by Morgan Hawke
Rick shrugged. “I still don’t get what the problem is.”
Rowan let out an exasperated breath. “I was taking all of their sex-drive.”
Rick raised a sarcastic brow. “But, they had no problems ‘getting it up’ for you?”
“Um, no problems there.” Rowan bit her lip and blushed. “But, the only person they could uh, perform with, was me.”
Rick raised a sarcastic brow. “I think you’re missing the point here.”
She frowned. “What?”
He loosed a hand and tapped her nose lightly with a finger. “They were cheating on you. If they hadn’t tried to sleep with anyone else, they would have been fine, right?”
“Well, yeah...”
He shrugged. “Since I have no plans to sleep with anyone else, I’m good.”
Rowan sighed. “There is just no arguing with you is there?” A smile tugged at her lips.
“Nope.” He grinned. “So when are you going to do some magic so I can be your sex toy again?”
“Can you put me down now? I want to finish my shower, I’m getting all wrinkly from being in all this water.” She lifted her chin then stuck out her bottom lip. “And I haven’t washed my hair yet.”
“So much for afterglow.” He rolled his eyes, then stared intently. “Kiss first, then you can go.”
Rowan stared into his half-heated eyes. “A kiss?”
He nodded, and focused on her lips.
“Okay...” She leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. He opened under her and his tongue stroked her in a gentle caress. His lips were so soft and his tongue so warm... Her fingers slid into his wet hair and a soft groan was her reward. She broke the kiss and stared into his serious copper gaze, uncertain as to what she was feeling right at that moment. Her heart thudded and ached in a way she wasn’t sure she wanted to think about. “Um, can I go now?”
He let her slide down his shower-slick body. “Spoil-sport.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you had enough?”
Rick chuckled, then handed her the shampoo. “You already know the answer to that one.”
* * *
Rowan put a hand up to balance the white towel wrapped around her hair and crouched down at the foot of the bed. She opened her suitcase, then pulled out a new set of underwear, a fresh pair of black jeans and her second-favorite black T-shirt. Emblazoned across the front in bold red type was: ‘Don’t piss me off, I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.’
“Hurry up and get dressed, and I’ll get us some breakfast.”
His voice came from the other side of the bed. She could hear him pulling out drawers. “You cook?”
“Yeah, I cook, a little. I make a mean pot of coffee, too.”
“Coffee sounds heavenly...” Rowan stood up then leaned against the bed to step into her pink satin panties. The bra was another front-closing push-up, like the red satin, now sitting in the bathroom sink. What was I thinking, packing all my good lingerie? She heard a drawer close on the other side of the huge room. She stepped into her jeans and tugged them upward.
“Pink satin, I like it.” His voice was soft, and right behind her.
Rowan turned sharply with her jeans halfway up her thighs and nearly fell over. Rick was lounging across the bed in just a pair of jeans. “Will you cut that out?”
He blinked. “What?”
She shook her head and dragged her jeans up. “And you complain about Klaus popping in and out. At least you know by his aura when he’s coming.” She yanked on her T-shirt, tucked it in, then sat down to put on her socks and shoes.
He gave a low chuckle. “Kitten, the neighbors two blocks away know when you’re coming.”
“Oh!” Rowan rounded on him, mouth open for a scathing retort. He reached out, lightning quick and covered her lips with his. His mouth angled and his tongue swept in to take possession with leisurely strokes. Rowan felt a slow liquid interest stirring.
Rick released her mouth. “You were saying?”
Rowan blinked. “What?” For the life of her she couldn’t remember what she was going to say.
“Good.” He nodded. “You ready to get out of here and see the rest of my house?”
“Am I ever!” She turned and closed her suitcase. “Especially if you’re going to bribe me with coffee.”
“I can do that.” Rick rolled off of the bed, wrestled into a plain black T-shirt, then padded barefoot across the carpet toward the vault door.
Rowan grabbed her red velvet shoulder bag and followed him. Her eyes locked on the dark stain on the pale gray carpet. “Are you going to be able to get that up?”
