Tall, Dark & Fangsome

by Michelle Rowen

  “Can you stay tonight?” I whispered against Thierry’s lips.

  “Do you want me to?”

  I slid my hand under his shirt to feel his warm skin. “Very much.”

  A smile twitched on his lips. “Then—”

  There was the sound of a key in the door and his gaze flicked to it.

  “—unfortunately it will have to wait for another time.” Thierry’s smile faded. “Please be careful, Sarah. And please don’t see Gideon again alone. It’s too dangerous.”

  The next moment he was gone from my arms and the room.

  George entered the house and looked at me standing in the dark all by myself. “Oh, hey. Feeling better?”

  I sighed. “Until I was interrupted.”

  “Did you have fun with the mysterious Mr. G?” he asked and waggled his eyebrows.

  I forced a smile. “So much fun they should lock me up and throw away the key.”

  “Well, I’d love to hear the details, but I’m exhausted. As Scarlett says, tomorrow is another day.”

  It was. And I wasn’t entirely convinced that was a good thing.

  The next morning, I felt something poke me in the shoulder and it yanked me out of a perfect, dreamless sleep. I liked perfect, dreamless sleeps. They were my favorites and very rare these days in my usual sea of nightmares. I pulled the covers off my face and glared at my intruder.

  George smiled down at me. “Morning, sunshine.”

  “What is it?”

  He had the cordless phone in his hand. “It’s your friend Claire. She says it’s urgent.”

  That jolted me the rest of the way awake. I grabbed the phone. “Claire? What’s going on?”

  “Sarah, I have good news. I found someone who can help you.”

  Claire was an old high-school friend of mine who had been present at the reunion when I’d been cursed. Since she was also a witch, she’d done her best to help, but it hadn’t worked out. She left to go home to Niagara Falls with the promise she’d keep trying.

  “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.” My heart was already doing a Rockette kick of joy at the thought I might not be dependent on Gideon to break my curse.

  “He’s a wizard and he can see you today. He’s moving somewhere in Europe really soon, so you need to get your butt over to Mississauga while he’s still in this country.”

  I jotted down the info she gave me, a phone number and directions to the place, which was twenty minutes west of Toronto. “This is fantastic. How did you find him?”

  “Honestly? On Craigslist. But he’s completely reputable. He specializes in breaking curses and his track record is amazing. Or so he says. The best part is he’ll only charge you two thousand bucks.”

  My eyes widened. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Trust me, these kinds of things normally cost way more.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have two thousand dollars I can borrow, do you?”

  She laughed at that. “Sorry, no. Why don’t you ask your dreamboat of a boyfriend for the money? He looked like he was loaded.”

  I cleared my throat. “We broke up.”

  She actually gasped. “But you seemed perfect for each other.”

  “You are the only person I know of who thinks that.” I glanced at George, who stood nearby with a curious expression. “We’re not together anymore. I’m moving on. Know any rich master vampires you want to set me up with?”

  “Don’t forget dark and miserable,” George added.

  “Can’t say that I do,” Claire replied. “But maybe this wizard is single. He sounds nice enough in the e-mails we’ve exchanged.”

  “Thank you so much for this, Claire. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.” When I clicked off the phone I looked up at George. “Doing anything today?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Am I possibly chauffeuring your non-car-owning self somewhere?”

  I nodded. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s only the difference between my future happiness and utter, complete misery.”

  He looked torn. “I have a job interview later.”

  “The strip club?”

  “It’s a nightclub with male entertainment. ‘Strip club’ makes it sound so tawdry.”

  “I’ve been there. It is tawdry.”

  “I know, isn’t it great? Unfortunately I’m just interviewing to be a waiter, not the talent. I apparently have no rhythm.” He sighed. “But one can dream.”

  I glanced at my digital clock. It was 9:00 A.M. “We’ll be back by noon. At the latest.”

  “Promise?”

  “Cross my broken, cursed heart.”

