“I will come to you tomorrow. We shall speak, then perhaps we shall make this fantasy real. But for now…rest. And know that I sleep now in my coffin with a smile upon my face.”
And with that, her dream faded away.
15
The morning came.
And with it came the sunlight. It streamed through her curtains, and she let out a small grunt as they were still apart, sending the light streaming into the room. She was exhausted. With a sigh, she gave in to the pointless inevitability of staying in bed.
She let her hand trail over her throat and felt a slight sting. There was a wound there, but it felt no more serious than a mosquito bite. He is one Hell of a mosquito. She climbed out of bed and was glad to find herself once more still dressed. It meant nothing had happened.
While we were awake.
She swore in her mind at her own weakness, her own desperate need for affection. She had never been touched by a man, and her mind was all too eager to dream up what it would be like. Vlad was as quick to show her.
Walking to her mirror, she turned her head to examine the bite. Two small red marks on her throat. They did not look inflamed. It looked as though she had missed with her hairpin, and nothing more. Yet the hunters who were potentially sleeping in her house would know the marks for what they were.
Hiding them with a scarf seemed like an obvious ploy. How on Earth was she going to explain this? She sighed. Changing out of her dress once more, she threw on something far more comfortable to wear and laced up the bodice in the back.
All things considered, she felt…okay. She did not feel more tired than she would after any long night out. She felt overwrought emotionally, but that was to be expected.
“He came and asked me to dinner. I agreed, because I am trying to learn how to stop him,” she said to her reflection. She practiced the words as if that would help. “He bit me. I did not drink his blood. He returned me here to his house because he…is enjoying the game of seducing me.”
She cringed at the sound of it. “To be frank, I think he knows he’s already won. He simply likes dragging out the victory.”
No. She would not be telling them anything of the sort. She would tell them of dinner. She would tell them of what she learned about his true age and his motives in destroying the city—unleashing more of the creatures like she had seen at the gala. But she would mention nothing to them of his desires for her.
Or her desire for him.
She finally looked to the nightstand. There, in the vase she had placed the first rose, sat a second. No note joined it this time. She let her fingers trace over the delicate petals.
She reached out and picked up the little music box that sat as a perennial watchdog upon her nightstand. It was a simple thing, carved out of wood with an opal pattern inlaid in the lid. It was simple, but she loved it more than anything else she owned. Truth be told, it was her only prized possession.
Opening it, she watched the little ballerina spring up from under the lid. It played a bittersweet, melancholy tune. A waltz. It always brought a sad smile to her face. She shut the lid and replaced it on the stand. Something else caught her attention—something far more important. The smell of food.
The hunters were indeed home, and one of them had cooked. Her money was on Bella. Her stomach rumbled, and she chuckled. Her stomach did not care for her reticence in explaining her evening to the hunters. It wanted food.
It won.
“He…what?”
Maxine winced at Alfonzo’s shout. Bella and Eddie were watching her with wide-eyed shock and dismay. She pulled aside her hair for them to see the marks on her throat. She decided to begin with that and get it over with before one of them noticed mid-meal.
“You seem…fine.” Bella blinked, astonished.
Maxine nodded. “He did not take much. He was proving a point.”
Alfonzo’s jaw was twitching. “The point being?”
“That he could, I imagine.” That I wanted him to, moreover. She opted to leave the second half silent. “I do not believe he intends to turn me.”
“He intends to corrupt you all the same.” Alfonzo was pacing around her kitchen now. “He lures you out to dinner with him. He feeds from you. He returns you to your bed for a second time. He will come for you a third time. This is his game. He chips away at people.”
“He’s done this before, then.” She wasn’t surprised. Eddie was putting together a plate of food for her. “Oh, Eddie, stop. It’s quite all right.”
“No, you’ve fed my dumb ass several times already. Here.” He put it down on the table and gave her a knife and fork. “Eat. Al’s gonna be mad for a while.”
“I have every right to be mad.” Alfonzo grunted.
“Not at her.” Eddie glared at the older man. “We got her into this mess. She’s not a hunter. She’s doing her best. So, calm the fuck down, sit down, and let her talk.”
Maxine was astonished at both the display of his backbone and the show of support. He had been fairly quiet up until that point.
“I need a smoke.” Alfonzo walked out of the room, and she heard his heavy steps as he went down the stairs toward the back door into the courtyard.
It wasn’t until the door shut that she sighed. Bella smiled gently at her. “Don’t mind him. He is upset and troubled by what has befallen you, and he is expressing it in a bad way. He blames himself for your fate. He has said as much. Now that the vampire has…laid claim to you, he is angry at himself.”
“This isn’t his fault.”
“Nope. It’s all of our faults.” Eddie picked up his coffee and sipped it. “We came to your door. We brought the brooch. We started this.”
“He was already in this city. I would die from one of his monsters if not at his hands. You might have sped up the inevitable, but I think…I think this is my fate. I think this is meant to be.”
