“May I come in?” Julian asked when Simone made no move to invite him inside.
Suddenly aware the door was only open a crack, Simone stepped to the side, swinging the door wider.
Still aghast at his super strength, she could do no more than stand rooted to the spot while Julian set the box on the floor.
Without another word, he began ripping the box apart, tossing the pieces of cardboard and the Styrofoam packaging to the side as he worked. “We’ve been told cable service is close to being restored, but for the time being, there’re just the local stations.”
She was still too stunned to comment so she stood quietly by while he finished taking the box apart. But when he reached down and picked up the television with seemingly no effort, she couldn’t hold back any longer. “That’s a thirty-six inch television.”
Julian looked over his shoulder as he set the television on a table against the wall. “I hope it’s big enough for you. It was the only one Michael was fortunate enough to find.”
Good Lord, she didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. She was just . . . stunned was too mild a word to describe her feelings. “It’s . . . it’s . . . fine,” she stammered, then fell quiet again while she watched him connect one end of a cord to the back of the television and plug the other end into a wall outlet.
“There, all done,” he said triumphantly when the screen came alive with light.
Simone took a step back to better view the picture where a rebroadcast of an earlier program on a national station was being aired. As usual, the story dealt with the terrible flooding and destruction that encompassed eighty percent of the New Orleans area.
Earlier scenes of the flooded city were shown one after the other: Household contents floating on the muddy water, cars upended on rooftops and houses half a block from their original foundations were shown over and over. Finally, the news shifted to one of the older schools in New Orleans where some National Guardsmen were being housed.
“There are reports of supernatural acts within the building, empty except for the Guardsmen being housed there,” the reporter said. “Close encounters of the supernatural kind, according to one Army Specialist who claims to have seen the ghost of a young child in one of the empty classrooms. Add to that the words of a Chaplain who uttered an exorcism command for Satan to leave the dark areas of the building, and you have some pretty scary stuff going on here,” the reporter added.
Scary stuff, indeed, Simone agreed silently as she plopped down on one end of the faded, two-seater couch and attempted to rub away the goose bumps that had risen on her arms. The events seemed even scarier when she again recalled Dottie’s talk about vampires in New Orleans. Vampires. Ghosts. Exorcisms. Who wouldn’t be creeped out?
On top of everything else there were Julian’s unusual traits and the strange customers that frequented the bar. Were these the same “strange characters” Dottie had noted in her logbook? Simone accelerated the brisk, warming strokes on her skin.
From across the room, Julian asked, “Are you cold?”
She lifted her gaze from the screen to the side of the set where he still stood. “To be honest, all this talk of the supernatural chills my blood.”
Thinking about the cold served to remind her that Julian’s presence had not evoked the same “ice water in the veins” feeling that it usually did. Something she had no doubt blown out of proportion and which had taken second stage to all this “otherworldly” stuff going on.
Julian came over to sit at the other end of the couch. She didn’t want to look directly at him, but something stronger than her own will compelled her to lift her gaze to his. She was immediately ensnared by his eyes. Those beautiful, unusual eyes that she feared might hypnotically draw her under his control if she didn’t look away.
Julian stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, his long, tapered fingers so close to her shoulder she could almost feel his touch. He leaned toward her.
“Are you comfortable here, Simone?”
She forced herself to shift her gaze to the television where the devastation in New Orleans still occupied the screen. After a few seconds she shifted her gaze back to his face, this time avoiding a lock-down with his eyes.
“The apartment is fine. I’m very grateful for it.”
Julian moved a little closer. “But are you comfortable?”
“I have everything I need for now. Later, I can—”
“You’re very good at avoiding questions you don’t want to answer.” The words themselves were serious, but the underlying tone of his voice was light, almost humorous. Which was the true Julian Whitcombe? she wondered.
Both. Both are true.
“Stop. You’re reading my mind again,” she accused, her goose bumps becoming more pronounced.
“Only because you let me.”
“What do you mean, I let you?” He couldn’t really read her mind! Yet, she knew that somehow he had. That should scare the daylights out of her, but for some reason it didn’t. And that was even more frightening.
“Think about it, Simone. Can’t you sense my mind reaching out to yours an instant before they connect?”
The question caught her off guard. She had felt something. A brief moment of struggle like when she was trying to remember something but couldn’t.
“You can stop me anytime you wish by deliberately closing your mind to me. I would never try to force a link between us.”
He moved a little closer. She felt the mental twinge that, she now realized, she had felt before, but at the time hadn’t known what it meant.
Perhaps there’s a psychic link between us that exists whether we want it to or not.
Lord, she hoped not. If it did, that meant he could possibly have picked up on the fact that in spite of fighting it, she felt not only a mental pull toward him but a sexual pull as well.
Julian’s I-know-what-you’re-thinking smile gave him away, and she had the sudden urge to leap from the sofa, to widen the physical distance between them. She didn’t give in to the impulse, but instead exerted the mental control he claimed she had. She could almost feel a mental barrier spring up between them.
“That wasn’t too difficult was it?” Julian asked.
