“Perhaps you’ll permit me to explain. The lemon scent is a cleaner I use to disinfect the laboratory. I keep the lab cold to stabilize my samples so it’s true that I’m never truly warm enough up here. There are living quarters and a kitchen on the floor below where I live. I wasn’t panting because despite an initial impression to the contrary I simply didn’t find you attractive and your shoes are, in point of fact, an abomination.”
“As are you, my dear Mr. Townsend.”
“I’m hardly your dear anything. I am merely a fourth-generation biomedical researcher, driven and to the manner born. If you have developed some hallucination born of some bizarre fascination with the occult or a Twilight obsession—that is entirely your own challenge. You are dismissed.”
He turned back to her and resumed tapping away at his tablet. Paxton stalked over to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. She dropped her voice to a whisper.
“I need your help.”
“You can hardly expect I’d be susceptible to blackmail. Any efforts to extort a donation from me are a waste of your energy.” He sounded bored.
“I don’t want money.”
“Sex then? You astound me. You exude a very naïve, girl-next-door persona. What do you fancy, then?” His voice turned velvety and she dropped her hand from his shoulder with an unladylike snort.
“Hardly. I want information.”
“Looking to satisfy a sudden fascination with degenerative neurological disorders? I’m not accepting patients for a clinical trial yet. Perhaps your beloved father has dementia?” His barb caused her to look down at the floor suddenly, blinking back tears.
“My father—both my parents are dead,” she said softly.
“Then what do you want to know?”
“How do you stand the sunlight? Gillian—my best friend, practically my sister—she’s a vampire, too. That’s how I recognized you for what you are. Some guy bit her at a club a couple of years ago. She had to drop out of college because she couldn’t go out in the sun. She works nights now but it’s not much of a life, hiding from the light. I saw you stand by a window, I’ve seen video of you at a press conference outdoors in Prague last year. How?”
“Simple. I developed a powerful sunblock to protect myself. Sold the formula to the military for a fortune. You can’t afford it.”
“But it exists. There is such a thing—a way for her to have a real life and do things other girls do? What does it cost? Gillian saved me once, when my parents died and I thought I’d die of grief she brought me back. I’d do anything for her.”
“Anything? The mind reels.” A sardonic grin curved his mouth.
“Not anything anything. I mean money or I could work for you. Do PR for free or something. Organize your sock drawer. Let the cuffs out of that lab coat. Your sleeves are too short.”
“My sock drawer is in very respectable order. I have no interest in sharing the technology only to have every fly-by-night bloodsucker at my door begging for ointment. Overpopulation is already a problem among the rest of you. Vampire population tends to self-limit over the yearning for sunlight. They grow sick of shadows and toast themselves and we aren’t overrun with immortals enabled by my sunblock to walk in the light.”
“So you don’t care about them having to hide away or burn to death in the sunlight?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying. I don’t want the inconvenience of word getting out in the underworld about the sunblock. Dealing with all those greedy vampires would be a drain on my time. Time and convenience are the reasons I chose immortality. It hardly makes sense to throw it all away for your girlfriend.”
“Convenience?”
“Yes. Convenience. Efficiency. Perhaps just a touch of professional vanity. I wanted to see my research through to its logical conclusion and find a cure. I knew my abilities outstripped the technology at the time so it made perfect sense to become immortal. I don’t have to waste time maintaining that feeble temple you call a body—I do not hunger or thirst or even require sleep. Imagine what I can accomplish…the languages I’ve learned, the technology I’ve mastered, the opportunity for endless advancement. I am a semi-public figure…a medical rock star of sorts—and I avoid scrutiny by posing as my own descendant. It’s ideal, really.” He had spread his arms wide in an expansive gesture, encompassing the lab, himself, even the night outside the window.
“You have to drink blood.” She wrinkled her nose.
“It’s like taking a vitamin. My endurance is such that I need only feed every eight or nine days and it’s a simple business with purified blood samples available for my research.”
