"I can offer you hot tea or water," Colin said to her as he put her helmet on the counter with his own.
"What's with the fruit?" Madison asked as she shed her jacket and hopped up on a stool.
"Or fruit. I have fruit." He grinned, then explained, "I love the smell of oranges, most citrus actually. So I keep it about." He filled a teakettle with water and placed it on the stove. It looked like the only cooking utensil he owned.
"And the tea?"
"Same thing. I like the comfort of it, even though I cannot drink it. Guess it's an English thing-or more likely an Indian thing. Though tea was just a novelty in England when I was ... before I turned." The words were spoken with a touch of sadness. "Some evenings, especially if I'm reading, I'll brew a pot and hold the warm cup in my hands. It seems so ..."
"Normal?" Madison ventured.
"Quite"
"The Dedhams do that, too. They have favorite smells around that remind them of the past. Dodie loves to bake just so the house smells good."
Colin picked up a navel orange and leaned against the counter. He started peeling it, sending a sweet, juicy scent into the air. When he was done, he handed it to Madison. "Please. I'd like to know someone can enjoy their flavor."
She took the peeled orange and broke it into sections, placing them on a napkin Colin provided. She took a bite. It was fresh and succulent. When the teakettle whistled, Colin placed a tea bag in a sturdy mug and filled it with hot water.
"If I were truly a proper Englishman," he told Madison as she watched, "I'd be making this with loose tea in a china teapot." He picked up a lemon and held it up in question. "I don't have any milk, I'm afraid."
"Lemon's fine," answered Madison, swallowing the orange in her mouth.
"If you like nice scents," she said, looking around, "then why don't you have flowers in here? I've noticed that Dodie loves fresh flowers in the house."
Colin smiled. "Dodie Dedham is the best homemaker I've ever come across-alive or dead." He removed the tea bag from Madison's mug and slid in a freshly cut lemon slice. "That should warm you up and calm you down," he said, pushing the mug in Madison's direction before turning to the sink to wash his hands.
"About tonight, Madison." He turned around while wiping his hands on a towel. Madison was blowing over the surface of her hot tea.
"Which part of tonight, Colin?" She put her mug down, lest she stop feeling so trusting and throw it at him. "The part where you boffed and devoured Miriam, or the part where someone wanted to kill me?"
"Let's start with Miriam and work our way up, shall we?" Colin put down the towel and leaned against the counter. "I was only doing what comes naturally to me, Madison. I am, after all, a vampire."
The calm, civil tone in Colin's voice annoyed Madison. "First of all," she said, holding up an index finger, "I thought you were avoiding Miriam."
"I was, it's just that she was ... well, rather persuasive."
Madison slapped her hand on the counter. The tea in her mug jiggled. He might have had a jolly good vampire time, but she hadn't.
"It was a setup, Colin. Miriam was paid to seduce you to get you away from me." Madison rolled her eyes. "Not that she wouldn't have done it for free." She held up two fingers. "And, secondly, you were supposed to be keeping an eye on me, to some degree. If Ethan hadn't been so smug as to think he could entrap me later, I would be dead right now, or at least drugged in the back of a van."
Colin put both of his hands flat on the counter and leaned toward Madison without one shred of remorse on his handsome face. Instead, his face was pinched with anger. Madison wasn't sure if it was aimed at her, Miriam, or himself.
"I admit, I've made a right hash of it, Madison. But vampires suck blood. Miriam cut her own neck and paraded it in front of me. It also sounds like you might have been dead even if I had stayed upstairs with the rest of the party." He leaned back against the sink again, his face a dark bucket of brooding.
Madison became alarmed. "Miriam doesn't know you're a vampire, does she?"
"No, but she knows I have a thirst for blood, like many in the covens. And she has a desire to be ... sucked."
Colin ran a hand through his thick black hair. "Vampires are like animals, Madison. Remember that. Most of the time we can control our urges, but sometimes we regress to our more primi tive side. Remember Samuel tonight at the Dedhams'? When he saw the marks Wilhelm had left, he came dangerously close to savaging your neck for real"
"What?" Madison was shocked. "I thought he was just mad at me."
