In the Blood (4 page)

She forced that notion from her mind. It bordered on something almost romantic, and she definitely didn’t need to be mooning away her life in day dreams about a client, even if that client set her blood on fire just from being near her. She shivered at the memory of the sensual threat he’d delivered before storming out of her apartment. There was no doubt in her mind that he could really do those things, make her scream with pleasure and beg for more. Chills raced over her skin at the thought of those elegant hands stroking her, her skin flushed and perspiring.

She had to stop this. It was one thing to fantasize about a client, another to fantasize about the guy who’d broken into her place. How on earth had he gotten up to her second-floor window? Someone would have noticed a guy with a ladder on the street in the middle of the night, right? Briefly, she’d considered reporting the incident to 4-1-2. They’d make sure he stayed far, far away from her. She’d changed her mind when she thought about what might happen to him. Even if he had broken into her apartment, she couldn’t deal with any more blood on her hands.

She couldn’t stay in her apartment forever, and she couldn’t call in to work forever. She made an appointment with one of her easiest-to-please clients, a nebbishy thirty-five-year-old who was set for life owing to the sale of the Internet search engine he’d created at twenty-four. He worked late—whatever someone worked on once they were independently wealthy—and wanted to meet after dinner. Fine by Cassie. The longer she stayed awake, the better.

As if her retreat from life had provided respite for the weather, as well, Cassie stepped out onto a sidewalk wet with melting snow. The smell of spring rain in the city played tricks on her. Had she been cooped up for five days or five months? It should have been pleasant on the street, but her gaze was drawn away from the last, retreating dregs of winter to the sleek black car parked on the opposite curb. A Maybach 62 S. Cassandra was no stranger to expensive cars; this one didn’t belong in her neighborhood.

She started to walk slowly, checking over her shoulder only once to see if the car moved. It did, a slow, menacing crawl. The glare from the street lights created an impenetrable reflection on the windshield. She could not see who drove, but she knew who would be in the back, watching her. Viktor.

A thousand women’s self-defense classes came through her mind, but she couldn’t remember any tips for hiding from a vehicle that was clearly following you. Her first instinct was to duck into the narrow alley up ahead, and she followed that instinct.

The moment she veered off the sidewalk, into the space between the two buildings like the walls of a coffin, she knew she had made the wrong choice. A shock of fear stiffened her spine, the kind that gripped her in her nightmares. Something moved in the darkness at the back of the alley.
Nothing. It’s nothing.
She rolled her neck, staring up at the patch of sky, tinged orange with light pollution, that she could see between the rooftops.

A hiss, a flash of fangs, and the creatures from her nightmares were falling, teeth bared, to the pavement all around her.

“I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” she shrieked over and over, sinking to her knees as the ring of them closed around her, their freakishly long arms and blank, white faces closing her in. She couldn’t watch, squeezed her eyes shut tight and covered her ears to block out the sound of their harsh, drooling respirations in her ears.

It seemed years until one of them touched her, its talons scraping her wrist. She tried to scream, but the terror froze her lungs. This was how she would die, then: on her knees in an alley, out of her mind, killed by a hallucination that seemed so real it stopped her heart.

Something growled beside her ear, but instinct told her it was not one of the creatures. It was an oddly familiar sound, and she stopped cowering long enough to catch sight of its source.

Viktor, his white hair and skin glowing in the darkness, stood beside her, his hand at one of the creatures’ throats. It thrashed its arms and legs, snapped its strange, wide jaws. The other creatures stood back, defensive, their mouths stretched into eerie grimaces over their long, pointed teeth.

With a jerking motion, Viktor lifted the creature he held and smashed it straight down, into the pavement. The ground seemed to part like water around the body, and a shockwave rumbled beneath them as Viktor turned for the next one.

One of the creatures darted out of its protective stance and grabbed Cassie. She found her lungs this time, and Viktor whirled at her scream. He quickly dispatched the monster in his hands by breaking it over his knee like sticks for a fire and lunged for the one that held Cassie.

