Thankfully, a vampire’s bite brought forgetfulness, as well, eliminating the short-term memory of those who chose to make themselves willing snacks.
Hunching over to further avoid the limelight, Diego regretted the movement as agony erupted across the muscles in his back. Pain too similar to what he had experienced five hundred years earlier.
But you wanted the pain, the voice in his head reminded him. You wanted the punishment for not being human. For not being able to love the mortal.
“Diego.” Diana covered his hand with hers gently. Slightly chilly, her touch sent an unusual tingle of vamp power through him. One that said Ryder had bitten her more than he should have.
“Tell us what happened. When Foley called us—”
“Foley needs to mind his own business.” Diego waved for one of the vamp bartenders to bring over a glass.
“He heard the noises in the back. When Stacia went in—”
“She saved me. Not that it matters much. She sensed I needed help, and came when one of you mortal types got a little too eager.”
Diana obviously didn’t fail to hear the disdain in his voice for those of her kind. “Ms. Escobar has obviously pissed you off in a major way. Why don’t you tell us how and whether we’re still supposed to help?”
The waiter placed the wineglass filled with blood before Diego and he chugged it down.
“The lady is dying. That’s what humans do. That’s what women do. They die. Like Esperanza did. Like Ramona and Diana will,” he snarled, lashing out in anger and pain.
He never saw the fist that knocked him out cold.
She hadn’t slept well.
The smell of him had clung to her skin and her sheets. A shower and change of bedding hadn’t helped.
Every time she closed her eyes, images of his vampire face invaded.
Diego was a vampire. A living—although some wouldn’t consider it living, his being undead and all—breathing, bloodsucking vampire. She didn’t want to think that the last place his fangs had been were right at her neck.
Only he hadn’t bitten her.
No, he’d made love to her amazingly. She still felt a slight tenderness between her legs as she sat in the hard plastic chair outside Melissa Danvers’s office.
Dr. Melissa Danvers. Sister-in-law to FBI Agent Diana Reyes. Diana who was Diego’s friend. Was Melissa Diego’s friend, also? It made Ramona wonder whether Diana and Ryder were vampires, too. They all had a similar pale look about them.
Or maybe it was her imagination working overtime again, the same way it had at every creak she had heard the night before as she’d lain in bed, trying to sleep.
Melissa’s nurse and assistant, Sara, came down the hall, her sneakered feet squeaking on the shiny tiles of the hospital corridor. She lifted the file in her hand and said, “I’ve got the new lab results here. Why don’t you come with me?”
Sara opened the door to Melissa’s office, ushered Ramona in and then left, closing the door behind her.
“How are you this morning? You look tired,” Melissa said as she opened the file Sara had deposited on her desk, and began to flip through the papers.
“I am tired. I didn’t sleep much.”
Melissa frowned as she peered at the test results. “I’m assuming the lack of sleep has something to do with needing my sister-in-law’s help.”
“Dead cell phone battery was too lame an excuse, huh?” Ramona quipped, trying to appear unruffled. She quickly perused Melissa’s desktop, noting the framed photos, one of which included Diana and Ryder. Another had a shot of Melissa, a baby and a man who bore a striking resemblance to Diana, although he had a tanned and smiling face.
“I met them last night. A mutual friend, Diego Rivera, thought Diana could help me with a problem I was having,” she explained, waiting for Melissa to jump in and offer more information. But she didn’t. Instead, Melissa buried her head in the file, so Ramona pressed on.
“Diego revealed his true self to me last night. Kinda scary.”
The papers rattled in Melissa’s hand and she slowly lowered them. “You know he’s a vampire?”
“That’s what he told me he was. Of course, it was easy to believe, what with the glowing eyes and immense white fangs.”
With a deep sigh, the doctor leaned back in her chair. “I was pretty freaked myself the first time I saw it.”
“Diana and Ryder. They’re just like Diego, right?”
Melissa chuckled harshly. “Some criminals might think my sister-in-law is one scary bitch, but she’s totally human.”
“But Ryder is a vampire?” Ramona waved her hand, urging the young doctor to explain.
With another deep sigh, Melissa leaned forward in her chair and laced her fingers together over the file. “I am…or at least I was…Ryder’s keeper.”
Ramona had never heard the term before, so Melissa explained. “A keeper is a human who takes care of a vampire’s needs, like getting blood. He or she also protects the vampire when he’s not awake, and takes care of other mundane tasks.”
“But you’re not his keeper anymore?”
“When my daughter, Mariel, was born, Ryder released me from that obligation. But how do you stop caring for someone who’s like family? Who you’ve known your whole life?”
