Les vampires de Manhattan

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “We were just here three days ago. Three days ago Georgina was still alive. You came here and I followed you. Why were you here?”

  Edon didn’t answer and showed her instead. “Look,” he said, pointing to a pentagram etched on the dust of the glass windows on the doors of the brownstone.

  She shook her head. She hadn’t seen that when she was trailing him.

  “Who the fuck is this Damien Lane and how does he get into this house?” she asked.

  Edon kicked at a pile of leaves on the ground and jammed his hands into his pockets. Ara walked up the steps and tried to peer through the dark, boarded windows. She couldn’t see anything. There were powerful wards around the house, too, which meant they couldn’t go in, no matter how hard they tried. The house was protected, sealed, with deeper magic than they could conjure.

  They headed back to headquarters, where Ara surrounded herself with all of the notes in the case file. She was missing something, but what? Ara studied the photograph of Damien Lane. Handsome, dark-haired Damien Lane, the renegade vampire and seducer of mortal girls.

  “Doesn’t he look familiar?” She squinted. The hair was shorter, but the smile—she had seen that arrogant smile before somewhere.

  “How so?” Edon asked.

  “I know I’ve seen him lately—but where?” Then she knew. She shot up and ran out of her office—there was a photograph that the chief kept on his desk that she had seen the other day.

  She grabbed the photograph and brought it to Edon. “Look!” she said breathlessly, placing the photograph of Sam’s old Venator team side by side with the printout. The hair was shorter, but the smile was the same cocksure one exhibited in the picture on the chief’s desk.

  Damien Lane was a dead ringer for none other than Kingsley Martin.

  Red Blood

  FIVE WEEKS EARLIER

  But first, on earth as vampire sent,

  Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:

  Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

  And suck the blood of all thy race.

  —LORD BYRON, “THE GIAOUR”

  17 SEVEN-YEAR ITCH

  SHE DID NOT JUST HURL the contents of her wineglass in his face, did she? Yes, she did. Kingsley stood there with the wine dripping down his nose, his cheeks, and his chin. He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted the wine with a smile. “You’re right, it is sour,” he said and laughed. Because it was funny and because his wife was right—you couldn’t get a good bottle of wine in the underworld, no matter how hard you tried.

  It was just one of the many reasons why she was determined to go.

  Mimi stared at him, her face white with shock and rage.

  Kingsley tensed, uncertain what she would throw at him now. Her plate? The wineglass itself? Her sword, which she kept, charmingly, as a needle in her bra? How they had fought once, matching each other, steel for steel, the sparks between them as hot as their passion for each other. Where was his weapon, come to think of it? If she took hers out, he would be skewered in seconds, a little Kingsley kebab.

  Was she really the only one on the attack these days?

  Was he happy with how things were between them now?

  Sour?

  He thought she was going to scream at him again, but instead, she did the oddest thing. Mimi Martin, Azrael, Angel of Death, burst into tears. Big, sobbing, gulping, ugly tears. She was crying like he had never seen her cry before, as if her heart were breaking, and for the first time that evening—for the first time in their long and fraught and wonderful relationship—he was afraid.

  Blood he could handle, and he’d had a parry for every one of her attacks. That had been the beauty of their relationship.

  But tears?

  Sorrow was a previously unexplored territory, at least between the two of them. Maybe he had pushed her too far. Maybe she meant it this time. “I’m leaving you,” she said. “I’m done. I’m out of here.”

  He laughed, and it was not a mocking laugh, but a bitter one. He laughed not because he didn’t believe her—part of him thought she might be telling the truth—but mostly he laughed because he knew Mimi was prone to be dramatic, quick to anger, and had a ferocious temper, but she never meant half of the horrible things she said. They were exactly alike, a pair of hotheads. So he just couldn’t take it seriously.

  They said things. They just did. It never mattered. At least, it had never mattered before.

