Overbite (11 page)

Lucien had spent five hundred years swearing he would never be anything like his father.

But recently he’d come to realize that the only way he was ever going to get what he desired was to become a little more like his father.

Emil coughed. “Yes,” he said. “Well, I only mention it because it seems to me that—”

“The
Vatican
has had it?” Lucien was still stunned. “All this time?”

“Those were confusing times,” Emil said soothingly. “Especially after your father . . . well.” He fell tactfully silent.

Lucien leaped to his feet and began to pace the length of the carpets.

“That book,” he said. “Last night, Meena spoke of it.”

“But that means . . .” Emil looked appalled. “My lord, you
know
what that means. If it’s in the collection, it can only mean she had something to do with it being placed there.”

“No,” Lucien said. “I’m certain she didn’t. She said she saw it in a dream.”

Lucien closed, then opened, his fists, hardly aware of the gesture. Practically the only happy memories he had from his childhood were about that book. His mother had taught him to read from it.

That was why he’d found Meena’s dream so disturbing. The scene she’d described—of the dark-haired woman sitting by a window, turning the pages of an illuminated manuscript with a young boy—seemed almost to have been plucked from his mind.

It was one of the images he’d been hoping so desperately that the Mannette would rob him of forever, because he found that it—like the knowledge that Meena Harper existed, but would not be with him—did nothing but torment him.

How could this be happening
now,
when he was so close? And
why
? Was this some kind of last temptation, a test, to see if he was finally worthy of the dark crown?

Or was it something else? An unprecedented release from the Vatican of historical documents and works of art? An exhibit of those objects at a museum in the city where he was rumored to be dwelling? And then . . .

“Last night,” he murmured, stunned. “It was all a setup. It had to be. To make sure I’d come crawling out of my lair, if I was still in the vicinity. And she was the bait.”

“I’m not sure I quite follow you, sir,” Emil said. “Are you speaking of Ms. Harper?”

Lucien ignored him. “She just didn’t know it. I’d swear she didn’t know it. Those damned, soulless bastards.”

“Sire,” Emil said. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.
Who’
s a damned, soulless bastard?”

“Not us this time, Emil.” Lucien shook his head. “Believe it or not. Not one of us.”

“Well,” Emil replied. “We always knew they were, sire. That’s why I came as soon as I heard. I knew you would be in need of me. I suggest you let me take you from here as soon as possible. It’s obvious that however strong the powers of this place might once have been, they aren’t strong enough now to match the powers of whatever is happening within the Palatine. Mary Lou and I will find another place for you to—”

“No,” Lucien said, shaking his head. “No need. I’ll go. I always planned on going eventually. But not until I’m ready.” He threw Emil a steely glance. “And I won’t leave without that which rightfully belongs to me.”

Emil set down his wineglass with a sigh.

“My lord, retrieving the book is exactly what they’ll be
expecting
you to do. It’s undoubtedly why they put it in the collection in the first place. It’s the Vatican. Tonight is the gala to celebrate the exhibit’s grand opening in the U.S. Everyone from the archdiocese is going to be there. And, I suspect, everyone from the Palatine. They’ll be lying in wait.”

“That,” Lucien said, a red glow growing in his eyes, “is what I am counting on.”

“So,” Emil said, looking uncomfortable, “when you said you won’t leave without that which rightfully belongs to you, you weren’t referring strictly to your mother’s book.”

“I was not,” Lucien said.

Emil picked his wineglass back up and drained it.

“I was afraid of that,” he said.

Chapter Fourteen

J
on lifted up his sunglasses, squinting at the object perched on the edge of the roof.

“Can you see any difference?” he asked.

“I think he’s leering at you,” his best friend, Adam, said.

“I don’t care about his expression,” Jon said. “Is he dead?”

“Well,” Adam said. “Considering he was never alive to begin with, it’s kind of hard to tell.”

Jon scowled. Adam was right. The garden gnome balanced between the roof of his building and the one next door not only showed no sign of having been shot, it did appear to be wearing a slightly mocking expression.

