Dead Rising

by Debra Dunbar

  I insisted we take my car. There was no way I was going to be trapped in Middleburg, Virginia with my parents and not have a getaway car at my disposal. Dario eased the passenger seat back to accommodate his long legs and folded his arms across his chest. He looked bored. Too bad.

  Interstate ninety-five was busy day and night. Friday night was no exception. Cars whipped across four lanes of traffic, veering onto exits at full speed. Trucks clogged up the right lanes. Signs announced lane closures for road work, even though no one was within the sectioned off areas. We’d left Baltimore behind, and Washington D.C. was lighting up the horizon before I spoke. I wasn’t about to drive two hours in silence. Might as well break the ice.

  “I didn’t tell my family I was coming.”

  He continued staring straight ahead. “So this will be a happy surprise?”

  “Oh the fatted lamb will definitely be killed. There’s a good chance I’ll be the fatted lamb on the skewer, though. Just warning you.”

  “Warning taken. I’ll try to stay out of the way if dishes start flying, or whatever you Templars do when you have a family argument.” The vampire didn’t look too thrilled to be thrown into such family dynamics, but he was the one who’d insisted on coming.

  “Plus, my parents are going to have a problem with ‘us’,” I added, moving my index finger back and forth between us.

  “Because I’m black?”

  I couldn’t help a quick smile, having gotten used to Dario’s deadpan delivery of humor. “That may raise a few eyebrows, but the fact that you’re a vampire is going to really upset the familial apple cart.”

  Given the truce between us, Templars were in theory okay with vampires. That didn’t mean anyone wanted their children to date one. We’d spent centuries killing them left and right. Vampires weren’t considered moral beings. They were technically dead and had sold their souls for the curse of immortality. And then there was that whole “purity of the gene pool” thing. The sanctity of the Templar blood must not be sullied. My great-grandfather may have gotten away with bringing home a Hungarian gypsy witch as a bride, but that was a rarity. He’d been a twenty-ninth level Knight. When you’re that good, you can get away with just about anything. I wasn’t that good, and Great-grandma Essie might be a blotch on our lineage, but at least she wasn’t a vampire.

  “Do they have appropriate accommodations?” Dario asked, finally becoming serious. Not that I could tell the difference from his facial expressions. I thought about telling him “no” just to mess with him, but that seemed kind of mean. Vampires could make do, but no one like sleeping in a dark corner down in the basement.

  “Sort of.” The thought of my proper mother with her pearls and sweater set, throwing together a light-safe vampire resting area with no notice made me rather gleeful. We had bedrooms that could easily be made vampire-friendly, but it’s not like we were prepared for one as a guest. In fact, I don’t ever remember a vampire visiting a Templar household. Huh. There’s a first time for everything.

  “I’ll assume I’m going to be fasting while I’m there?”

  There would be plenty of food, but that wasn’t what Dario meant. Vampires could go several days between meals, so I wasn’t particularly worried. Dario hardly looked like some freshly turned newbie who might snap at any moment.

  “Sorry, yes. We don’t exactly have blood slaves on standby.”

  I just couldn’t help but dig at this guy every chance I could get. I expected him to snarl at me again about watching my tone, but instead he just raised an eyebrow.

  “If I get too hungry, I’ll just have to feed on you.”

  Yeah, I probably deserved that after my quip about blood slaves, but still the reminder that I sat in very close proximity to a predator that could kill me in a blink was unnerving. It’s not like I could get to my keychain in time, swinging from the ignition like it was. Time to move creating a vampire protection amulet to the top of my list.

  In spite of my quick shiver, I knew I was safe—for now. There was that whole Templars-are-off-limits thing. And he needed me to get this information for Leonora. It’s not like he could waltz into my family home covered in my blood and ask my father to help him out. Plus there was some instinctive part of me that felt I had nothing to fear from Dario. He was controlled and elegant, in spite of the weird leather getup the other night. I got the feeling he wouldn’t kill me, even if the impossible happened and he fed on me.

