DarkWalker (19 page)

“How’s your neck?” she asked.

“Sore,” Jack said. He felt no bite marks, not even the slash of the were-bat’s claws.

“It ought to be,” she said. “It was ripped open when I found you.” She smiled, setting one hand on the desk in front of her; she looked like a cat about to pounce. She tightened every muscle in her legs and arms, thrust her chest forward and down, elongating her neck, revealed glimpses of the hair between her legs. “I really couldn’t resist,” she said. “I had to taste you. I needed it.”

“Needed?”

“It’s like sex,”
Jia
Li said. She spoke slowly, softly. “Drinking is very intimate, and sometimes disappointing. But you . . . you were extremely satisfying.” She licked her upper lip. “I’m very particular when I choose a partner.”

“Victim,” Jack corrected.

She shook her head once, touched his lips with her warm finger. “Partner,” she said again, “though somewhat more like the black widow, I suppose. I’ve never heard a complaint.” She lowered her voice. “Not even from you.”

She was close, painfully close; a wild, exciting scent drifted from her skin, and even her breath. Her finger lingered on his mouth. It quickened Jack’s heart. “But if you died,” she said, “I couldn’t enjoy you again. And I so very much want to taste you, in every way.” She slid her hand across his cheek and behind his neck, pulling his face toward hers. “Oh, I admit, there’s a strong urge to snap your neck, rip open your throat, gorge myself in a short-lived orgy. But I’m a patient girl. And so lonely.”

She kissed him, lightly, on the lips, with a pure, soft lust. Every fiber of Jack responded, though he didn’t move. His mind jumbled, and he tried to focus on something else, someone else. He was too weak.

“I hope you never die,”
Jia
Li said. “I’ll kill for you, lover. To have you again even as a human woman might. To know you like you’ve never been known. Eternity is not mine to give. But for as long as you last, I can savor every delectable minute, can I not?”

Jack tried to move, but couldn’t even look away from her.

“Do you know what it’s like, to be a god?”
Jia
Li asked. “To walk among humanity for a thousand years, never aging, never tiring, never growing weak.”

“The sun,” Jack said.

She smiled. Gorgeously. “Overrated.”

“Vampires die,” Jack said.

“At the hands of your hunter? Your girlfriend?”
Jia
Li asked, chuckling. “I am not worried. And don’t you fret, either, love, we are safe here. Protected.”

“From what?” Jack asked.

“You have walked in the dark all your short life,”
Jia
Li said. “You know what’s out there, or at least a small part of it. You’ve witnessed, first-hand, things that most would die for seeing. This, I think, is what makes you so wonderfully delicious. And the electricity, when I touched you that first time, in the bar, when I knew I couldn’t have you.” She shuddered. “You left me breathless. And now, how fortunate am I, I can share with you everything, give you all I am, until you can take no more.” She raised an eyebrow. “And then, you will give me all you are, all you have, until you’re drained of every fluid, every ounce of strength, until you cannot even open your eyes. Then you’ll sleep. Rest. Recover. And then we can do it all over again.”

“I have nothing to give you,” Jack said.

Jia
Li laughed. She shifted her weight backwards, still balancing on the desk (on toes and palm), and looked down at the cup. “Drink,” she said. “You need water.”

Jack looked at the cup, a regular, ordinary cup you might find in any office kitchen.

“I’m not going to poison you,”
Jia
Li said.

He lifted the cup. The water was cold, refreshing. He drank it in two gulps, then dropped the cup on the floor; he didn’t have the strength to return it to the desk.

“I have had many lovers,”
Jia
Li said, “but few in the style in which you’re familiar. Like I said, the drinking is orgasmic for me. Euphoric. I have to be careful not to lose myself; I am not indestructible. I can forget myself. And right now, here with you, I have never been in more danger of losing my senses.
Never
. You’re like no other lover I’ve had.” She leaned forward again, whispering. “Why do you think I want to keep you?”

Jack inhaled deeply, trying to find energy in the air. “I won’t be willing.”

“No?”
Jia
Li kissed him again, warm and moist. Her tongue slid gently across his lips, then between them. She held his head in one hand, pulling him lightly; he could not resist. It was heavenly. Mind-numbing. His whole body craved to share this kiss.

When he tried to picture Lisa through clouded thoughts.

Lightning played across the sky outside. Thunder rumbled. Rain poured.
Jia
Li’s kiss continued. She drew his tongue into her own mouth, closing her lips over it gently, caressing it with her teeth. Jack had no will anymore.

Jia
Li ended the kiss, pulling back even as Jack strained forward. She held his head, though, and kept his mouth an inch from her own. “Are you willing now?” she whispered. “I really do want you to live with me for as long as you can. I’m just afraid you don’t have much time left.”

Jack’s head swam, worse now than before. He couldn’t see straight, could barely put two thoughts together; it was hard enough to react to what was happening, and even in that he failed. But he managed to grasp this thread. “What do you mean, not much time?”

Jia
Li shrugged. “You’re the watcher, you tell me. Those things in the street, the demon and were-bat . . . I’ve seen all those things before, don’t look so surprised. It takes a powerful demon to control that much at once. And the rats, did you see them? I hate rats.”

“You’re a vampire,” Jack told her.

“I’m a girl,” she said. “A child, to some, but old enough . . .” Her grin broadened. “It’s past dawn. May have been your last. But I imagine whatever you did to get that demon after you, he won’t give up because I got you first.”

“I did nothing,” Jack said. “Never saw it before tonight.”

