by Minda Webber
Glaring, Lucy pointed a finger at him, retorting, "I'm a big girl, Val. I can handle myself."
He saw the pulse beating rapidly in her throat. Once he had kissed that throat, bitten it. Her blood had been spicy rich, and he had never tasted anything so good. The thought made him angry. He was no fledgling vampire to be led by his emotions, by lust, but that was exactly what was happening.
"What were you doing with Holiday, anyway? Just because he can play a sax like an angel doesn't mean he is one. That wolf's a real dog when it comes to women. Strange, cherie, you used to have better taste." And you used to taste so good.
Lucy snorted. "I suppose you mean you?"
Val said nothing, just gave her a knowing smile.
The smile clearly made Lucy angry. "I know what Holiday is, and I wasn't flirting with him. I was just doing my job. My boss wants me to mingle tonight, to scare up some guests for the show."
This time, Val snorted. "Scare up is right—or dig them kicking and screaming up out of the grave."
"And just what does that mean?"
Val shook his head. "Well, you must admit your work's not 60 Minutes."
"It may not be now, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be if I got more serious-minded guests!" How dare he insult her show? Even if he was right—which he was—who did he think he was, judging her show like some Ebert and Roeper?
"No one of any importance in the supernatural community would be caught dead on your show—or undead," Val remarked.
His words hurt, because Lucy knew they were the truth. She'd said the same thing herself. And he not only knew it was the truth, but knew that she knew it was the truth. She knew her show could be better, and having him say so really cut into her confidence. She glanced away, managing to hold her tears at bay. She didn't want Val to see her cry again. He had seen enough of her pain.
Seeing Lucy's reaction, Val knew that his careless words had cut her deeper than he'd intended. He'd been through some bad, some truly sad times because of this woman, the heartache of losing her never completely dissipating. Still, Lucy had once been the light of his life. So why was he hurting her?
Touching her arm, he apologized. "That wasn't very nice," he admitted. "I've got my mind on a lot of things going down tonight. Friday the thirteenth is not a fun, crazy time for us cops. We're the ones who have to stop all the craziness."
Lucy nodded stiffly. She was glad for his apology, glad for the words, but his comments still stung. If only they weren't true. "You sound almost human," she murmured, not meaning anything negative.
"Can't have that, can we?" He grinned, much like his old self. She had a flash of memory, a flash of all the old reasons for loving him. "If I do anything human again, you be sure and let me know," he added.
Lucy smiled. "I guess you're working, then?" she asked.
"Unofficially," Val replied. "Now look, cherie, it's getting late. You should go home. It's not a good night to be out and about. Too many feu follets."
Rolling her eyes, she shook her head both in confusion and frustration, and Val couldn't help but think that she would be perfect prey for an incubus. Their paranormal senses let them detect those wounded in spirit, whether it be loneliness, desperation, heartache, or disillusionment with life. Lucy needed to go home now and stay behind locked doors.
"Evil spirits. Monsters on the prowl," he explained.
"Of course. New Orleans is a monster haven—or monster heaven, take your pick. But I've lived here two years and nothing bad has happened to me."
Watching Val, Lucy wondered if she should say something about DeLeon. If she did, would he reveal anything about the youth-sponging monster? In a perfect world, she and Val would be partners. But then, in a perfect world they wouldn't have broken up.
Feeling it was appropriate, she went for broke. "But, then, nothing like an incubus has been in town before, has it?" She waited for any sign of reaction.
It wasn't long in coming. Val cursed a Cajun blue streak, then drew her back into a shadowed alcove. "Mon Dieu! Cést une erreur."
Lucy gave him another irritated look. "English, please."
"You're mistaken."
She snorted. "No, I'm not. I know, Val. I know about the Ka."
He went even whiter than his usual vampire complexion. "How the hell did you find out? Who told you?" His suspicions had been right all along; this menacing mess of a miss had stuck her pretty little nose into something that wouldn't necessarily get it bitten off, but more likely aged by four or five decades. Mais oui, that pretty little nose just might get her a pretty little headstone in the not-too-distant future—or at the very least end up permanently wrinkled like a Sharpei.