Jon ran his hand over the stubble where his muttonchops were growing in, just not as quickly as he might have hoped. He had a lot of time to think during his shift behind the counter at the Beanery—except when Yalena came in, before her shift at the thrift shop next door, which always distracted him—and he’d decided that he might stand a better chance of getting hired by the Palatine Guard if he looked the part. Alaric Wulf, for example, had that kind of blond Captain America thing going on.

Jon knew he was never going to achieve that level of awesomeness, but he could probably get away with a little more Wolverine in his personal style.

He glanced at Adam. Adam, on the other hand, was never going to be anything more than the nerdy sidekick. It wasn’t his fault, really. It was simply the role he’d been born to. Jon was actually a little relieved it wasn’t the role he’d been relegated to. That would fully suck.

“Maybe it works and gnomes are immune to UV rays,” Adam offered.

Definitely
nerdy sidekick.

“Gnomes are immune to UV rays,” Jon said. “Especially ones made out of plaster. I already explained that this was just a hypothetical.”

“Then I guess I don’t really get why you’re shooting at one.” Adam sank into the closest folding deck chair, then reached down to lift his baby, Joanie, from her car seat and pull her onto his lap.

Joanie, unfortunately, didn’t like that. She let out a wail loud enough to startle the pigeons roosting on a nearby cable wire. They took off into the air with a flutter.

Adam hastily removed his hands, saying, “Sorry, I forgot.”

Jack Bauer, who was sprawled in the shade of the baby seat, lifted his head to shoot both men an annoyed look. As soon as Adam leaned back in his chair, the dog lay back down and relaxed. Joanie stopped crying and began to coo contentedly.

“What was
that
all about?” Jon asked.

“Dogs,” Adam said with a sigh. “The kid is nuts about them. Especially
that
one. I don’t know why.”

“Oh,” Jon said. “Probably because she feels safe and secure around him, seeing as how he’s a demon-scenting dog. I bet she picked up a little bit of her mother’s unease about vampires from the womb.”

Adam sighed again. “Great. Like I don’t have enough problems. Now I’ve got a baby who loves vampire-hunting dogs, a wife who’s so terrified of demons that she’s repressed all memory that they exist, and a best friend who won’t talk about anything else. Can we please change the subject?”

“No problem,” Jon said.

He folded himself into the deck chair beside Adam’s, then reached for a cold one from the cooler between them. It actually didn’t get much better than this, he thought. His dog, his best bud, an actual Bud, and his best bud’s baby, chilling out on the roof, with the sounds of the city moving below them. He could hear the not-so-distant roar of the San Gennaro Festival farther on down the street, the carnival music of the Ferris wheel, the guys at the food booths hawking their wares. When the breeze blew just right, he could smell fried mozzarella sticks and roast pork.

Life was good.

He patted the object in his lap, which looked like a hair dryer, only bulkier, and much less streamlined. “I’m telling you, dude, if I can get this thing to work, Leisha doesn’t have to worry anymore. And neither do you, since you helped with the design. That little girl’s future is going to be made.”

“I told you. Leisha doesn’t remember what happened that night at St. George’s,” Adam pointed out, “and I actually prefer it that way. And do you honestly think that you’re going to be able to get hired by the most elite demon-fighting force on the planet just by inventing a gun that uses UV rays to kill vampires?”

“Why not?” Jon asked. “Wouldn’t
you
rather shoot a vampire from a hundred feet away, as opposed to staking him in the heart from a foot away, and get so close to those fangs?”

“I guess,” Adam said, with a shrug.

“Exactly,” Jon said. “Police forces already use spectroscopy technology to detect trace evidence, like blood and residue left by chemicals used in meth-making labs. I’m just applying it in a new way. And I’ve doubled the amount of UV filaments in the mirrored chamber, to intensify and focus the ray. It
should
work.” He looked down at the gun in his lap. “It’s got to.”