"He was, but he also wanted you-your blood and your body. Like an animal, he can smell fresh blood and open wounds. We all can."
Madison gave that serious thought. "But Dodie didn't mention that when she fixed Wilhelm's cuts."
"Trust me, Dodie covered those up and doused them with alcohol for a lot of reasons, one of which was to mask them from us and our natural tendencies."
"But what about Dodie? She didn't seem turned on by them. Nor did Doug."
"She's a younger vampire. She has less impulse along those lines. And both she and Doug have a protective instinct toward you. But if Samuel had bitten you, they would not have interfered."
Madison felt squeezed from both sides, as if two opposing walls were closing in on her-vampires on one side and those wanting to be vampires on the other. Pushing her tea away, she cradled her head in her arms on the counter. "What am I going to do?" she asked herself, not Colin.
"You're going to continue to assist us and stop whoever is doing these killings."
She shook her head in final surrender. "I'm going to die one way or the other. It's up to me to choose how, right?"
Colin arched an eyebrow at her. "You're not going to die, Madison. Not unless those bastards get their hands on you or unless you do something incredibly stupid. That's why I brought you here tonight. Doug and Dodie are on surveillance till morning. I didn't want you to be alone."
Silence fell between them. Colin pushed Madison's tea back in front of her. She picked it up and took several soothing swallows.
"Now," said Colin. "Tell me everything you found out. Then we're going to call Samuel."
Upon receiving the call, Samuel came straightaway to Colin's. He wanted to hear what had happened at the club personally from Madison. She told the two of them everything she had heard and seen at the club, over and over. Samuel questioned every detail, often asking the same question more than once but in a different way. She felt like she was being interrogated by the police or a lawyer.
"You're sure," Samuel pressed, "they mentioned Lilith as being involved?"
"Yes," Madison answered. "Both Ethan and Lilith gave money to Ben. Ethan said something about it being for Ben's people."
Colin glanced at Samuel. "Sounds like this Ben is the one hiring the guys grabbing the ones with bloodlines."
Samuel nodded but kept his eyes on Madison. "And you're sure Ben is the same man you saw at Dark Tidings? The one you think you know from somewhere else?"
"Yes" Madison squeezed her eyes shut in concentration. "Even his voice is familiar, but for the life of me, I still can't place from where."
"Did you see Ben?" Samuel asked Colin.
Colin shook his head. "Not tonight, but I vaguely remember him from Dark Tidings." He turned his eyes to Madison. "Long, light brown hair and dark glasses. Right?"
"That's him." A new thought crossed Madison's tired brain. "What about Lady Harriet?" she asked with some alarm. "She has a bloodline. If he's noticed, might he go after her?"
Colin's eyebrows raised at the thought. "There's a horrible thought."
"Makes you wonder," Samuel observed, "why he hasn't done it yet. He obviously knows what he's looking for."
"Perhaps it's because she's the leader of his coven," suggested Colin.
"But if he runs out of available bloodlines," added Madison, getting worried, "he might go after her. He started with young women, then killed Geoff. Doesn't sound like he has a preference anymore.
<
br /> "True," agreed Colin. "He might just be going after what he believes to be easy targets. If he's desperate for a bloodline, he might overlook the fact that Lady Harriet is his superior at the coven.
Madison looked at Colin, then Samuel. "Shouldn't we warn her?"
Without answering, Samuel walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. "What concerns me is that these beaters have discovered that the bloodlines are connected to us."
"But they don't know how," Madison told him. "They think the blood from someone with a bloodline is special-that they just have to drink it to turn into vampires." She paused and looked at Colin. "That's not how it works, is it?"
"No," Colin confirmed. "Only a vampire can turn a bloodline holder into a vampire, and it's an involved and dangerous process.
"Still," said Samuel, facing the view, "this means they are sure we exist."
Madison was puzzled. "When we were dancing, Ethan told me he didn't believe vampires really existed ... or that's what it sounded like he meant."
"He could have been lying to keep you off guard." Samuel turned back to them. "He probably knew by then that he was going to turn you over to Ben."
