Chris’ eyes slid away from mine. Either he wasn’t being completely honest with me, or he was ashamed that he hadn’t known how far gone Maggie actually was.
“She was fine on the plane ride to here. She seemed her normal cheerful self, turning on the charm for everyone.” He laughed a bit in remembrance. “She’s got more than her fair share of charm.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve noticed. She’s got a gift, no doubt about it.”
“Anyway, it wasn’t until we arrived at the house that she started acting odd. She kept talking to me, but if I’d respond verbally, she’d start to cry. As long as I kept quiet, she was calm. I noticed that she avoided looking at me and if she caught my eye, she’d wince. It was nothing I couldn’t handle. I’m kind of used to her little eccentricities. But then she picked up the phone and called Steven. After that all hell broke loose. She went to her room for a while, and when she came out she was crazed, tossing glassware against the walls and overturning the furniture.” Chris shook his head. “She’s really quite physically strong, you know. When she started on the ranting about how she’d murdered her children, and pulled the knife on me, well, I just couldn’t deal with it anymore, so I left. I doubt she even noticed when I’d gone.”
“Actually, she knew you’d gone. And I think she was relieved that you left. Maggie doesn’t really want to hurt you, Chris.”
He rubbed his arm where she’d attacked him with a corkscrew that night in Whitby. “Maybe. But you know, it’s getting more difficult to believe that with each passing day.” His voice then acquired a wistful note, making him sound younger than he was. “What are you going to do to her?”
I sighed, combed my fingers through my hair, and held out my glass to Lily for refilling. “I have no idea. Keep her from killing any of us, I guess.”
“She tried to kill you?”
I nodded and Sam cleared his throat. “I have her under observation and she’s safe in the tank, no danger to herself or to others. I’d like to see her get professional help, though.”
Chris nodded. “That’d be good, I guess.”
“For now,” I said, “there’s not a whole lot we can do. You were my first priority. Now that you’re safe, all I want to do is find Deirdre. Can you help me? Have you remembered where Steven is? We think that the soul placed in his body is Max Hunter, and Maggie hinted at it as well. But we don’t know for sure.”
He gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry to hear that, but it makes perfect sense. And it sure would explain why I hated him when we were growing up. I can even do better than remember for you. When Mum was done with her phone call, she went to her room. I could tell she was more agitated after that, and I was curious, so I hit redial. She’d called the Ballroom of Romance.”
“Merde,” Vivienne said, “so it is Max. Did he tear down all of my renovations? And my lovely dungeons?”
Chris laughed. “To tell you the truth, Vivienne, I didn’t ask. I hung up when he answered; somehow it just didn’t seem like a good time for a brotherly reunion. But if he’s doing business as the Ballroom of Romance again, I’d expect so.”
Vivienne pouted a bit then brightened up. “No problem, mon gars, I was getting bored with it all anyway. And now I suppose we will be needing tickets to New York. Lily, dear, did I see a computer in your room?”
“Yeah. Go work your Internet magic, Vivienne. But I think Claude and I will stay here. That way we’ll be able to talk to Victor when he comes home. And you can leave Maggie here as well and we’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Actually,” Sam said, “I’d like to take her with us and see if I can’t get her admitted to my old hospital. We can’t just keep her locked up indefinitely so we might as well do something positive for her as soon as possible.”
“Fine,” said Vivienne, “so that will be five seats on the next evening’s plane to New York.” She gave a small giggle. “Let’s see if my airline friend has noticed yet that I’ve lifted his ID and password.”
“Viv? You are paying for these tickets, right?”
“But of course, Mitch,” she stuck her tongue out at me and winked. “I may be a monster but I am not a thief. Having the airline employee information just makes it all much simpler. And there is nothing wrong with simple, nothing at all. Especially when everything else around one is so complicated.”
She left the room and I checked the clock, then looked over at Claude and Lily. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m starving. Haven’t fed since that night at Heathrow and I’ve a feeling I’ll need to be at my full strength to deal with Max tomorrow night.”
Claude got up from the table. “We’ve got a few hours until dawn and I know a few places that never close. I’ll come along.”
“Lily?” I glanced over at her. She was hunched over her cup of tea, staring into the liquid. “How about you?”
She jumped. “What?”
“Did you want to go out?”
Lily shook her head. “No, I’ll stay here if you don’t mind. Besides, don’t you need to check in at your hotel? We could squeeze everyone in here, if you all didn’t mind, but somehow”—she cocked her head back to her room where Vivienne was making airline arrangements—“I doubt it will suit every-one.”
“Damn. I forgot about that.”
“It should not be a problem, Mitch,” Vivienne said, entering the kitchen with printed copies of tickets and boarding passes. “There’s time for you and Claude to go out for a bite and still make it to the hotel on time. As for me, I had a lovely meal on the plane the other night.” Her eyes practically sparkled with amusement. “Sam and I will go ahead and make sure that the rooms are in order.”
“Chris?”
