Simon helped the older man to his feet, but he swayed precariously and leaned against the wall.
“Ah, a real snootful tonight. Do me a favor, Professor?” Charlie said. “Take old Frank home for me? I let Lester go early. Wife’s ailin’ and I can’t leave the club.”
Simon frowned. He did feel an odd responsibility for the old man’s well-being. It was a strange sensation—concern for a stranger’s welfare. Before, he wouldn’t have given the man a second thought, but now, it was simply the right thing to do. However, he didn’t want to leave Elizabeth alone with King, and his eyes quickly sought her out.
Charlie nodded his understanding. “I’ll keep an eye on things. It’s not too far down on Delancy. Four twenty, right Frank?”
The man grunted and licked his lips. “I can make it.”
“S’alright. Professor here’s gonna give ya a hand.”
Simon looked anxiously at Elizabeth, who set down her tray of dirty dishes and walked over to them. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“No, I just have to,” he glanced at Frank who was softly humming to himself, “make sure he gets home. I won’t be long.”
Elizabeth squeezed his forearm. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Simon looked over her shoulder at King, who lounged idly in his chair. “I’ll be back soon.”
Charlie helped Simon guide Frank to the door, and Elizabeth resumed her chores. Once the dishes were stacked and the tables wiped down, she was ready to change. She had to pass by King, whose table was near the door to the stockroom. His eyes continued to follow her, but his expression was dispassionate, even a little bored.
She shut the door behind her and draped Dix’s robe over her shoulders. She usually felt completely safe changing in the back, but with King in the bar, being totally naked felt, well, totally naked.
She turned her back to the door and began to undress. She’d barely managed to slip off her costume when she heard the creaking of a door opening. She wrapped the robe tightly around her body and spun around, ready to tell King a thing or two about privacy. But it wasn’t King, and the door to the club remained shut. Then she heard the cough and wheeze and looked to other side of the room. A rail thin man stood in the doorway to the alley. His face was sallow, covered with a sheen of sweat. In his trembling hand was a black revolver, the thick muzzle pointed right at her.
“D-don’t scream,” the man sputtered. His fingers clenched spasmodically around the handle.
Elizabeth went cold with fear and held up her palms and, insanely, tried to keep the robe from falling open. Modesty even in the face of death. “Okay.”
The man’s cheek twitched and his blood-rimmed eyes blinked at uneven intervals. “The money. Heard there was money here.”
It was like a scene out of a movie. A bad movie. She tried to make her voice as calm as possible. “Take it easy, okay?”
“The... The money!” he blurted out loudly with another severe twitch.
Elizabeth’s mind raced. What the hell was she supposed to do? “All right. Just put down the gun.”
He shook his head so hard she thought it might swivel off his shoulders. “They said there was money here.”
His hand trembled so badly, he had to grip the gun with both hands now to steady it.
Elizabeth was about to say something when the door to the club slammed open. King filled the doorway.
The next few moments passed in slow motion. The man with the gun panicked. He looked at King and then back to Elizabeth. His shoulders hunched as he braced himself. With a wild look of panic in his eyes, he pulled the trigger.
Chapter Nineteen
The world moved in liquid time.
A bright, sparking flash of fire spewed from the muzzle of the gun like a roman candle caught on slow motion film. Elizabeth could have sworn she saw the dark streak of the bullet flying toward her. It was a mutated version of reality, both sluggish and swift, blurring her senses. Before the scream could escape her lips, she felt herself being shoved out of the way.
She had a vague sense of something rough and bleached rushing toward her. Too late she realized it was one of the wooden crates as she crashed shoulder first into the hard planked box and fell to the floor.
The thundering crack of the gun’s report filled the small room. A dull thump was quickly followed by a deep grunt from King, and she heard him stagger backwards, his shoes scraping against the floor. Partially obscured by the boxes, King’s broad back hunched slightly as he faced the robber.
“Sweet Jesus,” the man whispered.
She could only see a hint of King’s profile, the smooth contours of his face distorted by excruciating pain. She heard the gun slip from the robber’s fingers and clatter to the floor. Peering around the edge of the whiskey crate, she saw the intruder’s face. He was ghostly white now, his eyes bulged out of their sockets, bright with a primal fear, and locked onto King. A low guttural sound, deeper and more feral than any animal, rumbled from King. The robber gasped and ran out the back door. King stood motionless for a moment, then he rolled his shoulders and bowed his head.
Elizabeth pushed herself up on shaky legs. “Are you okay?”
King flinched at the sound of her voice, as though he’d forgotten she was there. He took a lurching step away from her and leaned heavily on the small desk.
She rose to her feet and hurried to his side. “Were you hit?”
He kept his face turned away from hers and merely shook his head. She started to reach out to him when the door to the club banged open.
“Nobody move!”
Elizabeth spun to see Charlie, shotgun at the ready. “What happened?”
“I think King was shot,” she said, trying to keep her heart from hammering its way out of her chest.
Charlie took a step forward, but stopped short when King spoke, “I’m fine.”