  “Okay, get dressed. We’ll leave in ten minutes.”

  I felt a jolt of something. I think it was happiness. I wouldn’t know. It had been a long time since I’d felt that particular emotion in such a pure and undiluted sense. I kind of liked it.

  “First we have to stop by Amy’s,” I told him. “I need to ask her for something.”

  “What?”

  “A loan of two thousand bucks. Unless you want to spot me the cash.”

  “Amy’s it is,” he replied quickly.

  A half hour later we pulled up at the curb across from my friend’s house. I tried not to get too excited at the prospect of breaking my curse but had a difficult time staying relaxed. This could be it. A substantial loan of money away from being relatively normal again.

  Without wasting any time, I bounded up to her front door and rang the doorbell. George decided to wait in the car.

  A few moments later the door slowly opened inward. I gazed at the interior of Amy’s small townhome and then looked down.

  Barry Jordan glared up at me.

  All you need to know about Barry is that he became Amy’s husband after they fell in love and he sired her on their first date. He was short. Short, short. He had a tendency to wear small tuxedos and angry expressions, although at the moment he wore a royal-blue bathrobe and an angry expression.

  He was also Thierry’s… I guess manservant was as good a term as any. They’d known each other for three hundred years, since Thierry had rescued Barry from being displayed and abused in a traveling fair. This act had won Barry’s fierce loyalty from that moment forward.

  Oh, and Barry hated my guts with a fiery passion.

  From nearly the first moment we met he thought I was trouble, an opportunist, and a gold digger. Not necessarily in that order.

  I wondered if he’d be willing to loan me some cash.

  “You,” he said ominously.

  “Well, hello there,” I replied, deciding it was best not to provoke him in any way. Too much rode on everything going swimmingly today. “Might I speak with your lovely wife for a moment?”

  “She’s not here. She’s getting her nails done.” He glared at me with distaste. “Go away.”

  He was giving me the evil eye so intensely it burned a bit. It was really too bad that the moment he started to believe I was genuinely in love with Thierry I’d had to “break up” with him, thereby confirming Barry’s original opinion of me.

  Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.

  “Who’s there, Barry?” a familiar voice said, and Thierry stepped into the front foyer. Our eyes met and held.

  As far as Barry knew, this was the first time we’d seen each other since we officially ended our relationship. Even Barry, who I knew wouldn’t betray Thierry for any price, couldn’t be trusted with this info. There was too much at risk.

  I really wanted to run to Thierry and throw my arms around him and finish what we had only barely started last night. I wanted to tell him about the grimoire and the appointment with the wizard today. But I couldn’t say anything out loud.

  Too bad, really. He was a total ringer for the money.

  I wasn’t a gold digger, seriously I wasn’t. But come on. The man I loved wore a different black, tailored Hugo Boss suit every single day. That had to count for something, didn’t it? Other than a high-end, yet oddly m
onochromatic taste in clothing.

  “It’s nobody, master,” Barry said pointedly. “And nobody was just leaving.”

  Oh, that was subtle.

  I tore my eyes away from Thierry as someone else came into view. Someone wearing a red dress, with long raven-colored hair, perfectly applied makeup and flawless ivory skin.

  “Sarah, my dear.” A smile spread across Veronique’s perfect face. She glanced at Thierry. “Is this an awkward moment?”

  Why, yes it is, thank you for asking.

  Thierry didn’t move his gaze from mine. “Not at all. Sarah and I have chosen to go our separate ways. There is nothing to be awkward about.”

  “And she’s leaving,” Barry said again. I resisted the urge to kick him sharply and make him cry.

  “I have been very curious,” Veronique began. “Whose idea was it for your relationship, short as it was, to end?”

  “Mine,” Thierry and I said in unison. He raised a dark eyebrow at me.

  “It was a mutual decision,” I clarified quickly.

  Veronique’s impeccably arched brows drew together. “It’s very strange to me. One moment you,” she nodded at Thierry, “are asking me for an annulment, and you,” she glanced at me, “are proclaiming your deep and earnest love for my husband—”

  I always cringed when she used that word.

