Running in the Dark

by Regan Summers

  Those rumors about vampires…all of them are true. But not every vamp gets the same swag bag of talents. Enhanced senses, for the vast majority. Speed and strength are pretty much standard issue—something about the current of undead energy raises their physical control. After that it depends on the person they were in life, and the nature of the change. Malcolm had explained vaguely—vampires keep their specs close to their unbeating hearts—that talents generally follow lineage, the way appearances follow human genetics.

  I’d ridden with Mickey to the bar and it took a few blocks before I recognized a street name. A map of the area unrolled through my head. There was a metro station two blocks away, and a bus stop around the corner. Neither was running yet. I walked the edge of downtown, following the sleeping Micro bus route before peeling off onto a winding street packed with closed shops and cafes. They’d be opening soon, and the scent of fresh pastries baking behind one of the empty display windows tugged at my stomach. I was hungry, but there was something I wanted more than food.

  I circled the block until I caught a lull in wobbly couples and loud, merry groups heading home from after-hours clubs. I keyed my code into an unmarked black gate tucked into a recessed stone wall and walked down into a cozy parking garage, empty but for six cold cars. I unlocked a grimy white door near the elevator and stepped into a small room that had probably been a utility room in a previous life, but that Malcolm had procured and had renovated for me. It was probably the single most thoughtful present I’d ever received. The secret rest stop was close to the shop and I could sneak in, clean myself up and walk out without having to worry about people suspecting I worked with vampires and following me home. Of course, Mal had probably offered it to me because he didn’t like me coming home smelling like eau d’antivampire stink.

  Inside, the room was like something out of a James Bond movie, if Bond’s main concern was hygiene instead of armament. It was a narrow closet and bathroom combo paved in white subway tile, with four solid locks on the door. I hung my laminate and bag on a hook, doused them with air freshener, then stripped and dumped my clothes into a small, stacked washing machine. The water in the shower was tepid, and the room was chillier than that. Santiago was cold in June, a concept which just about made my brain explode.

  I washed quickly and dressed in a set of fresh clothes. I wouldn’t ever be fashionable like Malcolm, but he’d rubbed off a little bit. I now owned four shirts that weren’t T-shirts. One of them even had functioning buttons. I swiped away most of the makeup, leaving dark smudges around my eyes, and toweled off my hair. The face in the mirror was angular, sporting the last remains of the color I’d gotten in Hawaii, and smiling. The last was new.

  Through the peephole, the garage was a still life with fluorescent bulbs. A silver Volkswagen Bora sat in the middle of the lot. It was basically a Jetta, with a little get-up to the engine and just enough window tint that you’d have to get close to see inside. I tapped my key fob and the car beeped cheerfully in response. A giddy surge of anticipation filled me. Who knew the possibility of finding a vampire in your home could make you step a little lighter?

  Chapter Three

  A lot of vampires live in the suburbs. They keep their yards up, never block the street and tend to be good for property values. Our setup was a little different. We had two houses connected by an underground tunnel that allowed Malcolm to enter through a massive black Victorian on one side of the block, and me through a wood-shingled ranch on the other. This way nobody saw us together, not people who would crow about his being a vampire and make me a runner non grata, and not the people—vampire or human—who would use me to get at him.

  He had people in the Victorian, bodyguards and whatever staff was required to run Master Bronson’s South American empire, but I never saw them. Once I glimpsed a human woman dart back through the tunnel after cleaning the place. Since then I never left dirty clothes or dishes laying around.

  I pulled into the garage with ten minutes of night to spare, and knew he was there the second I stepped out of the car. I tossed my boots into the corner of the garage, trotted down the stairs to the basement and pushed open the heavy door. Long planes of dark hardwood ran the length of the floor beneath angular, ivory couches and red chairs with rounded backs. The walls were two different shades of brown, probably with names like Swooning Nutmeg and Pensive Mocha. It resembled a model home for elegant Europeans whose modus operandi was “understatement,” followed closely by “but still really fucking rich, yo.”

