by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“What? An old World War II photo?” She feigned ignorance.
“This isn’t you?” He pointed accusingly at the woman in the picture.
“That would be impossible, Flynn. This had to have been taken…what? Sixty-five years ago? Have you been drinking?”
“Look me in the eye, Tessa…Tess.” His voice was soft but commanding.
He reached out his hands and gingerly took her face in them, tilting her chin upward so she was forced to look at him. He blinked slowly, and a flash of pity fell like a shadow across his face. Then he leaned toward her and gently kissed her bruised and swollen eye. He traced her cheek with his tongue, moving down, finding her neck and kissing her again.
She exhaled and began to unbutton his shirt. It had been too long since she had had human comfort. Soon he was shirtless, and she stood in her bra and panties. She pried herself from his embrace and started filling her tub with steaming hot water. She wanted a long soak to ease her pain, and she wanted him, wet against her.
Without speaking, they each undressed completely and climbed into the water. She turned on the whirlpool jets, enjoying their massaging effect on her muscles. Tessa nestled against Flynn’s chest, lying on top of him, her nipples hard against him. Taking the bar of scented green-tea soap, she began to lather up his chest, sliding her hands up and down his body.
“Tessa,” he whispered, “what happened—?”
“Shh,” she urged him, covering his lips with her bruised ones.
She felt him growing hard, heard him moan. Soon, they were making love, the steam from the tub rising around them. She straddled him, facing him, chest to chest, belly against belly.
“Tessa, let me help you.”
“You can help me by letting me forget…if only for the night.”
“Oh God…” He pulled her tighter to him, kissing her voraciously. Though it hurt her mouth, she was lost in the moment, and when they both climaxed at once, she felt a release and a peace at the same time. A wholeness.
They climbed out of the tub and dried each other off with thick Turkish towels. Tessa led him by the hand to her bed, and they climbed in under a mountainous goose-down comforter.
“I don’t want to talk.” Flynn pulled her close against him. “I want to keep this perfect. But tomorrow, I’m going to want to know what happened.”
“That’s fair.” She lay on top of him, her long hair wet and splayed out against the pillows. She rose up on her elbows and kissed him, amazed at how strong his mouth was, how powerful and sexy he was.
They held each other, kissing languorously for some time. At four-thirty Flynn moaned. “Damn, I’ve got to go home. I’m on duty in three hours.”
“I need to get some sleep before the sun comes up,” Tessa said truthfully.
Flynn slid out from under the warm blankets. He dressed quietly. Tessa pulled on a robe and walked him to the front door.
“Fuck it,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m falling for you. And I don’t give a damn about playing games with you. I’m tired of games. I want honesty. I care about you, and something tells me I’m not gonna like your whole story when I hear it. I have a feeling it’s not even gonna make sense. So I said it. And I mean it. I’m falling for you, and I still want to know the truth.”
She nodded. She kissed his mouth, then whispered in his ear, “I care about you, too.”
He waited while she unlocked the door, and then strode down the hall, not looking backward.
Watching him until he descended the staircase, Tessa felt a pang. He thought he wanted the truth. But even with all he’d seen as a police detective, could he handle it?
She wanted to get this over with. Part of her yearned to just tell Flynn her story. If he rejected her forever, she would go back to her life of solitude and be done with it. She found a business card with Flynn’s cell phone number and called it, but she got his voice mail.
“This is Flynn. NYPD. You know what to do.”
She smiled bemusedly. He was a man of few words. Just the sound of his voice filled her with both peace and dread. He was a decent man, an honest and strong man. He had the qualities of a warrior, however, and he was nobody’s fool. And as much as being with him made her feel more complete, more centered, she still wondered how he would deal with her secrets.
“Hello, Flynn. This is Tessa. I’m feeling much better today. I don’t look half as bad as I expected to. I want to talk. Call me when you can.”
