by Lee, Rachel
“Just don’t tell me there are dragons.”
“I haven’t met one, so I can’t say for sure.”
A smile flickered across her face. “True. Having just made the acquaintance of a couple of vampires I guess there’s no way to be sure that there aren’t any dragons, or elves, or trolls.”
She was definitely taking this entirely too well. A new and different tension began to creep through him, apart from the tension of self-control. None of her reactions seemed quite normal. The resistance had passed too quickly. The acceptance bordered on the extreme. Most people fought so hard to keep their beliefs about reality intact that they could literally erase from their minds anything that didn’t fit. He knew that effect intimately, as he’d seen it in action more than once, and more often than not took advantage of it. Denial was a basic trait of human nature. It actually helped vampires to survive.
Vampires and other things he would not mention, not today. Yvonne was dealing with enough. Or not dealing as the case might be. He honestly wondered which it was.
Her face had grown thoughtful, and he tensed again, waiting to hear her thoughts. He couldn’t help feeling that her easy acceptance of what he had told her was nothing but a ticking time bomb that might go off at any moment.
But then she looked up at him with a crooked smile. “I could use a little more proof, I think.”
“Proof that I’m a vampire?”
“Yes. Part of me recognizes that you moved far too fast for a human, that your eyes change in a way I’ve never seen any human’s do. But another part of me is seriously balking.”
“I’m honestly surprised that you aren’t terrified, given the stories everyone tells about us.”
She gave a little shake of her head. “You’ve been kind to me in the extreme. I tend to judge people by their actions even more than their words. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
Her eyes widened a bit, and for the first time he saw a hint of fear that had nothing to do with what was going on in her apartment. Yes, it was better if she kept a distance, but his chest tightened anyway.
“Are you threatening me or warning me?” she asked.
In an instant he hovered over her, bending so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath, itself an intoxicant. “I’m a predator,” he whispered in her ear. “I can control myself. But with you… You have no idea how much I’d like to taste you.”
He heard her suck a sharp breath, then release it in a long sigh. He knew the reaction she was having. Many had it in the presence of a vampire. Burgeoning sexual interest, an almost soporific relaxation. Next she’d turn her head to expose her neck and he’d hate himself just for revealing that she was as helpless before the attraction of his kind as any other human. He didn’t want to see her that way, but he also didn’t want to examine his reasons for that.
She surprised him, though. She didn’t offer her neck. She didn’t adopt a pose of compliance. No, she raised her hand and touched his cheek, electrifying him with her warmth, the only warmth he could feel anymore.
“It must be hard for you,” she said. “I should go to a hotel.”
Appalled, he straightened instantly, crossing the room so fast that she couldn’t have seen him move. “No,” he said. “No. I don’t want you to be alone.”
“But this is causing you problems. And you can’t do anything about it anyway. Can you? Jude can do just as much if I’m in a hotel.”
“No,” he said again, feeling his body coil as if it wanted to spring. Only with huge effort did he avoid crouching a bit. “It won’t be safe for you. I can handle it. And yes, my very presence helps protect you.”
“How?”
“Because if anything tries to take you, it’ll have to deal with me. They don’t like to deal with my kind, Yvonne. We’re beyond their reach and we can wreak havoc on them when they take physical form. And…I could drag you back from the gateway of hell.”
His doorbell rang, interrupting further discussion much to his relief. He’d said more than he intended, and things he didn’t want to explain.
He went to let Jude and Terri back in. He noted the way they both looked at Yvonne, but only Terri’s face betrayed surprise.
“You’re not upset?” she said to Yvonne.
“About the existence of vampires? Why would I be? There are worse predators in the world evidently.”
Jude looked at Creed. “She doesn’t get it.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“I don’t get what?” Yvonne demanded.
Jude looked at her. “That we could be the worst predators on the planet. If we chose to.”
“Do some of you?”
Creed felt a dark wave of bitterness. “Some do. Like the one who changed me. As a rule, most of us prefer not to make a bloody mess of things because like you, we prefer feeling reasonably safe.”
“Well, then.” That seemed to settle it for Yvonne. “At the moment I’m more troubled by what’s going on in my condo.”
“That,” said Terri, “is something I agree with. Totally.”
“She does have a point,” Jude agreed. “That feeling isn’t plaguing her because some prurient boyfriend or neighbor has installed miniature cameras or listening devices. Whatever it is, it’s big and it’s bad. I just wish I knew why it’s interested in Yvonne.”
Creed spoke. “Yvonne may have just shed some light on that. I’m not certain, nor is she, but her former boyfriend may have had some connection to Satanism.”
