by Debra Dunbar
Which was my third option. There wasn’t anyone at Haul Du who would speak to me anymore, even Raven, who had been my closest friend. I hadn’t had time to find other connections in Baltimore who might be legitimate practitioners. And I was understandably reluctant to seek them out anyway. I really didn’t want to get close to a group of people, to feel a sense of belonging only to be thrown out once again. Still, I hadn’t spent my eight months with Haul Du learning to make coins disappear or pulling rabbits from my hat. Mages weren’t reluctant to go to the source when they wanted to know something. My Dad was an amazing Librarian, but there were beings that made him seem like a rank amateur.
Demons.
Yeah, I know. With proper precautions, dealing with demons—or angels, although that was a whole other situation entirely—didn’t have to be a life-threatening activity. It’s not like Templars weren’t accustom to dealing with celestial or infernal beings. We had a long history of communing with the messengers of God, and there were numerous times we’d defended the Temple against the minions of Satan, or beaten back the forces of darkness to clear a path for those righteous souls on pilgrimage. This was sort of the same, only different. Mages called forth these beings, containing them safely while they made their request.
Okay, actually they were demands. I’ll admit that made me a little uneasy. These weren’t nice postmen and waitresses we were trapping, they were beings of evil, although some of them were less evil than others. The Goetic demons who got summoned were relatively harmless. The mage asked for information and the demon was bound to provide it. Bound. As in they could not return to hell or escape the confines of the circle until they coughed up whatever the mage wanted.
Normally I never would have considered doing such a thing, but I’d seen the ceremony performed several times. I had the ritual, and the demon’s sigil that I’d seen safely summoned before. Outside of some initial bluster, the demon had seemed rather eager to provide the information, and easy to both contain and banish back to hell. Not a big deal. I’d spent my life doing lesser magics, the sort of things a Templar should know how to do. Eight months as a ceremonial magician might not sound like much, but I’d been studying their methods for nearly a decade and had quite the advantage over most of the initiates. Which was probably why someone had gotten to digging around and discovered my heritage.
I could do this. As stupid as it sounded, this was an easier and quicker option than crawling back home to ask a favor from the family who thought I’d turned my back on twenty generations of Knights. I could do this.
Yeah. And that’s why my palms were so sweaty. I wiped them on my pants and picked up a copy of the leather-bound notebook I’d used as a personal grimoire while with Haul Du, and the three reliable books I owned on sigils and summoning. This was going to be a long night. I’d better make some more coffee.
Two cups later I was sprawled across my couch, notebook on the pillow beside me, nose-deep in one of my reference books, when I heard the knock at the door. It opened, even though I knew I’d locked it, and standing in the doorway was Dario. He wasn’t wearing his bondage club attire tonight. Instead he looked like a sexy prime-time lawyer in a charcoal-gray suit with the jacket tossed over his shoulder. I stared at him over the back of my couch, stunned into silence both by his incredibly hot appearance and his nifty door opening trick. Was that a vampire thing?
“Can I come in?”
Now that was a vampire thing. Thresholds held power— some more than others. Vampires weren’t the only beings who needed permission to cross one, but they suffered the most in trying to force an entry.
I opened my mouth to invite him in, then snapped it shut once I remembered him ditching me in a bad section of Baltimore to walk home. He couldn’t come in if I didn’t invite him. All I had to do was get up and slam the door in his face. Although he could keep opening it and pestering me from outside the threshold. In all honesty, I did want to invite him in so I could chew him out for last night without all my neighbors hearing.
But not without a bit of groveling on his part first. I flung out a hand. “Pechar.” The door swung shut, the bolt latching. I loved that trick.
Then heard the bolt slid free and the handle turn. The door squawked as it opened. “I asked to come in.”
“Pechar.”
The cycle repeated itself. This was getting old. Time to drop the passive-aggressive magic and yell at him to his face.
“Please come in.” I made the welcome as frosty as I could, but the vampire didn’t seem to care. He strolled in as if he owned the place and I jumped off the couch, stomping around it to confront him. He blinked in astonishment as he saw me, his eyes dropping then traveling up my body. I’ll admit, I didn’t look my best. My hair was a massive snarl of dark-brown that I’d tied on top of my head. I’m sure it looked like some sort of personal atomic bomb blast. My clothes were wrinkled, sweat and coffee stained from work. I had on no makeup, and I probably had bags under my eyes from lack of sleep as well as indentations on my face from the couch cushions.
Dario, on the other hand, was standing there like some dapper GQ model. Screw him. I might look like a homeless waif, but he’d left me by the side of the road over an hour’s walk from my house. I could have been robbed. I could have been raped or beaten up. I could have been poltergeisted by those cemetery spirits. He was in a whole lot of shit right now, and that sweet suit wasn’t going to help him one bit.
“You’re not going in that, are you?” he asked.
Huh? “Going where?”
“Sesarios. It’s nine o’clock.”
My brain did a one-eighty and I stared at him with my mouth open. I’m sure it added to my stunning good looks at the moment. “You don’t seriously think I’m going out to dinner with you after that stunt you pulled last night? And how the hell did you know where I live?”
