Shadow Image

by Jaye Roycraft

  “Something like that. Let’s just say I prefer the company of my own kind. At least with them, deception and betrayal are no surprise.”

  She took two more sips of her drink and seemed to consider his statement. Then she put the glass down with a clink and a slosh, and when she replied, her anger was sharper than before. “Then two nights ago was just some grand scheme to seduce me so you could feed on me?”

  “I haven’t fed on you. You have no wounds other than the ones you received last night.”

  “Then what was it? What do you want from me?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same question. I don’t have a satisfactory answer for either one of us. Not yet.”

  She looked down and played with her glass, turning it on the crystal coaster and idly tapping it against the coaster’s lip with a tinkle and a ring. Moisture gleamed in her eyes, and he was afraid the tumbler, contents and all, would become a sacrifice to be ceremoniously flung into the fireplace’s gaping mouth. But she took a deep breath, blinked, and seemed to bring her emotions under control.

  She glanced up at him. “Okay, I’ll ask easier questions. Were you here last night after I fell asleep?”

  He nodded.

  “You knew this . . . vampire that attacked me. Right?”

  “We had met.”

  She frowned again, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the answer itself or its brevity. Like it or not, he couldn’t give out information about the council. Not even about a rogue like Branduff.

  “And his attack was more than just a quick snack? There are others as well who want me dead?”

  “Yes to the first. As for others wanting you dead, I can’t be certain.”

  “But you think so.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t know why. Or you know, but you don’t want to tell me.”

  He merely stared at her. She was right. He couldn’t be sure of anything, and even if he was, he couldn’t tell her.

  When he was silent, she continued. “You’re not helping me understand all this. If you hate humans and prefer your own, why did you kill a vampire to save me?”

  “The vampire that attacked you was a particularly nasty creature. He’d been warned.”

  She took two more swallows of her drink. “Well, remind me never to get on your bad side. But that doesn’t exactly answer my question.”

  “Come over here.” He swung his legs off the sofa to make room for her.

  “No.”

  He sighed. “I’m not what you would call a nice person, and I never will be. My brethren call me Doctor Death. But I’m not going to hurt you. I can better explain my feelings if I don’t have half a room separating us.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt that seduction works better up close and personal. I’ll stay right here if you don’t mind.”

  He wanted to laugh. If she thought this was seduction, she was a true innocent. All he was trying to do was restore some measure of trust. She was right about one thing, though. In the absence of dipping into his bag of vampiric tricks, physical proximity would make it easier to achieve his goal. But before he could overcome her misgivings, he had to overcome her stubbornness. “You’re afraid of me. That’s smart. Fear keeps us alive.”

  His ploy worked. She rocked forward, propelling herself out of the easy chair and toward the sofa. She landed at the far end and folded her unsteady legs beneath her like a newborn foal. “I’m not scared of you. Okay. Explain this to me.”

  “I don’t hate you. Quite the opposite. But it’s something you have to feel, not hear. Come closer.”

  She stared at him, and he could see the animosity drain from her gaze. His body tightened in anticipation of her touch, warm and soft, and he strove to remain patient. She sucked at her lower lip, and he closed his eyes for fear he’d lose all control. He felt the cushions dip, and when he opened his eyes, she was coiled on the couch just inches from him. Her heat flooded over him like the outset of a fever, and he started to sweat.

  “Touch me,” he whispered.

  She reached out a hand toward him, but when she made contact with his face, it was just the tips of her short fingernails that skated across his cheek.

  “Touch me, Shelby. I’m the same man I was before last night.” He snaked his hand around her forearm and slid his fingers forward until his hand covered hers. He applied enough pressure for her to flatten her palm against his skin, but she immediately pulled her hand back as though he would burn her. He let go of her and waited, his body screaming in protest to the commands his mind was issuing for restraint.

  After what seemed endless moments, she touched him of her own accord, one fingertip catching a bead of sweat at his temple and smudging it down his face. “Words cannot express what I am about to say.”

  He chuckled softly and closed his eyes. “Then don’t say anything. Don’t try to make sense of this. Just feel.” Just relax. The compelling command was meant only to ease her confusion, but she leaned against him and laid her cheek on his chest. He slipped his arms around her, and in a few minutes she was more than relaxed—she was asleep.

  SHELBY STRUGGLED to peel her eyes open. It was dark, but she didn’t need any light to taste the cotton in her mouth or feel the tops spinning in her head. For the second time today she awoke in her bed with no idea how she got there. She rolled over and was thankful to see she was alone. She felt decidedly unromantic at the moment. She sat up, and the walls seemed to sway and close in on her at odd angles. She eased out of bed and took a few steps, feeling like she was walking through a fun house at a carnival. A stop in the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face did wonders for clearing her eyesight and banishing the fuzzies from her mouth, but she feared nothing would help her whirling head feel better.

  She walked into the kitchen and saw that the sliding doors were open. “Ric?”

  He materialized from the shadows and loomed tall before her on the rear patio, silhouetted by the light of the moon. “Feel better?”

