Twilight Illusions (4 page)

“What is it? What's wrong with you?” The low, level timbre of his voice seemed to have deserted him. He spoke quietly, as if he might hurt her ears if he used his normal tone. She felt the strength of his hands on her shoulders. The warmth of them. The pressure of each fingertip, pressing urgently into her flesh.

Fear tried to make itself heard in her mind, but there was too much else there in the way. She knew, somehow, that she ought to be afraid of him right now, but she wasn't. And it had to be because of the illness. It must be dulling her intellect, or she'd be scared to death.

The electric blanket's heat seeped a little more deeply into her body. The shaking slowed. The chills eased, just a bit, but left that aching that made her feel as if a steamroller had just mowed her down. She felt his weight leave the bed, heard his steps.

God, she was so groggy when these spells came. Why hadn't he killed her yet? Where was her gun? Why wasn't she screaming for help, or reaching for the phone or dragging herself to the door?

He returned, the bed sinking when he sat on its edge. Pills touched her lips. Then cool water. She swallowed as he held her head up, his long fingers curled around the back of her neck, threading up into her hair.

“Ibuprofen,” he told her. “For the pain and the fever.”

She nodded. He lowered her to the pillow again. The shaking eased further.

“Better?”

Her eyes could not stay open, no matter how she strained to look at him, to see what he was thinking, what he'd do next, whether there was murder in his jewel black eyes.

“You care to tell me how you planned to take on a crazed killer in this kind of shape?”

He sounded angry. She wondered why.

“Did-didn't…plan this.”

“Is it better? Is it easing?”

She started to fall asleep, only to feel his hands tighten on her shoulders and lift her from the pillows.

“Tell me!”

Her eyes flew wide. Here it was, her fogged mind told her. The end. And they'd find her in the morning the way she'd found Tawny. Drained of her blood, lily-white, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Dying of one of these attacks didn't seem so terrible when she considered the alternative.

She had to do something. She focused her mind, the strength of every muscle, into one small act to save herself. One all but limp hand swung outward, toward the nightstand. That was where he'd put her gun, wasn't it? She connected with the lamp and heard it crash to the floor.

He stilled, then gently lowered her back down to the pillows. Her vision was clearing. She saw his black eyes search her face, saw him reach out. Then his hand was pressing something hard and cold into hers.

“This what you're after?”

She closed her fist around the cool wood grips, breathed again.

He pushed a hand through his dark hair. “Keep it, if it will ease your mind, Shannon. But I didn't come here to kill you.”

She drew the handgun close to her chest, covered it with her other hand, relaxed a little. The barrel pointed in his general direction. Her finger just barely touched the trigger. Her eyelids drooped. She popped them open again.

“It is getting better, isn't it?”

She nodded. “What…why are you here?” Her voice was slurred, as if she'd been drinking. “If you d-didn't come to kill me, then why…” Her lids tried to close. She fought to keep them open. It was getting harder.

He smiled a little. “You can barely stay awake. It's all right, Shannon. Sleep a while.”

“No. Not…until you…you leave…” She licked her lips, forced her gaze to fix on him, to get her message across. “Get the hell out.”

 

Damien had seen her eyes spit golden fire at him. And for just a second she'd reminded him of his oldest friend, the only man who'd ever had the nerve to stand up to him, and he smiled.

She was afraid, but she had the courage of Inanna. She saw him as a demon, but she challenged him to battle. Much as he'd once done. She was like him. And like Enkidu.

Damien licked his lips, hearing the ragged, shallow way she breathed as her body surrendered to sleep's unstoppable invasion.

The demon he'd once sought to vanquish had been death itself. But fighting death was a sad exercise. Death always won in the end. Hadn't he searched endlessly for the key to immortality, only to find, instead, a perpetual living death?

He did not want to do it. With the will of every second of his nearly six thousand years, he did not want to do it. But he left the bedside, went to the little bathroom and dampened a cloth with cool water. He brought it back to bathe her heated face, her sweat-slick forehead, her fiery-hot neck. He'd keep an all-night vigil, not out of affection or even a passing fondness, but out of simple decency, and in a sort of remembrance.