Melissa’s anguish touched Ramona, reminding her that the reality of Diego’s existence had consequences that reached beyond her. It impacted on other lives, and sometimes not in a good way.
“You don’t stop caring,” she said, a slightly dazed tone in her voice that the doctor immediately seized upon.
“You still have feelings for Diego.”
Did she? For so many years Ramona had been attracted to him. It had been purely physical at first, but then she had discovered his honor and his caring spirit. She had come to enjoy his wit and ability to appreciate the art he so passionately championed at his gallery.
Last night, at the height of their desire, she had even thought for a moment that she might love him. That she could imagine spending the rest of her life with him. Her probably short life, she thought, and gestured to the file on Melissa’s desk—the main reason she was sitting there today. Not that she hadn’t appreciated the enlightening discussion about Melissa’s family and friends.
“What do the tests say?”
Melissa rubbed one hand across the top of the file and met her gaze head-on. “That we need to be more aggressive. Are you prepared to do that?”
Ramona thought of the danger to her mother, which needed to be resolved. Of the painting of Diego, sitting only partially completed in her loft. Last, but definitely not least, she thought of Diego and the harsh way last night had ended. She knew she had to make some things right between them before…
“Sí, I’m prepared to do that. Just tell me what I need to do.”
Chapter 15
W hen she called the gallery, the receptionist mentioned that Diego wouldn’t be in until late that afternoon.
Ramona hadn’t thought his hours odd before. Nor had she taken his leaving so early the other morning as anything other than the actions of a busy man. Now his pattern took on new meaning.
Horror movie lore said that vampires and sunlight didn’t mix. Obviously not accurate, since Diego seemed able to b
e out during certain daylight hours.
As she sat on her stool in front of her easel, the early afternoon light spilled in through the skylights, flooding the loft with warm golden rays. She picked up some oil paint with her brush and laid it on the canvas, recreating the light and shadows of Diego’s body. As she did so, she realized his flesh would never experience that luminous glow.
Where was he now? Tucked into a coffin somewhere by his keeper?
A knock came at her door.
She carefully put down her brush and palette and walked to the door, where she peered through the peephole.
Diana Reyes sans vampire escort.
Ramona rolled open the door and the agent took that as an invitation to enter. She glanced around, then walked over to the painting of Diego in the altogether. “Impressive,” she said.
Hard to deny, Ramona thought as she joined her before the easel. “Yes, he is quite handsome.”
Diana stifled a chuckle. “I was talking about your painting. Not the subject matter.”
Heat swept up her neck and across her cheeks, but she restrained herself from covering her face with her paint-smudged hands. Drawing a calming breath, she eased onto her stool and picked up her brushes and palette, intending to use her painting as a shield. “As you can see, I’m busy.”
“Too busy to hear what I’ve got on van Winter so far?”
Ramona paused with the brush halfway to the canvas. “I wasn’t sure you were really going to help me.”
“Got some coffee? I didn’t get my Starbucks fix this morning.”
Neither had she. After taking the new drugs Melissa had prescribed, she’d found her stomach too unsettled for much of anything, especially coffee. A nice café con leche might be just the thing right now, however.
“Sure,” she said, once again putting away her supplies.
Diana followed her to the kitchen, taking a stool by the island as Ramona made the coffee.
Looking over her shoulder as she got out some mugs, she asked, “Sugar?”
“As much as is humanly possible.”
Diana’s comment dragged a smile to Ramona’s lips. “A woman after my own heart.”
“In more ways than you can imagine,” she stated.
Ramona finished making the hot drinks, brought them over and placed one before Diana. “How do you figure?”
“You’re in love with Diego. I know how hard it can be to love a vampire.”
“He told you about last night?”
Diana nodded, and when she reached for the coffee, Ramona noticed the large bruise across the other woman’s knuckles. “Occupational hazard?”
The FBI agent’s smile widened into a satisfied grin. “Nah. I just needed to remind someone about his manners.”
Ramona didn’t ask for details, opting to turn the discussion to the business between them. After taking a bracing sip of her coffee, she said, “I’m surprised that you’re still willing to help, considering that you know what happened between Diego and me.”
With a shrug, Diana said, “Friends don’t desert friends.”
“Diego isn’t my friend anymore.”
“But Melissa is.” The agent took a sip and winced at the heat of the coffee.
“I don’t want Melissa involved in what’s going on with van Winter.”
“I don’t, either. Van Winter is dangerous,” Diana said.
“And you’ve come to this realization how?”
Diana put the mug down. “Instinct. Plus some things just don’t make sense.”