“I certainly hope so.” Rick opened the vault door. “The worst part is that I have to do it myself.” He waved her through. “Can’t get my cleaning service to do it, they’ll tell the cops that I murdered somebody.”
- Twelve -
Nourishment
After completing a full tour of the huge monstrosity that Rick called a house, Rowan followed Rick from the hall into the kitchen. The tour had been pretty damn impressive. All the rooms were huge with broad windows in unexpected places, frequent changes in hallway direction and sudden changes in levels. Every floor seemed to have more than one level. The furniture was very modern in metal, glass and velvet and built for comfort with spare lines yet graceful curves.
The kitchen was huge, airy, and ultra-modern like the rest of the house; with stainless steel fixtures, white marble counters and smoked-glass cabinets. The broad room was a little dark even though there were a lot of windows. During the tour, Rowan had noticed that the whole house had been a little dark in spite of the many picture windows. Some kind of purple coating had tinted the window glass in every room. Must be to keep out the sun. She bit her lip. Well, he is a vampire...
Rick sniffed. “Great, the coffee’s done.” He strode toward the sink. “Go have a seat, I’ll get some mugs.” Rick opened a glass cabinet over the sink and pulled out a pair of plain white coffee cups, then walked over to the counter and fiddled with the coffee maker.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Rowan pulled a chrome, back-curved kitchen chair out from under the clear glass kitchen table. She slumped into the chair and groaned. “My poor feet. That tour took longer than I thought. Your place is huge.”
With the full mugs balanced in his hands, Rick came to the table. “So what do you think of my house now?” With his foot he pulled a kitchen chair out, parked the mugs on the table, then sat with a long sigh of his own.
Rowan put some thick cream and a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “How about ‘wow’?”
“Wow is good, I like wow.” He leaned across the table toward her with an eager smile. “Go on, tell me more.”
More? Rowan smiled. Well I did kinda insult his house when I got here. She blew on the coffee. “Let’s see... I really liked the way the whole house is one surprise after another, like a huge puzzle box. I never knew what I was going to see next. It’ll take forever to figure out how to get through it all without getting lost.”
“That’s nice.” Rick raised a brow, and sipped at his coffee. “And?”
Rowan choked back a laugh. “And, all the chrome and glass furniture looks like it belongs in a futuristic space movie.” Rowan sipped her coffee and sighed. “Mmm, good coffee.”
“Columbian dark, my favorite.” Rick nodded with a satisfied smile on his face then got up from the table and began rummaging under the cabinets. “Hard to believe I brought a lot of that from Germany back in 1945.” He pulled out a stainless steel frying pan, opened an overhead cabinet and took down some spice containers. “By the way, how do you like your eggs?”
“Eggs? Over easy.” Rowan blinked. “You brought this stuff over in 1945? I didn’t think they had anything like that until the sixties.”
“Trust me these were all done in the forties. The style got popular in the sixties.” Rick turned to look at her and shrugged.
“But if you got it in the forties, where did it come fro
m?”
“I went to school at the Bauhaus, a university for architectural design.” He walked over to the fridge, opened it, then pulled out a handful of eggs, a plastic envelope of bacon and a small loaf of bread. “This house was designed on their model.”
“So that’s why you went into designing houses, you went to college for it.”
“When the college was the first of it’s kind.” Rick cracked eggs into the pan. The sound of sizzling food filled the kitchen. He sidestepped to the fridge and took out a butter-dish. “Not something I can share with just anybody.”
“And the super-modern paintings and metal sculptures?”
Rick nodded. “Bauhaus as well.” He pulled a spatula from a drawer. “Most of the pieces in my house are originals from old schoolmates, or reproductions from their work.”
“They painted at a design university?”
“Absolutely, and sculpted, too.” Rick nodded. “I studied architecture, but the Bauhaus also taught art along with furniture design. They combined art with engineering and craftsmanship: form equals function. The style was very radical back then.”
