If anyone would know whether or not a vamp con was going down, it would be Blanchard. Now all I had to do was convince him to tell.
“Blanchard,
it’s
Candace. We need to meet,” I said, when his voice mail picked up. “Unless I hear back otherwise, I’ll expect you at Cisco’s at seven tonight. You don’t show
,
I’m coming looking for you.”
That ought to do it
, I thought, as I severed the connection. It was in Blanchard’s best interests to keep a low profile when it came to our relationship.
I turned down my own block. Now that the business end of things was out of the way, at least for the time being, I could go home and catch a little shut-eye. With any luck, I would dream of Michael this time.
Four
San Francisco
, two years earlier
Ash
It was a chilly night. The fog rolling in from the bay was as dense and dank as wet cotton, wrapping the city in a desperate woman’s embrace, a mistress who knows that, even as he takes his pleasure deep inside her body, her lover has already forgotten her. The kind of night most humans prefer to spend indoors, preferably not alone. Light and sound, color and warmth, breath and touch—these are the ways to beat back this sort of night. Those who venture out do so from necessity, not choice.
Except for those like me.
I am a vampire.
A vampire in trouble
, I thought, somewhat wryly, torn between elation and annoyance. A vampire who had just done the very last thing that he expected: lost his heart.
To a human woman.
I turned a corner, heading toward the waterfront. The fog was even thicker here, rolling along the sidewalk as if it had a specific destination in mind.
It shouldn’t have happened. It’s as simple as that. And I wasn’t so certain I wanted it to, if the truth were told. I may lie to others when it suits me, but I make it a point never to lie to myself. Self-delusion is a luxury I choose not to afford. Dalliances with women are one thing.
Swift, urgent encounters.
Enticing seductions.
I have feasted on many women, in more ways than I can count. But love, even the possibility of it, never entered the picture.
Not once. Not until tonight.
I quickened my pace, impatient with myself now. I had held a woman I desired in my arms, and I had let her go. Because at the moment I gave myself the pleasure I had delayed all evening, drawing out the suspense, increasing the anticipation for us both, I had discovered that what I was experiencing wasn’t what I had anticipated after all.
I wanted her. That much was clear. But as I had held her close, teasing her lips with mine until her eyes drifted closed, I discovered a need I had not known I was capable of feeling. Not to dominate, or to control or devour in great greedy bites, but to be gentle and to cherish. To protect at all costs. And so I stepped away, disappearing into the night as unexpectedly as I had stepped out of it, and left her standing, eyes closed, bemused with passion, in the middle of the sidewalk.
No doubt she was pissed as hell.
Better that way
, I told myself.
Better for us both.
The woman was clever and funny and sweet. The kind a man made promises to—promises he actually intended to keep. The kind of woman a man looked forward to coming home to at night. The fact that, at the very first glimpse of her—dark curly hair in seemingly permanent disarray and laughing, chocolate eyes—I had felt something hot and sharp and utterly unexpected pierce my heart and then stick fast like a barb. It shouldn’t have mattered. I had tasted her lips, satisfied my own curiosity, and that should have been the end of it. I had no need for a now and forever sort of love. I had no need for love at all.
I reached the waterfront and let my steps slow to a stop, leaning on impulse against one of the tourist pay-to-view telescopes. I pressed my eye to the eyepiece, as if trying to catch a glimpse of the view.
Go home, Ash
, I thought. Even considering the possibility I might find happiness with a human woman, find happiness at all, was like gazing into this telescope. There was nothing to see. There was nothing there at all. My best, my only, course of action was to go back to the existence I had constructed with such deliberation. The world that, until tonight, had provided everything I wanted. Stop dreaming of six impossible things before breakfast. Stop dreaming, period.
Satisfied with my conclusions, I lifted my head and felt a sudden pain greater than any I had ever known shoot through my body.
A million tiny daggers, dancing along the nerves of my frame, rattling my very bones.
I could feel my body spasm, was utterly powerless to stop it. My vision hazed red, went stark white, then black. And then I remembered nothing more.
When I knew myself again I was in a small room, the light so bright it hurt my eyes. I was wearing my own garments, lying on my side. Every single muscle in my body ached. I lay still for a moment, sensing the condition of my own body. My head throbbed viciously, as if whatever had attacked me had driven an ice pick through the base of my neck,
then
twisted it straight up into my skull. My mouth tasted vile. But I could tell I had no major injuries. Slowly, careful not to jar my head, I put my hands flat beneath me and levered myself to a sitting position. I stayed that way for a while. Then, as soon as the room stopped spinning, I got to my feet.
Big improvement
, I thought. The room didn’t spin this time.
As if my ability to rise to my feet had been some kind of signal, the door to the room opened and two men entered. The first was clearly a vampire. His eyes flicked over me, quickly, assessing my condition. I felt the faint touch of rapport. It isn’t just humans who can be affected, manipulated by this skill. It works between vampires as well. I let it wash over me without consciously attempting to deflect it away.
