by Tina Folsom
Benny looked around himself. She noticed his gaze zeroing in on a set of kitchen knives just within his reach.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she warned in a low tone.
Nina knew he wouldn’t listen. He wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed and had obviously still not learned that disobedience would earn him further injuries.
The moment Benny seized the knife from the counter and pointed it at her, Nina had already pulled out her own blade from her pocket. She never left home without it.
“Benny, Benny,” she scolded and shook her head in disapproval.
He gave her a smug grin, looking from her knife to his. “I think I have the bigger one.”
Typical man! “Size doesn’t always matter. It’s what you do with it that counts.”
“Come and get it, Nina.” His free hand motioned her to approach. The idiot had watched entirely too many bad movies and clearly fancied himself as the next Rambo—well, the next really small Rambo without the muscles or the brains anyway.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
Benny gave her a nonchalant look. “Why not? You don’t exactly pay premium when it comes to the information you want. A man’s got to live.”
Her old dilemma—money. Nina was aware she couldn’t always pay enough for the things she needed. Ever since Eddie’s death, she’d barely kept above water. Her brother had been the main breadwinner, and she’d gone back to school to improve her chances of getting a good job. But now that she had to avenge him, she clearly didn’t have time to get a job or continue with school. She barely had enough time to figure out where she could steal the necessities she needed to survive. The little savings she’d had were gone.
“You little rat.” Nina took two steps toward him, her arms stretched out to her sides, ready for combat. “Go ahead, take a swipe at me. Winner takes all.”
“Fuck you,” he replied.
She gave him a once-over. It was time to show the little jerk in front of her that he shouldn’t mess with her.
With a shout, Benny suddenly launched himself at her. She dove to the side and avoided him by a hair’s breadth. Her side hit the wall and brought back the pain of her already bruised ribs, but she had no time to dwell on it. She swiveled on her heel and faced him as he lunged at her again. Her arm blocked his knife not a second too soon.
“Ready to give me an answer?” she grunted through clenched teeth.
“You haven’t won,” Benny countered and pulled back only to wield his knife at her again.
Nina gave as good as she got. Stab after stab she avoided, just as he escaped her attempts to do damage. For a while they were evenly matched.
She felt exhaustion overwhelm her. The pain in her ribs hindered her flexibility. Maybe she should have postponed her showdown with Benny until she’d recovered. She wasn’t in top condition tonight. The fight with the two vampires had taken too much out of her already, and resisting Amaury had done the rest.
The next stab of her opponent’s knife landed on target. The gash on her arm was only a flesh wound, but the resulting pain wasn’t as fleeting as the stab had been.
“Fucking bastard,” she yelled and charged toward him, utterly pissed off. The pain gave her another badly needed shot of adrenaline, revving up her engine.
As she aimed her knife at him, her leg landed a well-placed kick at his shin, taking him off balance. He buckled. She took the second’s advantage and sliced through his hand, making him drop the knife as a result.
“You bitch!” he bit out.
Nina grabbed his injured hand and twisted it, kicked her knee into his back and held her knife to his neck. His body quivered. Good—he should fear her.
“Maybe now you’re ready to talk. You’ve got ten seconds.”
Her ribs pulsated with pain, and she only had a few more minutes of energy left before she would collapse. She was out of time.
“They’ll kill me if I talk.”
“Guess what—I’ll kill you if you don’t. And I’m right here. You’ve got a choice: die now, or die later,” she offered and hoped the idiot was smart enough to choose later.
Benny breathed heavily. “Okay. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”
“Talk fast. My hand’s twitching, and who knows what’ll happen if I slip,” she warned.
“When I asked around for you, this guy approached me, said he’d pay me triple what you paid if I sent you into that trap.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t give a name. Paid cash right there. I didn’t ask anything.”
“That’s not good enough. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did he want to get rid of me?”
Benny’s shoulders moved as if he was trying to shrug. “Said something about you putting your nose into something that’s none of your business.”
Nina shook her head. It was her business to find out what had really happened to her brother. She couldn’t accept that he was a murderer. “You must know something else.”
“No. That’s all I know.”
“Use your damn brain,” she hissed and pressed her knee harder into his back. He groaned.
“I heard him say to his friend that he’s going to a staff meeting tomorrow night.”
“What staff meeting?”
“Some company with scanners or something.”
Nina blinked. “Scanguards?”
“Yes, yes—that’s the one. He said he’d be at a staff meeting at Scanguards.”
She knew it. Her hunch had been right. It was somebody within Scanguards, just like she’d suspected. Amaury and his friends had to be involved. “What does he look like?”
“Ordinary. Tall, dark.”
Amaury was tall and dark, but he sure wasn’t ordinary.
“That’s not very helpful. I think you’ll have to come with me to identify him tomorrow night.”
Benny tried to wriggle free from her grip, but she held on. His protest was instant. “No way. I’ll be a dead man if I do.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Nina felt her strength seeping from her. She didn’t have any more time, otherwise he’d turn the tables on her. “Tomorrow,” she promised, before she pushed him to the floor and rushed out the door.
