There was surprisingly little paperwork involved in giving away most of his life’s work.
Aside from the assets of his own company and the deed to the lot on which his townhouse had stood, Julian relinquished all of his holdings in the Baltimore hierarchy with nothing more than a few signatures and passwords. The foundation of his power, Anton’s private books and ledgers, his lists of area vampires and their business interests and weaknesses now belonged to Enoch.
Of course he’d retained a few secrets that he swore never to divulge to anyone. Anton Brae had been privy to some powerful magick, some highly sensitive information and a few priceless artifacts that Julian had pledged to guard with his life, or un-life as the case may be. Now Enoch would call the shots, control the feedings and hopefully assume responsibility for keeping the vampire population well beneath human notice.
With the legalities over with, the difficult part began. He had to figure out how to put his own life back together, a life he wasn’t quite sure how to live, far less how to rebuild. He knew only one thing for certain right now, as long as he could guarantee her safety, he wanted Zoe to be a part of that life.
“So where exactly do you get dragon’s blood these days, eBay?” Zoe asked. She stood in the center of a circle of salt that Hester had poured on the cobblestones of her patio. In each hand, she held a black stone upon which Hester was about to pour drops of crimson liquid from a tall, narrow-necked carafe.
“Herb shop. It’s a resin from the Dracaena tree, used for centuries as incense and a source of red pigment. It’s not from real dragons, and it’s not blood.”
Zoe let out a breath. “Oh. Cool. Somehow, that makes me feel better. I was beginning to feel like an anti-fur ad.”
Hester spared her a weary glance. “Stand still or you’ll screw up the spell.”
Zoe stiffened. “Sorry.”
“Shh…”
Hester set down the carafe and began walking counter clockwise around the outside of the salt circle. She chanted under her breath, something in Latin that sounded like “Macramé…fourtentsay…begonetoday…” though Zoe was certain the translation couldn’t be literal. Nevertheless, she said a small, silent prayer that she wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke or turn into a toad.
The stones began to heat in her hands, and a thread of panic tightened the muscles at the back of her jaw. The drops of crimson dragon’s blood turned black against the now glowing surface of the rocks, and a moment later, the brilliant light obliterated Zoe’s vision entirely.
Hester’s chanting grew louder. Just when Zoe was certain she’d be putting a down payment on a nice, moist lily pad, the glow went out, and Hester fell abruptly silent.
Zoe took inventory. No flippers, no warts—at least none that she could see. She didn’t feel any shorter, and she wasn’t craving flies. “Did it work?”
The witch sighed heavily as she removed the warm stones from Zoe’s palms. “Of course.”
“How can you tell?”
“By the third eye in the middle of your forehead.”
Zoe gasped and clutched her head, forgetting about the sticky red resin all over her hands.
Hester snickered and began sweeping away the salt circle with a homespun broom. “Gets ’em every time.”
“Oh! You—you…” She wanted to curse at Hester or maybe to cry, but instead she burst into slightly hysterical laughter. She sank into the nearest Adirondack chair and stared at her “bloodstained” hands, giggling like a fool until her chest hurt and her eyes teared.
Hester looked on, the broom poised above the cobblestones. “Are you okay?”
“Mmm.” Zoe swallowed hard and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. The next giggle came out laced with a sob. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have doubted you. I know your magick works.”
Hester balanced the broom against the other chair and knelt down in front of Zoe. “I’m sorry that you got caught up in this.”
Zoe’s voice wavered. “I love him. Why isn’t there a way to get him back?”
“He would never be happy. Julian gave up his humanity a long time ago because he couldn’t stand to be weak. Illness, poverty—they were formidable enemies in his time, and he was one of the few who found a way to fight what was inevitable for everyone else. The price was high, but he was willing to pay it because he had nothing holding him to a human existence. You had him for a short time. Hold on to that, but not so tightly that it makes you forget what he’s become. He didn’t leave you, Zoe. He just had to go back to the life he knows.”
