It did not surprise me that Nigellus had a butler. A freaking butler, like Alfred from the Batman movies. Nigellus introduced him as Edward, and it was obvious that he, too, knew Rans from long acquaintance.
“How lovely to see you again, sir,” the elderly gentleman enthused, shaking Rans’ hand in both of his wrinkled ones. “Allow me to get you and your lady friend a drink.” His bright eyes slid to me. “And perhaps a light brunch after your journey?”
I declined the food but accepted a glass of iced lemonade, sipping it in the kitchen while Rans nursed a glass of rosé wine. Nigellus excused himself to deal with some business, whatever that meant. Edward puttered around, prepping food for the evening meal. The old man was impossible not to like, and I wondered how on earth he’d ended up working as household staff for a demon.
Somehow, it seemed impolite to ask.
“You’ll need to acquire some basics,” he told me as he chopped vegetables. “Clothing, toiletries. Would you like me to have those things delivered?”
To say I wasn’t used to having a butler on call was putting it mildly. “I can’t ask you to do that, Edward,” I said. “I’ve got a bit of cash on me. I can pick up the essentials if there’s a Wal-Mart or something nearby.”
Rans made a disgusted noise. “Nonsense. We’re practically on top of the boardwalk here. I’ll take you out shopping. You can use Guthrie’s card—his accountants won’t even notice such a negligible amount.”
For a moment, I was caught between paranoia at the idea of going out in public like a normal person who wasn’t being hunted by pissed-off faeries, and irritation at myself for allowing that paranoia to control my actions. I didn’t think Rans would have suggested it if it wasn’t safe, and it seemed wrong somehow not to take advantage of an opportunity to see someplace I’d never been before. It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful city, and... well... screw the damned faeries.
“I’m game,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Which is how I found myself browsing adorable vintage clothing stores and old-timey drugstores on the Atlantic City boardwalk with a vampire wearing Ray-Bans; dragging an ever-growing number of bags around while ignoring my increasing fatigue and achiness. We stopped at a little cafe to rest for a bit, sitting at a wrought iron table shaded by trees while I wolfed down an Asian-inspired salad with chicken and orange sections.
“So, tell me more about yourself,” I urged around a mouthful of lettuce drenched in sesame-ginger dressing. “You know way too much about me, and I know next to nothing about you. You’re English, obviously. Where were you born?”
He was watching me tear through the salad with evident fascination, but I refused to let it bother me. Now, he settled back in the chair, determinedly casual. Other voices buzzed around us, combining with the sound of wind rustling through leaves to ensure that our conversation would be private as long as we spoke quietly.
“As it happens, I was born in Yorkshire,” he said. I nodded, still chewing. “... in thirteen twenty-one,” he finished.
I choked on the bite of salad.
“Thirteen... twenty-one?” I rasped once I’d dislodged the lettuce from my trachea. “As in, thirteen twenty-one A.D.?”
“You asked,” he said mildly.
And I had. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been dropping hints pretty much since I’d met him that he was old. In fact, I wasn’t certain why hearing him rattle off an actual year should make such a difference to me. It did, though. If he was to be believed—and almost despite myself, I did believe him—then he’d been born in the freaking Middle Ages.
“What was it like?” I couldn’t help asking.
Both eyebrows lifted behind the reflective black of the sunglasses, as though I’d surprised him.
“It was harder in some ways, and easier in others,” he said after a beat. “I was... the oldest son of Thomas and Lisabeth Thorpe. I had two younger brothers and three sisters. The family ran an iron smelting operation, processing ore from the northern mines. It was sweaty, backbreaking work, but it was honest, and at the end of the day you had something to show for it. We never went hungry.”
“I can’t even imagine how different things must have been back then,” I said softly.
He gave a barely perceptible half-shrug. “I was two years shy of my thirtieth birthday when the Black Death came to York. We had no conception of disease organisms and the way contagion worked... it all seemed so terrifyingly random. Families turned on other families, accusing them of witchcraft, or of drawing the plague to the city by not being devout enough.”
