“But first you had to find me? To save me? If we have been together as long as you say, why wasn’t I with you when I was poisoned?”
Max knocked over a wineglass and it shattered on the floor. I sat up straighter on the couch and gave a small gasp, staring at him intently, as he picked up the fragments. That, I thought, that sound is familiar. He stood up, noted my interest, and a flash of dismay crossed his face. A bit of memory flew into my mind and out again as quickly as it had come. I slumped back down on the couch and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, he was watching me, an uneasy smile on his face.
“Surely you remember how clumsy I am, my dear? I can’t remember the number of times that has happened in this office with you laughing at me. As for your question, I did not say that I wasn’t with you when you were poisoned. I said that I could not stop it. After you grew sick, you ran away. Of course I did all that I could to find you. You are my love and my life. And find you I did. Then I brought you back here and nursed you back to sanity and put you on the road to health.”
I drained my glass again. He was right, the liquid did make me feel better, my headache was almost completely gone. I relaxed slightly, the screaming voices in my head began to quiet, and his words suddenly made sense to me. Why was I fighting him? He saved me, he cared for me. Silently, I nodded and held the now empty glass out to him.
He refilled it with a smile. “That’s right, my love, this is good for what ails you. Drink up and see how you feel after that.”
I did as he asked. It was true, I did feel odd. Nauseated. Hot and cold at the same time. As I sipped that drink, he spoke to me, telling me of things that we had done in our times together over the years. I took in every word, seeing the events in my mind and, as his voice droned on and on, I grew more and more relaxed, drifting along on the rhythm of his words. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d come and sat by me again, until I felt his breath tickle my ear.
“And do you remember,” he asked at last, “how we were walking down by the harbor when you were attacked?” I nodded, drowsily. Yes, there had been water nearby. “A dilettante, one of the remnants from my father’s time,” his voice acquired a sneering quality, “acting under no one’s orders but his own. He hadn’t recognized me when he struck, but he did just as he died. I snapped his neck and dumped the bastard’s body in the water. One more mysterious death in a city full of them would never be noticed and he was never missed.”
I nodded again. The movement seemed to take forever. “We saw when he smiled that his teeth were filed down to sharp points,” I said, my voice sounding small and far away.
“Yes,” Max said, “that’s right.”
“He had a crossbow.” I paused for a while, it took such an effort to produce the thoughts, to sound out the words. “And a gun. With wooden bullets coated in poison. He spoke. We’d never heard them speak before. And you . . .” Here the memory failed me. I just could not seem to be able to fit Max’s actions into my mind.
“Exactly.” Max said with a light voice, patting my hand. “I rushed over to you and gathered you up. You were already in shock, little one, the poison acted that quickly. I brought you back here to take care of your wound, but you got away from me.”
Some of his words rang true. As for those that sounded false, I had grown too tired to care.
“But now you are here,” he continued, “and you are getting better. I see it, I can almost feel it. Words cannot express how happy I am to have you home, safe with me.”
He kissed my cheek, then got up, and returned to fill my glass again. I sipped it as he told me of his future plans, of places we would go and things we would do after I’d recovered. Of how we would fill eternity together. In my semiconscious state, everything he said sounded wonderful and reasonable. I wondered for a moment how I could have ever doubted him. The man loved me, you could hear it in the way he spoke. So I must love him back. No, a tiny voice rumbled in the back of my mind, so quiet it was barely audible over Max’s talking, no, you don’t love him. You mustn’t ever make that mistake again. I shook my head and finished the drink in my hand.
When his voice finally stopped, I was almost asleep. I heard the sound of a door being unlocked and he came and stood over me. “You have done well for your first day out of bed, Deirdre. But you need your rest.” He scooped me up in his arms and carried me into a small room through a door behind his desk. There was a bed, that was all I saw. He set me down on the floor, his one arm wrapped around my waist, holding me up. With the other arm, he pulled back the blankets on the bed and laid me down on it.
“We will talk more later, Deirdre, for now you need to sleep.”
I murmured agreement, pulled the blankets up to my chin, and slept.
Chapter 5
Several days had gone by since I found myself in this place. Our days and nights had fallen into a routine of sorts. I slept during the day in the chill, windowless room off of his office, alone most of the time, with only dark thoughts and empty memories to keep me warm. On the rare occasions when he joined me, he would merely lie next to me. We shared no warmth, no love, and no sexual contact. I might have welcomed intimacy; it would at least have filled some of the empty moments, some of the dark void within my heart and my soul. But although he constantly referred to himself as my husband, he didn’t act as if he were. And I didn’t see him as my husband, that whole scenario just felt wrong. I couldn’t deny the fact that his face was the only one capable of lingering in my mind. Yet, I did not trust him. Something in my very core shivered with his touch, recoiled at his presence. What did that inner piece of me know that my mind could not fathom?
When sleep would not come, I would read the books or view the videos stocked on the shelves. Many of the books, however, were in languages I couldn’t understand. Had I once, I wondered? Or did these books not belong to me? And the library of vampire movies on videotape? Had I collected all of these? Or had Max put them here to enable a return of my memories? The latter seemed unlikely, for while they did inspire wisps of memories, his face did not appear. It was all very strange to me, very new, and yet something in the back of my mind responded to the stimuli and I strained to remember.
