Anger and years of frustration flooded me.
“Because what I am is not normal. What I am is a freak. What I am is unpredictable and dangerous.”
“Unpredictable and dangerous are good things, and being so is not your problem. Lack of control is your problem. It’s as if you’ve never used your powers at all.”
“Well, I wasn’t allowed to until a six months ago when I moved out on my own. And I don’t really want to use them now. What I want is for them to go away. I only started practicing with them a few months ago because they’re getting so out of control.”
My breath came in ragged bursts, and I realized I’d been shouting. I checked around the room to make sure I hadn’t broken anything. Everything seemed to be intact.
When I turned back to Rune his eyes were wide.
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve had this capability your whole life and never used it?”
“Well, no. It only cropped up when I was about two or three years old . . .”
“Why didn’t your people train you?”
“Because my people can’t do what I do. They’re afraid of it—of me. Well except my father. He just hates me.”
Rune stood and paced the sitting area. “It’s highly unlikely that this power would only show once in a family.” He stopped and turned to me. “Are you adopted?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. In fact, I look just like my great—”
My brain froze and refused to go any further.
“What?” he said.
When I didn’t answer, he strode over and crouched in front of me. Cool fingers cupped my chin and turned my face toward him.
I tried to look at only his mouth, but he tapped one of his fingers under my chin and I looked up.
“There is another, isn’t there?”
I remained silent.
“There is another,” he said, “and you look like her.”
I nodded.
“Who is she?”
“My great-aunt Tibby,” I whispered and looked away.
Satisfied, he stood and resumed his pacing. “It makes sense. These things sometimes skip generations. Is she still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why did she not train you?”
“She had an accident of some kind. She isn’t quite . . . right. If she had any abilities, she lost them a long time ago, along with most of her mind as far as I’ve heard.”
“Lost them?”
“We don’t talk about it much. Most of what I know I learned only by eavesdropping.”
Energy warmed my skin. I was recharging. From what source, I wasn’t sure. I rose and walked to the fish tank. Colorful fish of different shapes and sizes glided peacefully in crystal clear water.
Rune leaned back on the counter near the kitchen sink.
“We, meaning your family?”
I nodded.
“We, meaning you and I, need to talk about it now if I am to help you.”
Help me? No one had ever offered to help me. True, no one but my mother and father knew about my abilities. I’d hidden my “gift” and myself from people my whole life. Now, here, this dark, frightening, alluring stranger was offering to help. It’s what I needed. It’s what I’d hoped for without daring to verbalize it—even to myself. Yet . . .
“Old habits die hard,” I said. Even now, the hushed tone of my voice reflected my need to hide this part of my life I’d buried for so long.
“What habits are those?” He was fifteen feet away from me, but his voice caressed my ears as if he stood behind me murmuring next to my head. His cedar scent filled my senses.
“The habit of silence.” The aquarium glass chilled my fingers as they trailed down its front. “Of shame,” I whispered.
His sigh was bone deep and weary.
“There are two types of shame,” he said. “Shame of one’s actions, which is a legitimate shame, and shame of who one is, of self, which is ridiculous. Shame of self is a trap of man’s current beliefs. My father used to say morals and fashion are what man dictates them to be at any given time. What’s right today is wrong tomorrow. One day, everyone may have the same abilities that you now possess. Who are they to tell you who or what you should be now?”
“My parents.”
“Your parents are just people. They are not gods.” He sighed again. “People never change. They fear what they do not understand, and they do not understand the gift you have been given.”
I turned to face him. Tears pooled in my eyes.
“This gift,” I ground out between my gritted teeth, “has injured people.”
“Only because it is raw and untamed.” He pushed away from the cabinet and stalked toward me. Too late, I realized his gaze held mine. “Let me help you learn to master your abilities.”
“How can you?”
“My talents are not the same as yours, but some of them are similar. I can help. I know what it is to be different.”
He loomed a foot from me. His will pressed against me, but somehow didn’t reach me.
