Tall, Dark & Dead

by Tate Hallaway

  “Nice.”

  I’d not yet crossed the threshold. Deciding I couldn’t delay any longer, I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

  Parrish, my brave protector, backed up to the edge of the porch stairs.

  Touching a hand to my womb, I coaxed Lilith from Her slumber. A twinge, heavy, deep inside told me she’d begun to stir into wakefulness. Behind me, I heard Parrish take in a sharp breath. I glanced around wildly but saw no sign of Benjamin. My backpack sat under the coat rack, right next to my foot, however, so I looped the strap around my shoulder and took a backward step out the door. I shut it with a firm click.

  Putting a hand, palm up, an inch from the door, I retraced the lines of the hex mark. I poured my own energy into it, and the color shifted into a slightly bluer shade. Then I rubbed my stomach gently as I slowly closed down my magical talents. One by one, I released the elements I’d drawn to me, and inwardly, I felt Lilith groan in disappointment as she settled restlessly back into sleep.

  Kneeling on the porch, I quickly opened the secret compartment of my bag. I counted out five one hundred dollar bills and handed them to Parrish. “This ought to pay for a nice hotel for a few nights.”

  He looked at the money, and I thought for a moment he might protest. With a shake of his head, he tucked it into his pocket. “I owe you.”

  “It’s a gift. Just get yourself somewhere safe before the sun comes up.”

  He checked his watch. “Then we’d better go.”

  * * * *

  Parrish raced back to my place like a banshee out of hell. I thought I saw the speedometer top off at a hundred and twenty plus, so I squeezed my eyes shut to the driving wind and tried not to think about what would happen if I simply let go of him. The fear of being thrown off was very present on my mind, since the air tore at my pack, trying to rip it from my shoulders and me from the bike.

  I kept thinking that our little breaking and entering escapade had been entirely too easy. Where had Benjamin been? It seemed entirely possible that the ghost had the same allergy to sunlight that Parrish suffered, but we still had an hour before dawn. Last time I’d had a sort of key: Sebastian’s business card. Then the door had been open, and Sebastian had been at home. Even so, Benjamin had tried to kill me. What stopped him this time?

  Sebastian had said something about the full moon making the ghost more agitated, and, while that had just barely passed, I still would have thought Benjamin would have made an appearance, especially considering that Parrish could qualify as a real threat, being another vampire, a stranger, and all that.

  Benjamin’s absence made me worry about Sebastian for some reason. With Benjamin’s guard down, I found myself wondering if Sebastian was okay.

  Then I wondered if I should care. I mean, when last I saw Sebastian he was tearing into Feather like she was some kind of rare steak.

  I chewed my lip. I would just feel better, I told myself, if I knew where he was.

  Parrish gave me a hurried kiss after he dropped me off in front of my apartment. The sky had just begun to lighten to indigo. Trees took on the hint of dimension, becoming blacker silhouettes against blue. Birds chattered in earnest. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been up this early, or awake this late. I’d forgotten how noisy sparrows were just before the sun came up.

  I hefted my bag further onto my shoulder. I could still hear the faint roar of Parrish’s motorcycle in the distance, and I wondered if I should’ve gone with him. The Vatican was bound to make its appearance again soon. I reminded myself of my resolve to stay and fight. I’d ward the bejesus out of this place, and then I’d let Lilith eat them for breakfast.

  After dropping my bag just inside the door, I fed Barney some kibbles. As she twined around my legs, I started the coffeepot perking. I’d need some magical supplies for a good, solid warding. My apartment was generally protected against ethereal bad vibes, which clearly hadn’t done anything to slow down the Vatican—although since no one had died, you could say the spell worked exactly as intended.

  Coffee steam filled the kitchen as Barney crunched her dry food. The first reddish light of dawn shone through the tower windows. Transition. A powerful time for any spell. From my bedroom altar, I grabbed my athame, a velvet pouch containing sea salt, and a glass herb jar of High John the Conqueror root.

  So equipped, I headed back downstairs and outside. The air still held a touch of coolness, but the sun had already begun to warm the day.