At sunset, I would hear the sound of his key in the door. We would go out to his office and talk about our past life together. I would obediently drink what he gave me until I fell asleep again. And once asleep, the dreams would begin, most of them grotesque and filled with blood and rage, Max’s blood and my anger. I felt the roughness of splintered wood in my hands, saw the rush of surprise in his eyes as I pinned him to the office door, laughed as his blood ran out of the wound and pooled on the floor. And in the corner, in the shadows, there was . . .
This night started no differently than any of the others, but the rasping of the lock woke me and, before I could see his face, that face of the shadowed man in the corner, the sound roughly pulled me out of the dream. Without warning an overwhelming rage grew in me. Damn it, I thought, I’m not going to play his game anymore.
Max entered the room and sat down on the bed, touching my arm. “Deirdre?” Feigning sleep, I gave no response and he shook me gently. “It’s no good, little one,” he said, “I know your habits too well. I know you too well. Open your eyes.”
I glared at him, staring at the glass he held out to me. “I don’t want it, Max. Take it away.”
“You must drink it, my dear. You know it helps you.”
I knocked the glass from his hand, taking great satisfaction in seeing it fly across the narrow room and smash up against the wall. The thick red liquid flowed slowly down to the floor, staining the floral wallpaper and the carpet below it. “No, it doesn’t help me. It helps you. Helps you control me.”
“Is that what you think?” He reached over and ran the back of his hand over my cheek. “That I want to control you?”
I shied away from him and got out of bed. “What else am I to think, Max? That you’re my doting and loving husband? That you keep me a prisoner in th
ese rooms because you’re protecting me?”
“But, Deirdre, I am protecting you. As I keep telling you, you have been very sick and you’re still not fully recuperated. I understand your frustration, you’ve never been sick before, you have no defenses against what’s been happening to you.” He rose from the bed and moved toward me, reaching his arms out and gently grasping my shoulders. “I’m glad to see you rage a bit, Deirdre, since it means you are recovering, but I am not your enemy.”
“Don’t touch me,” I said between clenched teeth as I shifted out of his grip. “I am in perfect health or would be if you allowed me to feed instead of forcing me to drink whatever that godawful sludge is you keep bringing. If you really want to help me, my dear husband, you’ll bring me some clothes, some real clothes, not these silly little silk gowns. And let me leave these rooms so that I can hunt.”
“Hunt? Other than what you have may have learned in the movies you watch, what could you possibly know of hunting?” His voice sounded soft, indulgent.
Suddenly I felt dizzy as if his question knocked me off balance. He was right, what did I know of hunting? What, for that matter, did I know of anything? I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to summon the remembrance of something, any small detail that could be dredged out of the mystery of my past. When I opened my eyes again to see his face, I realized only that this was wrong. That he was wrong. He shouldn’t be here and neither should I.
My dreams since I found myself here were full of death. Yes, I thought, and it is his death of which I dream. Some shred of my sleeping mind persisted in holding the belief that I had killed this man, killed him to save the life of someone. And now he was alive and where was that someone? The whole situation was progressively becoming so frustrating I wanted to scream. I wished to go back to my initial belief that it was all a dream. How blissful it would have been to wake up and have a laugh with that someone.
Then Max smiled at me, smugly, patiently. He reached over and touched my arm; the warmth of his skin on my arm was comforting.
I sighed. “I do not know much, but I know I need something, Max, something I cannot get from you, in this place. You say you are my husband. You say you love me. Then prove it, damn it. Let me out of here, let me breathe fresh night air. Give me my life back.”
His smile faded and for one brief second he seemed angry. Then he laughed. “Finally,” he said, “you are becoming yourself again. After all this time, I’d worried and wondered if you were going to stay spineless and submissive for the rest of your life. Worried that the poison and the sickness might have damaged your mind. But now, this is all the proof I needed that the real you has survived. You have always been a fighter, little one,” his eyes lit up with a memory I couldn’t share, “so it does my heart good to see your spirit revive, even if it’s at my expense. Yes, it’s true, a little fresh air won’t do either of us any harm, but you must allow me to accompany you.”
“Do I really need an escort?”
He nodded. “For your first trip out, yes. Humor me. You may find the world changed since last time you walked through it.”
“The world has changed?”
“Not the world so much as your perception of it.”
I gave a small laugh. “Since I can’t remember much of anything beyond a few days ago, I doubt I’ll notice a thing.”
Max managed to produce clothes for me—a pair of black leather jeans and a red silk shirt. They fit perfectly, as did the pair of high-heeled black pumps and the pieces of underwear. A glance in the mirror shocked me, I recognized these garments. Here now was another piece of evidence that he was telling me the truth. And I didn’t want to believe him.
I brushed back my short bleached-blond hair, noticed that the roots were growing back in a dark auburn shade. “Who are you?” I asked of the woman in the mirror. She didn’t know, but gave me a bleak smile. “And why the hell did you do this to your hair?”
Something clicked in my mind then—a flashing glimpse of another woman, blond and vivacious, laughing at me and asking the same question.
