Generic Thug One died before he could even turn his attention to me, my fist striking his chest so sharply that his breastbone cracked and his heart stopped. The Benelli slipped from his numb fingers, and I had it, swinging it toward Generic Thug Two and stroking the trigger. His head exploded into a million gray-red fragments, redecorating the kitchen SWAT-style before Thug One’s body hit the floor like a bag of rocks.
Brains seemed a little confused, the muzzle of his weapon frozen halfway between Alicia and me because he could not decide which one of us to shoot first. To his credit, he managed to pump a new shell into the chamber, but he died still pondering his dilemma when I swung the Benelli around and sent the three remaining slugs down range so rapidly that the report sounded like one prolonged BOOM, emptying the contents of his chest cavity onto the marble hearth and fireplace behind him.
Unfortunately, some of the matter sprayed onto the painting above the mantel, only to be augmented a second later by his body, which smashed into the wall and brought both painting and mantel to the carpet with him.
I dropped the Benelli, and Alicia flinched as it clattered softly to the floor, her eyes glued to the matte black shotgun for a long moment. When she did finally look away, she surveyed the carnage of her apartment, eyes wide with disbelief. When her gaze settled on me, I noticed an elation in her eyes that made me slightly uneasy. No fear, no revulsion, just disbelief and jubilation.
We stared at each other for a few moments, and I winced with each fiery breath, wondering if I should apologize for letting the attackers get as close as they did. Before I decided, she raised one eyebrow and spoke, “That’s definitely our cue to get the fuck outta here, huh?”
My jaw went slack, and Alicia smiled at my expression. Although her humor was absurdly incongruous to the situation, it infused the room with a radiance that seemed to wipe away the carnage.
Then a piece of Brain’s brain fell off the wall, the gentle suction sound audible only to my revenant ears, and it hit the carpet with a padded, gentle thump also only loud enough for me. The bit of gore drew my eyes, and I was amazed how one piece of tiny matter could ruin the buoyancy she’d just created.
“That it is, babe,” I returned softly, looking back to her face.
3 learning
The night air was damp and cool against my skin. Alicia's arms were around my neck, her legs around my waist, locked at the ankles. I had a suitcase under each arm, flying slowly to savor the trip and the feel of her next to me. Our northwest trajectory took us over Seattle University and Virginia Mason Hospital. Soon afterwards, I could see the tan concrete building that was the Summerfield Suites Hotel. Windows dominated the surface of the building, most of them dark.
I descended into the deep shadows within an indentation in the building, waiting while Alicia worked the stiffness from her limbs. When she was ready, she looked down at me. "It's best if you let me do the talking. In fact, you should find a seat in the lobby and wait while I walk up to the desk." She was about to object, but I held up my hand. "I don't know how influential Christian is, or how far his network reaches, and I have a feeling you don't either. The less you interact with people, the better." My words closed her mouth, and she nodded. "Try to look bored, and don't make eye contact with anyone." She nodded again, and I was satisfied.
We stepped out onto the sidewalk, Pike Street was deserted. She walked by my side, struggling to keep up with my brusque pace even though I slowed it considerably for her.
The lobby was deserted, the only other person a tired-looking young woman behind the massive front desk. As I approached, the woman behind the desk perked up. Her brown hair was held up in a bun, her face artfully made up. She sized me up for a quick moment before glancing around me to survey Alicia, who was looking around the lobby with disinterest and a little disdain. I almost smiled.
"Can I help you, sir?" she asked, her tone just one step shy of bored.
I placed the suitcases on the floor. "Reservation for Carter. Michael," I said, tailoring my tone to match. She said nothing as she typed something into the computer, and then she asked me to verify the particulars, told me my suite number, and made another entry. "I'll call someone to take care of your bags, sir," she stated.
"Not necessary," I said quickly. "I can manage."
"Enjoy your stay at the Summerfield."