He kept his face turned away and judging from the way he was hunched over, he was anything but all right. “King—”
“Leave it,” he barked.
She turned back to Charlie, but he merely shook his head. He scanned the room quickly until his eyes fell back on King and narrowed with suspicion and tempered fear. Charlie’s ruddy face finally slackened as he lowered the huge, double-barreled shotgun. “You all right, Lizzy?”
She let out a quick breath and nodded. “There was a man. A burglar. He ran out there,” she said and pointed toward the alley door.
Charlie looked gravely at King and then back to Elizabeth. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
Charlie puffed out his cheeks and ran a hand over his sweaty brow. “Good.”
She managed a weak smile. “We’re okay. King scared him off, I think.”
Charlie seemed about to say something, but must have thought better of it. “Long as you’re okay.” He put the shotgun in the crook of his arm and headed back into the bar. “S’okay, Dix. You can get out from under the table now.”
Elizabeth waited till she was sure Charlie was gone before turning back to King. She could have sworn he’d been shot. There was no way he could have gotten out of the path of the bullet in time.
Steeling herself against the bloody wound she imagined she’d find, she tentatively touched his shoulder. He flinched again, but didn’t pull away. “King?”
Slowly, he straightened and tugged at the edge of his waistcoat as he turned around. His face was implacable, but the strange fire in his eyes burned even brighter.
“Disgusting,” he muttered. “Drug addicts. Barely worth their own skin.”
He ran his gloved hand over his vest again and Elizabeth saw a small, scorched hole about the size of a dime next to the bottom button. It didn’t make any sense. If he had been shot, where was the blood? And he certainly wasn’t acting as if he had a bullet in his stomach.
He must have known what she was looking for and quickly buttoned his coat, smoothing out the material. “Are you all right?” he asked placidly.
She wasn’t
about to be put off and leaned in closer to try to see the hole. “You’re hurt.”
He smiled, but it came off as more of a grimace. “You needn’t worry about me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with worrying about another person’s welfare.”
“That depends entirely on the other person,” he said, his trademark smirk back in place. “That filth from this evening deserves nothing more than contempt.”
He appraised her for a moment, then strode to the alleyway door. “I’m sure my men will find him. Eventually.”
He turned back to her, any trace of the incident was washed away from his expression, and he walked toward the bar.
Elizabeth reached out and touched his arm again. “Thank you.”
He looked down at her hand and she thought he was going to tell her to let go. When he raised his eyes, his cold exterior was flushed with humanity, as if no one had ever genuinely thanked him for anything. It was only the barest of glimpses, but she saw another side to King in that moment. A mere second’s exposure of his soul. A flicker of need that belied the stonework façade.
As quickly as it had appeared, the glimmer of something more receded into the darkness of his eyes. “Good night, Mrs. Cross.”
* * *
Simon closed the door to their apartment and turned impatiently to Elizabeth. She’d told him about the attempted robbery, but she was clearly holding something back. What could be worse than almost being shot? His stomach lurched. He didn’t dare follow that thought to its natural conclusion. “All right, we’re home. Are you going to tell me what really happened or not?”
She sighed, as she turned on the light. “First things first. I’m okay.”
His natural frown deepened. Any discussion that began with an assurance that she was all right was not going to be one he enjoyed. “Go on.”
“Well, you could be a little happier about that part.”
He was already impatient and her delaying tactics were only pushing him closer to the edge. “Elizabeth...”
“Maybe I’m imagining things.”
“Would you please—”
“I know, it’s just...I’m not even sure I saw what I saw. Does that make any sense?”
“At the moment you’re not making any sense at all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Almost getting killed sort of threw me.”
He forced himself to try and relax. Bludgeoning her wasn’t going to help, but how could she expect him to be calm? She’d been white as a sheet when he’d come back from taking Frank home. In typical form, she’d downplayed the incident, as if aggravated assault was nothing more than an annoyance. As absurd as it was, he could live with that. She’d been spared. Thank God, she had. It was the secret she’d kept, insisted on keeping till they were home. He sighed in frustration.
“I know,” she said with sad resignation. “I’m just a little frazzled.”
She wrapped her arms around her chest. He crossed the room and took her into his arms, kissing the crown of her head. Eventually, she pulled out of his embrace and sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Charlie and Dix. But... when the man fired the gun, I swear King was hit.”
“Wouldn’t it be rather obvious if he had?” he said, taking a seat next to her.
“You’d think so. He says he wasn’t,” she said, her eyes filling with insistent fire. “I’m sure he was.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do either. He pushed me out of the way, and then there was this sound. This whoomp, and no ricochet. If it had missed I would have heard it hit the crates or the wall. Something.”
Simon gave in to the need to touch her again and took her hand, but even that couldn’t assuage the growing sense of dread in his chest. Did they have bullet proof vests now? Most likely not. “It all happened so quickly, you could have missed it.”
“Maybe. But he had this little hole in his waist coat. And the way he acted. He was in pain, I know he was. It didn’t last long, maybe a minute, then he was normal again. Well, normal for King.”
