Not Another Vampire Book

by Cassandra Gannon

  No one had ever said that to him before. Damien didn’t know what to make of it. Did the woman still not understand that he’d abducted her? She was his prisoner. His leverage over Slade. Sooner or later, she’d want to go back to the Vampire and Damien would stop her. Kara wasn’t leaving his side. How could she possibly smile at him and say he made her feel safe?

  He glanced away from her and cleared his throat. It didn’t matter. Her confusion worked to his advantage. It was nothing to feel guilty over. Damien couldn’t even feel guilt, just vengeance. “And you really believe this is all a book?” Maybe she was crazy, after all.

  “It is all a book.” She got up, grabbing the manuscript and moving to stand in front of him. “Why do you think there’s so much weirdness going on? You’re smart. You have to see the plot holes. Why is there a neon sign outside and in here we have no electricity?”

  Damien’s gaze automatically cut over to the lantern beside him. Those electric lights could come indoors? Why hadn’t he thought of that?

  “Why didn’t you try to kill Slade in the barn or at the building site?” Kara continued. “Why did you just threaten him and monologue? Why not go for the swords? I mean the whole point of your life is to kill the Vamp and those were perfect chances, right?”

  He’d thought so too, for that brief moment. Damien’s eyebrows drew together.

  “Or why didn’t you just kidnap Slade’s Eternal One before the party even started? Why wait for him to get there and try to stop you? You could have snatched Melessa and then used her as live Vampire bait.”

  The fog clouding Damien’s life somehow lifted at her words and he blinked in the sudden brightness. It felt like something had washed through his mind, clearing out the debris. What had he been thinking? Kara was right. Absolutely right. His actions made no sense, in retrospect. His entire plan was flawed.

  “Gods.” He dropped his head back on the chair and sighed in disgust.

  She knelt down in front of his chair, taking in his shock. “It wasn’t your fault, Damien. This is Eternal Passion at Sunset. We’re all stuck within the four corners of the page.”

  He didn’t believe that, but he believed that she believed it. The truth herbs told him just what she thought was really happening. He watched brooding as Kara opened the manuscript and wished he could burn it, again. He didn’t want her reading those lies. “I hate that book.”

  “Join the club, Vlad.” She made a sudden excited sound. “Chapter five’s here, now!” She held it up for him to see.

  Damien felt a chill. He’d flipped through those pages not ten minutes before and they’d been blank. He knew it. There was no way they could suddenly be filled with words. Not without some kind of magicks at work. He grabbed the book from her, his eyes scanning the neatly printed words. “What the hell is doing this? Are you sure you’re not a Witch?”

  “Of course not! Look, I’m not sure how it’s happening. All I know is this is the real book.” She tapped the page. “Unaltered by me being here. The blueprint for the plot.”

  “This tells you what will happen?”

  “Well, what should happen. I think we need to try and match this reality back up to the text. Will you really help me do that? Help me get home?”

  Damien digested all that for a long moment.

  He wasn’t living inside a book. He’d know if he was. Still, there was no denying that this manuscript contained secrets and information that no one should have. Regardless of where it came from or why it had appeared, the details of Slade’s life could certainly be useful for a man on a mission to kill him. Supernatural occurrences were the norm Damien, so it didn’t take much adjustment to accept this phenomenon. He couldn’t really explain it, but he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Who cared how it was happening? Karalynn and her book could help him finish Slade off once and for all.

  What was more important than that?

  Chocolate brown eyes stared up at him hopefully and Damien nodded. “I can help you.”

  She beamed. “You will? Really?”

  “Yes.” Well, he’d at least help her manipulate Slade. Damien wasn’t thrilled about restoring the book’s plot, though. So far, he wasn’t all that impressed with it. Clearly, the whole thing needed to be rewritten and he was just the Wizard Warlock for the job.

  “Damien!” She leaned forward to hug him. “Thank you.”

  His body leapt to attention at the warm scent of her, too astonished to do more than sit there and feel her body against his.

