“Probably for the best. Stay safe,” she said as she held the building’s door open for me.
“Thanks,” I muttered, and then I was running up the stairs.
* * *
Cazimir was at the window, dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I lived on the corner at the front of the building, and only the living room window faced the street. He was staring down at the flurry of activity below. I joined him, trying to get a better look from this angle. Even from five stories up, the picture was gruesome, but there were no red or brown splotches beneath her corpse, no sign of blood. Her skin was vampire-pale, like she’d been drained of blood, and it shone against the dark fabric of her clothes.
“Carrie,” Cazimir said finally.
“Who?” I asked, tearing my eyes from the scene.
“The dead girl. Her name was Carrie. She hung around the Factory, often trying to court the visiting vampires.” Cazimir had showered. I could smell my tangerine body wash on his skin, along with the faint hint of cigarettes. I wondered if he’d gone out to a bar. Smoking inside was illegal in Seattle restaurants, but swarms of smokers often clustered in front of bars. Maybe he’d gone on a walk and bummed a smoke. His short hair was dry and his face was clean-shaven. He looked so average, so much the opposite of everything he’d strived to be, I found it jarring. “Aidan didn’t like her. But then, he liked very few of the other mortals.”
“Aidan is dead,” I said.
Cazimir’s head turned away from me. “I know he’s dead.” His voice was hard and edged with emotion. “I’m not saying he did this. Obviously that is not possible.”
I took another look at Carrie the Vampire Groupie, another mortal whose fixation on vampirism had gotten her killed. It sickened me. I wanted to shake these kids and tell them to give it up already. Immortality was like the lottery: your odds of getting it sucked, even if you bought a truckload of tickets. But the sick realization that I was stuck in the lotto pool with them made my stomach churn.
After all, what was I now but a human desperate for immortality? Aidan had been wrong about a lot of things, but I guess he hadn’t been too far off the mark there.
“I’m sorry. About him, I mean.”
Cazimir waved a hand, dismissing the words. “I crafted an illusion around myself. Aidan fell into it until he couldn’t see the reality. Do you know how few of them I’ve turned? Unlike your sire, I take great care in such decisions. Aidan never really understood that my feelings for him were…” He trailed off.
I filled in, “Not reciprocated?”
That earned me a dark look. “Complicated,” he corrected. He sighed and it seemed to carry the weight of the world. “I wronged him.”
I snorted. “He killed at least four people, Caz.”
“To earn a place at my side. It was misguided but, in retrospect, understandable.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. Caz had spent the past two weeks brooding silently and, I assumed, seething at the memory of his mortal lover.
“Neither of us has clean hands,” Cazimir reminded me.
I pulled myself away from the window and headed into the kitchen. The counters were black and divided the main area of my apartment in two.
“I’m surprised you’re being so pragmatic about it,” I admitted as I looked through my wine rack. I chose a bottle of merlot.
“Pragmatism is a survival skill.” He stood and joined me in the kitchen, getting out his own wineglass and filling it halfway. It was nice to see Caz doing things for himself.
“I saw a vampire out there,” I said and shivered at the memory of the vampire’s cold eyes. “Medium height, black hair, Asian descent, cold eyes. Sound familiar?”
Something inscrutable passed over Cazimir’s face. “Not particularly, but that’s quite a vague description,” he said. I got the impression he was lying, but maybe I was just being paranoid. Then again, I’d had encounters with two separate vampires tonight and there had been two corpses left in my proximity. At a certain point, paranoia became prudence.
“Do you think maybe it’s Lark after all?” I asked, nodding toward the window and indicating the body. If the vampire I’d run into moments ago lived at the Factory, she could be behind the deaths.
“To what end?” he asked. I couldn’t think of a good reason for Lark to terrorize me with exsanguinated corpses, either. But that presumed she’d need a reason. “I cannot fathom what anyone can hope to gain from dumping bodies in your proximity. Especially for the mortal police to find.”
That was an excellent point. There are precious few things that the majority of vampires can agree on, but one of them is that leaving evidence in the open for mundane mortals to find is a big fat no-no and a good way to get yourself killed.
I sipped the wine. It had notes of cherry and oak. “Maybe it’s because of what I am. What we are.” I told him about Eva and how she’d come to see the “miracle” that was us now that there was a second vampire forced into mortality by the Cure. “They’re calling us ‘Sun Walkers.’”
Cazimir scrunched up his face in disgust. “That doesn’t make any sense. It implies we’re walking on the surface of the Sun, non?”
“None of this makes sense,” I said, taking a very large gulp of the wine. It was tart and crisp as I rolled it over my tongue. “Why slit their throats? Why leave them for me? Do you think this Eva woman could be behind it?”
“If her Weeper story is a ruse, I suppose. Though I don’t understand what possible motive she might have. Unless she only means to play with her food.” He gave me a pointed look.
It was my turn to make a disgusted face. Some vampires do, in fact, enjoy terrorizing and stalking victims before finally killing them. One vampire I knew of—and had certainly never made an attempt to get to know better—would spend up to three years tormenting a victim before killing them. He was reviled by plenty of other immortals for his excessive cruelty and often kept mortal servants around to drink from while he played his sick little games.
