It was why he sought out change, after all. He couldn’t get frustrated so soon. What happened to his sense of patience? His ability to work through a problem?
He wandered through the house, taking mental note of the things that needed repairs, and trying to decide how best to go about getting them done. Inexorably, his path led him to stand outside the small room upstairs that he had designated as a study. Turning the key in the handle, he opened the door to view his coffin.
He’d left the overhead light off, having enough light from the hallway to see the gleaming mahogany wood and ornate scrollwork on the coffin’s sides. He could feel the pull of the coffin from where he stood in the doorway, could feel the insidious tug of its call on his body and mind. He was so very tempted to give in and lie down; he felt suddenly weary and knew the delicious relief and renewal that such an act promised. If he stepped into the room and laid his hand on the wood, he’d be able to feel the warm pulse of Life it promised.
He closed and locked the door instead.
With a sigh, he headed back downstairs. The coffin wouldn’t solve his problems. It only made them worse. The more time he spent in it, the less he’d be able to move in the daytime world. It would have been easier if he could have stored it in the basement. Anything that put another small barrier between him and temptation was good. Upstairs, just down the hall from his bedroom, he could imagine it whispering to him. He thought about how very easy it would be to give in and use it again.
He paused at the foot of the stairs to stare at himself in the large mirror there.
Nick was right; the shorter, darker hair suited him. The razored edges, freed from their heavier length, stood up in careless disarray with only minimal effort on his part each morning. The cut also highlighted his features and accentuated his cheekbones. The rich, chocolate-brown color went well with his dark eyes and pale coloring. He leaned in, assessing his face carefully for signs of aging. He could pass for a guy in his early thirties. He knew if he wanted to maintain endless youth, he could sleep every night in the coffin, experiencing the renewal and regeneration of his body indefinitely.
Of course, he’d stop having a reflection in the mirror. He raised an eyebrow at himself in the glass as he moved on.
Yes, the coffin promised eternal youth, but those who spent a lot of time in it became less human and more vampire. Overall, Alex preferred being able to walk in both worlds.
Too bad Victor didn’t understand that. He won’t let you go that easily, you know. Like the siren call of the coffin, he pushed the thought of Victor showing up one day out of his head. No doubt, he hadn’t heard the last from Victor, but what could Vic really do to him anyway? It wasn’t as if he could force Alex to practice the Old Ways.
Stewing about Victor’s anger and disapproval was nonproductive. What Alex really needed to do right now was make a list of priority repairs and figure out what he needed from the local hardware store. He would ask around and find out who was the best person to get to fix the things he couldn’t tackle himself. Fortunately, he’d been planning this move for a long time and had the resources to see him through this cycle. His last role as a primo uomo had paid well and no one would recognize him now. He had time enough to decide what to do next; it would be years before his neighbors got suspicious of his perpetual youth and he had to move on again. He had too much fucking time; that was the problem.
He wandered into the kitchen, humming “Come to Me” from Les Misérables as he looked for a notepad and pen. Of course, he’d have to be careful. Maybe this time around, he should adopt for himself a persona that would keep him out of the public eye altogether. A reclusive artist, perhaps, or maybe a writer. He snorted at the thought of himself as a novelist. He’d heard that vampire fiction was very popular right now.
THE brown tabby was sitting on the back porch again when Alex opened the door and headed for the trash can. It was just after dark; the temperature was deliciously cool with a hint of frost to come. Alex could feel the woods call to him in a way he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Maybe he’d take a walk later that evening, after the moon had risen. He recalled with a smile the advice given to him by the garrulous old man who worked at the little grocery at the foot of the mountain. Alex had stopped in to pick up some more light bulbs and the old man had warned him about walking the woods on the mountain at night.
“Something big and nasty out there,” he’d said, shifting his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other as he rang up Alex’s purchase. “Some say bear; others say cougar.”
He’d smiled at the old man, thinking he’d been playing up the role of Local Wise Man for his benefit, and suspected the man had rightly pegged him for being somewhat of a city slicker. He’d been secretly pleased that when the next full moon came, no one would be surprised at the reports of some deer being killed.
The cat stood up as Alex came out the door with his plate to scrape the remains of his meal into the trash can. The cat gave him a baleful stare as Alex moved past him toward the can. He had to juggle the plate and knife in one hand as he opened the raccoon-proof latch, and the plate tilted as he did so.
Blood and the remnants of raw meat dripped onto the porch.
The young cat was on it in a flash, lapping up the spillage while Alex watched. After a moment’s hesitation, he set the plate down beside the cat.
Gleaming eyes glanced up at him before the cat moved over to the plate and began licking it clean. A loud purr reached Alex’s ears. He straightened, still holding the knife, watching with amusement while the cat ate.
