by Wendy Nikel
“Yeah, well, you fucked me instead.”
I smiled. Was it possible I was in love with this kid already?
“So what do you want?” he asked.
“I can’t keep watching you through glass.”
“I knew you were watching.”
“I figured you did.” I noticed something. “Where’s your kitchen table?”
“We broke it.”
“God, I don’t remember that.”
He adjusted the gun in his hand, held tighter. “You just about broke me.”
“For that, I’m sorry. It wasn’t what I planned.”
“No,” he said. “You planned to kill me.”
Jesus, he was something to look at, with extraordinary dark hair and angry eyes. He had the body of a guy who’d never lost a fight in his life—until he met me. He was in nothing but jeans and a snug t-shirt. It’d be easy to make short work of that.
I didn’t know what I expected him to do, run across the room and beg to be banged? For all I knew, he wasn’t even gay. For all I knew, I took his virginity in a criminally brutal way and left him scarred for life.
I mulled over the appalling thought of never touching him again until he put his gun on the coffee table and turned off the TV.
“Do you have a name, or do I just call you Motherfucker Who Tried to Kill Me?”
I smiled, couldn’t help myself. “Dario.”
“What the hell kind of name is that?”
“A very old name.”
Zach, twenty-three at the time, walked right up to me—centuries-old vampire—and stopped inches from my chest. He tilted his chin up and licked his top lip. “I’d rather not end up in the hospital this time.”
I didn’t wait for further invitation. I took hold of his face and ravaged his mouth. I pressed him against the wall and trapped his hands above his head. I realized immediately how much I liked having him trapped. That night, he even let me use a couple silk ties to lash him to the bed.
In Zach’s crummy hotel room, I shoved the phone back to him. “She’s stalking you.”
“No shit.” He paused. “Jealous?”
I said nothing.
“That was a joke.” He set the phone on the table.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I’m telling you now.” He folded his hands behind his head. “Shit, Dario, it’s not like we’re pen pals. Our paths cross sometimes and we fuck. I don’t need your help.”
“No, because you’re so old and wise now. All powerful vampire hunter.”
“Fuck you.” He shoved out of bed and headed to the small, black fridge in the corner. Tiny bottles of chilled whiskey clinked in the miniature door. He removed one and unscrewed the cap. “You’re practically a celebrity nowadays. Weren’t you on CNN last week?”
I stepped out of bed and reached for my discarded jeans. “It’s my job. You know it’s my job.”
“Yep. Almighty, respectable vampire rights activist.” I watched him finish the mini bottle in one go as I stepped into my pants.
“You’re just acting like a little shit because you don’t like when I get possessive.”
He dropped the empty bottle on the floor. “Don’t treat me like a kid. I’m not twenty-three anymore.”
“I know.” I pulled my sweater over my head and reached for my coat. To the floor, I said, “It was good to see you.”
“Shit.” He blocked my way to the door. I tried to stomp around him, but he put his big mitts on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m just stressed.”
I put my hands on his face and leaned our foreheads together. “Two years without you.”
“I know.”
“I can’t wait much longer.”
I felt his warm breath on my face. “We’ve talked about this.”
In my impatience to let go, I shoved him backwards. His hands landed on the top of the fridge before he hit the floor. I made a gesture—something like, If there’s a God, why did He let me meet Zach Fucking Mede? Then, I reached for the doorknob.
“Hey, dick head.” His voice: like an upright bass wrapped in cigarette smoke.
I smirked.
“Can I see you tomorrow night?”
“If you’re lucky.” I shut the door behind me and stepped into the hall. I wished past embarrassments were so easy to enclose.
Five years prior, I realized I was disturbingly in love with Zach while I was inside of him, which some would say doesn’t count—endorphins getting in the way or something. But it wasn’t that; it was the way he looked at me, his tree trunk thighs wrapped around my waist. I was on top, moving gently, as I so rarely do, with one hand on the side of his neck. My thumb touched his Adam’s apple. His eyes raked over my face like he’d never seen me before. Then, he closed his eyes and came. It was like watching the sunrise over the apocalypse. Doomed.