She sprinted down the stairs and out the building, ducking into the next dark doorway to catch her breath. Clutching her ribs, she inhaled and felt the sting of her lungs brushing against the bruised bones. The cut on her arm was still bleeding. Nothing Amaury couldn’t fix for her, but she wasn’t going back to him.
He might not have sent the vampires after her, but one of his friends or colleagues had. They were all working together. Just because Amaury might not have been involved in every detail didn’t mean he wasn’t ultimately to blame.
He was the enemy.
The realization hit her harder than expected. Before, she’d only suspected him of being involved; now there was more certainty in her assumptions. Scanguards was definitely involved, which meant, Amaury was involved. Had he fooled her all along and played the passionate and caring rescuer to pursue his agenda? But why? He’d had every opportunity to kill her, yet he’d defended her instead. Why?
With her last ounce of strength she made it home. The one room apartment was located in Chinatown. It was dark and small. She kept it as clean as she could, but even the cleanliness couldn’t distract from the fact that the place was shabby. The furniture was old and worn, a mishmash of styles and eras, but she didn’t care.
This was better than the foster homes she’d lived in as a teenager. At least she was alone. Nobody would come to her room at night. Nobody would watch her. Nina banned the memories from her mind. She had survived. It was all that mattered.
She shut the door behind her and set the chain. After pulling off her shoes, she collapsed onto the bed. She was too exhausted to get up to the fridge to pull out the ice tray for an icepack. Instead she turned her face to the picture on the nightst
and. A young man grinned back at her, his dimples deep, his sandy hair shaggy.
“Oh, Eddie, I’m all alone. What am I gonna do?”
When tears formed in her eyes, she let them come. In the safety of her own four walls she allowed herself a moment of weakness, hoping the tears would wash away her pain and loneliness, yet knowing they wouldn’t.
Nine
Whenever Amaury needed to think, he cooked. The activity relaxed him. Of course, he could never eat the dishes he prepared, but that was beside the point. He had a lot of thinking to do, so he decided on French cuisine.
He had no idea why Nina had run out on him. For any other man this would be a common occurrence since no man ever really knew what a woman was thinking or feeling anyway. But Amaury always knew what everybody was feeling, so of all people he should have known what she felt. Only, for whatever reason, he was unable to sense her emotions.
This had never happened before.
Just like the night when she’d kissed him, he had at first not even noticed the absence of emotions bombarding him. During the street fight, he had felt the determination of the two vampires to kill her, and his reaction to save her had been automatic. While he’d carried her to his apartment and then taken care of her wounds, he’d been so overwhelmed by the effect she had on his body, he hadn’t noticed anything else. Not even the fact that his head was clear of any foreign emotions. And he hadn’t even had sex with her.
Unfortunately.
Amaury threw a twig of thyme into the broth-and-wine-mixture which he’d already poured over the skinned chicken legs and breasts. The familiar smell of coq au vin wafted into his nose, and he drank it in. What he’d give for a nice meal, tasting a juicy steak again, or an aromatic casserole.
He closed the lid and set the burner to simmer. As he proceeded to arrange the sliced potatoes neatly into a dish to prepare a gratin, he turned his thoughts back to Nina.
He was still hard just thinking of how sweet her blood had tasted and how soft her skin had felt under his kisses. While he’d touched and kissed many human women in his time, none knew what he was. If they did, they would have never responded to him.
But Nina knew what he was. Hell, she’d killed a vampire right in front of his eyes. And while she had struggled against him at first to let him take care of her, she had surrendered to his touch. He hadn’t used mind control on her. It was her decision to respond to him. Okay, so maybe he’d used all his persuasive powers as a man to help that decision along, but he hadn’t used any vampire skills.
His centuries of experience with women had taught him what women liked, and he was never shy about using what he’d learned. When it came to sex, he was prepared for just about anything a woman could throw at him. And always game for more.
But something had suddenly changed Nina’s mood, even though her body had hummed like a well-tuned piano. He would have liked to compose a symphony on it, had she given him a chance.
A soft ping announced that the oven was preheated to the correct temperature, and he placed the gratin dish onto the middle tray. A quick stir of the pot on the stove assured nothing was burning. Nothing, other than his desire for Nina.
He would find her. Now that he’d tasted her blood, he had an infinitely better chance of tracking her down. He was like a bloodhound, his sense of smell so well developed she wouldn’t be able to evade him if he only got within a quarter mile of her.
Amaury’s lips curled into a smile. And once he found her, they would finish what they’d started. The only little problem he now faced were his colleagues. If any one of them found out he was seeing a human woman and had not wiped her memory clean, he would be in the doghouse. Their warning still rang in his ears: exposure has to be avoided at all cost.
Well, it wasn’t his fault. Nina had already known about him being a vampire before they had even met. Who knew how much of her memory he had to erase, how far back he had to go? It was impossible to know. No, the best way was to find her, talk to her, find out what she knew and then decide.
He could definitely justify his approach. And if in the process of it he got a little horizontal action, surely nobody could fault him for that. Any hot-blooded male would do the same. After all, she was a desirable woman with gorgeous breasts and a sassy mouth. Who wouldn’t want a piece of her?