"I can't reveal a source," Lucy protested.
Val shook his head, glaring at her. "Serena Stevens! I should have known. My partner told me Serena acted funny when asked if she'd told anyone else about her attack." He wished he had a switch to take to the broomstick witch for having talked to Lucy.
"This isn't The X-Files, and you aren't Fox Mulder," he told her. "Stay the hell away from this, Lucy. It's police business, and none of yours."
"Why haven't you told the public about it?" Lucy demanded, her mouth turning down at the corners. "Don't you think everyone deserves to know that a new monster is in town? That a kiss can kill you. That, if you get lucky, you'll only get a quick trip to Florida and retirement."
"We don't want John Q Public up in arms," Val said. "We need to avoid mob mentality, humans with garlic and stakes attacking every vampire in sight. So… if a leak comes about the incubus, I'll know just where to look," he warned her.
Lucy started to argue, but Val was familiar with her tactics. He stalled her by adding, "We're calling a press conference in two days to inform the public." He didn't like informing the public, because that meant the incubus would know his cover was blown, perhaps making him harder to track. In the worst case, the incubus would move to a different territory, making him impossible to catch. He'd have to work fast to catch the beast.
Lucy closed her mouth, appeased. The public was going to be warned. But that also meant a slew of bounty hunters would be on the prowl for the Ka, which decreased her chances of finding the youth-stealing critter first. She didn't like that possibility.
"Just go home and stay out of this," Val advised her sternly. He was hoping that for once Lucy would use what little common sense God had given her and back off. "No story is worth your life."
"I know what I'm doing, Val," she replied. "I'm not a beef-witted simpleton."
The look he gave her said different. "Lucy, with your record you will either have the Big Easy in a big uproar, or end up with varicose veins and and a berth in a coffin. You don't know what you're doing."
"I do so," she snapped. "I'm a qualified professional."
"You were a weather girl. Now you do a talk show that's the joke of the paranormal world. Chet Huntley, Connie Chung, or Barbara Walters you are not. So stay the hell out of this!"
Every word stomped harder on her pride. "I might not be fricking Connie Chung, but I'm trying! And just why the hell do you care?" she hissed.
Val leaned against a column, staring hard at this hard-headed, distrustful, misguided mortal. She had a suspicious nature, which he abhorred, and she was so unruly that she created anarchy wherever she went. "You know what, cherie? I wish the hell I knew why I bother. I wish the hell I knew why I care."
Lucy's temper, which had been a roaring blaze, did a slow burn and then fizzled out as the import of his words struck. Val still cared! But just how much? Reaching out her hand, she gently touched his arm. "You do bother. You do care. Warning me? That tells me something."
His deep blue eyes were smoldering, but he shook his head. "Trop retard." Lucy opened her hands, palm up—she didn't understand—so he went on: "It's too late, Lucy. Too late. You didn't trust me. You didn't love me enough."
"But I did, Val. Surely you can't believe I didn't love you. Why, I loved you like nobody I've ever loved in my
entire life. You were my moon and my stars."
"Whether you did or didn't, it's a little late now. That's all spilt blood, not to be cried over. It's in the past."
Lucy leaned into his chest, staring up into his eyes with earnest intent. She could sense something new, something she'd never seen. Something she'd never allowed herself to see?
"Forget the past," she said. "I'm listening now. I really want to know what happened that night. I really need to know."
Touching a finger to her chin, he bent his head toward hers. "I don't want to talk about it. I can't forget that you honored me so little. Trusted me so little."
She circled his shoulders with her arms, and reaching up and drawing his head down for a kiss. The kiss was scorching hot, burning with need and fever. Lucy's insides heated up, too. She had so missed Val's lips on hers. His soft, hot mouth, and the way he made her feel inside—all melting and sugary. This was heaven: being in his arms again, his lips on hers after four long hot summers and frozen winters. There was nothing but this moment in time. She wished it would last.