  I stood in the center of the narrow porch, directly in front of the door. Facing outward, toward the street, I cradled the athame in front of my chest. I let out a breath, intending to start deepening my consciousness, and found myself staring at Sebastian’s car.

  I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the elements, but my brain focused on one thing: he was going to get a ticket if he parked there much longer. My neighborhood was permit-parking only. Worse, it seemed like a major beacon to the Vatican that Sebastian was still here—even though he wasn’t.

  While I was trying to prepare for their inevitable return, I didn’t want to open the door only to get nailed by their bowman because they were expecting a vampire. Okay, I probably wouldn’t be quite so welcoming to them this time around, but the point was still valid. I didn’t want the agents to be coming on any stronger than need be. My element of surprise was Lilith. Thanks to Sensitive they were expecting me to have some kind of serious magical firepower, but I didn’t think they knew exactly whom they were dealing with. Even so, she wouldn’t do me any good if I were already dead.

  My concentration completely ruined, I decided to move Sebastian’s car. The keys were still in it; after all, I’d seen them on the front seat earlier. I’d stow it a couple of blocks down, where the parking was less restricted.

  I noticed that there was a figure now slumped in the front seat. Though his head pressed into the steering wheel and black hair shrouded his face, I recognized Sebastian.

  I knocked on the window. His head twitched as though he wanted to lift it but couldn’t. I pulled at the latch. I’d been expecting it to be locked, so I wasn’t ready when the door swung open easily and Sebastian nearly tumbled out. I grabbed his shoulder just in time. Baring his fangs, he… well, what can I say? He hissed at me, like a cat.

  Sebastian looked sick. He still wore the black trench coat he’d donned for our date, but he’d lost the tie. His white oxford was missing a couple of buttons. It was bloodstained and torn. One of the shirttails had come untucked. His usually neat hair was unbound, and it fell in lanky strands in front of his wild, animalistic eyes.

  “Help me,” he croaked, clutching my jacket with both hands. “Please, Garnet.”

  “What’s wrong?” Could it still be the loss of blood? From what I could see, his stomach had healed.

  “The sun,” he said, squinting at the bright rays poking through the clouds.

  The sun? I gaped at him stupidly. His plea sounded like he’d cribbed it from a B movie. Anyway, daylight wasn’t supposed to be a problem for Sebastian.

  “Please,” he begged again. He looked truly frantic. I could see the damage the sun had already done. Black patches dotted his face. The skin under his eyes and under his cheeks had sunken.

  Even so, considering his behavior earlier with Feather, I should have probably slammed the car door and abandoned him to his fate. I guess I’m a soft touch when it comes to vampires in need. I gave his shoulders a gentle shove in the direction of the passenger side. “Fine,” I said, trying to sound grumpy. “Move over.”

  From my previous experience hauling corpses, I knew I couldn’t possibly drag Sebastian into the house by myself. I’d call for help, but there was no time, and besides, I’d probably used up all my favors with my friends. Anyway, Parrish had given me an idea. I ran to the house, grabbed my to-go bag, and locked up.

  Sebastian had managed to get the key in the ignition before passing out. It still took me several tries to remember how to operate the old car. Sebastian huddled close to the
floorboard, as far away as possible from the bands of sunlight that fell across the seat. I shrugged out of my jacket and tossed it over him. Then I popped the clutch, and stuttered and stalled down the street until my body remembered the rhythm of driving a manual.

  Luckily, we didn’t have far to go. By car, State Street was less than five minutes from my house. So it wasn’t long at all until I pulled into the underground parking lot of a hotel a block and a half from the State Capitol building.

  I killed the engine once we reached the very bottom row. The car lurched forward when the brake released and hit the wall with a crunch. Sebastian stirred. From under my jacket, he murmured, “You suck at driving a stick.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re alive.”

  The parking garage smelled dank. Low, concrete ceilings held rows of exposed bulbs and barely concealed wires. White painted stenciled numbers proclaimed that our car occupied the two hundred and twenty-seventh space.