“That’s ultraviolet light,” Adam said. “It isn’t sunlight. How do you know UV light does anything to vampires?”

“It’s what grows plants, doesn’t it?” Jon demanded. “Where do you think I got the filaments?”

“Oh,” Adam said. The baby had leaned over and was grabbing handfuls of Jack Bauer’s fur. The dog looked up inquiringly, saw that it was just Joanie, yawned, and went back to sleep. “Sorry. I forgot. Those pothead friends of yours?”

“They’re horticulturists, Adam,” Jon said. “Not potheads. They’re providing a service to people in need. Such as cancer patients.”

“Got it,” Adam said.

“And don’t forget Meena’s next-door neighbors. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said. “The ones who turned out to be vampires.”

“Right. They were fine as long as they didn’t walk into any direct sunlight. They had UV-ray coating on all their windows. I’m telling you, the SuperStaker is going to sell itself.”

“I suppose,” Adam said noncommittally.

“I guess we should talk to Meena about finding a real vampire to test it out on first, before we schedule a meeting with the Wulf Man. You know. To make sure it really dusts vamps before we go bragging that it works. Wouldn’t want to make fools of ourselves.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Adam said.

“True. There are these guys who come into the Beanery every Sunday . . . I swear they could be blood junkies. They get Americanos and sit there nursing them for, like, hours, staring at their laptops. They don’t even look at Yalena when she comes in. What’s up with that? It’s not normal. I mean, even gay dudes look at Yalena.”

Adam glanced at his watch. “Is this the part where you start talking about Yalena? Because Joanie and I have to go pick up Leisha from work, and we could actually leave early if that’s what this is going to descend into.”

Jon, offended, said, “I don’t do that. Talk about Yalena too much? Do I do that?”

“You do that,” Adam said.

Jon sighed. “If I can get the Palatine to seriously consider this gun, and then get a real job and make some real money, I could get my own place to live, so I’m not mooching off my sister. Then Yalena might go out with me.”

“Jonathan,” Adam said. “Do you want my advice?”

“I should shoot those guys, right? The next time they come into the Beanery? If they really are vamps, they’ll blow up. And if they aren’t, it won’t do anything to them, like the gnome. No harm, no foul.”

“No,” Adam said. “I think you should ask Yalena out now. I don’t think she cares about you not having a real job or living with your sister. She’s a nice girl. I don’t know what you’ve been waiting around for. Life is short. I mean, look at me and Leisha. I’ve been out of work what . . . almost two years?”

Jon thought about it. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

“And in that time, we were both nearly killed by murderous vampires, thanks to your sister.”

“True,” Jon said.

“But we’ve got this beautiful baby.” Adam nodded at Joanie, who was beaming as she thrust her bottle at Jack Bauer to lick, which he was doing enthusiastically.

“And I’m not saying we don’t have problems,” Adam said. “We do. Like the fact that our baby prefers the company of your dog to human beings. But this isn’t the worst problem to have. And to reach it, I had to take the first step of asking Leisha out. So stop being such a douche, and just do it.”

Jon looked dubious. “I don’t know, man,” he said.

Adam put down his own beer bottle and stood up. “Well, think about it. In the meantime, Joanie and I are headed for the salon to pick up Leisha. We’ll see you in a bit. Oh, you might want to plug your ears.”

He lifted the baby seat. This had the swift and immediate effect of causing Joanie to begin shrieking, so loudly that the pigeons who’d resettled on the cable wires flew off. Jack Bauer flattened back his ears and let out a whimper.

“Later,” Adam called, waving, his voice mostly inaudible due to his daughter’s protests at being taken away from the dog she adored.

“Later,” Jon said, standing up to wave back.

Adam and Joanie disappeared through the door to the rooftop. Jon could still hear the baby’s cries for several minutes more until finally, they faded away.

“Stop being such a douche, and just do it,” he repeated. Then he spun around, the SuperStaker in hand, and assumed a gunslinger’s stance.

“
Hasta la vista,
vampire,” he said to the gnome.