Val wanted to lose himself in these sweet hot passions that were unique to Lucy alone. But he couldn't. He didn't trust her anymore, not with his heart or his desires.
Lucy was jerked back quite unwillingly into the present by the sound of Val's name being called.
"Ah, Val, I've been looking for you everywhere, and here you are. You said you'd be bored at the Monster's Ball, but you don't look bored to me."
Both Lucy and Val drew apart. Val looked a little uncomfortable, and Lucy was dumbstruck. It was her: the slutty, villainous vampiress who had vamped Val! Lucy hated her, despised her, wanted to kick her blood-sucking butt from there to Fort Worth.
The woman seemed amused. "Val—aren't you going to introduce me to the lady you've been kissing?"
Val looked put out, but reluctantly complied. He said, "Christine Armstrong, this is Lucy Campbell."
Lucy glanced from Val back to the vamp. She was dressed in a tight golden dress that revealed most of her chest and her upper arms. The female vampire was muscular, but in a feminine and curvy way. The name Armstrong seemed to fit. This viperous vampiress could probably bench-press Lucy at least twice over.
Still, Campbell women being Campbell women, Lucy wanted to deck her—or at least pull her hair out or something equally humanly fiendish. This was the home-wrecker! And she was still around Val, while Lucy was long gone?
Her gaze hot and furious, it raked over the vampiress and then back to Val. "Damn you to hell, Valmont DuPonte," Lucy said. "I almost bought your act. I thought maybe, just maybe, I had been wrong about what I saw that night!"
Lucy clenched her fists, her breathing tight, trying desperately to control the tears that were in her eyes and in the back of her throat. Once again, Val had branded her heart without even showing up for the roundup. More of her mother's sage advice suddenly rang in her ears: "If a rattlesnake bites you once, you're damned unlucky. If you get bit twice, your mama raised a fool."
"What a laugh!" she continued. "You made a fool of me then, and I'm a great big fool now. Foolish, the Queen of Fools. I hope you're satisfied, Mr. Two-timing Tick! I was ready to throw myself at your feet and listen to your explanations. If I had been wrong, I would have begged your forgiveness for being too suspicious. For not trusting you more. But you're still with this woman! How dare you? So I'm human, and evidently my poor mortal blood isn't good enough for you. So you cheat on me with this fang-faced viper? Well, Val, here's a big surprise: I'm proud of my human blood and my talk show. I wouldn't invite you on if you were the last bloodsucker on earth. So take that, you big leech!" And with those words, Lucy turned and ran off into the crowd, her eyes full of tears of hurt and humiliation.
Val and Christine watched her go, bumping into every person on the dance floor as she passed.
"She still loves you, mon ami," Christine remarked thoughtfully. With a girlfriend like Lucy, Val would be up to his neck in trouble trying to keep up with her. Which was perhaps just what her morose partner needed—a lover who would shake him up like a blenderful of margarita, and keep him laughing as the nights turned to years turned to decades.
Val snorted. "And that makes everything all right? She didn't trust me enough to listen to what I had to say. No, it's all blood under the bridge now."
"She would have listened tonight. She still will if you go after her," Chris advised, recalling the look of terrible pain in Lucy's eyes.
Val shook his head. "You can't have love without trust," he said tersely.
"Val, your love life since Lucy has been dead as a doornail. For eighteen months you tore everybody's head off like a rogue werewolf. Talk to the lady. Work it out."
Val growled. "Go stick your nose someplace it's wanted, and leave my love life alone," he said, and then he stalked off.
"What love life?" Christine called after him, shaking her head. The male species really was quite stupid at times, and quite stubborn. It was a good thing that females knew just how to handle them. Laughing, Chris dubbed herself the matchmaker from hell.
And she was about to do a little business.
Chapter Thirteen
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Lucy hurried outside the club and began walking back to her car four blocks away. Tears were running down her cheeks, along with a thin trail of mascara.
"Damn, I must look like a raccoon," she muttered to herself. She wasn't going to be doing any more hunting tonight for DeLeon. Val's latest deception had devastated her, made her fit only for the dogs.