Yvonne spoke quickly, surprising Creed with her defense of Tommy after the bitter way she’d spoken of him. But old loyalties died hard, as he knew well. “And he might have just worn that upside-down star the same way he wore the Iron Cross—to bother people.”
Creed acknowledged her point with a nod. “Perhaps.”
“Was it a real Iron Cross?” Jude asked. “Or just a Greek Cross.”
“He said it was a real one, that he got it in some antique store. It came in a box with a ribbon and he put it on a necklace.”
“Hmm.” Now Jude looked thoughtful.
“Does it make a difference?” Yvonne asked.
“Only as it pertains to his psychology,” Creed answered. “It’s a decoration, like any other military decoration. In and of itself, nothing but a mark of courage or some memorable deed. But wearing it, given its connotations because of the Holocaust and the war, says something.”
“That’s what bothered me,” Yvonne said slowly. “I suppose people aren’t as sensitive to that today, though.”
“Sensitive enough that your boyfriend wore it.”
“Meaning?”
“What could he have wanted it for otherwise? An old military decoration.”
He watched her fall into thought again and realized that he liked the way she did that. He wasn’t accustomed to being around people anymore, but even less so around people who weren’t afraid to just stop talking and think about things.
“There could be other reasons,” she said slowly.
“Could be.” He wasn’t going to argue with her about it. Absolutely nothing could be gained.
But then she looked up and gave him an almost rueful smile. “Why am I defending him? I left him because I found some of his behavior truly troubling and because he cheated on me. But here I am trying to defend him. That’s crazy.”
“That’s natural,” Terri said. “We have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that we cared for someone who probably wasn’t worthy of our feelings. Or our respect.”
Yvonne’s answer was wry. “I think you just hit the nail on the head.”
But Creed’s thoughts had begun to wander down another path. “How angry was he that you left? Did he make any threats?”
“Just bluster. He said I’d regret it. He said he had ways to get even that I couldn’t begin to imagine. But he never actually threatened me physically.”
“It’s not physical threats I’m worried about.” Creed lo
oked at Jude, who nodded.
“I agree,” Jude said. Then he flipped open his phone and punched a button. “Garner. Get your butt over here to Creed’s place. I need you to do some sniffing around. Yes, now.” He closed the phone and shook his head. “Why would that boy think I meant anything else? He knows as well as anyone that time is of the essence.”
Yvonne spoke. “Do you have a lot of trouble with Garner?”
“Actually,” Jude answered, “I have less trouble with Garner than because of him. Sometimes I think he brings the ten plagues along with him.”
Then Jude pinned her with his gaze. “So you have no trouble accepting that we’re vampires?”
“Not yet.”
“Hmm.”
“What hmm?”
Creed watched with interest.
“Well,” Jude said, “Terri here went after me with my own sword.”
Terri giggled, but then added, “Well, actually, I think I may have been… Oh, it was weird, Yvonne. First I believed it, then I didn’t believe it. I’m a scientist, and I had a lot of trouble with the notion after the first reaction.”
“A sword? Really?” Yvonne’s eyes had widened, but then she giggled, too. “I wish I could have seen it.”
“I’m sure I looked ridiculous,” Terri answered. “But then the doubts set in.” She sat next to Yvonne again. “They probably will for you, too.”
“At the moment,” Yvonne replied, “given whatever is in my apartment, I’m finding it easy to believe a whole lot. What is in my apartment?”
Jude answered. “It’s not there now.”
“But what is it and why do you want Garner?” Her tone had grown impatient, and Creed could well understand. She kept asking what it was, and nobody gave her an answer.
“I want Garner because he can pick up the trail at your apartment and follow it. As to what it is…” Jude hesitated then looked at Creed. “You remember what we’ve been talking about for the past couple of months?”
“That something very powerful was trying to create a gateway? That it needed five possessions to create it?”
Jude nodded, then returned his attention to Yvonne. “There are some powers than can only get through to this world by creating a metaphysical pentagram.”
“What’s that?”
“It uses lesser demons to possess five people, then brings these people together to form five localized points on a pentagram. The power generated by those people creates a gateway, usually through the offering of a blood sacrifice.”
Yvonne swallowed visibly. “What…” She cleared her throat. “What kind of power are you talking about?”
“The kind that has names you might recognize. In this case I think it might be Asmodai.”
The name clearly meant nothing to her. “But why in the world would it be in my condo? I don’t fool around with that stuff.”
“You may not fool with it,” Creed said. “But someone has fooled with something, all right.” He rose and went to the étagère to get a manila envelope. Yvonne vaguely remembered him carrying it out of her apartment last night, but had been too upset and frightened to even think about it.
“You need to look at these,” Creed said, handing the envelope to Jude. “I found these hidden away in Yvonne’s condo.”