“What are your abilities, exactly?” With tremendous effort, I stepped back. “What are you?”
My heartbeat pounded in my ears. My breath clogged in my throat. I felt him lingering on the perimeter of my mind, searching for something.
His features relaxed, and he receded from my consciousness.
“Marlena,” his voice was deep and calm. He stood poised without movement. “You know what I am.”
“No.” I took another step back.
Yes
, my mind whispered.
You know what he is, and it’s no more unbelievable than what you are.
“Yes.” He stepped forward as he spoke. “I am a vampire.”
Stress seized me again. A magazine flew off the coffee table, and the light in the fish tank flickered. He stared at me a few seconds more.
“Would you mind stepping away from the aquarium?” he asked. “Fish are the only pets I can manage to keep, and I’ve grown quite fond of them.”
A warm smile played upon his mouth, but his eyes were still hesitant. I backed away to the couch on shaking legs, eyes never leaving his.
He lifted a hand and felt the air in front of him. His smile widened.
“It’s amazing. Your energy is like static to my will. When you’re in this high-energy mode, whatever I send toward you evaporates. It’s like an electric shield.”
My legs gave out and dumped me back onto the couch.
“Great, a mental bug zapper,” I said. “I’ve finally found something my abilities are good for, and it only took meeting another freak of nature to figure it out.”
He walked to the chair by the couch. I drew back involuntarily. He sat down, and I sat back, gripping the couch arm.
His gaze left my eyes and moved to my hand.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it while you slept,” he said.
He had a point, but the thought of my vulnerability while asleep blew an arctic storm into my stomach.
“Well, while we’re on that subject, what exactly do you want from me? What’s in this for you? Because I’ll tell you right now, I don’t even give blood to the Red Cross, so . . .”
He held up his hand and had the audacity to chuckle.
“Don’t worry. I won’t be seeking any . . . donations.”
My eyebrows shot up. So, there was a sense of humor among all that deep, mysterious somberness.
“Then what?” I asked.
He relaxed back into the chair. My grip on the couch arm eased.
“I’ve lived a very long time, Marlena. For long stretches, my existence has been very mundane. When I find an anomaly like you, I can’t resist.”
“Anomaly?” I blinked, and I knew my face wore the expression my mother called my “duh face.” I couldn’t quite decide if I should be insulted.
“Anomaly,” he repeated, “something out of the norm.”
Okay, now I was insulted.
“I know what it
means
. It’s just that I think I’d rather be called a freak than an anomaly. At least freaks can earn money at carnivals.”
He looked contrite and tried not to let his amusement show. It almost worked.
“I’ve offended you. I apologize.”
“You know,” I said, anger leaking into my voice but unable to rein it in. “If you’re so old, you’d think you’d be better at hiding emotions and a lot smoother with the ladies.”
A little voice in the back of my mind told me it might not be the best of ideas to insult a vampire in a basement—alone.
Contrite lost out altogether, and his rich, smooth laughter filled the room. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You are just so much the tiger cub, bristling with fear one moment and spitting fire the next.”
His mood sobered, and he sat forward to look earnestly at me.
“Do you realize what a beautiful, fascinating woman you are?”
Trick question. I didn’t answer.
“Of course you don’t, or you would never have asked my interest in you. Let your guard down, Marlena. Let someone help you.” He leaned toward me and his eyes darkened. “Let me help you.”
The room seemed to dim, with only a tunnel of light connecting him to me.
I felt his interest, the texture of it smooth and warm like silk in the sun. Emotions swirled behind that silk screen—emotions and something else. Motivations? Plans? He hid something beneath those dark blue eyes.
I snapped back to reality and the room brightened. I pointed at him.
“Hey, you’re doing the mind thing again. I told you to cut it out.”
“That link wasn’t my doing.” His face was stony.
“Well, who was it then?”
No expression showed on his face. I sensed he was telling the truth, but there was no one else in the room. If it wasn’t him . . .