Samuel walked back to the counter and took a stool next to Madison. "Did they say anything about where they were storing the blood from the bloodlines?"
Madison shook her head. "No, or they did and I didn't overhear it. But it definitely sounded like Ben was in charge of getting the blood."
"Fresh blood doesn't have a long shelf life," Colin pointed out. "By tomorrow or the next day, they will be needing to replenish their stock. That means more deaths."
"We need to get to these men and make them talk," Samuel decided. "We have to find out if others are involved besides them and Lilith. Ben might be in charge or he might be just another paid employee like Piper and that bastard in jail."
A phone rang. Samuel pulled a cell phone from his pocket and looked at the display. "It's Isabella. Let's see how her evening went with Lilith." Taking the phone, he walked back toward the windows.
While Samuel spoke with Isabella, Madison folded her arms on the counter and lowered her head again. It wasn't until she woke while being carried by Colin that she realized she'd fallen asleep. He placed her on a bed.
"What are we going to do?" she asked him in a sleepy voice as he pulled off both her boots.
"We're doing nothing," he told her. He pulled a cover over her. "You're going back to sleep while Samuel and I figure this out. It will be morning soon. Then I'll take you back to the Dedhams'. And you are not to go to Wilhelm's today, as was planned. Is that clear?"
She gave him a sleepy nod in agreement.
TWENTY-SIX
olin didn't take her back to the Dedhams', Samuel did. They left Colin's just before sunrise. Gordon and Samuel's black sedan were nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was guided to a sleek silver Mercedes sports coupe. Samuel settled in behind the wheel.
"You can drive?" she asked the blind vampire.
"My eyes may seem incapacitated," Samuel told her from behind his sunglasses, "but they see as well as yours. Maybe even better."
It was then Madison remembered what Pauline had told her about Samuel regaining his sight after he became a vampire. "It's still hard to believe someone gave you a driver's license."
"Who says I have one?"
Madison jerked her head in his direction but said nothing.
Samuel started the engine and pulled the car out of the parking spot. "Now buckle up."
Madison snapped the seat belt in place. "Just remember, you may not be able to die, but I can. Seems you vampires let that slip your minds on occasion."
Samuel chuckled softly.
They rode in silence for several minutes before Samuel glanced Madison's way. "Are you upset because you saw Colin biting that woman or because he wasn't biting you?"
"What?" Madison shifted in her seat to look at Samuel. He certainly wasn't one for beating around the bush. "I'm upset because I was nearly kidnapped-for a second time in less than a week, I might add. And Colin-who was supposed to have my back-was nowhere around."
They stopped at a red light. Samuel looked at her. She squirmed in her seat and looked away, knowing he could read her like a neon sign.
"That is a good reason to be upset, yes. But it's not what's on your mind right now, is it?"
Madison shrugged. It was dawn. The sky was gray but full of bright promise. They were driving along Pacific Coast Highway, with the ocean to their left. She concentrated on the sea, trying to replace the picture of Colin and Miriam in her mind with the serenity of the waves.
"It won't work, you know." Samuel moved the car forward when the light turned green.
"What won't work?"
"Trying to block me out. No matter what you're thinking now, I'll just skip over it and read your past thoughts."
"That's just plain annoying, you know that?" Madison crossed her arms and sulked.
"Maybe. But I find it very useful."
"Then why bother asking me anything?" Madison snapped. "Just read away."
"I'd rather hear it from you. I want you to express your feelings, not bottle them up. It's healthier for you and will help calm you down-which, in turn, will help our progress"
"Colin gave me a cup of tea to calm me down. He didn't try to play psychiatrist." She turned her head in Samuel's direction. "And considering I'm a sneeze away from death, who gives a rat's ass about what's healthier?" As a thought occurred to her, she added, "Can you also read Colin's thoughts?"
Samuel shook his head. "It's something I can only do with the living."
"Lucky us."
Again, Samuel let out a soft laugh. "You're avoiding my question."
