by Sky Winters
She sniffled in spite of herself. “Um.”
“What’s wrong, dear?”
“I--I…” she shouldn’t whine to her landlord and employer. She struggled to at least control her tone. “I’m sorry, I just...I missed a shift at one of my jobs, the cafe, and they’re going to fire me.”
“Oh! Oh bother, that is unfortunate. Tch.” She paused to yawn enormously, and Lucinda wondered when she herself had woken up. “Well, I can’t meet with you currently, as I’m occupied until after dark. But I was going to ask if you wanted to expand your work duties anyway, so perhaps this will work out nicely.”
She sucked air, her tears drying. “Really? What sort of...expansion?”
“Well, you’ve done a lovely job at the Continental, but an associate of mine needs his penthouse seen to twice a week, and he’s so intensely private that it’s taken me forever to find someone he might say yes to. That’s you, dear. If you could find it in your heart and schedule to take him on, I assure you that the compensation is far better than you will get...waitressing.” her tone twisted with disgust on the last word.
“I don’t understand. Who is the client, and why would he agree to let me work for him when he had refused others?”
Claudia chuckled sleepily. “Oh, it’s Yohan. He’s almost like a son to me, you see, and I’ve done my best to look after his welfare. But he’s intensely private, and dislikes intrusions.”
Her heart was suddenly pounding in her ears, and her cheeks flushed. “Then w-why would he accept me working in his home?”
Claudia was very quiet for a few seconds, and then snorted. “Ah, young people. Let’s just say that he’ll want you there for the same reason he wished to meet you last night. You sing while you work, my dear. He wants to hear you again.”
When Claudia hung up after making arrangements, Lucinda set her phone down and stared at it. Remembering her strange mix of feelings at Yohan’s approach. And the images and sensations, which must have been from dreams: his arms around her. The feel of his teeth--
Now she really couldn’t think straight. She grabbed her robe and a set of clothes for the day and went down the hall to shower. As she toweled off her curls, she noticed something odd in the mirror. Brows knitting, she leaned forward--and saw a pair of tiny bruises where she had dreamed of Yohan kissing her. She brushed her fingertips over the spot, and found it sore and sensitive in a way that made her breath catch.
She started at Yohan’s penthouse two days later, promptly at sundown. The red-haired doorman let her up with a little smile; he was pale and bright-eyed and reminded her of Yohan and Claudia in a way she couldn’t quite place. The penthouse required a key to access its floor, and he turned it for her, then bowed and stepped back out of the elevator as the doors closed. Dressed in a simple black uniform for cleaning, Lucinda didn’t understand his solicitude, or the knowing smile on his lips.
The door opened onto a broad entryway of polished wood, with a parquet floor and glass-fronted bookcases lining the walls. A fire crackled on the hearth directly across from the elevator, and two hallways extended from either side of the entryway, stretching out the length of the building and lined with four doors apiece. She noticed a note sitting on the elaborately-scrolled mantel above the fireplace, and went to retrieve it, presuming it to be her instructions.
In a neat hand, almost too delicate to be masculine, the Maestro had made a short list of the night’s expectations. There was wood to polish, floors to sweep; at least one bed to change and make; laundry to send down the chute. She was instructed not to touch his music, his books or his instruments. Oddly, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom were not among her duties. Perhaps he had someone else to do that.
He himself did not seem to be anywhere around. In a way that was better; at least she could work instead of spending her whole time simply being...aware...of his presence. Somewhere nearby, but excruciatingly apart from her.
His home was, for the most part, completely neat, needing little in the way of actual tending save to prevent dust from settling on its surfaces. He was a fan of polished wood, in floors, pillars, panels and furniture; various shades surrounded her at all times. She didn’t see much of the Gilded Age in his personal rooms, making her think that that was probably a preference of Claudia’s. She set to work, immersing herself in the quiet contemplation of repetitive work. The smell of oil soap clung to her nostrils as she fed and polished all that wood. She grew bored eventually, and started to hum...then quietly sing, just keeping herself company.
The sound of a pair of hard shoes hitting the floor at the far end of the right hallway caught her attention, and she looked up from her scrubbing to see a familiar tall figure standing in front of the far window at the end of the hall. It stood open behind him. He closed it, and then turned back absently to head for one of the near doors, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He seemed completely distracted, and didn’t see her. She unfroze the moment he stepped out of sight, and went back to work. Quietly, for a while...but then humming, and finally singing again, softly. The acoustics of the place were wonderful.
She heard a door open down that same hallway, but couldn’t interrupt in polishing the glass bookcase fronts or they would streak, so she didn’t turn around. Instead she kept at her quiet aria and her quiet work. After a moment, the door shut again.
The same acoustics that gave her voice greater strength, however, also carried voices from elsewhere, and she quickly became aware of a one-sided conversation going on behind one of that hallway’s doors. She kept singing, pretending to be oblivious, but she could hear Yohan’s beautiful, lightly-accented voice raised in shock as he spoke into a phone.
