He turned to face the sink, hanging over it, wondering if he really would be sick.
“We disgust you that much?” she asked softly and he could tell by her voice that she had moved to his side. But she didn’t touch him.
He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even begin to formulate an answer. The truth was sunk deep inside the stew of emotions roiling through him.
“Ten minutes ago, you did not find me so revolting,” she said, her voice still calm and reasonable. “The only thing that has changed is that now you know this truth about me.”
Marcus focused on that unpalatable fact. He straightened up and turned to look at her once more. “You’re not revolting,” he told her. “You’re anything but disgusting. Even now.”
The corner of her mouth quirked upwards. “Thank you.”
“You don’t look like one,” he said awkwardly. “How could I have known?”
“You weren’t supposed to know,” she said simply. “We have spent a long time learning how to ensure humans do not know about us.”
“But now you want them to know,” he said flatly. “You’re all coming out at the end of the year.”
Something flickered in her eyes, and she shifted, moving away from him. She hoisted herself up onto the kitchen counter and pushed the coffee pot away from her.
“Wait,” Marcus said. “I saw you eating. I saw it.”
She grimaced. “You saw what I wanted you to see. You thought I was eating. But I was carefully cutting up my food and mashing it up on the plate. When you glanced away, I put some on your plate. When you were watching, I put food in my mouth, but I didn’t swallow it. You saw enough to tell you I was eating, but I wasn’t.”
Marcus scrubbed his face with his hands. “Is that why you cut me out from the herd? Why you made contact with the CIA instead of the FBI? Because you’re a vampire?”
“You have a vampire coordination unit in your office,” she said and gave a little shrug. “I thought...I assumed the idea of vampires would not be new to you. That you would be...” She drew a breath. “Able to cope with it.”
He could only seem to focus on the mundane. “They don’t call it a coordination unit.”
She shrugged. “I suppose I must have been wrong.”
About which fact? The name of the unit or him being able to cope?
But Ilaria wasn’t giving him time to figure that out. She straightened up and headed for the bedroom, removing his teeshirt as she went.
Her backside was the most delicious thing he had seen in years. It was an almost perfectly formed inverted heart, with her waist nipped in at the top of the graceful curve of her hips. It swayed as she walked.
Marcus found he was following her back to the bedroom. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Getting dressed,” she said, her voice remote. She picked up her freshly laundered panties from the pile of her clothes sitting on the bureau and slid into them.
“Why?”
She looked at him over her shoulder, her hair hiding one eye from him. “You already know why.” She continued to dress, not hurriedly, but moving fast anyway.
Marcus’ heart hurt. It felt like a vice was sitting on his chest. “Because I reacted badly to the idea of you being a vampire? You could have told me on Saturday.”
“On Saturday, I didn’t know if I could trust you.” She buttoned up her skirt, her head averted. Then she speared him with a direct gaze. “You need time to think about this. So, I will give you the time. I must go back to my... boss. I must report to him and pretend nothing is wrong so that he does not become suspicious, while you take the time to think.”
She lifted a foot and rested it on the bed, then bent and rolled a stocking on, and stretched it up to her thigh. It was an ordinary, mundane action. Her jaw was set at the sharp angle he’d already come to recognize as her stubborn attitude, and she wore a tiny frown. She was preoccupied and distant.
It didn’t matter what he said now, she would still leave. Her mind was made up.
Marcus rested his hand on her knee. “Is it safe for you to return?” he asked gently.
She looked up at him, and dropped her knee down and out of his grasp. She lifted the other foot to the bed and bent and picked up the stocking and gathered it in her hands. “If I tell him what he is expecting to hear, then I will be safe enough.” She slid her foot into the stocking and pulled it up to her thigh.
Her answer wasn’t in the least reassuring. He wanted to ask more questions, to establish to his own satisfaction that she would be safe, but he didn’t know enough about the vampire culture to know what questions to ask. He stood helplessly, watching her slide into her jacket, knowing that she would be gone in the next few minutes.
