In the Dark

by Melody Taylor

  “Thank you, Doctor Tamereaux. I’ve been dead for four years. What the hell did you expect?”

  Her face paled a shade or two. I shut up and took my hand back. I had just decided that she was going to run screaming into the night when she reached out and took my wrist again. I opened my mouth to ask her why – and let it shut quietly.

  She searched one tiny spot after another, warm fingers pressed to my skin. I let her have it for a while, until it was obvious she didn’t intend to give up.

  “Can I have my hand back?” I asked. She let go of it like it had bitten her. I waited for her to say something, arms folded. I was hungry again after my little display of panic. I thought about trying to lap up some of the blood I’d left in the sink. Decided to forget it.

  “I told you,” I said.

  She nodded. Purple hair fell into her eyes; she left it there.

  “Amanda?”

  She glanced at me.

  “Look, I really need someone. Kent’s . . . he’s gone, and he didn’t tell me anything about himself. I just found out he made another vampire before me. I just found out he had enemies who would kill him! I can’t deal with this anymore.” I wiped my face. “If you can’t believe me, I need you to leave and forget about it. I can’t deal with it.”

  She didn’t move. Just watched me. I watched her back. Waiting.

  “I need to wash my face,” I said finally.

  She stood there.

  I got up, pulled my hair back, turned on the tap. Amanda just watched. I washed my face. Rinsed all the blood I’d coughed up down the drain. When I turned to leave the bathroom, she stood in my way. I put one hand on her back and steered her out into my room. She went, glancing back at me once. I stopped her in my room and went to my closet to pull out clothes for the night. I just wanted to pretend that everything was normal, time to get up, get dressed, go out for the night.

  “I don’t disbelieve you,” Amanda said. “It’s just . . .” her eyes dropped, checking the floor as if she had a script down there. “It’s really weird.”

  Relief tried to spring forward in my chest. I squished it. “Yeah. It is.”

  I pulled out a set of black yoga pants and a neon sport top. If Sebastian intended to run me around his practice room like a scared rabbit, I could at least dress for it.

  Of course, he might not even let me talk to him.

  I changed out of my underwear and tank top and into my training outfit. Amanda stood to the side, frowning. I paused to rub Gypsy’s head. She purred and blinked her eyes at me. I led the way upstairs, braiding my hair as I went. To keep it out of my face. In case I ended up needing it out of my face.

  Gypsy trotted up behind me, Amanda trailed me more slowly. In the kitchen, I got Gypsy’s food bag out of a cupboard. Amanda absently checked a cupboard across the kitchen, then another, then another. Finally she paused.

  “Hungry,” she said. “You guys don’t eat much, huh?”

  “No, not really,” I said instead of “Just blood. Did you think we kept it in the fridge?”

  She shifted her weight. “Guess you wouldn’t.” She stopped speaking, as if she had more to say and decided to shut up.

  I stood, waiting for her to make the next move.

  “You wanna talk some more?” she asked, watching me like a stranger. “About some of this vampire stuff?”

  I waited a beat to see how she reacted to what she’d just said. She didn’t move. Unsure, but not horrified.

  “If you’ll listen,” I said quietly.

  “Okay.”

  I talked myself out of the relief that wanted to come. Just because she said okay didn’t mean she knew what she was in for. I fed my cat, trying to stay cool. Gypsy didn’t have to act. She just meowed and waited for her dinner. Watching Gypsy eat reminded me I was hungry. I’d puked a lot of blood into the sink and down the drain. What a waste.

  “I need to eat first,” I said, watching Amanda out of the corner of my eye. Her face whitened oh-so-slightly. I kept going as if nothing had happened. “And I have a meeting with Sebastian.” I didn’t include how I thought that might go. “Wanna meet up somewhere? Back here, at a coffee shop, a restaurant?”

  She didn’t answer right away. I turned to look at her, waiting for a reply. She was gazing past me, seeing more inside her own head.

  “What’s it like?” she asked.