I’d never been in love before. I’d never been interested in the emotion. At the time, my career as an activist was just taking off. Hours before, I’d decided I needed to stop fucking Zach for political reasons. Then, his callused fighter’s hands erased all reason, especially when my own orgasm reduced me to a quivering pile of undead flesh, engulfed by muscular arms and the smell of his blood. Not human blood, his blood. No one smelled like Zach.
I bit into his right pec, which made him hold me tighter. He moaned as I drank. Then, he whispered my name, and I was done like overcooked beef.
I spent a whole week with him that visit because I couldn’t bring myself to say something stupid like, “I love you,” but I also couldn’t bear the thought of being away from him. Finally, he was the one who said it.
Well, he said, “No.”
“What?”
“I’m not in love with you.” His face was buried in a case file as he sipped coffee before another night shift.
“Okay.”
“So you can leave and do your activist thing and see me when you have time.” He moved to the sink with his coffee mug and emptied the dregs.
“I always have time for you.”
“Don’t do that.” He shook his head. “Don’t do that boyfriend shit.”
“I’m not your boyfriend.”
“I know.” He crossed his arms in one of my favorite suits, a navy blue one that made his eyes look black. “You’re not my boyfriend. You’re not even someone I can be seen with on the streets.”
“I was going to break up with you.”
“Yeah, well, why didn’t you?”
I stood up. “For some reason, I like being around you, even when you’re acting like an amazing asshat.”
He shook his head and went to move past me toward the den, but I grabbed onto his upper arm, which served to piss him off royally. He snapped his arm out of my grasp and shoved at my shoulder. Before I knew it, we were wrestling around his kitchen. I heard glass break. We were always breaking things. Then, he trapped me against the counter, groin to groin, and he was hard as stone. We broke a couple more dishes in our rush to get skin on skin.
Once we finished, we curled up on the kitchen floor. I ran my fingers through his hair and pressed small kisses against his forehead. We didn’t cuddle, because Lord knows, the jerk didn’t cuddle. We just lay there, close, until his phone announced a dead body and mine announced an interview with TIME Magazine. We both cleaned up and went to work.
Nine months passed before I saw him again, and by then, his rep was established as biggest badass vamp hunter in America. It was henceforth known far and wide: murder a human, and Zach Mede will murder you.
Why New York? I asked myself as I left Zach’s hotel. Why the fuck did I choose New York in freaking January? He was right. I hated the cold. I wasn’t in danger of frostbite, but I hated that damn cold. It felt like death. And yeah, vampires know what death feels like.
When I was turned back in 1673 Venice (romantic), I remember feeling cold. Could have been the fancy palazzo tiles under my back or the dampness of my clothes from an early spring Italian rain. My maker w
as rich, which was why I agreed to go home with him in the first place. Before he even had my clothes off, his fangs were in my throat. The sound of my blood beat in my eardrums. Then, I swore I was dead, until I got a few hefty mouthfuls of his blood and went through the change.
Andre and me had a good run, about fifty years of sex and blood before some villagers caught us while on a cross-country tour and gave Andre a suntan. I got away. I always get away, and yet, I felt tethered to Zach. I couldn’t escape the way he made me feel. I’d never loved Andre, and Andre knew that, was okay with it. We were companions, but when Andre died, I moved on, no problem. Now, I was cursed to love a beautiful, arrogant prick, apparently for-fucking-ever, for better or worse.
I closed my eyes and smelled him on my skin, but even the reminder of his warm body wasn’t enough to thaw my bones. I shivered on the New York curb. I was going to have to get a cab back to my month-to-month rental in Manhattan.
I don’t know if I would have noticed her if I hadn’t turned to face traffic, but there she was, leaned against a tree that struggled to survive city life.