“Sounds very clinical,” she murmured.
“Been watching Twilight? Reading Anne Rice? This trend of romanticism surrounding vampires is not new but it is certainly annoying.”
“I’ve told you why I’m here. I want the sunblock. But you haven’t favored me with the reason you invited me back.”
“You’re not boring. You have no concept of how tedious I find most humans to be after this long…the constant, futile repetition of their petty concerns and fears. Your silly idealism is refreshing. Wrongheaded as you may be, at least you would save the world if you could.”
“And you would watch it rot.”
“I’ve been watching it degenerate for nearly two centuries. It’s rare for me to see something new outside of my petri dishes.”
“If I could make you forget how jaded you are, if I could make everything seem new for a weekend, would you give me the sunblock?”
“You could sooner stop the world on its axis, Sunshine.”
“But if I manage it, you’ll give me the sunblock? An endless supply? The formula even?”
“You’re not going to feed me ice cream and make me watch kittens play with yarn, are you?”
“Well, not now that you said it, no,” she teased. “I was thinking more along the lines of cotton candy and puppies.” He faked a shudder.
“And if I’m too cynical for you to revive me?”
“Then you get to bite me, Elias Townsend-NOT-the-Fifth. A taste of life either way.” Paxton squared her shoulders bravely. Elias reached toward her. She thought he was going to kiss her but he cupped her throat and stroked the pulse beating there with his thumb. Her heartbeat leapt at his touch and he smiled.
“Innocent blood? You have a deal, Paxton Chambers.” Something in his eyes made Paxton drop her gaze to the floor, as if she were trying to hide. If he knew, she thought, he wouldn’t call me innocent.
Chapter 3
The next morning was Saturday and Paxton donned her bikini and a pair of jean shorts. She knocked on the door of his apartment, a floor down from the lab, and, finding it unlocked, slipped inside like Goldilocks. If she’d expected a museum to the formal Victorian, she was disappointed. The interior was like stepping into a design magazine. All pale wood, clean lines and white, soft modern furniture and uncovered tall windows with stunning city views. There were hundreds of magazines about electronics and technology, medical journals—some of them in what looked like German, thick art books…all meticulously stacked by size. Well, the guy doesn’t sleep, so why not catch up on reading? she thought.
“Elias?” She called. Making her way through the house, peeking curiously into open doors and seeing a vast library, a media room, an office, she found him sitting on a soft white bed, head in his hands.
“It’s off. Go home.”
“What’s wrong?” She rushed to his side, kneeling on the soft bed beside him and touching his hair, silken curls threading through her fingers. “Are you—okay, you don’t get sick but are you…do you need to feed?”
“I’m in better control of myself than that.” His voice was affronted. “You’ll live a longer, happier life if you stay away from me. I’ll give you the formula and swear you to secrecy. It’s on the nightstand. Take it and never come back.” Her eyes cut to the folded sheet of paper and a brown glass apothecary bottle on the table. I should take it and run, she
thought, but she didn’t really consider it. She felt anguish rolling off him in waves.
“No. Let me help you.”
“Don’t you see I can destroy you?”
“What’s changed from the callous scientist I made a deal with last night? Don’t tell me you can feel remorse or…what did you call it, the petty concerns and fears of humans?”
“You’re going to ridicule me during my dark night of the soul? Really, Paxton, I expected more sympathy from such an idealist. I was going to use you as an antidote to my boredom, my loneliness, but that way lies madness for us both. Vampires have an innate charisma. I’ve distilled it to a simple reaction of pheromones with the altered body chemistry of the undead but the science isn’t the salient point here. I could have you mindlessly in love with me in a matter of hours. The air around me is affected…it’s like a drug. Very useful persuasive tool, I might add, but it turns out I have a shred of conscience left and I find I don’t want to break your heart.”
