The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

The butler was disinclined to release it. “After I search it, madam. Then I will bring it to your room posthaste.”

  March winked at me. “It’s a technicality. We’ve had some interesting guests here, haven’t we, Evan?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Evan? He looked more like a…Tarzan, to me.

  I followed them up the stairs. March took her time, filling me in on the history of the place. “This house was left to me by my late husband, Edgar, God rest his soul. I lived in it from the time we were married until I moved it here in 1973.”

  At the top of the landing, she touched the wall lovingly. “I had it shipped from Massachusetts in bricks and reassembled here, then did some updating and remodeling. Of course, Edgar would roll in his grave if he knew what I was doing with it. Bless him, he never did have much enthusiasm for heterosexual sex.” She sighed and indicated a hallway to the right. “I’ll put you down here.”

  Even Cyrus’s mansion, grand as it had been, didn’t rival the sprawling splendor of this house. We stopped at the seventh door on the left—at least I thought it was seven, I might have lost count—and March pulled a tiny gold key from her sleeve.

  “There are twenty-nine legal, licensed brothels in Nevada, and we’re the only one that caters to vampires. There are automatic steel shutters in every room, and I do mean every room, of this house, to keep the sun out. There’s also an on-duty physician, in case your session gets a little out of hand.”

  “I am a physician,” I said, feeling the familiar sting to my pride as an inner voice taunted, You mean you used to be.

  March seemed impressed with this declaration, and I felt we were somehow kindred spirits. We were both professional women, struggling to get by in a man’s world.

  Then again, prostitution was pretty much a girls’ club.

  The spark of admiration left her eyes and she waved her hand. “In any case, I don’t want it to go that far. You seem like a nice girl. I don’t want to have to put you on my shit list, you hear?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I gave Evan a once-over. Vampires might be stronger than humans, but I was betting Evan had a good fifty pounds of rock-hard muscle on me. He looked as though he could easily snap my neck, and she was concerned for his safety? “What about money? You said we needed to cover payment.”

  “I can get it from you at dusk. The standard room rate is two hundred dollars a day. You have to work out the service prices with Evan.” March pushed open the door, revealing a room so stunning it could have been on the cover of a furniture catalog. In the center, on a raised dais, sat an ultramodern four-poster bed enameled in sleek black. The bedding matched the spotless white of the carpet, which was broken at intervals by black leather armchairs and gleaming ebony end tables. The only color in the room was supplied by a vase of bright pink tulips on the nightstand.

  Good thing I’ve got some wiggle room in my budget.

  “And one last thing,” she said as Evan and I stepped across the threshold. “You might be immortal, but they’re not. All my guys have to use protection, no if, ands or buts. Got it?”

  “Oh, we won’t be having—” The gentle, yet oddly pointed closing of the door cut me off.

  “We won’t?” The demigod—Evan—actually sounded disappointed. His body heat crept into me as he stepped forward, his hard chest brushing against my back.

  I turned to face him. “Don’t you ever want a night off?”

  A deliciously wicked smile crossed his face. “Not usually, no.”

  In that heart-stopping moment, he reminded me so much of Cyrus, I couldn’t breathe. Oh, he was much more powerfully built than my former sire had been, and definitely more tan. Cyrus had been lean and pale, his hair lighter than Evan’s, nearly white. But the vibe from him was identical: dangerous sensuality coupled with desperation so keen it struck pain in my own heart.

  I’d have to have been blind to miss that part: like my first sire, Evan obviously smothered his loneliness in the surety of physical gratification. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t wield as much power over my libido as he thought he did.

  A soft knock at the door brought me out of my silent reverie. My face flamed at the realization I’d been staring intently at the man before me, and he’d clearly misinterpreted quiet contemplation for dumbstruck passion. I was relieved to have a reason to turn away from him.

  “Your bag, madam,” the butler intoned with a dry note of disapproval as he opened the door.

  I wondered how such a stuffy old guy ended up working in a brothel. “Thanks. Just set it down.”