“You wouldn’t give me the time of day before, but now I’m your best friend, eh?”
The cat ignored him. Alex wasn’t surprised. He’d spotted the young tom off and on ever since he moved in, but this was the first time he’d ever been able to get a good look at the cat. It was ostensibly a tabby, but the stripes blurred to the point of being almost like ticking instead. It had the coloring of a wild rabbit more than a classic, striped tabby. Its gold eyes were striking in an otherwise plain little face. The first time Alex had seen the cat, it had immediately slunk off into the bushes on making eye contact with him. As the days passed and he’d conti
nued to ignore its presence, the cat had deigned to move when Alex came in and out of the back door, treating Alex with cool disdain.
He’d begun talking to it out of sheer boredom.
The cat would lie up under the bushes and watch him when he weeded the flowerbeds behind the house, and it had taken to shadowing him when he spent one long afternoon cleaning out the gutters. Alex liked to sing his favorite arias to pass the time while working. At first, the cat darted off into the fields behind the house, but now it would lie on its side nearby, flicking its tail with its eyes closed to half slits, always just out of reach.
It was nice to have the company. Alex knew he could have called on Nick and the others at any time, and he intended to invite them over at some point, but a part of him needed this time alone to figure out who he was again. Without Victor’s influence. Without being defined by the Life. Though he’d grown up in the Life, he knew there had to be more to it than simply feeding and sex. He wasn’t sure that there was anything of depth or substance to him anymore, and that was disturbing. Surely, someone who had walked the Earth as long as he had should have more to show for his existence than mere ennui.
The cat finished cleaning the plate and began winding itself around Alex’s ankles. “Beat it,” Alex said, as he started back toward the door. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll make yourself scarce by the next full moon.”
A noise startled them both and Alex looked out into the yard, where a large raccoon had emerged from the bushes. It paused at the sight of Alex on the porch, lifting its head to smell the air tentatively. The little bastard probably wanted his trash. He’d had to clean up the yard several mornings in a row before he’d purchased the new can with the locking lid. He was about to say something to run the animal off when a low, threatening growl reached his ears.
He looked down to see the tabby crouched in a menacing stance, ears flat against his skull, an eerie noise emanating from his body in a manner that sent a little shiver down the back of Alex’s neck. Before he could speak, the cat had launched himself off the porch at the raccoon, despite the fact it was twice his size. He landed on the raccoon with such force he bowled it over. When they both regained their footing, the fat raccoon ran at full speed toward the forest, the angry cat chasing it all the way.
“You little son of a bitch,” Alex said aloud to the night. He couldn’t help but admire the cat’s audacity. He hoped the cat couldn’t tell.
Chapter 2
IN PATENT disbelief, Alex turned the faucet back off and on again. Still, no water came out. Damn it all to hell. Alex threw back the shower curtain on its makeshift rod and stepped out of the old claw-foot tub, moving swiftly toward the sink. The water trickled out of the faucet when he tried it, but quickly trailed off with a splutter. Cursing, he shut the faucet off and snatched up a plush, red robe before storming out of the bathroom.
What now? What hadn’t gone wrong with this dilapidated house ever since he’d been so misguided as to buy it in the first place? For starters, it was the coldest goddamned house he’d ever lived in, and that was saying something, seeing as he’d lived in St. Petersburg before the invention of central heating. He’d discovered early on that the previous owners had believed in making do or doing without, and that this thrifty attitude toward housekeeping had resulted in some creative fixes about the place, not the least of which included wiring. It was a wonder the place hadn’t burned down years ago. As it was, Alex had learned the hard way that certain appliances could not be plugged in or used at the same time. The estimate the electrician had given to rewire the place was staggering. As financially comfortable as he was now, until he established himself in this new identity, his funds would have to last him a while. For the moment, rewiring was on hold.
He’d nearly fainted with shock at his first electric bill as well, which was doubly annoying because he was so damn cold all the time. Fortunately, there had been a small amount of wood left stacked in a woodpile by the garage. Only he’d almost smoked himself out the first time he tried to light a fire; something had obviously built a nest in the chimney, and he’d had to hire a sweep before it was safe to use the fireplace again.
What he’d thought was merely ugly wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom had turned out to be the sort of plastic sheeting with sticky backing that people use to line their cupboards, and the removal of it had left the walls tacky with glue. He’d had to coat the walls with a heavy white primer before he could even begin to paint, and the whole process was significantly delayed by having to pause to pick hair and lint out of the glue before he did so. The paint he’d purchased, with the soothing name of “Summer Wheat,” had turned out to be nothing like the pastel yellow he was expecting. Instead, his bathroom now looked as though he’d painted the walls with a fluorescent highlighter. The color was incredibly aggressive; he flinched every time he entered the room and turned on the lights.
