by K D Grace
“She’s not ready,” he repeated fervently.
“I know she’s not ready, and I’d never send her out into the world unprepared. You know that. But here is not the place for her training, not under the circumstances. I’ve been in touch with Desiree. She owes me, and she’s agreed to complete Susan’s training in all that pertains to vampires living amongst humans.”
He made a derisive sound in his throat at the mention of Desiree. “For what price?”
She shrugged. “Everything has a price, and it was one I was happy to pay, one that will benefit Susan in the end. I’ve heard rumors of a siren living in New York City.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I know that the chances of such a glorious creature still existing are very slim at best, but the rumors have been consistent and… well, let’s just say I feel that they should be checked out. It won’t be a difficult assignment for Susan, but it will be intriguing and satisfying—that along with what Desiree has in mind for her, should ease her into her new role with the Consortium while she gets her feet under her as a vampire—so to speak. Here, she’s disruptive, at least at the moment.”
She nodded to Reese in the garden. “In New York, she’ll be a benefit to both me and to Desiree, and she’ll learn what she needs to without the twin distractions of you and Michael. She wants you as badly as you want her, Alonso, and you know you’re both just a breath away from doing something you’ll both regret, something from which there’ll be no turning back. She may want you, but she loves Michael, just as you love Reese. She needs to be away from both of you, from all of you for a little while. The feelings you have for each other are a normal part of the sire and fledgling relationship, but that’s assuming that neither is in a previous relationship or are not monogamous. Between you and Michael and Reese, there’s enough jealous testosterone in this house to make me dizzy. I can’t have that for Susan. I need her focused if she’s to realize her potential, and she’ll never be focused here, at least not without a little space away from both you and Michael. You know this, Alonso. You know it well. It’s only for a couple of months, just long enough for her to come to terms with what she is and what she’s capable of doing. Then she can come back without needing you or Michael. She can come back on equal footing.”
“She has never needed us. She has always stood quite well on her own. If anything, we’ve needed her.”
“And yet here you and Michael are, behaving like two stags in rut.”
For a long time they stood next to each other in silence. A light breeze lifted the curtains on the French doors, and Reese now knelt next to one of the stone benches tending to some little detail in the garden—perhaps a stray patch of weed, perhaps a slate chip in the wrong place.
At last Alonso spoke. “Have you told them?”
“Not yet. I will in the morning when they return to High View.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Guardian’s use of the angel’s mark on Susan? Are you afraid He might try to take over his body again?”
“It’s a precaution, nothing more,” she said, careful to keep her voice neutral. No one had any idea just how neurotic she was for her people, and what had happened between Michael and the Guardian had thoroughly unnerved her, even more so when she feared she’d have no choice but to take the life of her beloved angel.
Everyone else within the Consortium was allowed their neuroses and foibles and public displays of bad behavior—what could one expect from a loose affiliation of monsters, mutants, and renegade gods? It took one to know one, she thought. But they didn’t have to know that, did they? They only had to trust that she had their best interests at heart. And her own, of course.
“When will you take her?” It was the deep sadness in Alonso’s voice that brought her attention back to the present.
“I’ve been on the phone with Desiree, and my pilot is making arrangements. He’ll fly from Manchester on Wednesday. Desiree will meet her at JFK.”
“That’s only three days.” Alonso made no effort to hide the disappointment in his voice. “They won’t be happy.”
“They’ll get over it. The truth is that it’s three days too many. Every day she lingers in this volatile, complicated situation, the risk rises of something going terribly wrong. Emotions are running high in a group of very dangerous predators. I will not have the bear kill the lion, nor the tiger kill the eagle. I’ll tell them in the morning and then I’ll be keeping a very close eye on her, on all of you, until she’s safely on board the plane.”
There was another stretch of silence.
Reese now sat on the bench looking out over the beck below, unaware that he was being watched by monsters, though Magda figured he’d grown dangerously used to that by now.
At last she pulled in a long breath and stretched her aching back. “Go to Reese. Make it right. He’s waiting for you. Surely you can see that. I’ve never minded members of the Consortium having relationships, and even I’m enough of a romantic to know that when it’s right, it’s worth preserving. Trust me, in three months, when Susan returns, you and Michael will both see more clearly; Michael will hold her more dearly and you will hold her more loosely, as it should be. In three months all that’s passed between you and him, all the strife between you and Reese, will be seen from the proper perspective that time lends to all things.”
Alonso said no more, nor did he gesture his leave-taking. He simply turned and moved through the French doors. Halfway down the path, his pace slowed to a more human pace, a pace that would not startle Reese. When Reese made no response to his approach, Alonso came to stand behind him and rested his hands on the man’s shoulders before bending to speak in his ear. Whatever it was Alonso said, it had Reese reaching over his shoulder to pull the vampire into a kiss.
Magda realized she was smiling. God, would she never outgrow the romantic streak that softened her heart ever so slightly? But then it was good to see such devotion, good to cultivate it in others whenever she could. She had long known that was as close to the high walls around her heart as love would ever get. None of them had any idea how tenuous the thread that tethered her to humanity was at times, and a little romance in the Consortium helped her strengthen that bond.