“I understand that I needed someone trustworthy, but why is she here? ...No, I understand that, but you saw what almost happened last night. It isn’t safe.
“...What? You can’t expect me to agree to that!”
A long pause. “...No. Of course I want her ‘around’. It’s a relief to see her lively again, and...yes, you are right about her voice. But the risk, Claudia….”
Lucinda shivered and felt her heart leap in a way that she couldn’t afford it to. She had misheard him, that was it. He couldn’t want her here, not a mere aspirant to a musical career who was cleaning his damned apartments for a living.
Yohan’s voice raised in consternation. “Sire, you are driving me to distraction with your interference. How could you do this? You know that I cannot afford--no, no, that is not it. Of course I miss my Constanze. But she is gone, three centuries gone. I know this. I merely...what? No!” She could hear him pacing.
She had to have misheard that. Three centuries gone? No one was widowed for three centuries; no one lived for three centuries. Her heart pounded, and she had to force herself to keep singing.
Yohan sighed, his voice calmer. “Well yes, perhaps I do have a ‘type’. But it is terribly presumptuous of you to wave this girl in front of my face in the expectation that I...what? Yes, of course, Imelda is obsessed, she’ll be furious. But why…? Ah. I see. Do you truly believe that I keep myself apart from women because of Imelda’s jealousy? She and I were never lovers in the first place, no matter what she wanted to happen. I never even wanted her as progeny. She’s a damned accident!”
This conversation was getting weirder and weirder. She broke into some Gilbert and Sullivan to try and distract herself from eavesdropping. Except...wait. Imelda Castellanos was the name the blonde singer last night had been announced by. That snobby bitch. Apparently, she wanted Yohan, but Yohan wanted nothing to do with her. Somehow that made Lucinda smile a little--nastily. That woman had rubbed her the wrong way from the first moment, and the idea that Yohan wanted her around but not his own “progeny”--whatever that was--made her feel good.
Yohan sounded both pained and a little amused. “Claudia. My sire. Why don’t you just out and tell me why you sent this girl here to me? You’re not as good at keeping secrets as you think, and I can tell you’re up to something.”
Lucinda almost missed a note wondering herself.
“Well, that’s lovely, and certainly a virgin’s blood is always a delight, but...eh? Oh, don’t be ridiculous, it’s been three centuries since I’ve touched a woman. I’d break her.”
What?
“You actually expected me to--I can’t believe you’re meddling like this. I should go out there and dismiss her at once. For her own good!”
Her voice faltered and died, and her eyes stung. She couldn’t help it. No, wait, please, don’t send me away….
Another long pause. “That is true. No, yes, and she has been, and it’s lovely. But...oh Claudia, now you’re being completely silly. It can’t happen. Because...because these things never work out. No, I’m not being dramatic.” Pace, pace, pace. Finally he burst out, “Between your machinations and Imelda’s fit-throwing, I’m getting rather sick of my kin!”
The conversation ended, and she bent back to her work, her heart hammering. What is going on? Half the things he said made no sense at all.
Chapter 4
She was supposed to sing something as she worked. That was the real reason Claudia had sent her. Yohan didn’t need a maid so much as he wanted her song in his ears. It was strange, and beautiful, and awkward, and it gave her a touch of stage fright as she cast around in her head for something to fill the awkward silence after that phone call. But the only one that came to mind hit far too close to home for her these days, and she didn’t even know if he would recognize it. Only when she’d been scrubbing for a good five minutes in silence did she give up, and start in. She didn’t sound anything like Harry Chapin, of course, but she knew the pain behind the song intimately.
“Mr. Tanner was a cleaner from a town in the Midwest,
And of all the cleaning shops around, he made his the best,
But he also was a baritone who sang while hanging clothes.
He practiced scales while pressing tails and sang at local shows.
His friends and neighbors praised the voice that poured out from his throat.
They said that he should use his gift instead of cleaning coats….”
The song’s chorus was a duet, with Harry singing while the character sang the chorus from “Oh Holy Night” in the background.
“Music was his life, It was not his livelihood
And it made him feel so happy, it made him feel so good
And he sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul
He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole…”
The song spoke in tender terms of the brutality of the music industry, as it crushed the dreams of the music-loving cleaner, who spent most of his savings and all his nerve taking the stage for an audition with a New York music agency at the urging of everyone who knew him. His reward for all his effort and risk was a four-line rejection, and a trip home in defeat. It reminded her so much of the plight of herself and so many others that she almost never sang it in public, for fear of embarrassing herself. Right now, her voice shook a little, but she held the notes.
“He came home to Dayton and was questioned by his friends.
But he smiled and just said nothing, and he never sang again,
Excepting very late at night when the shop was dark and closed,
He sang softly to himself, as he sorted through the clothes….”
A voice rose from somewhere as she started into the last chorus, sounding far off: a gentle baritone, echoing down the hall.
