by PG Forte
“I’m gratified you consider me to be that memorable,” Armand teased, moving even closer—close enough to plant his palm against the wall beside her head. “And, since it appears we may never locate your brother, why don’t you let me accompany you out tonight instead? I know some clubs as well. We could go dancing, perhaps?”
“Oh, n-no, I-I couldn’t do that,” Julie stammered. The mere mention of dancing had her feeling suddenly almost as nervous as she had the night before. Or maybe it wasn’t the dancing that was making her nervous?
“And why not?” Armand smiled disarmingly. “Is Damian keeping you on so short a leash? Despite his distrust of me, we are all of the same bloodline, are we not? He must know I would never think of harming one of Conrad’s kin. What could possibly be the problem with my showing my beautiful country cousin around town? Surely, not even Damian could object to something like that?” His gaze held hers until Julie’s breath stalled. She felt herself on the verge of falling headlong into his hazel eyes. She could feel his will at work, urging her to give in to his wishes, and she struggled against the coercion. She was Vampire, damn it. Top of the food chain. And she would not be manipulated as though she were anyone’s prey.
“Well, if you two don’t make the prettiest picture I have ever seen,” a droll voice exclaimed behind her. “Why is it there’s never a camera around when you need one?”
Damian. Julie sighed, too relieved to even be shocked by the fact she hadn’t sensed his approach. Thank goodness he’s here. Still, as Armand reluctantly straightened away from her, she couldn’t help but be aware of a vague sense of disappointment. She really hadn’t needed to be rescued quite so promptly. She’d been handling things okay, hadn’t she? Sort of?
“Oh, dear,” Damian drawled, smiling at them with false sweetness. “I do hope I haven’t interrupted anything too terribly intimate?”
“Not at all,” Armand said dryly. “I’m sure you’d never dream of doing anything so inconsiderate.”
Damian batted his eyes and smiled wider. “Well, I might dream of it, Armand, but acting on one’s dreams, now that is a very different thing altogether. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Julie interrupted their little pissing contest to ask, “Damian, have you seen Marc? I can’t find him anywhere.”
The smile disappeared from Damian’s face. “Yes, chica, I know. He’s not here at the moment. I sent him off, a little while ago, on a special errand.”
An errand? Tonight? “What kind of er—” she began, breaking off when the reality hit her. Oh, no. He didn’t? She pushed away from the wall and stared at Damian, horrified. “Oh, Damian, you let him go back to that club on his own, didn’t you? How could you?”
“Juliet.” Eyes snapping, Damian glared at her, his tone ominous. “That’s enough.”
Julie glared back. Enough? Not hardly. That’s my brother we’re talking about. She was aware of Armand’s interest piquing as he glanced back and forth between them, but she couldn’t care less what he thought. Marc could be in trouble—that was all that mattered. “This is bullshit, Damian.”
“Perhaps, seeing as your plans have changed, you might reconsider going out with me tonight after all?” The tone of Armand’s voice suggested he was enjoying their battle of wills a little too much.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Armand,” Damian said, saving Julie the trouble of answering. He slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her away. “But I’m afraid it will be impossible for Julie to accept your kind invitation. As it happens, I also have a small task I’ll be needing her assistance with this evening.”
“I can speak for myself, you know,” Julie protested, as Damian guided her toward the stairs.
“Exactly what I’m afraid of,” he purred, the soft tones doing little to dull the icy edge. “Upstairs. In my room. Now, chica.”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from Armand?” Damian demanded, the moment he’d closed his bedroom door behind them. “There’s nothing more to be learned from him. What were you two talking about, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Julie sighed, sitting down on the bed as she thought about it. “Nothing, really. Damian, did he know my mother?”
Damian shrugged. “It’s entirely possible, I suppose. But, dios mio, please tell me you were not asking him about her?”
“Of course I wasn’t. Haven’t you drilled it into both our heads that we can never… Omigod. Marc.” How could she have forgotten about him for even a moment? She jumped back to her feet, unable to sit still. “Damn it, Damian, why didn’t you make him wait for me? He shouldn’t be out there alone. What if something happens to him? What if he finds the guy who attacked me and he’s not alone? What if he has friends?”
“Calm down, querida, you’re acting like neither of you have ever gone out by yourselves before. He’ll be fine.”
“Oh? Like I was fine last night?”
“No,” Damian replied patiently. “Not like you were…although, you didn’t do too badly either, you know.”
“I didn’t do badly? I could have been killed.” She shivered just thinking about it.
“But you weren’t,” Damian said, giving her shoulders a little shake. “And, much as I hate to disturb your feminist sensibilities, may I just point out that Marc is physically stronger than you and, therefore, even better equipped to defend himself?”
“Big deal. Muscles aren’t everything, you know,” Julie felt obliged to point out as he guided her back to the bed and sat down beside her.
Damian smiled. “True. He’s also less rash. Besides, we both agreed he’d be safer, when he went searching for information about your attacker, if he wasn’t distracted with worrying about your safety at the same time.”