  The ‘helping her leave’ part of the plan wasn’t high on his priority list, either.

  Damien had never really considered what to do with Slade’s Eternal-One after he captured her. Now, he inhaled the fragrance of Kara’s hair and realized he could just… keep her. Who could stop him? She said herself she was alone. Weak and defenseless. No one protected the weak and defenseless from their fates. Damien had found that out firsthand when he saw his desecrated homeland.

  He was the most powerful sorcerer alive and Kara was just a small human. Damien wanted the woman. He’d captured her. He would keep her. It was inevitable.

  Simple Darwinism.

  Better not mention the caveats to his pledge of assistance, though. He liked Kara thinking she had a choice in all this. Liked her being naïve enough to actually feel safe with him. “We’ll need to talk about everything from the beginning.” He prompted as she released him. “Everything you remember.” While you still have to tell me the truth.

  “Good thinking.” She settled down on the ottoman and gave a short laugh. “This is such a relief. To have someone else to tell, who will actually get it. You have no idea.”

  “I think I do.” He understood loneliness far too well. Now, he had this woman and he wasn’t going back into that silence. Damien’s eyes traced the arc of her neck. “By the way, do I really remind you of that child you went to school with?”

  “Alex Murphy? Nah.” She shrugged dismissively. “You’re much hotter than he was.” She hesitated. “Do people use the word ‘hot’ like that in 1892? Probably not, but with this book it’s just one more anachronism for the pile.”

  “I understand the meaning.” Damien rumbled. Damn, but he loved hearing the truth when it told him just what he wanted to know.

  Kara would be his downfall. He could feel that more clearly than ever, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to Damien when he wanted something. Perhaps he was as obsessive as that ridiculous book suggested, because risks were meaningless to him if it meant getting what he desired in the end.

  Now he had two goals: He wanted Kara’s soft body and he wanted to destroy Slade.

  She would give him both.

  Damien studied the innocent curve of her face.

  Maybe he really was the villain.

  Chapter Six

  Melessa ran from him, her delicate velvet shoes gently thudding against the foggy ground. The handsome Vampire king chased her, as she ran both from him and from her own unleashed desires. “You must stop! I cannot handle the desire you’ve unleashed within me!”

  Slade caught up with her, his powerfulness catching her easily and spinning her into his grasp. “No, Melessa.” He held her against this massive chest, ignoring the ineffectual movements of her small hands. “There’s no escape from me or our passion.” His lips captured hers and Melessa helplessly collapsed against him, helpless against the onslaught of desire.

  She knew then that she’d never want to escape his otherworldly clutches.

  Eternal Passion at Sunset- Chapter Six

  “No.” Kara jabbed a finger at him. “You don’t get to do that, Damien. You don’t get to look out the window and pretend like we’re not having a fight right now.”

  He shot her a frustrated glance. “Only one of us is fighting, Kara Lynn.”

  When he used that patronizing tone, she wanted to hold his head in a blender. Not having one handy, Kara reached her foot over to the other side of the carriage and kicked his shin as hard
as she could. Not that it had much force with the layers of skirts she was being forced to wear.

  She hated 1892.

  Hated the fashions, and the slow as hell horse-drawn transportation, and bumpy road she was traveling on, and the Vampires, and especially that son-of-a-bitch sorcerer across from her.

  Damien rolled his eyes at her attack. “Do you have no sense, at all?” He demanded. “Do you really want to fight with someone who outweighs you by a hundred pounds and has magical powers?”

  “No, I want to fight with the sneaky bastard who drugged me last night.” She’d woken up with a splitting headache and an absolute certainty about what had happened. Damien hadn’t even bothered to deny it. He’d used some kind of truth serum on her and he thought he’d had a perfect right to do it. He actually seemed surprised that she was making a big deal over it. Vlad was so used to being a bad guy he didn’t even register when he was crossing the line.

  Kara had been incensed about it all morning. Both at him and at Tanya St. Clair for including polygraph herbs in her stupid book.

