Dead Perfect

by Amanda Ashley

  Now Hewitt leaned forward, his expression intense. “What if I told you they do exist?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “He’s one of them.”

  She stared at Hewitt, and then she laughed. “No, he isn’t. I’ve seen him during the day.”

  “Yeah?” Overstreet said. “What time?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was around five or six, but the sun was still up, so he can’t be a vampire.”

  “Older vampires can rise before sundown.”

  Shannah stared at Hewitt. Ronan, a vampire? Had she been right all along?

  “What does all this have to do with me?”

  “I want to know where he takes his rest,” Hewitt said.

  “I want to interview him for my magazine,” Overstreet said.

  Shannah looked at the two men, and then she burst out laughing. “You’re crazy,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “Both of you. I don’t know where he sleeps, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. And as for doing an interview, I can assure you that he won’t.”

  “Listen,” Hewitt said, “as long as you stay with him, your life is in danger. Do you understand that?”

  “Believe me, I’m perfectly safe there.”

  “What can I say to convince you?” Hewitt asked.

  “Nothing. He’s not a vampire and I’m not in any danger. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home.”

  Hewitt reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a business card. “Call my cell phone if you change your mind,” he said, handing her the card. “I don’t know what he’s told you, but I can assure you that he is a vampire. A very old vampire. I’d hate for you to be his next victim.”

  Shannah slipped the card into the pocket of her jeans, then looked pointedly at Hewitt, who slid out of the booth so that she could leave.

  She didn’t look back, but she could feel both of the men watching her as she left the café. She thought about what Hewitt and Overstreet had said as she drove home. What if they were right? What if Ronan was a vampire? Was she in danger?

  She shook the thought away. If he had wanted to do her harm, he’d had plenty of opportunity. She had been at Ronan’s mercy since the day she met him. If he was a vampire, he could have taken her blood or killed her at any time. Instead, he had taken her in and cared for her.

  She frowned. Why had he done that? He hadn’t known anything about her at the time.

  Pulling into the driveway, she parked the car in front of the house, then sat there for a moment, one finger tapping nervously on the steering wheel. What should she do now? Go inside and pretend nothing unusual had happened today? Confront him? Pack up and leave? But she had no place to stay, now that she had given up her apartment, no place to go except home to her parents. Home. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe that had always been the answer.

  Why did Jim Hewitt want to know where Ronan slept? The answer popped into her mind immediately. Thinking him to be a vampire, Hewitt and Overstreet undoubtedly wanted to destroy him, and after reading Ronan’s books, she knew that such a thing was best done in the middle of the day, when the sun was high in the sky and the vampire was trapped in sleep, helpless to defend himself.

  Did Ronan sleep in a coffin?

  Was it somewhere in the house?

  Exiting the car, she went up the steps and into the house, careful to lock the door behind her in case Hewitt and Overstreet decided to show up again. Unlike vampires, who had to have an invitation to enter a person’s home, Hewitt and Overstreet could burst in uninvited and unannounced. She remembered the night Ronan had shown up at her apartment. He had knocked on the door, demanding that she let him in. She had expected him to storm inside when she unlocked the door, but he had stood in the hallway and asked if he could come inside.

  She shook her head, not knowing what to think, what to believe. She had come to his house looking for a vampire, not really believing that she would find one. But what if she had?

  Shannah glanced at the clock. It was only eleven-thirty. Ronan never made an appearance this early in the day.

  She stood in the middle of the floor, wondering if she was making a mistake by staying. Was she being foolish, like those silly girls in horror movies who went into the basement when there was a monster in the house?

  Was there a monster in this house? Wise or foolish, she couldn’t leave until she knew the truth, heard it from Ronan’s own lips.

  Too nervous to sit still, too agitated to go back to bed, Shannah found a cloth and a bottle of furniture polish and began to dust. Moving from room to room, she told herself she was just trying to pass the hours until dusk, but she checked each room carefully, rapping on the walls, checking inside closets and cupboards, looking for hidden doors or passages, running her hands over books and door frames and wall sconces in hopes of finding a lever that would lead to some hidden hideaway, but to no avail.

  Moving upstairs, she made a similar search of all the empty rooms, again with no success. Going into the bedroom where she slept, she checked the walls and the closet, looked behind the furniture and the doors, exploring every nook and cranny, but she didn’t find anything. No hidden doors or passageways, nothing the least bit suspicious.

  Discouraged but relieved, she went downstairs and fixed herself a glass of iced tea, grabbed her sunglasses and a magazine, and went outside to sit in the sun.

  Leaning back in the chaise lounge, her eyes closed, she murmured, “Ronan, where are you?” and almost spilled tea in her lap when his image leaped into her mind.

  He was lying in a sleek black coffin in a dark room. She wondered briefly how she could see anything at all when there was no light in the room, but she could see him clearly. His eyes were closed, his arms folded across his chest. He wore a black T-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants. His feet were bare. A distant part of her mind found that incredibly endearing.

  Gasping, she opened her eyes and the image vanished.