“Less rash? That’s crap, and you know it. What if he gets hurt?”
“You don’t really believe I would have let him go off on his own if I didn’t think he could handle it, do you?”
“Why not? You let Conrad go off on his own and look what happened to him.”
Damian’s expression hardened. “That was different. Besides, I don’t let Conrad do anything. Surely you know this by now? He does as he pleases and I have no authority whatsoever to stop him. Stopping your brother, however, would have posed no difficulty. I assure you, had I felt it necessary to stop him, I would have done so.”
Julie shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Julie,” Damian murmured reassuringly. “It will be all right. I promise.”
She nodded. “I hope so. Now, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know, child, but surely you can find some better way to occupy your time than by indulging in risky little tête-à-têtes with Armand. Maybe you want to get something to eat? Isn’t Brennan on duty again tonight?”
“I already ate.” She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “He doesn’t like you very much, you know.”
“Who? Brennan?”
“No. Armand.”
“Ah.” A faint smile curled Damian’s lips. “No, I don’t imagine he does. I’ve certainly never given him any reason to.”
“How come? Why would you purposely go out of your way to make anyone dislike you?”
“How do I explain? You and your brother are something of an anomaly among vampires,” he said at last. “And, since people tend to fear what they don’t understand, Conrad and I decided it would be safer for everyone if we kept your existence a secret. As George Carlin always said, never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. I’m afraid that holds true for vampires as much as it does for humans. Rather than just having Conrad drop out of sight, which was certain to have aroused suspicion, we took advantage of our previous…estrangement. We let everyone think we had reunited and that the two of us had simply gone off together on an extended vacation—sort of a second honeymoon.” He paused and smiled at her. “Of course, once you were grown, we found ourselves faced with the opposite problem. How to introduce you back into the nest—again with
out arousing suspicion.”
“Is that when you two came back here?” she asked.
“Yes. And, in order to avoid having to answer a lot of awkward questions about where we’d been, I’ve let everyone think I just enjoy being mysterious. Which I do, in fact. Just not quite to the extent I’ve let on.”
“Why not ask Conrad, if they want to know? Is he pretending to be mysterious now as well?” Julie shook her head as she thought about it. “Because that wouldn’t be too suspicious or anything.”
Damian laughed. “No, silly girl, give us some credit for having more sense than that! He’s merely pretending to be indulging me by going along with my little whim. And seeing as we’re such a happy couple now, no one thinks it’s at all strange that he should do so.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you,” Julie told him. “Armand doesn’t seem to think Conrad’s all that happy. He told me so just this evening.”
“Which is precisely why I’ve warned you to stay away from him,” Damian said, growing serious again. “True happiness is a very difficult thing to fake—especially with someone who knows you well and has seen you happy. And Armand is not completely unobservant. I could quite like that about him, under other circumstances.”
“So, you’re saying he’s right? Conrad was happier before?”
“Ay, dios mio.” Damian got to his feet. “We’re old men, querida. We were all happier before. Even I feel that way at times! It’s the way of the world. Now, enough of this gloomy talk.” Taking hold of her hands, he pulled her up as well. “Let’s go downstairs and round up something to eat for ourselves, shall we? I might have to increase the size of the staff, if this keeps up. All these heart-to-hearts leave one so famished.”
“Can I ask you one more question?” Julie asked just as Damian was reaching for the doorknob.
His hand dropped. “One,” he sighed. “But that’s all for now. I can’t be answering questions all night on an empty stomach, you know. It’s…insupportable.”
“Do you miss anything about being alive?”
“Ay, ay, ay. What a question!” Damian looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled. “No. Not anymore. When I was first turned I did regret that I would never have children. But then you and your brother came along—the answers to a prayer I’d made so long ago, I scarcely remembered it. Satisfied now?”
“Yes.” She nodded as he kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you.”
“Buenísimo,” he said as he propelled her through the door. “Now, let’s eat!” The gleam of mischief was back in his eyes as he added, “Although, chica, now that I think on it, there may be an important lesson for you here. Be very careful what you wish for, eh? For you never know how or when your prayers might be answered.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tuesday, February 25th, 1969
Suzanne stared through the gloom at Conrad’s house, dark and imposing behind its iron gate, wondering what it was going to take to make herself cross the street. Her stomach heaved, suddenly, with the same queasy, sick sensation she’d experienced again and again the past week. She flattened her hands against her belly, breathing deep as she fought down the nausea. It had to be nervousness making her feel so sick…or maybe she was just coming down with a cold.
It had been raining, pretty much non-stop, since the previous Friday, when Suzanne had gotten a ride back up the coast from Nepenthe, the remote, Big Sur community where she’d been hiding out. Even though she’d been as good as living on the street for the last four days, shivering in damp clothes for most of the time, she hadn’t been able to get any closer than this. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to do it tonight, either. Maybe she’d never find the courage. Had she really come all this way for nothing?
It had been so easy, these past two months, surrounded by the big trees and peaceful flower children, to rationalize what she’d seen here the night she left town. It was a hallucination, the most normal thing in the world. Everyone had bad acid flashbacks occasionally, didn’t they?