Zoe sniffed. It made no sense, but at this moment, she felt less sorry for herself than she did for Hester. The witch had loved Julian, too, and she hadn’t just lost him, she’d pushed him away. “Thank you,” she said when Hester produced a clean white cloth out of thin air and handed it to her. “For this and for helping me.”
Hester returned to her sweeping. “Just remember to play it cool. You may discover you know more vampires than you think. And they won’t be pleased if they realize you can identify them. Their survival depends on their anonymity.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Hester held Zoe’s gaze. “Be prepared. Careful might not be enough to keep you safe.”
The offices of LAN World were dark when Julian arrived to catch up on his neglected livelihood. All the desks were empty, the computers shut down. His employees worked for Lambert now or for themselves, and they were all likely out celebrating their new freedoms. No longer in his thrall, the vampires he’d sired himself could now turn others. Many would be intent on building small empires of their own, hoping they could one day rival Lambert’s influence.
Guilt washed over him as he took a seat at his desk. The feedings would increase now. Young vampires would get sloppy and arrogant, and the human authorities would take notice. Violence would escalate because he refused to become pure evil. He wondered what he might have been like as the ultimate vampire.
In the last few years, he’d had little use for his ruthless streak. His inner demons had lain dormant and complacent for a long while. Unleashing them would have been liberating. Perhaps he’d actually done the world a favor by turning his station in the hierarchy over to Lambert. Enoch had a wild side, unplumbed depths of greed and depravity, but despite that, he still wasn’t pure evil.
The last time there’d been an uprising in the vampire world, the Witches’ Council had stepped in. The previous Draconus had exercised the rights and responsibilities granted him in the original pledge between the two societies, vampire and witch, and helped Anton into power. Maybe that would happen again if Enoch took his new position too lightly.
Time would tell, and Julian had a feeling he would not have long to wait for Enoch’s new regime to reach the height of its corruption.
Zoe pulled into her parents’ driveway at six forty-five. She killed the engine and hit the parking brake, then dove into the back seat and found the bag with the new blouse she’d picked up on the way home from Hester’s. She had no idea how to get dragon’s blood stains out of cotton, but at least the crimson fingerprints had washed off her forehead. She would never have been able to explain why she’d been searching for a third eye.
After shimmying into the new blouse, she crumpled the old one up in the bag and yanked a huge, gift-wrapped box out of the back seat. She hoped her stepfather didn’t already have a matching set of golf club covers. His post-retirement plan was to spend three days a week on the links while her mother attended garden club meetings. It sounded like a nice life.
With her birthday obligations met, her stomach grumbling and her hastily repaired makeup showing no signs of the last bout of tears she planned to cry for Julian Devlin, Zoe raced up the driveway and around back. She was two minutes early for dinner.
Her mother was just coming out onto the patio when Zoe arrived. The look of concern in Anna’s eyes melted when she saw the gift box. “Oh, good. I was afraid you weren’t going to make it,” she said as Zoe handed her the box.
“I was worried about you, you know.”
“I know, Mom. I’m fine. Dinner smells great.” The garden looked gorgeous, lit by the multicolored glow of the paper lanterns and huge round citronella candles. A copper hearth kept the evening chill at bay, and the picnic table sparkled with colorful plates and glassware. Zoe wished she’d been here to help with the decorating, and she made a promise to herself to spend all day tomorrow with her mother, enjoying some family time.
Anna set the present among other boxes on a low bench. “Why don’t you help me bring out the food?”
“I’d love to.” Zoe meant every word. How could she have considered giving all this up? She’d so readily abandoned her life for Julian, and for what? For the chance to have what her mother had found with Gregory? A vampire, or a former vampire, could never give her a home, a family, a normal life. What a fool she’d been.
No more of that, she told herself as she strolled into the kitchen and greeted her stepfather with a kiss on the cheek. He was peeking into a steaming pot on the stove and stopped to give her a big hug. “How’s the prodigal daughter today?” he asked with a wink.
“I’m fine. Just fine.” She wanted to mean it. There would be no more self-recriminations, no beating herself up over wrong choices. What’s done was done, and it was time to move on.
