“I was at the morgue. Where you put me.” His fingers tightened so hard that he could hear the preliminary fracturing of her bones, ice cracking before the splits appeared.
Then she was free, and he hit the wall again.
“Don’t talk to me about that place. Your little coroner friend wouldn’t tell me where you were, not when I asked as prettily as I could. I had to drop off the note to lure you out—”
“Suzanne, it wasn’t just for him.” That was Archer, the craven little magic user, from his hiding place in the corner; Greg could smell his nerves and excitement. A glance showed that he was fondling not only his knife but also another thick silver chain. “I needed to know the necklace’s origin. I’d only read about that kind of protection before, our own bond isn’t the same.”
“Of course, Leo.” Greg didn’t think Archer could hear the sarcasm in her voice. “Gold is always the key. Old and blessed, or new and bloody.” She looked at Greg now, her tongue darting out to lap at the air again. “Look what I collected this evening in honor of you.”
She tossed a handful of things in front of him—a Rolex, a partnership ring, a hoop earring. Fresh blood still tainted their surface, and he had a strange, disquieting sense that he knew whose these were. He breathed in deeply. Oh, God—“Bobby?”
“Yes, pretty one. Doctor Robert Lee Thompson.” She smiled again. “Not good enough to turn, but a lovely meal. As will be your…widow?”
Beside him, the window shattered. A rain of glass shards, another hit of sea breeze, and Linda’s voice, too close: “I don’t think so.”
In the second that the vampire’s head was turned to her voice, he scooped up the missile Linda had used to break the window—the crucifix-stake, searing already hurt skin, didn’t matter. He leapt once more. He and the one who’d made him tumbled backward, him on top.
Struggling with him for the weapon, she said, “Pretty one, I know what you—”
Then he brought down the stake in fury and hunger and silence, and then he was alone, kneeling in ashes.
His chain gleamed at him from the darkness, and he lifted it free. The touch of the gold on his burned hands was like balm.
“Suzanne!” Archer cried out, stumbling forward with knife out. The silver chain clattered on the bricks when he dropped it—he seemed to have lost strength with the loss of the vampire, as if they were connected by an unseen cord.
“Back, Greg,” Linda said, as she sprinted through the open doors. “This one’s still dangerous.”
She pulled a handful of something out of that magic bag of hers and tossed it at Archer’s eyes. The man screamed and collapsed, writhing a little before he fell still, face turned into the brick floor. He didn’t seem to notice he was lying in broken glass.
“For God’s sake, Linda, did you kill him?”
Incredibly, she grinned at him. “No, estupido, I broke whatever spell he’d cast on himself. He’d blinded himself, I think. Read too much without understanding, and it had eaten into sight and heart like poison.”
“Linda.” He couldn’t find his own words, felt them fluttering away like fragments of paper into the sea. With an effort: “Sweetheart, I had no idea what you could do in such a crisis. You’re a damn warrior-queen.”
“Oh, you bet, babe. Cool and calm, that’s me,” she said dryly. Coming to him, she laid her head against his chest, brought her hands to his arms. Now he could feel the shivers in her body, aftershocks of released nerves washing through her like high tide. “I’m only going to say this once, okay? You were right. Coming here was a terrible idea.”
He allowed himself to kiss the top of her head. “Told you.”
“Gloating is one of your least attractive qualities, too.” She clung for a moment—too sweet; he could tell that he needed to back away, he couldn’t make himself back away yet—and then let go. “I want to check that book.”
“What?”
“The book he was reading.” As she picked her way through the destruction to the counter, Archer murmured something before curling up on himself. Ignoring him, she put her hand on its cover, drew a finger down the leather. “‘De Leon,’ it says here. It’s certainly old. And I can feel…something.”
He couldn’t bring himself to hope. He began to hope, with four months’ worth of desperation, that there was something in there to fix it all, to change it back—
When she opened it, the gilt-edged pages were blank. Fool’s gold.
* * * *
They’d come back almost to where they’d started.
