by Cameron Dean
I reached inward, searching for the place that would steady me, felt a sudden hand on my elbow, and jumped a good half mile. The fact that I realized who it was even as I overreacted didn’t help any.
“About that nickname I gave you,” Al Manelli said, dropping my elbow as I spun around.
“I’m changing it,” I snapped. “As of this moment, it’s Nerves of Jell-O. How’s Bibi? Have you seen her? What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Al said, not specifying whether he was answering my first question or my last one. He took my elbow once again and began to pilot me through the crowd, toward the private elevator that would take us to Randolph Glass’s penthouse. “All I know is that there’s been an attack on Randolph.”
I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that even the undead zone couldn’t protect me from.
“What kind of attack?”
Al ran his key card down the slot to activate the elevator. The security system beeped, just once, and the elevator doors slid open. In tandem, Al and I stepped inside, turning to face them as they whispered closed.
Al ran a hand across his face, and I realized in that moment just how rattled he was. “I’m not altogether sure,” Al admitted as the elevator began to rise. “All I know is that it looks pretty bad, and that it happened in the penthouse. The paramedics are prepping him for transport now.”
“Okay, wait a minute,” I said. “He was attacked in the penthouse?”
No wonder Al is so shocked. Randolph’s penthouse has security that would make the president green with envy. Personally, I would have given better odds on a successful break-in at Fort Knox.
Al nodded, his expression grim. “Bibi was the one who found him. They were supposed to have dinner together, before her first show. She walked through the door and—”
“What about the security tapes?” I broke in.
“Chet’s looking at them now,” Al responded, his tone growing even darker. “Apparently, they’re not telling him much.”
Nothing on the security tapes. That fact told me pretty much all I needed to know. Randolph had been attacked in the most secure location in the entire casino complex: his own penthouse. If the security tapes didn’t show anyone entering or leaving by the private elevator…
Okay, Candace. Slow down. Don’t make any assumptions, I warned myself. The situation seemed more than bad enough without my leaping to conclusions about it. If what I suspected, what I feared, was true, I would be able to see for myself, soon enough.
The elevator reached the penthouse, and the doors slid open. Al stepped off first. I took a moment to steady myself, and followed. I took about five steps then stopped, stock-still.
He hadn’t told me about the blood.
It was everywhere, assaulting my senses, a sledgehammer and a siren’s call, all at once. A pool of it spread across the floor on the far side of the room where, beneath an enormous bank of picture windows, a team of paramedics worked to keep Randolph Glass alive. They were clustered so tightly around him, only his legs were visible to me, strangely loose and useless in their elegant slacks. His feet were turned out at odd angles to his body. A soughing sound filled my ears, the hoarse, desperate passage of air in and out of a windpipe that was struggling to perform its function. Randolph’s breathing, I thought. I took two stumbling steps forward then forced myself across the room to gaze down over the closest paramedic’s shoulder.
Someone had done their best to rip out Randolph Glass’s throat.
The paramedic glanced back, concern for his patient battling with irritation over the potential interruption.
“Ma’am,” he said, in a tight, hard voice. “I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”
I stayed right where I was. I had no doubt. A vampire had attacked Randolph.
As if from a distance, I realized the paramedic had risen to his feet. “Step back,” he commanded sharply. “Step back right now!”
He laid a hand on my arm to force me away and, as if the undead zone I inhabited were a pane of glass, I felt my self-control splinter into a thousand knife-edged shards. My senses stripped bare in a roomful of human desperation. Human pain, fear, and blood. There was so much blood.
And I wanted it. Every single drop.
I lashed out, knocking the paramedic’s hand from my arm. “Take your goddamn hands off me,” I choked out. I could hear the blood sing inside his veins, hear the way Randolph’s heart pounded, desperate to keep on going. The desire, the need to feed became a red-hot knife twisting in the center of my gut. The room swam before my eyes.
“Candace!” Bibi’s voice rang out.
I turned my head toward the sound and saw her burst through the archway that led to the inner rooms of the penthouse. Bibi’s face was streaked with tears. Her skin was red and splotchy. I could hear her blood shrieking through her veins. The desperate, anxious beating of her heart. And I knew, in that moment, what would happen next.
She was going to touch me.
Throw her arms around my neck, certain I would hold her, offer this basic, human comfort, one friend to another. But I also knew that if I let Bibi, if I let any human being, touch me now, I would lose control, push the paramedics aside, kneel down beside Randolph Glass, and finish the job the first vampire had begun. No power on earth would be able to stop me. I would not be able to stop myself.
“Don’t!” I said, lifting my hands as if to block her onward rush. “Bibi, don’t touch me.”
At the sound of my voice, Bibi froze, her hands extended in front of her, as if anticipating our embrace. For a moment out of time, we stared at each other. I saw the hope of comfort fade from her eyes to be replaced with a pained confusion, wounded disappointment. Randolph’s labored breathing was loud in the room.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” I said. “Please, don’t try and stop me.”
“Candace…,” Bibi said once more, and I thought the sound might break my heart.