She moved out to the loungeroom in search of her boots, which still huddled on the floor next to the sofa. Marcus sat on the sofa, watching her put them on. One question was overriding all the others. “Will...you come back?” he asked.
Ilaria stood up, her boots fastened. “That’s up to you, isn’t it?”
Just like everything she had said in the last five minutes, it didn’t appease his fear in the slightest.
She bent over the sideboard, writing on the notepad there. She tore the bottom off the sheet and held the scrap out to him. “That is my phone number. It’s a burner phone, so don’t lose the number. You’ll never find it again.”
He stared down at the ten digits. “You...use cellphones?”
She gave him a vexed expression that was mixed with mild amusement. Worse, the amusement seemed to be that of an adult looking down upon a child. “Yes, Marcus. We use cellphones. We also use computers and drive cars. We don’t burst into flames at the touch of the sun, or sparkle, or turn into bats at the smell of garlic.” She grinned. “I like garlic, especially in a really good minestrone.”
He felt shame for his ignorance. “I thought you couldn’t eat?” he asked diffidently.
“I like the smell,” she amended. “But I remember the taste, too.” She stepped closer to him, then reached up on the tip of her toes to kiss his cheek. “Take care, Marcus,” she murmured.
But he couldn’t let her go with just that simple kiss. He held her arms, keeping her still, then raised a hand to cup her cheek. It felt just the same as it had yesterday. He stroked it.
Then he leaned down and brought his lips up against hers. They tasted as they had before, too. Gently, moving slowly, he kissed her.
It was the same wonderful sensation and he quickly tossed aside the last few ugly minutes, and concentrated on the pleasure of kissing her, and that alone.
Ilaria wound her arms about his neck and pressed herself against him and Marcus groaned into her mouth at the sensation of her body touching his.
Then she pushed herself away from him, with a strength that made him blink. She licked her lips, studying him. There was a curious light in her eyes.
“You really don’t have to go,” Marcus told her. It was a last ditch attempt.
Her smile held no warmth at all. Sadness seemed to have settled around her like a shawl. “Tell me you were not trying to think of me as human as you kissed me, and I will stay.”
He couldn’t answer the question without lying. Marcus lowered himself to the sofa, defeated.
The front door shut softly, leaving him alone with his wretched thoughts and the hot, sour, panic-inducing guilt swirling through him.
* * * * *
Bryon was getting used to his imperious houseguest and the miniature translator. He’d learned not to look the guy in the eye and to jump to do what he said as soon as he said it. His fear had subsided to a gnawing at his stomach whenever Heru was up and about, which was always after sunset. Bryon had developed the habit of going to bed early – around eight p.m., which meant he only had to suffer through a handful of hours of Heru’s demands and blood-chilling habits.
The boy child that served as Heru’s translator was one of the creepy things surrounding Heru. It didn’t take long for Bryon to figure
the child was a vampire. Which meant some vampire, once upon a time, turned a little boy into his creature. That gave Bryon nightmares, the night he figured it out.
But Heru ignored Bryon unless he wanted something, and that was fine by Bryon. He was looking forward to the day when the old one moved out, but he didn’t dare ask when that might be.
So he stood in his kitchen, cooking his supper. No vegetables – Heru had ordered him to remove all vegetables from the house for their stench offended Heru’s senses. Bryon flipped the lamb chops over in the fry pan, aware of the still, silent figure sitting on his dining table, cross-legged and eyes closed.
Creepy, Bryon confirmed to himself.
The back door opened and shut with a soft rattle of metal against wood – Bryon had to get the screen door fixed so it fitted properly and the hinges didn’t let it slam like that.
Heru was almost instantly standing by the mudroom door, waiting. Bryon blinked. He hadn’t seen Heru move. He had been on the table, then abruptly, standing by the door.