  It was true, she thought, he really was a vampire.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon trying to decide what to do. One minute she was certain that she should not only leave his house but leave the state as fast as possible, the next she was remembering the soul-stirring passion of his kisses, the fervor in his voice when he said he needed her. He made her feel whole, complete. Loved.

  When the sun began to set, she went into the house intending to fix something to eat, only to find she had no appetite.

  She was sitting on the sofa, still trying to decide what she should do, when he entered the room.

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes, as if seeing him for the first time. He didn’t look like a vampire. He looked like a perfectly normal, healthy male in his late twenties or early thirties.

  He smiled as he walked toward her. There was no hint of fang in his smile, though his teeth were remarkably straight and white.

  “I was hoping to find you in bed and kiss you awake.” His voice was deep, filled with the promise of dark delights.

  She forced a smile, suddenly unable to speak for the cold knot of fear that sat in her belly like a block of ice.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her heart pounding as he sat down on the sofa beside her, making her acutely aware of how big he was. His shoulders were broad, his arms long and well-muscled, his hands large and strong.

  “Something’s troubling you,” he said. “You might as well tell me what it is.”

  “Jim Hewitt and Carl Overstreet came to see me today.”

  His eyes narrowed; one hand clenched into a tight fist. “Indeed?”

  “All this time, I thought Hewitt was following me, but I was wrong. It’s you he’s after, isn’t it?”

  “Why would he be after me?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure that you do.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He said…” She took a deep breath. Her last, perhaps? “He said that you’re a vampire.”

  S
he waited for him to laugh, waited for him to deny it, to say something, anything, to prove that Hewitt was out of his mind. Instead, he simply stared at her for several taut moments during which time she could scarcely breathe.

  “You came looking for one of the Undead,” he said at last. “What are you going to do, now that you’ve found one?”

  His words struck her like a blast of icy wind, leaving her momentarily numb. She knew, in that moment, that she had never truly believed he was a vampire. Even when she had come knocking on his door, she hadn’t really believed he was a vampire. Now, looking back, she realized that, due to her illness, she hadn’t been thinking clearly. Still, it was strange that she had felt so much better since coming to stay with him. But if he was a vampire, why hadn’t he drained her dry, or made her what he was?

  “I…I don’t believe you.” She couldn’t believe it. It was simply too frightening to contemplate, too bizarre to be real.

  “It’s true nonetheless.”

  She lifted a trembling hand to her neck. “Why haven’t you bitten me, then? Isn’t that what vampires do?”

  He nodded, his gaze never leaving her face.

  Her eyes grew wide. “Have you…did you bite me?” Her eyes grew wider still. “Am I going to turn into a vampire?”

  “No, Shannah. But I have tasted your blood, and given you mine.”

  She stared at him in stunned disbelief. And then shook her head. “No! I don’t believe you! I’d never forget something so…so vile.”

  “You would, if I didn’t want you to remember.”

  “So, now you’re a hypnotist as well as a vampire?”

  He didn’t say anything, just continued to watch her, like a hungry wolf watching a lamb.

  She frowned, her thoughts chasing themselves like mice in a maze. Her mind cleared suddenly, as if someone had lifted a veil from her memories. It was true. He had given her his blood on several occasions. “That’s why I feel better, isn’t it?”

  He nodded again, his gaze still on her face.

  “Oh, Lord,” she murmured, “Hewitt was right.” She laughed out loud as hysteria threatened to overcome her. “I was right! You are a vampire.”

  “Shannah, calm down. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”

  “Nothing? You’re a vampire!” She recalled the vision she’d had of him earlier, asleep in his coffin. That, more than anything else, convinced her that it was true. Scrambling off the sofa, she ran for the front door.

  And plowed into the very man she was trying to escape.

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide and scared. She glanced back at the sofa, where he had been sitting only moments before.

  “How…how did you…?” Her voice trailed off as black spots danced before her eyes and then she was falling, pitching headlong into a sea of darkness.

  Chapter Twenty

  When she woke, she was in bed and Ronan was standing beside her. She looked up at him. He didn’t look like a vampire. Maybe she had dreamed the whole thing.

  “No,” he said, “it wasn’t a dream.”

  She blinked at him, startled. “How do you know what I was thinking?”

  “I can read your thoughts.”

  She shook her head. “That’s impossible!”

  “Is it?”

  “What am I thinking now?”

  “You’re wondering what I’m going to do with you.”

  She swallowed. It was exactly what she had been thinking. “What are you going to do?”

  She flinched when he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Shannah, why are you suddenly afraid of me? Have I ever done anything to hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “You came to me looking for a vampire,” he reminded her again. “I can give you what you came looking for, if that’s what you truly want.”

  She looked at him, speechless, the fear inside of her growing even as she told herself that no matter what he said, vampires didn’t exist. It was impossible. A myth. And yet the signs had been there all the time. He didn’t eat. She never saw him until it was almost dark. There were no mirrors in the house.

  He had taken her blood.