He smiled. It was one of those slow, panty-melting smiles, like the ones I’d seen him give his victims in pubs and clubs. I’m ashamed to admit it kinda worked on me, too. Everything south of my waistband tingled and my brain stuttered.
Hey, it had been a long time since a guy had given me that kind of look. And I did need to eat. Someone else paying for dinner was a huge incentive. I might have a bunch of money in a tampon box, but after I paid the rent, there wouldn’t be much left for fancy Italian dinners.
“You must be starving.” His voice was deep and smooth. It was the kind of voice that opens bedroom doors. “It looks like you’ve been working all day. I’ll bet you’ve barely had anything to eat.”
I hadn’t. And I was going to give in and let him buy me an expensive dinner, complete with wine, appetizers, and dessert. But I wasn’t going to give in easily even when he looked and sounded like sex on a stick right now.
“You dumped me miles from both my apartment and my car with drug deals going on less than twenty feet away, and a hooker getting beaten up in an alley a few blocks down. You’ve got some nerve showing up here tonight and thinking I’m going to go anywhere with you, let alone dinner.”
“There was an urgent situation requiring my immediate presence.” He gave me a charming smile. “Surely you understand the nature of duty and responsibility?”
I wasn’t an idiot. I got the dig that I was a Templar who was past the time when I should have taken my vow. And that smile? Dario was the king of the expressionless face. If he was smiling, it was because he wanted something. I doubted it was just that red stuff flowing through my veins.
My stomach growled. I did want to pump him for more on why the vampires needed information on this symbol—a symbol connected with calling dead spirits—so much that they were willing to pay a prodigal Templar, a non-Knight, five grand to research it. And I was really, really hungry.
“Lobster, and expensive wine, and cannoli,” I told him. “Actually, I want an extra box of cannoli to go.” I really liked those things. Normally I’d practice some temperance to keep my lithe figure, but a month of Ramen noodles had left me w
ith a pastry craving that would make a heroin junkie cringe.
The smile vanished with my capitulation, replaced with a critical eye. He glanced over my scruffy appearance once again. “How long will it take you to get ready?”
Are you kidding? There was a cannoli calling my name. “Give me ten.”
I left him and dashed into my bedroom, stripping as I hit the doorway. A quick sponge down, a versatile black dress with heels, a quick brush of mascara, and I was almost ready—except for my hair. I hadn’t combed it this morning, and it truly did look like a nuclear power plant meltdown. I ripped the elastic out, staring with dismay at the dark tangles that adored my head and cascaded down past my shoulders. Shit. Without an hour of product and flat irons there wasn’t much I could do but scrape it back into a bun and hope for the best.
I managed to wrestle the knotted mess back to the nape of my neck, pulling a couple strands out to drape along my face. There. Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed a tube of lipstick and slapped it on, noticing with amusement that it was blood red.
“Ready.”
There was no double-take, no hot sultry glances. Dario looked at his watch then nodded approvingly. “Nine minutes. I’m impressed.”
Great. I should have just gone in my grungy work clothes. Hopefully there’d be someone at Sesarios who appreciated my effort. Maybe I’d flirt with the waiter. In the meantime, all I had was this vampire who looked like electroshock therapy wouldn’t get a rise out of him. Again I thought of last night with a bit of resentment, which reminded me that I needed to take precautions.
“Hang on a second. I need to grab something.” I dashed back into my bed room, not to get a condom but to grab a fifty out of my money stash. If Dario was going to ditch me in Little Italy after I’d had half a bottle of expensive Chianti, then I was taking a cab.
“You keep your money in a tampon box?”
I whirled around at his astonished question, shocked that he’d followed me into the bathroom and that I hadn’t heard one footstep. And yes, I was still holding the box in one hand and the fifty in the other.
He tilted his head. “A tampon box that is far more repulsive and off-putting than a container for feminine hygiene products should be.”
I knew my face was red. I hastily closed the lid of said box and stuffed it back under the bathroom sink, pocketing the cash. “It’s a spell to deter theft. I don’t always have time to run to the bank, and my rent is due.”
Dario nodded and raised an eyebrow. “Nice job. I know the money is there and I wouldn’t think of touching that container. Of course, I’m not particularly motivated by money.”
I bit my tongue before I could ask him what he was motivated by. Not my business, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know the answer anyway.
Sesarios was in a narrow brick building on the corner of two equally narrow streets. After slowly bouncing our way over the potholes, Dario parked his SUV at the rear of the building where the dim lights barely penetrated the shadows. I clutched my purse, resisting the urge to get out my keychain. It seemed like the perfect place for a vampire to get his blood fix for the evening, out of sight and hearing of pretty much everyone in the city.
Around front, the lighting was much stronger, as well the smell of garlic and pasta. Inside, Sesarios seemed a typical dressy Italian restaurant. Well, except for the vampires. They were everywhere, dining with others of their kind and/or human companions. I looked around, my eyes big as I tried to calculate just how many of them there must be in the city if over twenty were in this tiny place.
The hostess, a red-blooded human, took us down a set of stairs to a cozy section with even more vampire diners. Thankfully fresh baked bread and the instantly-appearing bottle of wine took my mind off being surrounded by so many undead.
