Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

“Yes, well, but the truth of it is that I think he’s just trying to conduct his own personal research on vampire physical makeup. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But now is not a good time.”

  “There never seems to be a good time for anything these days,” Mitch agreed. “And when we have time on our hands we don’t ever seem to use it the way we should.”

  “That’s life,” Vivienne chimed in. “The way it always has been; the way it always will be. And believe me, I’ve seen enough time go by to know.”

  “By the way,” Mitch leaned forward in his seat to talk to her, “Deirdre is interested in learning a few of the tricks you’ve been teaching me.”

  “Mitch, you’re no gentleman. And you promised you wouldn’t tell her. What must she think of me now?”

  “Well,” I stretched the word out as long as I could.

  “No, no, don’t tell me, Deirdre. I’m sure I don’t want to know. Do you really want to learn these tricks? I don’t mind teaching you, we could start tonight if you like. I’m sure that you’re just as quick a learner as your charming husband.”

  The smile faded from my face. As much as I’d enjoyed my time with Vivienne, I didn’t really want her company every waking moment.

  Mitch jumped in with an enthusiastic, “That’d be great.” So I smiled and nodded and accepted the fact that tonight at least would be spent learning her tricks. If I could actually learn them. Although I’d transformed twice already, it was not a conscious effort. And my one attempt to do it on purpose failed miserably.

  “Sure,” I said, my voice not as eager as it could be, but pleasant enough. I’d finally admitted to myself that these skills could be useful and that I was being incredibly stubborn attempting not to learn them. And they’d certainly had a good effect on Mitch. “Let’s do that.”

  The cab pulled up in front of the Imperial. “Good, then that’s settled. The two of you come to my room around ten; we’ll have some wine,” she gave a deep chuckle, “and do a few tricks.”

  The first thing I did when I got back to our room was collapse into one of the armchairs.

  “Tough day?” Mitch came up behind me and rubbed my shoulders.

  “Not exactly tough, but exhausting.” I stretched my legs out and wiggled back into his strong hands. “Oh, that feels good.”

  “You and Viv seem to be getting on pretty well, though.” He brushed my hair over to one side and kissed the back of my neck. It made me shiver as always and I put a hand up to stroke his cheek.

  “I think that I like Vivienne better these days, but she can still get pretty wearing after a while. She seems to have this need to be constantly on display. It’s endearing in one way and damned annoying in another.”

  Mitch laughed. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. To be honest, I could have done without her company tonight.”

  “But, Mitch, you were the one who sounded like you were interested. I was just going along to be amiable.”

  He snorted. “Oh, hell, I only sounded interested, because I thought you wanted to spend time with her.”

  “Well, it won’t be that bad. She serves a decent wine.”

  “And teaches a decent trick.”

  “This is terrible. She’s a vibrant, beautiful, and powerful woman and we’re talking about her as if she were a not-sobright relative to be tolerated.”

  His hands continued to work their magic on the tense muscles of my neck and back. “You know what it is, don’t you?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “You and I are complete in ourselves. We don’t need the companionship of others anymore, because we have each other. And we always will. So the intrusion of someone else is just that, an intrusion.”

  “I fed on Sam the other night.”

  “What? Where’d that come from?”

  “An intrusion. He wanted to know what it was like, the taking of blood. And he pushed me past my endurance and I fed on him.”

  Mitch’s hands stopped their massage. “You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”

  “Good heavens, Mitch, no. I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “Then why is it an issue? I’m not trying to imply that you’re lying or that it should be an issue. I’m just curious why you’d bring it up.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t really know. There’s something about feeding on someone who wants you to that just feels strange.” I twisted around in the chair so that I could see his face. “You know what an intimate experience it can be, even with a stranger. But to know the person ahead of time and to have them practically beg you to bite them, well, like I said, it just feels strange.”

  “Is that why you aren’t going back there tomorrow?”

  “Partly,” I admitted. “And it really does seem like a waste of time. What good does knowing the drug Larry’s using do? It’s not going to stop him.”

  He walked away from me and went to sit on the bed. “There was another murder this morning.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I felt it. Although it was vague this time, nothing at all like the experience with Jean, thank God.”

  “Yeah, that was a rough one. They all are in their own way. And I feel like I’m failing horribly at this. All of my attempts to beef up security and keep people safe just aren’t working.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Someone who should have known better. John Harwicke, one of the house leaders.”

  “I only met him last night. He was the skin-the-cat guy, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah. That was him.” Mitch rubbed his forehead and then ran his fingers through his hair. “The trouble, Deirdre, is that I don’t have a clue what to do next. It seems too much like playing into his hands to just sit and wait for him to come after us. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing. All of us. Hiding in our warren, shivering in fear of the great and powerful rogue.” He got up from the bed and paced the room. “People are starting to treat that damned vase of roses like the holy grail or something. They stop by the council room as if it were a sacred shrine and count the roses. One of the guards told me that some stop by five or more times a day now.”

  I shrugged. “Why don’t we just throw them out? Where is it written that we have to play by Larry’s rules? Maybe we don’t need to play at all.”

