He was at the door when he made a sudden decision. For the time being, it might be best that she not remember everything in detail He walked back to the couch and touched his fingertips to her forehead.
Now, whenever she recalled what had transpired here tonight, she would remember it only as a dream. An erotic dream that would leave her longing for his touch again.
And when her lust for him reached its peak, when she was hungering for his kiss above all else, when she was out of her mind with need for him, he’d make his move to irrevocably bind her to him.
Chapter Six
IT WAS LATE FRIDAY afternoon when Simone, acting on the clue she had found in her stepsister’s log, started down Bourbon Street in search of The Next Level.
She had slept later than usual that morning, her sleep the night before troubled by erotic dreams of Julian. Dreams that had left her feeling flushed and more than a little embarrassed throughout the day. Embarrassed because she secretly enjoyed the warm, sensual feeling that stayed with her.
It had also taken her longer than she’d planned to make another trip to Dottie’s apartment, gather as much of her stepsister’s remaining belongings as she could, and carry them back to her own apartment at Mike’s.
She wasn’t at all certain that The Next Level would be open. The majority of the businesses in the Quarter were still closed, either from damage or lack of staff. Fortunately, the bar was easy to spot with a three foot sign on the sidewalk and a large handwritten sign on the door announcing it opened every afternoon at three.
Simone opened the door and found the place empty except for one man at the far end of the bar and a man she assumed was the owner sweeping the floor.
“Bar service only, until six,” the man said, leaning on his broom as she approached.
“I just need some information.” She opened her wallet and held out a picture of Dottie taken the year before. “Do you remember seeing her in here before the storm?”
The man, who introduced himself as Paul, took the wallet from Simone, gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. “Nope. Never saw her before.”
“Please, take another look.” Simone held the wallet out to him again. “She’s my sister, missing since the hurricane. I have good reason to believe she came here at least once before it struck. Maybe more than once.”
“Don’t have to look again. Never saw her in here.” Simone didn’t like the way Paul avoided looking directly at her, as if he were hiding something. Before she could plead with him to take one more look, he resumed sweeping, walking toward the door as he did, forcing her to follow him.
“I’d like to help, lady, but before that bitch of a storm hit, this place was packed so tight every night I wouldn’t have seen my own mother in here. Sorry,” he added, pushing the door open in a silent request for her to leave.
The man’s total indifference about a missing person made Simone want to lash out at him, but she kept her anger under control. She would come back at night when there were more customers in the bar and she could question them without Paul’s interference. Maybe she’d find someone who would remember seeing Dottie.
“Thank you,” Simone said, her voice as cold and dispassionate as his had been. She stepped out onto the sidewalk, let out a groan of frustration and started back toward Mike’s. She was halfway down the block when someone called out to her. She turned around. Headed toward her was the middle-aged African American man she’d seen when she first entered The Next Level. She stopped and waited for him. When he reached her, she noted his bloodshot eyes were brimming with tears.
“Lemme see the picture,” he said, holding out an unsteady hand.
Simone quickly dug into her purse, pulled out the wallet and flipped it open again to Dottie’s picture.
The man brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. “She was there. Saw her talkin’ to one of those bloodsuckers.”
Simone swallowed. “Bloodsuckers?”
“That’s what everyone calls them.”
The man pulled a rumpled handkerchief from his back pocket, passed it across his face, and balled it in one of his beefy hands. He shifted his gaze and looked vacantly off into the distance.
“My house is down there. My wife and daughter got scared when they heard the hurricane was headed this way with all that water around us.” He turned and looked absently behind him to where the Mississippi River flowed behind the levee, then turned back to Simone. “They went to eastern New Orleans to be safe.” He paused, closed his bleary eyes for a second, and blinked them open again. “We got no water here.” His voiced cracked. “They drowned.”
She laid a hand on the man’s forearm. “I’m so sorry.” He looked at her, his dark, weathered cheeks glistening with tears.
“Ain’t nothin’ can bring my family back. Nothin’.” He reached out and grasped her hand. “Maybe the flood took your loved one too, but maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was one of those bloodsuckers like the one I saw your sister talkin’ to.”
In the mild October afternoon, Simone’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean, bloodsuckers, Mr.—”
“Deke. Deke Williams. They call me Big Deke.”
“Mr. Williams, Deke, is there something you think I should know? I had a feeling back there that Paul knew something he didn’t want to talk about.”
“He knows. All the regulars know, too.”
Simone’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. “Know what, Mr. Williams?”
A creaking sound from the direction they’d just left made both Big Deke and Simone turn. The door of The Next Level was open, and Paul stood looking down the street at them. When he saw they’d noticed him, he stepped back inside and quickly closed the door.
Deke shifted nervously. “He won’t like my talkin’ to you.”
“Why, Mr. Williams? What’s going on around here?”
Deke leaned forward and spoke close to her ear. “Do you believe in vampires?”