Hugging my arms close to my body, I made a dash for the elevator. The doors were closed.
“Open the doors, Al,” I barked. He took a step toward me. I took a step away. “Just open the fucking elevator doors.”
His face set, eyes narrowed, Al stepped to the control panel, slid his key card along the slot. The elevator doors parted immediately. I stepped between them, pivoted so that I faced the room.
“For God’s sake, Nerves,” Al began. He stuck one foot between the doors.
“Don’t,” I said. “Just don’t, Al. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I kept my eyes on him. I could not look at Bibi anymore. Couldn’t bear the expression in her eyes. The shock that I was running out on her. I hoped she would never have to know why.
“This isn’t over,” Al Manelli said.
I could feel hysteria, rising within me, inexorable as a tide. My vision was red now. Red with the blood I wanted so desperately, the need I wanted, so desperately, to deny.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I shouted. “If I could make another choice, I would. Now move your foot before I break every bone in it.”
“Do it, Al,” I heard Bibi’s voice say. “She doesn’t want to be here. Let her go.”
Al moved then, sliding his foot back. The last thing I saw before the elevator doors hid the room from view were the tears streaming silently down Bibi’s face.
I hit the lobby at a dead run. Forcing my way through the crowded casino, desperate to get out, into the open air. Even a crowded sidewalk would be better than being indoors.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, my mind chanted. My body, one enormous mass of need now. I pressed a hand to my mouth, bit deep into my own flesh as I hurtled toward the front doors and freedom. Don’t give in, I thought. Do whatever it takes to beat back the bloodlust.
I could see the doors now. One last row of slot machines between me and the exit. There was a sudden blast of light and sound as the very last machine in the row hit the jackpot, began to pay out. The guy before it jumped up, waved a cowboy h
at in the air, then threw his arms around the closest body. Bad luck on all counts that it was mine. I jerked away, one elbow flying up to catch him squarely in the nose. His howls of delight turning to a wail of outrage, he let go. Blood streamed down his face, and I knew that I was lost. That I had brought about my own downfall.
He stumbled backward, eyes wide with pain. I moved toward him, each step steady and inevitable, all thought gone, knowing only that I wanted and would have his blood. Then strong arms grabbed me from behind. Closing around me like iron bands. I felt myself being lifted, spun around, and carried at breakneck speed through the Sher’s front doors and out onto the sidewalk. Dimly, the corner of my mind still capable of rational thought realized I wasn’t fighting my captor.
“Ash,” I gasped out.
“Just shut the fuck up.” We reached the edge of the building. Ash took the corner fast, propelled us halfway along it before he set me down. Instantly, he spun me to face him, pinning me against the side of the building as if he was afraid I would try to bolt. “What the hell?”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help—” I closed my eyes, wanting to pull myself together, then wrenched them open again. Inside my closed eyelids, as if engraved there forever, were images of Randolph Glass lying in a pool of his own blood.
Ash reached to cradle my face between his hands, his touch more gentle now. “Tell me, Candace,” he said. “Take your time. Go slow.”
“Randolph. It was Randolph,” I said. “Something attacked him, in the penthouse.”
“What do you mean something?” Ash asked at once.
My body had begun to tremble now, as if in shock. “There’s nothing on the security tapes,” I said. “I—It—His throat.” I gave a sob then, and Ash folded me into his arms. “Blood, Ash. There was so much blood. I wanted it so much.”
“We need to get you out of here,” he said, his tone gentle and urgent all at once. “Let me take you home. You need to feed on me, Candace. I know you’re trying to be strong, but you’re fighting the wrong battle, one you can’t win. You have to feed, and feed now. It’s the only way to protect yourself.”
I could feel a sickness rise within me then. A horror, a devastation of the soul. This is what being a vampire forever would mean. This elemental lust for blood. It would be with me, always. It would never let me go. The future Ash painted as so rosy, so filled with possibilities, was no more than eternal bloodlust. Eternal desperation. Eternal hunger with no chance of ever being truly satisfied.
I gathered my hands against his chest, then pushed backward with all my might. Ash released me, staggering back, caught completely off guard.
“No!” I shouted, not caring if anyone saw or heard me. “I will not give in to any part of this. Do you hear me, Ash? I won’t give in. This isn’t what I want.”
He reached for me again, to soothe, to calm, or maybe to shake some sense into me. But by then I was running. Running fast, running away, with no thought or care of direction. The destination didn’t matter. All I wanted was to outrun myself.
Some time later, I staggered up the front walk of my own house. My body covered with sweat, my muscles aching and sore. I had run all the way from the Sher, a distance of at least two miles. Animal instincts. Gut instincts, I thought. They always win out in the end. They never, ever lied. They were incapable of it. Gut instincts always told the truth.
And mine had brought me here, had brought me home.
Here, I would try to heal, try and start over. When in doubt, I had run from Ash, from all he represented, to the one place I trusted. The safe haven I had created for myself.
The front door was standing open.
