Midnight Labyrinth

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Ben smiled. “Now that business is finished, can I buy you a drink?”

  It was after two in the morning when Ben strolled out of the Bat and Barrel and turned right on Grand. Heavy flirting with Novia O’Brien and two more whiskies had gone straight to his head, so he decided to take a walk. He unbuttoned the second button of his dress shirt and let the night air cool his neck as he walked toward home. Novia had left a half hour before for another meeting. Ben’s workday might have been drawing to a close, but hers was only starting.

  He was halfway back to his apartment when he spied someone walking on the opposite sidewalk. It was a short woman with a familiar—and very unexpected—head of curls. He glanced at her. Looked back.

  Ben stopped in his tracks, waiting for the woman to walk under a streetlamp. When she did, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Chloe?” he said, his voice slightly raised. No need to frighten the woman if he was wrong.

  The woman stopped and turned toward him with wide eyes.

  “Chloe Reardon, it is you,” Ben shouted with a laugh.

  “Ben?” The woman’s wide eyes turned from surprise to delight. “Ben!”

  He leapt across the deserted street, ran toward her, and picked her up in both arms, hugging her to his chest. Then he swung Chloe around like a hero in an old Hollywood flick.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “You’re crazy. Put me down.”

  “What are you doing here?” He didn’t care how loud he was. He lowered her and smacked a kiss on her full lips, cupping both her cheeks in his hands. “You look exactly the same. Exactly the same!”

  Her light brown skin might have been paler than when she’d lived in California, but the scattered freckles he adored still covered her nose. Her hair was cut in the same riot of curls she’d worn proudly in high school, a cheerful rebel among the pin-straight blondes.

  Chloe was speechless, but he could tell she was pleased. Round brown eyes with thick lashes looked at him with delight. Her smile was enormous.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “You said you’d never come back. Why are you in New York? Are you visiting?”

  “Come on, you can’t hold a guy to the shit he says when he’s a seventeen-year-old kid,” he said. “I live here now. I have a place in SoHo.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah. I gave in and headed home. Kinda. How are you doing? You took off and left everybody wondering. What are you doing?”

  She shrugged. “The same.”

  “Are you dancing?”

  “Trying.” She looked down and bent her leg up; a thick black brace was wrapped around it. “I tweaked my knee a few months ago, but I’m mostly healed now. The doctor says it’s nothing permanent.” Her smile was a little bashful. “No one back home really thought I was going to walk onto Broadway, did they?”

  “I was hoping.” He flicked her nose. “I tried emailing. You dropped off the face of the planet. What happened?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. She let out a laugh. “Oh man. This is not a conversation to have when I’m dead on my feet after dinner service. Can we meet for coffee when I’m not half-asleep?”

  He couldn’t help it. Ben hugged her again, picking her up off her feet and making her laugh. “I missed my girl,” he said into her hair. “I know you had to break up with me because you were too smart to stick with your high school boyfriend, but did you have to disappear afterward?”

  “Ben.” She hugged him back. “You’re taller, but you smell the same. Did you know that? I missed you too.”

  He put her back on her feet. “Give me your phone.”

  Smiling, Chloe reached into the heavy shoulder bag she carried. “Don’t trust me not to disappear again?”

  “Maybe.” He took the phone she held out and put his number in, dialing and hanging up so he didn’t lose her again. “I tried getting your number from your mom when I knew I was moving here, but—”

  “They try to pretend I don’t exist.” The forced cheer was brittle. “They harassed me for about two years to come back, but I think they’ve given up now.”

  “They’re idiots.”

  “They’re not.” She shrugged. “They’re my parents. You know.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Damn, I needed this. I need a friend here.”

  She bumped her shoulder against his arm. “You got one, Benny. Always. We promised.”

  Ben was actually fighting tears. He’d been afraid he’d never see her again. Chloe had been his first love. His first everything when it came to girls. Two misfits in their private high school. Two kids who’d never fit in and always wanted bigger things. By the time they’d graduated and broken up, they were more friends than lovers. When he’d lost touch with her, it felt like missing a limb.

  “I missed you,” he said again.

  A cautious look came to her eyes. “I’m not… I have a boyfriend, Ben. I hope you’re not thinking—”

  “No.” He smiled and put a hand on her cheek. “That’s not it. Not anymore. I’m just… really glad to see you, Chloe. It’s hard to meet people you can trust in this city.”

  A knowing look came to her eyes. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  A yawn overtook her, and Ben yawned in reaction.

  “Okay,” he said. “Clearly we need to pick this up when we’re more awake.” He looked in the direction she’d been walking. “I’ll walk you home.”

  She put a hand on his chest. “It’s cool. I’m over by the Delancey Street station, so we’re in opposite directions. It’s close.”

  “Don’t care.” He hooked his arm through hers and steered them south. “We can catch up a little while we walk.”

  She looked like she was going to protest but thought again. She knew him well enough to know it was useless to object. Letting a friend—especially a small female friend who didn’t have fangs—walk home at three in the morning through the Lower East Side was not going to happen.

  “Fine,” she said. “But you have to tell me why the heck you’re here when you told me once you’d seen everything you ever wanted to see of New York City.”

