by Clare Willis
“About what?” Dennis asked.
Richard pointed at a chair. “May I?”
Dennis nodded. Richard sat, lifting his pants legs so that they wouldn’t wrinkle at the knees.
“I’ve come to discuss Isabel’s inheritance,” he said. He adjusted his tie, making sure the knot was perfectly centered.
“I’m sorry, Richard, I can’t discuss any of that without my daughter. I’m sure you understand.”
“Well, the topic of this conversation might upset her, and I certainly don’t want to do that.”
“What topic would that be?”
“What Isabel’s inheritance would be in the event of your untimely death.”
Dennis’s Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. Richard could smell the sweat forming under the mogul’s custom-made shirt.
“I’m not sure why we’re talking about this now, Richard. ”
Richard smiled. “An upsetting topic for you, too, I see. But necessary.”
“I don’t see why it’s necessary. The inheritance is between my daughter and me. And I find it unseemly that you would even ask. ”
“So you’re not going to tell me? Very well, I’ll have to assume that my wife is right and that she will inherit everything. I just wanted to be prepared to help her sort things out after you’re dead,” Richard said.
Dennis shook his head. “I don’t intend to die for a good long time, my friend. Maybe I’ll outlast you.”
“Well, you tried to outlast me, didn’t you, by sending in those little hirelings, those petty assassins?”
“I, uh, don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dennis was almost choking by the end of the sentence.
Richard gazed at him impassively. “I don’t think you’ll outlast me, Dennis. I don’t think you’re going to last the night, frankly. ”
“Get out,” Dennis said, regaining a bit of his bravado.
Although he couldn’t see them, Richard knew when Dennis’s fingers began to creep toward the security button under his desk. A moment later Dennis let out a screech when Richard landed like a hunting eagle on the other side of the desk. He swung Dennis’s chair around and crouched in front of him with one hand on each of his arms.
There was a small balcony outside, fitted with glass walls so as not to impede the view. Richard carried Dennis outside and propped him up against the waist-high wall. The cars on the street twenty-eight floors below looked like toys. The wind rushed past their faces, bringing tears to Richard’s eyes. He put his arms around Dennis from behind, pressing both of his hands against his father-in-law’s ribs.
“You should try to calm down,” Richard said soothingly. “With your heart condition a fright like this could kill you.”
“I don’t have heart trouble,” Dennis stammered.
“Yes, you do. You have a blocked aorta. I feel your blood trying to squeeze through that tiny channel, can’t you feel it?”
Dennis let out an unearthly noise, something between a yelp and a shriek, as Richard grabbed his ankles and tossed him over the balcony. His body thudded against the glass. Drool dripped out of his open mouth and over his eyelids.
“Dear God, save me!”
Richard gave him a little shake, as if shaking dust from a rug. Dennis scrabbled helplessly at the sheer wall of glass, his fingers finding nothing to cling to. Tears leaked out of his eyes and into his hair as he sobbed with pain and terror.
“Puh, please,” he sputtered.
“Don’t beg, Dennis,” Richard said. “It doesn’t become you. This will all be over in a moment.”
A minute later Dennis’s heart stopped beating. Richard hauled the body back in and dropped it like a bag of laundry on the small terrace. He adjusted the knot of his tie, which had come loose, and then he peered over the edge of the wall. He did a few mental calculations to assure himself that he wouldn’t land in the line of cars running down Market Street, and then he leaped over the wall. The cold air was bracing and he thoroughly enjoyed the dive.
Chapter 21
“Dennis is dead? I can’t believe it!” Sunni paced the length of the living room in the LaForge mansion, where Isabel was lying stretched out on a couch under a blanket. Her face looked ravaged, pale and blotchy, with patches of red scales. Tears ran unchecked down her face and neck into her diminished cleavage. Sunni’s face was dry, but her stability felt as fragile as eggshells.
“I know. I can’t believe it either.” Isabel said. Her voice had no affect. Her eyes were blank, staring at the cold fireplace.
