by Karen Ranney
He studied my cast with a determined look, mouth pursed, eyes narrowed. In seconds, the sound of the saw drowned out any thought of speech.
The dust reminded me of the explosion in the book store. I hadn’t called Mr. Brown to check on him. As soon as I was given back my phone, I would.
After a minute or so, there was a line down the whole of the cast from my thigh to my ankle. Blessedly, Mike shut the machine off, whipped out something that looked like a pry bar from his back pocket and began to work on widening the cut.
Soon, the cast was off and I stared down at my very pale, hairy leg. Who knew that my hair would grow so fast? I touched my shin gingerly, but I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort. I was, however, grossed out by the sour smell wafting up from the cast, though.
I thanked Mike and he only nodded back at me as he left the room.
“Is he mad at me?”
“Not any more than usual. He’s dating Kenisha, so that might be tipping the scales in your favor.”
“Oh?” I couldn’t help but smile. “I take it it’s going well?” I knew it would. I bet they talked guns and ammo.
“I don’t think he wants to talk about it, but he’s been seeing her every night.”
That was good news, but it hadn’t yet affected Mike’s mood in a positive way.
Dan held out his hand and I smiled, not at all surprised he knew I had to get out of the bed. With his help, I moved to sit on the edge of the mattress. When my bare feet hit the floor, I almost wept.
Standing was something else, however. It wasn’t my leg that threatened to topple me, but my head. I was suddenly dizzy. I grabbed Dan, who moved to stand behind me, his arms around my waist. I was abruptly conscious of the fact that I was naked beneath the thin hospital gown and that his arms were just below my breasts.
I commanded my nipples to stand down, but they insisted on hardening. A male was in their vicinity, a male who was not a vampire, a male who was handsome, strong, and there.
My breasts weren’t the only rebellious parts of my body. My stomach was quivering and my nether regions – don’t you just love that term, nether regions? – were definitely interested.
Of course I didn’t move away. I was a little unsteady on my feet. My left leg was aching just the tiniest bit.
Dan smelled of aftershave and sunlight, not cloves and chocolate. There was no reason my libido should be sitting up, paws pressed together, and quivering in excitement like a puppy being given a bacon treat.
Dan was not bacon.
Try telling that to my body.
Step back, Dan. Step back now.
It didn’t work any better than it had when I’d first tried to compel him. He didn’t drop his hands. If anything, he moved closer. I could feel the warmth of his body, and to my complete embarrassment, the hospital gown seem to open up its own accord.
I could feel his crotch pressing against my bare butt. I closed my eyes and told myself that this was wrong, wrong, wrong. I started to say something, but I had to clear my throat. The second time, the words finally emerged.
“I need a robe,” I said.
Maybe if he moved away, I could compose myself enough not to attack him when he returned.
What was wrong with me?
I had just arisen from a hospital bed. I was recovering. I was not in any mood to make whoopee. Yet my body was more than willing to try.
Thank heavens he stepped away, moving to the dresser on the other side of the room. He extracted another hospital gown from a drawer and brought it to me.
“If you wear it with the open part in the front, it’ll be like a robe.”
I didn’t look at him and I had no idea if he was watching me. I hoped he wasn’t, because I knew my face was red. Come on, I was in my thirties. I had some experience. I wasn’t naive. At the moment, however, I felt innocent and silly, like a teenager with her first crush.
I took the precaution of moving away from him when he opened the door and I made sure that there were a few feet between us at all times.
The distance didn’t ease the craving, however. I’d have to handle that on my own.
Instead of taking me around to the great hall and the staircase, Dan stopped in front of an ornate paneled wall and pushed one of the carved figurines. The wall slid to the right, revealing an elevator.
"That's handy," I said.
"My grandfather planned for all contingencies."
What contingencies had Arthur Peterson, the founder of Cluckey's Fried Chicken envisioned? No more chickens? No more really bad oil? No more salt?
If you’ve ever had a really greasy fried chicken meal it was probably from Cluckey's. Cheap, filling, and horrible, it was still popular throughout the country. Lucky Dan.
I looked at him.
He was smiling down at me, his green eyes sparkling. The man was a handsome creature, with lips I really did want to sample.
I looked away, kicked myself a few times mentally, and said something brilliant like, “Unh.”
Marcie Montgomery, astounding conversationalist.
Once we got to the second floor and the elevator door closed, I could barely tell where it was. I had the feeling the castle had lots of secrets I didn’t know about.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked.
Other than a small ache, I was doing fine. Unfortunately, the ache wasn’t in my leg.
“I’ll send up lunch,” he said at my door.
I nodded and sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t bring it. I needed to slap my libido into submission.
I took a shower and shaved my legs, wondering what I would have looked like if the cast had remained on for a week instead of two days. I swung my leg while I held onto the towel bar, then did a few bends. Nothing hurt. Nor was there a scar from the compound fracture.
Sometimes this vampire thing worked out. I just wished the driver of the other car had been as lucky.