She shook her head. No, it wasn’t difficult at all. She almost laughed from relief at how simple it had been. “It’s still confusing and frightening to me, though.” And, she confided to herself now that she was confident he couldn’t read her mind at the moment, I’m still not sure where I stand with all this hocus-pocus stuff.
Julian stood. He kept his distance from her when he spoke. “Yes, I know it can be frightening. And it was not my intention to upset you.” His eyes became dark and brooding. “However,” he continued, “there are things in the universe that exist despite denial by most mortals, and . . .”
A sharp rap on the door halted the rest of Julian’s words. Simone was grateful it had. Julian’s comments had added to her growing unease. The detached way he had spoken about mortals, as if he were not one himself.
That fast, while she was still hashing things over in her mind, Julian had crossed to the door and opened it. Mike was on the other side. He whispered something to Julian that made him scowl. Julian’s body stiffened, projecting a fury that electrified the air in the tiny room. Simone’s skin prickled the way it sometimes did when she was caught outside in a lightning storm.
Julian spun around to face her. “I have to cut our visit short. I’m needed elsewhere. Have a pleasant night.”
Before she could reply, she found herself facing the closed door.
It took a few moments to adjust to Julian’s hasty retreat before she was drawn again to the television and another segment of the rebroadcast. She caught the end of a reporter’s sentence that aroused her curiosity, “. . . are beginning to find their way to the MASH-like hospital set up
in the Convention Center.”
She went back to the couch and gave her undivided attention to the television broadcast. Next to the reporter was a middle-aged, obviously overworked member of the mobile medical community.
“Tell me,” the reporter continued, moving the microphone closer to the doctor, “have you been able to identify where and how these women were injured?”
The beleaguered doctor removed his glasses, wiped them absentmindedly with the lower edge of his lab coat, and perched them back on the bridge of his nose. “All we know is that the patients are all dazed beyond what we’ve seen in even the most severely affected patients, and the wounds are all in the neck and head area.”
The camera shifted back to the reporter, “And now, Doctor, let’s talk about what you’ve learned from these patients diagnosed as suffering from storm-related post-traumatic stress.”
Another shift of the camera brought back into focus the doctor’s careworn face. He appeared to have grown wearier since the interview began. “Well, Bill, as in many cases of extreme mental trauma, it isn’t uncommon for people to have heightened awareness, even to feel connected to people they might otherwise not even notice.”
The way she felt strangely connected to Julian? Could it be she was suffering some kind of post-storm stress herself?
“Many of those we’ve seen appear to be mentally dislocated, as if they’re suffering from some form of amnesia,” the doctor continued. “We’re doing everything we can to locate their families, but so many are still dispersed around the country.”
Could this be what had happened to Dottie? Could she be so traumatized and disoriented she didn’t even remember who or where she was?
When the program ended, Simone went into the bedroom, feeling numb. She grabbed the bedspread and a pillow and lay down on the couch in the living room. It had been a couple of days since she’d had a television, and until now she hadn’t been aware of how starved she was for news. Even a rerun of pictures showing what had happened as far back as the day after the hurricane brought a strange, familiar comfort to her.
Scenes of people being rescued from rooftops or pulled out of the high water by helicopter paraded in front of her on the screen.
Gradually, her eyes began to close. As she reluctantly gave herself over to sleep, sounds from the television wove in and out of the graphic rescue scenes that played themselves out behind her eyes.
“WHEN WAS THE last time he saw his daughter?” Julian asked Michael as they descended the stairs two at a time.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
When they reached the bar, a single branch of lights lit a corner of the room. Sitting at one of the tables, a frail, balding man clutched an empty whisky glass in both hands.
“She’s extra special to him,” Michael explained as they crossed the room. “Had her late in life. She’s a little slow, from what he told me, and sick,” he added. “Cancer.”
A ball of rage instantly formed in the pit of Julian’s stomach. There was an unwritten law in the vampire realm that no matter how great their need to feed, the weak and sickly were untouchable. Most of the vampires respected that code. Most, but not all. Zurik and his clan respected nothing and no one.
As Julian and Michael approached, the old man jumped up, sending his chair tumbling to the floor. His frail body seemed to be caught in a perpetual shudder by the time the two men reached him. He thrust a trembling hand at Julian. “I’m Frank Hubbard, Mr. Whitcombe. I hope you don’t mind my coming here. I’ve heard . . . I’ve known what you are, but I’ve heard that you’re basically a good . . .”
Julian took the old man’s hand, shook it, and leaned down to pick up the chair. “Sit down, Mr. Hubbard, and tell me what happened.” As the old man sank onto the chair, Julian turned to Michael. “Get Mr. Hubbard another drink.”
In a quavering voice, the old man told Julian, “He took my daughter, Mr. Whitcombe. I know it was him. I’ve seen her with him before.”
Michael came back with a full bottle of whisky, poured another shot and held the glass out to Mr. Hubbard. The old man downed the drink in one gulp, keeping his eye on the bottle Michael placed in the middle of the table.