She hung up and surveyed herself in the reflection of the windows lining her living room. She was nearly healed, the miracle of vampires. But just as she was recovered, she knew her enemies were as well. They were a gathering force, and they would come for her again and again. For what seemed like the thousandth time, she worried about Lily. Tessa knew Lily had great inner strength. Over the last hundred years or so, she had transformed from a naive young servant girl to a confident ball-buster. She seemed to know no fear. Tessa hoped Lily was using that internal strength to mentally hold on until Tessa could somehow free her.
Tessa knew Marco. She had lived with him as his wife. He had taken vows with her, though surely he didn’t believe in consecrated vows. Nonetheless, back then, he would have done anything to possess her, his one. He wouldn’t kill Lily. Not yet. Lily would stay alive as long as Tessa was not yet reunited with him. But where was he keeping her? Manhattan was a big city, and there was no telling where Lily was.
Tessa couldn’t go to the police for help. She didn’t exist on paper or in the system. Lily didn’t have a social security card. She had found a landlord who gladly took cash. She didn’t exist—at least not in this century. Anyone who knew her in her first life was long buried in an English cemetery plot. The police would be chasing a ghost.
She took solace in the fact that Marco probably didn’t want to kill her—his beloved wife. As a Buddhist, she believed that souls live through multiple lives—and occasionally, in those lives, a person might find a soul with whom he or she was inexplicably connected. In Marco’s case, he would search for her, his one, forever if he had to, not to kill her but to bind her to him again.
She went to her laptop and logged on, sending an instant message to Hack.
Nightlady: Knock-knock. U in, Hack?
Technofreak: I’m in, bad-ass lady. Where else is an agoraphobic gonna go?
Nightlady: LOL. Got anything for me tonight?
Technofreak: Maybe. Just kind of a hunch. U find Lily?
Nightlady: No. Caught a glimpse of her, but that’s it. One very bad dude has her, my friend. And I need U to help me get her back.
Technofreak: But she’s alive. That’s good news. Now we just have to get her.
Nightlady: Precisely.
Technofreak: Well, I went to some alternative newsgroups hunting down where to buy Shanghai Red.
Nightlady: And?
Technofreak: It’s fuckin’ amazing. U would think this stuff is gold. People will do ANYTHING to get their hands on it.
Nightlady: Hope they’re willing to die for it. I mean, this stuff is so dangerous.
Technofreak: Tell me about it. But to the junkies, it doesn’t matter. The Internet is buzzing about this stuff. The perfect high. That’s what they call it.
Nightlady: How can they be so stupid, Hack? I feel like I’m constantly fighting a losing battle.
Technofreak: In some ways we R. But that doesn’t mean we stop fighting.
Nightlady: Thanks, Hack. I needed to hear that.
Technofreak: Well, it’s easy for me to say. I comb the information superhighway, and you’re out there getting your ass kicked.
Nightlady: We each need the other.
Technofreak: Like Starsky and Hutch.
Nightlady: Who R they?
Technofreak: Old cop show. Anyway, I ended up hacking into a site and lurking. Found two guys talking about Shanghai Red. The one guy says he heard it’s being manufactured in the city. Soon gonna flood the fuckin’ drug market. Take over t
he crack trade. Take over everything. That’s how “awesome” the high is.
Nightlady: Damn.
Technofreak: I ran the concentric circles again. And I think it’s possible that it’s being manufactured down on the docks on the Hudson. You know. Over by the meatpacking district. The S&M places. I plotted the next circle, and it crosses over an abandoned warehouse.
Nightlady: Bingo!
Hack gave Tessa the address, and she went into her bedroom to change. Surveying herself in the mirror, she saw that her eye had a shiner that she assumed would be healed by the next day. However, considering how badly she had been hit, she didn’t look too bad. The deep gash from the knife and the teeth wounds from the wolf were almost healed over. She rubbed her hand over the place where twenty-four hours ago flesh had been torn and bleeding. She thought about how, for over a hundred years, she hadn’t had a cold, or a fever, or any mortal frailties. The good news was that she was whole again. But Marco’s rage would be building.