Another vampire, uncomfortably close to Zach’s hotel.
She was something, too, the kind of girl that made straight men want to crawl on hands and knees across broken glass to touch her. She had long, red-gold hair and light eyes above high cheekbones and a full mouth, stained dark. She wore a floor-length fur coat and couldn’t have looked more out of place on that drafty street corner.
“He is amazing, isn’t he?” Her voice was like velvet with a razor-edge hem.
“Sorry. Do I know you?”
She stepped away from the tree, and heels click-clacked across concrete. “No.” She smiled, fangs full out. “But I know you, Dario. Vampire rights activist. And you have given me exactly what I need.”
It took three huge immortals to subdue me. I could have yelled for Zach. I’d only seen one knife inside, but I knew he had an arsenal of silver with him at all times. In the end, I felt a needle in my neck and knew I would soon be blotto. Sure, humans had invented the silver nitrate syringe, but it was just fucking rude when vamps used it on each other.
I didn’t want to go back there—no, no—not to that night, but silver-induced dreams were doozies and often went to dark places. I’d never known a darker night than that one, the night I almost lost Zach.
It was pure coincidence we were in the same city when it happened. Or was it? I was beginning to doubt coincidence where Zach was concerned. No matter where I was in the world, some part of me sensed him. Maybe I sought cities that smelled like him. Maybe that was really why I was in New York in winter and why I’d been in London when a cowardly vampire took a shot at Zach down a dark alley. If the vampire had been self-respecting at all, he at least would have tried to bite the detective. He would have done things the old-fashioned way, but no, he put a bullet in him.
I was blocks away at a club when I smelled Zach, his blood everywhere. Surrounded by human blood bags, all I could smell was Zach. I swear I heard him groan. Took me two minutes to find him. I probably felt like a breeze to the humans I passed. I saw the glow of Zach’s cell phone and heard his strained voice. “Officer down.”
Then, I knelt in the ever-expanding pool of wet red, and he never looked so surprised to see me.
“Dario, what the fuck?” he wheezed.
I tore his shirt open and found the bullet wound right below his sternum. I took off my scarf and pressed hard on the wound, which made him buck and grit his teeth beneath me.
“The bullet must have gone through. You’re losing too much blood.”
“I know, moron.”
I stared at the face I knew so well, and he stared back at me, although I can’t be sure he saw anything. His eyes had that worrying porcelain doll look.
“I’m turning you,” I said.
“What? No.”
I already had his head cradled in my hand, my fangs out and pointed at his slowly pumping pulse point. “I can’t lose you.”
“No. Please?” His tears stopped me. I knew Zach wasn’t one to cry over pain—trust me on that. I don’t know why he was crying, but my fangs disappeared. I cradled his head in my lap. His hand found mine and squeezed, sticky with blood. Then, like a nancy, I was crying, too. I didn’t want to be on an Earth where Zach wasn’t. I cried for both of us: two lives lost.
But he made it. He made it into the ambulance, through surgery. He made it through recovery. I visited him a couple times in the hospital at night while London slept, and he rarely spoke, like he was still trying to regain his bearings. Maybe he was. Lord knows he was hopped up on a shit-ton of morphine.
Then, one night, he pulled me to him by the scruff of my shirt. To say I was shocked by his post-bullet wound strength would be like saying the sun is a candle.
“You will never turn me. Promise me that.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. It’s inevitable. I can’t watch you get old.”
He shoved me away.
“How did you think this was gonna turn out? What did you think would happen when you fell in love with a vampire?”
“I’m not in love with you.”
I leaned over his bed. “Lie all you want, but in eight years, there’s only been me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
He wouldn’t look at me, so I grabbed his chin and forced him to.
“There’s been no one else for me, either.”
His stone cold eyes betrayed no emotion. I hated that about Zach. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Years of questioning suspects had given him a poker face that could have won millions.