  Pillar candles burned on glass plates, the light reflecting off of opalescent stones. Another sign that Malcolm was in. I grinned, my stomach unclenching for the first time in hours, and dropped my bag. I was dying to talk to someone.

  His books lined almost an entire wall, and my Spanish-verbs dictionary sat on the coffee table, festooned with red flags. This wasn’t like any house I’d ever envisioned living in, but it felt like home when he was there. It also, my salivary glands noticed, smelled like takeout.

  “Don’t come in here,” Malcolm called from around the corner. Something clattered in the sink.

  “Are you not decent?” I slipped toward the kitchen, hoping he was really, really indecent. He met me in the arched doorway—clothed—holding out a giant glass containing a half inch of red wine. So much for trying to sneak up on a vampire.

  “Ooh, tell me you stomped the grapes yourself.”

  “I did, but I kept my shoes on, so you’ll have to drink around the gravel. Apologies.” The skin around his dark, deep-set eyes crinkled, and his lips pursed slightly as he tried not to smile. He’d toned down his appearance when I first met him, passing for a human. He still did it when it was just the two of us, moving a little slower, making himself appear a little worn around the edges. Blending with me.

  I swirled the glass, peering at him over the rim as I inhaled. Look at Syd, being all fancy. He lost his battle against the smile, and it was all I could do not to sigh and fan myself. Or tear both our clothes off.

  Malcolm felt different to me than other vampires. I caught bits of his moods, and absorbed his energy like heat. Sometimes barely there, other times almost scalding. I hoped this could be an “other time.” The candlelight lit the faint auburn shading in his rich, brown hair.

  My gaze drifted lower, to his throat revealed by the unbuttoned collar of a white dress shirt, the curve of broad shoulders stretching the soft fabric, the splattered orange stain across his flat stomach.

  I pointed. “What is that?”

  He swore, and proceeded to unbutton his shirt. “I must have spilled something. Are you hungry? There’s food.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” I was going to start throwing food on him all the time.

  I stepped forward and stroked his bare chest, letting my fingers drift until they caught on the waist of his pants. His arms wrapped around me, thick and hard and infinitely careful. And then his mouth met mine, a soft press that grew more insistent until I parted my lips for him.

  The warm, jittery sensation of his power lit off, coursing over my skin like fluid. I moaned softly and Malcolm drew back, one hand closing on mine to right the wine glass I’d nearly dropped. He smiled oddly at it.

  “I cooked for you.”

  I blinked a couple of times. “You did what now?”

  He pulled me toward the kitchen, a cavernous room with miles of granite. So far, I’d used it to make Pop-Tarts and coffee—both imported, since Pop-Tarts were foreign delicacies and Chilean coffee was instant and therefore wretched—and I couldn’t remember him ever doing anything in it. He picked me up and set me on the counter in an easy move that should have required at least a passing semblance of effort.

  Since we arrived in South America, Malcolm had been everything I’d hoped for. Attentive. Considerate. Respectful. Those last two were as foreign to me as the language. He was also uniquely helpful. We’d spent two full nights reviewing maps before he was required to work, and he’d shown me where I was likely to find vampires if they
weren’t at home. Not all of their businesses were commonly known to humans, but they were all supposed to be registered with the local master. Malcolm being Bronson’s designated proxy manager was a serious bonus for me.

  “Hey, what happened in Lo Espejo tonight?” I asked. “Something about two women?” His face went blank and I blew out a breath. “You need to act surprised if you want me to think you don’t have a clue, not shut down like you’ve got something to hide.”

  His eyelids lowered into what looked like a sleepy expression, except he did it to hide the golden glow rising in the depths of his eyes. It was one of the strangest parts of undeath, the bright hues that lurked like marsh gases in a vampire’s eyes. I’d seen a human reduced to a sobbing mess from a glimpse at the drifting light, as if that was somehow more menacing than the fangs. The longer Malcolm hid it, the brighter he cast when his control slipped, and his control wasn’t great tonight. He rubbed his forehead.

  “A guy followed one of his feeders home and…lost it. Attacked her and her roommate.”