Here on the waterfront the breeze off Matanzas Bay was cold, twisting between her and her husband like a river keeping them on separate banks. But it played with Greg’s hair, too, a flutter of blond shining in the streetlights and the reflection off the waves, a teasing reminder of who he was.
Linda sighed. The crucial phone calls had been made. The first, to the police, had brought them to the Lion’s Magick Shop, where they’d been interested to find Archer and the bloody valuables of Bobby Thompson. That was going to take some explaining. The second had been to Bobby’s partner Eric; Bobby was in critical condition, but still alive, thank God.
She didn’t think she’d have a chance now if Greg’s friend had died, too. She sure as hell was going to take the chance she had.
“So, babe, what do we do now?” she said, opening negotiations.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned his attention from the nearby Bridge of Lions to her. God he was beautiful—his ash-covered, open suit jacket draped perfectly, one sneakered foot up on the concrete base of the sea railing, that lean face with one eyebrow arched. But he was hurting again, yes he was, although he was trying to hide it. That was her thin white duke, she thought lovingly. His essence hadn’t changed.
Which he proved by saying in a very irritating way, “Well, Linda, you go back home, while I go—”
“When you say ‘home,’ what do you mean?”
The eyebrow went higher. “That’s a very lawyerly question, Ms. Ramirez.”
“Don’t try to be flip, Gregory, it’s not working.” She took a step closer, and he flinched. “I can’t just go back to Winter Park without you.”
“Linda. Sweetheart, tonight doesn’t change anything.” He nodded at her bag. “The book you got doesn’t have the answer to my problem. I’m still…I’m still not here.” In what she could tell was an attempt at humor: “News flash. Gregory James McGarrity is still dead.”
“Wrong answer.”
Behind them on the Avenue Menendez, a group of bikers roared by, all diesel and noise and rumblings that spread to the waterfront. Greg waited until it was quieter, until it was low-level city noise and the kiss of water against the sea wall, to say, “Nothing has changed. And nothing will.”
“No. Because I know you’re here, babe. I saw you in that magic shop, saw what you did, and I knew.” She touched him now, grabbed onto him as hard as she could. “You are not the thing in the night, Greg. You’re still my husband.”
“Dead now.”
“Still here.” Her hands moved on his arms, felt the muscle and bone under his clothes. He didn’t feel hollow to her any more. “You know what I listened to on the way up here? Your Bowie Greatest Hits CD. You’d left it in my car. You know, before.”
“Oh, I wondered where that went.” He looked out to the bridge again, staring at the lights. A half-smile: “I bought a new one.”
“Of course you did. And did you listen to ‘Space Oddity’ a hundred million times, over and over, in that obsessive way you have?”
His smile faded. “Defendant refuses to answer the question on the grounds it may incriminate him.”
She pressed closer, pressed harder. “And did you listen to Major Tom’s message for his wife and think of me? Love me?”
His hands, his poor burned hands, came around her face, although she didn’t know if it was to draw her closer or push her away. He gazed at her for a long moment, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones. “Yes,” he
said at last. “Every time.”
“I know. Just like I did.” She slid her arms around his waist, under his jacket. The warmth she used to love was gone, but he felt the same to her. “Please, Gregory. Please don’t leave me again.”
“I don’t think this is going to work.” The anguish she felt echoed in his voice. “Linda, I can’t let myself hurt you.”
“Stop it. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, because it won’t. But don’t let your folly be our undoing. This is what Mami meant that day, not the small, unimportant detail of your vampirism.”
It was a long, painful moment: cold sea breeze, the flutter of hair across his forehead, the trembling of his fingers against her face. And then he chuckled, a ripple of gold in the night. “You’re saying I’m a stupid skinny white boy, aren’t you, mi esposa?”
“Exactly. But you’re my stupid skinny white boy, and don’t you forget it again.” She reached into her bag, rooted around for a moment, and pulled out the chain they’d recovered. It felt right in her hands, cool and smooth and still blessed. “Bend down for a second, please.”