He pulled the trigger.

Chapter Fifteen

M
eena took a deep breath, then undid all three locks to the sublet she shared with her brother and opened the door. She was met by the enthusiastic barking of Jack Bauer and the smell of pizza.

“Where have you been?” Jonathan asked. He was sprawled across the couch in front of the television and a laptop computer, which was open on the coffee table next to a plate containing a half-eaten slice of pizza.

“New Jersey,” Meena said, closing and locking the door behind her. She took another deep breath before turning around to bend and greet the dog, giving his ears plenty of affectionate scratches.

“Oh God,” Jon groaned. He took a slurp from the can of soda he was holding, his gaze never straying from the TV in front of him. There was some kind of football game on. “New Jersey?
Why?
”

“Because,” Meena said, straightening up. She tried to keep her voice steady. “I killed David Delmonico last night.”

Jonathan choked on the mouthful of soda he’d just taken. Droplets sprayed onto his computer screen and even reached the wide-screen TV. But he didn’t appear to notice. He just stared at Meena in horror.

“You
what
?”

“Somebody turned him into a vampire,” Meena said. She walked over to the couch to lift up the remote, then turned down the volume of the television. “He attacked me. I staked him. That was his mother who called this morning. I had to go out to New Jersey to talk to a police detective. Is there any of that pizza left? I’m starving.”

Jonathan continued to stare at her. She hoped it wasn’t because he could see that she’d been crying. She’d tried to wipe away all the evidence of her tears in the sun-visor mirror in the car, just before Alaric dropped her off.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want her brother to know how upset the events of the past twenty-four hours had made her. It was that she wanted to protect him, and keep him from becoming upset as well. The two of them were close . . . they’d survived being raised by their parents, after all, a couple who had turned out to be uniquely unqualified to have children.

Displeased and embarrassed by a daughter who told everyone she met how they were going to die, Mr. and Mrs. Harper chose to believe a psychiatrist who counseled that the problem would go away if they didn’t encourage it.

But because Meena was informing her friends and loved ones of their imminent deaths out of a genuine desire to prevent their perishing, not in an effort to get attention, her parents’ withdrawal produced a neurotic, isolated teenager, who then became—as so often happened—a neurotic, isolated writer.

The Harpers’ heaping all of their positive attention instead onto their athletic, popular son, Jonathan, made him a well-adjusted, outgoing young man . . .

. . . until he lost his job as a successful financial analyst.

Mr. and Mrs. Harper decided that this, too, was attention-seeking behavior, that could be solved with a little lesson in tough love, and turned their backs, thinking that their son would get back on his feet sooner if he knew he didn’t have his parents to lean on.

This might have been the correct course of action if Jonathan had lost his job as the result of a drug or performance issue.

But he had been laid off, like so many millions of others, during the recession.

So it was Meena who ended up taking her older brother, Jonathan, in when he was evicted from his apartment, and Jonathan who’d tried to rescue Meena from the Dracul when they attempted to drain her of every last ounce of her blood so that they, too, could predict the future.

Meena loved her brother and would do anything for him, and knew he felt the same way about her. They didn’t have anyone else but each other.

But she also knew there were some things he just couldn’t handle. This was why the Palatine had chosen to employ her, and not him, even though he’d been the one who’d so badly wanted to get a job with them. Precisely because he said things like he did when she walked through the door that afternoon after returning from New Jersey:

“You know, I’m not surprised David Delmonico got vamped and tried to kill you.” Jonathan reached down onto the floor and scooped up a pizza box, which he handed to Meena without once taking his gaze from the television screen. “That guy was such an asshole. I don’t know what you ever saw in him. What was that thing he had with wanting to put veneers on everyone?”

Meena reached inside the box and pulled out a slice. She hoped Jonathan didn’t notice how much her hands were trembling. When was she going to calm down?

Probably not anytime soon, after the things Alaric had told her in the car about all those missing tourists.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was sweet when I first met him, you know.”