Simone’s heart raced faster. “Vampires? You mean like Dracula?”
Deke nodded, fear reflected in his haunted brown eyes.
Dottie’s mention of vampires during their telephone conversation and the note she’d made in her logbook came rushing back. As did Julian’s humorous remark a couple of days earlier.
Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Simone moved closer to the brick wall of the building behind her. “Do you know of a bar called Mike’s After Dark?” As soon as the question was out, she was sorry she had asked it. One part of her wanted to know everything Big Deke could tell her, but there was another part that wanted to block out anything unpleasant. And she knew with a deep certainty that whatever this man had to tell her was not going to make her smile. Still, she had come too far to turn tail and run. She had to know.
Deke’s eyes rounded like quarters. “That place is supposed to be owned by one of them. But as I heard it, he’s not one of the regular bloodsuckers. Heard he drinks his blood in a special drink he makes himself.”
Simone’s scalp tingled. The Double B. Was that what Big Deke was talking about? She would have to be crazy to give any credence to this stranger’s wild story, but her need for the truth would not let her cast it aside.
“Do you . . . do you really believe in . . . in creatures like that?”
Big Deke shifted and cast a sidelong glance toward The Next Level. “Ain’t just what I believe. Lots of people believe it. What with all them young women with marks on their necks, some of them with their necks ripped open.” Deke cast another, anxious glance down the street. “And not just since the storm, either. It was happenin’ long before that.”
Suddenly, Simone recalled the television program she’d watched last night and the reporter’s questions to the doctor: “Have you been able to identify where and how these people were injured?” The doctor’s response was still crystal clear in her mind: “T
he patients are all dazed beyond what we’ve come to see in even the most severely affected patients, and the wounds are all in the neck and head area.”
The memory of the program on top of what Deke had just told her made Simone’s temple begin to throb. When she added those things to Dottie’s disappearance and the disappearance of the young woman Dottie had come here to find, her whole head felt about to burst.
And she couldn’t forget about the two women who had come to New Orleans with the young woman Dottie was searching for. One of the women had died in an auto accident, but as far as she knew the other was still missing and being searched for by another investigator. The whole idea of bloodsucking vampires made Simone’s stomach turn and chilled her with fear, but the coincidence made her want to begin an investigation of her own.
Right now though, her immediate concern was what Deke had just told her about Mike’s . . . and by extension, about Julian. She had to find out the truth about him before she tackled anything else
Suddenly she remembered how Julian had read her mind. How he seemed to transport her through time by the sheer pull of his eyes. The way he’d healed the cut on his thumb. And, oh my God, the erotic dream she had last night. Could it be possible it wasn’t a dream?
Simone felt herself sway, as if she’d been hit by a strong wind.
Deke reached out and grasped her shoulders. “Are you okay, lady?”
The thoughts kept coming.
Mike’s words that first day she stepped into the darkness of the bar. Julian doesn’t like bright light.
She had never yet seen Julian in daylight, and vampire’s slept by day and roamed by night.
That was ridiculous. It was vampire mythology. Stories. Legends. Not the way things really were.
But she couldn’t make her mind accept logic any more than she could make her insides stop shaking.
Deke’s hold on her shoulders tightened. He gave her a light shake. “Lady, you okay?”
Simone bit down on her lip and chewed it nervously. She had to get hold of herself. “What did this man look like? The man you saw my stepsister talking to?”
“Dark eyes, dark hair, kind of wild lookin’, like his eyes. Ladies were always after him.”
“So, there were other women that came to the bar to be with him?”
“Every night I was there.”
Simone took a business card and a pen from her purse, wrote her cell phone number on the back of the card and held it out to Deke.
“Take this. If you ever see this man again, would you please call me?”
“I won’t be seeing that man again, least ways not back there.” He jerked his head toward the bar they’d just left. “I been there my last time today. I’m not too ready to go back after talkin’ with you.”
“Keep it anyway, please. And if you think of anything . . . anything at all that might help me . . .” She felt a stab of pity for this stranger who had taken a risk talking to her. “Thanks so much for your help, Deke. I hope your grief eases soon.”
Big Deke took the card from her with a nod and, without another word, crossed to the other side of the street. Simone’s heart fell as she watched him walk away, grateful for what he’d shared with her, but with the definite feeling that with him went the first real hope of finding Dottie soon. Deke knew more than he’d shared with her. She was certain of that. But she hadn’t missed the fear in his eyes. And she was thankful for the information he had volunteered. It was more than she’d had when she started out.
For a moment, she considered going back to The Next Level and demanding the owner tell her what he knew about the things Deke had revealed. But deep down she suspected it would be fruitless to do so. Better not to antagonize him yet.
Summoning a strength she had never tapped before, Simone ordered her body and her senses to even out. When she felt calm enough to think and act rationally, she started back to Mike’s.