  When I was once again alone with my hulking he-man of a donor, I took a deep, fortifying breath.

  “Sit in that chair and…” I paused, taking in his shirtless state. “Well, I was going to say ‘roll up your sleeve’ out of habit, but I guess it won’t be necessary.”

  “I could take off something else,” he offered, flashing his predatory grin.

  “No, that’s fine. You’re about as naked as I can handle right now.” I reached into my bag and pulled out a coiled length of tubing and a collection bag, as well as a butterfly-shaped needle and some antiseptic swabs. I laid my supplies out like a torture chamber cache, expecting his cocky demeanor to waver.

  It never did. He leaned against the back of the chair and aligned his arm perfectly with the armrest to display the crease of his elbow. “This is my good arm.”

  I eyed the fat, blue vein there with clinical interest, but my rumbling stomach betrayed my intent. “Have your blood drawn a lot?”

  “Have to, in my line of work.” He reached for one of the antiseptic pads and tore the wrapper. Sponging a wide circle of alcohol over his arm, he shrugged. “We have to get tested for STDs often, or we lose our licenses.”

  “So, what’s up with your friends that they’re so afraid? I mean, they’d rather be bitten by a vampire than get poked by a tiny little needle?” I busied myself connecting the tube to the collection bag.

  “That’s probably not it.” He stretched his legs out, and I couldn’t help but notice how long they were. “We get a lot of customers here, and they’re not all pillars of the vampire community. Or maybe they are, and that’s their problem. But after a while, we’ve all learned our respective lessons, and we don’t generally trust vamps who bring props.”

  I made a noise of understanding as I stretched a strip of latex around his biceps. I didn’t want to think about what kind of depraved torture these guys had been exposed to. “So, why did you trust me?”

  Evan chuckled, a rich, velvety sound that reverberated down my spine. “Because you look harmless. And damn good.”

  “Right.” I could barely contain my exhausted laughter. “I’m driving cross-country without a shower, rationing my clean underwear. I’ve been sleeping in a van for the past couple days now. You’re going to have to do a damn sight better than that before I shell out my hard-earned cash on your compliments.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said with an earnestness that didn’t sound quite rehearsed enough to not seem genuine. “You’re not caked in weird makeup or wearing all black like the rest of our customers. I’d let you bite me for free.”

  It was certainly a tantalizing prospect, at least to my monster side. A brief, vivid image of being crushed beneath his hard body as I sank my teeth into his neck flashed through my mind, and I closed my eyes, shaking my head to get rid of the picture.

  “So, how much do you charge?” I asked, turning my mind from impure thoughts.

  “For what? The sex or the blood?”

  “There will be no sex,” I insisted, a little to myself, a little to him.

  “Come on,” he pressed, sliding his hand up my arm. “You can’t tell me you’re not bored, day after day in the back of a van.”

  There was a note of neediness in his voice. This man wanted something from me. And there was only one thing humans wanted from vampires. To be turned.

  “No,” I said quietly. “I haven’t been bored.”

  I�
��d been kept awake all day by nightmares. As soon as the sun came up, my head filled with Nathan’s screams. Cyrus was out in the desert somewhere and I had to find him before his father got his hands on him. No way was I bored.

  With an exasperated sigh, I stabbed the needle into Evan’s vein while he was still planning his next tactic. “And no amount of pretty talk will get you turned tonight.”

  My head throbbed. Physical and mental fatigue overwhelmed me. “Is there a bathroom? I really need to get the road dirt off of me.”

  Evan pointed the way.

  I stepped into the spacious, marble bathroom and turned the taps to fill the tub. I’d collect what I needed from Evan, then pay him and kick him the hell out and take a nice, hot bath.

  I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror above the sink and took a deep breath, preparing to let my guard down and open the blood tie. As soon as I did, Nathan was there, angry and screaming as he had been for the last few days. But there was another presence, too, one I hadn’t felt since the night Nathan had poured his blood down my throat while I was unconscious.