  They had been married for seven wonderful years. And it was wonderful to be with one’s beloved. Kingsley loved her, he loved her so much, but sometimes, once you had your beloved, it was natural to pay attention to other things. After all, that was the point, wasn’t it? Of a so-called happy ending? To move on to other concerns? To stop worrying about love? Come to think of it, what was a happy ending after all? It wasn’t as if once the credits rolled and the lights came on or an author wrote, “The end,” you stopped living, because there was so much more of life to live, wasn’t there? Besides, there was no such thing as a happy ending for the likes of them, not the least of which because they were, ahem, immortal.

  One could call it a happy never-ending.

  Happiness was fleeting; you couldn’t hold on to it, although he liked to think they had had a better run than most.

  Hadn’t they?

  But Mimi didn’t look so happy right now. Truth be told, she hadn’t seemed happy in quite a while. Sure, she had been happy at first—they both were—although he had to admit, he might have been just a teeny bit happier than she was. He was content with their life, content with settling down, with wanting to plant a garden and to watch something grow. This land had been nothing but ashes, nothing but darkness and death. Now parts of it were green, and he’d built her a proper little home, prettier than any Hamptons cottage. Okay, so the views could use some work, and there weren’t many people to talk to; most of the dead moved on from the underworld, onward to the great beyond, which was past their jurisdiction.

  But they had each other, and that was enough, wasn’t it? And wasn’t that all you needed, at least according to the Beatles?

  Love?

  Obviously not.

  “I can’t live here. I can’t live like this,” she was saying, her eyes red and moist. “I want to go home.”

  But this is home. Our home. You are my home, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Why didn’t he? Pride? Anger? Because what the hell—wink—was this? She had promised him forever, she had promised him her undying, immortal love, and now, seven years later, just because she couldn’t hack it, just because she couldn’t stomach the sour taste of demon wine, missed going to Art Basel and Paris Fashion Week, had nowhere to go to buy or wear her fancy clothing, she was going to give it all up? Give him up? Give up on them? The idea of them? Mimi and Kingsley 4Ever? But he didn’t say anything; instead he made another joke, and this one went as well as the one about the wine had.

  “Who are you supposed to be now… Dorothy?” he asked and mimicked clicking his heels. “I want to go home, Toto.”

  Mistake.

  “It’s just not funny,” she said in a soft, strangled voice as she mopped up the spill on the table and handed him a napkin to wipe his face. “You don’t take me seriously, and I hate it.”

  Kingsley put the cork back into the wine bottle. Unlike Mimi, he thought it tasted all right. Nothing to write home about, but he’d certainly had much worse. The free white wine served at certain cheap Chinese restaurants in the Upper West Side during the nineties came to mind. House white. It had been good enough once. At least it had done the trick at the time.

  When had everything gotten so complex?

  “Fine, go then,” he said nonchalantly. “Leave this place,” he said, jokingly affecting a deep and portentous tone as if he were banishing her from Paradise itself.

  She glanced up at him from clearing the table. “You’ll let me go?”

  “Darling, I can’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here,” he said and shrugged.

 
“But the gates—”

  “Don’t worry about the gates,” he said. “As far as you’re concerned, I am the gates.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “Fine.”

  Then he’d washed the dishes, because she had cooked and that was the deal, clean or cook—choose one—just as they always did, like a regular night, and that evening, when they went to bed, he kissed her forehead and turned to his side and went to sleep. And sometime in the middle of the night, he reached for her, and she responded, like she always did, and they made love, softly, urgently, just like they always did, and when it was over, he rolled over and went back to sleep and didn’t worry about it anymore. Because fighting was part of their life together, just like the sex, and they had lived like this for years now, and because no matter what they said to each other, no matter how much they fought, he didn’t believe she would ever leave him. Because hadn’t she called his name in the dark, digging her nails into his back just like every other time? His wonderful sexy little wife, with her temper and her rage and her drinking and her beauty.