“He had a heart attack, just like that? He was healthy as an ox!” Sunni circled the couch and walked back to the grand piano. Its strings echoed faintly from the tapping of her shoes on the uncarpeted floor. “You’re going to have an autopsy, right, Isabel?”
“Oh, Sunni, how could you ask that?” Isabel asked, reaching for the box of tissues at her right hand.
“Yes, Sunni, that’s a bit ghoulish, don’t you think?”
Richard’s voice was as cool as ever, with a faint hint of amusement that Sunni was sure only she could detect. She refused to look in his direction, where he was ensconced in a high-backed wing chair drawn up to the fireplace, looking every bit the lord of the manor.
She turned to the only other person in the room. Alastair Black, the family’s lawyer, stood behind the couch, dressed in a dark suit and red club tie, holding a large burgundy leather briefcase which no doubt contained papers he hoped to share with his client if she was ever in any state to pay attention. He gazed at Isabel with a mixture of sympathy and alarm. Sunni remembered from the days following Gloria LaForge’s funeral that Alastair was a genteel Englishman of the old school, much disturbed by open displays of emotion.
“Alastair,” Sunni said sharply, “don’t you think there should be an autopsy?”
“Well,” Alastair said, his voice pitched high, “I don’t quite see the purpose, Ms. Marquette.”
“To determine if there was any foul play.”
He fluttered his fingers in the air. “Foul play, oh dear, whatever do you mean?”
“Foul play?” Isabel turned toward her husband, her eyes widening, as a bit of comprehension sank in.
“Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?” Richard said. He had a small round table in front of him, with tea steeping in a china pot and a plate full of crustless sandwiches. “Would you like a cup of tea, Alastair?”
“Yes, indeed, a cup of tea would be just the thing. Don’t you think we should all take a cup of tea? And perhaps refrain from using such incendiary language?” Alastair walked toward the table, clutching his briefcase like a shield in front of his chest.
“Please, sit down.” Richard indicated the chair opposite him. “Sunni, why don’t you sit as well? You’re making Isabel anxious, and in her state of health this is not a good idea.”
“I prefer to stand. ”
“Very well.” Richard handed Alastair a teacup balanced on a delicate china saucer, which forced the lawyer to place his briefcase on the floor. “So, have you brought the will with you?”
“I have indeed. “ Alastair waved toward his briefcase. “Shall I read it? It concerns you all.”
“I can’t listen to this.” Isabel put her hands over her ears.
“I don’t think this is the right time, Alastair,” Sunni said.
“Very well.” Alastair blew on his tea and then took a sip. “I understand the delicacy of the situation, but Dennis wanted this dispatched as soon as possible.”
An alarm rang on Isabel’s watch. “I need my pills,” she said.
“I’ll go,” Sunni replied, happy to have an excuse to leave Richard’s presence.
She walked up the wide, curving staircase to the second floor, her mind racing. When she opened Isabel’s bedroom door she screamed.
Richard was sitting on the bed. He chuckled at Sunni’s shock. “Surely you’re not still surprised at vampiric abilities, my dear? I imagine you have prodigious powers yourself by now, thanks to Jaco
b Eddington. Although if a poorer teacher could be found anywhere on the continent, I’m not sure who it would be.” He flicked an invisible speck of dust off his trousers. “He was a failure as a man and he’s a failure as a vampire.”
“How could you have done it?” Sunni spoke through gritted teeth.
“Why, Dennis tried to kill me, Sunrise, before the wedding. This was pure self-defense, I assure you.” Richard plumped one of Isabel’s pillows and leaned back.
“Self-defense? He was nowhere near you.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “You know what I mean. He tried to kill me by proxy.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Did you have a hand in that, by the way?”
Sunni didn’t answer. She went into the bathroom and put Isabel’s pillbox in her pocket. When she came out Richard was lying comfortably on Isabel’s bed.
“By the way, why are you resorting to such weak alternatives when you have vampires at your disposal?”