Footsteps, light ones. Then the woman stepped into the room and immediately reared backwards. Heru’s arm shot out and he gripped her by the throat.
Bryon remembered her name from the last time she was here. Ilaria. She was almost hanging from Heru’s grip, but she wasn’t resisting or trying to get him to remove his hands as Bryon probably would have in the same situation. She just stared at Heru.
He tossed her.
Bryon felt his jaw drop. Ilaria was small, but she would still weigh in somewhere over the hundred mark and Heru had tossed her like a baseball. She landed on top of the dining table, which tilted and fell at the sudden lopsided weight, sending her rolling across the floor, to come to a stop with her hip up against the doorway into the front room.
Bryon turned the frying pan off.
“Report!” the translator barked, standing over her as Ilaria slowly got to her feet. Well, not her feet, exactly. She tucked her feet under her and leaned forward to touch her head to the linoleum.
And where had the kid come from? He had been in the basement. Bryon didn’t remember him stepping out of the basement doorway at all.
“Did you complete the work?” Heru demanded via the boy.
Her flat “Yes” was muffled by her face planted on the floor.
“And?”
She lifted herself back upright, but kept her gaze on the floor. “He trusts me,” she said. “He believed me.”
“You did not stay with him.”
“He is a clever man. If I had stayed any longer, he would have wondered why. This way, he will miss me and by my absence, I will stay in his thoughts.”
Heru considered her, his hands on his hips. His bald, high head was shining in the overhead incandescent light. “You have done well,” he said at last.
Bryon felt his eyes bug out. Praise from this guy!
“You must complete the other work now,” Heru added. “It has been neglected too long already.”
Even though her head was bowed, Bryon could glimpse her expressions because she was facing Heru directly and Bryon was standing to one side. Ilaria’s jaw rippled as she clenched it, as Heru gave his instructions. After a moment, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the ground. “At once,” she replied woodenly.
Chapter Fourteen
The basement parking area beneath Rick’s building was a sparkling clean and freshly painted expanse of concrete walls, floor and pillars. The walls were pristine white, the overhead lights all working and there were plenty of them, so the basement was light. Even the concrete floor had been painted a light grey.
Each parking stall had a number painted on the wall in front of it in a stylish cursive script. In front of the numbers was a car-jacker’s dream collection of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Lincolns, BMWs. There was even a Rolls Royce, sitting in isolated splendor at the far back wall.
Each bay was wide, giving the tenants lots of room to open doors without hitting their neighbor’s pricey auto.
Rick parked the Mitsubishi Eclipse in his bay. He had bought the car when Kurshid had asked him to stay in the States and help Nial. Los Angeles was a difficult city to navigate with public transport, unlike London, or even New York, which had mature networks of underground services and were so compact, everything was within a mile or two, anyway. Los Angeles sprawled.
He locked the car and paused, listening. The basement was almost silent now the outer door was closed. There was a faint susurration of air from the vent at the far end of the row, but otherwise, nothing moved…
The back of his neck prickled painfully. There was a whisper of sound. Movement.
Rick whirled, triggering the spring loaded arm sheath. His knife jumped into his hand and he kept turning, bringing the knife around, aiming for their gut. He had a good grip on it, so he would be able to rip the knife upwards once it was buried.
The blade slid through the clothes and into the flesh without resistance while Rick stared into Ilaria’s eyes, which had widened in surprise. The surprise did not linger. Her dark eyes narrowed and she gripped his wrist and pulled the knife out. “Asshole,” she said, her voice husky.
Her kick was expected. Rick saw the little sideways sway as she transferred her weight to her left leg, then she leaned back and her foot, encased in a dangerously thin and sharp stiletto heel, flashed toward his chest. She was aiming for his heart.
He shuffled backwards, out of the way, and her boot smashed into the back passenger window, making it crack and star.