  “Was it bad?”

  He gazed at me from beneath his lashes, expression dark, energy rolling off of him. I grimaced. “And you had to do something about it?”

  “We’ll hold him in custody until Bronson receives word and orders his execution, which he will. It was…” He shook his head and started to turn away. I caught his shoulder. He could have escaped even if I’d grabbed him with both arms, but he permitted himself to be turned back.

  “If you want to talk…”

  “You don’t need to hear about it.” He shrugged, but the tension didn’t leave him. “The police thought it had to be multiple assailants, there were so many strike marks.”

  “You saw them?” Malcolm wasn’t hard like so many vampires. I’d seen him fight, seen him strike with the intent to kill, though only in self-defense. And to defend me. But he wasn’t unfeeling and I hated that he had to deal with such things.

  “Yeah.” He bit the word off. “Then I had to explain to the police and a senator that this was a single bad seed, convince them every hive in the country isn’t about to erupt in similar violence. And because humans found them…found the scene first, because it was public, we had to bring the maker in for discipline.”

  Vampire discipline. I shuddered and stroked his cheek, let my hand drop to rest on his neck. Mal owed service to Master Bronson, and Bronson chose to remain in Alaska, dug in through the summer as he oversaw the fortification of the richest of his holdings. He should have migrated down here with the change in seasons, demonstrating to the local vampires he was still in charge. Maybe if he’d been here, with his bone-rattling power, the rogue vampire’s maker would have acted sooner to corral his charge. Instead Bronson had summoned most of his troops to Alaska and decreed Malcolm his stand-in. All the responsibility, all the authority, but with far less power in an unstable place.

  “It’s not fair,” I murmured.

  “When is existence ever fair, Syd? You deal with things as they come, hope to find a few moments that make each night worthwhile.” The brilliance of his eyes faded. He wrapped his hand around mine, lifted the glass and took a long sip, then swallowed. His hand slid up my arm, over my shoulder and covered my eyes. I shivered when he kissed me again.

  “What do you taste?” he asked after a moment.

  “Not sure. Again, please.” Another sip. I kept my eyes closed, and jumped when his mouth met mine. He pulled back and I licked my lips.

  “Coffee. Pepper. A berry of some sort, almost overripe.” And Malcolm. He lowered his hand.

  “Blackberry.” He stroked the outside of my knee. “It’s an Almaviva, local.”

  “I like this game. Let’s play all day.” A leisurely dinner, followed by an opposite-of-leisurely morning in bed, sounded fantastic. He shook his head, his face darkening, and turned away to open the stove.

  “I can’t stay. How was your work?”

  I didn’t have to see any dead people, so better than his. The readout on the stovetop flashed an error message. “Are you sure you should be using appliances?” I asked, swinging my legs and sipping the wine. It didn’t taste quite as good without him involved. “Work was fine. I need to get Carla to do something about the car. Like retire it to pasture, or take it out back and shoot it.”

  “We could get you something better. What was that Mercedes you liked?”

  “The CL? That would be perfect if I was a CEO who bought small islands with my petty cash.” I tensed up. The Tercel was fine. It drove well enough and nobody paid attention to it unless the muffler was misbehaving. And besides… “How would I explain that? Showing up in a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar car?”

  “Say a relative died and you inherited it.”

  “People who drive cars like that are probably buried in them.” I managed to keep the irritation out of my voice and took a long drink until I’d mastered my expression. He wanted me to have nice things and didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t. That was very vampire of him. It was a simple existence. You saw something you wanted, you took it.

  I traced a striation in the granite and chewed my lip. He wasn’t trying to buy me—not that I was for sale. I’d supported myself since I left home at fifteen, and while there had been some desperate times, I wasn’t about to jump on the luxuries he offhandedly suggested. I could have made do with some scrubby studio apartment, but he’d wanted me here and, as far as I could tell, this conjoined-house business was his due as Master Bronson’s proxy. But I had to draw the line before he started plying me with gifts and thinking that was an acceptable alternative to spending time with me.

  “You really have to go?”