  She sounded like she was asking a junkie what it was like to shoot up. Disgusted. Confused. Nakedly curious – what the hell could be so great?

  I gave her a sideways look. I couldn’t just answer that. Jaw tight, I made a show of getting Gypsy fresh water, to have a reason to look away.

  Kent nodding to me, showing me how to bite, holding the unconscious girl’s head so I could get to her neck.

  “That’s it, her heart will push it out to you once you bite . . .”

  The sound of skin stretching and breaking in my head. I let go, suddenly ill.

  “It’s okay,” Kent said, as if nothing was wrong. I trembled. I had bitten someone.

  With Kent coaxing me, I put my mouth back over the wound I’d made, catching drops of blood on my tongue. The sudden sexuality of it rushed through me. Instead of distracting me, it only made me more aware of what I was doing.

  “I know how weird it feels, you’re fine,” Kent kept talking, but I couldn’t take it. I pulled away, my stomach clenching . . . “No, shh, Jen, you’re fine . . .”

  I had tasted my first drops of mortal blood and promptly freaked. Kent had nursed me from his wrist the first year, while I got used to drinking blood, learned how to feed from him. It had never seemed real – not until I took hold of that girl’s neck in my mouth and bit. It took months of solid practice and coaching for me to come close to getting my own.

  “I can’t just tell you,” I said. I gave Gypsy her water and nearly tipped it.

  “Why not?”

  I sighed. Still didn’t look at her. “What do you want me to say? I drink peoples’ blood. It’s creepy and gross and weird. It took me forever to get used to. I can’t just explain all that to you right now.”

  “Do . . . do people like it?” She shifted her weight uncomfortably.

  My mind jumped to all the people I’d ever fed from – the handsome man at the club the other night, my regular lovers I usually fed from. Emily. Not-Emily. Kent feeding from me, taking my life from me in one, drawn out orgasm. The girl Sebastian had fed from behind the Half-Moon.

  “Yes,” I said. “Usually.”

  “Do you like it?” Her voice sounded even smaller.

  Her voice should sound small! How personal was she going to get?

  “I have other things to do besides stand here and play lab specimen,” I said. “If you want to talk, we can talk later. If you’re just going to ask talk-show questions, forget it.”

  She cringed a little. Damn right she should cringe. That level of nosiness from her surprised and upset me. She was usually better than that.

  She didn’t speak. If I could have blushed, I would have been on fire.

  “Where do you want to meet?” Amanda asked, quietly.

  “Don’t care.”

  “Why not back here, then? I’ll go grab something to eat, maybe some coffee, and then we can talk.”

  I shrugged.

  “I just thought that if we met here, we wouldn’t have to worry about people listening in,” she went on, as if I’d disagreed.

  “All right,” I said, then, because that came out harsh, “That’s fine. Really.”

  She seemed satisfied. “When? An hour or two?”

  “Better make it three,” I said. “Just in case.” Just in case Sebastian and I had a real long talk. A real long unpleasant talk.

  I felt more like climbing back into bed and hiding there.

  “All right,” Amanda said. “Here, in three hours. I’ll see you then.”

  I nodded. This wouldn’t be fun.

  Amanda went to the door, slipped her boots on, and left.

 
After staring around my silent house for a minute, arguing with myself, I screwed up my courage and followed her.

  IAN

  I didn’t let myself think about Sebastian until I reached the parking garage. If I did, I would turn right around and go home. But when I pulled into the guest lot, I couldn’t help remembering. How stupid I’d been. His eyes crackling like lightning. He might refuse to see me at all.

  I clenched my hands on the steering wheel, then let them fall into my lap. Only one way to know. Even if it scared me.

  If he did speak to me, I would say I was sorry for rubbing his nose in a sore spot and ask what had upset him like that. If not . . .

  Don’t worry about it. Don’t even consider it.

  I got out, pocketed my keys and headed for the main lobby. The lobby attendant smiled helpfully when I walked up to the desk. I hoped I didn’t look as dismal as I felt.