He laughed nervously. “I know you don’t want me to come along on your hunt, Dad. And to be honest, there are aspects about it that give me the creeps. Nothing personal. So, if Lily doesn’t mind, I’ll just stay here and keep watch over Mum tonight.”
“I’d be happy to have the company, Chris. No offense, but the thoughts of Maggie, locked into that tank gives me the creeps. And,” a faraway note crept into her voice, “Victor might come back. You never know.”
Claude and I took to the streets. “There’s a little club not too far from here,” he said. “I used to play piano there, back before I met Vivienne.”
I laughed. “That must’ve been a wild time.”
“Actually, it wasn’t at all what you’d think. She came in one night and picked me out of the band. I was flattered at the time. Let’s be honest, how often does a woman like her even notice a man my size? Let alone pull him aside to whisper sweet French nothings in his ear? I fell in love with her instantly.”
I nodded. “That would be easy to do. Viv is an incredible woman.”
“You underestimate her, Mitch. She’s also an incredible vampire. And trust me, you never want to make her angry. The night Cadre headquarters blew up, I encountered her in full rage. She may seem fluffy and soft, but she is anything but.”
“I know.”
“She led me out into the alley behind the club and told me what she wanted of me.” He pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed his forehead with it before stuffing it back into his pocket. “The odd thing was that I didn’t doubt her for a moment. If she’d said she was the queen of England I’d have believed her, despite all evidence to the contrary.” His laughter echoed down the streets. “I’ve never regretted it. Not once. Except maybe when the Others made all of us into walking targets. And then, my biggest problem was not having her around.”
I looked over at Claude. “Does she know how you feel?”
His laughter had a hollow sound now. “How could she not, Mitch? She’s my creator, my life. But she doesn’t let on and I certainly feel enough of a fool most of the time without exposing my heart fully. I serve her the only way I can, the only way she will allow me to.”
“It must be hell,” I said, thinking out loud, “to think of her being with another man.”
He gave
me a keen glance. “You, of all people, should know.”
“Yeah. I do.” The bitterness and anger I felt spilled out in the words. “Look, let’s get moving. I’m starving and we don’t have all night.”
We quickened our pace. “I know where the rough sections of town are,” Claude said, “if you’d prefer a quick feed. Otherwise we could hit the clubs.”
“No clubs, no lights, no music. The rough section suits me perfectly.”
He led me down a series of dark streets and stopped at one of the alleys. “Around there,” he said, “there’s always one or two ruffians hanging about. You take this one and I’ll be a couple of streets over.”
It didn’t take me long to find someone who was looking for trouble. And he found it. I’m ashamed to say that my hunt this night lacked even the slightest hint of the civilized man I once considered myself. Instead of establishing contact, I sprang on the first shadowy form I saw and fed on him savagely, tearing at his skin, being far rougher than I needed to be to subdue him and drinking far too much of his blood. My mind was carried away by the taste of his blood flowing into me, warming me, invigorating me, and for the first time ever, I lost control. His tortured gasping brought me back to my senses and I let go of him. He flopped to the ground like a wet rag.
“Damn,” I said, angry at myself, angry at him, angry at the entire world. Bending over him, I felt for a pulse and to my relief found one. I peeled back his eyelids and his eyes focused on me.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice sounded faint and shaky with a note of fear but it was strong enough. He’d live.
“Nothing,” I said, “you were like this when I got here.”
“Shit,” he said. “Son of a bitch sneaked up on me. I never saw him coming.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It happens. Want me to call an ambulance?”
“No way, man, but thanks for asking. I’ll be fine.”
He walked away from me slowly, clutching his hand to the wound on his neck. I turned away and went back to the street to wait for Claude.
After about five minutes, he came sauntering out of another alleyway, dabbing at his lips with his white handkerchief. “Want to go back?” he asked. “Or do you feel like hitting the clubs now?”
I shook my head. “I’ll go back, but you can stay out longer. I’ll see you back at the hotel.”
“No,” he said, stuffing the handkerchief back into his breast pocket. “I’ll walk with you. I wanted to ask you something, anyway.”
“What’s that?”
“Did you have any trouble learning how to change your shape?”
I laughed. “The only trouble I had was with Deirdre. She absolutely refused to learn the skill and couldn’t understand why I’d want to. Why do you ask?”
Claude looked down at the sidewalk. “I’ve never been able to do it. Change, I mean. So I was just wondering if it was something I needed to work at or if it was second nature to our kind.”
“Actually, it’s probably a combination of both. Didn’t Vivienne teach you? She’s the one who taught me.”
He gave a nervous laugh. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Well, it’s an acquired skill, it’ll come with time.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. Vivienne tried to teach me, but I never got past the first lesson. I couldn’t”—he looked around furtively—“take my clothes off in front of her.”
“No?”
“No way,” he said, gesturing to himself. “Can you blame me?”
“As I said”—I clapped him on the back—“Deirdre refused to change for years. But when she needed it, the change came to her. Give it time, Claude.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “Time I’ve got.”