“Deirdre?” There was a knock on the door of the employee bathroom where I’d been changing and the vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving me in doubt once again. “Deirdre?” Max called again, “are you okay? Do you need some help? Or is there something wrong with the clothes?”
Damn it, just go away. I grimaced over the complete lack of privacy as much as over the loss of what might have been a memory. “I’m fine, Max, thank you so much. And the clothes are just perfect.” As you knew they would be, I thought. How can you be so sure about everything? “I will be ready in a minute or two.”
The cabinet above the sink held a few cosmetics, used by the waitresses here, I assumed. Brushing a little rouge on my cheeks and some mascara on my lashes, I took one last critical look at my reflection. It’ll have to do, I thought, unless I can talk Max into taking me on a trip to a late night hairdresser. “Who cares?” I whispered. “I’m going to get out of here. Finally.”
As I turned to leave the room though, my stomach lurched and I spun back to the sink and tried to vomit. It didn’t do me any good, my stomach was totally empty and all I managed to bring up was a bitter splash of acid. Running cold water in the sink, I gripped the porcelain with one hand and wet the other to wipe my brow and mouth. I hadn’t been sick since I came here to this place with Max, but I knew with certainty that I had been before. If only my head would stop aching so, I might be able to remember something other than fevered glimpses.
He knocked on the door again. “Deirdre?”
I sighed. Hungry and nauseated, I wasn’t in any shape to deal with him tonight. But if I didn’t come out soon, he would surely come in after me. I straightened up, squared my shoulders, and walked out the door, hiding my weakness as best as I could.
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and his concerned smile seemed more like a smirk to me in the dimness of the hallway. I wanted to slap him, to lash out against his self-assured possession of me. Nothing would be gained by that, though, and so I swallowed back my anger and my pride and gave him my sweetest smile.
“I feel so much better,” I lied, leaning in to him, “and I am looking forward to getting out.”
“As I am, little one.” We began to walk down the hallway; he paused at the entrance to the club. “But before we go I have some business to take care of. Would you mind terribly if I parked you at the bar for a while?”
He pushed the door open and I heard talk and laughter and music. During my stay in the secret room connecting to Max’s office, these sounds had been muted, but I realized now that I’d been hearing them in the background, filtering into my mind. I smiled and took in a deep breath, feeling as if I had finally come home, feeling that if there was a chance I could regain myself, it would be here.
The club was relatively dark and it took a while for my eyes to adjust. When they did, however, I felt a joyful stab of recognition. I knew this place, knew it well enough that I didn’t need to see to find my way around. The tables were small and heart-shaped, each of them topped with a Victorian-style lamp, complete with fringed and beaded shade. The wallpaper was comprised of red velvet swirls. It had taken me days to choose it. The whole decorating scheme, I remembered with triumph, was my creation, Max commissioned me to do the job when I’d first come to this city.
I gave a laugh of delight.
“What is it, Deirdre?” Max bent over me, his eyes concerned.
“Nothing, Max. I am just so happy to be out. So happy to be well.”
“Are you? Then I am pleased too. I only wish you to be happy.”
I ignored his comment, so enraptured I was with my glimpse of the club. My eyes drank in the entire scene: the decor, the dance floor, the layout of the bar, the positioning of the musicians, even the song that played was familiar and I hummed along with it. I had been here before. That much of what Max told me was true. I had danced here, flirted here. I’d drunk so many glasses of wine a
t those tables, at that bar.
And more than that, I realized with a flood of excitement. I’d fed here. I could almost taste the bitter, salty flow that kept life in my veins, could almost feel the exhilaration that came with the blood, with the drinking.
Max’s voice pulled me back down to earth.”So you are sure you don’t mind if I leave you alone for a few minutes while I tend to business? No one will bother you, I’m sure. And if you grow tired, you can always go back to the rooms.”
Go back? Was he insane? Why would I want to go back? Here I was alive. I gave him the sweetest smile I could muster along with a quick kiss on his cheek. “Actually, I’m wide awake right now, Max. So you take care of what you need to take care of. I don’t mind at all.”
Chapter 6
Max led me to an empty seat in the corner of the bar, where I could watch the patrons on the dance floor as well as those gathered into smaller groups. The club was fairly crowded; I wondered if this was a typical night and decided it probably was. Even so, with our appearance, the bartender, a young man with a goatee and a shaved head, snapped to attention and immediately came over to greet us.
“Derek will take good care of you until I can get away,” Max rubbed my shoulders lightly and nodded to the young man. “We’ll need a glass of my private stock here, Derek. And keep her glass filled until I come back.”
“Right away, Mr. Hunter.”
I didn’t bother to watch Max walk away, nor did I watch Derek fumble behind the bar. The sight and scent of a room so full of humans was enthralling, enticing. I licked my lips and inhaled deeply.
“Mrs. Hunter?”
I heard the name and the voice, but couldn’t take my eyes away from the dancers.
The bartender cleared his throat. “Mrs. Hunter?”
He had to say the name one more time before I finally realized he was speaking to me.
“I’m sorry, Derek. I wasn’t paying attention. Did you want something?”
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