Tessa again donned her leather jacket—a little worse for wear from the previous night, with a slash in the arm—leather pants and a black tank top. She put on her steel-toed boots, the better to inflict damage, and she strapped a knife to each leg. Next she pulled on leather gloves. Opening a trunk, she pulled out a semiautomatic. She hated mortals’ fascination with guns, but she knew she had to be prepared for anything. Dressed to fight, she first needed to make things right with Buddha.
Kneeling in front of her shrine, Tessa lit a stick of incense. Quietly, she chanted. She explained to Buddha—to the universe—what had brought her, as a warrior, to this point. She was not obeying the tenets of peace, and she prayed for forgiveness.
“I need to do this to stop my sire. Forgive me. I will do what I can to make things right. If I can solve the problem without violence, I will. Buddha be with me.”
She rose and centered herself with several yoga poses. Then she went over to her antique desk and called Jorge on his phone. “Jorge, I won’t be in at all tonight. I know I’ve been asking you to run things more, but I’m hoping this will be the last night I have to.”
“You okay, Tessa?”
“No, Jorge. I’m not.”
“It’s Lily, isn’t it? She’s in trouble.”
“Yes. She is. But I’m going to help her, Jorge. I just ask you to trust me. And I know that’s asking a lot of you. I just can’t tell you everything right now.”
“Tessa, I came to you out of the joint. I’d been out, what, a year, and no one would give me a job. Exonerated or not, I was an ex-con. You had no reason to hire me. You had no reason to believe me when I said I was completely innocent. You could have looked at my prison tattoos and sent me on my way. Not only did you trust me, or at least give me a chance when no one else would, but you’ve continued to trust me with a lot of responsibility here. I trust you with my life.”
“Well…” Tessa said softly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
She hung up the phone and left her loft, ascending to the roof. Staring out over the city, she tried to feel a connection to Flynn. Then, reaching backward through time, she tried to feel for a thread connecting her to Hsu. And then to John. The universe was all interrelated. She needed their help. She needed them to guide her.
Taking off for the Hudson River, she flew against the night sky, leaping between buildings, exhilarated by the jumps, by the freedom, by the cold air nipping at her face. New York really was the city that never slept, she thought as she looked down at the busy streets, yellow cabs a blur of color on concrete roads. The concrete jungle.
She supposed that busyness was what had drawn her to the Big Apple in the first place. She had tried living in isolation. In the country. But the problem was that at night, places in the country shut down. New York was different. When she awoke each night, she had her pick of a thousand restaurants, stores, and as much action as during the day.
New York—especially now in the twenty-first century—was the first city that allowed her a semblance of normality. In 1911 and 1940—1950 even—there were no fancy security systems or panic rooms or ways to ensure her safety and keep her out of the sun. In 1940, she could not have gone to the grocery store at three o’clock in the morning. She couldn’t have paid all her bills with online banking. Before New York, and before the last twenty years or so, she had to pay assistants and servants to do all her daylight work. Yes, New York was her salvation and her haven.
Finally, Tessa had made it down to the meatpacking district. Like everywhere in New York, there were inroads of gentrification. Some B-list actress had put in a sushi bar. There was a Mexican place with a reputation for good margaritas—on the rocks, with salt—and a French bistro had cropped up. But the meat-packing district still was harsh. Several rough leather bars lined the streets, with small crowds of bare-chested men in leather chaps and dog collars milling around outside. And then there were the prostitutes. This area wasn’t for the faint of heart.