  Damien remained unfazed by her anger. “It was harmless. You remember everything that happened. At no time were you in danger or…”

  “That’s not the point!” She interrupted, sharply. “It was a rotten thing to do, Damien.”

  He snorted. “Well, you’re the one who said I was the villain.” Since the night before, he’d been doing some fuming of his own. Being told he was a bad guy really didn’t sit well with him. He seemed especially pissed that Slade was therefore the hero of the piece.

  That didn’t give him the right to be self-righteous and irritated, though. Not when he’d put a mickey in her drink and didn’t even care. “If you do anything like that again, I’m done working with you.” She said, flatly.

  Damien’s head came around with a snap. After all his pointed efforts to disregard her complaints, she suddenly she has his total attention.

  “I’ll leave you.” The threat came out more personal sounding than Kara had intended, but it was true.

  Black eyes narrowed and, for once, Kara saw why he’d been cast as Eternal Passion at Sunset’s duck-and-cover antagonist. “No.” He said with cold confidence. “You won’t.”

  Her stomach knotted, even as she kept her gaze locked on his. She wasn’t exactly afraid of Damien, but he could intimidate mountains with his stare. You had to stand-up to his aggression or he’d run all over you. It was part of his nature, like a wild animal. “Yes, I will. Count on it.”

  Damien’s expression darkened at her defiance. “You think to return to Slade so quickly?”

  “Newsflash asshole, I don’t need you or Lestat. Neither one of you is even real. I can do just fine on my own.” Kara hugged the manuscript to her chest.

  She had a plan and all she had to do was follow it. Once she found Melessa, she could convince the girl that Slade was Prince Charming in a Nosferatu cape and everything would be fine. She was sure of it. The plot was all screwed up, but once that was fixed, the book could end happily and she’d be back home in time for The Simpsons.

  Focusing on the nuts and bolts of her plan kept her complete panic at bay. The whole thing was only bearable because she had faith –utter faith-- that she could do this. If she believed it hard enough, she could will it to happen.

  It would work.

  It had to work.

  She’d make it work.

  “I am real.” Damien snarled. Another touchy subject for him.

  “Yeah, well I’m real-er, and you had no right to use that magic on me. None. How would you like it if I did it to you? Huh?” How did he not see this? “Look at it from my point-of-view. How do I know you won’t poison me, or turn me into a toad, or knock me unconscious and rape me? Would you trust me, if I drugged you?”

  “I will not harm you.” But, something shifted in his face, like her words finally registered. “Even if I’d intended that, I wouldn’t need an herb to help me.”

  “Well, how can I be sure? You’re a super-powered Wizard Warlock and I’m not. You’re bigger than I am. Stronger. You know what the hell you’re doing in this place and I’m lost. You don’t see how that would make me feel vulnerable? I have to know that I’m safe in that house with you or we can’t be partners in this.”

  Damien’s jaw tightened. “I needed to be sure you weren’t working with the Vampires. That you hadn’t come home with me as a trick of some kind.”

  Kara gave a dismissive snort and took her turn staring out the window, not caring that he had a point about that. Maybe, she would’ve thought she was a Vampire spy, too, if the situations were reverse.

  But, she wouldn’t have drugged anybody, because she wasn’t a damn villain.

  At least he smelled nice, though. The rest of this time period stank. You’d think if Tanya was going to fib about one bit of history, it would have been the horses and livestock and unwashed bodies. Tanya had added modern bathrooms to the nineteenth century experience, which Kara appreciated. She’d just appreciate it more if a greater number of people took advantage of the running water that Tanya so thoughtfully provided for them.

  Kara sighed.

  She’d grown up in Chicago, so was odd to see it look so different. Different buildings, different streets, different people. A streetcar rumbled past, filled with happy and excited looking families. They must have been headed for the Exhibition. What Kara knew about World’s Fairs, she’d learned from Meet Me in St. Louis and that Elvis movie set in Seattle. But, even she could feel the pull of the Exhibition in the air. Chicago had become a tourist Mecca. An 1892 Disneyland. Over a single summer, twenty-seven million people packed into the city to celebrate technology and art and life at the cusp of a new century.