They all feared her, as well they should. But she knew as none of them would ever know, that she was by far the most dangerous of all of them, the most dead, in many ways, and what she had built, what she had created, her Consortium of wayward monsters, had been the family she’d never had. They did what she wanted. She was the tyrant who ruled them, and yet their happiness was not something she could be jealous of when it was one of the few things that touched her heart. She would have Reese and Alonso happy. And in time, Alonso would bring Reese over, but not because Reese felt threatened by Alonso’s attention to another.
In time, Michael and Susan would be together. Oh, not in Michael’s little house. She had other plans for them, plans that demanded they be together. Her plans were always way more wide-reaching and far-viewing than any of them knew. That was how she had kept herself safe all of these centuries. That was how she made sure no one could take what belonged to her. But, where Michael and Susan were concerned, well she hardly had to force the love of eternity, did she? All she had to do was cultivate the right circumstances, the right conditions. That’s all she ever had to do, actually. And it had never been that difficult with her intuition and the fact that she was the scariest bitch any of her monsters had ever dealt with.
In the meantime, there might just possibly be a siren seducing the Big Apple with magical songs. Now that would definitely keep Susan occupied for a couple of months. She turned to the credenza and poured herself a glass of Glen Morangie, which Alonso kept on hand especially for her. She drank it back and poured another.
Soon Susan would learn, as they all had, that—for good or ill—time was irrelevant in the gaping jaws of eternity, and it was the monsters with which one surrounded oneself that staved off the emptiness and made that dark endless throat of time a litt
le more bearable.
“To the Consortium.” She raised her glass in salute, watching Alonso and Reese, side by side on the bench, heads together, no doubt talking quietly which, knowing them as she did, was foreplay for a night of passion. “To the Consortium,” she said again, then she drank back the whisky and turned to go home.
The End?
Susan and Michael’s story continues in
Blind-Sided: Book 2 of the Medusa Chronicles
Blurb:
In New York City away from those she loves, living with the enigmatic vampire, Desiree Fielding, Susan Innes struggles to come to terms with life as a vampire whose body serves as the prison for a powerful demon. When prophetic dreams of blood in the snow and three men in a deep cavern become harrowing nightmares, Susan begins to question her sanity until Reese Chambers arrives from England, desperate for her help. Alonso Darlington, his lover and her maker, has been taken captive and Reese has been warned to tell no one but Susan. Before the two can make a plan, Susan receives her own message from a man calling himself just Cyrus. He not only holds her maker prisoner, but also her lover, the angel Michael, and if she wishes to see either of them alive, she’ll come to him and not tell Magda Gardener, the woman they all work for and fear. With no help coming from Magda or her Consortium, Susan and Reese must turn to the Guardian – the terrifying demon now imprisoned in her body. He alone can help them, but how can she possibly trust Him after all he’s done?
Chapter One: Sirens, Demons, and Scarier Stuff
Three Months Ago
So what do you think? Is she a siren?
Susan viewed Michael’s text under the edge of the table where she sat wedged in between a woman who smelled like a flower shop had thrown up on her, and a bodybuilder the size of New Jersey. She was damn lucky to get a place at all. Seats were at a premium. There was a buzz of anticipation all around the room. She texted back.
The crowd’s excited. People are actually flicking their Bic lighters, like they’re at some big rock concert. But then the duo does call itself Flame.
The Dark Side Lounge felt a bit like the Tardis—bigger on the inside than on the out, though that wasn’t saying much for the tiny converted brownstone. The dozen or so miniscule tables were all but on top of each other, hemmed in by too many rickety chairs that looked like they’d been pulled at random from neighboring brownstones. There was a tiny wooden stage built in one corner on which a piano was crammed up against one wall to make room for whatever instruments and kit were needed by the night’s performers. The previous set—a small upbeat jazz band, had just taken their bows, and though the audience had been appreciative, it was clear everyone was anxiously awaiting Flame while a small group of volunteers from the two front tables maneuvered the piano into the center of the stage and adjusted the lighting.
There were just two people that Susan could identify as actually working at the Dark Side. The place was attended by a barrel-shaped bartender who could have come straight from a 1950s gin joint. A skinny-assed waitress moved in and out of the crowded space like a wisp of smoke, never bumping a table, never spilling a drink, never losing the look on her face that said she was at the very threshold of Nirvana and she wasn’t going to let this lot fuck up her inner peace.
Just before each act, the bartender stepped from behind the bar, wiped his hands on his white apron and announced the performers into the microphone of a sound system that seemed far too sophisticated for the unpretentious place. Yet the acts were always stunning—each one of them. The cover charge had been minimal, and the house was full clear onto the tiny little patio fenced in wrought iron. Flower lady told Susan that a lot of great acts had been discovered here. She named several Susan had never heard of, then she added quickly that the locals took bets on who would get their next big break from performing at the Dark Side. Smart money was on Flame at the moment, the bodybuilder added enthusiastically.