  This has to be a mistake.

  The steam from the running water became horrendously oppressive, and I struggled to drag in breath out of habit. I wiped my damp hair from my forehead with a trembling hand. If it wasn’t a mistake, it had been a punishment meted out by the cruelest of fates.

  The sound of him, a single heart beating in his human chest, almost drowned out the sound of Nathan’s agony as my two sires fought for dominance in my mind.

  I gripped the edge of the marble countertop so hard I expected to leave gouges in the stone. When I exhaled, a single word exploded from my mouth.

  “Cyrus.”

  Then, I was falling, and I didn’t feel it when I hit the ground.

  Chapter 11

  Connections

  This time, when he woke, he was careful not to disturb Mouse. He didn’t want to have to explain to her about Carrie, and why he could still feel her.

  Because he didn’t have the answer himself.

  Trembling, he went to stand beneath the small, high window. The moon was full, filling the basement with an eerie slash of light. Upstairs, the heavy footsteps he’d learned not to hear shook the floor.

  In the past few days, he’d almost forgotten he’d been like them. Carrie’s voice in his dream had reminded him. He’d heard her in his water-colored memories in the shadow world. They’d inspired a feeling as close to anger as he’d been capable of then. It had really been more of a passing annoyance. When he’d been pulled back, he’d been enraged at the thought of her. “The one who got away,” some would say, though it wasn’t with fond nostalgia in his case.

  But now, he couldn’t conjure even a speck of hatred for her. It was too tiring to be consumed so fully by an emotion, and he was finished wasting time.

  Maybe that’s why he’d heard her calling his name. Perhaps his subconscious had been giving him some sort of signal. After all, the school of dream interpretation couldn’t be complete bullshit.

  Things were never that simple. In all his life, never once had something turned out to his advantage, and he was sure this would be no different. The dream was a warning. He would meet her again.

  The thought of Carrie, who could not love him when he’d been at the height of his power and influence, seeing him in his human shell didn’t rankle the way it should have. Humanity had a few advantages. One being companionship. As a vampire, he wouldn’t have tolerated the company of someone like Mouse. He’d wanted ones who would do anything to be with him. Though timid, Mouse had a quiet dignity. She wasn’t as outspoken and abrasive as Carrie had been—qualities Cyrus had truly admired at the time. Mouse had settled into their bizarre circumstances gradually, and every day a little more of what he assumed was her original personality surfaced.

  He was going to have to stop calling her Mouse. But he certainly wasn’t going to start calling her Stacey.

  She’d gone to sleep with wet hair, much to his annoyance, but now it curled softly around her face. The fact that she slept so soundly in his presence gave him a little hope for himself. She trusted him to protect her from the monsters. From himself.

  Let Carrie haunt me, he thought bitterly. If her memory reminded him of his shameful past, he would bear it. Shame seemed integral to humanity, and if it made him more human, so much the better.

  With a shock, he realized he intended to stay this way. Perhaps he hadn’t thought of it before. Perhaps he’d only felt removal from his former species, and just this moment had learned of his intent to distance himself permanently. More likely he’d known, somewhere in the most distant, inaccessible reaches of his soul, since the moment he’d drawn human breath.

  Mouse stirred. He went to her side, easing onto the narrow bed as she lifted her head and peered at him with sleepy eyes.

  “Did you have a nightmare?”

  He straightened the bedclothes to cover both of them and pulled her close. “No.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Are you lying?”

  “No, little Mouse. I’m not lying.”

  In fact, when he closed his eyes, Cyrus drifted into the first dreamless sleep he’d encountered in seven hundred years.

  When I woke, my head throbbed. The room was dim, thanks in part to the metal shutters, the other part to the dial-controlled recessed lighting. Two bags of blood rested in a well-stocked ice bucket on the nightstand.

  Evan was gone.

  I sat up, wincing at the soreness in my skull. There was a slender vial nestled in the ice bucket between the two bags, and a note attached. I had to squint to read it.