Rowan heard the distinct sound of a toaster being depressed.
“The Bauhaus was more of a combined arts school.” Rick opened a cabinet and pulled out a pair of plain white plates. “The idea was to encourage the individual artisans and craftsmen to work together and combine their skills.” Deftly, he scooped eggs and bacon onto each plate then dropped the emptied pan on a cold burner with a clang.
“The school,” he continued, “was trying to elevate the status of crafts like chairs, lamps teapots etc., to the same level as the fine arts, like painting and sculpting.” The toaster sprang. He reached for the toast and dropped two pieces on each plate. Balancing the two plates in one hand full of eggs, bacon and toast, he turned and dragged open a drawer to pull out flatware.
Rowan frowned, puzzled. “But the furniture all looks so familiar. I think I’ve even seen some of this stuff before.”
“Like I said, the Bauhaus style got popular. These days, just about everything that’s known as modern, like the tubular, steel framed chair you’re sitting in now, adjustable reading lamps and ordinary drywall are only some of the things that came from designs innovated at the Bauhaus.” Forks and knives in one hand and plates in the other, he came to the table, placed a plate in front of Rowan, then sat.
Rowan pulled a napkin from the holder in the table’s center. “I had no idea it all this stuff, stuff I see all the time, came from your school.”
“A lot of people don’t.” He handed her a fork. “Eat.”
For some minutes, the sound of forks scraping against plates was loud in the kitchen.
Rowan pushed back her empty plate. “That was great.”
“Glad you liked it. Rick picked up the dirty dishes from the table, put them in the sink and ran water over them. “More coffee?”
“Gods yes, that stuff is heavenly.”
Rick carried the coffee pot over to the table and refilled her cup. “Here you go, service with a smirk!”
Rowan let out a short laugh. “By the way, do you know where Klaus is?”
Rick tilted his head at the ceiling then studied the floor. “I can feel him, but it’s spread out and thin. I think he’s deep under the house in the ground, somewhere, possibly sleeping.”
“Good, then while he’s not paying attention... “ Rowan twisted in her chair to get to her shoulder-bag that hung on the back of her chair. “Let’s find out what he’s up to.” She dug in the bag and pulled out a small cloth-wrapped bundle.
“Huh?” Rick frowned. “What’s that?”
“My tarot cards.” She pulled the red cloth from the oversized deck.
Rick frowned then sat down at the table. “Tarot cards?”
Rowan shuffled her cards. “You know, for fortune-telling?”
“You’re going to tell Klaus’s fortune?” He rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, he’s going to meet someone short, red-headed and feisty...”
“Laugh it up, Fang Boy. The cards told me that you were a vampire and what the sorcerer that attacked you in the club was planning.” A card slipped through her fingers and landed, face down on the Formica counter top. Rowan deftly flipped it over; it was the Eight of Cups, meaning search.
“Well, according to the cards, Klaus is definitely here for a reason. He’s looking for something.” She shifted the card and discovered another card sticking to it, the Emperor, also known as the Entrepreneur. “Uh, I think he was sent.”
Rick frowned from across the table. “Sent?”
Rowan frowned at the card. “Looks like someone is holding him at the end of a very long leash.”
Rick’s brow furrowed. “How could anyone hold him? He’s so old that he’s more of a ghost than a physical being, he barely holds a human shape.”
Rowan nodded. “So I noticed.” She gave him a tight smile. “Just from looking at him you can tell he’s having problems remembering what he once looked like.”
He shrugged. “I still show up in a mirror—he doesn’t. It’s hard to hold on to a form when you can’t even see what you look like.”
“Oh, gee, something for you to look forward to?”
Rick grimaced. “Can the sarcasm for five minutes, will you?”
“Whatever.” Rowan sighed. “My guess is that he’s being held with sorcery. It’s the only thing that would have any effect on him.” She raised a brow at the vampire. “I just hope, for your sake, that his owner didn’t send him to find new employees.”
“Or make them,” Rick said through clenched teeth.