The sight of her burning up with fever, shaking helplessly on the bed, brought back the worst moment of his existence, when he'd watched his best friend die in such a similar way. He'd felt so helpless then. Crying out to the gods for mercy, only to have them answer in vengeance.

He reminded himself that Shannon was not his friend. She was a stranger. And these were not death throes racking her slender body, but simple fever chills. Already they were easing.

“Don't…”

He glanced sharply down at her, but she wasn't talking to him. At least, he didn't think so. “It'll help the fever,” he told her, and settled the cool cloth on her forehead again.

“Don't touch me.” She whimpered, and twisted in the bed. “Tawny, make him stop!”

Fat tears rolled down her face, and Damien couldn't help the lump that came into his throat when he saw them, though he knew it was stupid, senseless. He didn't care about this woman.

He touched her face. “It's all right, Shannon. No one's going to hurt you.”

It shocked him when her small hand shot upward to cover his where it rested on her cheek.

“Don't leave me,” she whispered. “I'm so afraid…”

She wasn't talking to him. She was asleep, still burning up with a fever and half out of her head. She was dreaming.
She was not talking to him.

Even so, he knew he'd stay with her. How could she possibly defend herself in this kind of state? If it was true that some maniac was preying on the women who'd assisted him onstage, then she was in danger.

He did not want to believe that was possible. And yet, part of him did. Because if someone else hadn't killed that other one, it must have been him.
And it couldn't have been him.

He barely recalled her face. There'd been so many over the centuries, so many who'd sated his eternal hunger. Young, beautiful, all too ready to sink with him into a well of ecstasy. But he'd never killed them. Never. He
hated
death.

He forced himself to remember Tawny. She'd come to his dressing room after the performance. She'd slid her warm palms slowly over his chest and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. And she'd tucked a piece of paper into the waistband of his pants before she'd slipped away. Her address. And he'd known he would visit her there. The bloodlust that night had reached the height of its power. He couldn't fight it anymore. He'd fought it through the entire evening, forcibly wrenching himself from the luscious dancers who were his assistants in the act. Dragging his gaze away from their pulsing jugulars time and time again, as the roar in his mind grew deafening, and the hunger writhed inside, and his will weakened.

So he'd gone to her. She'd been half-asleep in her bed, and he'd awakened her with a kiss, but never spoken a word. She'd stripped away her nightgown and pulled him down to her in the rumpled sheets, hidden by the darkness of midnight. And as he'd pierced her body with his, as he'd assuaged the burning hunger at her throat, as he'd reached the precipice of blinding, urgent desire, there was that instant of insanity. That single heartbeat in time when he was no longer inside his mind.

And when he'd pulled away from her he'd felt the same flood of guilt he always felt. He'd stared down at her lying still, sinking into sleep. He'd pulled blankets over her, and silently commanded she recall the experience as nothing but a dream. Then he'd fled into the night, his conscience too raw to stay there another second.

Now he paced, beside the bed of another beautiful woman, Tawny's friend and would-be avenger. And he questioned the accuracy of his own mind. She
had
been sleeping when he'd left her there, hadn't she? Or had she been dying? Was there a chance he'd taken too much, that he'd snuffed out a young life? He'd believed the spark of decency that his soul still had left wouldn't allow him to sink to that level. And he knew, beyond doubt, that he did have a modicum of decency left. If he didn't, he wouldn't be here with Shannon right now. He'd leave her to whatever fate had in store and save himself the anguish of starting to care. It was a big risk. He knew that more every time he looked at her.

He pushed the golden blond hair away from Shannon's face, felt the silken texture of it between his fingers, against his palms. He'd make sure the threat to her was eliminated, even if he himself turned out to be that threat, and then he would run to the farthest reaches of the globe and never,
never
set eyes on her again. Never so much as
think
of her again. And he'd do it without letting himself care about her. Damien Namtar cared for no one. It had been that way for centuries, and that was the way it would stay.

He could see, though, that he had little choice except to try to find out what had happened to Tawny Keller. For if he
had
become a man who could no longer exist without taking the lives of others, he knew he had to end it.

All of these things circled like a cyclone in his mind as he sat with her, watched over her, took care of her. He was doing exactly what he'd sworn he'd never do. Taking on the roll of protector to one of the Chosen. Acting on impulses that were purely physical, instinctive, like a goose flying south in autumn.