I took a sip of the wine. It was good, really good. Just like the wines I’d grown up drinking. We’d pretty much remained silent since we left my apartment and I realized that unless I came up with some small talk, I was going to wind up really drunk. What topic should I introduce at dinner with a vampire? It seemed rather rude to jump right in and ask him about the Robertson family and the necromantic nature of the symbol I was researching for them. Maybe discuss the weather, or sports? I didn’t know much about baseball. Did he LARP?
“So how does a Templar reach the age of twenty-six and not take her oath?”
Wow. I’d just learned that vampires had no manners whatsoever, and small talk was clearly not one of their skills.
“I didn’t make the cut.” I wasn’t about to answer his question with the truth. It was better to have him think I was inept.
He gave me a sideways look. “You all make the cut. If you were a half-wit with no limbs, they’d still make you a first level Knight. There’d you stay, with the minimal pension, for the rest of your life.” He took a sip of wine, and I swear I saw a faint smile. “You have fully function arms and legs, and although I have my doubts about your wisdom, I’m sure you’re quite intelligent.”
I ignored the dig about my lack of wisdom. Given that I was having dinner with a vampire, he was probably right on that score.
“Thank you.” I had to change the topic of conversation and quick. “So… how about those Orioles? Think they’ll make it to the World Series this year, or what?”
“They’re already out of the playoffs. So why are you not a Knight? Why are you living in a cheap apartment in Fells Point and not off playing polo or guarding the Temple?”
That stung. I suddenly saw us through his eyes, wealthy and entitled people who held themselves apart from the masses and kept to themselves. If I was honest though, that was what I saw when I looked at my Order. We’d fallen so far from the Knights we’d been hundreds of years ago. But none of that meant I was going to side with a vampire against my own family. “I’m on an extended course of study. Super-duper top secret. I’d tell you about it, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“So secret that you go around flirting with vampires in pubs, that you walk around with your Templar tattoo openly displayed? Come on, Aria, any extended course of study could be taken after your Oath. Why are you not a Knight?”
Flirting? I hadn’t been flirting! “I think that you misread my intentions. I’m not interested in you that way. You aren’t going to ever drink my blood, or do anything else with me, so get over the idea that I’ve been flirting with you.”
I knew my face was as red as the marinara on the guy’s plate at the table next to us. Oh sheesh, Dario was hot and I was tempted… but he was a vampire.
And I was a Templar.
“This hot and cold routine of yours sorely tests my willpower, Aria. I’ve never met a Templar before, and I’ll admit I’m intrigued. Forbidden fruit is always tempting. But you know that, don’t you?”
His voice had that soft note in its depths again. My eyes went to his lips and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. He was accusing me of teasing. Was I? Had I been? No. The Bloody Marys and notes might have been construed as flirtatious, but I hadn’t meant that. I’d never done anything to let him think I was remotely interested in having him in my bed—or his fangs in my neck.
Liar. My pulsed raced and Dario’s gaze went to my throat. He was good-looking, sexy, and he was right—something in me loved to play with the forbidden. Play. Not have. I had been teasing.
“Sorry. I didn’t meant to lead you on like that.” My voice sounded as though I’d not had a drink of water in days. His eyes darkened.
“If you were human, I would have taken you months ago and locked you in my house to be my blood slave. Every night I’d arise to claim you as mine. I’d leave you in the morning so weak you could hardly stand.”
Why did that sound so hot? Oh. My. God.
“But I am human.” Why did I say that? It was as if I wanted him to carry me off. I knew what happened to blood slaves. It wasn’t pretty, and it was a life usually measured in weeks. Or months if your master had a decent measure of restraint.
“Yes, but unlike most humans you are a Templar. We vampires might outnumber you thousands to one, but Templars have access to a storehouse of weapons. I don’t ever wish to be on the business end of any of those weapons.”
The Temple. We were forbidden from using any of the artifacts. We were only to catalog them, to keep them safe. But…yes, we did have access to magical items that could level the world and destroy pretty much any being alive or dead. Still, if the threat of weapons in the Temple was the only thing that held him back, those tethers were gossamer thin. No Templar would break their vow and remove anything from the Temple.
Dario gave me a wry smile and reached out a finger to trace the column of my neck. “I remember enough of my lost humanity to know how a parent feels when their daughter is threatened. Truce or not, your father would unleash the hounds of hell if he thought I harmed one hair on your head.”
Not true. It was my mother he needed to fear. Dad would tell her which hounds to use, and she’d come to my rescue like a Valkyrie on the warpath. Lately our relationship had been rocky at best. She never missed an opportunity to remind me of what a disappointment I’d been, but if the shit hit the fan, she’d not hesitate to give her life in my defense. Or in vengeance.
“Even so.” Dario stoked the pulse that beat in my neck, his voice husky. “Even so, I might find death by some ancient weapon worth the risk. Immortality is but a punishment if one does not take the very things which make one feel alive. So be careful, Aria. I have lost control in the past, and that was nothing compared to the very primal urges I feel right now.”
