After Dark
Page 12
Baron Metzger shrugged. “That depends on the will of your father.” He reached out and lifted her chin, holding it with his thumb and forefinger. “Now, now—no crying, liebchen. What did I tell you the night your mother died?”
“Life is too long for sorrow,” Cally replied, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“That’s my girl,” Metzger said proudly.
CHAPTER 16
Lilith woke up feeling better than she had in a long time. She hadn’t greeted a new evening with such confidence since—well, since before Tanith was killed. And why shouldn’t she feel on top of the world? Her dream of becoming the most important and powerful vampire in all of history was finally within her grasp.
She was standing on the cusp of being her own woman, finally free of interference from her father and the likes of the de Lavals. From here on in, things were going to be very different, not only in her life but in everyone else’s as well.
Maybe she would just go ahead and drop out of school. With the kind of money she would be making soon, she could simply hire other vampires to do the things she wasn’t good at, such as beastmastery or stormgathering. And if her father didn’t approve of her decision to drop out, he could go suck it. Her life was going to truly belong to her now and no one was going to tell her what to do—or not do.
As she slid into her cashmere robe, she heard a loud thumping noise coming from the hallway. Lilith opened the door to see one of the maids carrying a large steamer trunk into her mother’s old bedroom. She darted across the hall and peered around the doorjamb. A female figure with short, dark hair was standing with her back to the door, removing clothes from an open suitcase sitting atop the bed. Although she couldn’t see the woman’s face, there was something horribly familiar about the unannounced houseguest.
As Cally Monture turned around to tell the maid where to place the trunk, Lilith’s worst fear was confirmed. Tightening the knot on her robe, she ran down the hallway, taking the stairs to the main level two at a time.
***
Victor Todd was sitting behind his desk, talking on a hands-free headset while working on his computer, when Lilith burst into his office.
“What is she doing here?” she demanded angrily.
“Hello, Lilith. Do I not get a ‘Welcome back, Daddy—how was Russia?’” Victor said sarcastically, covering the mouthpiece of the headset.
Lilith scowled and rolled her eyes. “Fine. How was Russia?”
“Colder than a polar bear’s balls,” Victor replied. He took his hand away from the mouthpiece, resuming his conversation. “You heard me—I want someone on this, fast! I want to know where it was sent from and I want—no, I expect—answers for what happened PDQ! Call me as soon as you get something!” Removing the headset, Victor turned his attention back to Lilith, who was glowering at him, arms folded across her chest. “To answer your first question: Cally is here because Baron Metzger has wearied of playing papa to my cuckoo’s egg and returned to Europe. As she is your demi-sister and has no other living family, where else would you have her stay?”
“She could stay at the Y for all I care,” Lilith replied, “just as long as it’s not here!”
“That’s strange,” Victor said coldly. “I thought you said you wanted to change things between the two of you. You told me before I left for St. Petersburg that you finally realized the importance of having her as an ally, not an enemy, and that you wanted to be more of a sister to her. Were you telling me the truth when you said that, or were you simply lying to me again?”
“No, I meant what I said,” she lied. “But that doesn’t mean I want to live under the same roof!”
“Well, that’s what you’re going to be doing, young lady,” Victor replied sternly. “I’m not going to tolerate any more of this Cain-and-Abel bullshit, you understand? The last thing I need is for you to end up like Christopher Van Helsing simply because you provoked Cally into a fight!”
“Okay—but did you have to give her Mom’s room?” Lilith pouted.
“Why not?” Victor shrugged. “It’s not like Irina’s going to be using it. Would you prefer I move you into your mother’s suite and give Cally your old room?”
“No,” Lilith grumbled, dropping her shoulders in resignation.
***
Victor Todd waited until Lilith was safely out of the office before getting up and locking the door behind her. He had a lot of things that needed to be taken care of now that he was back, and he didn’t need any further intrusions.
It was easy enough to explain Cally being brought into the household by claiming the decision was forced on him by Metzger, who Lilith believed was blackmailing him with the pictures the fashion photographer Kristof took when she was posing as the human model Lili Graves.
The truth of the matter was that Victor had grown concerned about the possibility of Cally bonding with his vassal. The girl was in a particularly vulnerable emotional stage, and he did not want Metzger getting any ideas about manipulating Cally’s loyalties—and abilities—to his own ends.
After all, whoever held sway over the heart and mind of the one who wielded the Shadow Hand controlled one of the deadliest weapons in this world and the next. But right now he had far more serious matters to worry about than a possible palace coup by Karl Metzger.
Victor sat back down behind his computer and clicked on the toolbar at the bottom of the desktop, reopening the window he closed the second Lilith barged into his office. The LCD flat-screen monitor was filled by the image attached to an anonymously remailed email message with the heading: WE HAVE HER.
The picture was that of a blindfolded Sheila Monture standing before a sheet hung in front of a wall. She looked haggard and frightened but otherwise unharmed. In her hands she held a copy of the New York Times with the day’s headline and date visible.
Victor sighed sadly as he stared at the mother of his child and, safe in the knowledge that no one could see him, caressed the image of her face with the tip of his finger.
***
Cally heard a knock and looked up to see Lilith standing in the open doorway, dressed in a willow-green cashmere robe. It was the first time she had ever seen the other girl without her makeup. She was taken aback at how young and vulnerable Lilith looked au naturel.
“Is it okay if I come in?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Cally shrugged.
Lilith stepped inside, taking in the mahogany rococo bed and other antiques that decorated the room. “So, my dad said you’re going to be living here….”