It was only as dawn approached that he realized he couldn't leave her there alone, unprotected.

 

Anthar watched that building and a smile curved his lips. Just before dawn, the being once called part man, part god came out, carrying the woman in his arms. Unconscious? Or asleep? Perhaps entranced? Whatever, it didn't matter. The pagan had come to care for someone…again. He rubbed his hands together in glee. It was too perfect. Too utterly perfect. Ah, the destruction of Gilgamesh—soul and body, mind and spirit—was at hand. At last, the tools to carry it out had been given. He'd awaited them long, but patiently. For it was not possible to completely demolish a man who cared for no one. The caring, that was the key…the weakness.

As long as it truly
was
caring.

Anthar dared not attempt to read the pagan's thoughts, lest he tip his hand. It was vital he remain undiscovered, unknown, unsensed, as he observed Damien's every move. He had to be sure before he could proceed.

A test, then. Or several. Whatever was necessary to be sure. And then the slow torture and ultimate destruction would begin.

S
he awoke feeling as if she'd been in a fight with a freight train and had lost. Her head throbbed. Her body ached. Her throat had been scrubbed with steel wool. Her tongue had doubled in size and dehydrated. She squeezed her eyes tighter against the shimmer of sunlight that glowed red against her lids, and burrowed more deeply into the big downy pillow. Its satin case caressed her cheek. When she inhaled, her lungs filled with potpourri-tinged air. She hugged the luxuriant, fluffy comforter more closely around her—

Her eyes opened wide. She stilled utterly as a snowball of foreboding rolled up and down her spine. This was not her bed. She'd never owned white satin sheets or a down-filled comforter. She rolled onto her back, sitting up and blinking until her bleary eyes focused. This was not her room, either. The black lacquered headboard, the huge matching dresser with its gold trim, the little copper potpourri pot, simmering over a white candle on the stand near her head. None of this was hers.

“What in hell…” She tossed the covers aside and got up. Plush white pile hugged her bare feet, enveloped her toes. She blinked and shook off this through-the-looking-glass sensation. The room was a triangle, and the tall, gleaming black door opposite her was its point. Where on earth was she? For the briefest second she wondered if she'd died and proceeded on to some waiting room between heaven and hell. But that wasn't it. That couldn't be it. She felt too damned miserable to be dead.

She went to the door, gripped the knob, twisted. It refused to budge. She jiggled it, tugged again and pounded on the wood. “Hey, what's going on? Let me out!” Her heart pattered harder as she awaited a response that didn't come. Only silence. A heavy, smothering silence that closed in around her like a shroud. She willed her pulse to slow, pushed a hand through her hair, tried to calm herself. It wasn't a dream. She was sure she was awake. Okay. So what happened?

The memory of the night before returned slowly, but clearly. She'd had an episode. A bad one, worse than any so far. And then Damien had been there. A slow breath worked its way into her lungs. She'd been afraid he'd come to kill her. But he hadn't. He'd actually…he'd tried to help.

“Yeah, some help. As soon as I was out cold, he kidnapped me.” She glanced around the room, having no doubt it was somewhere in Damien's modern-day palace. The guy must have something against plain old square rooms. She walked the perimeter, flinging open the door in one angled wall and seeing a triangular bathroom. The door in the opposite wall revealed a triangular closet. Actually, the whole thing
would
have been a square if the three rooms hadn't had walls dividing them.

The huge bed, black lacquer like every other piece of furniture here, reclined like a decadent goddess in the center of the triangle's base. Tall narrow windows stood sentry duty on either side of it, their livery, black satin, held apart by white bows. She parted the luxurious drapes and glanced outside to confirm her suspicions. The tall fence she'd scaled the night before stood watch in the distance. Sloping roofs, at varying heights, loomed at right angles, and the vine-covered brick walls were familiar.

It was his place, all right. And the window was no good as an escape route. Looked as if she was at least three stories up, with nothing but sheer wall and the grassy ground, carpeted in decaying autumn leaves, below her. The sun was low. She'd slept most of the day.