Once I was dressed in comfy jeans and a top (I don’t know what possessed me to buy this thing. The state of Texas was outlined in gold sequins on brown cotton.), I succumbed to my version of the vapors by sitting on the chaise and staring out the window.
Dan was true to his word and sent up lunch on a tray. I smiled as the nice young woman set it up on a collapsible table beside me. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, my comfort food of choice. Of course, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would do in a pinch. He’d added chocolate cheesecake, which made me wonder if he was almost the perfect guy: handsome, charming most of the time, and considerate.
Was he a Dallas Cowboys fan, by any chance?
He did one more thing and this gesture made me cry, but good tears, the very best kind. When the knock came, I was almost finished with lunch. I’d started with the cheesecake and worked my way through the grilled cheese and was now on the soup.
When I called out, he opened the door. Charlie made a beeline for me, almost toppling over the table. I caught it with one hand as I bent to wrap my free arm around Charlie’s neck, laughing as he bathed my face with sloppy kisses.
Dan set the table aside, allowing me to have a reunion with my dog. My dog. He wasn’t my dog, though, was he? I pushed that thought aside and rubbed my hands over Charlie, making sure he was okay. He was wiggling like a worm on speed, his tail beating against the chaise.
Between the laughter and the tears, I was talking to him, silly things that you say to your pet. “Good boy, who’s a good boy? You are, that’s who. Oh, you’re such a darling, Charlie. Are you okay? Are you sure you’re okay?”
For a little while, I was going to pretend that I didn’t have to call Charlie’s owner.
I hadn’t seen Charlie for days, but he didn’t look the worse for wear. Being at the castle agreed with him. He looked as if he’d gained weight. His eyes were bright and he was smiling at me. Had he visited with his girlfriend, the lab?
When he plopped down on the floor beside the chaise, I turned to Dan.
“I need my phone back,” I said.
Too many of my waking moments were filled with thoughts of Dan: how he looked when I'd last seen him, how he smelled, his charming lopsided smile, his neck – and I had had a thing for a man's neck long before becoming a vampire.
There was just something about a glimpse of a man's neck when he unbuttoned his shirt. I wanted to press a kiss there, right at the base, maybe lick his skin. I would feel his heartbeat escalate as I pressed my warm lips against his heated flesh.
See? I was doing it again.
I didn't feel the same way about Mike and I certainly hadn't felt the same way about Maddock. What he did to me was chemically induced.
No, I was getting positively goofy about Dan.
“Are you going to call Charlie’s owner?” he asked.
“Among other things,” I said. “I need to call the rental car company.”
“It’s all been taken care of,” he said.
Once in awhile, I like being cosseted. I like being the little woman and allowing a guy to take care of me. It isn’t that often, though, because I’m an adult and responsible for myself. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling now. Part of me didn’t want to have to deal with the rental car company, but I couldn’t forget that Dan had swooped in and taken over my apartment and my life.
It was a toss up, frankly. I reserved the right to get miffed later, when I felt strong and more like super woman. Besides, my libido was warring with feminism and feminism wasn’t faring too well at the moment.
“Do you get sick often?” I asked.
He stared at me. “Not really.”
“Are you whiny when you are?”
“I don’t think so.”
I’d bet that Dan did the “go to ground” thing when he got sick. Just leave him alone and everything would be fine. Don’t bustle around him. Don’t coo to him. Don’t, whatever you do, play mommy. I bet his own mommy didn’t play mommy.
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” I said. In other words, I couldn’t cosset him in return.
I took a deep breath. “About the gun thing. I want one.”
I’d had a few days to think about it. I knew Maddock was coming for me. A gun wasn’t a weapon to be used against him, but he couldn’t come after me in the daylight. Ergo, he would have to hire someone to do it for him, someone mortal.
I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Dan’s eyes narrowed and his face did that stone effigy thing.
“I could loan you a gun, but only after I gave you some training.”
I was all for training. I knew which end to point, but that was about it.
“And you’ve got a gun range here,” I said.
He nodded.
“Do you have a beauty shop, too?”
He smiled. “We have a hairdresser. It’s normally easy to get an appointment.”
Holy cow, just how big was the castle? I should start thinking of it like a small city instead of just a fortress.
“Do you want to do it now?”
“No time like the present,” I said, standing.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“I’m not going to use my leg for kickboxing, but it will get me there.”
He only nodded.
I settled Charlie into my room and followed Dan.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Down into the dungeon, m’lady
Dan led me through the castle, down a warren of corridors that were more utilitarian than the public rooms. Yet even here, there were touches of wealth. The hallways were wide so that three or four people could walk abreast and laid with a deep crimson carpet so plush my sneakers sank into it. Wainscoting covered half the wall from about my waist down to the floor. An almost Celtic looking wallpaper in shades of green covered the rest of the wall. Here and there were brass sconces and I couldn't help but wonder if they also contained intercoms and cameras. Sprinkler heads dotted the ceiling along with small square grills.
I stopped in the middle of the hall, looking up at one of the grills.