Her high heels made a clip-clop noise on the sidewalk through the mist swirling at her feet. Behind her, she could hear someone's fast approach. She felt a twinge of unease at the hurried purpose of those steps, but, taking a quick peek behind her, she stopped suddenly, anger overriding her sense of caution.
"What the hell are you doing following me?" she snapped. At the moment, she didn't care if the female vampire wanted to have her for lunch; Lucy felt sure that at the very least she could tear out all the vampiress's lovely black hair at the roots. "Come to gloat?"
The woman stopped in front of her, shaking her head. "That was pretty stupid back there," she suggested.
"Thanks. I really appreciate you coming after me for an extra insult or two. What is this, some new vampire fad?" Lucy stuck a finger in the air, then pointed it. "Well, I can come up with a few insults of my own. You're a coffin-jumping, neck-licking, freaky-fanged vamp!"
Christine laughed softly. Then, seeing Lucy's hands clench into fists, she wiped the smile off her face. If she went and punched out Val's one true love, her partner might get a bit testy. "You've got it all wrong, Lucy," she said.
The mortal rolled her eyes. "Sure," she said sarcastically. "It's in a frog's nature to hop."
Christine blinked. "What's a frog got to do with Val?"
"It's the nature of the reptile—or the beast or vampire or whatever," Lucy ranted. "A cheater cheats."
Christine hissed at Lucy, angry. "Val would never betray anyone—especially not you. You've got it all wrong. Val and I aren't lovers. We haven't been for over eighty years. I'm just his partner in the PTF. I have been for the last four years."
"Oh, right. I'm too dumb to notice his fangs in your neck that night, and you both practically buck-naked! He was going at your jugular like a wino with a bottle of Thunderbird."
Christine shook her head. "It wasn't what it seemed. And we both had bathrobes on."
Lucy raised her eyes to the heavens. "Bathrobes! Well, I saw what I saw—and you're obviously with him tonight."
Christine shook her head. Humans could be so very… human at times. "I'm his partner. That's why we arrived together at the House of Usher. Duty and all that."
"Go on." Lucy felt a strange feeling come over her. Like she was being… stubborn. Stupid. Again.
"The night you dropped in to surprise Val, well, we had been involved in a werewolf pack rumble. Val took a silver bullet meant for t
he chief of the Lafitte clan. He had lost a lot of blood, and was replenishing it off me when you arrived. We were dressed in robes because we'd both had blood all over us, and had showered just a few minutes before." Seeing the doubt and disbelief in Lucy's eyes, Christine added, "I took a shower in the guest bathroom."
"You expect me to believe this?" Lucy asked, her thoughts whirling like a rider on El Diablo, the meanest bull in Texas. What if these things the vampiress said were true? What if Val was truly innocent? What if Lucy had been a world-class idiot, what with her lack of trust and refusal to listen?
"Why didn't he tell me?" she asked.
"He tried more than once. You didn't listen," Christine snapped. "You ripped out his heart better than any slayer ever could."
Lucy gulped, her stomach queasy. "I didn't mean to. I thought he was cheating on me," she said. She might have made a big mistake five years ago. She might have made the biggest mistake of her life, and then, like the world-class idiot she was, gone and done it all over again. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't think anyone who could treat him like that deserved him. He loved and cherished you, and you crushed him."
Lucy hung her head in shame. She couldn't bear to see the accusation in the other female's eyes. And… "Why tell me now?"
"I thought about calling you when you first moved here to the Big Easy, but after watching your show a couple of times, I decided you weren't the brightest bulb on the tree. But maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Either way, Val never got over you, and he deserves to be happy."
Lucy's eyes glistened with tears. Her heart held a glimmer of hope. "You don't think he's over me?"
"No, I don't."
"Then why isn't he here?"
Christine shrugged her elegant shoulders. "Because he's a male vampire, and they do the dead-man-walking-away trick better than any other species. Because you broke his heart and didn't believe in him. Honor for a seventeenth-century vampire is everything."