I let go of him and sulked toward the window. Outside, the city was an upside-down map of stars as if the sky had melted. I spoke to my reflection. “Why won’t you let me turn you anyway?”
“The guy who trained me…”
“I’d guessed he was a vampire. You don’t move like most humans.”
“Yeah, well, he said immortality is interminable. He said if I thought being human was lonely, try watching all the people you love die.”
On that point, the bastard was right. I’d lost my share of family and friends. That’s what happens when you hit three hundred. Still, I had to say it, had to get sappy. “It won’t be lonely if you’re with me.”
Then, he spoke, and I was so blown away, I asked him to repeat himself.
He sort of laughed at this, the way Zach laughs: a quick glimpse of teeth, and it’s gone. He said it again. “You can turn me when I’m thirty-five. Or is that too old for you?”
“What if something happens to you before then?”
He bit his bottom lip. “I guess you’ll be lonely forever.”
I was tied to a chair. The only chair-tying that happened in my presence was with Zach, and in that case, it was usually the other way around. So why the fuck was I tied to a chair?
“And the old man wakes.”
Fingers snapped in front of my face. I blinked a couple times. God, my head ached. I’d been hit with silver before, so I knew it was a silver hangover. I wondered how long I’d been out.
Her face floated in front of me like a bobble head. The bitch was just as pretty up close, but that smile of hers was vicious. “Dario, wise public voice of our species.” She stood right in front of my chair. “Who would ever guess you were fucking that gorgeous vampire hunter? The sounds he makes in bed—my God.” She put her hand to her chest. “How do you not just fall to pieces?”
My forearms were shackled to the metal chair with links of silver chain, which the woman was nice enough to not wrap around my bare skin. Instead, the chain lay across the fabric of my jacket, although I could feel the hint of heat even through suede. I wouldn’t break out of this without assistance. Something told me the woman wouldn’t be forthcoming. Neither would her goons, three huge dudes who stood there like Stonehenge.
I wet my lips and almost shivered at the lingering taste of Zach on my mouth. I blinked. Had to keep my head straight. “You’re the murderess. The on
e who sends him notes.”
“I am.” She circled me and ran her fingers through my blond hair. “And you’re the one he loves.”
“He doesn’t love me.”
“Yes, he does,” she whispered right in my ear. “Or he wouldn’t have agreed to come here. He would have let me bake you on the roof.” She chuckled—a deep, sultry sound that rolled like thunder. “He’s on his way here right now. It’ll be such a shame to kill something so lovely, but we can’t have him getting in the way anymore. It’s time for vampires to claim their place as top of the food chain. We were made to kill humans. Why doesn’t your detective understand that?” She smiled. “He’s gotta go.”
Well. That had me tugging at my restraints. Bad move, since the chains moved and scorched the back of my wrist. She watched me, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of making a sound.
One of her cronies pulled up another chair, and she took a seat before crossing her long legs. Without the fur coat, she was in nothing more than a thin green gown that reminded me of something from Paris, circa 1920. Emeralds covered her high heels. “How long have you been bedding him? A long time, I bet, based on the intimacy of your lovemaking. Are you even aware of the way you touch him? Such reverence. He’s your little human version of God.”
“He’s not little,” I hissed, “and he could kick the shit out of you.”
She ran her hand over her knee. “Oh, I know. I’ve watched him fight vampires before, and he’s only getting better. That’s why he has to die. Put an end to his political agenda of vampires and humans living in unity.” She paused. “Although it would be fun to reveal your little tryst. Modern day Romeo and Juliet.” Her pale hand moved up the outside of her thigh. “Strange that a man like Zach Mede would be the Juliet.”
She shut up at the sound of a heavy metal door opening. I closed my eyes and wished it wouldn’t be him. Please, Zach, don’t be so stupid as to come here for me. But when I opened my eyes, he stood there in a gray suit, height of an NFL linebacker.