In her life, she’d seen plenty of angry people. Her parents, the judge, Emily’s parents. Herself, as she’d screamed obscenities at her own reflection.

She’d never seen anyone as angry as Viktor when the creature laid its hands on her.

Grasping each of the monster’s arms, he twisted the limbs in opposite directions until bone snapped and broke through the rubbery skin of the thing’s shoulders. It howled, and its cry sounded like wind blasting through the cracks in an abandoned house. Bringing up his leg, Viktor put one foot on the creature’s chest and kicked. The beast flew into the building across the alley, connecting in a shower of brick shrapnel. Viktor still held its arms, now detached from the body, which wriggled and went still, a bloody pulp on the ground.

He shouted something at the remaining creatures in a harsh, foreign language, and they cowered, hissing in one last display of bravado before receding into the darkness.

Viktor watched them for a moment, his chest heaving, then turned to Cassie. “Cassandra, get in the car.”

Only then did she notice Anthony standing patiently beside the Maybach at the end of the alley. She was too numb, too frightened to argue, but she couldn’t quite move. Viktor pulled her to her feet, looped one arm around her and tucked her close to his chest as he helped her stumble toward the car.

“Drive us home,” he ordered Anthony in a low voice, then slid into the car beside her. He laid a hand on her knee, and it was cold through her jeans. “Are you all right?”

She nodded stupidly. Of course she wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right. Either the monsters of her dreams were real or Viktor was part of her hallucination. In either case, she was crazy, and she had no clue how long she’d been that way.

For a long time, she said nothing, and he did not try to engage her. She stared out the window, imagining that all of the people on the sidewalks would turn to her with blank faces and yellow teeth. A woman juggled a paper bag of groceries on her arm, and Cassie watched with terrorized fascination, waiting for her to expose her startling lack of features. When she did turn her head, she was only another human being, but Cassie still startled.

Finally, she had the courage to ask Viktor. “What were those things?”

“Vampires.” The word was hard and unapologetic.

She nodded again, content to withdraw and continue staring out the dark-tinted glass as she slowly lost her mind.

Viktor was not as content to let her. “It was my fault. My mark is on you now, from feeding. They can track you, as they can track me.”

“Your mark?” Cassandra shook her head. “Did you know that would happen to me? That monsters would try to attack me? And you drank my blood anyway?”

Jesus, what was she saying? She couldn’t possibly believe a word he had to say.

“Usually, it does not happen this way. If we had—”

“Why would they be tracking you? They’re my nightmares. I’ve been dreaming about them my whole life.” Well, not her whole life. Ever since the accident. But she didn’t feel like rehashing those details with a stranger.

“They’re tracking me because they wish to make me one of them.” He cleared his throat and looked away, out the window, as though he were ashamed to meet her eyes. “I have taken a life before, out of hunger. It fractured my soul, as such an act always does, and they are…attracted to that kind of despair. I carry a scent that is irresistible to Minions. When I fed off you, it mingled our essences. If we had…finished our business together, the humanity restored to me through the act would have lessened my connection to you. But I let you leave my apartment. Then, stupidly, I led them to your home.” He looked out his own window, hopelessness lining his face. “I should have known better.”

An angry laugh burst from her throat. “About what? About vampires?”

“Yes, about vampires.”

The authority with which he spoke was dangerous, pulled Cassie in, made her want to believe every word he said. Yet her brain refused to adapt to this new and absurd reality. “You can’t just say that to me. My life can’t be part of your sick fantasies. There isn’t enough money in the world to—”

“What do you think they were, then?” he asked calmly, cutting her off as though he were a patient father dealing with a toddler’s screaming tantrum.

The monsters from her nightmares were vampires. Or Minions or whatever. They existed, like humans and dogs and cats and trees. And not just tonight. Probably forever. And she’d never had a clue, besides her dreams.

Though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, she asked him anyway. “What are you? Why could you fight those things the way you did?”

He let go of her hand then, as if suddenly uncomfortable with their closeness. “I am a vampire.”