“She was pretty convincing,” I said finally.
“The best monsters are.”
I finished my wine. “Let’s go get dinner. And then we have an errand to run.”
Cazimir shook his head. “I will go with you to get sustenance because I cannot wither and die before I’m restored to my former glory,” he said. “But I am not accompanying you on any errands. Not after last time.”
“Fair enough.” The first and only time I’d taken Cazimir to the supermarket, we’d run into a little trouble with a fledgling vampire in the throes of bloodlust. I didn’t blame Caz for not wanting to go back. And I hadn’t really expected him to follow me to the Factory, which was tonight’s errand. No overthrown king wants to return to his palace and bow to another monarch, even if—as far as I’d heard—Lark wasn’t exactly crowning herself queen.
Chapter 5
The Factory was in a state of chaotic construction. Outside, it looked as dark and uninteresting as ever, but once the doors opened, everything was hectic. The floors were covered with slick plastic, taped down at the sides. Workers in paint-splattered jumpsuits carried ladders and power tools back and forth. The sounds of hammering and the distant whine of an electric saw filled the air.
The security guard who’d answered the door wore the usual security uniform, which was surprisingly similar to my waitress uniform: black slacks, white shirt. He wore a tie, though, which was thankfully a piece of attire I didn’t have to contend with.
“I’m here to see Lark.”
“Name?”
“Henri Dunn.”
He spoke into the radio attached to his shirt pocket. Five minutes later, Fiona came clicking across the floor in heels and a dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a charity gala on a yacht. It was short and black and hugged her curves. Her reddish-brown hair was in a braid that hung to one side. Her eyes widened when she saw me, surprised, I guess. I hadn’t exactly been making regular visits.
“Henri,” she scowled. “
You shouldn’t be here.”
“Fiona,” I said, mocking her tone. “That’s not your call.”
She shrugged and spun on her heel, leading me up the stairs with a defiant stomp. I didn’t like Fiona very much. She acted like anything asked of her was a massive burden. If she hated being ordered around, she could always leave the Factory. She wasn’t obligated to stay.
I saw that the second-floor hall’s floors were also covered in paper and the walls were being painted a very industrial white, the kind found in hospitals. She turned onto the landing of the third floor. There was no construction going on here. I was taken to a bedroom that had been converted into a sitting room. The bed had been removed and chairs had been put in front of the fireplace. Lark sat on a sofa against the window, a computer in her lap. She wore leggings and a cream-colored blouse that was stark against her dark skin. Vampirism had muted her skin tone somewhat, turning it ashen, but not the bone white of Caucasian vampires. She shut her computer when I came in and dismissed Fiona, who stomped off like leaving, too, was a burden.
“I didn’t expect to see you anytime soon,” Lark said. It was a statement of fact, with no judgment or surprise.
“Either that’s a lie, or you don’t know about the corpses,” I said and watched her face closely to gauge her reaction. Lark had stark features and bright brown eyes. She was always in tight control of her emotions, and tonight was no exception. She quirked an eyebrow, but otherwise, her face was an indecipherable mask.
“Corpses?”
I sighed. “Someone has been leaving exsanguinated bodies in my path. Near my work, on the sidewalk near my apartment building…”
“Interesting,” she said, as though it wasn’t. “Why?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. So I’m guessing you haven’t heard of a plan to, say, terrorize the Sun Walkers until they leave the city?”
Now her face broke, splitting into a smile. “Sun Walkers? Surely you jest.”
“I wish I was kidding.”
“I haven’t heard anything about plots against you or Cazimir. Though they held a funeral for him. Did you know?”
I stared blankly. That was answer enough.
“Many here are in mourning. They held a ceremony to say their good-byes.”
“Caz isn’t dead,” I said, completely horrified as I pictured people giving eulogies for a man who was currently plastered to my sofa.
“He may as well be. No offense.”
But I was offended. Deeply. “Not being a vampire anymore doesn’t make us dirt.”
Lark didn’t speak.
“So what, that’s your grand plan? Act like Caz and I are dead and then try to take his place?”
“I have taken his place,” she said firmly, picking up her laptop and setting it in her lap again. “I do not pretend to be royalty. But this is my sanctuary now. Those vampires who wish to check in with the local immortals may come here. I am reconsidering allowing the mortals to remain, though. Thomas would have wanted—”
“Caz built this place. He let mortals in and you can’t toss them out. Most of them will die. They have nowhere else to go.”
Lark shrugged. “Henri, I did not allow you up here to debate the future of the Factory as a safe haven for immortals, nor to get your opinion on how I might proceed. Cazimir is in no position to be the Seattle liaison for the supernatural community, so I took the job. How I do it is up to me. Trust that I am too busy to throw corpses at your feet in some attempt to terrorize you. If I wanted to do that, I would be far more creative.” She smiled, flashing fang.
My skin went cold and my heart sped up. Logically, I knew that Lark was no more dangerous showing her fangs than she had been concealing them, but that didn’t stop the primal part of my human brain from having a visceral reaction to the predatory display. I tried to steady my hands and ignore the ice sliding down my spine.