“That’s terrible,” I breathed.
“Human nature has always been to lash out when danger threatens,” he said. “When my youngest sister fell ill, my brothers urged my father to turn her out of the house, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. The rest of us got sick one by one. Eight days later, I was the only member of my family left alive—too weak to bury the bodies, or even to rise from my pallet so I could feed myself.”
I found myself holding my breath, caught up in the story. Aching for the man seated across from me.
“Someone barred the door of our house from the outside, not that I had the strength to go anywhere in the first place,” he continued. “I remember being afraid that the other villagers would set fire to the place with me inside. That, and the agony of thirst, like my throat was burning up. I could see a jug across the room. I was sure it had ale in it, but I couldn’t get to it and there was no one to bring it to me.”
A lump rose in my throat as I pictured it.
“I’m certain I would have perished by the following morning,” he said. “The plague is a ravenous and impatient killer, for humans—or at least, it was back then. But that night, someone unbarred the door and entered the house. It was pitch-black, or else I’d already gone blind. I was barely aware of fangs sliding into my throat, drinking my tainted blood until I slipped into death’s cool embrace. I woke some time later, frantic, with someone else’s blood in my mouth... running down my chin. My heart wasn’t beating. The lack of a pulse nearly drove me mad before I figured out what had changed.”
My heart was beating fast enough for both of us by that point. “You were... turned by another vampire?”
“Apparently, the foolish bastard thought he was doing me a favor,” Rans said lightly. “He buggered off as soon as the job was done.”
My jaw dropped. “He just left you there? With no idea what had happened to you?”
“More or less.”
“What a complete asshole!” I said, loud enough to draw a couple of looks from the tables around us. I sank back into my chair, blood rising to my cheeks.
Rans’ expression turned wry. “Well, if it’s any consolation, he’s dead now, so...”
I could hear bitterness behind the gallows humor, but before I could respond, he changed the subject.
“Enough about me. I’m not the enigma,” he said. “Tell me more about your family. Your mother was a politician and your father is an accountant. What do you know about your grandparents?”
I took a moment to change mental gears. “Uh... my dad was never close with his parents. I didn’t have much contact with them. His father is dead, and as far as I know, his mother is still alive and living somewhere in Florida.”
He nodded. “And on your mother’s side?”
“Bit more scandal on that side,” I told him. “My maternal grandfather was only with my grandma for a short time. He disappeared soon after she gave birth to Mom.”
“Anything else unusual on that side of the family history?” he prodded.
“A couple of things, yeah.” I sighed. “So... I’ve got photos of Grandpa and Grandma, right? They’re both Caucasian. But Mom had the same kinky hair as me, and her skin was even darker than mine. Mom and Grandma always laughed it off, saying things like, ‘Oh, genetics can be unpredictable sometimes.’ But it seems way more likely to me that Grams had an affair with a black guy, and that’s why my grandfather left her.”
>
Rans tilted his head, regarding me closely. “Not necessarily. Did you ever talk to her about it?”
“Not really,” I said. “She committed suicide when I was thirteen. She was always a bit unstable, but she got way worse after my mom was killed. One night she took a whole bottle of pain pills, and no one found her until the following day.”
God, when I stopped to think about it, my family was a real clusterfuck. I was glad when Rans didn’t offer any bland expression of sympathy. I’d always hated that kind of insincere shit.
Instead, he rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together, looking thoughtful. “It seems likely that your maternal grandfather was the demon. Unless you happen to be a student of the occult, you probably wouldn’t know that demons can’t reproduce. There are a set number of them. They are functionally immortal. But they can’t sire children, or birth them.”
Okay... now I was confused. “Then why do you keep saying I’m part demon?”
“Let me finish. There are different kinds of demons. Incubi and succubi feed off sexual energy. They also have the ability to hijack the human reproductive cycle, though the treaty with the Fae expressly forbids such a thing.”
“Hijack it how?” I asked.