"Which was? Oh yeah, the biting thing" Madison rolled her eyes. Samuel already knew the answer, but he was going to make her say it. "A little of both, I guess. I was upset about Colin biting Miriam and maybe I wanted to know what it felt like. You know, to be bitten for real"
"And what about the sex? Did you also want to have sex with Colin?"
"Yes," she answered with the bluntness of an axe hitting wood. "At least at the time I saw him with Miriam. It was a creepy sort of turn-on, although it repulsed me at the same time." She paused. "Does that make sense?"
Samuel nodded. "Yes. It's quite normal, in fact."
"I'm normal? Who knew?"
"The behavior is quite normal," Samuel clarified. "You, on the other hand, are a bundle of contradictions. Pain. Hope. Anger. Vulnerable. Tough. Even sweet at times." He glanced at her. "Which is also quite normal, considering your background."
"When we get to the Dedhams', I'll stretch out on the sofa and you can analyze me for real. Do you charge by the hour or by the decade?"
"Sarcasm," Samuel added. "I forgot to list defensive sarcasm."
They had turned away from the ocean and were heading into the Topanga area, getting closer to the Dedhams'.
"You know, Madison," Samuel said after a few moments of silence. "If a vampire bites you, you won't die. Not unless the vampire wants to kill you."
"Like you killed those girls when you first turned?"
"Yes" Samuel's voice was solemn when he answered. "Who told you that? Dodie?"
"Pauline. She told me you killed the daughters of the man who blinded you. At least she said that's what people say about you.
"And what else has Mrs. Speakes told you?"
"That you were enslaved as a young boy and lived in Egypt during Roman times. That you were blinded by your master when you were a young man. It that true?"
"Mostly, except that I was blinded while very young." Samuel kept his eyes on the road while he talked. "The father of the girls I killed had raped and killed my mother, right in front of me, when I was a boy. He blinded me after making me watch, then he sold me into slavery."
Madison shivered at the thought, then sat silent for a moment. "You raped them, didn't you?" she asked, not looking at Samuel. "Pauline said you made the man watch wh
ile you killed his daughters. But you made him watch while you raped and killed them." Her tone was accusatory.
"Yes"
"So the daughters paid for their father's sins. Hardly seems fair."
"No, it wasn't fair, but life isn't about what's fair, anymore now than then. Was it fair that my mother was raped and murdered? Or that I was sold into slavery?" Samuel glanced at her. "Was it fair that you were raped repeatedly as a child?"
Madison didn't answer, just wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed.
"Fair is best left on the athletic field," Samuel continued. "Life isn't a game, Madison. Neither is an undead life."
Again, Madison was quiet with her thoughts.
"Yes," Samuel said, answering the unspoken question in Madison's head. "That is why I backed off that night at your first council meeting. In you I saw my mother and those girls. You have been harmed enough."
They rode the last few miles to the Dedham home in silence. Once in the driveway, Samuel turned off the car's engine. "They're not home yet. I have some things to tell them and you together. Things Colin and I decided."
"You're going to kill Ethan and Ben, aren't you?" In the shadowy light of the car, Madison studied Samuel, looking for nuances in his facial expressions. She found none.
"You already know the answer, Madison, so why ask the question?"
"Because I want hear to it from you."
Samuel took off his glasses and latched his murky eyes onto Madison's brown ones. She couldn't have looked away if she'd tried. "The council has already sentenced to death whoever is behind these killings. If Ethan Young, Lilith, and Ben are, in fact, the killers, then they will be dealt with by extermination."
"You make them sound like vermin."
"Aren't they?"
Remembering Geoff and the corpses of the dead women, Madison agreed. "Yes, they are."
Madison unbuckled her seat belt and started to open the car door. Samuel placed a hand on her arm, stopping her. "To answer your other question," he said to her. "Yes, I wanted you last night, Madison. But I would never again take a woman by force. I currently enjoy the social and sexual company-and, yes, even the blood-of a couple of young, beautiful women. They come to me willingly. I wouldn't have it any other way." The two of them looked into each other's eyes but said nothing until Samuel patted her arm and let it go. "You're cold. Let's get you inside."
Murder in Vein Page 18