  “I’ve got a nest that just lost its maker. They’re being petitioned for takeover by another group, and they’re clueless. Complete recluses. They don’t walk human streets and have no idea how to take care of themselves.” He ran a hand through his hair, then rested it on the back of his neck. “This place is a mess. It was already frayed before Bronson left, and now it’s full of half-wits with…delusions.”

  “Of grandeur?”

  “Something like that.”

  He didn’t sound overly concerned, but he was staying the day less frequently, and when he did he worked, scowling through a steady flow of correspondence and reports. He was trying so hard to keep things running, to enforce the rules, because if he didn’t, the gang problems would erupt into a full-scale war. Bronson had always intimidated me, so I’d kept quiet around him and never had a problem. I’d even kind of respected him. Now, from thousands of miles away, he was starting to irritate me.

  “I tried to keep this warm but the stove died. A couple of times.” Malcolm set a skillet on the counter, then we both watched as he peeled his hand off the handle.

  “I’d call that pretty damn warm.” I scrunched my nose up as he flexed his hand, his mouth tight. “Not into oven mitts?”

  “They don’t go with these pants.” Pants which probably cost a thousand dollars, and clung to his hips and stretched across his thighs just so. His eyebrows rose when he caught me watching him. Busted. “It’s paella. You liked that, didn’t you?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  He turned back to the pan and I pressed my fingers against my mouth to keep from making a cutesy awwww sound. Vampires didn’t care about food, and they certainly didn’t cook for humans. Yet here he was, cooking and—he pulled a bowl down from a shelf—serving me dinner. I’d take that over a thousand Mercedeses, except for maybe a vintage 300 SL.

  He presented me with a bright pile of rice, shrimp and vegetables in a small, ovoid bowl. This wasn’t my first boyfriend, drinking canned beer at a kitchen table littered with pizza boxes, scales and baggies. It wasn’t me, just a year before, eating takeout while standing at my sink with my boots still on. No. I was sitting in the cozy bottom of an urban mansion while a shirtless, hot man fed me gourmet food he’d made himself. Any second the stainless-steel fridge was going to open up, revealing a choir of angels.
>
  Malcolm stepped between my knees and raised a fork, and I would have pinched myself, but I didn’t want to wake up.

  “Open.” He grinned, his one dimple flashing.

  I took a bite, then froze. Paella was savory. Complex. Edible. My tongue suggested that the faster I get rid of whatever was in my mouth, the better. I made a low, panicked noise as my gag reflex agreed with my tongue. Malcolm’s smile widened before disappearing abruptly.

  “Sydney?”

  I chewed twice. The rice crunched between my teeth, and my eyes watered as cayenne and black pepper filled my head with heat. Awful, unwelcome, somehow bitter heat. I choked it down, then spilled wine from the corners of my mouth as I drank as fast as I could.

  “Is it bad?” He looked back and forth between the pan and the bowl.

  “I think the stove committed suicide because it didn’t want to be party to that…that…abomination.” I pushed him back and hopped off the counter, heading straight for the decanter breathing on the far side of the kitchen. While I wanted to drink directly from it, I managed to pour a little wine before I downed that.

  “I thought you liked paella.”

  “I do. That wasn’t…that wasn’t food! Did you taste it?”

  He shrugged, staring at the bowl. “It seemed right.”

  “Seemed?” I started laughing as tears squirted from my eyes. “I’m just going to throw this out there.” I gestured back and forth between us, which Malcolm took as an invitation to move toward me. “We, our two kinds, might have slightly different palates.”

  I turned my head away, play-pushing at him as he leaned down. “No. Don’t kiss me. I wouldn’t wish this taste on my worst enemy.”

  His face lit with mischief. “I will kiss you, and you will like it.”

  He dipped his head until his lips met my neck, followed by his clever tongue. My hands shot into his hair and one leg wound around his, pulling him against me. I did like it and, judging by the prominence of his reaction, so did he. Maybe bad paella sex was the undiscovered successor to make-up sex. His hands clenched on my hips, but instead of pulling me closer, he pushed me slightly away.