Rick instantly moved forward, intending to grab her while her weight was far on her back foot and she had less maneuverability. But as he reached for her she kept leaning backwards, lifting up her arms.
She turned over in a back roll, her palms on the clean concrete floor. As she flipped, the toe of her boot kicked out and caught Rick under the chin in a vicious upward kick.
His jaw was snapped shut. Flaring pain! His teeth had caught the edge of his tongue. He staggered backwards to stay out of her range while the pain dimmed his vision. He shook his head to clear it.
Ilaria was standing three meters away, her hands on her hips. The delicate fabric of her dress was marred by a rent over her stomach, which was tinged with blood. Pale flesh peeped from behind the tear. “I’m not here to kill you, Cyneric,” she declared.
His mouth turned up in a cynical smile, all by itself.
“Think about it,” she urged him. “If I really wanted to kill you I would have shot you from a safe quarter-mile away.”
“That wouldn’t kill me,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t bring anyone else to finish off the job,” she replied. “It’s just me. Think!” Her voice was low and urgent. “Who told Dominic about the shooting in the dessert last year?”
Rick hesitated, a small sliver of doubt touching him. She had told Dominic and primed the deaf man to ask the question he had asked Rick, which had started him on the path that had brought him to this spot. “Why?” he demanded of her. “What do you want?”
She let her hands drop, and spread them a little. “I want you. D’uh.”
The rattle of the street door starting to roll itself up out of the way for another resident’s car to enter was startling, as it broke the thick silence surrounding them. Rick frowned as sunlight spilled into the garage. “We can’t talk here.”
“Take me to your apartment,” she said.
“No.” He said it flatly and instantly. He picked up the keys he had dropped. “Somewhere neutral and public.”
“No,” she said, her tone as firm as his. “It has to be your place, Rick. I will explain, I promise.” She stepped closer to him, out of the way of the approaching Mercedes. Then closer still, to the point where the silky hem of her dress brushed his knee. She looked up at him. She was such a small thing! Her eyes were black in the dim light. “Kiss me,” she said, her voice low.
Rick stared. Of all the many things he might have predicted she would say right now, that was not one of them.
He was good at guessing what someone would say in any situation, if he’d had time to study their personalities and how their minds worked. Ilaria had defied every expectation he had of her.
He had made a fundamental mistake with her. Well, two, if he counted the bug she had slipped onto his belt, but that was a product of the same basic error he had made. He had made the mistake of presuming too much about her. A vampire assassin, he had assumed, would think clearly, slicing through emotions and discarding them. Their behavior would be even more predictable because they were making choices based in logic, with nary a skerrick of emotion to spoil the clean, utilitarian thinking that drove their decisions.
Ilaria’s words, her reactions, her decisions…all of it went against his extrapolations.
“Please,” she coaxed. Her small fist scrunched the front of his shirt in its grip. She was trying to tug him toward her. To kiss her.
Worse, Rick could feel his response to her curling through him like sinuous smoke tendrils, rousing him. The idea of kissing her was a pleasure-filled one.
Then he realized where his thoughts were heading and grimaced. He shoved her from him. Hard.
Ilaria tripped and would have fallen on her ass, except that at the last minute she grabbed the handle of the car door next to her and managed to keep on her feet.
“Give me one reason why I should listen to you at all?” Rick ground out, reaching for reason, for logic. For answers.
“I have already given you two reasons,” she said, straightening up slowly.
The dress was some sort of wrap thing, and had fallen open to reveal most of her thigh and lower hip. Rick tore his gaze away from the creamy flesh. “Give me another reason,” he growled.
“Because you want answers,” she shot back.
Bugger it, Rick mentally swore. He did want answers – some of them only she could give him. He twirled the keys around on his forefinger. He wouldn’t take her to Nial’s place – that would be delivering the fox to the hen and could possibly be what she wanted all along. She might be playing it this way in order to locate Nial and deal with him.
Blood Unleashed (Blood Stone) Page 15