How could she have believed what she thought she’d seen that night was true? Why had she let herself imagine that the man she’d come to care for had turned into a monster?
That was something else she’d come to terms with, out there under the redwoods, how very much she did care…even if it turned out he was a monster. What did it say about her, anyway, that she’d run away like she had? She hadn’t even given him a chance to explain. Maybe that was because it really wasn’t him she’d been running away from in the first place. Maybe it was her own feelings that had frightened her.
Tonight, back in the city again and about to come face-to-face with reality, she wasn’t feeling nearly as confident. That guy…or thing…or whatever it was that had attacked her had certainly felt real enough. Surely anyone could understand her being frightened by something like that. Couldn’t they?
But, there was something else scaring her tonight, something worse than the thought of monsters. If she ever did work up the nerve to walk across the street and knock on his front door, perhaps she’d find he didn’t care that she’d left. Or that he’d already gotten over her and moved on. Maybe she’d be forced to recognize that she’d thrown something away—either with cause or without—something precious and irreplaceable. Something she could never get back.
It was uncool, unhip, unliberated, uptight and totally square but oh, she really did want him to want her. She wanted him to care. She wanted to know he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
The only question was…did she want that so badly she was willing to cross the street and risk finding out that maybe he didn’t?
The intercom connecting the house to the front gate buzzed just as Armand was crossing the foyer. “It’s always something,” he muttered rolling his eyes in annoyance as he changed course to answer it. It was still quite early in the evening and he’d only just gotten up a short time earlier. By rights, he should be feeling ready to take on the world, but dark came entirely too early these days and the many duties involved with overseeing things around the mansion left him feeling perpetually tired.
“There’s someone here to see Mr. Conrad,” the guard informed him through the intercom. “She’s not on any of the lists but she asked me to call. She says you know her. Says her name is Desert Rose?”
“Merde alors!” Groaning, Armand let his forehead come to rest against the wall as he adjusted to the news. “Yes, Carl, thank you. I know who she is.” She was his worst nightmare, exactly what none of them needed right now. What the hell is she doing back here now, after all this time? And of course she’d have to ask for me, wouldn’t she?
His first instinct was to suggest she get lost again. Conrad had been unbearable in the weeks after her departure, cranky, critical, impossible to please. It was only recently that he’d become even marginally civil again. On the other hand, did he really want to take the responsibility for sending her away? Did he really want to give Conrad the opportunity to complain he was making his decisions for him? No, he certainly did not.
“Tell her to wait,” Armand told the guard. “I’ll ask Mr. Conrad if he wishes to see her.” He hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps before he reconsidered. Given how quickly she’d disappeared last December, did he really want to give her the chance to slip away again? With his luck, Conrad would want to see her and she’d be gone. Turning back to the intercom, Armand pressed the “talk” button again. “On second thought, Carl, let her in. She can wait in the foyer.”
Desert Rose looked cold as she walked up the pathway toward the house. Cold, wet and frightened—which brought to mind her penultimate exit line. Monsters she’d termed them. What’s brought her back to the monster’s lair, Armand wondered, as he held the door open for her, watching as she slinked cautiously inside. She tried to smile at him, a hesitant whisper of a smile, but he couldn’t find it in him to return it. She’d done too much damage when she left.
“I’ll let him know you’re here,” he told h
er, then added, “you will wait, this time, won’t you?”
She nodded. “I’ll wait. But…can I use your restroom in the meantime?”
“Of course.” Armand gestured toward the hallway. “You remember where it is, I assume, yes? Just don’t leave ’til I get back.”
Conrad was reading in the salon when Armand located him. “What’s wrong now?” he asked, without looking up from his book.
Armand’s eyebrows rose. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Someone’s heart is beating like a rabbit’s. That’s usually a good indication, don’t you think?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Armand replied as he sat down in the armchair across from Conrad’s. “At least you know it’s not mine. That has to count for something, I imagine.”
Conrad chuckled. “Yes, that would have suggested a disaster of unimaginable proportions was about to befall us.” He put down his book and met Armand’s gaze, smiling tolerantly. “Since that’s not the case, what is going on?”
Armand bit back a sigh. He liked that smile. He was going to hate making it disappear. “She’s back.”
“I see.” Conrad’s smile dissolved. “And who, precisely, are we talking about?”
“That girl from last winter? Desert Rose? She’s come back. She’s here now, asking to speak with you.”
“Back?” Conrad repeated the word as though it were utterly unfamiliar to him. He shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. I do not take people back, Armand. Don’t you know that about me yet?” He started to pick up his book and then stopped and scowled. “And, while we’re on the subject, would you please tell me what it is I’m paying a guard for? So that any stray waif who’s out for a stroll in the neighborhood can drop in on us uninvited? I don’t think so. Have a word with the man about that, will you, my dear?” he said as he picked up his book.
“It’s not the guard’s fault. He called the house, just as he’s supposed to. I’m the one who thought you might want to see her.”