  “Did I say that?” He scratched his chin. “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “Dude, it was one of the reasons we broke up.”

  “Dude.” He smiled fondly. “You can take the girl out of California…”

  “Ha ha.” She started down the sidewalk. “I know. They tease me about it at work.”

  Ben pried cautiously as he walked her home. Like most struggling performers, Chloe also worked other jobs. She had a waitressing position at an Italian Restaurant in Little Italy. She worked as a theater usher at one of the bigger venues in Midtown. She’d been dating the same guy for two years, and they’d been living together for over a year.

  “Tom?”

  “Tom.”

  “Is it short for anything?” Ben asked. “Tom seems so… boring.”

  She frowned. “Says the guy named Ben?”

  “It’s all in how you wear the name, gorgeous.” He winked at her. “Seriously though, I can’t wait to meet him. I’m sure he’s great. Well… not as great as me, but I know you must be resigned to that.”

  Chloe sighed. “We’ll have to shield Tom from the truth.”

  “I’ll try not to rub it in.”

  “What can I say? I caught you on the upswing. I probably couldn’t keep up with you now. It’s better this way, Benny.”

  “Couldn’t keep up with me,” he muttered, bumping her shoulder. “That was never the problem.”

  Tenzin paused midform, her sword lifted over her head. “Chloe?”

  “Yeah, Chloe.” Ben moved deliberately into the next form, and Tenzin followed his lead. “My girlfriend through most of high school. You don’t remember her?”

  They were practicing slow tai chi forms with jian, hiding from the midmorning sun in the lower level of the penthouse. The windows in the lower floor were completely blocked, so Tenzin alw
ays had access if she wanted to work or train. Ben had started tai chi at age thirteen. Tenzin had started training him on the sword a few years later. Though both were proficient, they practiced regularly to keep up their form.

  Tenzin was frowning. “Were you already with her when we met?”

  Most days Ben couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t known Tenzin. In reality, he’d met her when he was fifteen.

  “I think we were just friends then,” Ben said. “We started dating when I got back from Italy.”

  “And you broke up after school ended?”

  “She wanted to go to New York and be a dancer.” He swept the sword back in a smooth motion Tenzin mirrored. “I had other plans.”

  Tenzin shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “She was accepted at UCLA, but she didn’t want—”

  “No, I don’t understand why you just saw her again.” Tenzin chided him, “Friends who have known you since childhood are rare and should be treasured. You have retained contact with most of your former lovers. Why not her?”

  “Can you do me a favor and not call my ex-girlfriends ‘former lovers?’ It seems too…”

  “What?”

  “French. I don’t know.” He thrust his jian forward, his left arm raised. “Just don’t call them lovers. And I lost touch with Chloe because her parents cut her off.”

  Tenzin dropped her sword arm. “They did what?”

  “They cut her off. She went to New York with nothing but a little savings her grandmother had given her. They took her phone, her computer, her car, everything.”

  “They took her things and allowed her to move across the country with nothing?” Tenzin bared her fangs. “They are cruel and unloving people.”

  He shrugged. “They were definitely harsh. Both of them were doctors who came from pretty humble backgrounds, so they didn’t have patience for Chloe’s dancing. They thought it was an extracurricular activity to put on your college application, not a career. I imagine they thought if she started out with nothing, she’d fail faster and come home.”

  “They were foolish people,” Tenzin said, picking up the routine again. “Is Chloe a good dancer?”

  “Very. She studied ballet, modern dance, tap dance. I loved watching her. She was amazing. I’m sure she still is.”

  “Dance is one of the oldest arts,” Tenzin said, sweeping her arm to the side as her sword lifted, “used to express truths too delicate or complex for spoken language. Some religions use dance as a form of worship. Communal dance was a bonding activity in the oldest civilizations. Chloe’s parents were fortunate to have a daughter who was gifted in such a way.”

  Ben smiled. “That’s beautiful, Tenzin.”

  She could be so harsh. Ben thought about all the times she’d inadvertently—or completely advertently—offended someone with her bluntness. Then at the most unexpected moment, Tenzin would turn around and say something so compassionate or eloquent it made his heart ache.

  “What is she doing now?” Tenzin asked.

  “She’s working at a restaurant and as an usher.”

  “She’s no longer dancing?”

  “I think she is, but she’s recovering from an injury.”

  “Ah.”

  They passed the next ten minutes in purposeful synchronicity. Ben loved sparring with Tenzin, but something in his soul that morning needed the quiet meditation of moving with her, not against her.

  “There was something else going on,” Ben said.

  “With Chloe?”

  He nodded.

  “What—”

  “I don’t know.” He pushed his left arm out, holding his sword arm completely still. “But my gut is telling me there’s something going on with her. Something that’s stressing her out.”

  “The injury?”

  “She’s an athlete. Injuries are expected.” He stepped to the right, his hips shifting to balance his heavier upper body. “No, it’s something else.”

  “You have good instincts,” Tenzin said. “Follow them and you’ll figure it out. When are you seeing her again?”