“If by sweet you mean he had a great big expiration date stamped on his forehead,” Jonathan said. “I can’t believe
you’re
the one who ended up offing him. Didn’t he marry a nurse, or something?”

Meena winced halfway into a bite of pizza. “Yeah,” she said. “Brianna. She’s missing.”

“Missing?” Jonathan looked excited. “No shit! Did David kill her?”

She dropped the pizza crust back into the box.

“You know what,” she said. It was hard to keep her voice steady. “It’s been a long day, and I don’t really feel like talking right now. All I want to do is take a hot bath before I have to change to go out again—”

“Look,” Jonathan said, taking the pizza box off her lap. “If you want me to call Adam and Leisha and ask them to come over a little later, I can. No problem. They’re going to flip out when they hear David’s dead, though—”

Meena stared at him.

“Adam and Leisha are coming over? What are you talking about?”

“The Feast of San Gennaro,” he said, staring back. “Remember? Leisha and Adam are on their way over here with the baby so we can go. Adam’s picking her up from work right now and bringing her back here. We’ve only been planning to go today for about eight weeks. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

Meena reached a shaking hand to rub Jack Bauer’s belly, since the dog had leaped into her lap.

“I forgot,” she said faintly.

“Meena. If you’re about to say you want to cancel, let me just tell you one thing,” Jonathan warned. “Adam was here all day, talking about how much he’s been looking forward to this. They haven’t had a day out of the apartment together in, like, months. Literally. Months.”

Meena flinched. She knew this was true. She also knew, however, that now was the worst time in the world for her friends to decide to start socializing again.

“Jonathan,” Meena said. “You have to call Adam and tell him there’s been a change of plans. Tell them to go home and order Chinese and watch a movie on pay-per-view.”

“What the hell, Meena,” Jonathan said, springing up from the couch. “I’m supposed to call them and say you can’t go because . . . why? You’re so upset that you killed your ex-boyfriend?”

“That isn’t why,” Meena said, glaring at him. “I can’t go because someone’s turning people I know into
vampires
and setting them loose in the city, and last night one of them tried to
kill
me. Currently, his wife is missing. You think I’m going to put Adam and Leisha’s lives at risk by inviting them over to hang out with me at some street fair? Especially one that’s supposed to have over a million people attending it this weekend? While they’ve got the
baby
with them? That’s just crazy. Anything could happen. They shouldn’t even be on the streets right now.”

Jonathan looked sheepish.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess if you put it
that
way . . . yeah, they’re probably safer staying home. What’s with you and all the undead guys wanting to kill you, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Meena said glumly as she stroked Jack Bauer’s fur. “I have a special gift.”

“Seriously.” Then Jonathan brightened. “Hey, does this mean they’re sending someone over to guard you? From the Palatine? Alaric, maybe?”

Meena sighed. It seemed like only a few weeks ago that she and her brother had first been informed—at sword point, practically—that dark, paranormal forces existed, and that Meena’s new boyfriend, Lucien Antonescu, was behind them all. Alaric Wulf—the individual sent to inform them—had declared he wasn’t budging from her apartment until she revealed Lucien’s location.

That’s when Jonathan had developed his fascination with the Palatine . . .
and
his man-crush on Alaric Wulf. Meena wished her brother would find a girlfriend already so he’d get over it, and have a distraction.

But she knew it was hard to find a girlfriend when you were working as a barista and sleeping in an alcove-sized second bedroom of your sister’s sublet in Little Italy. Even when the object of your affections was an aspiring actress from Eastern Europe who, just half a year earlier, had been a slave in a vampire sex ring, and was now working as a seamstress in the church thrift shop.

But Meena couldn’t entirely blame her brother for his man-crush on Alaric. As frustrating as Alaric could be at times, at others—like outside the Freewell police station that morning, for instance, when he’d held her in his arms and been so sweet and strong and reassuring, and made her feel so safe—he could be . . . well, amazing.

