by Rachel Lee
The guy shook his head. “Dogs like that shouldn’t be allowed. I’m going to complain to management.”
“Just give my friend a chance first. He’s really good with this stuff.”
The guy hesitated, and the way his gaze swept over Terri told her he was responding more to the fact that she was an attractive young woman than anything she said.
“Okay,” he finally grumped. “But another hour and I need to go to bed, and I will complain.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell my friend.”
“Be sure you do.”
When he closed his door, Terri once again closed her eyes, though not for long. Instead, fear began to creep slowly along her spine, then spread out to her very nerve endings. It had grown quieter in the apartment. Too quiet? How would she know?
But she felt something else. That feeling of being watched by some unseen presence returned suddenly. Only it was worse now, far worse. Her mouth turned dry as dust, and her palms grew damp. This presence held her rooted, forbidding her to run.
God, she hated this feeling.
Not knowing what else to do, she began to whisper the prayer she had memorized as a child to drive away whatever was inhabiting the house with her family. She prayed with every ounce of her being, pushing back at that sense of lurking evil. She must have said the prayer a hundred times as she stood there, her lips barely moving, her voice seemingly lost to her.
Suddenly, the door beside her opened. Before she knew what was happening, a hand grabbed her arm and she was dragged inside the apartment. The door slammed behind her and she felt herself in the unbreakable grip of a vampire.
Jude was glaring at her, but he was also weaving a bit. That’s when she saw that his black shirt was ripped, and huge, blackened wounds crisscrossed his chest.
“My God,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“I heard you out there. I could hear your heartbeat, smell you. Damn it, Terri, do you have any idea of the risk? Of how much you could have distracted me?”
He sagged a little, releasing her, then took two steps toward an empty chair. He nearly fell into it.
Nearby, she saw another man, middle-aged, balding. He looked so pale and his eyes were closed.
“Is he…is he…?” The thought alone nearly made her heart stop.
“Dead? No. But the demon is gone. For now, anyway.”
Her eyes snapped back to Jude. God, he looked awful. “Is it okay to tell a vampire he looks deader than usual?”
“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Humor at a time like this.”
“What can I do? Will you heal? And oh, by the way, the guy next door says you have to be done here by eleven o’clock or he’s calling management.”
Jude rolled his eyes, then closed them for a second. When they snapped open, they were blacker than night. “See that plastic bottle over there?”
She looked where he pointed. It was a full liter bottle, but there was a cross on it. “Holy water?”
“Yeah. Pour a little of it on my chest, then pour some over him. Then shake what’s left around all the doors and windows.”
She did as told, as quickly as she could. Already Jude was healing, she saw, and the holy water seemed to speed the process. So he could tolerate holy water? Another myth bit the dust.
She came back to him with the empty bottle. “I’ve got to do something about those wounds.” The doctor in her battled with another part that reminded her this guy wasn’t human, and her arts and training probably wouldn’t help him a bit. But she needed to do something.
He shook his head. “There’s not a damn thing you can do. Now, help me button my coat. Then we’re getting out of here.”
She did as he asked, concealing the bloody, blackened wounds on his chest. He managed to get to his feet, but after only two steps, he stopped and put his arm around her shoulders, leaning heavily.
“Sorry,” he said. “I need to feed. Soon.”
“You can feed right now.” The words came out of her on impulse. As soon as they escaped she felt a strange mix of shock and eagerness to give him what he needed. No different, she rationalized, than giving a patient a needed transfusion. Or maybe not. God, she hated this confusion. There was so much she desperately needed to understand.
“Damn it, no! Just help me get back to the office.”
She got him downstairs in the elevator. When a man in the lobby started to look at them oddly, she even managed a little giggle and stood on tiptoe to kiss Jude on the cheek. To her surprise, while his skin was cooler than a human’s, it wasn’t the ice she expected. The man politely looked away and they escaped outside.
“My car’s around the corner,” Jude said.
Of course she recognized it. “Keys?”
“Top left pocket.”
She felt around until she found them, by which time they reached the car. She unlocked the door and held it open for him. He slid in without argument, just put his head back against the headrest and let her drive.
He didn’t even try to lecture her anymore. But if he had, she’d have given him a mouthful. What would he have done if she hadn’t come along? Stayed there until he couldn’t stay any longer, hoping to heal enough to get home on his own? Maybe.
“Do you need blood to heal?” she asked him.
“Sometimes.”
“Tonight?”
“It’ll help.”
Not much of an answer.
Traffic steadily lightened, and they reached the office only a half hour later. Jude managed to get out of the car under his own steam. Terri trotted after him, determined not to let him out of her sight until she was sure he’d be okay.
He didn’t argue with her. He used his key card to open the front door, and together they stepped into the darkened hallway. Terri couldn’t see a thing, but Jude clapped a hand to her shoulder. Guiding her and leaning a little at the same time.