No, no, no! I thought. With a cry of dismay, I forced my legs to carry me the last few steps, up onto the porch and into the entry hall. The house had been secure when Chet and I had left it…had it really been just that morning? My fingers fumbled against the light switch, snapped it on. I heard a voice make a wild exclamation of horror and denial, realized I had made the sound myself.
My living room looked as if it had been the victim of an attack by a team of manic set dressers for a TV cop show. House ransacked, the stage direction would have said. My furniture was overturned, the sofa cushions torn open, as if whoever had done this had used their teeth instead of a knife. Stuffing littered the floor. Every single vase had been shattered, every lamp overturned. Every single picture thrown down from the wall, glass from the frames glittered against my hardwood floors. I stepped forward, heard glass crunch, looked up. The decorative light fixture in my entry hall had been smashed to bits. It was a miracle the lightbulb had survived and still functioned.
My office, what about my office? I thought.
I was running again, through the ravaged rooms of my home. The door to my hidden office was ajar. I stepped inside and stopped, unable to believe what I was seeing. The destruction was almost pathological in its violence. My corkboard was torn to bits. The desk chair, dismembered, one of its legs used to help destroy the desk. The weapons Chet had decided not to take with him rested in heaps against the floorboards. As if they had been removed from the cabinet, flung against the walls in a blind rage, then allowed to rest where they had fallen. And the walls…
The walls were smeared with something thick and red, a substance I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was not paint, but blood. Without warning, I doubled over, then collapsed to my hands and knees as my body screamed in agony, screamed in need, even as my mind fought to stay in control. I crawled forward a few scuttling steps, threw my head back and howled, nearly insane with pain and frustration.
I would not do what my body was demanding, crawl on my hands and knees like a beast to lick the blood off my own office walls.
Instead, still on my knees, I forced myself backward, out of the office. I pulled myself up on the doorjamb, triggered the mechanism. On silent hinges, the door to my secret office pivoted to a close, concealing the room from view once more. I sank down against its hard surface, pressing my face against my knees, desperately willing myself not to be sick, and heard the sirens. Somehow, the police had been summoned.
Pull yourself together, Candace. Pull yourself to- gether, I chanted like a mantra in my mind. I was about to be face-to-face with living, breathing human beings whose only desire would be to offer me assistance. I didn’t have to be cool, calm, and collected. No cop would expect that. But I did have to regain some semblance of control.
I bit down on my lip until I felt the skin part beneath my teeth. The taste of my own blood filled my mouth. Not what I wanted. Not what I needed, but it helped to steady me, somehow. Grateful for any small favor, I pulled myself to my feet, using the wall for support as the room swayed around me.
“Las Vegas police,” I heard a voice call. “Anyone on the premises, identify yourself at once!”
“Here. I’m here!” I yelled.
A moment later, a young cop came into view, weapon drawn and at the ready.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Please identify yourself.”
“My name is Candace Steele,” I said, keeping my voice as calm and steady as I could. “This is my house, and I’m alone.”
“Candace, for the love of God,” I heard a voice say.
And in that moment, I realized my knees were trembling. “Carl?” I said. “Carl?”
Detective Carl Hagen came into view. “It’s all right, Officer,” he said. “I’m acquainted with the victim. I’ll take it from here.”
The young cop stepped aside, holstering his gun. “I’ll join my partner outside, do a quick sweep of the grounds.”
“I appreciate that,” Carl said.
The young cop disappeared from view, and the next moment, I was in Carl’s arms.
“Easy, take it easy now, Candace,” he said as my body began to shudder and sob. He let me get it out for a few moments then eased back to tilt up my face. “What’s up with this, Steele?” he asked, his tone light though his eyes stayed watchful. “I
thought you were big and bad and tough.”
“So did I,” I said. “Looks like we were both wrong. I’m just some puny, teary-eyed hormone factory in a skirt, just like every other female around. Dammit, Carl, look what the sonsof-bitches did to my house!”
“I know,” he said, easing me to his side so he could keep one arm around my shoulders. “I know. Let’s go back into the living room where we can talk about this a little.”
“Okay,” I said. “But good luck finding a place to sit down.”
I let him lead me, let myself lean against him. By the time we reached the living room, I almost had myself back together.
Carl and I perched on the edge of the ruined couch. “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything,” I said, “but what are you doing here, Carl? I seriously hope you haven’t been demoted.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Nope. One of your neighbors noticed your door standing open and reported a break-in. I heard the dispatch call. I’m…” He paused briefly, as if searching for the right word. “Aware of an incident earlier this evening, involving Randolph Glass.” I nodded, to show I knew what he meant. “When I heard something was going down at your address, I thought I’d swing by, check it out myself.”
“You mean you were worried about me,” I said.
Carl regarded me thoughtfully, as if gauging my ability to take a joke. “Is that a crime?”
“No,” I said, suddenly glad he’d made the attempt. Carl was good with people. We had been good together.
“You’re sure you’re not injured?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m not injured. Just freaked and pissed and tired. This whole thing sucks, Carl.”
“Anything missing?”