Bella frowned at her plate. “I do not think I believe in fate if it means this is the outcome.”
“We do not get to choose what it has in store for us. I have time, all the same. I can still be of some use to you three.”
“It’s not about use, Maxine.” Eddie rubbed his hand over his disheveled brown hair, making it worse in the process. “You’re a friend. You’ve taken us in. You’ve shown us kindness. Fed us. You aren’t a tool to us.”
Maxine smiled and reached out a gloved hand to rest it on his wrist. “That means more to me than you can know. I am not one who has friends. It makes this worth it.” She returned to her food, grateful for the pile of sausage and scrambled eggs. It was precisely what she needed. “Alfonzo is right. Vlad will come for me again.”
“Do you know when?”
Another lie to spare them. “No.”
“Alfonzo wants us to try to find his lair during the day. We’re going to split up in an hour and head out into town for the rest of the night, I think.” Eddie got up to refill his coffee. “Do you want one of us to stay behind with you?”
“No. It’s all right. One of you can’t stop him.” He is thousands of years old. I am not sure all three of you can stop him together. “Better you try to find him while he sleeps. If he comes for me, I will try to learn all I can as to where he might be when he is vulnerable.”
Alfonzo came back in and seemed much calmer for having had his cigarette. He sat at the table at his plate of food. “I am sorry, Maxine. Eddie is right. My anger isn’t at you. This is not how I wished this to go.”
“I know. I am sorry I am too weak to fight him.”
Alfonzo didn’t hesitate when he took her hand and squeezed it. She was glad for her gloves. “No. You are not to blame. We are responsible for putting you in this scenario. He is at fault for being the monster that he is. He is preying on you, Maxine. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
If you only knew how mutual this seems to be. She smiled sadly and nodded, looking down at her plate. She picked up her fork and went back to eating. “Thank you, Alfonzo.”
“We won
’t be back until tomorrow, I expect. If he comes…when he comes…” Alfonzo trailed off, not knowing what to say to her. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded and did her best to smile again. “Do not blame yourself for this. My life is not on your hands, hunter. I do not outweigh the thousands you are trying to save. I promise you.”
“You are a kind soul, Maxine Parker. You do not deserve this.”
“People rarely deserve anything that happens to them.”
She told them the rest of what she discovered—his true age, his designs on the city. They listened in curious silence, with Bella peppering her with questions, before she was out of the appropriate portions of the story. It was not long after that when the hunters cleaned their plates and left. She spent the rest of the day lost in thought.
There was something deeply wrong with her. It was her confusion over the subject of the Vampire King that sent her to her room just before sunset, digging out a small silk bag from her trunk. The black fabric was opaque, meant to protect from the light. It was a superstition, but then again, so was most of her life.
Sitting at her table by one wall, she opened the bag and drew out a deck of cards. They were well-worn and well-loved. They had been a gift to her. A parting gift from the Roma. Tarot cards.
She was not a psychic. She was not a soothsayer. She could not see the future. But she could see into the hearts of the people around her. Yet her own always remained a mystery. How cruel a gift it was, to see the truth of all those around her yet to be blind to her own.
Vlad had seen that clear as day.
She sat back in her chair and began to shuffle the cards idly. She let her mind pore over her recent troubles. The Vampire King had found her, and it seemed he wanted far more than her flesh. He was more dangerous than any wolf in the woods. Where one might sink its teeth into her bone and marrow and merely eat her for dinner—the other wanted so much more.
But to what ends? Why? For the simple thrill of the hunt?
Last night he had laid her out upon a tomb, in a yard of the dead, and had drunk her blood. She should be horrified at the notion. But it brought a warmth to her cheeks, and she could only recall the deep and burning pleasure it had brought over her. The fire it had sent pouring through her veins like liquid metal.
He might have taken from her, but he gave to her in return. It had felt like nothing she had ever known. For the first time in as long as she could remember…she had not felt alone.
And oh, how she had wanted him to take more, if it meant she could have what she discovered she wanted. But it was wrong. He was a vampire! A monster set to destroy her! He had killed an untold number of people in his thousands of years. She should not want him.
But her dream had shown a very different truth.
Stripped away from all the weighty chains of conscious thought, all that was left was how she felt. And Vlad was right. She was terrified and excited at the thought of his presence in equal measures.
I’m nothing to him. A diversion. Something to be used and thrown away. Even though what I feel for him is wrong, the real issue at hand is that while it may be requited, it is temporary for him.
Yes. That was a better shelter. Any branch over her head in the storm to protect her from the hail that threatened to destroy her armor and her will to fight was a worthy one to take up. She did not know him. She could not trust him.
He likely had dozens of women around the world. Some living, some undead, some trapped in between, all answering his beck and call. He was thousands of years old. He left a bloody trail in his wake. She would simply be another notch on his bedpost.
She placed the cards on the table before her. Cutting the deck with her left hand, she put the bottom on the top. She spread it out in an arc in front of her on the cloth tabletop.