Then they reached the door of his office suite. It was she who reached out and turned the handle, throwing it open. Yellow light, welcome to her, filled the office. Garner was absent. Chloe was lying on the couch. Did she ever go home? Did she have a home?
Chloe sat up as soon as she heard them. Her sleepy eyes grew huge. “Oh, Jude,” she said, somewhere between horror and annoyance.
“I just need to feed. Get me inside.”
Chloe seemed to know exactly where to look for the key card for his office, and apparently she also knew the code to punch in.
Once in his office, Jude sagged into his chair. “Get me a bag,” he said to Chloe.
A small refrigerator that Terri hadn’t seen before now occupied a place near his desk. Chloe went to it immediately and pulled out a bag of blood.
Jude took it and ripped into it without even the little bit of finesse he’d shown just last week when he’d tried to make Terri feel revolted. He tipped back his head and poured the blood in as fast as he could swallow.
“Another?” Chloe asked.
“Not yet.”
He started to unbutton his coat, but Terri could see that he was still weak and his hands shook. Impatiently, she brushed his hands aside and undid the buttons herself, revealing the wounds.
“They look better than they did when I first saw them,” she remarked.
“Damn,” Chloe said, seeing them for the first time. “What did he do to you?”
“A little of this and a little of that,” Jude answered. Again, no answer at all.
Chloe put her hands on her hips. “You’ve got to stop doing this all alone.”
“Apparently, I wasn’t alone tonight,” he answered. His eyes, not quite so dark now, trailed to Terri. “Don’t do that again.”
“I didn’t do anything except help you get out of there,” sh
e argued hotly. “And a darn good thing I was there!”
“Amen to that,” Chloe said with equal heat.
“You nearly distracted me. I can’t be distracted when I’m dealing with a demon. I heard your heart. I smelled you. If I’d lost my concentration for even one second…”
He let the implied threat hang there. Then he sighed and let his head fall back, closing his eyes.
“Those wounds are healing awfully slowly,” Chloe said.
“Damned canned blood,” he remarked, as if that explained it all.
Terri looked at Chloe. “What’s he mean?”
“The anticoagulants. And of course, the blood isn’t fully alive anymore. So it’s not quite the same.”
“Oh. Well, he won’t take mine.” That kind of annoyed her actually, given his present state. “What, it’s not good enough?”
“I think,” said Chloe, “the problem is that it might be too good. Now stop harassing the man. He’s got enough to deal with right now.”
Terri fell silent, still annoyed, and inexplicably hurt, but realizing that she was probably being selfish again. Jude Messenger gave her a whole new definition to being selfish. But she’d sort that out later.
“Get me another one, Chloe. God, this hurts!”
“Like what?” Chloe asked as she brought him another bag.
“Fire. It’s burning like fire.”
“Demons,” Chloe snapped. “What do you expect?”
“I don’t need a mother.”
“Yes, boss, actually you do.”
Jude tore into the second bag, draining it. He didn’t even wipe his mouth, so Terri dared to grab a tissue and dab away the drips herself.
“Stop hovering,” he growled.
“Not until you start healing faster,” Chloe argued.
“I probably won’t heal completely before tomorrow night.” He grimaced. “Demon wounds take longer. A lot longer.”
“And you’re planning to face two more of these by yourself?”
“Two more?” Terri was horrified.
“Two more,” Chloe said grimly. “If we’re lucky. I’m going to call Father Dan. You can’t keep doing this alone.”
“Let the man have his vacation! Damn it, Chloe, I can run my own life.”
This time it was Terri who sniffed. “Oh, yeah, I can see that.” She ignored his glare, and noted now that he’d had two full containers of blood, his eyes had turned almost golden. Like a wolf’s or a tiger’s.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said to her.
“I think it’s too late for that.”
He scowled but gave up the argument. “I can smell demon all over me. And my own rotting blood.” He swore. “I gotta change.”
“I’ll get you a shirt,” Chloe said. “The cleaners delivered this morning, so I don’t need to invade your inner sanctum.”
“Like I have one anymore.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and looked at Terri. “I told you he always comes back from these things crabby.” Then she flounced out to get the shirt.
Jude sat up and started peeling away his coat. Terri immediately leaned in to help, tugging it from his arms. For once he didn’t give her a hard time. Then his shirt, pulling open the buttons down the front, the ones that still remained, undoing the cuffs. She helped him shrug it off, trying to ignore the occasional groan that escaped him.
She held up the tattered shirt. “Garbage?”
He waved to the red container by the fridge. “Biohazard container. I won’t be able to stand the smell.”
She flipped the latch and dropped the shirt in with the emptied blood bags.
When she turned around, he was standing, letting his leather coat fall to the floor.
“That, too?” she asked. Even wounded as he was, it was hard not to notice his perfect musculature. Did immortality confer that, too?
“No. Give it to Chloe. She’ll bag it and send it to a cleaner. Ask her to empty the pockets.”