  No, she would never leave him. Not Mimi. Not his Mimi. They belonged together. They would fight and love each other until the very end.

  But the next day when he woke up, her bags were packed, two steamer trunks, buckled and locked, and she wasn’t crying anymore; her jaw was set. His stomach began to feel a little queasy, but he ignored it. It was just a bluff, just another of her overdramatic gestures. He loved her, but he was tired of the drama as well. Why couldn’t she just settle down and be happy for once? So he decided to play it out, see how far she would go, how far she would take it this time.

  He motioned to her bags. “You have everything then?”

  “I do,” she said, without looking him in the eye. Her own were puffy but determined.

  “And you’re not worried about what happens when you return? You’ll fare all right?”

  “My trusts are airtight. I’m sure there’s a way to get to my accounts. Don’t worry about me.” As if I could stop you, her look seemed to say.

  “Okay, good.”

  “So, this is a trial separation, then?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yes, exactly,” he said, still unconvinced she would actually go through with it. “Let’s call it our Persephone clause,” he said cheerfully, thinking it was a clever line.

  Clever, and hopeful. Persephone always came back.

  She smiled wanly and put on her hat, because only Mimi would leave the underworld in a blousy white Western-style shirt, tight faded jeans, and a suede cowboy hat. She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.

  He walked her out of their house and carried her trunks. He placed them in the back of the car and looked back at their home. The Dove Cottage. The Love Nest. The Honeymoon Hideaway. The Devil’s Due. They’d called it many nicknames over the years. He still didn’t think she would go through with it, that when they arrived at the station, she would throw her arms around him and tell him she’d made a terrible mistake. But she only sat quietly and looked out the window at the gray, ashen desert. Mimi didn’t say a word; she only looked sad, sadder than she had ever looked before, sad and tired, and then he truly felt ill. He should say something—anything—to make her stop this. Stop this ridiculous farce where you pretend you are leaving me, he wanted to shout. Stop this at once. I love you. Please. Mimi. Look at me. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me. But Kingsley said nothing.

  The one thing that could never happen suddenly could.

  He was reeling, and he was hurt, and he was silent, because he knew better than anyone that there was no way to keep Mimi from something she wanted.

  So he helped her board the train that took souls back up to the surface. It was empty, because no one was ever allowed to leave the underworld, not without his permission.

  Except now.

  She took a seat by the window, but she didn’t wave.

  He watched her leave him.

  The train pulled away, one empty car after another, until it was the final one, rattling on the tracks, and Kingsley cursed.

  Because damn it, he wasn’t about to let her go.

  He couldn’t live without her. He would do better, he would work harder, he would listen, he would change. She had made her point, she had shown him, by golly, that she was serious about this, and he understood now. Good God, he would change. He would do anything to get her back. Anything.

  So Kingsley ran as fast as he’d ever run in his life and caught the back handle of the last train car. He jumped on the back of the train, catching his breath. He had promised her, the day they were married: Wherever you are, I will be. And he, for one, was not about to break a promise.

  18 TROPHY WIFE

  MORE THAN ANYTHING, after years as the mortal woman behind the immortal vampire, she wanted to be more than an appendage, more than a helpmeet. The titles the Coven bestowed on its human kin were so… well, not degrading exactly, but they were so inferior. Human Conduit, as if she were an electric current; human familiar was even worse—as if she were a cat, a pet, something that needed care and shelter. Finn knew Oliver did not think of her that way, that he, more than anyone in the Coven, understood what it was like to be her, understood what it was like to be in her place. He had once been both Conduit and familiar to Schuyler Van Alen, after all, so he had known what it was like to be weak, mortal, the supporting cast, the secondary player. The Coven feared mortals only for their greater numbers, but individually, mortals were nothing to them. And Finn didn’t want to feel like nothing.

  Especially now, as she stood in a place that largely resembled nowhere. At least nowhere she wanted to be.