  “You might not want to bite me,” I teased. “How do you know I don’t have hepatitis or some kind of Templar blood-borne disease? Don’t you guys screen your food first? Is there some kind of vampire USDA?”

  “I can smell you.” His voice got sexy, but all I could think of was whether my deodorant was working or not. “And some diseases lend a lovely flavor to blood. You should try it.”

  Ick. We loved our veal, and that was seriously anemic calves, so I guess I couldn’t judge. “No way. I’ll stick to steak and potatoes, thank you very much.”

  His lips twitched. “Your loss.”

  The last half of our drive went quickly. Dario was a pretty interesting guy, weird dining habits aside. He liked modern music, had a thing for craft beers, and confessed that he’d always wanted a cat. I didn’t ask whether he meant to eat or as a pet.

  What he didn’t have were a lot of hobbies outside of hunting for a meal. Vampires liked to lay low, and it was difficult to completely satisfy their hunger without killing their human prey. Every now and then they could get away with murder, but with the number of vampires in a Balaj, it had to be a rare occurrence. A rapidly vanishing population would be noticed, as would a stockpile of dead, bloodless bodies.

  Which reminded me of the autopsy report on the Robertsons. I’d thought about the possibility of vampires as the killers, but there were too many other suspects to start pointing fingers. Still, it seemed a good moment as any to dig for information.

  “Let’s say you kill your victim, either accidently or on purpose. Would you try to cover it up somehow? I can’t imagine it would do you all any good to have a vampire scare in Baltimore.”

  “Are you trying to pin some murders on me?” he teased, cutting a bit close to the truth. “It would be stupid to kill on purpose in your own territory and potentially bring notice to yourself, as well as put your Mistress and Balaj in danger. If there’s an accident, it’s best that the body never be discovered. That rarely happens, though. Leonora doesn’t punish those who have such accidents with a slap on the wrist.”

  I winced, my vivid imagination supplying me with plenty of ideas of Leonora’s punishments. “But what about on purpose? Let’s say you have a score to settle with someone, or you need to set an example.”

  He eyed me steadily. “Leonora would need to sanction that sort of thing. And there would be no need to ‘cover it up’ since we would want the message to get across loud and clear.”

  Made sense. Without coming right out and asking, I couldn’t see a scenario where the Master, or Mistress, of a Balaj would want to kill an entire family and make it look like their throats were slit. I was leaning toward death magic.

  “Not thinking of becoming a Paladin, are you?” There was a note of ruthlessness under the wry tone. I had no doubt what he’d do to me if he thought I was going to turn into some kind of Batman in plate armor.

  “Do I seem like the Paladin type to you?”

  He snorted. It was the closest thing to a laugh that I’d ever heard him make. “So how is this thing going to go at your parent’s house? Do I have any hope of being back in Baltimore by sunrise?”

  It was my turn to snort. “Sunrise Monday, maybe.” I turned off the main road and started down the long drive that lead to our house. “It’s late in human-time, so we’ll have a lovely, tension-filled meet-and-greet, then be packed off to bed. While you sleep through the day, I’ll be subjected to the torture of family activities while my mother snipes at my life choices. Then after dinner, which will be insanely late because Mom will demand
we have it when you’re up and about, I’ll finally get into the vault. It will hopefully only take me one night to find what I need. Normally I’d bug out Sunday after brunch claiming to have the plague or cramps or something, but since you’re not able to travel in daylight without a movable crypt, I’ll need to stay one more agonizing day before heading back.”

  We sat in silence, the tall oaks on either side of the drive like an endless row of giant fence posts in the dark.

  “Sorry.”

  Whoa. Two apologies in one evening. That had to be some sort of vampire record as far as humility and manners went.

  “No biggie. I survived twenty-six years with them. One weekend won’t kill me.”

  We rounded a corner and the house appeared ahead. There was pretty much no need for headlights at this point. Every light in the place was on. Spotlights out front highlighted the three story Georgian façade. Little globes lit the circular drive and the way to the garages. As in garage, only plural. Even the stables were bright as day. I can’t imagine what kind of electric bills my parents had been paying over the years.