I picked up the suitcases, holding the key cards between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. I walked to Alicia, and when she turned her attention to me, I nodded. She rose regally from the lobby sofa, and when I reached her, she looped her arm through mine.
◆◆◆
Alicia took the key card from my hand and opened the door to the suite. I watched the muscles in her calves flex as she led the way down the entry hallway, a kitchen on the right, the white cabinets and countertop gleaming in their cleanliness. A bathroom, also sparkling, was on the left, and a door to the bedroom was only slightly ajar. I noticed these things in passing, my eyes learning the surroundings out of habit, but they always returned to Alicia.
Smokin’ hot Alicia.
She walked to the plush, purplish couch, alighting on the arm and facing me with a curious expression. She thought this was all so decadent, and I have to admit that such distinctions are often lost on me as my idea of decadent is feeding on four beautiful women in one night... As if to augment her thoughts, she glanced over her shoulder to the white baby grand piano behind her, the lacquered lid shut.
I dropped the bags at her feet and followed her gaze. "Do you play?" I asked, hoping against what I already knew to be the answer.
"Me?" she replied, her eyebrows rising as she brought her head around. "I wish," she murmured dryly, her voice tinged with a bit of regret and longing. I wished right then that I were Mozart, and that I could teach her, but musical aptitude is not one of the Blood Gifts.
"Too bad," I offered, disappointed.
"Wasn't meant to be," she sighed, giving me a knowing glance. We lapsed into comfortable silence for a few moments, Alicia contemplating her life and me contemplating her. "I'm hungry," she said after a while, her sudden statement drawing a smile from me even as I got a little angry at myself.
"Sorry. I didn't even think about that," I scowled, my tone sharp with self-flagellation.
"Relax," she answered softly with a half-shrug. "I'm not going to die or anything; it's all right."
I looked at her for a moment, one eyebrow rising by itself. "I think I can scare up something," I stated at length and my wording made her laugh.
"Is that really necessary?" she asked with a smile. "It’d probably be easier if I just pick up the phone." Scowling once again, this time in mock anger, I picked up the bags and, with a mighty sniff of disdain, disappeared into the bedroom. I could hear her low chuckle behind my back, and it made me smile.
When I returned to the main room, Alicia was on the phone. I could hear the front desk woman telling her that the kitchen was closed at this time of night, but there might be something left over from the last shift. Alicia said that whatever they could find would be appreciated and hung up the phone.
"I could go out and get you something. It would only take a moment."
Quickly, she shook her head. "I want you to stay here with me. I want to be with you." Her words were so casual, so comfortable, yet there was an underlying urgency in her voice, as if she were afraid that she might never see me again. I found this reaction curious despite all that had transpired between us, and at that moment, I loved her so much that it hurt.
I know revenants for whom emotion is nothing but a distant memory. Apparently, one price of immortality is the loss of emotion over time. Gisele once told me that every generation removed from her loses a little more emotion during their Conversion, and it slowly ebbs away further with the passage of time. I have to take her word for it, because it doesn't quite work that way in my case.
If it isn't already obvious, I am somewhat of the exception to many of the traditional vampiric rules. I
n a class of my own, so to speak. I am more closely related to the Ancients than to any other revenant, and as I’ve already stated, I'm above them in the food chain. In fact, in a diatribe of bitterness, one I’m sure she probably wishes she could take back, Gisele once told me that I am closer to the Primogen Elders than to the Ancients. There were only two Primogen Elders, the last of the vmbir, but unfortunately, Temujin is no longer among us, and no living revenant has ever seen or heard from Alia, so it is assumed that she is gone as well.
But I digress...
"Sunrise isn’t for another couple of hours," I whispered softly, wanting to hold her in my arms and smell her hair. Her posture was inviting, but I decided against it. "Besides, there’s always tomorrow."
At this, Alicia shook her head firmly. "For you, maybe," she stated, her face slackening with sadness, "but for me, there is no certainty but right now, and you, love, are living proof of that."