  Finn was waiting in the lobby of a building in faraway Fort Greene—if one could call a grimy hallway with a service elevator a lobby. There were watermarks on what remained of beige floral wallpaper that was well past its prime, and the ceiling was stained with a meandering pattern of ripples and puddles the color of coffee. Sometimes she forgot this part of New York still existed, given her life with Oliver.

  Finn shivered and shifted her weight on her stacked metallic heels.

  The artist she was visiting was late, and Finn had been standing and waiting for almost fifteen minutes now. She guessed she shouldn’t complain, as visiting grimy buildings in sketchy neighborhoods was part of her job now.

  Now that things had changed.

  Wanting to prove to everyone—most of all herself—that she was more than a trophy, more than just a pretty girl on his arm, that she was not merely decorative and ornamental, Finn had lobbied for an office across from Oliver’s, for a real position in the Coven leadership and meaningful work. She was the First Lady, wasn’t she? Officially or not? If Blue Blood traditionalists didn’t like the idea of a mortal entrenched in the highest levels of vampire leadership, they could go, well, suck off. A little arm-twisting from Oliver had secured her the title of cultural liaison, which gave her the responsibility of running the Overland Foundation’s arts grants, among other social duties. Last year while she was poring over a few old books from the Repository, she had discovered a project where her talents could really shine and that she could take as her own little baby—to show the Coven what she could do. The Four Hundred Ball.

  The one night that the world of the Blue Bloods showed itself in all its splendor and glory to the city of New York. Their night to shine.

  And mine, she thought.

  The community hadn’t had one in years. The annual party had fallen to the wayside even before the War, and Finn had convinced Oliver that it was time for a little resurrection. It was her idea to mount the Red Blood exhibition as part of the festivities, and she immersed herself in the task of organizing it, choosing and meeting with the artists who would be part of the opening. Once upon a time she had dreamed of becoming an artist herself, and she had tried to express herself in pen and ink, clay and paint, but she finally had to admit that she didn’t inherit her father’s talent. The revel
ation had been a long time coming—bittersweet when it had—and at first she had refused to acknowledge it. Thankfully, though, she soon found mentoring artists and collecting their work was almost as gratifying as producing it herself. It was wonderful to be able to use her skills, her education, for something more meaningful than throwing yet another cocktail party, even if, at the moment, what she was doing for the Blue Blood community involved throwing another cocktail party.

  A ball, she reminded herself. The ball.

  The Four Hundred. This one is different.

  This matters.

  The artist who lived in the building was one she had discovered herself. Although discovered was a strong word, since Ivy Druiz had badgered Finn for a spot in the exhibit. Ivy had been a good friend from college and had wanted to be an actress back then, given that she was overdramatic, with a flair for the bombastic. She thought everything was miraculous and wonderful and exceptional, and she had a way of convincing you to agree with her, if only for the length of your conversation. Ivy’s convictions had a tendency to wear off as soon as the champagne did, but usually by then she had gotten what she wanted. They had been so close in school but sadly had lost touch after graduation in that way that friendships waned when friends went their separate ways. But a few months ago, after giving an interview to one of the friendlier New York magazines that covered art and society, when Finn mentioned she was just starting to select artists for the exhibit, she had been surprised to find her old friend paying her a visit in her office one afternoon.

  While Coven headquarters was located in a building that wasn’t hidden in the depths of the earth anymore, it was still protected by powerful camouflaging spells that misdirected anyone who was looking at it too long, and she was surprised that Ivy had not only been able to find the building, but enter it and secure a meeting.

  The girl was nothing if not determined.

  Ivy told her she had read in the papers that the Overland Foundation was mounting an exhibit called Red Blood, and she was surprised and delighted to find her good old friend Finn was the head of it. She had a few paintings she was working on that she would love to be considered for it. Ivy left a folder containing her résumé as well as her press clips—a long gushy profile in Artforum, as well as several reviews from the New York Times and mentions in the New Yorker.