  If she wasn’t so busy escaping this even worse version of The Last Action Hero, Kara would have joined the party. See the Fair. Taste the world’s first Crackerjacks and stare up at the incredible buildings that had only been designed to last six short months. It wasn’t like she’d get another chance to tour it. It would be fun.

  Of course, she’d probably have to go alone. Good old Vlad seemed immune to the party-like atmosphere of the streets. He must have been inoculated against fun at birth.

  “All I wanted was the truth.” He insisted, in one last-ditch effort to make himself the wronged party. “That’s all the herb does. Get people to tell the truth. I had to be sure.”

  She didn’t bother to look his way. “Then, you should have asked me for the truth and I would have told you.” Probably not the whole truth, what with the ‘Hey, this is all a book and you’re a character in it and I’m from the future and I think you’re hot” parts, but still… “I’ve never lied to you, Damien. Which I’m sure is more than you can say.”

  Minutes ticked by. “I did not consider that the herb would frighten you.” He finally muttered. “It was not my intention.”

  She snorted.

  “But, I do see how you might feel tricked or apprehensive. I don’t want that. I… like that you feel safe with me.”

  The craziest part was, she still felt safe with him. He hadn’t hurt her last night. He’d protected her from Slade. Twice. He’d given her a safe place to stay in the midst of this craziness. He left Kara in her own spooky room to sleep in last night, not even trying to touch her. He didn’t even outright call her insane for believing she was stuck in a romance novel.

  And this morning, he’d manufactured some coffee for her when she’d complained that she was caffeine deprived. Coffee she’d been understandably leery about drinking, but still... Damien wouldn’t harm her. She knew it on a deep, instinctive level.

  But, he didn’t get to treat her like a science experiment, either.

  “I was wrong, Kara Lynn. You are not in league with the Vampires. I know that, now.” He sucked at apologizing, but at least it was genuine. No one sounded so grouchy and cautious unless they were sincere.

  Kara waited for him to finish stumbling over his words.

  “I am sorry.”r />
  Kara glanced over at him, expectantly. “And?”

  “Don’t try and leave.”

  “And?”

  Black eyes met hers. “It will not happen, again.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You promise?”

  “Yes.” It was unequivocal. “You are safe in my home. You have my word.”

  A vow from a bad guy wasn’t entirely reassuring. Still, for some reason, she trusted Damien. She’d trusted him from the beginning. His first reactions were almost always scary but, beneath that, he had a heart. He’d loved his sister. Missed his fellow Wiz-Wars. He just didn’t know how to be around other people in a non-creepy way, because he was cast as the skulking villain.

  It was all Tanya’s fault.

  Luckily, Damien could break through his evil box. Possibly because he’d been through so much, Damien could adapt to changes. If you explained things to him, he at least listened. Kara needed that. Needed him. Without Damien, she wasn’t sure how she could track Melessa down.

  It wasn’t like she owned a horse.

  Kara nodded. “Thank you. I accept your apology.”

  He blinked as if he’d expected more of an argument from her. “You won’t try to sneak away, then?”

  She arched a brow at him. “I don’t sneak. When I leave, you’ll have plenty of warning.” Hopefully, in the form of The Great and Powerful Oz flying her home in a balloon.

  “‘When’ you leave?” He repeated. “Do you really think you can just escape back to your old life that easily, Kara Lynn?”

  “Of course I can. Stay positive, why don’t’cha?” Not entirely liking the gleam in his eye, she decided to change the subject. “Hey, where’s Polly today?” She gestured towards his bird-less shoulder. “Off foretelling some sailor’s doom?”

  “I left Lenore at home.”

  That seemed odd. Tanya made a point of saying Damien was never without the raven in chapter three. Wait a minute… “You named it Lenore?”