Rowan nodded. “Scary thought.”
“Here’s a scarier one…” He stared into his coffee cup. “I’m not strong enough to stop him. Even if I could catch him off guard and actually succeed in staking him out for the morning sun, he’ll just discorporate through whatever I bind him with.”
“I’m barely strong enough to get him out of your house. I’m definitely not a strong enough witch to bind him magically.”
Rick gave her a serious look. “We may be in real trouble if he decides that we’re too much trouble to leave alive.”
She raised a brow at him. “What’s this we stuff, Kemo-sabe? I’m getting the hell out of Dodge first chance I get.” Rowan shuffled the cards and three fell out. “You know, I never ran across any of this stuff at home. Since I met you, I’ve met a demon-infested sorcerer and another vampire. Gee, I can’t wait to see what’s next.”
“Come to think of it, this is a bit much, even for me.” Rick made a sour face. “I do run across the occasional weird shit, a ghost here, a magician there…” He waved his hand about. “But not in the same year, never mind the same week.” Rick’s fingers tapped absently on the glass tabletop. “If this keeps up, I may need to get the hell out of Dodge too, so don’t be surprised if I’m in your passenger seat.”
Rowan flipped the cards on the table, the Hermit, the Magician, the Eight of Cups... She raised her brows and looked over at the vampire. “Well, I know what Klaus is looking for.” She gathered up the cards and two more cards flipped out and fluttered to the floor.
“Good. What?”
“A runaway sorcerer.” Rowan leaned over and picked up the fallen cards. The High Priestess, also known as the Witch and the Devil, also known as the Vampire... She slid them back in her deck and bit her lip. The witch and the vampire… Shit.
The vampire sat back in his chair. “As long as he wasn’t looking for either you or me. ”
Rowan pressed her fingers to her temples. “That was the good news. The bad news is that we’ve been added to his agenda.”
“Shit.” The vampire turned in his seat and sipped his coffee.
“That’s what I was thinking,” she said sourly. “I’m guessing that when I kept him out with the barrier around the bed last night, I must have impressed him.” She gathered her cards and another two cards slid to the tabletop. The Eight of Wands, meaning communication, and the Empe
ror again. She winced. “According to the cards he’s in communication with his master. Apparently Klaus wasn’t the only one impressed.”
He turned to look at her. “Are you sure?”
“I could be wrong…” She gave him a tight smile. “But that hasn’t happened in a really long time.”
Rick frowned grimly. “I don’t how... He can barely use the TV never mind the telephone.”
“It’s got to be part of the magic being used to bind him.” Rowan shook her head. “Who ever has him on a leash has to be one hell of a magician.”
Rick made a fist. “Can you tell who it is? Are they nearby?”
“I don’t know.” Rowan shook her head. “I’ve tried asking who he’s working for and I keep flipping the Emperor card. The Emperor normally indicates a Master of business, so I’m taking it to mean that it’s one person, but they are rich, powerful and very likely organized. Beyond that I get nothing else. I can’t tell if his owner is in town or half a world away. It feels like I’m being blocked.”
“This is not good news.” Rick’s fingers thumped. “Klaus is a problem, but an organization that can leash a creature like him is a nightmare.”
“Tell me about it. The gods only know who else he has on staff.” Rowan wrapped her cards neatly in fabric. “You may be forced to leave town for a while. I can take off and just go home. He can’t get to me, night or day, especially on my home turf. I have it hexed twenty ways to Sunday. You, on the other hand, should probably get as far away as possible, then stay out of range. What do you say we just get in my car and go, right now?”
He looked at her sourly. “Direct sunlight, equals really bad sunburn remember?”
“Yes.” She held up a finger and grinned. “But, you can still wear your coat, hat and sunglasses for the drive. Worse comes to worse, you can ride in the trunk.”
Rick grinned. “I’ll stay at your house.”
Rowan snorted. “ We don’t know how long Klaus will hang around. It could be a month.”
“So? With my laptop, I can stay in touch with my office by using the Internet.”