  “I’m here to see Sebastian Cain?” I said. “Penthouse? My name’s Ian.”

  While I bit my lip and wondered if Sebastian would refuse to speak to me, the lobby attendant called up and told him who was here. He hung up and nodded to me. “Go right up,” he said, and went back to whatever he’d been doing.

  “Thanks,” I said, mostly to myself.

  I boarded the elevator. Hit the penthouse button. It took a minute. Or a hundred. I lost count. When the elevator slid to a stop, it seemed to take an hour for the doors to open. I watched them, waiting forever. And then they opened, too soon.

  Sebastian stood there, waiting, his face a little dark. As usual.

  “Good evening, Ian.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  We stood there. I shifted my weight.

  “Are you coming in?” he asked.

  I nodded, too eagerly, and stepped off the car. The doors slid shut behind me.

  “Hey, Sebastian?” I said, softly. He met my face with mild curiosity in his eyes. I wound my fingers together and squeezed them. “Hey, look, about last night . . . I . . . I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About getting on your case like I did.”

  “Ah.”

  I stared at my hands and wondered what he was thinking. After a moment, he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion.

  “I would also like to apologize.” He didn’t hesitate at all. Like I had. “Your words brought up . . . a painful subject. I should have responded more appropriately.”

  “Are we still friends?” I asked.

  He met my eyes with a dark and serious gaze. “Yes,” he said, and like that, it was over.

  I should have been relieved, but I felt something hanging. Like more should be said. He didn’t want to say more, I could hear it in his tone. I let it slide. We could talk later.

  “Shall we begin?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, and he led me back to the practice room.

  PRACTICE

  They went over the same moves they had worked on the night before. Again. And again. He evaded her defenses easily, again, and again, showing where she had missed, how to correct it, making her try again. Each time she missed, her eyes took on a faintly brighter sheen. A bit less sane. He expected this. It had started last night.

  When Ian’s eyes began to glow with frustration, he let the training go on. When she lifted her lip to bare her fangs at him in a low snarl, he held a hand up to bring the exercise to a stop. Perhaps Specter had forced them on at this point, taunted them to continue, but Sebastian did not believe that method would work best with Ian.

  She snarled when he held up his hand. “Dammit, lemme try again! I almost got it!”

  Sebastian recognized the growl behind her voice all too well. He lowered his eyes to meet hers. “No.”

  Ian bared her fangs in mute threat, but did not hold his eyes. She stomped a foot and began to pace the room. Sebastian stood against one wall and let her, watching. This state accentuated her grace. She prowled the corners of the room like a caged tiger.

  A caged cub, he corrected himself.

  He allowed himself to roll his shoulders while she walked. Training her properly in the basics of self-defense would take months. If someone else attacked in place of the shape-changer, he would not have months.

  Then hope no one else does.

  Futile hope. The shape-changer had been taught, trained. Had to have been, to stand and walk on two shattered legs. Someone so trained would not work alone. Or rather, Sebastian thought it unlikely. Ian kept walking, shaking her hands, pacing back and forth. Sebastian watched, and hoped.

  After a few minutes, she stopped moving her hands. Then, gradually, her pacing slowed a little at a time, until she simply stood, facing him.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  Shamefaced, she nodded.

  I was right not to have pushed her further.

  “Good. This session went well, I think. Your balance is better, your attacks are more timed.”

  She stomped a foot. “But I never hit you. I spent all my time hitting the floor.”

  “Do you expect to hit me?” He cocked his head. “My training has gone on for centuries and my practice has seen that it does not atrophy. You have been taught in very basic self-defense and have worked to expand that for only two nights. I do see improvement tonight. Take it for what it is.”

  Her mouth twisted and she glanced away. She paused, then turned back, her disgust replaced by curiosity. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Centuries?” she asked, as if the word horrified her.

  Sebastian inclined his head.

  Her eyes widened, no longer a caged cub but a frightened one, longing for its mother. “You’ve been killing people for centuries?”

  “I have,” he said, then added, “All but these past five decades.” He wondered, vaguely, if that would be considered boasting.