Confusion spurred her curiosity on. “But those things were vampires. If you’re the same…species—”

“We are not the same!” His voice was too loud, even in the spacious interior of the car. He took a deep breath and continued, more gently, “A new vampire possesses all the instincts of an animal. If he suppresses those instincts—to hunt and kill—then he will retain his humanity. For a little while, anyway. Those that seek only to satisfy their hunger do not. They become Minions. The ones that attacked you are little more than animals, and they would have killed you had I not intervened.”

“How did you know they would come for me?” If it was him, if something in him had tainted her, was she…oh, God, she couldn’t be—

“You are not one of us. I swear to you, I would never…not without some…assurance…” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “They enjoy the despair. The smell, the taste. And you have a limitless well of that inside of you. Only the blind and mortal would not see that. The look in your eyes.” He touched her face, his fingers curving over her jaw. “You do not look like yourself this way.”

“How do you know what I’m supposed to look like?” She pushed his hand away. “You don’t know me.”

He closed his eyes briefly, sorrow crimping the space between his eyebrows. When he returned to the moment, the sadness in his expression was all for her. “They could not resist. I should have known better than to leave you.”

They pulled up outside of Viktor’s building. “Mr. Novotny, you’re all clear,” Anthony said over the intercom.

“We should walk quickly. Do not run. If any are near, running will attract their attention.” Viktor reached for the door.

“Wait, just wait.” She dropped her head to her hands. “I’m sorry, I can’t… Drive me home. I can’t get wrapped up in whatever weird game it is you’re playing.”

“It is not a game.” Something in his voice had changed. It was still deep and gentle, but command warped the edges. “You will not be safe on your own. Come upstairs, where I can protect you.”

She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t find the words. Even if she could have, she couldn’t have said them. Despite her fear—of him, of the creatures he was sure had followed them—she slid from the car, let him put his arm around her shoulders and guide her into the building, into the elevator, straight to his penthouse tomb. She had no choice. It was as if her body had decided, independently of her mind, to obey him.

Once they were out of the elevator and standing in the marble foyer, the mental paralysis lost its hold, and rage seized her.

Before she could utter a word, he held up a hand. “I am sorry. I promise I will not use such a cheap trick again.”

“Trick?” She turned to the elevator, pressed the button furiously. “That wasn’t a trick! That was a violation! People don’t just do that, they don’t just get to—”

“You are right,” he said, loud enough to break through her angry tirade. Then, softer, “
People
do not do that.”

The cold shock was like ice water pumping through her veins. She turned to face him. She’d never seen eyes so sad, an expression so despondent.

Yes, she had.

She turned to her reflection in the polished black marble wall. The image was distorted, twisting her face into a pale skull with sunken eyes. She saw it again, in the floor.

And in the black marble world at her feet, her reflection was alone.

She walked to him, looking at the walls, the floor, the gleaming brushed-metal of the elevator doors. No hint that he stood there except his actual, physical presence. She came close enough to touch him, and did, pressing her palm to the side of his cold face. “You don’t have a reflection.”

“It makes it easier to stalk prey.” He gave her a grim smile. “I have lost too much humanity to have retained something so unnecessary as my reflection.”

Though his statement thoroughly creeped her out, she couldn’t move her hand from him. Maybe there really was some kind of connection between them, like he said. She couldn’t stop staring into his eyes, despite the limitless well of pain she saw there. “You really are…what you say you are.”

He leaned into her touch, took a breath that sounded like a sob. When he spoke, though, his words were controlled, almost polite. “Yes. A vampire.”

His hand captured hers and pulled it to his lips. For a weird, frightening moment she thought he would bite her. Instead, he kissed her palm on the fleshy pad below her thumb. Before she could react, his other arm snaked around her waist, pulled her tight to him, and he covered her mouth with his. He was hungry, desperate, his hands sliding to her shoulders, then down, capturing her arms to her sides, releasing her the next moment.

It had been years since Cassie had been kissed like this, like a woman and not an employee. The carefully drawn lines she’d put down for herself in black and white faded to gray and disappeared altogether. It was dangerous, angering, even, that he could do such a thing.