Her words still hanging in the air, she moved to the kitchen, rooted around in there for a minute or two, and came back with some snacks. I guess I looked inquisitive because she held them up as she moved to the sofa and sat down. "I assume you can afford these?" she asked flippantly, but I knew she wanted to say something else, losing her nerve at the last moment. The subject of my eating habits was still tender.
"I can eat mortal food, but it does nothing for me, so there’s really no point unless I’m trying to keep up appearances. Everything tastes different." I was answering the question in her mind, rather than the one she vocalized. She looked surprised for a moment before remembering that her mind was open to me, and then her expression grew somber.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes filled with empathy for what she perceived to be my plight, and I smiled, waving her off.
"Don't be. Blood more than makes up for it." When she recoiled, horror plain on her face, I instantly regretted my foolish statement, but I made no move to placate her. She had forgotten again, and she had to learn. I watched her closely, fascinated by the play of emotions across her beautiful face. She worked past her revulsion, drawing strength from our encounter and her feelings toward me. Finally, all that was left was curiosity.
"What’s it taste like?"
How to describe it? I'd tasted blood a few times as a mortal, though not on purpose, and it tastes nothing like that memory. Knowing that the “words can’t describe it” speech wouldn’t satisfy her curiosity, I thought hard to find a mortal analogy, and she waited patiently. For some reason, I didn't want to use the same sex analogy I gave you earlier, probably because I had no desire to find out she'd ever had an orgasm like that without me.
Yes, I know I'm silly, but I am a guy.
"When I was mortal, I used to love Slim Jims, and although I loved the taste, it was more what I felt when eating them than what I tasted: the satisfaction, the wonder of satiating a particular craving. Do you have something like that?"
She nodded immediately. "Cheesecake. Strawberry cheesecake." Just thinking about it made her eyes glaze over with desire, and I could see the hunger etched on her face.
She understood.
"Exactly. Okay, now imagine someone plopping a perfect piece of cheesecake in front of you, close enough that you can smell it on every breath, but you can’t eat it, or anything else, only stare and smell, stare and smell until you are hungrier than you’ve ever been. I’m talking the kind of hunger that keeps you awake, the kind of hunger that would make you snatch a piece of moldy bread right out of a garbage can and swallow it whole. You fixate on that piece of cake until it becomes the only thing you can think about, your entire reason for living, and when you finally start to think you’ll die if you can’t have it, you’re allowed to have just one bite. Imagine how that bite would taste, and imagine how you would feel when someone immediately took the rest of the cake away, only to start the cycle over again.”
I paused for a moment to let it sink in, inordinately pleased with my new analogy. “That is as close as you can get to understanding what blood tastes like to me."
"Wow," she exclaimed softly, her eyes wide. "It's hard to imagine."
"It is," I replied, nodding my head.
"It sounds more like torture than hunger," she offered, her voice filled with awe.
"It can be," I returned with a nod, using a dry tone as emphasis. "After my Conversion, it was an addiction. As long as I fed it, it was a dull, throbbing ache, but if I went more than eight or ten hours without blood, it was like I had hot, barbed wire wrapped around my brain. Thankfully, it no longer has that kind of grip on me.”
"Because of your power."
I nodded once again. "Yes."
"How did you get so powerful?" she asked, her curiosity elevating itself to such a level that I thought she might burst with wanting to know.
"It's complicated, and I’m not sure I understand it entirely myself, but it’s mostly due to an infusion of Blood from a Primogen Elder and the combined Blood of five ancient revenants. It was a long and involved process that nearly killed me." Thinking back, I can still remember the unbearable agony overlapped by the supreme pleasure. It had been wonderful and torturous all at the same time.
“Primogen Elder?”
“The creator of all revenants. He was thought to be the last of a race of beings known as vmbir. He Converted the Ancients, the first revenants.”
“Was?”
“The ceremony killed him,” I reflected somberly, feeling the sense of loss I always feel when thinking of Temujin, and the regret of not having been allowed to know him better.