She squeezed Simon’s hand and the fear she’d kept at bay glistened in her eyes. “Sometimes when he’s looking at me, there’s something in his eyes.”
Simon tried to quell the surge of possessive jealousy that shot through his veins. Apparently, he did a poor job of it because Elizabeth shook her head. “Not like that,” she continued. “Well, sometimes like that, but there’s something not right, something shadowed.”
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, but he wasn’t going to give in. Elizabeth needed assurances, not more to worry about. “He is a gangster.”
“I know this sounds incredibly lame, but I’ve known gangsters before. Sure, they were just two-cent hoods, but they didn’t see themselves that way. With King, it’s different. There’s something about him. It’s not...natural.” She paused in thought then shook her head. “Or maybe I have vampires on the brain.”
Simon let go of her hand, and his fingers curled into fists. The niggling suspicion he’d been harboring was finally given voice. “You don’t think King is...”
“No,” she said too quickly. “Not really. I don’t know. I guess I’m a little shaken, not stirred. Addled my brain. I’m not even sure what I saw. Maybe I didn’t see anything.”
“You’ve never been addled in your life,” he said, pushing himself up off the bed. “Did you see any signs of transformation? Changes in his face?”
“I couldn’t really see his face. He was turned away from me. I just don’t know.”
Simon did his best to slam the door on the voice that screamed “Harbinger!”, but the door wouldn’t close. Losing her was more than untenable, it was absolutely unthinkable. If this man were the creature they’d been searching for...
A thousand thoughts swirled in Simon’s mind. If King was a vampire, how could he destroy him? Lead bullets wouldn’t harm a vampire. Silver, perhaps, but only a few species. Nosferatu were never sighted out of Romania and not capable of taking on human guise. Uboir had been seen outside of Bulgaria, but weren’t susceptible to silver poisoning. If only he could call his colleagues at Oxford.
“Simon?”
Her voice pulled him from his thoughts. She looked so small, it nearly broke his heart. In that moment, his needs seemed so unimportant next to hers. She needed comfort, not a lecture on the occult. He held his hand out to her and she stood and stepped into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.”
Ockham’s razor dictated that the simplest explanation was the best. Then again, he’d never been a believer in accepting the obvious. Except, of course, when it was standing in his arms.
He took a deep breath and wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist, pulling her securely into his embrace. He was not going to obsess about what was possible when a surety was standing right in front of him. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt.”
“That’s something, coming from a man who doesn’t believe in miracles.”
He slipped a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “I didn’t, and yet, here you are.”
She blushed delightfully, and Simon brushed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. “Next thing you know, I’ll be composing sonnets. And, as we both know, in that way madness lies.”
She laughed and the sound lifted the edges of the shroud that had fallen over the room. He leaned in and kissed her, gently at first, but with a growing fervor.
However, the shadow had been cast, and even in her kiss, he couldn’t quash the feeling that the thing he’d been searching for had found him.
* * *
An hour later, Elizabeth rolled onto her side, and her arm fell across the empty bed. She could still smell his scent, but where his strong, warm chest should have been was only the cool smoothness of sheets long-abandoned. The unexpected change forced her awake. Still groggy, she looked around the room and found him sitting in his chair by the window. Even in
the dim light of predawn, she could see him watching her.
“Simon?”
He didn’t respond, but she saw his shoulders rise and fall with the intake of a deep breath.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“Simon.” She started to get out of bed, but he leaned back in his chair, lifting his elbows from his knees and curling his long fingers tightly around his thighs. She could feel him retreating, almost see the emotional shield he wielded in defense. With a deep breath of her own, she settled herself against the headboard. “Nightmares again?”
“Go back to sleep,” he said, but the strain in his voice betrayed him.
“Did you try—”
“Visualizing your wildflowers wasn’t quite up to the task,” he said with a touch of sarcasm, reminding her of her advice to him from what seemed a lifetime ago. “Go back to sleep, Elizabeth.”
There was something so despairing, so anguished in the way he said her name. She came instantly awake. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.” Quick, terse, definitive.
“Maybe talking about it’ll help.”
“I doubt that.”
She couldn’t let it rest. “You’ve been having them since we first got here, haven’t you?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Please...” She could feel the tension in his body even from across the room. “Some things are better left to the darkness,” he whispered.
The silence pressed down between them until she couldn’t stand the weight of it. “Are they about this? Being here? Me?”
His head snapped up and she knew she’d hit a nerve. The fierceness of his expression surprised her, frightened her. Before she could learn more, he tore his eyes away and clenched his long fingers tightly against the muscles of his leg, digging in against her, against the truth. His chest heaved with frustration as he pushed himself out of the chair and stared out the window. “Don’t ask me about them.”
The harshness of his voice triggered something inside her, and she felt the unstoppable need to make him talk about them. His tension was catching and her growing unease blossomed into anger. “If you think pretending nothing’s wrong is best,” she said coolly.
Out of Time: A Time Travel Mystery Page 19