Rapport works two ways
, I thought. The fact that this vampire had used it at all told me that he was not quite certain of me. Not quite certain of his own strength now that I was aware of him.
I am stronger than you are
, I thought.
A strength
I would hold in reserve, for now. The thought that I had let myself get caught unawares by someone weaker than I burned like a cinder in my gut.
So much for the power of love.
The vampire snapped his fingers and the second figure stepped farther into the room. At the sight of it, the burning in my stomach got much worse, for an entirely different reason this time. The newcomer was a human man, his skin a pasty gray, his eyes flat and dull. Except for a loincloth, his body was completely bare, and riddled with bite marks, some of them fresh.
Drone
, I thought.
Of the most disgusting, pitiable kind.
This human had been kept alive for just one purpose: to be a food source. Vampires feed on humans in many different ways, all of them with unpleasant results if you are alive. But this was the worst sort of existence imaginable. To be slowly drained, until your body was rendered incapable of rejuvenating itself. Then, most likely, this man would be torn to pieces, literally devoured.
“I am Simmons,” the vampire said. He gave a second snap of his fingers and the drone stopped.
“I would say that I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said. “But there wouldn’t be much point. We both know it would be a lie.”
An expression I couldn’t quite read came over Simmons’s face.
He wants me to goad him
, I suddenly realized. Why? So he had an excuse to dole out punishment? And, in that moment, I realized what his expression held. Envy and fear in almost equal measure. The fear I understood. Comprehending the envy would take more time. He gave the drone a shove, and the man staggered forward, dropped to his knees at my feet. I saw his throat move as he
swallowed,
vainly trying to prepare himself for what he knew must come.
He is almost spent
, I thought.
“You will feed on this drone before we proceed,” Simmons said, in a tight voice. “The effects of the means we used to bring you here can cause some regrettable weakness. The Chairman wants you strong.”
The Chairman
! I thought. With those two words, Simmons had told me what I needed to know. I wondered if he realized it.
Watch your step, Donahue
, I thought.
“Please thank the Chairman for his kind offer,” I said. “Sadly, I think I must decline.”
Simmons moved then, darting forward like a snake to strike, his act so sudden it caught even me by surprise. With a swift, brutal motion, he brought his arm up, clubbed me to my knees. The drone and I were now on equal ground.
“I don’t give a damn what you
think
,” Simmons said, his tone shrill. “What you
think
is not important. What is important is that the Chairman gets what he wants.
You will feed on the drone
. You will obey this order or suffer the consequences.”
I rolled my tongue around the inside of my mouth,
then
spat the blood that had pooled there at Simmons’s feet.
“Very well.”
With a sound that might have been a snicker, Simmons stepped back.
He likes to watch
, I thought.
A vampire voyeur.
Just what the world needs.
I stared at the drone, silently willing the man to lift his eyes to mine. He did so at once. In them, I saw a desperate plea, a desperate hope.
“Please come closer,” I said softly. Again, I saw that flicker of surprise.
No doubt because I had asked, not simply taken.
The drone dropped to all fours, crawled closer,
then
straightened up once more. Crawling was the only thing that he was capable of. I reached out and took the drone’s head gently between my hands, looking fully into his eyes.
“You know what is about to happen?” I asked. “Let me hear your voice.”
“I know,” the drone replied, his voice no more than a single thread of sound.
“What is your name?” I asked. “Are you still man enough to recall your name?”
Simmons made a restive movement, quickly stilled as the drone spoke.
“Carlyle,” he said, his voice moving slowly over the syllables, as if afraid they might get away if he spoke too quickly. “My name is John Carlyle.”
“Very good.
That’s very good,” I said. “You know what it means, don’t you, John? It means that when you die, you will die as a man.”
I broke his neck then, one quick, hard twist. He fell forward, into my arms. Then Simmons was there, screaming in fury, the veins standing out in his throat. I caught a quick glimpse of the weapon that had been my initial undoing, a
taser
, before the world once more exploded in a series of bright, painful shards,
then
went pitch dark.
When I came to myself again I was seated in a chair, dressed in a robe of simple linen, its only decoration a pin depicting a red equilateral triangle. Before me was a table made of lustrous ebony, also triangle-shaped, in a room completely unadorned. I was seated along the triangle’s bottom. To my left sat three men.
Two to my right, with an empty chair between them.
But all my attention was immediately drawn to the man I faced, seated directly across from me, at the triangle’s apex. Not that he was a true man, of course.
We were vampires, all of us.
Powerful ones.
All vampires are predators. Sensing one another, the depth and extent of our own powers, is part of how we survive. And so I knew at once that I was in the presence of power so immense and ancient my mind could hardly comprehend it.