Without letting go, he bent his head, and she slipped the chain back where it belonged. It settled perfectly, still visible through his open collar. “There we go.”
“Linda, no.” But she could tell that the last of his resistance was fading away into dust.
She knew what it would take. With her sweetest smile, she said, “I’ll go back to my full vegetarian ways, babe, I promise.”
At that he laughed out loud. His hands fell away, but only so he could catch her in his arms and bring her hard against him. Grinning down at her: “Well, if you’d said that in the first place—”
“Estupido,” she said, high on relief, and she kissed him. His lips were cooler than she remembered, his hold was stronger, but the love was the same.
And then he moved his mouth to her neck—God, her favorite—and she shivered in pleasure, not fear. It was the caress of his lips on her skin, just like always; the scrape of teeth, still human, at the most sensitive spot, near the vein. It was just like always. She tipped her head back to allow him better access, angled her body so she could feel his stirring hardness against her. Apparently that wouldn’t be a problem; she had wondered.
Another press of teeth, another voluptuous kiss, then he whispered, “Okay, you win. Let’s go home.”
“Summer house tonight, babe. It’s closer.” And as he laughed against her neck, she threaded her hands in his hair, held on tight. “‘Seek the fountain where it is not.’ We’ve found it again.”
The wind gusted, sweet over the salt, as if Mami echoed her words from beyond the sea.
About Laura Wise
Laura Wise has always wanted to write fiction, but many years of graduate work and other, less creative writing jobs kept her away from it until fan fiction gave her a chance to explore an old dream and find her voice in fantasy. Although she’s lived in the southwestern or southeastern United States most of her life, she’s a fervent Anglophile whose annual pilgrimages to London keep her sane. Outside of her work, her writing, and her volunteer activities, her hobbies including buying black boots, killing plants, and foiling her small dog’s plans for world domination.
Laura describes trying her hand at fanfic as giving her a chance to find out what she loved to write as well as read: plot, magic, mystery, comedy, romance. Over the last several years, it has become more than a simple exercise, allowing her to share her beginning work with an appreciative, if sometimes critical, audience. Fanfic lets her re-imagine what she already loves, and it has led her to building her own worlds on her own terms.
UNCLE DMITRI, by Roberta Rogow
The headline in the morning Post said it all: Body Found in Brooklyn. Where’s the Blood?
And I wondered whether or not to be worried about my Uncle Dmitri.
After all, a little old man driving a cab in the back streets of Brooklyn might be vulnerable, but if, as he said, he’d lived through the various messes in the Balkans in the last century, he could probably take care of himself. Still, I’ve had to defend plenty of thugs who thought they could cop a little ready cash by bashing a cabbie over the head, and Uncle Dmitri isn’t the most intimidating person in the world. He’s about five foot three, skinny and bald. The only thing about him that is formidable is his teeth. They are very white and in really good shape, considering the state of dentistry in Romania. He doesn’t show them much, though; he’s not a smiler.
He was just going into the basement apartment he uses in my house when I saw him. We don’t meet too much, since he works nights and I work days, but it was mid-November, when daylight comes late, and I had a full caseload waiting for me downtown, so I wanted to get out early, even though it wasn’t quite daybreak.
“Uncle Dmitri,” I called out.
He stopped, with his hand on the doorknob. “Yelena?” He turned around and peered up at me from under the brim of his old-fashioned cloth cap.
I trotted down the stairs and showed him the headlines in the New York Post. “I thought I’d better warn you. According to the newspapers, there’s a vampire loose in Brooklyn.”
“So?” He turned to go back to his lair.
“So, like it says, there was a killing in Coney Island last night, some drugged-out kid near the Boardwalk. That’s your route, isn’t it? You really shouldn’t be driving there, Uncle Dmitri, it could be dangerous.”
He smiled, not showing those teeth. “I have no fear, Yelena. Who would wish to harm me? It is you who should be worried. You were out last night, too.”
