Michael looked about to speak, but Julian cut him off. “All my life I’ve known that the appearance of the woman who would determine my fate would, in some way, be tied to a catastrophe. I just never expected the window of opportunity for my transformation would be so small.”
Julian stopped pacing for a second to look intently at Michael, but resumed his pacing almost immediately. “On top of that, we both know that in accordance with Lilith’s prediction there will soon be two more disasters. My brothers must be ready to handle them, and since their transformations depend on mine, I don’t have a minute to waste.”
“I know according to prophecy your brothers’ transformations must be completed within a year of your own, but you don’t have a time limit with Zurik. You will still have the power to deal with him after . . .”
“After? We can’t depend on “after,” Julian snapped. “Even if Simone is the one, what if it doesn’t work out between us?” He brought his hands down to his sides and balled them into fists. “And if it doesn’t and your work on HerediPlas still isn’t finished . . .” He let the statement hang as he clenched and unclenched his fists in rhythm with the throbbing in his temples.
“There’s no need to build insurmountable mountains yet. You have to give the woman a little time. She just arrived. I have a feeling . . .”
“I need something more concrete than feelings. Have you forgotten what’s in store for me and my brothers if neither she nor the HerediPlas works out?”
The gravity of Julian’s words fell heavy on Michael. He was profoundly aware of the consequences for Julian and the other two Whitcombe brothers if Julian failed. “Has it begun already?”
Julian closed his eyes and went back to massaging his temples. “So far it’s nothing I can’t handle, but I have to remain vigilant.”
Michael walked back to his desk and shuffled the papers on top of it into two neat stacks. Julian’s admission to even a slight slip in control meant things were moving much faster toward the darkness than anticipated.
Michael moved the papers to a corner of the desk and looked up at Julian. “In that case I agree that it’s best you proceed with the woman quickly.”
Julian turned toward the door. “I’m glad we agree. Tonight, Simone LeClerc will have her first brush with my unearthly charms.”
THE SUN WAS just beginning to rise when Julian left Michael and headed downstairs. He unlocked the heavy iron door to his chamber and entered the darkness that would swaddle him from dawn until dark.
He climbed into the coffin that Michael had guarded for members of the Whitcombe family throughout the centuries, closed the lid to activate the powers of the special mixture of curative wood and copper, and closed his eyes. There were a few minutes left before the sleep of the undead claimed him, and he used them as he often did to revisit his past and contemplate his future.
He was one hundred and fifty years old. For one hundred and twenty of those years he had been a fully transformed vampire. By the vampire realm’s standards, he was still young.
He smiled inwardly when he remembered Michael’s centuries of steadfast dedication to the Whitcombe bloodline, especially to the years spent with Julian’s own family. How many shifters, he wondered, would have taken the form of a female in order to care for a family after the mother’s death? How many would have dedicated their entire life to caring solely for the three children left behind when Angus Whitcombe later took his own life? Not many, he would wager.
Julian felt the last of his energy draining away and knew he’d soon be deeply asleep. Darkness crept over him. As it did, Michael’s face began to fade and another took its place.
As he slipped into the realm of the undead, the last image Julian saw was that of Simone LeClerc, her lovely face framed by her dark, silken hair, her brown eyes filled with desire, and her open arms beckoning to him. Now he just had to make the vision a reality.
THURSDAY EVENING, when Simone began her second night of work, she prayed that the next five hours would pass quickly. She’d made two visits to her stepsister’s hurricane damaged apartment that afternoon before she connected with the landlord. And it had been no easy task convincing the landlord to let her into the apartment in spite of the dangerous black mold that had begun to form. By the time she’d picked her way through the muck to collect the salvageable items she wanted and returned home, it was four o’clock.
Mike had asked to meet with her at four-thirty so they could go over the duties she’d be assuming as his assistant. The meeting didn’t end until six which didn’t leave much time for her to eat, get dressed and come back down to work.
She knew she’d be on pins and needles until she went through the items she’d brought back from Dottie’s apartment, but she had no choice except to wait until her shift ended. Better to put it out of her mind for the time being and focus on her job.
She’d been working the bar alone for almost an hour when the air around her changed, just as it had when Julian made his unexpected appearance the evening before. The sudden shock made her hold her breath for the second it took to brush the chill from her arms.
“I’ll be working the bar with you tonight,” Julian said. He spoke softly, despite a sudden rise in the noise level. The place was filling up fast.
She gave him a quick nod and a fleeting smile before turning back to the carton of bar glasses she’d just unpacked.
“If you need anything, just ask,” Julian added before moving down to the other end of the bar.
Was she imagining things again, or had her boss’s voice sounded just a little too suggestive? And were his unusual eyes just a tad too seductive for a simple offer of assistance?
She placed the glasses in the under the counter sink. Keeping her head lowered, she glanced to the other end of the bar where Julian, elbows on the countertop, was deep in conversation with a customer.