“Damn him.” Shannon jerked the drape back into place, and stalked back to the bathroom in search of a way out. A hidden door. A heating duct. Anything.

Nothing. Just gleaming porcelain, glittering chrome and sinfully thick terry cloth. Spotless. Expensive. The hot tub was big enough to hold the Democratic National Convention inside. And the robe that hung from the wall was…wait a minute, that was
her robe!

Charging back into the bedroom, she yanked open the door of the closet, only to see more of her clothes hanging neatly inside. A pair of jeans, a button-down blouse, her brown suede jacket. Her favorite running shoes stood innocently on the floor. Her purse perched on a shelf.

“That son of a—what the hell does he think he's doing?” She paced back toward the bed, and that's when she saw the picnic basket on the floor beside it. She narrowed her eyes, moved cautiously closer, flipped it open. A pile of fruit. She looked closer, lifted the other lid. A half-dozen assorted muffins. A thermos bottle. A sugar bowl. Her stomach rumbled. Part of her wondered if he'd put something into the food. Another part wondered why he'd bother. If he'd wanted to hurt her, he'd had his chance last night.

She disliked this situation. Everything in her rebelled against it, and if she'd cared to analyze herself this morning, she would know why. Her choices had been taken away. It was almost as bad as if she were a child, a ward of the state, again. She was not in control of anything at this moment.
He
was. He'd brought her here without her consent, locked her in for some insane reason, chosen the clothes she'd wear today, the food she'd eat for breakfast, the soap she'd use in the damned shower.

When she saw the bastard again, she would probably kill him.

In the meantime she was starved. The hell her body had been through last night had drained her. And while he had chosen the food, it was entirely up to her whether or not to eat it.

She threw caution to the wind and reached for a muffin, then the thermos, praying it held good, strong, ultracaffeinated coffee.

It did, piping hot. Aromatic steam rolled from the brew as she poured. It tasted even better than it smelled.

She looked around the room again, shaking her head in frustration. “I don't know what you're up to, Damien, but you aren't going to get away with it.”

 

Damien had decided there were only three possibilities. One, that he'd lost control of his own mind, that he'd become the harbinger of death, his hated enemy. Two, that there was another vampire hunting the streets of Arista. Or, three, that an ordinary mortal with a twisted mind was responsible for the killings, and for some sick reason, wanted them to look like the work of a vampire. Though
how
any human could manage it, he still couldn't guess. The killer might be someone who wanted Damien to be blamed for
his
kills. If that was the case, then Shannon was in grave danger. And much as Damien had sworn never to do it, he was inclined to protect her. The blood ties, damn them straight to hell, were impossible to ignore. He could hate the instinct all he wanted, but he couldn't resist it. No more than a human can resist the gravitational pull of the earth, and go floating off into never-never land. He had no choice, no matter how he looked at it. And he resented the intrusion on his solitude.

“The lady's awake, sir.”

Damien pulled himself from his ponderings to glance up. The deck of cards he'd been shuffling went still in his hands. Netty tilted her small head to one side and the other, like a little, curious bird. He forced a smile, and her face crinkled with her answering one. She had the frail build of a music-box dancer, and the temperament of a saint. Where else would he ever find someone to take care of the everyday needs of this place, to deal with the repairmen and the gardeners and the salesmen, to put up with his bizarre hours and strange requests, all without question or complaint? What the hell would he do when death crept up to claim Netty?

“Thank you, Netty.” He pursed his lips, wondering what he'd say to Shannon when he went up the stairs.

“Been awake for quite a while, now. Pacin'. Nervous-like.”

Her head tilted again, and he knew she'd like nothing better than an explanation for the unheard-of circumstance of a stranger, much less a woman, in the house. She'd never lower her proper British ways enough to pry, though, no matter how curious she was.

“You left the food for her?”

“Oh, yes. Sleepin' like the dead, she was, when I went in. Lovely thing, don't you think? All that angel's hair spread around her—”

“You can go now, Netty. You're through for the day.”

She bit her lip, bobbed her head and hurried from the room with quick little steps. Seemed wherever she went, Netty was always hurrying. He heard the back door, then the motor of her car.