"Really?" she asked incredulously. Given what Alicia knew of vampires, from experience and fiction, it was hard for her to accept that we could die by something other than sunlight and stakes. "Was it worth it?" she asked thoughtfully, her voice far away and dreamy.
"For all of us, yes, but even though it was necessary, the Ancients still regret it on many levels."
"Why? Necessary?" she fumbled, her curiosity now flowing freely from behind the floodgate I had just opened. Her mind was awash with activity, and I spoke even as I tried to sift through it all.
"It’s hard for them to swallow that I’m more powerful than all of them combined, and I can't say I blame them. I imagine it’s pretty humbling."
"I can understand that, I think. Jealousy is powerful." Her voice was knowing, as if she and jealousy were intimate acquaintances.
"Especially among revenants," I agreed. "But, in the end, necessity overruled everything else."
"What necessity?" she asked again, leaning forward and resting her chin in her hand, her elbow resting on her knees. She was the portrait of interest, figuratively hanging on my every word. I might have smiled if her words hadn't drummed up a slew of bad memories.
"I don't really want to get into it just now," I said honestly, my voice growing cold as recollection pounded me anew. "It's not pleasant for me, and I haven’t come to terms with all of it yet. Besides, I don’t think you’re ready to hear it yet. You still have too many mortal misconceptions, and they’re an intrinsic part of your grip on reality. Maybe later, maybe never, but only when I think you're ready."
She drew back, her expression more than disappointed, as if I'd dealt her the most crushing of blows. She sighed heavily and looked away in disappointment. “Alicia," I groaned, shaking my head. Her disappointment was like a physical wound, and I was about to cave when something stopped me. I’m not sure what it was, but I know it was a blessing. "That's all I can say, Alicia." I braced myself for another wave of her disappointment, steeling my resolve, but she seemed to understand my limits. She smiled brightly.
"You can't blame a girl for trying," she replied with a shrug, her voice wry and her smile forced. She was trying, for my sake, to hide her disappointment, and I was grateful for the effort. My attempt to return her smile was only partially successful.
"Just like you can't blame a revenant for having secrets." Hindsight says that I longed to tell her everything that night, to unload my burden ont
o her. Blessedly, I was only subconsciously aware of the longing then, or I might well have purged my demons onto her, and that weakness would almost certainly have cost Alicia her life.
"What secrets are you willing to tell me?" she pondered, more thinking aloud than posing a question. I didn't answer, waiting for her to come up with questions on her own and trying to anticipate them without reading her thoughts. A discreet knock on the door broke the silence, and her eyes flew up to mine. Her initial reaction to the knock was fear, displayed in plain view on her face. Her fear made her angry, and she looked away with a scowl.
I walked to the door, extending my mind outward to catch a glimpse of the person on the other side. A tired young man, mentally cursing the fat cats he had to jump through his ass for. It wasn't his job to deliver the fucking food. I smiled at his bitter inner dialogue, knowing that if not for Alicia, I would have immensely enjoyed expanding his definition of ‘delivery boy,’ but I had no patience for interruption.
I yanked open the door, a disdainful expression contorting my face. Snatching the tray from his hand, I dismissed him with a wave, sending him on his not-so-merry way without a tip. It wasn’t my job to make assholes in polyester uniforms happy.
Grinning at my private joke, I retreated behind the door with the tray in hand. As I turned, Alicia emerged from the bathroom, wiping her hands on a perfectly white hand towel. At that moment, she was the only thing I wanted in the entire world, revenant or mortal, and deep inside, I felt a terrible guilt for it.
Almost mechanically, I held out the tray, overpowered by the guilt that inundated me. She held out the towel, and we traded, our hands touching. Desire sparked, and as I watched her eat, it expanded until there was no more room inside me for guilt. Aware of my ardent gaze, she hammed it up a bit, happily toying with me using a powerful skill that I suspect most women are born with.
Corrupting Alicia Page 7