  Ian continued staring at him, a touch puzzled now. “Not these past fifty years . . . ?” Wanting him to finish the sentence for her.

  “Except for Kent’s murderer,” he said with a nod of admission. He knew she wanted a different answer. Perhaps this one would do.

  Ian shook her head. “No, I mean . . .” she sat down, folded her legs and held out her hands. “Sebastian, talk with me. I want to know why. I want to know why you say you’re a killer, and why you say you haven’t killed anyone for fifty years. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

  This again. Trying to get to know him. He found himself struggling once more with the urge to reply. That, and an intense discomfort with the thought of replying. He searched for an answer. Something he could give that might satisfy her.

  There were so many. Reasons why each individual died, reasons he had chosen the life of an assassin. And yet each one seemed insubstantial. As if speaking them out loud would rob them of their truth.

  “I don’t know,” was, at last, the only true answer he could give.

  She cocked her head at him. “You don’t know? At all? You never even thought about it?”

  “No,” he amended. “I have thought about it. And that is why I stopped.”

  They looked into one another’s eyes for a long second, from across the room. Her expression was sad.

  “You stopped killing people because you didn’t know why you started in the first place?”

  “Yes.”

  Ian shook her head. “You scare me.” She meant it. But perhaps not as vehemently as he had heard it in the past.

  He nodded, more to himself than Ian. “I frighten myself.”

  And that, too, was truth.

  “So the person – the vampire who trained you, where are they now?” Ian asked.

  Sebastian shrugged. “Wherever he is. I have not made an effort to keep up with him.”

  She nodded, slowly. Her eyes caught on the empty spot on the wall where the mirror he’d destroyed had been. He waited for her to ask, uncomfortable. Instead, she looked away from it, back to him.

  “I’m sorry again, about what I said.”

  She seemed to have something more in mind, so he waited for her to finish. When s
he didn’t say more, but looked at him expectantly, he nodded. “And I accept your apology, Ian.”

  After another moment, she stood up and brushed imaginary dust off her pants. “Well, I’m going to get something to eat. Tomorrow night, same time, same place?”

  “Of course.”

  She turned to the practice room door, then glanced over her shoulder at him. “Maybe someday you’ll tell me what was so painful?” Her eyes flicked to the empty spot on the wall.

  Sebastian considered it, and came upon another truthful answer.

  “Perhaps.”

  Ian smiled, a small, hesitant thing, and took herself out. Sebastian stayed in the practice room.

  Perhaps.

  IAN

  Back in my car again, I paused to blow air into my bangs. My training session had gone all right – or rather, my talk with Sebastian had gone all right. Thinking about all the times I hit the floor and all the times I didn’t hit Sebastian made my hands tighten on the steering wheel. I made them let go and refused to think about it anymore. I would get better. Later. Right now, I needed to eat and go talk with Amanda.

  I started the car and pulled out, mulling over where to go. Club Helle? I could probably find one of my regulars hanging out there, and if not one of them, the vampire scene offered enough blood fetishists that I could get a bite from someone . . .

  I decided to stop home first, to grab some cash for door cover at Helle – no, not really. I had enough cash on me. I needed different clothes, though, that was for sure – clubbing in my workout stuff wouldn’t win me any meals real quick. Of course, once I smiled at them, people tended to forget all about my clothes. I didn’t need to change, not really.

  There was some reason I wanted to go home. Some perfectly sane, realistic reason – I just couldn’t think of it.

  Oh, well. I’ll know once I get there.

  I turned my car towards home, singing along with the radio and doing my best to act like everything was fine. Considering no one was trying to kill me, things had overall improved a lot since last week. I kept telling myself that.

  Another car pulled in behind me as I took the corner that led to my street. My stomach jumped, then settled as I recognized Josephine’s Porsche. I flashed my lights to let her know I saw her. She flashed hers back. I laughed, flashed them again, twice, and laughed more when she flashed hers twice. When I pulled into my drive, she parked on the street.