He stiffened his spine and glanced toward the staircase. He didn't have to open his mind or try the trick of scanning hers to feel the fury emanating from Shannon. It was palpable. It filled every recess of the house, and all of it was directed toward him.

He sighed heavily, cut the deck one-handed, then fanned the cards facedown on the table. With exaggerated grace, he extracted four cards and flipped them over. Four aces. One more card trick to add to the repertoire. He grimaced as he rose and started for the stairs.

When he reached the door, he paused, startled to realize there was something warm surging like a South Sea tide in his belly. Anu forbid, he was looking forward to seeing her! That worried him. “She's nothing to me,” he whispered, willing his mind to remember it. “Nothing.”

He freed the lock with his mind and stepped inside. The first thing that hit him was the clean, moist smell of her. She'd bathed. He could feel the steam in the air, smell the water drying on her skin, almost taste it. Her hair was still damp, curling at the ends. She wore jeans and a green button-down cotton shirt. She was in the process of rolling the sleeves, when she whirled to face him. The fact that she hadn't fastened a single button didn't seem to faze her in the least. Her amber eyes flashed gold and her jaw went taut beneath the smooth skin. There were glistening droplets still clinging to her lashes.

“It's about time you showed up. Just what the hell do you think you're doing, bringing me here! Locking me in! That's unlawful imprisonment, mister, and I can tell you, you'll find yourself in a cell the minute I—”

She broke off, glancing down, apparently having finally noticed where his gaze was focused. The frilly white edges of the bra caressed the mounds of flesh they cupped like adoring fingers, and he couldn't for the life of him look away. She was beautiful. He hadn't taken the time to really appreciate feminine beauty in too long. He satisfied his needs in darkness, with hurried encounters and no words exchanged. He realized just what an oversight that had been, as he traced her flat belly, the dark well of her navel, the swollen curves of her breasts, with his eyes. He stared long and hard at the darker circles at their centers, just visible through the white material. Their peaks came alert as he stared and he felt the razor-edged blade of desire run him through.

She turned her back to him, buttoning up. “I want a phone. I'm calling a cab and then I'm getting the hell out of here, and when I get back to my apartment, I'll probably call a cop.”

He said nothing, just watched her. She tucked the shirttails into the jeans before facing him again. “Well?”

Her cheeks were pink with rage and her eyes sparkled. Her breaths came a little too fast, and her fists were clenched.

“You look a lot better. How do you feel?”

She threw her hands in the air, rolled her eyes. “Fine. Perfect. Where the hell's that phone?” She walked past him, through the door and into the wide hallway. She looked up and down it, obviously not sure which way to go.

“Do those attacks come often?”

She started, as if she didn't know he'd walked along behind her. “None of your business. Which way is the phone?”

“Answer my questions and I'll take you to it.”

If her eyes could shoot daggers through his heart, they would have. When she spun on him again her hair flew out around her like a wet halo, spraying his heated face. “Why did you bring me here last night?” Her eyes widened slightly for just an instant as the obvious answer occurred to her. “I was unconscious, wasn't I? Did you
do anything
to me?”

“Shannon, for God's sake, I don't go around molesting delirious women. I brought you here because I was afraid to leave you alone. You were sicker than hell. I'd have called some of your family to take care of you if I'd known where to reach them. But I didn't, so I decided to do it myself.”

“I don't have any family.” Her eyes narrowed to slits as she studied him.

“It's happened before, hasn't it?”

“Once or twice.” She turned her back on him, started down the hall in the wrong direction.

“How often?”

She shrugged. “What's it to you, anyway?” She stopped a few yards away, turned and came back, apparently deciding to go the other way.

When she passed him, he took her arm, walked beside her. “Nothing,” he reminded himself. “Absolutely nothing. The phone is downstairs, but you don't need it. I'll drive you anywhere you want to go.”

She blinked up at him, pausing in their trek toward the stairway, which was now in sight. “You will? I mean…you're not going to try to…” Her gaze fell to the floor and she shook her head.

“What did you think—that I was holding you prisoner?”

She met his gaze, her own flashing again. “You locked me in.”

“There was a reason.” He started down the stairs, led her through the narrower hall to the second staircase and then down that. When they finally emerged on the first level, he guided her into his oval library, waved her toward a leather sofa.