  She stepped outside. “Better? No. Remind me to never again have you fix me a drink, especially no more vampire cocktails.”

  “And here I thought I did so well in recalling how to do such a mundane human task.”

  She stared at him. His remark was an unnecessary reminder of what he was. “Oh, there’s definitely nothing wrong with your skill in mimicking human ways. I’m just not much of a drinker.”

  “If you’re feeling up to it, go put on some shoes. I’ll take you for a ride.”

  You’ve already taken me for a ride. This was sure to be much more than that. She stared at him. The breeze wafted long strands of hair and, silvered by the moonlight, they swirled in tendrils across his face. His gaze reached for hers like beacons through the mist. He was as magnetic a male specimen as always, but what did he really want from her?

  “Shelby, if we’re going to trust each other, now is a good time to start. If I wanted to abduct you and whisk you away into the night, I could have done it long before now. And keep in mind that my life is just as much in your hands as yours is in mine. I’m entrusting you with a great deal. Come on. Both of us could use a little fun.”

  She closed her eyes and opened her senses to the night. The cool air played with her, ruffling her hair, dancing along her skin, and teasing her with far-off sounds. She had worked the night shift for years in Milwaukee, but never had the darkness beckoned her like it did now. It was more intoxicating than her drink had been. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “All right. I’ll meet you out front.”

  He nodded, and she stepped back inside, closing and locking the patio doors. She changed into jeans, tugged on a pair of leather boots, and grabbed a lightweight jacket from the front closet. By the time she shut the front door behind her, he was straddling the idling bike. She wasn’t sure if it was his words or the seduction of th
e night, but for the first time in two nights she felt logic and caution step aside for adventure and longing. Most cops had a thirst for excitement, and ten years ago she had been no different. Years of experience had taught her that both physical and emotional survival depended on caution, not daring, but the yearning for the rush that risk brought was still within her. She swung her leg over the bike without hesitation.

  Suddenly that yearning burst forth as though a straitjacket had just been torn from her mind and body. She threw her head back and shook it like a frolicking foal experiencing the wonders of life for the first time. There was danger, certainly, but what had heretofore been unknown and forbidden unfurled before her like a highway whose destinations were countless but all within reach. She had only to take it. She rubbed her hands up and down Ric’s back, feeling the contours of his hard body and the smoothness of the long hair that tangled in her fingers. Was this what he felt all the time? The ecstasy of a world filled with so many possibilities, and the freedom and eternal life to explore all of them?

  “You’d better hold on to more than my hair, or your butt’s going to land on the driveway when I open the throttle.”

  She laughed and skimmed her hands along his waist until she could lock her hands together. The motion brought her cheek against his hair, and her body reacted as it always had, tightening into a coil of pleasure that wanted nothing more than to wind around him. “I have an idea. Let’s go to Le Phare.”

  He turned his head, still idling the bike. “French. It means ‘lighthouse.’ Is this a town or an actual structure?”

  “Both. The town is just a crossroads. Le Phare Road dead-ends at Lake Michigan. The lighthouse is right there. It’s about fifteen miles north. Take the highway, then I’ll tell you where to turn.”

  His reply was to put the bike in gear and go. She said nothing more but gave him her trust. At least for now. She pressed her torso against his, shadowing his every move, leaning when he leaned, tensing when he tensed, relaxing when he relaxed. Ten minutes later she let go of him with her left hand, tapped his side, then pointed at the approaching intersection. He nodded, slowed the bike, and turned onto Le Phare Road. They passed through the town, whose biggest claim to fame was that someone in years past had decided the crossroads was important enough to merit a stop sign, and before she knew it she saw reflectors on a guardrail proclaim the end of the road. One overhead street lamp illuminated the dead end, which was wide enough to allow for a turnaround and space for cars to park.

  Beyond the guardrail pale drifts of sand stretched to meet the water, which rolled and glittered darkly in the moonlight like a living entity. The sand’s smoothness was marred only by deposits of driftwood and by pockets of shadow created by the footsteps of a never-ending trickle of tourists. Just to the north the white lighthouse stood silent and steadfast like a tireless sentinel. There was only one other vehicle parked at the guardrail, but no occupants were visible through the van’s windows. Either they had roamed far up or down the beach or they were enjoying each other’s company in the van’s cozy depths. Shelby thought the latter more likely.

  Ric cut the engine and waited. She was reluctant to let go of him, but the sand promised far more comfort than the bike did, so she swung off her perch. Drawn by the ageless lure of the deep, she headed for the water. She was glad for both the boots and the jacket. The heels made walking through the sand laborious, but at least she wouldn’t go home with sand in her shoes. And the breeze, though light, was chill. Still, the brisk air felt good and made her feel alive.

  “So how old are you?”

  It took until they reached the water’s edge before he answered. “I don’t grow old. It would be more accurate to ask when I was born. The answer is 1767.”

  She stopped just short of the wet sand and stared at the parade of waves that pounced on the shore, took their bite of sand, then retreated, only to be replaced by the next voracious breaker. “Why do you hate humans so much?”