As she shut her eyes, she let herself focus on everything and nothing. Hovering her hand over the cards, she began to drift it over the arc of cards an inch or two above the surface and waited. She was searching for the warmth that felt like a candle beneath her hand—a card whispering to her that it was the one. It was the message that should be told.
She did not read cards like most did. She had never met another who used them in this fashion. Most dealt from the top or cut the deck into several piles and chose cards that way. But this was how she did it. And the method worked, so she never saw the need to learn another.
Perhaps it was because she cared nothing for telling the future. Her readings instead focused on gleaning a deeper understanding of the now. A glimpse into the heart of the present and the past. And that was what she so desperately needed right now.
I am hunted by a vampire who has promised to consume the whole of me.
And I find myself desirous of it.
He means my ruin, and all I want is to dance with him once more.
One by one, she pulled the cards as they called to her and stacked them atop each other in front of her. Each one in its turn called to her, and she slipped it from its brethren to tell her what it knew, until she had ten cards.
Swiping the remaining cards into a neat stack, she set them aside. As she was about to lay out the first card, a sound froze her, her hand hovering over the first card in the pile. A music box began to play behind her. A tune she could never forget.
Turning in her chair, she saw a figure standing by her bedside, a small wooden box in his hand. Her stomach twisted in anticipation and terror. Think of the Devil, and he appears. “Vlad. I—I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I said I would visit you today, and the sun is just now setting.”
His voice, deep and rumbling, never ceased to make her shiver. “You do not fear the sun’s rays?”
“Most of my kind would die with its touch. For me, no. It carries no such threat.” A pointed nail hovered close over the tiny, slowly twirling ballerina in its forever pose. “I have been curious about this box and would have opened it, but I did not want to wake you either time.” He watched the little figurine spin in fascination. She would ask him to put it down for fear he might break it, but he seemed quite gentle with how he was handling it. And the look on his face was faraway and oddly wistful.
“It is quite valuable to me.”
“I assumed as much.” He seemed uneager to look away from it. “Why?”
“It was a gift to me from my father. The only thing I have of him.” At his silent question, she sighed. “He fought in the war. I am from Virginia, and he was a landowner. It was expected that since he had no sons to send to die, he would go instead. He returned but was injured and subsequently very ill. Mentally and physically. He killed himself before I was born, but he had the music box commissioned before he could not withstand the pain any longer.” She smiled sadly. “I think he wished for me to be a ballerina.”
“All fathers wish their daughters to be beautiful.”
“And look what came of me.”
“You are beautiful, Maxine.” Yet he did not look away from the music box. “And it is astonishing to me that you do not see it.”
“I can’t imagine he would approve of me now. My mother certainly did not agree with what I became.”
“Life is cruel.”
“Did you know your parents?”
“If I did, I do not remember.” He shut the box delicately and set it back down on the nightstand. “I do not remember most of my past.”
She furrowed her brow at him curiously. “Truly?”
He let out a quiet hum and turned to face her. His expression was unreadable. For once, it did not look as though he meant to consume her whole. It was a welcome change of pace. “I am thousands of years old, darling. Do you expect me to hold all of it within my head? That might truly make a man mad, indeed.”
She stood from her chair as he swept across the room to her, his hands folded idly behind his back. He glanced down at the cards on the table then looked to her with a raised eyebrow. “You are no psychic, you said.”
“No. I read the present, not the f
uture.”
“And for whom were you reading?” He gestured a hand around the empty bedroom. “Do you have a lover hiding in your wardrobe?”
“If I did, I would think you could smell him.” She smirked up at him.
He grinned at her riposte, obviously pleased she still had the strength of will to spar with him. “Indeed. And he would be dead for it within seconds.”
“For what?”
“Touching what is mine.” He sat in the other chair at the table. “For whom were you reading?”
She bristled at his claim of ownership again but shoved it aside with a sigh. She sat. “Myself.” She shuffled the cards she had pulled back into the deck. She wasn’t interested in sharing such private things with the vampire. The gods knew she shared enough intimate things with him already. “I find myself in need of guidance.”
“Whatever for?”
She shot him an incredulous look. “I have stock in the wheat industry.” She layered the sarcasm on thick. “Why do you think, vampire?”
He laughed, a low and resonant sound that was pleasant and unnerving both at once. A flash of sharp teeth reminded her of what he had done the previous night. In that one small expression he had called her bluff, and she felt the color drain from her face.
Seeing her expression shift, his own settled into a sly and cunning smile. “Never spare me your jabs. I enjoy your fire.”
“Try not to kill me, then, and perhaps you’ll have more of it.”
“Killing you was never my goal.”
“Turning me, then?”
“I fear that if I turn you, your gifts will be lost to you.” He tapped a finger on the table as he watched her thoughtfully, his other hand curled underneath his chin. He looked all the part of a mastermind playing a game of chess. And she felt less like the opposing player and more like a part on the board. “No. I will not turn you unless you ask for it.”
Heart of Dracula Page 17