He sure wouldn’t mind spending a whole night with her, setting the sheets on fire. Now that was something he hadn’t done in a long time. Sure, he had sex every night—just not in bed. That location was reserved for somebody special—and he got the feeling she’d warrant an invitation to his bed. And the next time he’d make sure the door was locked, and she wouldn’t get away so quickly.
By the time the food was ready, Amaury had set out his plan of how to find her. Assuming she lived in the city, he would patrol in a grid pattern, starting with all downtown neighborhoods before moving further out into the suburbs. It would take him a few nights at the most.
Amaury spooned the food into serving dishes and placed them onto a tray before he left his apartment, then made his way down one flight of stairs. Mrs. Reid’s apartment looked dark, but he knew she was normally up late, so he rang the doorbell and waited.
A minute passed, and nothing happened. He rang the doorbell again and listened for any sound from inside her apartment. Behind him, he heard another door open.
“She’s not in,” a male voice said.
“Oh, out that late?” Amaury asked, turning to Philipp, one of the reclusive tenants in the building.
“Didn’t you hear? She’s in the hospital.”
Amaury felt a stab in his chest. He’d fed from her the night before, and now she was in the hospital. What had he done?
“The hospital?” A chill crept up his spine.
“Yeah, she’s in bad shape.” Philipp craned his neck to look at the tray in Amaury’s hands. “That smells good. Is that French food?”
“Yeah, sure. Take it.”
Amaury pressed the tray into Philipp’s hands and turned away before the man could even thank him. He rushed up the stairs and back into his apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.
The poor woman. The sweet old lady. He’d taken too much from her, and now she was paying the price. What if she didn’t recover? What if she died?
His strength left him, and he fell to his knees, guilt blasting through him. He’d lost control. He’d taken too much. It was true, he was a monster. And it was happening again. He was killing again. Just like back then. He hadn’t changed at all. After four hundred years he was still the same cruel monster.
A murderer.
***
France, 1609
Amaury’s struggles to support his family would soon be over. He’d made a decision. The offer he’d received a week earlier was as good as any he would ever get. And for all he knew, the man who’d introduced himself only by his first name, Hervé, would pay for something Amaury wouldn’t even need to deliver. He only half believed the story anyway.
The moonlight helped him find the path to the small bridge where he’d agreed to meet Hervé. If everything went well, Amaury would be paid well to let the man feed off him nightly, well enough to make sure his wife and his son would have enough to eat and clothes on their backs. Already, he’d received a few sous as a token of the man’s honest intent.
It was the love for his family that drove him to this desperate act. So what if some rich man had a fetish and wanted to drink somebody’s blood? If he was willing to pay for it, Amaury was prepared to take the momentary pain and endure it. How bad could it be?
The bridge was drenched in moonlight. Except for the tall shadow of a man, nobody else was around. There had been reports of attacks by wild animals, and not many inhabitants were brave enough to venture out after dark. Nobody would witness what was about to happen.
As Amaury approached the man, he wondered whether he was doing the right thing, but remembering the gaunt looks of his wife and son, he knew he couldn’t go back.
/> The moment Hervé’s face came into view, he saw the man’s fangs gleam in the moonlight. There was no denying it now: he was a vampire, just as he’d claimed. A cold shiver ran down Amaury’s spine, and the little hairs on the back of his neck rose.
“Faites-le vite.” The quicker this was over, the better.
Amaury held out his hand and felt the cold coins in his palm a second later. The prick of the fangs on his neck was only painful for a split second, then he fell into a state as if he’d had too much wine, a drunken stupor. Not unpleasant.
But when he wanted to pull away from Hervé, he couldn’t. The man wouldn’t let him go, and despite his huge frame, Amaury was no match for the man’s inhuman strength. The vampire’s fangs dug deeper into him, and more blood drained from his body. His vision became blurred, his legs weak, until he collapsed.
Amaury awoke with a thirst the likes of which he’d never known. A thirst for blood. Hervé had tricked him. He hadn’t merely wanted to feed off him—he’d wanted to turn him into a vampire. And he had. To build a community, a family of sorts.
But Amaury had a family, a family of his own, and they needed him. He didn’t listen to Hervé who warned him that he was a danger to them now. Instead, he ran home, ignoring his thirst.
The first person he found upon his return was his son Jean-Philippe. With his tiny bare feet the boy ran toward him, his arms outstretched, wanting to be lifted into his father’s arms.
“Papa!”
But the moment Amaury clutched his son to his chest, the beast in him took charge, and the thirst overwhelmed him.
Not knowing what he was doing, he sank his fangs into the boy. Moments later the lifeless body of his son lay at his feet, and his wife’s hysteric screams filled the night air.
There was no way back from what he’d done. And as a new vampire, he didn’t know how to save him, how to perhaps turn his son into a vampire too, so at least he could have survived in some capacity.
Only later did he learn how to create a vampire, how he would have had to feed his son his own blood at the very moment where his heart took its last beats.