“Incubi and succubi can change sex at will. A succubus—the female form—can seduce a male human and obtain his genetic material when he ejaculates. Then the demon changes sex and seduces a female human as an incubus. If he’s quick enough, he can use the stolen human sperm to impregnate the woman. But the process means that the resulting baby has demon characteristics, thanks to the magical changes to the stolen DNA.”
“Okay. That’s... quite a story,” I said.
“Practical upshot—if your incubus grandfather seduced a black man to get the genetic material he used to impregnate your grandmother, it would explain your mother’s interracial physical characteristics.”
“... oh,” I managed, as the point slid home.
“Of course,” he continued, “that still doesn’t explain how your mother had you, but perhaps that’s a question for another day. If you’re finished, we should probably head back.” He gestured to the remains of my salad with his chin.
“Yeah,” I said absently, new information whirling in my head. “Sure thing.”
EIGHTEEN
WHEN WE RETURNED TO the house at around two p.m., we found Nigellus seated in a chair in the living room, a heavy hardbound book resting in his lap. He looked up as we entered, a furrow forming between his brows as he examined me.
“You look fatigued, Zorah,” he said. “Would you care to rest for a few hours before dinner? We will be dining at seven.”
I froze, not used to people noticing when I was struggling with my physical limitations. It was true—I’d been feeling progressively worse over the last few hours despite the break for a late lunch at the cafe. Yet, compared to how bad things had gotten before, it was nothing. I’d mostly been ignoring the nagging pain and heaviness in my body, though I’d surreptitiously popped a couple of ibuprofen from the bottle I’d picked up at the drugstore.
“You should have said something,” Rans murmured.
Why? the smartass in me wanted to ask. Would you have suggested a quickie under the boardwalk if I had?
“It wasn’t a problem,” I said instead. “I’m used to pulling waitressing shifts while feeling far worse than this.”
“Nonetheless,” Nigellus said smoothly, “you should feel free to relax for the rest of the afternoon. I’m afraid I must pull Rans away from you for a bit. I need to speak privately with him about an unrelated matter.”
Maybe I was more tired than I thought, because I probably should have been more curious about that rather cryptic statement. As it was, I said, “Sure. I’ll just hang out in my room for a while. Maybe take a nap. I’ll... uh... see you both at dinner, I guess.”
“Until then,” Nigellus said.
He rose, ushering Rans toward the archway leading to the kitchen. Rans gave me a lingering, pensive look before exiting the room, and a small shiver prickled its way up my spine.
I shook off the odd moment. The pile of shopping bags was still sitting in the entryway. I felt like a pack mule carrying all of them at once, but I had the distinct impression that if I left them, Edward would end up lugging them upstairs on his eighty-year-old knees without being asked.
The guest bedroom was as cheerful and airy as the rest of the house. I dumped the bags on the green-striped loveseat in the corner and started rummaging. I found a pair of nail scissors in the bathroom and used it to cut the tags off the silky black knee-length nightgown I’d bought.
Finally being able to change out of the clothes I’d been wearing for more than two days felt wonderful. I considered showering, but frankly the bed held more appeal. Light streamed through the gauzy curtains covering the window. I grabbed the copy of The Return of Sherlock Holmes that I’d picked up for ninety-nine cents at a used bookstore and curled up on the emerald comforter to rest and read for a bit.
My fingers had lingered on a dog-eared paperback copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the bookstore, but it had seemed a bit too... on the nose, I guess you’d say. Reading about Sherlock Holmes’ dramatic return from the dead was a lot less fraught. I made it as far as the capture of Colonel Sebastian Moran in The Empty House before my eyes slipped shut, the old book dropping onto my chest, forgotten.
* * *
The sound of the door opening woke me. The light slanting through the window was at a slightly lower angle, but it was not yet evening. It hadn’t occurred to me to lock the door—I felt safe enough here, and it seemed kind of a silly thing for me to do when I was a guest in someone’s house.
That ‘someone’ is supposedly a demon, my inner cynic pointed out.