  “—and the very same night your love affair ends.” She tilted her head to the side. “Very strange, wouldn’t you say?”

  Great. All we needed was Veronique doubting our story. Talk about the beginning of the end. If there was one person I didn’t trust to keep it quiet, it would be her. “Strange but true. What can I say? Can’t stand him now. I’m flaky like that.”

  There was silence for a long, torturous moment as she inspected me as if I was a slimy but curious specimen under a microscope.

  “Is it true that you’ve met with the Red Devil recently?” she asked.

  My cheeks warmed. I guess there was no way to keep what happened a secret. It only brought back my shame at not being able to control myself. It was the reason today had to work out. I needed this curse gone. Even now with the gold chain firmly in place around my neck, I felt it there, lurking in the shadows of my mind, like a thick black poison waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to take over again.

  I cleared my throat. “I met with him just for a moment. It was no big deal.”

  “Are you certain of that?” Thierry asked.

  “Yup. He’s in town again and wanted to say hello.”

  And stop me from murdering people. And be my bodyguard. Etcetera.

  I raised my eyes to look at Thierry again. He hadn’t taken his focus off me. His neutral gaze betrayed a sliver of concern.

  Would Veronique and Barry notice if I went directly over to him and kissed him? Wrapped my arms around him and told him how much I missed him and how I couldn’t wait until this was all over?

  Yeah, they’d probably notice. They were all observant like that.

  “So what’s going on here this morning?” I asked, wanting desperately to change the subject. “A vampire version of The Breakfast Club?”

  “It’s none of your business what we’re doing,” Barry replied sharply. “Like I told you earlier, Amy isn’t here. Therefore there’s no reason for you to be, either.”

  Again, I resisted the urge to kick him. “You’re right.”

  No Amy. No money. No curse breaking.

  “It is time for me to leave as well.” Veronique air kissed Thierry on both cheeks and then did the same to Barry.

  “Good-bye, Sarah,” Thierry said evenly.

  After he gave me one last deep, searching look, so deep that I actually felt it as if it were the brush of his lips against mine—I had a very good imagination—I turned and left.

  The door clicked shut behind me and Veronique the moment we stepped outside, and I heard the lock turn. Barry wasn’t taking any chances of me sneaking back in.

  Veronique studied me intently. “One of my many talents is the ability to read people. I read you as being in love with my husband. Even now I see such longing and regret in your eyes.”

  At least she wasn’t treating me like a complete smelly piece of garbage, as Barry had. Her demeanor toward me seemed the same as always—dismissive, but vaguely curious.

  I forced a shrug. “What can I say? The man is easy on the eyes. But it doesn’t change anything.” I hesitated. “Besides, I’m sure there have been tons of women who’ve fallen for Thierry in the past, right?”

  I regretted asking it as soon as the words left my mouth, feeling a stab of jealousy at the thought of other women in Thierry’s life. Knowing he was married was enough of a cross to bear.

  “Of course,” Veronique said simply.

  I swallowed. “Oh.”

  “However,” she continued, “this annulment nonsense has never been mentioned before. I still wonder what exactly got into him to even broach that subject after so long. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed he meant for you to have a future together.” She looked at me for a moment. “Are you all right, my dear? You’ve become rather pale suddenly.”

  Any mention of my future with Thierry tended to make me feel a bit woozy around the edges. That’s what I wanted. Despite our multitude of problems, I wanted to be with him, and everything currently happening seemed tailor-made to keep us apart. It’s like I was fighting fate itself. I never really believed in the concept before, but I’d lately come to learn that fate was one hell of a mean beeyotch.

  “I’m fine. I’m just a bit distracted today.” I glanced over at George’s car. He’d hunched down in the seat a bit so he was mostly out of view, except for the top of his sandy-blond head and sunglass-covered eyes peering over the edge of the driver’s-side window like “Kilroy Was Here.” Veronique intimidated him, so avoidance was his preferred course of action.