  “Is it what you want?” he asked. “To be a vampire?”

  “No.” She shuddered at the mere idea. “Vampires kill people. They drink blood.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  She sat up, clutching the covers with both hands as if they could protect her. “Have you killed people?” It was a silly question. She had been there when he killed that man in New York City.

  “I’m a vampire.”

  “What kind of answer is that?” she asked irritably.

  He shrugged. “An honest one.”

  “That man in New York, did you…did you drink from him?”

  He nodded.

  “I read in a book once that vampires could survive on the blood of animals. Is that true?”

  “Yes.” When necessary, he had dined on the blood of beasts. It provided sustenance, but no pleasure.

  “The plane crash…” Her brows rushed together in a frown as she tried to remember something important, something elusive. Trying to recall it made her head ache. One thing she did remember was his promise that no matter what happened, he would keep her safe. At the time, she had wondered how he could make such a promise. “I would have died in the crash if not for you, wouldn’t I? It wasn’t fate that saved me, it was you.”

  He nodded.

  She thought of all the people on the flight, especially the children, who had died. “Couldn’t you have saved everyone?”

  “No.”

  “Would you, if you could have?”

  “Yes, but once the plane started going down, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I had only a few minutes to get the two of us out of there.”

  She pondered that a moment, thinking there was no longer any reason for her feel guilty. It hadn’t been some random quirk of fate that had saved her, she thought. Then again, maybe it was. Maybe it had been the hand of Providence that had led her to Ronan’s door in the first place.

  “Does it hurt, becoming a vampire, I mean.”

  He thought about it a moment, trying to remember. There had been a certain amount of discomfort as his mortal body died, but it had been brief and quickly forgotten as preternatural power flowed through him. He had fallen into a lethargic state with the rising of the sun. When darkness had fallen, he had risen as a new creature, every sense magnified, his body humming with vitality and power and a hellish thirst.

  “Ronan?”

  “There is a little pain, but nothing as bad as what you’re suffering now.”

  “Can you feel what I’m feeling, too?”

  “I know you’re hurting.” She was needing his blood more and more often, no doubt a sign that the disease was growing worse, and that her time was growing shorter.

  Her fingers kneaded the edge of the blanket. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to make a decision I’ll be sorry for later.”

  He nodded, his dark eyes filled with understanding. “It was not a life I would have chosen,” he remarked. “It was thrust upon me, and yet…” He paused a moment, looking inward. “I do not regret it now.”

  “How long have you been a vampire?”

  “Five hundred and thirteen years.”

  “Five hundred and thirteen years!” she exclaimed. “Oh, my.”

  “A long time,” he remarked, as if realizing it for the first time.

  “No kidding.” Five hundred years. Shannah could scarcely imagine such a thing. She studied him carefully. Who would ever believe he had been born five centuries ago? She was certainly having trouble believing it! “To live so long,” she murmured. It was incredible. “The things you must have seen, but…five hundred years.”

  He grunted softly. It seemed like an eternity, the way she said it. Of course, it was a long time for anyone to live, man or vampire. Strange, how quickly the years and centuries had gone by. Time was something he rarely thought
of these days except in terms of book deadlines. He had roamed the world, never in a hurry. What he didn’t see this year would still be there the next year or the next. In his travels, he had seen the Great Pyramids of Giza. The pyramid had been built by the Egyptian pharaoh, Khufu, of the Fourth Dynasty around the year 2560 BC to serve as his tomb when he died. An Arab proverb stated that, “Man fears time, time fears the pyramids.”

  He had seen the Taj Mahal in India, built by Shah Jehan who had ordered the building of the Taj Mahal in honor of his wife, who had borne him fourteen children in eighteen years and died in childbirth.

  He had walked among the stones at Stonehenge in England, prowled the ruins of Machu Picchu in the mountains of Peru, strolled in the shadow of the Great Wall of China, stared in wonder at the Coliseum in Rome.

  And all of it alone. What would it be like to see it all anew through Shannah’s eyes?

  Shannah. She was regarding him curiously, her head cocked to one side.

  “Is there something else you want to know?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you just read my mind?” she muttered, somewhat flippantly.

  “Sometimes conversation is pleasant. What’s troubling you?”

  “I was just thinking…you’ve lived for over five hundred years…”

  “Go on.”

  “You must have known a lot of women in that time.”

  “Do I detect a note of jealousy in your voice?”

  She shrugged. “I guess you’ve been married several times.”

  “No. Just once, when I was still a mortal man.”

  “Really?” She couldn’t hide her shock. “Why? Haven’t you been awfully lonely?”

  “At times.”

  “Surely you’ve…I mean, in five hundred years, you must have…” She felt her cheeks grow hot as a new thought occurred to her. Maybe vampires couldn’t make love. Maybe they were impotent. But no, she had felt the telltale evidence of his desire for her on several occasions.

  “I haven’t lived like a monk, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said dryly. “I may be a vampire, but I’m still a man.”

  “Do the women know what you are when you make love to them?”