They’re the last act, Susan texted. Then she added. Place is bursting at the seams. Don’t think they could fit one other person in here if they tried.
But she was wrong. They did fit someone else in. She felt his entrance with the shifting in the atmosphere of the room, a slight discomfort just beneath the human threshold of recognition. With her heightened senses, she felt it like a palm pressing hard against her breastbone, and she could smell it among the audience, though they were completely unaware of the change. The man’s presence was just enough to raise the blood pressure and elevate the heart rate the tiniest bit, but then that could have simply passed as excitement, anticipation of Flame’s imminent performance.
She felt the change, though. She felt it with the certainty that she would have if an icy blast of wind had suddenly blown through the open door. She felt the exact shape of the man as he entered the room, felt the way he took in everything around him as though he were a predator looking for the most succulent, most vulnerable prey. New York City was full of predators. Hell, she was one of them now, and Desiree had taught her to recognize others like her and others who were… different. This man was very different. The shape of him, the shape that he presented to the small audience of the Dark Side, was not his true form, not his true nature, and his true nature made her skin crawl.
It was the subtlety with which he presented himself that she found most disturbing. He was a wolf somehow perfectly disguised among lambs, and she was the only one who knew it. With the shuffling about and the changing of the stage, suddenly the bodybuilder got up and left for no reason Susan could see. No one was giving up seats just before the featured performance. There was another shifting of the air closer to her and Susan’s skin prickled as the scent of flower lady was subsumed in something that was no scent at all—not really, and yet it grated on her hyper-sensitive nerve endings in a way that was far more physical than simple scent, and far more unsettling.
Just then the bartender announced Flame, and the crowd rose to their feet and applauded as two women took the stage. One wore a blood red dress that bared her shoulders and the tops of perfect breasts. Her waves of blond hair fell like light around her shoulders. She left the audience gasping at her sheer beauty even before she opened her mouth and sang the first few bars of Someone To Watch Over Me a capella. And her voice truly was exquisite. Everyone was totally captivated with her beauty, her full-bodied contralto, her presence.
But it was only when the other woman, the unobtrusive one in a black tux and bowtie, the one who wore her dark hair slicked back in a tight chignon settled into the first chords at the piano that the music became multi-dimensional, vibrant, as though her touch on the keys infused every note with breath, with life, with a heartbeat of its own all the while keeping the attention completely focused on the beautiful singer, all the while making certain no one noticed that it was the pianist who infused the music and the performance with power, with magic that held the audience in thrall far more than the singer’s voice or beauty. It was the pianist making certain that Flame was good enough to get gigs and make money, but drew only the attention necessary and no more.
With trembling fingers, Susan texted. Magda was right. It’s the piano player. She’s the one. Of course she’s not going to sing. It would be too dangerous.
She’d barely got the message sent when she realized that she wasn’t the only one who was aware of the predator that had just settled lightly into the bodybuilder’s seat. The scent of the siren was one of hyper-awareness, one of a person who was used to compartmentalizing, used to keeping herself hidden, used to expecting that at any moment her identity might be uncovered. Her heart rate didn’t elevate, but for a moment, the moment when prey recognizes predator, it became strangely arrhythmic, and then it actually slowed to an even thud, thud, thud, slowed to the beat of the song in such perfect rhythm that no one might have noticed. In fact anyone who was looking at more than just what was happening on stage, anyone who was seeking prey might have been fooled into not seeing her at all.
As Susan remembered the stories from Greek
mythology of the sirens luring the sailors onto the rocks to their deaths, she wondered what else the woman was capable of. She was just about to text Magda Gardener when another presence got Susan’s full attention, a presence she had not heard from since it had first taken up residence inside her and made it known that while this demon might be captive inside the body of a fledgling vampire, he would not live in darkness. And He was no more subtle now than He had been that morning a month ago at High View Manor in Cumbria. His essence all but exploded behind her ribcage with such power that she nearly dropped her phone. “Susan, we need to leave now.”
Before the shock could wear off enough for her to respond, another voice spoke next to her ear, so softly that it disturbed no one but her, and it disturbed her deeply. “A vampire with something extra, if I’m not mistaken.” A cool hand came to rest on her shoulder and gave it a gentle knead.
“Susan, we need to leave now,” came the voice inside her, and the urgency of the pressure in her chest made her feel like she just might be about to have an Alien moment.
Ignoring the voice of the demon hammering on the inside of her chest, she turned to find herself face to face with a dark-haired man who had the chiseled airbrushed look of a hero from a cheap billionaire novel or a prince from a fairytale. While the man might well have been wealthy, he was no prince. She was certain from the way his touch made her skin crawl and the way the demon in her felt like He was taking a sledgehammer to her sternum, that he was no man either.
“A great deal of something extra, it would seem,” he said, a purr of a chuckle raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “A vampire and a scribe. Such an intriguing combination. I had no idea such a thing existed in all the world, but then the world is a very big place, isn’t it, my darling?”