  He stopped pacing and looked at me, a broad smile growing on his face. “Damn, Mrs. Greer, you know, that is one hell of a suggestion. I think I’ll do just that.”

  “Glad to be of service, love. While you’re doing that, I’m going to shower and change my clothes so that we can go to Vivienne’s. But we won’t stay long.”

  “We couldn’t stay too long in any event. There’s a council meeting at two that I have to run. And you know, now that we’re cleaning house, I suspect these meetings may be something else that goes the way of the roses.” He grimaced. “The damned things are totally redundant anyway. We have the same agenda, night after night. I tell them the same things over and over and they just don’t listen.”

  He came over to me and gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll be back in just a few minutes. Save some hot water for me.”

  I was out of the shower before Mitch returned, wrapped in a towel, using another to dry my hair. He burst into the room with a wonderful glint in his eye. “God, but that felt good. I took the goddamned flowers and the vase to the Dumpster in the back of the restaurant. I ripped each one of them to shreds and sprinkled them on top of somebody’s uneaten dinner. Then I took the vase and flung it against the alley wall.”

  “Wonderful. If nothing else, Mitch, at least you feel better about it all. That can only help.”

  He did a double take, noticing my apparel for the first time. “You’re out of the shower already? Nothing went wrong, did it?”

  I got up from the bed, walked to the dresser and picked up my hair brush. “No, nothing was wrong. I just didn’t feel like a long shower tonight. And,” I intercepted his skeptical glance, “I admit I felt just a little edgy about what happened last time. It still scares the hell out of me
that he can just come and go as he pleases. But right now it also makes me angry. And I think the anger is winning.”

  “Okay, that’s great. I’m sorry I missed the shower with you, though.”

  “Have one by yourself. Take your time, use all the hot water if you want. I’m going to get dressed in a minute.” I looked at the clock. “I might even stop at the bar for a drink before we go to Vivienne’s room. You could meet me there.”

  “Will do.”

  I finished brushing my hair and started to dress. Mitch was singing in the shower, and although it was often hard to tell just what he was singing, this one was faintly recognizable as “Born to Run.” “Appropriate,” I laughed and took a fresh pair of jeans from the dresser. Then put them back. I’d been wearing black jeans for too long, I decided. Time for something a little brighter. I removed the red velvet dress from the armoire and pulled it on over my head, smoothing it down over my hips.

  Slipping my feet into my black high-heeled pumps, I walked into the bathroom. “Hey,” I called in to Mitch, “I’m almost ready to go. How are you doing?”

  “Just fine. It’s sort of nice to not have to share the water.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I got my makeup out of the medicine cabinet, but knew I couldn’t put it on in here. “Steamy enough for you?”

  “Yeah. Now get out of here, woman, and let me take my shower.”

  I made do with the small mirror over the dresser, put a little rouge on my cheeks, applied some mascara and fluffed my hair just a bit. “See you up there,” I called loud enough for him to hear over the running water, picked up my purse, and left the room.

  The bar held a lot more people than last night, but I managed to claim a small table in the corner from a couple who were leaving for dinner. Curious, I checked around for the bartender I’d met last night, but didn’t see him. It was possible, I admitted to myself when the waiter brought me a glass of wine, that I was being overly paranoid. The man last night may have just been a talker, and he could have overheard my name mentioned elsewhere. The entire atmosphere of the Cadre, I decided, was intended to breed suspicion and paranoia. I’d be happy to see the last of them when we finally were able to leave.

  Despite my newfound positive attitude about Larry Martin and his reign of terror, I still acknowledged that I, at least, could not leave here until he was eliminated or neutralized. He was, as I had said so many times, my responsibility.

  I settled my chair back against the wall and watched the people around me. That had been one of my favorite pastimes before I became involved with Mitch, the Cadre, the whole terrible mess that had begun in a Kansas cornfield so many years ago. Actually it had been started long before then, with the carriage wreck that had killed my husband over a century ago, the scent of his blood that had drawn the attention of Max. I sighed. I still missed Max. He’d been there for so long for me and I’d relied on him without even knowing that I did.

  But Max was dead and so was the past. It was time to start looking to the future. I was jolted from my thoughts by the arrival of the waiter with a glass of wine I hadn’t ordered.

  “It’s from the young man at the end of the bar.”

  I was afraid to look for a minute, but eventually my eyes traveled to where the waiter had pointed, expecting to see Larry Martin standing there. Instead I was delighted to see Christopher Greer.

  I flashed him a bright smile and waved him over, before I remembered what Mitch had told me the other day. Chris wanted to kill me so that his father could return to a normal life. I panicked slightly, but it was too late to take away the smile and the wave. Chris was already moving toward me, weaving his way through the tables and the people.

  “Hi.” His voice didn’t sound like the voice of someone who wanted to kill me.

  “Good evening, Chris. Join me?”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Oh, he’ll be on his way fairly soon. Last time I saw him he was singing in the shower.”

  “Oh, no, Dad was singing?” Chris pulled out a chair and sat down. “When I was a kid that used to drive my mother crazy. What song was it?”