Although
this,
she knew, was not why Jonathan eagerly awaited his arrival.

“Do you think he’ll look at my SuperStaker?” Jonathan asked.

Meena saw that her brother was holding a curious item in his hand. It was her hair dryer.

And yet it wasn’t. Her hair dryer was yellow. This was black.

“I’ve nearly got it working, you know,” Jonathan was saying. He squeezed the trigger. Only when he did, no sound came out of it. No air either. “Well, almost. It’s still got a few kinks. And I haven’t actually been able to test it. Too bad you weren’t carrying it when David came around. He’d have been a perfect test subject.”

Meena didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. But she loved her brother.

“I’m sure,” she said hesitantly, “Alaric will check it when he comes over. He just stopped by his place for a few things. Then he’ll be over to drop them off and pick me up. We have to go to some function tonight. So, listen, while we’re gone, it’s important you don’t go out or invite anyone over.
Anyone.
You have your stakes, right? And holy water? Keep all the windows closed, and don’t open the door until we get home.”

Jonathan looked shocked. “You’re going out? But if the city is under some kind of vampire attack, wouldn’t it be safer for you to—”

“For
work,
” Meena said, emphasizing the word strongly. “It’s a
work
function. Palatine business.”

She had agreed to attend the opening not because Alaric had browbeaten her into it (though of course he’d tried), but because Abraham had stressed the importance of her attendance.

And after hearing Alaric’s theory on what he thought was happening to all those missing tourists, she felt it would probably be prudent to put in an appearance, if only to make sure he didn’t mention it to anyone else.

Lucien might be part monster. But that didn’t make him a beast.

Of course, there was a very small part of her that couldn’t help remembering Lucien’s eyes the night before, when he’d kissed her in her bedroom. They hadn’t looked particularly human.

But didn’t that only prove her point that Lucien
couldn’t
be the person responsible, if those tourists really were being devoured by some demonic creature? Otherwise, he wouldn’t have looked so famished.

And
if
someone—or some
thing
—really was going around Manhattan, feasting on the city’s tourist population, surely the prince of darkness would know about it. He was the ruler of fiends.

But Meena wasn’t certain, considering the condition Lucien had been in last night, how much ruling he was doing these days. Would he know—or even care—who or what was responsible for the fact that human beings were disappearing at a fairly alarming rate from Manhattan? He hadn’t known who’d turned David.

Meena was more worried than ever about Lucien, especially because he refused to listen to her theory about her dream. It had seemed almost to cause him physical pain when she’d brought it up.

And now that she’d invited him into her bedroom, she couldn’t
un
invite him. Something told her he was going to show up there tonight, looking for her.

And not to talk about her dream either.

This wasn’t the only reason, of course, why, when Alaric had declared in the car that he’d be staying over at her place for the foreseeable future, she’d just shrugged and said, “There’s no need, but fine. Whatever.”

She didn’t want him to suspect the truth . . . that Lucien not only already knew where she lived, but that last night she’d invited him inside. Evil spirits could not enter a home unless they were invited. Now Lucien had free rein in the place, and could come in anytime he wanted, just so long as he avoided the crosses and garlic.

But what frightened her even more than this was that after the way Lucien had behaved—the way his eyes had glowed, like there’d been some kind of fire burning inside him—the thought of Alaric being within calling distance in case Lucien did show up again actually seemed a little comforting . . .

What was happening to her? She’d always trusted Lucien, and believed he would never do anything to hurt her. Last night, he’d sworn he still loved her, and there’d been a desperation in his kisses that convinced her he was telling the truth.

So why would she find the thought of having Alaric around—who’d only ever wanted one thing: Lucien’s demise—comforting?

She didn’t know. There was a part of her that was pretty sure she didn’t
want
to know.

Which might have been why, a few hours later, when she recognized the knock on her door that she and Alaric had arranged, Meena’s heart gave a little lurch. She’d begun to feel almost human again, having bathed and changed into a body-hugging black dress and heels she’d purchased new (though they’d been on sale).