She went to the outer office, where Chloe was looking through a stack of boxes with the name of a local dry cleaner stamped on them. “I don’t even know if he should try to wear a shirt,” she muttered. “He’s a mess!”
“He wants this coat cleaned, too.”
Chloe nodded. “I’ll get a bag for it. Just empty his pockets.”
So Terri did, feeling a little like she was prying, and winding up totally astonished by what she found in there. Not only things like keys, and key cards, and credit cards, but a rosary, a large crucifix, more holy water and a small red-covered copy of the Roman Ritual for Exorcism.
There went another myth, she thought, as she laid these things on Chloe’s desk.
Chloe returned with a large garbage bag and together they stuffed the leather coat into it. “I’ll take it to the cleaner’s first thing in the morning.”
Carrying a silk shirt, Chloe started back into Jude’s office. Terri trotted after her.
Jude, however, was no longer there. Through the open door of the bedroom, they could see him lying on his bed, one arm thrown over his eyes.
“Just lock me in” was all he said when he heard them.
The two women exchanged glances. “Later,” Chloe said. “You might need something.”
“I need to teach you to follow orders.”
“Someday. Good luck. I’ll close this door at dawn, and not one second before.”
He muttered something, and Terri suspected she should be glad she couldn’t understand.
They walked out then, but left both doors open a crack. “In case he needs something,” Chloe said.
Out in the front office, Chloe looking tired beyond words, and Terri feeling like it, they sat and simply looked at one another.
“Do you have a home to go to?” Terri asked finally.
“Yeah. Sometimes I even get there. But when we’re on a case like this, I kind of camp out here.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I am.” Chloe yawned. “But somebody needs to be here. It’s not every day a demon messes him up like this. What if he needs something? What if he doesn’t heal as fast as he expects?”
Terri hesitated. “I can stay. In fact, if you want, I can stay all day tomorrow.”
“But what about your job?”
“I have tomorrow off.”
Chloe cocked a brow at Terri. “How did you happen to be there?”
“I saw him on the street and followed. Don’t even ask me why. It was just this feeling, that I had to.”
Chloe yawned. “Well, I’m glad you were there, even if he wasn’t. I keep telling him not to do this solo. He listens so well.”
“So I gather.”
All of a sudden, Chloe stood. “I’m going to trust you.”
Terri felt her heart jump. “How so?”
“I’m going to go home. I need a shower. I need a bed. I need a decent night’s sleep before I become the Wicked Witch of the East. Or was it the West? I’m too tired to remember.” She shrugged.
“You can trust me.”
Chloe smiled wearily. “I honestly think I can. So here’s the deal. You wait until dawn. Make sure he doesn’t need anything. At dawn, push that little refrigerator of his into his bedroom, so he has food if he needs it when he wakes. Then all you have to do is come out and close the door. It’ll lock automatically and it won’t open again until sundown.”
“Really?”
“It’s a vault,” Chloe said. “Or a crypt, depending on his mood. Either way, it’s how he protects himself during the day. You can do that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay then. And don’t open the street door for anyone, even Garner. At least
not until Jude is locked in for the day.”
“I can do that.”
She watched Chloe leave, then realized she was all alone with Jude. A vampire demon hunter.
Had reality just gotten shot all to hell or what?
The odd thing was, her headache was gone and she felt better than she had in weeks.
Must have to do with having done something really important for a change. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed that sense of satisfaction.
Jude awoke with a gasp and a jerk, as always. Resurrection carried with it a few uncomfortable seconds. Nor did he get the lazy kind of waking that he’d enjoyed as a human. No. Instant life. Like drawing the first breath out of the womb.
As soon as he had sucked in that first breath, he knew he wasn’t alone, and knew who was there. He turned his head and found Terri lying on the bed beside him, her head propped in her hand.
He didn’t even bother to ask why she was here. He’d given up asking this woman why she did anything.
“You feel like ice now,” she said, running a finger alongside a healing wound on his chest. A quiver of hunger ran through him. “You weren’t this cold last night.”
“I’ve been dead all day. It has its effects. Did you enjoy the show?”
She smiled faintly. “I slept a lot. It’s not the most amusing show in town. But interesting, anyway.”
“How so?”
“Because I’m not quite sure I believed it. Until I put my head to your heart and found it had completely stopped.”
“Actually, it beats a few times an hour. Easy to miss. I should feel invaded.”
“But you don’t?”
He sighed and shook his head. Then he lifted up enough that he could see his chest. The wounds had improved vastly, but the healing was not yet complete. “Damn demons,” he muttered and let his head fall back on the pillow.
“Need to feed?” Terri asked.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“I’m not. I’ve offered, you’ve refused. Offer still open. In the meantime, I’ll get you a bag if you want.”
He wasn’t ready yet. “Why did Chloe let you do this?”
“Chloe didn’t let me do anything. Well, actually, she left me to make sure you got locked in for the day. She’s exhausted, Jude. So I told her I’d take care of things while she went home to shower and sleep. The poor girl needs some time.”