Now, with Nick’s pack coming over in a few hours for dinner, the failure of his water supply was going to be a big problem. Not only could he not take a desperately needed shower—he couldn’t fix dinner either. Damn it. He didn’t want to serve pizza again. He got the distinct feeling that food might be a bit hard to come by for Nick’s group, especially if the alacrity with which they’d accepted his invitation to dinner was any indication. He knew that Nick and the others were hardly picky when it came to food, but it was a matter of pride for him. Food might not have any great appeal for him personally, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t entertain his friends properly. He recalled the elaborate dinners he’d attended in centuries past, before Victor. Before Victor had become so insistent on living completely rooted in the Life.
Not to mention, he really needed a shower. He’d been sanding the floors in the upstairs hallway all day, with the idea of laying down a coat of polyurethane the next day, and he was itchy with fine dust. Who the hell could he get to come out on a Saturday evening to fix the plumbing? What if it wasn’t the plumbing, but something dire, like the well itself? He suddenly had visions of what an expensive well replacement would do to his financial reserves.
He hurried into the kitchen, hoping that, for some odd reason, the problem was limited to the upstairs bathroom. Though the kitchen faucet gurgled when he turned the tap, nothing came out. Fuck.
His glance fell on the small business card tucked into the window frame over the sink. Tate Edwards, DVM. Alex chewed at his lower lip. Well, the guy did say that he had helped the previous owners around the place before. Maybe he could tell Alex about some simple fix over the phone. Reluctantly, Alex removed the card from the window and went in search of his cell phone.
It took him a while to find it and, when he did, he realized the battery had almost run down. He searched for the charger and plugged it in, all the while waffling uncharacteristically about even making the call in the first place. The last thing he wanted to do was appear as though he were making friendly overtures toward his neighbor. Only the strong desire for a shower and the conviction that Tate was probably out for the evening allowed Alex to place the call. As the phone rang, he shifted on his bare feet, shivering a little. He’d be Damned before he found himself in the local megalithic discount store, buying bedroom slippers, however.
Tate picked up on the third ring. “Hello. This is Dr. Edwards.” He sounded brisk and professional.
“Dr. Edwards.” Alex responded in kind. “This is Alex Novik, your neighbor.”
“Hey, Alex. How’s it going?” Tate’s voice warmed suddenly, the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
“I hate to bother you.” Alex ignored the question, sticking to the necessities. “I seem to have run out of water. I was wondering if you might know what could be wrong.”
“What’s that? You’re breaking up. I’m on the road. Hang on. I might lose you.”
“Oh! Never mind,” Alex said hurriedly. “It’s not a big deal.” He was unexpectedly disappointed that Tate did indeed have plans, and he was annoyed at himself as a r
esult. He was about to hang up when Tate spoke again.
“It’s no biggie. I’m just on my way home from the store. The reception’s not that great in places on this road, though. Did you say the water is out?”
“Yes.” Alex spoke louder for good measure. He often forgot that humans didn’t hear as well as he could.
“Did you change the water filter this month?” The sound of Tate’s voice garbled as the signal broke up and then strengthened again. Alex could just make out the words.
“Filter? What filter?” No one said anything about a filter when he moved in. Or did they? That was starting to sound vaguely familiar.
“The one in the basement. You have a system that filters out the sediment in your well water. You need to replace the cartridges every month or else it clogs up. Did you notice a decrease in water pressure first?”
Damn it, he had, but he hadn’t paid any significant attention to it. “Okay, so this thing is in my basement? And I have cartridges? There are directions, right?” Alex hated the fact that he sounded like an idiot, and he mentally winced when Tate laughed.
“Look, I’ll be passing by in a few minutes. It’ll be easier to show you than to explain over the phone. You want me to stop on my way home?”
Alex hesitated. “Yes,” he said reluctantly. This is a bad idea, his brain argued. He ignored it.
“Right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Tate ended the call without saying goodbye.
Alex realized he had only a few minutes to get dressed, and he hurried back upstairs to throw on the clothes he’d been wearing before. He didn’t bother with underwear; he pulled the burgundy sweater over his head and stepped into his jeans, noting in the mirror that the thin, V-neck sweater let his nipples show. He carefully zipped his fly, aware that his nipples weren’t the only thing showing just now. He felt the odd little rush of excitement that preceded a prowl on the town and he sternly squashed it. Water, not blood, he reminded himself. He shoved his bare feet into his loafers and returned downstairs.
Crying for the Moon Page 2