Baffled, she shook her head. She may well have misinterpreted Julian’s eye contact and the pitch of his voice, but she definitely wasn’t misinterpreting the care he had taken in his choice of clothes.
His ebony knit turtleneck and snug black jeans, in stark contrast to his light golden hair, were as sexy as any she’d seen on a man. And what was with the earrings? She hadn’t noticed them before. On another man, the coppery looking studs with a spattering of small jewels might have come off as effeminate, but on him they looked downright sexy. A woman would have to be dead not to get all warm and tingly just looking at him.
Admittedly, she was plenty alive, but she hadn’t allowed warm and tingly in her life for a long time. And despite Julian’s eye-candy attributes, she couldn’t dismiss the unpleasant effect he had on her when they shared the same few feet of space. She shivered. When he was close to her, she sensed a darkness about him that had nothing to do with the clothes he wore.
She was willing to admit that some of what she felt might have to do with the sense of desperation that still hovered over the city. That feeling of desperation very well could be distorting her perception of not only Julian but of everything and everyone she had been in contact with at the bar during these past two days.
It could also be an extension of her own steadily growing feeling that something ominous had happened to her stepsister.
She’d spoken to Dottie two days before the hurricane struck. Dottie had told Simone that she planned to ride out the storm in the second floor apartment she’d rented while working in New Orleans. She’d said that she was certain she’d be safe there.
Had Dottie changed her mind and gone elsewhere for protection from the storm? If so, why hadn’t she contacted Simone? Certainly the hotel where she was staying was as safe as any building could be. Had Dottie been caught unawares and been trapped by the water that had flooded most of the city?
Hundreds had died in the rising water, but she refused to believe Dottie had been one of them. Yet
, why, six weeks after the disaster, had Dottie not gotten in touch with her? While not all of the landline telephone service in the area had been restored, most of the cellular service had been, and that had always been their primary means of communication. And it wasn’t as if Dottie didn’t know where Simone had been staying.
Looking back, Simone wished she had taken Dottie up on her offer to stay with her instead of going to a hotel. But Dottie’s apartment was only one small room with a convertible sofa-bed. In spite of Dottie’s denial, Simone knew that her presence would hamper Dottie’s movements. And Dottie, after all, wasn’t on vacation; she was working. But if she had stayed with Dottie, she wouldn’t be looking for her now.
She sighed and shook her head. So much for regrets and rethinking the past. There was nothing she could do about what had already happened. All she had was the present. And the present called for action.
Soon she would have to send something personal of Dottie’s to the lab that was gathering DNA evidence to identify the dead. And before much more time passed, she would also have to notify her stepfather that his daughter was missing.
“I have something to give to you later,” Julian whispered in Simone’s ear.
Ripped from her thoughts, she spun around so fast her elbow hit the martini she’d just made and sent it crashing to the floor. She hadn’t sensed Julian’s approach as she usually did, and the result of her surprise was now scattered at her feet. She bent down to pick up the broken glass.
Instantly, Julian was alongside her. “Here, let me do that before you cut yourself.”
His hand closed around hers just as she lifted a sliver of glass. It was pure reflex that made her draw back her hand. She watched as the fragment sliced Julian’s thumb. He barely reacted even though she could see the thin thread of blood that welled up from the tip of his thumb to the finger’s first joint.
Simone quickly rose to her feet. Julian rose with her. She snatched a clean rag from under the bar and reached for his finger.
Julian jerked his hand back. “That’s not necessary,” he insisted. “It’s nothing.” As if to prove his point, he put his thumb to his lips and flicked it with his tongue. “See,” he said, holding out a perfectly smooth finger for her inspection. “All better.”
Simone barely suppressed a gasp. “How did you do that?”
“Do what? It was a mere scratch.”
He took the rag from her and, with his hand under her elbow, gently turned her to face the bar. “Why don’t you fix another martini while I take care of the mess.”
“But—”
“The customers come first.”
Aside from his being the boss she couldn’t argue with his reasoning since several new customers had taken seats at the bar.
She walked down to take their orders, grabbing a clean martini glass from the overhead rack on the way. She was mixing the drinks when Julian stood to toss the broken glass in the trash. Still curious as to how his injury, although slight, had seemingly disappeared, she asked, “How did your finger heal so quickly?”
“Maybe I’m a vampire,” he teased with a smile.
“And maybe I’m a descendent of Lilith,” she shot back with a smile of her own.
Even as she uttered her flippant answer, something deep down nagged at her. She remembered a telephone conversation with Dottie before she’d come to visit her stepsister in New Orleans. Dottie had told her that there were stories of bizarre murders, especially in the Quarter. Most of the victims were young women with peculiar markings left on their throats. Dottie had jokingly mentioned the word vampire, and Simone remembered laughing at the very thought of something so ridiculous. Yet after their conversation ended, she’d done some research on the Internet about vampires. That’s where she’d stumbled on the legends and myths surrounding the Goddess Lilith and the Demon Asmodeus. One legend had supported the belief that Lilith may even have been the first vampire.