I shrugged his warning off. “I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I walk to clear my head. This has nothing to do with me, Uncle Dmitri. I just don’t like to think of what could happen to you. There are a lot of weird people out on the streets at night, Uncle Dmitri. I hear things in my work, you know, and I have friends who keep me informed….” I let that thought dangle in the air. Whatever was going on in Coney Island, I wanted my pack out of it.
He shook his head. “Defending those people. Scum! Perverts! What kind of a job is that?”
“It’s the one I could get, Uncle Dmitri.” We’d had this discussion before. I would have preferred working Prosecution, but hey, when I got out of law school the freeze was on in the DA’s office, and I wasn’t hip enough or rich enough to land a job with the classy Park Avenue firms. After Mr. Gideon had blown his trumpet, the Public Defenders were set up, and the left over lawyers wound up there. The pay is lousy, the caseload is horrendous, and everyone in the legal profession despises us for being the bottom of the barrel, but it’s a living.” I went on, “Besides, it’s the American way. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Someone’s got to defend them, and that someone is me. And once in a while, I can do some good.”
He shook a finger at me. “What you need, Yelena, is a husband. I don’t know why your father didn’t find you one. He married a good woman, a woman of our people. He should have found you a husband.”
I squelched a sigh. “This is America, Uncle Dmitri. We do things differently here. Besides, maybe he didn’t have the time.” Neither of us wanted to bring that up. My father and mother were both gone, and so were the punks who killed them. As Uncle Dmitri would say, “Sheyn fartig.” That’s that.
“Was more sensible in the Old Country,” Uncle Dmitri told me. “Young people don’t know how to choose for themselves.” He muttered something in Romanian that I didn’t quite catch. “I find you a good match, Yelena.”
“I don’t really want to be married, Uncle Dmitri.” This was another discussion we’d had several times since he’d arrived, unannounced, several years ago. He didn’t understand why any woman wouldn’t want to put her life in the hands of a man. I’d seen enough women battered physically and emotionally to resist that notion. Besides, I had a few problems of my own that I didn’t want to inflict on a husband.
I almost wished I could stick around to hear more from him about life in Romania, but duty ca
lled, and the subway would be jammed if I didn’t hustle. Uncle Dmitri scuttled back into his basement, and I headed for the Brooklyn courts, and the Public Defender’s office, where I found my boss, Counselor Ruth O’Shea, waiting for me with a load of paperwork and two plainclothes detectives.
“Detective Sergeant Vandergriff, Detective Levitsky,” she introduced them. Vandergriff was fair and square, very blond and muscular; Levitsky was short, dark, and hefty. Both of them had that “cop look,” the hard stare that meant that they had seen it all, and didn’t give a rat’s ass about it.
“Helen, these two detectives would like to talk to you about the, um, deaths in Coney Island,” Ruth said. She turned to the cops. “Ms. Johnson will be glad to assist you in any way she can.” Back to me: “Won’t you?”
I looked the two cops over. “I’d be glad to help, of course, but I don’t understand why you’re talking to me. Do you suspect one of my clients?” My clients, for want of a better word, were the ones that no one else in the Public Defender’s office would touch with a fifty-foot pole: the creepiest of creeps, drunks and druggies, most of whom were guilty of whatever they were accused of, and were just as happy to cop a plea when ordered to. I usually wound up pleading them down, and they went off to Rikers Island for a brief stay, then went back on the streets for another failed attempt at robbery or assault. It was a grim job, but someone had to do it. Once in a very long while I actually found someone who was innocent of the charges, and could benefit from having a lawyer on her side.
“Could we sit down?” Levitsky asked. I led them to my desk, which lurks in the darkest corner of the office. Levitsky took the battered chair next to my desk; Vandergriff preferred to loom over me. I suppose he thought it made him look intimidating. Next to Big Benny Badoglio, a 300 pound strong-arm enforcer who was waiting for me to advise him prior to arraignment, he looked positively benign.
“Now, what’s this all about?” I asked. “The last I heard, there were no leads to the latest killing.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Vandergriff said. “There was a witness to the killing of Jaime Rodgriguez two nights ago.”
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