  Sebastian pulled himself up onto the seat. He cranked the window down, though I could tell it cost him a lot of effort. Leaning back against the seat, he shut his eyes. “I’m sorry about your friend. Is she dead?”

  “No, although she would have been if I hadn’t magically intervened. Or Lilith, I mean.”

  Though his eyes never opened, his brows knit together. “Since when is Lilith a healer?”

  “Since I tried to call on another Goddess for help,” I said with a shrug. I fiddled with Sebastian’s key chain. He had a number of charms hanging from the ring, including a bottle opener. How boy.

  “The jealous type, then,” he said with a closed-mouth smile.

  “I guess so.” I shrugged.

  “I am sorry,” he said, still not looking at me. “I should have had more control.”

  “Yes.”

  He cracked an eye to look at me. “You’ve never felt it, have you? When you’re wounded like that, it’s so strong. It’s… insanely intoxicating.”

  I was with him until that last line. “Your excuse is that you were drunk?”

  Sebastian laughed a little. “No. Yes. I guess I can’t explain it.”

  “You’d better try, or I’ll start this car up and drive you right to the sunniest spot on the beach.”

  He took in a hiss of breath. “You’d kill me?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” I reminded him, though I’m sure he could tell I was bluffing.

  Sebastian lifted his head from the rest and turned to look at me. “Then you understand how powerful the desire to allow yourself… to be uninhibited can be.”

  I did. A cold twist in the pit of my stomach made me realize how much I did. Lilith sighed contentedly in her slumber. I might have called on Her in desperation, but I didn’t rush to kick Her out, now did I? Part of me liked having Her there, and having access to all that destructive power—the ultimate power of life and death.

  I didn’t like to think about that at all. While I mulled over the implication of his statement, Sebastian had laid his head back down. Glancing over at his aquiline profile, I noticed a particularly angry looking black splotch on his cheek. “So, what happened to you? I thought the sun wasn’t your enemy.”

  “The formula protects me from the sun. The formula’s powers are fading.”

  “The mandrake.” So, by not having it in the store, I really had been issuing Sebastian his death warrant. Then I remembered something else from our first conversation. “Please tell me you don’t need to perform your ritual on a full moon.”

  He sighed so sadly that I knew the answer before he said it. “I do. At least, I think I do.”

  I looked at his gaunt, pocked skin. “You’re not going to last another twenty-eight days.”

  Sebastian straightened his shoulders. “I might surprise you.”

  Considering how badly he looked right now, I’d be stunned if he lived to see another day. To be fair, the bullet hole seemed to have healed. “The formula isn’t working, but blood still fixes you up, I see,” I said, glancing at his stomach.

  “Yes,” he said. Turning away, he stared out the window at nothing. “Though I seem to need a lot more than I used to.”

  Yeah, Feather discovered that firsthand, didn’t she? Yet I couldn’t stay mad at him. It wasn’t his fault. His formula had failed him—he was dying.

  “So, right now the problem is the sun,” I said. “So, if you can stay in the dark, you’ll be okay for a while.”

  Sebastian ran his hand along the interior door handle. “As long as I get enough blood, I believe that’s true. It’s hard to tell, since I was so recently wounded both by the Vatican and by the sun, but I feel as strong as before.”

  “Just hungrier.”

  He didn’t look at me when he said, “A lot hungrier.”

  A headache sprouted between my eyes. I rubbed my forehead. “But you only have to last until the next full moon,” I said hopefully. “Then you can mix up your formula, and you’ll be back to normal, right?”

  He shook his head.

  Then I recalled what he’d said when we were discussing his corpse-wife Téreza. “But, you’ve never been able to duplicate it. There’s something occult missing in your notes.”

  “That’s why I wasn’t terribly angry when I discovered you took my grimoire. I would have preferred you asked, but I have other copies; besides I thought, Well, if Garnet’s looking the formula over, maybe she can tell me what I’m missing.”