  The doctor caught Evan with this. I’d keep a close eye on it, if you weren’t looking to be a sire.

  March

  I snatched up the vial, my face flaming with anger. How close had I been to having yet another open channel in my head? I glared down at my arm. He’d put a Band-Aid over the bend of my elbow. I didn’t need it, and anyone who’d done any research—such as reading The Sanguinarius, the most well-known and widely respected book in the vampire community—would have known that. It might be the med school in me, but I think anyone who’s about to make a life-changing choice about their physiology ought to know at least the basics of what they’re getting into.

  My head buzzed and my vision jarred. It definitely felt as if I was about to have my head filled with voices, so I took a deep breath and imagined a brick wall, the way Nathan had taught me. Of course, when he’d explained it, it had been a shield of white light, but a brick wall with some nice, climbing ivy seemed a bit stronger than that New Age, hippie claptrap. It would block other minds—Nathan’s and now, apparently, Cyrus’s—from entering my own and sapping my strength.

  I lifted the vial of my own blood, popped the top off and downed it, trying to ignore the taste. To my vampire tongue, human blood is amazing. Thick and warm and rich with a coppery bite, it’s like no food a human could experience. Vampire blood—at least Nathan’s and Cyrus’s, on the few times I’ve tasted it—was the same, but with an emptiness to it, as though my senses could tell I would not receive the kind of sustenance I needed from it. Plus it was the equivalent of deep-fried, sugar-loaded food for a human. It could screw up your metabolism permanently, like the Soul Eater’s, and for a vampire, permanently was an awfully long time. My own blood, however, tasted just like regular old blood, like I’d gotten a paper cut and licked it clean. It wasn’t pleasant, and I forced my uncooperative gag reflex away in order to swallow. Still, it was better than leaving it out for one of March’s boys to find.

  My stomach growled at the reminder of the blood I’d been denied earlier, and I reached into the ice bucket for a bag. Under ordinary circumstances, the blood would be suspect, but I was too hungry and weak to argue myself out of drinking it. My hands brushed something definitely not ice buried under the bag. It was a note, this one folded tightly, the ink beginning to run from the moisture of the ice.

&n
bsp; I’ve left some Tylenol in the bedside table drawer.

  Take it easy until sundown. And then, if you know what’s good for you, get as far away from here as possible.

  Evan

  I reread the note and stuffed it back into the ice bucket. No way was I taking any pills Evan had left behind. I knew better than to take candy from strangers, especially when they’d already tried to steal my blood. Besides, my headache was nothing a little food and rest couldn’t cure.

  Feeling good and lazy, I skipped a glass and slid my fangs through the thin plastic of the bag. I hadn’t fed enough on the trip, and I had a hard time sleeping in the back of the van, let alone in a strange bed in a bordello. All this left me with too much time to think, and of the two people on my mind most lately, the one I didn’t want to dwell on kept forcing his way into my thoughts.

  Probably because Evan had almost put me into the same situation Cyrus had been forced into. I’d always imagined Cyrus had some sinister motive for making me a vampire, though he’d insisted it was an accident, and what I could remember of the evening—aside from crawling on my hands and knees through formaldehyde and harvested human livers—didn’t suggest otherwise. As much as I hated the thought he might have been a victim of circumstance like I was, it seemed as though it was true.

  What if Evan had taken my blood? When I’d become Nathan’s first fledgling, he’d been incapacitated by fear of losing me. More precisely, the fear of the pain he would feel if he’d lost me. Cyrus had tried everything short of physical restraints to keep me by his side. I knew I was stronger than Cyrus. I must have been, to look him in the eye as I stabbed a knife through his heart. I’d assumed I was stronger than Nathan, but that assertion seemed unfair now. Nathan had lost his son and gained yet another emotional burden, right along with his blood tie to me. All of this, on top of the lifetime of guilt he’d endured for the murder of his wife. How could I measure my untested strength against a man who’d been put through an unending gauntlet of emotional pain?