Julian had lifted an eyebrow when she mentioned Lilith. He still looked at her appreciatively as he said, “I see you know your vampire mythology.”
“And I see you know yours.”
“Touché,” Julian said and, rag in hand, squatted to wipe up the pool of gin and vermouth on the floor.
All thought of goddesses and vampires fled from her mind when, having just finished with the new drink orders and the replacement martini, a ruckus started at the front door.
What happened next was like watching a fast forward video. One moment Julian was under the counter, and the next moment he was vaulting over it, his long legs clearing the top by at least a foot.
Mike was tussling with a small group of “weirdoes” trying to gain entrance when Julian reached them. A few of the “inside weirdoes” had risen and looked ready to lend a hand, but before it became necessary, Julian and Mike hustled the troublemakers outside.
Simone was certain that Mike could have taken care of the disturbance by himself, but it was fast becoming clear that Julian was a hands-on boss.
“You took care of that pretty fast,” she told him when he was behind the bar again, having arrived in the more conventional way of one foot in front of the other. Except the way her boss walked wasn’t really conventional at all. His movements were as lithe as those of a dancer, and it bugged her. Another mystery to solve when she had some free time to ponder it.
Julian winked at her and moved down to the end of the bar where he’d been working earlier. She watched him mix a house special for one of the weirdoes. Another puzzle to solve when the time was right—this “Double B” drink thing. But she couldn’t think about that now. She’d store it away with all the other puzzles to solve when she had nothing better to do. Right now there was plenty to keep her hands and her mind busy.
Simone worked steadily for the rest of the night, with no more unusual incidents to distract her. When the last glass had been rinsed and the floor behind the bar swept, she left the rest of the cleanup to Mike and Julian and headed upstairs to her quarters.
Once inside the apartment, the first thing she did was change from her work clothes into a gray sweatsuit. Afterward, she settled on the sofa with the logbook she’d taken from Dottie’s apartment. Fortunately, the book had been in the bedside table and was undamaged. As a private detective, Dottie kept meticulous notes. Simone was certain that if there were any clues to her stepsister’s disappearance, she’d find them in the log.
Simone turned to the last entry in the book, made weeks before their last conversation. Dottie’s spidery scrawl jumped out at her.
A couple of places to check for possible clues to Marcy’s disappearance are two bars at the edge of the French Quarter: a place called Mike’s After Dark, and a club down the street from there called The Next Level. I’ve been told these are the two main watering holes for the “strange” characters. I’ve already been to TNL. Will check out Mike’s next.
The hairs on Simone’s neck rose. Dottie had come to New Orleans on a job that had kept her here two months. The twenty-year-old daughter of one of Mobile’s most respected businessmen had been missing since the middle of summer. When the police had run out of leads and had all but given up on finding her, the young woman’s father hired Dottie to continue the search.
But what could Mike’s After Dark have to do with the young woman’s disappearance? And if it did, wasn’t the fact that she happened to be working here just a little too coincidental?
Simone recalled the feeling she’d had the morning she landed the job at Mike’s. How, when she found herself standing there outside the bar, she’d gone back and forth between wondering if it was luck or something else that had brought her here. Now she had something else to consider. Could she have been drawn here because of Dottie? She, Dottie, and Angela had often joked that they had some kind of ethereal connection to one another. Could it be that her presence here was connected in some s
trange way to Dottie’s disappearance? After all, it wasn’t as if her experiences here so far could be considered perfectly normal.
A chill rolled over her when she remembered her first encounter with Julian. Her first look into his eyes. She couldn’t discount their effect on her. The way they had drawn her into their depths. The way they had made her feel as though she were outside the room, outside her body. She shivered again as all kinds of thoughts came rushing to the surface. The strange concoction that Julian and Mike served only to certain patrons, namely, the weirdoes. And, of course, there were the weirdoes themselves. And what about the cut on Julian’s finger, the way it had suddenly disappeared?
Her heart thudded in her chest. She was letting all that talk of vampires get to her. She had to get control of herself.
A knock on the door sent her pounding heart into overdrive. She held her breath while she waited for whoever was on the other side to identify themselves.
“Simone, it’s Julian. I have something for you.”
Her heart raced faster. Julian was her boss and this was his house. She would have to open the door whether she wanted to or not, and right now she didn’t want to.
Reluctantly, she rose from the sofa and walked slowly to the door. Her hand trembled as she curled her fingers around the doorknob. Every instinct she possessed told her she should not open the door to him under any circumstances. Yet, despite the inner warning, she grasped the knob and turned it.
Chapter Four
CAUTIOUSLY, SIMONE opened the door just enough to allow herself a full view of her visitor. The gigantic cardboard box Julian held in his arms was the last thing she expected to see.
“I have a television for you,” Julian said when Simone stood there with her mouth hanging open.
She could tell as much from the lettering on the outside of the box. That wasn’t what had taken her aback. What had her staring in amazement was that he held the weighty box in his arms as if it contained nothing but air.
The Vampire Julian Page 3