“This morning,”
Jia
Li corrected him. “Doesn’t matter, you’re attracting things. Just look around. There’s a reason I took you here instead of home. I have a great view of the city—half the city from this window, the rest of it elsewhere. I keep these offices for a number of reasons. I never thought I’d use them as a stronghold.”

“Stronghold?” Jack asked.

“It’ll take a long time for the rats to climb twenty-seven stories,” she said. “Same with the roaches. They keep this building pretty clean. Anything else, I’ll see it coming.”

“You mean to keep me,” Jack said.

“Exactly,”
Jia
Li said. “If I must fight for you, I will. But a demon . . . those are big, you know. Nasty. Not exactly going to turn and run when I go
Boo
.”

“You’d risk your own life?” Jack asked.

“You’re unique,”
Jia
Li told him, though he wasn’t sure if she said it or if he dreamt it. “You’re a power.” She narrowed her eyes, intensifying the effect of the make-up mask around them. “I absolutely
love
power.”

2.

The storm raged. Rain fell harder. Wind whipped more ferociously. Clouds hid the sun so well it might as well have been
midnight
.

Dark cloaked the city, the county, the countryside. The weathermen said conditions were ripe for tornados. Expect the rain to continue into Saturday. Possible flooding. Stay home, they warned, if you can. Stay dry.

3.

The search felt long, endless, and excruciatingly slow.

By
noon
, Lisa Sparrow’s legs ached. That was hours ago. Constant rain had pruned her skin. She shivered, cried silently, and followed Nick through abandoned homes and ruinous motels.

The streets were mostly empty of pedestrians; people driving by seemed too busy keeping on the road to worry about two strangers wandering their neighborhood.

They had circled through the dilapidated residential area and eventually headed south, back toward downtown.

Every time she thought of Jack, Lisa felt a stab of rejuvenation, as if simply invoking his name made up for the lack of sleep, hours of walking, and the pitiless rain.

Lightning crashed all around them.

Their pattern had taken them west first, then north, where they crisscrossed every road and alleyway. Residents stared, but from windows and doorways. The rain washed away whatever blood and gunk they hadn’t rinsed off in the gas station. Finally, they found themselves on the road on which they’d started, perhaps two miles north.

“They could be in another state by now,” Lisa said.

“Could be,” Nick said, “but vampires are usually territorial. A few square miles, at the most.”

She easily imagined walking in the rain with Jack, alongside
Lake
Eola
, hands joined, breeze at their backs. The fountain glowed and a sliver of moon shone down on them. But as she focused on this image, the scene shifted; the water reddened, thickened. The sky became rock, and then the ground, and walls formed behind her.

Jagged lightning broke through the unreal image, becoming part of it. The demon laughed, nothing more, and souls in agony cried and screamed and clawed at each other.

Then the vampire swooped down, snatching Jack again, yanking his hand from Lisa’s and leaping into the lake that had become molten rock. The vampire bounced from one head to another, carrying Jack casually under one arm. The souls she trod over reached for her, but always too late. The demon stopped laughing. But the vampire, and Jack, weren’t really there; only Lisa was, and the demon, and its horde . . .

Lisa still felt the heat when she dragged herself free, back to the street and rain. Asphalt, concrete, glass, steel, trees, clouds . . . none of these things existed in the demon’s mirage.

Nick stared at her.

“I keep slipping,” she said.

He squeezed her hand. “We’ll find him.”

Yeah, she wanted to say, but then what? Every time she slipped, it became more real, more solid. The heat increased, and she almost felt the demon’s breath.

They’d begun another sweep of another street.

Nick said, “We’re doing this wrong.”

4.

Jack Harlow drifted in and out of dreams.
Jia
Li seemed to leave him alone, though he twice woke to stabs of pain—once in his neck, once his wrist. He didn’t know what was real, what was imagined, what was forced upon him.

Jia
Li often perched on the desk. Sometimes she seemed to watch him, tilting her head to one side or narrowing her eyes. Other times, she faced away from him. She wasn’t always there. When Jack wanted water, the cup was always full and sometimes cool.

Once, he saw something else—perhaps a phantom—also staring at him.
Jia
Li either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Noise from the next room woke him once; the crashing continued until a final bang shook the wall. Dust fell from the ceiling tiles. A dull thud followed, and then silence—except for the storm.

Sometimes, Jack thought he was in the grip of night. Lightning flashed like strobes, heightening the contrast of the shadows. He saw everything as if he watched a low quality black and white video on a cheap television. Nothing was clear—except
Jia
Li; when she was there; he saw her perfectly.

Finally, he woke. For real.

Jia
Li, on the desk, smiled. “Feeling any stronger?” she asked.

“No,” Jack lied.

Her grin faltered. “This storm blurs the line between day and night. Won’t be long before the sun doesn’t matter.”

“Is that why we’re still here?” Jack asked.

“We’re here,”
Jia
Li said, “because this is my nest. My aerie, you might say. I can see miles in every direction. There is no place safer.”

“But I’m still going to die,” Jack said.

Jia
Li shrugged. “Life is one long death. From the moment you are born.”

“Even for you?” Jack asked.

She smiled.

“Tell me something,” Jack said.

She leaned close, licking her top lip, and whispered. “Anything.”

“What happened?”

“To you?”

“What changed?”

“Honestly,”
Jia
Li said, “and I have no desire to be anything but honest, I neither know nor care what happened. When I saw you the other night, so confident and quiet, with those wonderful chocolate eyes drinking me and drowning me, I knew you were off-limits. When I touched you, barely a brush, I felt it on a cellular level. Physically, I responded. It was dangerous, more contact might have killed me, but the pleasure was worth it. We were like magnets, repelling each other, but I wanted more. I don’t know how else to describe it. You had an electricity.”