“Let me get this straight. You won’t go to the beach with me because you’re afraid I’ll, like, kill myself because your sexy vampire smell will ruin me for other men forever?” She giggled.
“Well it sounds ridiculous when you put it like that, but it’s a very real problem.”
“It sounds like the self-importance of a very human ego to me. Now we made a deal. Either come with me or I’m taking the formula and it’ll cost you $25,000 in donations to the field trip to get me out the door.”
“Done,” he said without flinching.
“I knew I should have asked for more.”
“Will cash be sufficient?” He rose and strode over to what appeared to be a genuine Rothko and tipped it to the side to reveal a safe.
“Stop it. I’m not going,” Paxton insisted, suddenly, inexplicably desperate to stay. He needs me, she thought. He’s pushing me away because needing me scares him. “Please,” she said, barely above a whisper. Elias wheeled around, dropped the stacks of bills in his hand and swept her into his arms.
“My very human ego, as you call it, likes it when you say please. It’s delightfully close to begging.” He brought his mouth down over hers and breathless, she gasped, opening her lips to him. Pleasure zinged through her body, warring with the swelling joy of not being sent away from him. Paxton’s arms went around his neck, her fingers playing with the curling ends of his hair. When he drew back to look at her, flushed and panting, he grinned.
“Please,” she sighed. Elias kissed her again, stealing her breath, making her legs feel boneless so she clung to him just to stay standing.
“Remind me to thank your little friend the vampire for making you comfortable with the concept so I don’t have to deal with the tedium of you shrinking from me in terror,” he said, his lips brushing her neck. “Has she ever bitten you?”
Paxton pulled away from him shyly.
“She has, hasn’t she? Was it—against your will or did you let her?” She shrugged out from under his arm and walked to the doorway.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If your plot to make me feel young again involves acting like a thirteen-year-old, you can stop. It makes me feel elderly and very tired.”
“She said it would only be once.” Paxton said it, allowing herself this small lie, reminding herself it was a means to an end. Bearing false witness was the least of her sins.
“Why would you offer to let me bite you if you’ve done this before and you hated it?”
“I thought it would be different with you,” she said in a hush. “You’re so controlled, you wouldn’t—scare me. And it would be, maybe, a way to really know you.”
“I don’t have a cure, Paxton. I can’t change her back for you. I never sought a cure for vampirism for myself…it hasn’t been a burden or a disease for me. Your friend doesn’t seem to handle herself all that well but I can’t fix her if that’s what you want from me.”
“I’m not sure what I want from you. I thought I wanted a donation, then I recognized that you were a vampire and I wanted the sunblock for Gillian but now…you offered it to me and I won’t take it because you’ll send me away. I think what I want is for you not to ask me to leave.” She was afraid to meet his eyes; the confession had cost her too much.
“Oh, Paxton. Wish anything but that.” Elias’ voice was low, ragged.
“And it isn’t the pheromones, it isn’t the mystique of immortality. It’s you, and how matter-of-fact you are about it and how you aren’t tormented or ashamed. You’re confident that it’s just part of who you are and I want to learn that, how to be comfortable with—with something that’s basically evil. I want to be close to you.”
“That is not the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me, you know. Referring to me as basically evil is hardly flattering to my virility or male beauty or brilliance. You might have better luck with more conventional compliments.”
“Elias—” She broke off, tears in her eyes. “Let me stay with you. Please.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides, willing himself not to go to her, to kiss her again.
“I have known enough women to see that you’re the kind who wants to be a wife, a mother and that isn’t part of my life. I’ve never wanted it to be. This is what I wanted to prevent, any sort of sudden attachment on your part. It is fruitless. As pleasant as you may be to look at and as refreshingly naïve, we can’t be together. I wanted to spare you pain. I am not, it seems, powerful enough to protect you.”
“You’re wrong about me, Elias. I don’t want to get married and I’m not sure I want to have children. I’m not asking you to spend forever with me. I know that you have forever and I don’t. I just—forget it. I’ll go.” She took off down the hall toward the door, hoping he would come after her. When she shut the door behind her and stepped into the elevator, she let her tears fall.