The closer she got to the river, the colder it got. Wind rushed past her ears, and she turned up the collar of her leather jacket, spotting dried blood on her sleeve. Her eyes teared from the wind. The prostitutes lingered by warehouse loading docks, pulling coats around themselves to keep warm, and then flashing cars as they drove slowly by. Tessa knew the routine. Men from the suburbs pulled over in their sedans and minivans, selected a girl, and got a fast blowjob for twenty bucks in the front seat. Handjobs could go for ten bucks. She watched one girl climb into an SUV. The girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, and the SUV had a bumper sticker on it: Proud Parent of an Honor Roll Student at St. Mary’s High School. Great, Tessa thought disgustedly. He’s got a girl that age and he doesn’t stop to think about that runaway in his car. Mortals were victims to their appetites—for sex, drugs, alcohol and darker addictions. She had thought she’d seen it all. Fetishists and S&M parlors. Dominatrixes who ruled their submissives with an iron fist—and a leather whip. A kid on PCP who axed his entire family to pieces. Crack addicts with AIDS still turning tricks while they waited to die.
She turned from the scene, pained by the sight of the teen girl. Then she decided she couldn’t just fly away. She climbed down a fire escape into an alleyway that was ankle-deep in trash, exited the alleyway and went over to the SUV. She rapped on the driver’s window.
“Buddy, roll down your window.”
Suddenly, the young girl’s head popped up, and she could see him hurriedly zipping up his pants. He opened the window.
“You a cop?” he asked. “I can’t get arrested. If my wife found out, she’d divorce me.”
“How old are you, sweetie?” she asked the girl.
“Eighteen.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sixteen.”
“More bullshit.”
Finally, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Fourteen.”
The man in the driver’s seat started to cry. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he said rocking back and forth. “Damn, I didn’t know.”
Tessa’s senses were so attuned when she was near people, she could spot a lie from a mile off. A trained vampire, keyed in to scents, was like a lie detector. She opened the car door and dragged the man out, slamming him up against the hood of the SUV.
“I’m only going to say this once. I know you knew she was fourteen, and I’m guessing you have a little honor roll student about the same age.”
She pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped through to the picture encased in plastic. “Beautiful family. It’s a shame you’re such a fuck that you’d jeopardize them.”
“I’ll never do it again.”
“You’re right. I’m going to keep your wallet, which has your address on your diver’s license.” She read his name. “Look, Bob, if I see this SUV anywhere near the working girls again, I’m calling your wife, you filthy pig. And if I see you look at an underage girl again, I’ll kill you.”
“What kind of cop are you?”
�
��I’m your worst nightmare, pal. I’m a cop outside the law.”
She withdrew all the money in his wallet. “You sure carry a lot of cash.”
“It was payday.”
Tessa handed the thick stack of bills to the girl, who looked afraid to move.
“You must have a good job, Bob. That’s a lot of money. What do you do?”
“I—I own an accounting firm.”
“Hmm. All right, honey—” she nodded at the girl “—climb on out.”
The girl did as she was told.
“Bob…time for you to leave.”
“I need toll money.”
“Bob…Bob…Bob…I don’t give a fuck if you walk home. You’re giving all your money to—your name, sweetie?”
“Cherish.”
“That’s what your pimp named you. What’s your real name?”
“Dana.”
“Okay, Bob, you’re giving all your money to Dana here. Consider it a scholarship fund. Now get lost.”
Trembling, Bob got back in his SUV and sped off, leaving Tessa with the girl.
“Dana, how come you ran away from home?”
“How did you know I ran away?”
“Because, despite you being on the street here, your hair and makeup remind me of a small-town girl. You didn’t come here to do this kind of work. This isn’t where you belong.”
The girl broke down. “My mama died. Six months later, my father marries this awful woman. He’d be at work until late, and she would hit me and make me do all the housework.”
“It’s like Cinderella, honey.”
She nodded. “I told my father she hit me, but he said I had to try to get along with my ‘new mommy.’ She made me sick! So I ran away.”
“How long have you been gone?”
“Five months.”
“You call home in that time?”
“No.”
“You like living on the streets?”
“No. It’s disgusting.”
“What’s your home number? And your dad’s name?”
Dana gave her the number, which was in rural Pennsylvania, and Tessa dialed her cell phone. A man answered it on the first ring.