"Are you prepared for anything bad?" I asked. “Is that just an air-conditioning duct, or something more sinister?"
"Like what?”
I glanced at him. “Like for poison gas. I think you're prepared for a siege, aren’t you?"
"Yes. But I wouldn't use poison gas. Maybe something to put someone to sleep, long enough to gain control over them."
"Do you have a jail here at Arthur's Folly?"
"There is a place to restrain intruders," he said, surprising me by smiling. He was evidently proud of the fortifications. Maybe the moat by the front door would flood, too, and not remain a flower bedecked entrenchment.
“Tell me about the disappearing humans.”
He stopped in front of a door with a lock, one of those you keyed in a number.
“The combination is 51475,” he said. “In case you want to come and practice.”
“The humans, Dan.”
I wasn’t going to be put off this time.
The gun range turned out to be modeled after a bowling alley, except that the floors were painted green. There weren’t any pins at the end of the four lanes, only a pulley system, each lane holding an outline of a human torso.
I would have felt a little more comfortable if someone had drawn fangs on one of the outlines. I’ve had this discussion with people before, especially with female friends. If I ever got a gun, would I use it? Could I use it? Could I actually aim a firearm at another human being and pull the trigger?
Maybe the answer would have been different last year or even a few months ago. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to aim and shoot. Now? Not a problem, especially if it were Maddock in the sight.
I’ve known what it was to feel physically powerless and I hope to God never to experience that frightening vulnerability again. So, if I had to shoot someone in order to protect myself, I would, in a heartbeat and without a thought.
Dan still wasn’t talking. I leaned against the wall, folded my arms, and tried not to get irritated. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I focused my anger. Maybe I should practice that, more than shooting a gun.
“Dan.”
He was opening a glass case filled with ear protection. After selecting two sets of earphones, he bent and opened another case, this one double locked.
“I’m not going to stop asking,” I said. “You can’t put me off.”
He glanced at me once, put the earphones down on the ledge in front of me and mimicked my pose, leaning his back against the cases, arms folded.
I wish he wasn’t that much taller than me. I tilted my chin up, put on my most pugnacious expression, and was prepared to be just as stubborn as he was being.
“What about the missing humans?”
He stared down at the end of the lane, at one of the targets. I wondered if he was visualizing Niccolo Maddock standing there. I did.
“My sister disappeared.”
This was the first time he said anything about a sister. I licked my lips, wishing I wasn’t suddenly dry-mouthed and feeling inept. I didn’t know what to say. Something had to come out of my mouth, though.
“Did she hang around vampires?”
No, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Dan flicked his eyes toward me. I’d thought Eagle Lady’s eyes were those of a predator. She was a pussy cat compared to Dan Travis, pissed.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “She hadn’t before I left the States, but Nancy pretty much did what Nancy wanted.”
“So you came home to find her missing? What made you suspect the vampires? Maddock, especially?”
“She was seen with him.”
I swear, Maddock was a walking Viagra commercial. By the way, what is it with the bathtubs in those erectile dysfunction commercials? Why twin bathtubs, side by side? I could see one big bathtub with both the male and the female in it, but the way they were portraye
d now, just holding hands? Nope, that didn’t make any sense. Back to Maddock. He had a mistress, who must not be all that happy with his straying, but she was human, so she really didn’t get a choice.
“How long has she been missing?”
“Ten months, give or take a week.”
“What did Maddock say when you asked him?”
“I never talked to him about Nancy. You don’t address a cobra face to face. But plenty of other people did. The police, for one. My mother, for another.”
Maybe I should give Janet Travis a little slack. Maybe she wasn’t a bitch. Maybe she was grieving for her daughter.
“And you thought by working for him, you’d be able to find out something?”
Dan had been assigned to watch me when I was first turned, a gesture of protectiveness from Maddock I hadn’t appreciated at the time. Now I was grateful for it. Otherwise, I’d probably be without a roof over my head while being actively pursued by the master vampire.
“It’s not just her, Marcie. There are at least three dozen other people who’ve gone missing from Bexar County in the last year. They just dropped off the face of the earth. Do you know how difficult that is to do nowadays? Their cell phones aren’t used; they don’t have any activity on their credit or debit cards. It’s like they simply vanished.”
He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t have to. He thought they were being used as cattle.
But why? Capitalism had embraced vampiredom. We had drive through blood centers for that quick nip after a movie or a game. One of them was called Youngbloods and it had a grotesque logo of a smiling vampire. Really, I didn’t need to see all that fang.
The going rate for blood lately was over a hundred dollars a pint. There were even people who called themselves Vespa - professional donors - who made their living providing sustenance to the vampires. You could rent the services of a willing human for a day, but never more than a week. Vespa were very, very expensive.
Feeding a vampire didn’t give a human any advantages and it could prove dangerous. Vampires were immune to most diseases but they were often carriers of them. Many cases of bacteria born illnesses had been transmitted to humans, which is why the Vespa were now highly regulated and unionized.