“Like what?” Ramona asked, wrapping her hands around the mug because of the sudden nip at her core.
“I ferreted out some financials on the appraiser and transport company. Nothing out of the ordinary in any of the information I could access.”
“So they’re not involved?” Ramona asked, wondering where the switch had been made. “What if the art transport company didn’t pack the originals?”
“They didn’t.” Diana explained how, according to the movers, van Winter had had his own staff pack the paintings. The movers had only picked up the three crates for delivery to the auction house.
“So van Winter loaded the copies in the crates, but we have no way of proving it.”
A grin lit up Diana’s features. “Not yet. If you can think of anything, call me,” she said, and rose from the stool. She reached into the pocket of her black suit jacket and placed a business card on the island.
“How can I thank you?” Ramona said.
“Don’t give up. Not on life. Not on Diego.”
Diego roused himself, the waning of the afternoon sun calling him to rise and prepare for another night. One that would hopefully be better than the night before.
Simon had been asleep when he returned from the Blood Bank shortly after three in the morning, hours earlier than normal from a night out. Diego had opted not to wake the old man, totally capable of removing from the fridge a bag of blood from the butcher.
He had sucked it down quickly, the taste of the cold beef’s blood not as appealing as a warm human’s.
As he turned over in bed, only a faint protest came from his muscles, confirming that the bulk of the damage done the night before had healed. The various feedings and Stacia’s intervention had helped his body repair from the blows of the whip, plus the knifing. Running his hand over his side, he felt the phantom pain of that injury and chastised himself for his carelessness. He had allowed his emotions to distract him, and that distraction had nearly proved fatal.
He couldn’t allow it to happen again.
The only way to make certain of that was to not see Ramona again. His emotions around her were too raw, too conflicted.
As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, Simon hobbled in, leaning heavily on the ornate mahogany butler’s cart bearing Diego’s breakfast—a large glass of blood.
“How are you today?” Diego asked, noting that his steps seemed slower, more laborious.
“I’m tired, sir. I don’t think it will be too long now,” his keeper said, rousing unwelcome emotion within Diego.
He still had trouble understanding how Simon could be so accepting of his fate, and yet he understood that in some ways death provided a peace and closure that his eternal life never would.
Death brought a human’s life full circle, from cradle to grave. Diego watched that cycle from his undead existence and understood that it was the way it should be. His nearly immortal state perverted the natural order of things.
While he had prayed to escape the death visited on him by the Inquisitor, he now understood the price he had paid, the toll it had taken on Esperanza and others like them.
“Master?” Simon asked, and Diego realized that his keeper had been waiting for him to have his feeding and go on with his day.
“I’m sorry, Simon. I was just thinking.”
“About something sad, sir. I could see it in your eyes.” The old man knew him well after nearly a century together.
“It will pass,” Diego said as he picked up the goblet and took a sip. Human blood and perfectly warmed. He morphed and sucked it down greedily. When he was done, he slipped back to his human state and dabbed at his lips with the linen napkin beside the glass. It came away with smudges of his meal.
Disgust fille
d him at the sight. At the reminder of what he was and would forever be. Loneliness came next as he met Simon’s slightly rheumy gaze and noticed the tremble in his thin hands on the handle of the cart.
“Go rest, my friend. I have some errands to run,” Diego said, and the old man left the bedroom, his gait almost painful to behold.
Diego rose from the bed and quickly dressed. He had to get to the gallery and make sure all was in order, but he knew he wouldn’t linger.
Ramona’s paintings would be there, slated to hang for another couple of days before being shipped to their respective buyers. They’d had a sellout show, but that brought no happiness. He knew now why Ramona had needed the exhibit so quickly, why she’d needed the money. She wanted to put her house in order before she died.
Because that’s what humans did, he thought again and winced. He rubbed his chin as the memory of Diana’s blow came back to him. The lady packed quite a wallop. He still couldn’t fathom Ryder’s allegiance to her, couldn’t comprehend that his friend willingly subjected himself to a relationship with only one possible outcome.
No, not just one.
His friend could turn Diana, much like Diego had sired Esperanza. Much like he could bestow the kiss of eternal life on Ramona.
He forced that thought from his mind as he left his apartment and headed down to the street to flag a cab. Eternal life brought with it many difficulties. Only the strongest individuals could deal with it, and even then, the constant loss and change burdened your soul, made you shut off a piece of yourself at a time, until all humanity was gone.
It was why the elders were so dangerous. No trace of humanity remained within them. Vampires like Stacia no longer felt anything human, no longer understood the joys of life. Only blood called to them or brought satisfaction.
Desire Calls Page 16