“Oh, no, no, no,” I said and shook my head. “I don’t play that mind-bender stuff. I can’t do that.”
A smile spread across his lips.
“I believe you may not know the extent of your abilities. If you can truly manipulate energy, there may be no limit to what you can accomplish.”
I stood, retreated behind the couch, and faced him.
“I absorb energy—whether I want to or not—and I can move things. That’s it. Well, except for the little lightening bolts I shoot out when I’m stressed.”
His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. His presence now filled the room, an ear-popping pressure radiating from him. A chill poured down my back. The fact that he sat motionless on the couch made him no less threatening than if he was stalking toward me.
“You move things because it is a common side effect of your natural talents, and you’re teaching yourself to control that side effect. To manipulate energy is to have power over many things. Thoughts are energy, light is energy, life is energy.”
“I can’t read thoughts.”
“You’ve never known when a person was lying? Never gotten glimpses of a person’s thoughts or memories? Never gotten gut feelings of a person’s intent?”
My stomach lurched.
“Well . . . sure . . . but . . . but everyone does those things.”
“Not to the extent you do. I’d bet my existence on that.”
Heat closed in on me, and the air thickened, pushing against the back of my throat.
I walked to the stairs and looked up at a substantial metal door with several locks and a blinking security system pad next to it.
“Am I free to leave or what?”
“Have you forgotten the men from the parking lot?”
I blinked a few times, and my spine stiffened. Okay—I had forgotten the men who’d tried to kidnap me. How strange was that?
“No,” I said as I turned back to him. “I’m just trying to figure out the greatest threat.”
“I am not a threat . . . to you.”
I laughed and relaxed a little.
“Said the spider to the fly,” I said.
“I think two spiders, no fly.”
“How so?”
“You are one of three humans who know my true nature. That combined with your power make you more of a threat to me than you know.”
After one more look up the stairs, I crossed the room and sat on the chair, taking a route that minimized my nearness to him.
“So who were the men trying to kidnap you last night?”
“One of them was the man who returned my cat to me yesterday. The others . . .” I shrugged.
“But you called both by name.”
“Oh, that.” My face heated. “Mr. Smith told me his name. It’s pretty obvious now it was a fake—I mean, Bob Smith, come on, who would believe that?”
“The others?”
My cheeks warmed further. “I made Mr. Doe’s name up. It just seemed to fit. You know, Bob Smith and John Doe.”
He returned my smile.
“Do you know a man named Dr. Sarkis?”
“No. Is he a professor at the university?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Probably not. I picked up his name from two of the men who attacked you.”
“I don’t know him. Why would he be interested in me?”
“That was unclear. My interest in removing you to safety and their poor physical conditions shortened my interrogation.”
“Oh.”
I wanted to know more about this interrogation, but I wasn’t sure I’d like the details.
“My guess,” Rune continued, “is since four large men felt it necessary to bring enough tranquilizer to take down a horse, they know of your powers.”
“But, how could they? Only my parents know, and they’d never speak a word of it. Especially my father, no matter how drunk he gets.”
“No one else knows?”
“No.”
“You’ve told no one? You are sure?”
“No—no wait. Oh, no!”
How could I have been so stupid?
The coffee table rattled, and Rune reached out to steady it without taking his eyes from me.
“Marlena. It’s all right. Calm down and talk to me.”
“The chat room,” I said. “I have a buddy in a psychic chat room. He said he had the same problems. He knows.”
“You told a stranger?”
“It was all anonymous. I used a screen name. I never told him my name or where I lived.”
“With enough know-how, you could easily have been traced.”
“Oh, God.” I hid my face in my hands. “After years of being so careful, I led them right to me.”
“The question now is why they want you. Has anyone expressed an interest in you before?”
“No.”
Waves of disbelief washed out from him.
“What?” I asked.
“I find it hard to believe no one has ever been interested in a woman who looks like you.”
“Oh, that way. Yeah. But I don’t date much.”
More disbelief.