  “We were talking and she mentioned that surrealist exhibit opening at MoMA this Friday. The same one Novia told me about. Chloe is a huge fan of one of the artists they’re featuring, so she wanted to go. Which is perfect because I didn’t want to go by myself.”

  Tenzin curled her lip. “Surrealists.”

  “Just because you don’t understand an artistic movement doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of attention.”

  “As long as you don’t make me go with you.”

  The corner of his mouth turned up. “See? Aren’t you glad I ran into Chloe again?”

  Ben always dressed up for evening events in museums. It didn’t matter that most men his age would come wearing casual jackets with a bohemian aesthetic. He’d been raised by Giovanni Vecchio, bastard son of an Italian nobleman, elegant immortal assassin, and respected scholar.

  When Ben picked up Chloe in the car he’d hired for the evening, he wore an understated summer suit he’d had tailored near Piazza del Popolo in Rome by a family who’d been making his uncle respectable for two hundred years. His bright blue shirt was open at the collar, and a patterned pocket square decorated his chest.

  Ben looked good, and he knew it.

  There was a tiny part of him that hoped Chloe’s boyfriend would be there even though she’d said Tom was working. Ben was competitive; he recognized the feeling for what it was. He wanted to win, not win Chloe back.

  He leaned against the car and looked up to her window as he sent her a text.

  I’m here. You ready?

  A moment later, her head popped out from the third-floor window and she grinned. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “You’d be dressed up. It’s a good thing I shop vintage. Let me put on my shoes and I’ll be right down.”

  When she walked out the door, she was wearing a bright green band around her curls that complemented her halter-neck sundress and orange sandals.

  He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Prada?”

  “It’s so annoying that you know that,” Chloe said.

  “I have been dragged on too many shopping trips by my female friends in Rome not to recognize a Prada sundress when I see one.” He opened the door. “Shall we?”

  Chloe winked. “Thanks, Romeo.”

  He noticed them as she stepped in the car. Four small bruises on her shoulder.

  Ben’s skin went cold, but he calmly shut the door and walked around to the passenger’s side. As he got in, he slid across the seat and put his arm around Chloe; his thumb gently brushed the shoulder where the bruises marred her skin.

  “What happened?”

  She looked up with wide eyes. “What?”

  “Bruises on your shoulder.” He tried not to overreact. Maybe she was training with a new partner for a dance routine. Dance was physically demanding work and bruises happened.

  “Oh.” She smiled. “It’s nothing. I nearly fell down the basement steps at the restaurant carrying too many dishes. One of the guys grabbed my shoulder and stopped me from falling. Probably saved my life. Must be from that.”

  Too smooth. She hadn’t hesitated a moment giving the reason for the bruises because she knew they were there.

  “Hope they don’t hurt,” he said, keeping his arm around her as the driver pulled into traffic.

  “You know I bruise easily,” Chloe said. She stared out the window, but he could see her reflection as they passed under a streetlamp. Was her smile brittle? Forced? Did her eyes carry the sad and yet hopeful expression he remembered his mother wearing for most of his childhood?

  Seven years ago, he would have been able to tell. Now he didn’t know.

  Ben kept his arm around her.

  He didn’t know. But he would.

  3

  “Are you bored?”

  “No.” Chloe tapped her museum map against her bottom lip. “Are you not enjoying this?”


  “I’m kind of bored.”

  “How?” Chloe turned to him. “How can you be bored? You wanted to see this exhibit. The presentation is beautiful, and we haven’t even gotten to the Samson pieces yet. Calm down; you’re acting like a puppy that needs to pee.”

  She turned back to the Magritte she’d been looking at, the two lovers’ kiss thwarted by the shrouds that covered their faces.

  Masks and disguises. It seemed to be a theme for the evening. Ben had seen quite a few vampires mingling in the crowd, acting like humans to attract their prey. They were easy for Ben to spot, though he knew most humans would hardly look twice. He wandered to a clutch of them staring at a lean bronze sculpture of a man with extraordinarily long legs.

  They reminded him of cats with their languid eyes and predatory manner, scanning the crowd like the predators they were.

  Immortals were as vain as the average human, and some could be remarkably superficial. Just as they preferred to surround themselves with beautiful art, good music, and luxury, they also liked being surrounded by pretty people. They were attracted to the glittering and the beautiful. They were fascinated by art and science.

  Ennui was an eternal complaint.

  At any given gallery opening or gala, vampires would congregate. They’d look for the beautiful humans to feed from and use for sex. They’d keep any with interesting ideas or unusual talent close by to allay boredom.

  Ben saw one trying to chat with Chloe.

  “What perfume are you wearing?” the pale young immortal said. “I know I recognize it.”

  “Really”—Chloe was trying to distract him—“I’m not wearing any perfume. I’m sure you must have me confused with someone else.”

  “I don’t think so.” The vampire was hovering over her shoulder; tension radiated off Chloe. “Are you here with someone?”

  She looked around and sighed in relief when she caught sight of Ben. “Hey.”

  Ben walked up to the vampire, invading his personal space and muttering, “Hoc propter vos non est sanguis.” He said it low enough that the vampire heard him and paid attention. The vampire looked European, and Latin was still a lingua franca in the immortal world.