  “Hard to say,” I smiled at him and took a sip of my wine, “they all sort of blend together. Does it matter?”

  “Sometimes you can gauge his mood by the song.”

  “That must be a corollary to the fact that he only orders a scotch on the rocks when he’s angry.”

  “Yeah. Funny, isn’t it, how all our little day-to-day habits can sometimes say more about us than anything else? Like how I knew you were in a good mood before I even sat down.”

  “Me? Really? How could you tell?”

  “You were studying the people around you. When you’re not happy you tend to stare into thin air.”

  I took another sip of my wine. “I’m afraid I don’t know enough about you to guess your moods, Chris. You’ll have to help. What kind of mood are you in? Happy? Sad? Murderous?”

  He jumped guiltily at the last word. “Dad told you I said that?”

  “Well, you can’t blame him too much, I suppose. He’s been very worried about you, and how you seem to refuse to accept what has happened. There’s not really anything that can be done to change your father back at this point. And even if there were, I’m not sure he’d thank you for it.”

  “So what did you say when he told you I wanted to kill you?”

  I glanced up at him and smiled. “You won’t like it, I’ll bet.”

  “I’m a big boy, Deirdre, I can take it.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t all that bad, Chris. You don’t seem to understand that in spite of how you feel about me, I like you. You’re a good kid and a good son. Most of the time.” He blushed at that and I smiled at him. “First thing I did when Mitch told me that you’d vowed to kill me was laugh. And then I said something about how attempting to kill me was becoming a very popular sport.”

  “Why? Who else was trying to kill you?”

  “Else? Are you still angry with me?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. And you know, I’m not sure I ever was angry with you. Dad, yeah, for leaving town and not telling me what had happened. And myself, for not being able to accept you, when it’s obvious that you make him very happy.”

  “You saw Sam tonight, didn’t you?”

  He gave me a sheepish grin very similar to his father’s. “Yeah, you can tell, can’t you?”

  “A little. There’s nothing wrong with that, though. Sam’s a good doctor and I’m glad he’s helping. If you had tried to kill me, it would have been a very difficult thing for Mitch.”

  He laughed. “To say nothing of how difficult it would have been for you.”

  He motioned the waiter over. “Another Coke for me, please, and a glass of wine for the beautiful lady.”

  I smiled at him.

  “Well, you are. And I’m sorry I said I wanted to kill you. I’d been drinking heavily ever since you and Dad got married. I got a little crazy, I guess.”

  “It happens.” I took a sip of wine.

  “So who is trying to kill you?”

  “Larry Martin.”

  “The bastard that tried to kill Dad?”

  I nodded. “One and the same. Trouble is he’s already killed four vampires and everyone around here is just a little tense about the situation.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “If you’d asked me that question a day or so ago, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. Now it’s easy. I’ll get him before he gets me.”

  “When you get him, save a piece of him for me, okay?”

  I toasted Chris with my glass of wine. “You’ve got a deal.”

  Chapter 29

  Chris got up from the table and put some money down to pay the bill.

  “You’re not leaving, are you? Don’t you want to stay and see your father?”

  He shook his head. “Not tonight. I really came to find you, to apologize for how shitty I’ve been with you. You can’t help what you are. I think I alwa
ys knew that, but it took me a while to really know it.”

  “Well, I’ll tell Mitch that I saw you and that everything is fine. Then he’ll have one less situation to worry about.”

  “Okay. Thanks for being so nice about all this.”

  I rose, moved around the table and gave Chris a hug. “No problem. Now if you’d shown up with a hammer and a stake that would have been a different story.”

  He laughed and hugged me back. He even kissed my cheek lightly. Then he walked away and I sat back down, sipped at my wine, and watched the people around me.

  Five minutes later, Mitch showed up.

  “You just missed Chris,” I said when he sat down.

  “Chris was here? Tonight? Wasn’t he supposed to have an appointment with Sam?”

  “Yes, he stopped here on his way back.”

  “I see that you’re still alive. Either you did some real good sweet talking or he feels better.”

  I gave a small laugh. “He feels better. I save my sweet talking for handsome police detectives.” My eyes swept over him. He was wearing a pair of tight jeans, with a button-down shirt and his suit coat. I wondered how many people knew that the suit coat meant that he was wearing his shoulder holster. “You look very nice tonight. Almost good enough to eat.”

  “Don’t start, Deirdre,” he said with a mock groan, “we have to go to Vivienne’s pretty soon.”

  “But we don’t have to stay, do we?”

  “No, but then I have a council meeting. What’s gotten into you these days anyway? You’re even more amorous than usual.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “Never.” He reached over and took my hand. “But there’s just not enough time in the day to take care of everyone else and satisfy your insatiable appetites.”

  “Ah, but that’s why there are nights.”

  “Okay, okay.” He stroked the sleeve of my dress. “I’ll try to make room in my busy schedule for you.”

  “Why thank you, Detective. That’s very kind of you.”

  “Kind, nothing. Whatever’s gotten into you has also gotten into me. It’s like I can’t get enough of you.”