  “Seems like someone is afraid of the dark,” Dario drawled.

  “We’re Templars. The dark is afraid of us.”

  That shut him up. Well either that or the over-the-top ostentatious splendor that was my family home. It was Gone With The Wind meets Versailles. I loved it the way I loved the Temple, the way I loved the Smithsonian Museums, but in spite of the sheer beauty, I longed to be back in my apartment with the ratty carpet, stained padding, and newly replaced window.

  I parked smack in front of the main steps, figuring I’d move the car in the morning. The place had alarm wards as far out as the highway. My parents might not have known I was coming until I turned down the driveway, but they’d known there was a vampire in the area from the Berryville exit on Route Nine.

  Dario was gentlemanly enough to grab my duffle bag. He followed me up the marble steps half a pace behind. Close enough to indicate his equality in status to me without seeming rudely dominant. The guy was pretty savvy about human non-verbal cues for a vampire.

  My parents might not have rushed out the door to welcome me on the steps, but they were excited enough about my attendance to be waiting in the hallway. A chorus of greetings hit me before I had the door half open, and I realized that it wasn’t just my parents in the foyer, but my brother and sister, their families, and a couple of cousins, as well as the black sheep of the family before I took her place—Great-grandma Essie.

  “Aunt Ari!” My nephew Bors plowed into my legs, his face buried in my stomach. I hugged him back and greeted the rest of the clan, overwhelmed by hugs and cheek-kisses. It was an excessive display of affection from a family that was normally reserved about such things. It made me feel guilty for being away so long, for not returning half of the phone calls I’d received, for thinking all of those bad thoughts on the way up.

  “So, you’re back to take your Oath?”

  Mom. And now I wasn’t feeling so guilty about those bad thoughts. I was barely five feet in the door and she was nagging me about my Knighthood again. And ignoring Dario. Not one of them had asked who he was. Not one had greeted him or introduced themselves. I wrestled free from Bors’s embrace and reached out to put a hand on Dario’s arm, ignoring his slight flinch.

  “Everyone, this is Dario.”

  There was a moment of silence while my family waited for me to elaborate further. I didn’t. Let them think whatever they wanted.

  “Dario, this is my Mom and Dad, my brother Roman, his wife and two kids, my sister Athena with her husband. Over there are my cousins Bran and Cesare. And this is Great-grandma Essie.

  “He’s a fucking vampire,” Essie announced. She seemed rather cheerful about the whole thing, as if I’d brought a much needed bottle of Jack Daniels to Sunday church service.

  “Yes he is,” I responded.

  Essie walked around him, inspecting him as though he were a horse at auction. Dario looked appropriately terrified.

  “Can I kiss him?” she asked. Actually, she shouted. Essie was somewhere over one hundred years old, and although she walked around like she was a spry eighty, she was losing her hearing. Thus, she assumed everyone else was losing their hearing, too.

  “Later, Gran.”

  “Welcome, Dario.” Finally someone besides my crazy great-grandmother spoke up. Mom had obviously felt the silence had gone on long enough to get her point across and it was time to once again be the gracious hostess.

  “Well, it’s pretty late,” Dad chimed in. “Time we were all in bed. Early start tomorrow, you know.”

  It was just past one in the morning. Dad routinely stayed up until three and had always seemed to thrive on a mere four to five hours of sleep per night. Either there was something especially exciting planned for tomorrow, or Dad felt everyone needed to go to bed and process the fact that I’d brought a vampire to our home for family weekend. Yeah, probably the latter.

  Everyone chimed in their good-nights as if we were the Waltons, and made their way up a staircase so wide four could walk abreast. I waited, knowing what was to come.

  “Aria. A word with you in the kitchen, please?”

  Mom. Dario raised a questioning eyebrow at me and I waved for him to follow. The kitchen was in the rear of the house, through a maze of rooms and hallways. If I hadn’t grown up here, I would have been tempted to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way back.