  “I was born about fifty miles outside Paris. My father was a comte, the equivalent of a British earl. I was the eldest son, the heir. I had two younger brothers and a sister.”

  Born into a family of nobility? Heir to a title? That was a bad thing? She was obviously missing something.

  Ric started wandering north along the water’s edge, idly tracing the scalloped line that separated the wet sand from the dry. “Do you know anything about French history?”

  A tiny light bulb flickered in the vast black hole that was her knowledge of world history. “The French Revolution.”

  He grunted. “Ah. The French Revolution. An event so momentous it shaped the centuries that followed, yet so few today know anything of it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ric. Memorizing dates and battles and names of leaders I couldn’t pronounce didn’t have much meaning for me when I was a teenager.”

  A sad smile lifted a corner of his mouth. “No, I suppose not. But don’t apologize. I spent decades trying to understand the Revolution, and I have yet to make sense of the madness.”

  “Tell me what happened to you and your family.”

  “Me? I was born the luckiest man alive. I was born in France. We were the richest and most powerful nation on the Continent. Our monarchs had been the envy of all other rulers. French taste in everything from architecture to manners was copied by the rest of the Western world. French became the language of educated people worldwide. We had the best highway system in Europe, our merchant marine had over five thousand ships, and it was French writers who spurred the Age of Enlightenment.” The words, though boastful, were spoken with a bitterness that made Shelby refrain from commenting.

  Ric slowed his pace even more and gazed alternately at the dark water and the wet sand. “I knew nothing of revolution. The only thing my father complained about was that the power of the nobility was being stripped away by the monarchy, and the only thing he worried about was losing his tax-free status. I didn’t care about any of that. Like you, as a teenager I had other things on my mind than fretting about the order of things. I was tall, strong, arrogant, and more of a handful than my brothers and sister combined. My father solved the problem by shipping me abroad to be educated. At first I rebelled at learning English and Latin. Was French not the language of the world?”

  She smiled, though Ric couldn’t see it. It was hard to think of him as being arrogant and rebellious. She wondered what he looked like back then and tried to picture him in tight breeches. It was a delicious image, but when he started talking again the melancholy in his voice made her forget about fashion and good looks.

  “But gradually I became interested in my studies, medicine in particular. One could lose nobility by practicing forbidden occupations, but luckily medicine was exempted from the list of prohibited pursuits. As if that mattered, in the end. When I began to hear derisive remarks about the weakness of Louis XVI, France’s financial woes, and the discontent among the classes I dismissed it all as nothing more than the babbling of jealous classmates who wished that they, too, were French. By the time I started to pay attention to the rumors in earnest, the Third Estate, the lower class, had declared itself the National Assembly and ended the absolutism of the monarchy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Ancien Régime had a very structured class system. There were three estates—the First Estate, Second Estate, and Third Estate, for the clergy, the nobility, and the peasants. Anyway, it was the beginning of the end of everything I had ever known. I wanted to return home, but my father insisted I stay out of the country. The next thing I heard, the Revolutionaries had stormed the Bastille, and the violence had begun. Many aristocrats started fleeing France, and since my father wouldn’t let me come home, I begged him to join me in Austria. But he was proud and stubborn and didn’t wish to either lose his land or be thought of as craven. Perhaps it was the reassurances my father gave me, or perhaps it was just t
he distance from the events that were shaping France, but I still didn’t realize how serious things had become at home. It wasn’t until Robespierre created the Committee of Public Safety and a call to arms went out to the Parisian mobs that I started to make my way home in spite of my father’s protests. But it was too late. The violence had spread like a disease, and the revolution devoured itself. The royalists were the first to feed the appetite of the machine, but the fever and the paranoia raged, and no one was exempt. The mob wanted blood, and that of a moderate ran just as red as that of a royalist. In the end everyone from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Robespierre himself was sacrificed to the Revolution. Robespierre wanted egalite. Well, he got it.”

  “You said you were too late.”

  Ric stopped and stared at the water, but Shelby knew it wasn’t the waves, the moonlight, or even the horizon his eyes saw. “Among the thousands lost to the guillotine were my mother, father, two brothers, and sister. Had I but started my journey a little earlier, I would have joined them.”

  “I’m sorry, Ric,” she said softly, wishing she could say something more.

  He turned toward her, his eyes blinking as though he suddenly remembered she was with him. “It was a long time ago. You’re cold.”

  “A little.” She sat down on a tuft of grass, her back against a mound of sand. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

  He dropped down beside her but left room between his body and hers.

  “What about you, though? How did you become . . . what you are?” She still found the word hard to say.

  “The Undead have always had a large presence in Paris. Back then they called themselves the Fourth Estate, mocking the class structure of the Old Regime. The Reign of Terror was a very real fear for those of the Fourth Estate. Decapitation sends a vampire to the True Death as effectively as it does humans. Even more so, though, the Revolution proved a great source of amusement. Outside of war, it wasn’t often that mortals rivaled the Undead in possessing such an insatiable thirst for blood.”