“Fall on your knees
O hear the angels’ voices
O night divine, O night when Christ was born
O night divine, O night, o night divine….”
She managed to finish, and then leaned on the wall next to the bookcase she had been polishing, so moved that she could not speak. And then, though the voice had sounded far off, a hand slid onto her shoulder from behind. She heard Yohan’s voice soft at her ear as he moved up close to her.
“I see now. This is why you weep."
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold it in, but she was shaking. She didn't want to unload on him emotionally. It felt like the most obnoxious, unattractive thing she could do in his presence. But she was crumbling in the face of even a hint of understanding of her plight.
And he did understand. "You scrub walls and sort books while people with half your talent take the spotlight your hard work should have earned you, because they appeal to some current trend and you do not. And all that is permitted to be said about it is, ‘that’s just the industry. That is just the way it is.’”
She nodded, not trusting herself to turn around just yet.
He leaned forward, so that his lips brushed her ear. “Lucinda,” he whispered. “There are other ways to be heard than the narrow path they have set….”
She turned around, staring him in the face, her confusion and anger suddenly crystallizing inside of her despite his soothing closeness. She tried to say something sharp, tried to challenge him. But her anger faded as she stared into those blue eyes. Instead she simply asked, in soft anguish: “Why do you care?”
His jaw dropped. His expression mixed tenderness with shock and grief; now it was he who seemed to be hunting for words and getting nowhere. Finally, he stepped forward, nudging her back against the wall, and took her chin in his hand, pressing his lips against hers softly.
Lucinda froze. He can’t be kissing me. I’m dreaming again. Or he’s drunk, or.... But even as her heart skipped and started to pound, she gave in to that foolish, upwelling warmth inside her, and shyly responded. Tentative at first, almost delicate, wondering at how cool his lips were and how soft. Then as he pushed against her and intensified the kiss, responding with the same hunger, as the warmth inside her roared up into a sharp and demanding heat. Her restraint snapped, and took her doubts with it.
Oh yes. God, yes. Her arms twined around him, and she went up on her toes as he lifted her against him easily. His mouth threatened to smother her--how did he go so long without air? But she didn’t really give a damn about that or anything else besides being close to him. If he wanted her, then there was no point restraining herself. Wonder and delight and desire coursed through her and she knew she had fallen for him hopelessly. And she hadn’t felt anything this good in years.
But despite their reverie, which went on for a long, sweet minute, she started to notice something as he kissed and nuzzled her. His body was so strangely still against hers. Not his hands, sliding up her back and down her arms and through her hair; not his lips, still ravaging hers; not his voice, which had lowered to soft, wordless sounds of delight that matched her own. His body trembled against hers...but it did not pant. He didn’t seem to be drawing breath at all. Her heartbeat pounded against his chest, but his...she couldn’t feel. And his skin stayed cool, warming only where she touched him, where most men would have gone feverish with arousal. Not a drop of sweat on him; no pulse in his lips, or in his neck where her fingers brushed it.
No body heat. No breath. No heartbeat. A bite that gave pleasure but could kill. Three hundred years. Her mind was putting puzzle pieces together that she didn’t want it to; she only wanted to hold him, kiss and be kissed, and...do more….
Suddenly something sharp sliced into the inside of her lower lip; she backed off, startled, holding her mouth. “Ow. Yohan, what--”
He had let her go, and had his face part turned away from her. His shoulders shook; he seemed to brace himself, and then turned so she could see him. His blue eyes didn’t just shine; they glowed, casting a soft light down his pale cheeks and sparkling in his lashes. His beautiful lips were stained darkly with blood--her blood, she realized, as she felt the cut on her lip. And overhanging the lower one, the culprits in her small but telling injury: a pair of fangs, glittering like shards of crystal in the dim light.
Every clue came together at once with terrible clarity: she stared at him, eyes huge, barely able to take more than tiny sips of air. He couldn’t be, but he was: a creature from a leg
end, now standing a foot away with her blood on his mouth--and her lips still tingling from his kiss.
“Yohan...you’re….”
His face twisted with anguish and he dragged himself away from her, turning away and pressing his hand over his mouth as if he wished he could yank out his fangs and be rid of them. “Don’t look at me!”
Something in her screamed for her to run, but she stayed, transfixed by the terrible grief and fear on this strange being’s face. He seemed to expect her to flee; he closed his eyes, as if afraid to watch her leave. She saw a tear trickle out from under his lashes as his mouth closed, and the fangs slid out of sight, his lips twisting with dejection and self-disgust.
What happened on the contest night was real. He drank some of my blood. I loved it. And now this. He’s...he’s a vampire.
She held herself still, waiting for this impossible knowledge to sink in somehow. Bits of it did; the conversations with Claudia suddenly had context. His mention of being a widower for centuries. That comment about virgin’s blood. Everything. But mostly what she saw was the strange being in front of her, in pain, alone, facing a hell she knew intimately: rejection. He had made himself vulnerable in reaching out to her, and now….