At once the condo seemed to chill and she felt the watcher again. It was like an icy whisper at the nape of her neck, but quickly gone.
As soon as the items spilled from the envelope, Asmodai felt them, was drawn to them. And what it found was not pleasing to it. The woman it wanted was there, but so was the vampire it had tried to drive away last night. And so was another. As it focused its attention on them, it could make out their words. They knew too much, it decided. Too much. But it could not yet act in more than small ways in their world, and maddening as it was to have to bide its time a while yet, it had no choice.
Unless it could find another ally, one who could be swayed more easily. One in emotional turmoil that would make it easy to manipulate. It zoomed its attention outward, seeking some weakened being that could be turned on those two vampires.
In its present state, it knew no limits of distance, and only a few in time. It hunted now, seeking one it could use to its ends. One who could stand against a vampire.
Then it found what it wanted, and it summoned the undead being named Luc, calling him with the promises he wanted: promises of vengeance. Making it even more delicious was the fact it had once already stolen what the being most loved. So he would come seeking vengeance, only to be used by it, the thing he most hated.
Ah, they were so easy to manipulate, these paltry beings. It could use them all as pawns, and they would never know. It had tricked them before, when they thought they had tricked it.
Such as the time Solomon had bound it and forced it to build the Temple. But it had bided its time then, and taken its vengeance on Solomon eventually, even ruling in his stead. Not even Raphael had been able to bind it permanently, although it was still annoyed that it had lost the lovely Sarah as a result.
But that was long ago, and when it looked now at Yvonne, it saw a suitable replacement for Sarah, a human woman who stirred a hunger that had been somnolent for millennia.
Patience, it counseled itself.
Patience was its greatest friend, and patient for now it would be.
With some self-satisfaction, it settled back to watch its plans unfold.
Yvonne watched uneasily, rubbing her arms against an inexplicable chill as Jude emptied the envelope onto Creed’s dining table. “I’ve never seen those before.” Odd little twists of sticks and bits of dull cloth, strange shapes.
Creed turned to her. “No, I’m sure you haven’t. They were well hidden, and I discovered them only because I could smell them.”
Yvonne’s eyes widened, then she gaped as Jude picked up each piece and sniffed it.
“Yes,” he said. “My guess is Asmodai, and someone put these things there for him as a marker.”
Yvonne shuddered and rubbed her arms. “Someone was in there? To put that stuff in my apartment? God!” Then a split second later, she said, “Tommy. My God, it had to have been Tommy. I gave the movers the keys to both places. He could have borrowed one. Who the hell else would have wanted to put those things in my condo? And who the hell is Asmodai?”
Jude sighed and looked at Creed. “I believe you know the story.”
Creed nodded, feeling a chilly anger begin to trickle through him. “Asmodai makes more than one appearance in ancient writings. But the most significant is his appearance in the Book of Tobit, where he possesses a young woman named Sarah and causes her to kill each of her husbands on their wedding night. Scholars still debate the matter, but general agreement is that Asmodai falls in love with human women.”
“Oh, my God,” Yvonne breathed. “Oh, my God.”
“Put your head down,” Terri said swiftly, pressing on the back of Yvonne’s neck until she put her head between her knees.
“Have you felt watched before?” Jude asked.
“Jude,” Terri scolded. “Give her a minute.”
“No, no…” Yvonne lifted her head a bit, though she didn’t straighten, and looked at Jude. “Yes,” she said. “A few months ago. Briefly. I brushed it off and it didn’t come back until I moved here. And it was nothing like this. Nothing.” She lowered her head again.
Creed decided that seeing her as pale as winter moonlight was even harder to endure than seeing her blush. He sprang to his feet, not bothering to conceal his speed, and began pacing. “Can you be sure it’s Asmodai?”
“No, of course we can’t,” Jude answered. “But what I do know is that we’re dealing with something well beyond an ordinary demon. It’s been leaving its stench around for weeks now. You’ve smelled it, too, and you recognized it in Yvonne’s condo. Right?”
Creed found it almost painful to accept. A demon was one thing. The Prince of Demons was another. The idea that Yvonne might be its target filled him with a kind of r
age he hadn’t felt since his change. And with the rage came an unwelcome, unfamiliar fear. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time, except for when his great-granddaughter had almost died from an attack.
“The point is, it has focused on her. Added to her former boyfriend’s threat that he could get even in ways she couldn’t imagine…”
Creed nodded reluctantly. “If it could find a way to influence her boyfriend and his friends, it would.”
“Exactly,” Jude agreed. “Asmodai would be the most likely one to do that. It’s his M.O.”
“True. But there’s more than one reason he could want her.”