  Parrish still had the grimoire. Plus, I’d just given him five hundred bucks—enough to live on until he contacted his London buyer. Oh, and I’d conveniently let him know that the Vatican had interest, too. He was probably snug in some five-star hotel right now, dreaming of all the money he’d make when he started the bidding war over Sebastian’s flawed formula.

  Or Parrish could just keep the grimoire from me out of spite, since I all but spurned his love for me.

  Smart, Garnet. Truly Brilliant.

  “Why didn’t you just tell the Vatican the formula was fucked up when they had you against the wall?”

  “Do you think they’d have believed me? They hardly wanted to believe the truth when I gave them my safe-deposit box key. Anyway, I don’t think it would have mattered much. The Vatican has enough arcane knowledge that they could probably fix the problem, if they wanted to.”

  Suddenly, it hit me. “Great Goddess,” I said with a shiver. “They could turn the Order of Eustace into super-vampire soldiers.”

  “Well,” Sebastian said, clearly trying to contain the horror of that thought, “that would certainly make their Witch hunting more effective.”

  That observation could qualify for understatement of the year. “Yeah,” I said.

  After a moment more of contemplation, he added, “You do have my grimoire, don’t you?”

  “Uh.” He was going to be so mad. “Actually, I… uh, loaned it to a friend of mine.”

  “You what?”

  Yep, he was mad. Sebastian sat up straighter and turned toward me so that I was inches from his bloodshot eyes. The mottling of his skin spotted darker with anger. His hands clenched as though he were holding back the urge to shake me or strangle me or both.

  I pressed myself against the door of the car in order to put a little distance between us. “Okay, ‘loaned’ probably isn’t the right word. He’s holding it for me until things are safer. It’s lucky he had it, too. Otherwise, the Vatican would have confiscated it already.”

  Sebastian seemed unconvinced. “How can you be sure it’s safe with him? What if he’s some kind of undercover agent?”

  “For the Vatican? Hardly. Parrish is a vampire.”

  Oh shit. The words just flew out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “You gave my grimoire to a vampire?” Sebastian had gone from angry to livid. I swore I could see the veins on his neck about to pop. At least his fangs hadn’t descended yet.

  Though they probably would. I didn’t have a good answer. Parrish had been clear about how valuable the grimoire was to the va
mpire community. Sebastian must realize it, as well. Worse, I couldn’t guarantee that Parrish would return the book, even though he had done so once.

  When I didn’t say anything, Sebastian’s jaw twitched. “You can trust him, can’t you?”

  Well, no. He was a professional thief. Then again, Parrish had come through when I needed him the most. “He helped me cover up a murder.”

  Sebastian grunted. “What an excellent character reference. And you thought it was a good idea to give him my grimoire?”

  “He’s a nice guy, really. I mean, once you get to know him.” Oh, shut up, Garnet. You’re not even convincing yourself.

  “Jesus,” Sebastian said.

  “I’m sure we can get it back from him,” I said. “He brought it home last night when I didn’t think he would.”

  “Home?” Sebastian said. “You’re living with a vampire?”

  “He’s an ex!” Who I slept with—or nearly so—but I didn’t want to tell Sebastian that part right now.

  “Ex? You gave my grimoire to a murdering ex-lover of yours? What, are you insane or just stupid?”

  His fangs were down and in my face. I fumbled for the door latch, thinking that putting a steel door between us seemed like a good idea right now. Sebastian grabbed my shoulder firmly but not so hard it hurt. He seemed to realize that his anger had me spooked, because he took a moment to consciously school his expression into something resembling calm.

  “Please, please tell me you can get it back, Garnet.”

  Could I? Parrish had said last night that he loved me. “I’m sure I can.”

  He removed his hand from my shoulder and sat back a bit. “I’ll have to trust you. I don’t see I have much choice. I need that damned book back. It’s my working copy. It has all my most recent notes.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and released my death grip on the door handle.

  “You dated a vampire before me?” Sebastian’s head tilted backward onto the seat. “Should I be jealous?”

  I shrugged. “Parrish was from a different lifetime.”

  “But he’s living with you now.”