  “Distracted because of… your little curse, perhaps?” she asked.

  Everyone knew about my problems. I guess when your problem was turning black-eyed and scary as hell, that was a given.

  I nodded. “It actually has everything to do with my curse. But there’s more than that on my mind, as well.”

  “Like the Red Devil? You truly saw him?”

  “In the flesh.” I nodded. “And mask.”

  Another glance at the car showed George was beckoning for me to wrap things up with Veronique. Time was money, after all. Money I didn’t currently have. Would the wizard only see me today? When exactly was he moving out of the country? Why was nothing ever easy?

  Veronique’s expression lit up. “The Red Devil is magnificent, isn’t he? I wonder if he’s exactly the same as when he saved my life so long ago—so strong and brave and handsome.”

  “And dangerous?” I asked, thinking of Gideon’s assessment. “And deadly?”

  “All of those things.” She let out a strange little sigh of contentment. “I would assume he’s a magnificent lover as well, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Oh, boy. I glanced at my naked wrist. “Wow, look at the time. I really need to get going.”

  “So many years have passed,” she continued, undeterred, “I wonder if he’d still remember me? Well, of course he would. Perhaps we could begin again where we left off.”

  “I don’t see why not.” I took a few determined steps toward the car. Veronique was difficult to get away from once she’d started chatting about her favorite subject—herself. “In non-Red-Devil-related news, I’ve found somebody who might be able to remove my curse.”

  She reached forward and squeezed my hand. “That’s wonderful, my dear. Such an unpleasant thing, curses are. I really don’t recommend them.”

  “I totally agree.”

  She frowned at me. “For such good news you seem rather distraught. Is there a problem?”

  I chewed my bottom lip. “Actually, there is. There’s a cost associated with the curse removal. If I can’t pay for it, the wizard is moving soon and I’ll be out of lu
ck. Being that I’m el broko, I don’t really know what to do.”

  “How much is it?”

  “Two thousand bucks.”

  “That sounds reasonable.” She reached into her Prada bag. “Will hundred-dollar bills be acceptable?”

  My eyes widened and I was about to say something to protest, but my hand jutted out as if it had a mind of its own. She counted out twenty one-hundred-dollar bills into it from the Banque de Veronique.

  “I… I can’t take your money,” I stuttered.

  She closed my hand over the wad of cash. “Of course you can. And you will. And you will rid yourself of this horrible burden once and for all.”

  I felt tears welling inside me. Scratch every bad thing I’d ever said or thought about Veronique, she was incredibly warm, selfless, caring, generous—

  “And you will thank me by setting up a meeting between myself and the Red Devil,” she said, “so we can become lovers.”

  —and rather horny, apparently.

  I looked from her to the cash, and back again. Then I shoved the bills into my purse. “I’m sure you’ll make a lovely couple.”

  “You must also find a new lover. A vampire’s life can be very long and very lonely.” She pressed her full red lips together for a wistful moment. “It is best to share it with someone special if you can.”

  “I totally agree.” I looked back at Barry’s house, picturing Thierry inside. So near and yet so far. “Unfortunately, love can sometimes be a bit complicated.”

  I noticed that Barry stood at the front window. He gave me the finger.

  A half hour later I rang the doorbell at the address Claire had given me.

  “This is great,” George said when I glanced nervously at him. “I can finally get rid of the stun gun I carry around at all times to protect myself from your dark side.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Actually… I’m not joking.”

  I touched my gold chain. I wasn’t close to relaxing about this. Not until it was done. But at least I had the money. I’d play matchmaker between Veronique and the Red Devil even though I wasn’t totally sure I trusted him. It was so worth it if this worked out.

  A moment later, the door opened and a young kid, probably around fourteen years old, looked out at us. He had long, stringy dark hair, and a morose expression. He wore a black T-shirt with a picture of a morose-looking, stringy-haired rock band on it.