Chapter 21
Claude and I checked into our rooms at the Hotel of Souls shortly before dawn. An utterly fascinating establishment, the hotel catered to vampires, placing us on the upper floors and providing the rooms with luxuries such as steel shutters, heavily draped windows and a curious coffin-sized box at the foot of the bed. I’d also heard that the staff would often act as donors for their select clients. As I’d fed well just an hour ago, I had no need to test out this rumor.
The bed was comfortable enough. Like Deirdre, I shunned the confines of a coffin, knowing that others of our kind would be extremely uncomfortable without it. We were all different, it seemed, and much had to do with our creators, our mentors in the life. I tossed and turned for a while, but eventually fell into a fitful sleep, interrupted frequently with dreams—nightmares in which the principal figures were Max and Deirdre. My subconscious dredged out every fear, even some I hadn’t known existed. From the scenario of Deirdre, lying bloody and lifeless with Max standing over her body gloating, to the totally absurd vision of Deirdre and Max, living as a happy couple in my absence. Maggie figured into the dreams as well. She was alternately trying to kill me or attempting to seduce me. That she could succeed in either was disturbing.
Finally, around three o’clock, I gave up on sleep, showered, dressed, packed my belongings in the duffel bag and flipped on the television. As always there was nothing much to watch, but I did manage to find an old war movie and drowsed in the chair. At five the telephone rang.
“Mitch? C’est moi. Sam has gone over to the house to get Maggie and Chris; they’ll leave from there and meet us at the airport. I’ve scheduled a cab for us to arrive at sundown, which should give us plenty of time to catch the flight. It’s a joy to deal with a hotel staff that understands our special needs. I would feel better if we weren’t transporting a crazy woman, but Sam is sure he can keep her manageable with medication.”
“He’s the doctor,” I said, “and crazy people have always been his specialty.”
Vivienne laughed, then sobered up instantly. “Maybe so, but I fear he is playing the hero to make up for his role in the poison manufacture. He denies it, of course, but I am not so sure. I’ve asked Claude to come with us, I feel the need for extra protection.”
“Good thinking, Viv. Claude always seems to get left behind anyway.”
“He is a good man.”
I thought of Claude’s revelation of love last night. He would be pleased to have the opportunity to protect Vivienne. I hoped the plan wouldn’t backfire; it’s not particularly easy for a man to see the woman he loves constantly in the arms of another man. Look what it had done to Max.
“Yeah. I’ll meet you in the lobby at dusk.”
We met with no surprises and no hassles at the airport—a pleasant surprise. I’d gotten damn tired of jumping into an airplane every other day though, and vowed to myself that once this was all over, Deirdre and I would take a long vacation. Somewhere secluded and secret. The thought that perhaps we wouldn’t be together after all crossed my mind. Max had always exerted power over her; I could only hope that for the sake of our love, she would hold on. If, that is, she remembered me at all. And that thought was unthinkable. I ordered a scotch on the rocks from the flight attendant and spent the rest of the trip staring out into the dark skies, feeling old and weary.
Still, when we landed in New York, I felt revived. This city was home for me, always would be. And Deirdre was here. I had felt it when we’d touched down here earlier in the week and I felt it now. We would find her. As to what sort of physical or mental state she’d be in, well, I couldn’t worry about that now. I remembered that we’d talked about this once in Whitby and I told her that we’d build new memories if worse came to worse. And we would.
Getting off the plane seemed to take forever as did getting through the terminal and hailing a cab. I’d already arranged to have Vivienne and the rest check into the hotel. There was no damn way I would spend another night alone and away from Deirdre if I could help it.
I paid the driver and got out of the cab in front of the Ballroom of Romance. I always hated this place, from the first time I set foot in the door. I’d been secretly pleased when Vivienne bought it from Deirdre and turned it into Dangerous Crossin
gs. Standing outside the place now, though, it was as if I’d jumped back in time. And I didn’t like it, not one damn bit.
I elbowed my way to the front of the crowd, glaring down any opposition. Half-expecting to see Larry Martin at the door, I approached the doorman. “I’m here to see Max Hunter.”
“Mr. Hunter is not available right now, sir.” He glanced up at me briefly, then turned his eyes downward to study the seating chart in front of him. “Perhaps if you’d stand in the back of the line and wait your turn, he’ll be free when you get admittance.”
“Not available? Like I don’t know what that means. He damn well is available for me.”
The man really looked at me this time and I could tell from his eyes that he recognized me. Shorter than I and younger in appearance with a shaved head and a goatee, he looked like a normal human being, especially dressed in his uniform/tuxedo with the small brass name tag that read “Derek.” But there was something disquieting about him, something odd about his eyes and the way the features of his face seemed to blur. He reminded me, ridiculous though the thought was, of Larry Martin.
He continued to size me up, his hands curled into tightly knotted fists, but his voice remained calm and even. “Whom shall I say is calling?” he said, keeping up the pretext of politeness.
“You know damn well who I am, Derek. Just tell him I’m here. He must be expecting me. He’d be a fool if he wasn’t. And Max is many things, but not a fool.”
Blood Red Dawn Page 15