“I’m sure you’d have fun with it,” I agreed.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked, but in a way that was so dismissive it didn’t leave room for anything but a no.
I turned to go.
“How is he?” Her voice was quiet, like if she spoke the words at a low enough volume she could pretend she hadn’t said them at all.
“How do you think?” I said and marched out, not looking back. She didn’t get to tear apart Caz’s Factory and pretend he was dead and then turn around and act like she gave a damn about his well-being.
On the first floor, I spotted Fiona in the hall, talking quietly to a security guard. She gave me a glare that could have set fire to a wet paper bag.
I quickly turned away from her and headed to the door. There was a mortal girl hanging out in the foyer, like she was waiting for someone. She was maybe twenty and wore black lace and blue jeans under a leather jacket like she’d walked out of an ’80s music video. She smelled like cigarettes. Her black hair was cropped short. She had pierced eyebrows and bullring in her nose. Black had been smeared around her eyes. She stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the door, and looked straight at me with unbridled hatred.
“Hello,” I said with a bit of an attitude. I didn’t even know this girl. I’d seen her before among the other mortals here and she’d stood out enough to create an impression, but we’d never spoken.
She folded her arms over her chest and didn’t move.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
There was a long silence. I was about to push past her when she spat, “Blood traitor.” There was so much hatred dripping from the words it could have filled a bathtub.
“Excuse me?” I took a step toward her.
She kept her black-painted lips clamped shut, eyes glaring into me like lasers. I didn’t have the energy for this bullshit. I pushed past her. She shoulder-checked me as I did, but I ignored it. It wouldn’t do me any good to get into a cat fight in the Factory’s lobby.
“You’ll pay, bitch,” the mortal girl hissed as I opened the front door. I glanced back and saw that Fiona had come into the foyer. She was grinning, amused at this girl’s antics.
“Go to hell,” I snarled back at both of them. The other security guard, who was standing outside smoking—I guess as long as he was at the door, it didn’t matter which side he was on—gave me an odd look. He dropped his cigarette and went back inside. The Factory door swung shut behind me with a heavy thunk.
I turned to go down the steps and smacked right into someone.
* * *
The vampire was taller than me, with shoulder-length black hair and a stiff posture. He wore a tailored suit and sunglasses. He had strong Greco-Roman features, the kind one saw on statues in museums. There was an air of timelessness about him and I got the impression he was very, very old. I couldn’t see his eyes but he exuded strength and sturdiness the way all ancient vampires do.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. He lifted my chin with a gloved finger and studied my face. It was fucking unsettling, especially after my encounter with the bitchy human girl, but I did my best to look nonplussed by it, even as my hummingbird heartbeat gave me away.
“Henrietta Dunn,” he said, dropping his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I mentally ran through the list of ancients I might have some tenuous connection with, but it was a very short list and as far as I knew, this guy wasn’t on it.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” I said, doing my best to smile politely.
The older a vampire is, the stronger they are. Not necessarily in a physical sense; all immortals are stronger than humans and that strength doesn’t necessarily increase with time. But vampires grow more impervious as they age. If you are, for example, over two thousand years old, you can probably walk across a sunlit street without bursting into flame as long as you’re quick. A young vampire can’t even look through a window at direct sunlight without their eyeballs catching fire, and I mean that literally. Sunlight is very, very deadly to our kind—their kind. But when you’ve made it two thousand pl
us years, you start to get more resistance. A literal thicker skin. That doesn’t mean an ancient vampire can go spend the day at the beach, but they can tolerate things in small doses that would kill a much younger immortal.
Something about how very old vampires can endure more makes them seem a little scary and very awesome in every sense of the word.
“My name is Tertius.” He bowed slightly. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh.” The word “flesh” rolled over his tongue like he was tasting it.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” I said. I had no clue who this guy was. If he was a friend of Sean’s, my sire, he wasn’t one Sean had seen fit to mention to me.
“It is a shame, this crime that was committed upon your person.”
I blinked. It was rare for vampires to acknowledge I was a victim, not a traitor who’d sought mortality. He took my surprise as confusion.
“This.” He brushed his fingers over my check in such a delicate, smooth gesture that it made my skin crawl. “Being forced back into humanity.”
“Yeah, it’s a bitch,” I said.
He smiled radiantly, like he’d just discovered his pet could do tricks. “My, my, aren’t you a firecracker.”
I bristled. “Usually when people call me that, it’s because they’re not happy a woman is speaking up.”
His smile widened. “Oh, I do like you.” He laughed to himself. “Yes, very much.” And with that creepy pronouncement, he pivoted on his heeled shoe and opened the Factory’s front door. “Take care of yourself, Henrietta.” The door closed behind him with a heavy thud.
I shuddered. I didn’t like the way my name sounded on his lips. It was possible it was only his age making me uneasy. Vampires are immortal: they do not age or die of natural causes, but they can be killed. We—they—want to believe we are going to live thousands of years. And yet still, most of us are a little thrown off when we encounter one so ancient, because it’s hard for the mind to really conceive of what eternity means.
Bloodless (Henri Dunn Book 2) Page 3