“My baby, my CiCi,” the old man wailed, “didn’t come home last night. She went to that place called The Next Level.” He lifted the glass to his lips again, seemingly unaware it was empty. “I begged her not to go, that she was too ill, but she wouldn’t listen. I knew she was going to see that . . . that creature, the one who calls himself Dorian.” He downed yet another shot of whisky Michael poured into the glass. “I went after her, but I was too late. They had already left.
“She should not have gone out at all, Mr. Whitcombe,” he said, his voice hitching with a sob. “She’s still too weak. We just got back this morning from Baton Rouge, where she was in the hospital for three days getting her treatment.” His head dropped down on his folded arms. “They had to give her two transfusions this time. I begged her to stay in Baton Rouge for another day or so, but she put up such a fight I was afraid if I forced her to stay she would get sicker than she already was. I had no choice but to bring her back.”
His whisky-slurred words were trapped in the well formed between the table and his crossed arms. Still, Julian heard every word the old man said, and the only word he really needed to hear was “transfusions.” The name Dorian was also far too familiar to him. He had to fight the rage that made him want to smash the table in front of him to bits. And he probably would have, were it not for the old man who might be frightened to death if he did.
Reaching out, he grasped the old man’s shoulder. “What does your daughter look like, Mr. Hubbard? Can you describe her to me?”
The old man lifted his head, reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out a photograph. He held it out to Julian, the paper shaking in his trembling hand.
Julian took the photo and glanced at it briefly before he handed it back. All he needed was one quick glimpse and the features of the young woman were burned into his memory. But to find her quickly he needed something more, something that carried her scent. “Do you have anything on you, anything at all, that came in contact with your daughter, even for a second?”
“I wiped her forehead with my handkerchief this morning. Is that something you can use?” Before Julian could answer, Mr. Hubbard dug into his pants pocket and came up with a wrinkled handkerchief.
Nodding, Julian took the handkerchief from the old man and gave him a reassuring clasp on the shoulder. “I’ll find her, Mr. Hubbard, but I want you to go home now.” He turned to Michael. “Get someone from the back to accompany him.”
Michael nodded. “I’ll have Thaddeus call someone, and I’ll stay with Mr. Hubbard until an escort arrives. And I’ll get Malcolm to go with you.”
Malcolm and Thaddeus were the two guards on duty in the HerediPlas lab located in the rear of the building. There were security personnel on duty at the lab at all times.
Julian’s hand shot out and gripped Michael’s forearm. “I don’t need anyone to accompany me. I can do this alone.”
“Your chest . . .”
Julian’s nostrils flared and he inhaled quickly, harshly. “I can handle this alone.” He rarely got angry with Michael, but he could no longer allow his injury to hold him back from doing what had to be done. And it was time Michael came to accept that.
Before Michael could launch another protest, Julian raced to his chamber, where he secured his dagger, and left the building. When he reached the street, he marched purposefully down it. The face of the sickly woman, coupled with her scent from the handkerchief, was already leading him in the direction of an abandoned warehouse at the end of the French Quarter. A fatal mistake on Dorian’s part.
In spite of his black mood, Julian couldn’t suppress a smile. While it was true that a vampire could not enter a home unless welcomed by t
he occupant, the same restriction did not apply to buildings owned by someone else. There were even cases where one vampire could enter the home of another vampire, depending on whose powers were strongest. Fortunately, tonight he needn’t worry about that problem.
As he grew closer, the smell of another of his kind—this one, an enemy—urged him to move even faster.
The bloodlust he had successfully controlled for decades filled every cell in his body. He could forego draining the life from an innocent, but for one of Zurik’s evil clan he held no mercy.
The picture of the old man’s daughter grew brighter in his mind, the stench of evil stronger. He was close.
His fangs began to drop and the ends of his fingers tingled as his nails morphed into the claws he would need for battle. Everything he needed was in place. He was as ready as he could expect to be.
Chapter Five
SIMONE WAS CAUGHT in a dream world filled with the last scenes she’d watched on television. It was a dark, starless night and people were being rescued by boat and helicopter, aided by the helicopter’s bright spotlights that scanned the water.
One of the rescuers in a boat reminded her of Julian. She watched as he reached out a hand to help someone, but before he could pull the helpless victim from the dark, dirty water, something shiny appeared from nowhere and hovered over his head. She could tell it was a blade of sorts, and as she watched in horror, the blade turned a fiery red color, rose higher, then plunged into Julian’s chest.
A pain in her own chest took her breath away and yanked her from sleep. Wide awake, she sprang to the floor, her hand over her heart which was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. She closed her eyes against the graphic scenes still playing on the television, but the scenes that paraded behind her eyes were more graphic than anything she’d already seen. It was as if her eyelids were glued shut, forcing her to watch the images shifting behind them.
Julian’s face came into full view in front of her, his eyes like two fiery coals. The rage that consumed him roared through her as if she owned it herself. She saw another blazing length of metal rise high in the air, but this time the blade was in Julian’s upraised hand.
The Vampire Julian Page 4