  The house layout may have been for the convenience of a lifestyle long ago, but the kitchen had been remodeled for modern needs. I’m sure it was huge two hundred years ago, but it was even bigger now that two of the old servants’ rooms had been demolished in the expansion. One pantry had been converted into a walk-in fridge, two others retained their original use. A fireplace big enough to roast a horse took up one entire wall. It was totally impractical, but Dad adored it and refused to see it walled in. I adored it, too. The brick had chips, patchwork, and tiny carvings where Ainsworths of old had etched charms and, no doubt, curses. A heavy black metal arm on a hinged pole was still in place inside the fireplace, its hook holding an antique cast iron pot. I used to sit at the kitchen table eating my cereal and imagine that I was a witch with potions boiling away over the fire. In reality, that pot hadn’t seen use in close to fifty years. And the housekeepers we’d had over the ages always complained about having to clean the thing of cobwebs and dust.

  I waved Dario to the huge butcher block we used as a kitchen table and grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge. Dad may be a wine kinda guy, but he always had a good supply of beer for us kids.

  “When are you taking your Oath, Solaria?”

  I totally expected this. Mom never pulled her punches. “I’m not ready. Should I show Dario to the dragon bedroom? I’m assuming that’s where you’d like him to stay?”

  With twelve bedrooms, we’d taken to naming them by décor. The dragon bedroom had tapestries on the walls showing Saint George’s legendary battle. It also was north-facing with electronic privacy shutters. Perfect for a vampire, or for guests who had been partying very late and wanted to sleep the day away undisturbed by sunlight.

  “Of course. Your Oath, Solaria—”

  “I’m not discussing my Oath. Can we please change the subject, Mom?”

  We weren’t always this way, my mother and I. There was a time when I’d cuddled in her lap while she sang me songs of Charlemagne and Genghis Khan. She’d taught me swordplay at three with a red plastic Excalibur. She’d bandaged my cuts and scrapes, kissed my boo-boos. She’d held me as I cried in her arms over some boy. Something changed between us and I wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened. All I felt from her now was pressure. And disappointment.

  Her blue eyes, so like my own, were steely as they met mine. “For the sake of your guest, who I’m sure is uncomfortable with this discussion, I will change the topic. But be aware, Solaria, we will speak of this again.”

  Dario didn’t look uncomfortable.
Actually he looked intrigued at the tension between us. I drained half my beer and nodded. I was starving, cannoli didn’t make for a very filling dinner, but I wasn’t willing to hang around my mother long enough to raid the refrigerator.

  Mom chatted about family news, careful not to discuss anything too personal around Dario. I was saddened to hear we’d lost one of the mares to colic last week, and excited to hear Sasha had a litter of puppies two months back. Knowing my family, there would be time carved out of this weekend for riding. I was looking forward to getting out to the stables to see the horses and cuddling with a bunch of rowdy pups.

  “I know you are both are eager to head to bed. You must join us for brunch tomorrow, Dario.” My mother smiled, her teeth perfect and white, her eyes guileless. “Solomon makes the most wonderful French toast.”

  Here we go again. I rolled my eyes. Not that Dad’s French toast wasn’t something to write home about, but Mom was baiting Dario, and thus me, in her usual passive-aggressive manner. “Is brunch now at five in the morning, Mom? How kind of you to offer to accommodate my vampire boyfriend with a time change but I would hate inconvenience everyone else.”

  Dario started at my titling him “my boyfriend”. He was normally so controlled that the expression on his face nearly cracked me up.

  Mom’s eyes met mine. “Touché,” they said. “We’ll be sure to schedule a late dinner and leave plenty in the fridge. I’m assuming Dario has the means to take care of his other needs?”

  Ah yes. Dario, addressed in the third person as if he were not standing right in front of her. The chilly tone of her last sentence was just as much about the “ick” factor of the vampire’s other needs as the disapproval she felt that my “boyfriend” must surely be slaking his needs by means of my veins.