Sunni tried not to betray any emotion, but at the mention of her missing lover’s name she felt her lower lip begin to quiver. She turned away, but not before Richard smiled triumphantly.
“He’s run away, hasn’t he?” He smacked his knee. “I always knew he was a coward.”
Sunni clenched her fists as white hot anger washed through her. “How dare you? He didn’t run away, he would never do that.” Her hand slowly slid to her mouth as she realized that she had said far too much.
Richard smiled with smug satisfaction at the success of his gambit. “So the Council has taken him away, have they? And you are all alone again.”
Gulping back tears, Sunni forced herself to meet Richard’s eyes. “Are you ready yet, Sunrise? To join me freely?” He smiled insinuatingly. “You see how Isabel looks. She doesn’t have a lot more time, I’m afraid. Maybe only long enough for me to move her money into some offshore accounts.”
Sunni’s knees felt weak. She clutched the door handle so as not to fall down.
Richard sat up. “Don’t think of it as a defeat. Think of what I could teach you, what I could do for you. Haven’t you always wanted to understand what you are?”
“Yes.” This question, at least, she was able to answer honestly.
“So come with me. And I will let Isabel live.”
Sunni forced herself to walk over and sit down next to him. “All right,” she said. “You win. I just need a little time to get my affairs in order.”
“Twenty-four hours, that’s as long as I can wait. Let’s seal it with a kiss.”
He leaned closer. Sunni closed her eyes. His cold lips pressed against hers. The kiss was chaste, but it was a tribute to the power of the vampire that Sunni found herself responding. She despised Richard Lazarus more than any being she had ever encountered, and yet she kissed him back.
∗ ∗ ∗
Sunni had to wait until Monday morning to find a locksmith, but by nine A.M. she was standing outside the door of Jacob’s apartment with a man wearing coveralls and a utility belt. He inserted two long metal rods into the lock and jiggled them. Within a few seconds the door popped open and Sunni was looking into Jacob’s Spartan living room.
“Great,” Sunni said. “How much do I owe you?”
The locksmith raised an eyebrow. “I’ll need to see some ID to confirm that you live here.”
Sunni felt the sweat bead up along her hairline. She reached into her purse, but as she did so she fixed the locksmith—a large, middle-aged man with a florid complexion—with a steely stare. She concentrated with all her might on his protuberant blue eyes.
“You don’t need to see any ID,” she said, trying to emulate the compelling voice Jacob had used when he attempted to glamour her.
The locksmith sneezed and then rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “You might be right about that. A three hundred dollar ‘deposit’ would probably do the trick. ”
Sunni’s hands shook as she pulled out her wallet. Luckily she always carried at least five hundred dollars in cash, in case of earthquakes and other emergencies. The locksmith slipped the money into the breast pocket of his coveralls, winked at her, and ambled away down the hall.
She quickly closed the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing hard. Once her heartbeat had calmed down she continued into the living room. Everything was just as Jacob had left it, which didn’t surprise her. He certainly hadn’t been planning on leaving town, judging by the way the other men had hustled him out of the wedding. She looked around, taking in the empty galley kitchen, the black leather sofa, and the pile of books on the coffee table. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but there didn’t seem to be much to find.
She made her way into the apartment’s lone bedroom. It was completely empty, with dust bunnies gathering in the corners of the wood floor. She pulled open the closet door. Inside was a mattress, covered neatly with a single blanket. There was adhesive weather-stripping attached around the doorframe. She stepped onto the mattress, pulled the door closed and was plunged into complete darkness. Jacob had told her that he didn’t need to sleep, and she knew that sunshine didn’t affect him, so why did he have a light-protected sleeping chamber?
She lay down on the mattress and curled into the fetal position. The room was a sensory deprivation tank. Suddenly she understood why he had created it. If she were going to live for an indefinite period of time with no hiatus, no relief from the constant assaults of everyday life, she would probably have made such a space for herself. Even in the few minutes that she lay there she found herself growing calmer, a little more detached from the desperate clamor that had been raging inside her since Richard turned her life upside down.