I blinked rapidly and rolled into a sitting position, just in time to see Rans catch himself against the doorframe with one hand. Blue eyes fell on me, but there was a dazed look behind them that I hadn’t seen there before. He froze, as though he hadn’t expected me to be there.
“What are you doing in my room?” he asked, confusion underlying his normally smooth voice.
“Rans?” I asked a bit groggily. “This is my room. Yours is across the hall.”
He stared at me with a sort of brain-rebooting-please-stand-by expression on his face. That expression woke me up fast, and I slid off the bed to cross to him. That was when I noticed his extreme paleness. I mean... Rans was a vampire, yeah—and an English one, at that. He wasn’t going to be winning any awards for ‘Best Tan Lines’ anytime soon. But this was the same sort of pale he’d been when I found him shot in my back yard.
It was the sort of paleness that belonged to a corpse, not a man.
“You don’t look so good,” I whispered in the understatement of the week. “What happened, what’s wrong?”
Without even thinking about it, I took him by the arm and pulled him inside, closing the door behind us for privacy. He shook his head as if trying to dislodge something rattling around in his brain.
“I...” he said. “I don’t...”
His voice trailed off and he lifted a hand to his forehead.
“Okay, you’re scaring me now,” I said.
I herded him toward the bed and pushed at his shoulders until he sat on the edge of it, his thighs bracketing mine as I stood in front of him. He glanced up at me through dark eyelashes from the slight disadvantage of height. Something about the look of vulnerability hiding just beneath the surface combined with the odd intimacy of our position to make me wonder if I should be backing off. Giving him space.
But—well, he’d saved me from a bunch of faeries and I’d had his dick in my mouth only yesterday, so maybe a bit of intimacy wasn’t unreasonable at this point.
“Rans. Talk to me, please. Did something happen with Nigellus?”
A deep furrow formed between his brows. “No, I...” he trailed off. “That wasn’t...” He shook his head sharply again. “Sorry. I seem to have...
a bit of a hole in my memory. A new one, I mean.”
Misgivings flooded me, but I tried to focus on the practical. He was pale and disoriented. He was a vampire. Those two facts could be related, right?
“Do you need blood?” I asked slowly.
His absent blue gaze turned inward, like he was taking stock.
There was a long pause. “Maybe so. I don’t... feel right.”
Yeah, you think? Sherlock Holmes would be proud right now.
He moved restlessly under my hands. “I should... find Edward.”
“What?” I yelped, pushing him back down when he tried to rise. “No way. You are not drinking blood from an octogenarian butler!”
His eyes cleared a bit as he focused on me in consternation. “But—”
“No,” I reiterated. “In fact, that’s a great big fuck, no.” I drew in a breath to figure out an alternative, and the words tumbled out before I had a chance to run them through my brain-mouth filter. “Drink from me instead.”
Oh, shit. Did I really just say that out loud?
Flashes of conversation flitted through my mind.
Your blood. It’s unusually... what’s the word I’m looking for? Stimulating.
Oh, dear. For an undead erection lasting more than four hours...”
Shit. This was a self-serving and totally uncool thing for me to be doing, wasn’t it? Blue eyes sharpened.
“You’re already weakening,” he said. “That would only make it worse.”
I shrugged carelessly. “No it won’t. You feed from me first, and I’ll, uh... I’ll feed from you afterward.”
The strange, shaky need I recognized from the night in Guthrie’s penthouse was rising inside me. The heady desire to take, pull, consume... to draw pleasure from Rans’ body into mine.
He was still staring at me intently. I couldn’t tell if he was wavering or not.
“Maybe I still don’t believe you about being part demon,” I added, trying to tip the balance in my favor. “Maybe I want to see if having sex again really makes me stronger.” I lifted one hand from his shoulder, cupping the elegant planes of his cheek. “You said it yourself. I’m weakening. Who else around here am I going to screw? Nigellus isn’t really my type, and somehow I doubt Edward would be interested.”
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 14