“Yeah, I have to stay here until my father gets back,” Cally replied, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Your father? You mean the Baron?”
“Yeah,” Cally said, frowning slightly. “Who else?”
“What’s that?” Lilith asked, pointing at a bronze urn sitting atop the dresser. “Was that here when you arrived?”
“No,” Cally said, quickly putting herself between Lilith and the urn. “Those are my mother’s ashes.”
Lilith frowned. “I thought humans go into the ground when they die.”
“Not all of them,” she explained. “Some of them are cremated.”
“But why would you want to keep her ashes?”
“So she’ll always be a part of my life,” Cally said. Lilith stared back at her as if she had answered in Swahili. Cally decided it would be better to change the subject. “There are some clothes hanging in the walk-in closet,” she said as she watched Lilith wander around, staring at the furniture and fixtures as if she were in a museum. “Does someone stay here on occasion?”
“This was my mother’s room,” Lilith replied.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” Cally said, embarrassed. “I had no idea! I just assumed, when you asked me if the urn was here before I arrived, that this was a guest room—”
“That’s okay,” Lilith said with a shrug. “I’ve never been in here before. My mom and I didn’t talk a lot.” She walked back to the door and turned around to fac
e Cally. “You want to go shopping?”
Cally blinked, taken by surprise. “Huh?”
“Not right now, of course,” Lilith said, clarifying herself a little further. “But later, once you’re unpacked and settled in. We could do Bergdorf’s…maybe hit a couple of the boutiques?”
“Yeah, that sounds cool, I guess,” Cally replied, although she still wasn’t sure whether she was walking into a trap or not. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Why?”
Lilith shrugged again. “I hate shopping by myself.”
CHAPTER 17
Cally let out a long, slow breath of disbelief. Lilith had actually been nice to her. She was tempted to go look out the window and see if there were any pigs flying over Central Park.
Almost as surprising to Cally was the realization she actually felt sorry for Lilith. For the first time she had a handle on what drove Lilith to act the way she did. While her own relationship with her mother had been far from perfect, at least she had been secure in the knowledge that Sheila loved her.
Despite Count de Laval and Anton Mauvais’s claims, vampires were not that different from their human cousins. They were capable of genuinely nurturing relationships with their offspring, just like any human parent. She had seen it with the Maledetto family, as well as between Melinda and her mother, and even Count Orlock and his grotesquely deformed son, Klaus. She had even experienced it, albeit secondhand, through Baron Metzger.
But to never know the security and warmth that came with a mother’s love, not because she was an orphan but because her mother refused to love her child…
No wonder Lilith was such a manipulative, messed-up, chronically insecure bitch.
Perhaps Irina’s death had started Lilith seeing things from a new perspective. The sudden loss of someone close had a way of doing that to you, as Cally knew all too well. That might explain her unexpected sea change.
Maybe, just maybe, Cally could finally have a sister in Lilith after all.
Anything was possible.
***
Lilith left her mother’s old room and hurried back across the hall to her suite. She locked the door and threw herself onto the bed, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face into the pillows so no one could hear. After a couple of minutes she finally rolled over onto her back, exhausted by her laughter.
This was going to be so easy! Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
She had spent so much time and energy trying to best Cally in physical confrontations, only to fail miserably. There was no way she could defeat her in battle: now that she possessed the power of the Shadow Hand, it was too dangerous to continue to blatantly antagonize her.
It was time to change tactics. This time she would take a page out of Carmen’s playbook. Instead of treating Cally as her enemy, she would pretend to be her friend and get as close to her prey as possible so she could win her trust. Then she would bide her time until Cally no longer suspected a thing, and, when she wasn’t looking—blammo!
Although it galled her to suffer the indignity of sharing a roof with her half-breed sibling, it was only a matter of time before she would be free to call her own shots and move out. When she and Exo finally perfected the anti-vanishing cream, she’d take it to Sister Midnight and show her what it could do. It was that simple. With the proper investors and distributor, they could go international within a matter of weeks. The money would be enormous, as would be the fame and attention.
Lilith’s thoughts of worldwide superstardom were interrupted by the sound of something tapping on one of the panes of the French doors that opened onto the small balcony outside her bedroom. She threw back the curtains covering the window, smiling to herself as she saw the pale face pressed against the windowpane, looking into the room with eyes filled with longing.
As she opened the balcony door, she thought about how, after tonight, nothing would ever be the same again. Not for her. Not for Exo. And certainly not for Cally. Once customers got their hands on the anti-vanishing cream, it would change the world for vampire and human alike.
Her father’s fortunes would seem small compared to the income from the cream. She could do whatever she liked—with whomever she liked. Until then, she would have to bide her time, like a spider in its web, waiting for precisely the right moment to administer the killing stroke.
Just you wait and see, Daddy.
About the Author
NANCY A. COLLINS is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Society Icarus Award, as well as a nominee for the Eisner, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and an International Horror Guild Award. Best known for her groundbreaking vampire character, Sonja Blue, her works include VAMPS, DEAD MAN’S HAND, KNUCKLES AND TALES, DEAD ROSES FOR A BLUE LADY, SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK, and AVENUE X. She also served a two-year stint as a writer for DC Comics’ Swamp Thing. Ms. Collins currently makes her home in Wilmington, North Carolina.
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Credits
Cover photograph © 2009 by Mark Tucker/MergeLeft Reps.
Cover design by Ray Shappell
Copyright
VAMPS: AFTER DARK. Copyright © 2009 by Nancy A. Collins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-192027-1
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Table of Contents
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
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