With her nose pressed against the blanket she smelled the delicate pine and snow fragrance that was Jacob’s unique signature. It was so faint it would be undetectable to anyone with normal senses, but it overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes and breathed in until her olfactory glands became exhausted. Then she opened her eyes and found that she could now see in the darkness. In the corner was a business card, which she snatched up and read. It bore a single name, Scipio, and a phone number with an international prefix. Sunni jumped up and ran to get her purse.
Reasoning that it would be quicker to walk than to try to find a parking space in North Beach, Sunni plunged out onto the street to make the approximately one and a half mile walk to Caffe Rosso, where the man named Scipio had said that he would meet her. She crossed Market Street, checking the time on the Ferry Building clock and dodging the crowds of office workers to emerge onto Stockton Street. Her route took her through the heart of Chinatown, so she deliberately stopped at the Golden Dragon to see if the CLOSED sign was still on the door. Unfortunately, it was.
The buffer zone between Chinatown and North Beach was the red light district on Broadway, relatively empty on a Monday morning, but for taxis and men washing the sidewalk with power hoses. She passed City Lights bookstore, not even pausing to look in the window, although normally she would never pass the city landmark without going in and buying something. North Beach was a tidy, compact neighborhood, full of cafés, restaurants, and small apartment buildings. Sunni easily found Café Rosso on the corner of Columbus and Green Street, a glass-enclosed box with a smoking porch out front and no fewer than three Italian flags fluttering in the soft breeze.
She stepped inside. The air was filled with opera and the hissing sound of the espresso machines. Three of the dozen round tables in the café were occupied, all by pairs of men, which would have made it more difficult to ascertain which of them was her quarry, but for the fact that one of the men was Enzo Rizzoli, the vampire who had dealt her the beating of her life. He smiled cheerily and waved a be-ringed hand.
Sunni approached the table. The other man was in his fifties, or had been when he became a vampire. He had a round, intelligent face framed by short gray hair and eyes that were damaged in some strange way that made them both hard to look at and difficult to ignore. He stood up and kissed Sunni’s hand with practiced grace
and Sunni immediately sensed that she had found the man who had taken Jacob. One chance, one business card in Jacob’s apartment, and she’d hit the bull’s-eye. Enzo reached for her hand after Scipio released it, but she ignored him.
“It is indeed a pleasure to meet you after all these years, Ms. Marquette,” Scipio said. He snapped his fingers at the teenager behind the huge espresso machine. “May I offer you an espresso, perhaps a cappuccino?”
Sunni decided that her favorite espresso beverage, the caramel macchiato, was probably not on the menu at such a venerable establishment, indeed such an order might get her kicked out if she wasn’t sitting with two Italian men who were obviously very familiar with the café.
“I’ll have a cappuccino.”
The teenager behind the counter nodded and began toweling off the milk-steaming tube. Scipio sat back down and crossed his legs. He smiled at Sunni politely. Despite the film over his eyes it was obvious that he could see perfectly.
“I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Scipio,” she began.
“Scipio, just Scipio. Like Socrates and Herodotus.”
Sunni suddenly had the feeling that she’d fallen headfirst into a Godfather film. She was in North Beach, the ancestral home of the creator of those movies, and she was sitting in an authentic Italian café with a patriarch and his elaborately dressed henchman, about to request the return of her lover, the man whom they had kidnapped. The only difference from the movies was that these men were all vampires. The thought would have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.
“I want to know what happened to Jacob Eddington,” she said, and then shook her head. “Actually, I just want him back.”
Scipio raised his eyebrows. Enzo lifted his hands in a questioning gesture. “We’re not sure we know what you’re talking about,” Enzo said.
Sunni smacked her hand on the table. “Cut the bullshit. I saw you take him at Isabel’s wedding.”
“I thought they were cloaked,” Scipio snapped.
“She’s a dhampir,” Enzo replied, “she can see through that.”