FINDING THE FRONT door to the bar locked, Simone climbed the stairs leading to the building’s side entrance. When she reached the top, she fished in her purse for the key to the heavy iron door, recalling Mike’s instructions when he’d first given her the key.
“Once the key is in the lock you have only a few seconds to turn it and open the door. Then,” he’d continued, “once you’re inside you have only another few seconds to punch in the alarm code.” Fortunately, the code numbers he’d given her were easy to remember. His final instructions had been, “Commit the code to memory and tell no one, absolutely no one, the combination.”
At the time, she hadn’t given it much thought, but she wondered now, as she stood in front of the door, if he needed such security why he would trust her, a complete stranger, with such important information.
Since it was the first time she’d been up here, she took a few extra seconds to look around before inserting the key in the lock. From the street, the old building didn’t appear to run as deep as it actually did. Behind what Simone knew was her apartment, the building extended for another thirty feet or so, but it was only of single level construction.
She hadn’t thought much about what was in the building’s rear courtyard, but she could see now that a well-tended garden bordered the three brick walls. And at the far end, where low box hedges were still green and an array of potted plants were in various stages of growth, two men sat on a cement bench, sharing a bag of chips.
She couldn’t imagine needing two workers to tend such a small garden, but at the moment there were more important things on her mind than a waste of money on gardening, so she turned her attention back to the door in front of her.
Her heart was hammering in her chest when she inserted the key in the lock, gave it a quick turn and stepped inside. She keyed in the alarm code on the touch pad, waited for the light to turn green, and let out a sigh of relief when it did.
Her heart still pounding, Simone walked the few short steps to Mike’s office. She knocked softly but firmly on the door. It swung open.
“I need to speak to Julian,” she said, punctuating the words. “Now,” she added, determined to make him see she was serious.
Mike’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong? Is there something you need? Something I can help with?”
“No,” she declared, shaking her head as she spoke. “I need to speak directly to Julian.”
Mike scowled at her and his displeasure carried over into his voice. “Julian’s in his apartment. He’ll be in the bar in a couple of hours. You can talk to him then.”
Simone lifted her chin and met Mike’s frown with a glare of her own. “I can’t wait that long. I need to speak with him now.” She felt her composure being quickly replaced by fear. But what or who was she afraid of? Julian? Of an unthinkable reality described to her by Deke Williams? Was there a difference?
She saw Mike’s back stiffen. “Julian’s not feeling well. I can’t disturb him now. I’ll tell him you need to see him as soon as he comes out.”
Resisting the urge to yell at him, Simone shot him a look deadly enough to kill.
“Very well,” she said, stiffening her own spine. “I see I have no choice except to wait.” She turned and headed toward her apartment. “But,” she threw at Mike over her shoulder, “I won’t be down to work until I’ve spoken with Julian.” She stopped at the door to her apartment and turned full body to face him. “Even if it means losing my job.”
JULIAN’S SLEEP WAS nearing its end and his dreams were as vivid as if he were living them. He’d been dreaming of happy times, when he had a mother, a father, brothers—a complete family that loved one another.
And Michael was there as well, watching over them all.
The focus of his dream shifted and the faces of his human family morphed into the lovely face of Simone LeClerc. Hers was not a happy face. It reflected confusion. Anger. Fear.
He
pushed against the dream, against the death sleep itself, but he couldn’t break through it to go to her. The needs of his body were stronger even than the force of his will, and he succumbed to the final hour of rest.
Later, as he dressed, his heart beating strong and his strength restored, Simone’s face swam before his eyes. Tonight, she would test his resolve. Of that he was certain.
But no matter how strong her will, his was stronger.
She would be his before too long.
Chapter Seven
SIMONE PACED THE tiny room, the mug of coffee in her hands growing cold and the restlessness inside her building to a fever pitch. She’d bounced on and off the couch a half dozen times, her thoughts replaying the conversation with Deke Williams over and over until her head spun like a tornado.
When she could avoid it no longer, she opened up her mind and allowed other conversations, which she’d repressed, to surface. Conversations she’d had with Julian since her first encounter with him in this very room the day she arrived.
She was so deep in her mental review of those earlier conversations with him that when the knock came it startled her. She rushed to the door and threw it open, ready with a dozen questions and accusations. She was unprepared for the jumble of emotions that swamped her when she saw him standing there in the flesh.
Suddenly, the world as she had always known it no longer existed. The reality that had been her compass, her point of reference from the cradle to this very moment, had changed.
And the reason for that change was the man in front of her. The man she knew as Julian. The man she instinctively knew, despite the seeming impossibility of it, was a vampire.
Revulsion swept through her and bile rose to her throat. She fought to keep from retching as every horrible image of vampires she had ever seen flashed across her mind’s eye. The pale, bloodless flesh, eyes that blazed, talon-like nails at the end of long, withered fingers, and sharp, razor teeth sinking into tender flesh. Dottie’s flesh.
The Vampire Julian Page 6