This is too hard. There is no way to explain to him. I know what it’s like to be a mentor but I’ve never had one myself…I need him to teach me—and for the first time since I was orphaned, I don’t feel completely alone in the world. Because of Elias. He sees me. But he doesn’t want me… She crumpled to the floor of the elevator and sat, head on her knees, sobbing as if her heart would break.
The doors kicked open with a chipper ding and she pushed up to a standing position, not bothering to wipe away the tears on her face. Elias stood before her, waiting.
“How did you…?” she asked.
“Service elevator behind the butler’s pantry. Let’s try your deal. What did you have planned for today?” he said, not unkindly.
“You’ll need a swimsuit.”
“I don’t swim.”
“Oh. Is it a vampire thing? Like it will kill you or something?”
“Not unless you planned to swim in holy water.”
“Can that really kill you?
“No. That’s a myth. Also crucifixes and garlic are useless against me unless you use them as projectiles I suppose.”
“That’s a relief. I’d hate to have you melt when we go to church tomorrow. Embarrassing.”
“Church?”
“Consider it a novelty. Let’s go get your bathing suit.”
The sand was warm and powdery under her feet, the water cool enough to sting between her shoulder blades as she sank in up to her shoulders. Elias stood diffidently, knee-deep in water with his arms crossed. She rose up and ran over to get him, wet ponytail slapping against her back as she jogged.
“Come on. Stop being so old,” Paxton teased. He narrowed his eyes, considering, and let her lead him into deeper water. “Is it too cold or something?”
“I don’t mind the cold much, it’s just a sensation. It doesn’t lower my core temperature and leave me shivering as it does you.”
“So warm me up.” She smiled a slow, lazy grin at him, beckoning.
“I haven’t any body heat, so I’m not much use on that score.”
“I think you could warm me up quite nicely.”
“Was
this your plot? To lure me to an assignation out in the water? I don’t feel young and foolish yet, certainly not wonderstruck enough to give you the formula.”
“You offered me the formula. It’s not the only reason why I’m here. You’re bored, a workaholic. You need a transfusion, not of blood, but of life. Lie back.” She slipped away from him, swift as a seal, turned a sloppy backflip and came up slinging water from her hair, smiling. She eased back into a float and stared at the sky. She felt Elias do the same, his arm drifting against hers and away again, a solidity in the amorphous cool water that surrounded her.
“Look at those clouds.” She sighed. “Perfect, fluffy clouds like sheep.”
“No they aren’t. The edges are too ragged. Those are cumulonimbus, low storm clouds.”
“They’re white and adorable.”
“They’ll turn gray. Mark my words. Cumulonimbus always do.”
“Quit sciencing on my pretty sky,” she said.
“Science is a noun, not a verb. You cannot say ‘sciencing’ because it is both wholly incorrect and also makes me want to gouge out my eyes in agony. There are several better languages, I admit, but that’s no reason to butcher English.”
“Also there are no English lessons at the beach. Stop analyzing and drift, feel the water and the breeze and just breathe in the good salty smell. Live a little, Elias. Be present for me. I want all of you, not you with your brain back in the lab or reciting meteorology texts.” Paxton expected another pedantic rebuke but he was silent.
“This is hard,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to stopping and looking around without calculation, a purpose.”
“Appreciation is a purpose. Same reason you have a Rothko in your bedroom. You like the look of it.”
“This sky is more Frankenthaler than Rothko. More fluid, less stark division of coloration.”
“Even when you appreciate something it sounds stuffy. Try harder.”
“The sky is—nice?” he offered. She splashed him, laughing as he splashed her back, seized her slippery arms and ducked her under water. She came up sputtering and choking and splashed him ferociously for retribution. Paxton was breathless by the time their water fight slowed down.
A Distant Echo: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series) Page 2