At least that sounded like a good plan. Whether she could pull it off or not was another story entirely. With a slightly forced smile, she helped bring dinner to the table.
The evening was simple and pleasant. Dinner. Light conversation. Dessert. Zoe had never felt so much at home with her parents and yet so lost. Part of her was missing, and she had no doubt she would feel incomplete for a long time to come.
When Anna and Gregory said goodnight, Zoe remained downstairs watching a low fire burn itself out in the patio hearth. She would have given anything for a spell to purge her thoughts of Julian. Now, alone in the shadowed garden, the memories of his touch, his kiss, hit her hard as the house fell quiet around her.
What would she do if she saw him again? If he came for her, would she fight him or just plead for whatever shred of mercy he might still possess? Would she sleep with a wooden stake under her pillow?
Those thoughts swirled around in her head to the exclusion of almost all else. When the doorbell rang, it registered only faintly on her conscious mind, like a dream. It was after ten, and her first thought was that she didn’t want to have to disturb her parents. She hurried through the house, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t lean on the bell and wake everyone up.
A sharp stab of fear sliced through the calm she’d been working on all evening when she reached the door. Bryan stood on the front steps, bathed in the amber glow of the porch light.
He looked like death.
Zoe gasped and yanked him over the threshold. “Oh my God, what happened to you?” She felt his forehead and his cheeks. His skin was clammy and cold, and his eyes seemed sunken.
He stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Bryan, you look awful. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You were fine this morning, now you look like you’ve had the flu for a week. Do you have chills? When was the last time you ate?”
Bryan’s smile faltered as Zoe dragged him into the living room. “I …uh, I ate with you this afternoon, remember? Cheese sandwiches?”
Zoe’s heart thudded. He was hallucinating too. “Bry, you didn’t eat with me. You made me a sandwich, but you didn’t have one yourself.”
“Sure I did. I ate in the kitchen while you were packing.”
His explanation didn’t ring quite true, but she couldn’t dispute it at the moment. “Have you been at work all this time?”
“Yeah. Rough day. There’s going to be a takeover, and I’m going to have a bitch of a workload for a few months. That’s why I came here. I don’t know when I’ll have time to hang out with you again, and I wanted to apologize for this afternoon.”
Zoe stared at him, barely registering his words. How had Bryan become so run down in a few hours? He’d been hale and handsome this morning, full of life, and now he seemed like a shadow of himself. He looked gaunt and so tired. If this was what a day at the office did to him, he had to quit now before the job sucked all the life out of him.
“Bryan, there’s nothing to apologize for—” Oh, wait. Yes there was. She’d forgotten about Tanya. The anger she’d been trying to get over surfaced abruptly, and despite his fragile appearance, Zoe gave Bryan a solid shove that set him down hard on the sofa.
For a split second, he looked convincingly innocent. “What was that for?”
“You told Tanya what happened between us last year.” She couldn’t say the words while looking at him. She couldn’t say “slept together” without thinking of Julian, and her heart couldn’t take the pain.
Bryan’s jaw dropped. “Oh.”
“Oh? Is that all you have to say? I think Tanya’s screening my calls.”
“Zoe, I—”
“I thought we had an agreement.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I thought it was time Tanya knew the truth. She thinks she and I will be together, and that’s just not going to happen. Zoe…I’ve decided I want you.” Bryan rose too quickly for Zoe to back away. He put his hands on her shoulders, trapping her in place between the sofa and the coffee table. She gaped at him. He was obviously severely ill, virtually delusional and—
Oh My GOD.
Zoe froze. Bryan’s hands tightened on her shoulders, and he leaned toward her as if he were going to kiss her neck. A river of ice flowed down her spine. This couldn’t be happening.
“Bry…Bryan, wait. Look at me.” She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to confirm it, but she had to. He pulled back slightly and smiled at her, the tips of his elongated incisors gleaming bone white against his unnaturally red lips.
No-no-no-no-no! Not Bryan. Not her friend.
“What’s wrong, Z? Come on. I’m hungry. I’ve already been to see Tanya tonight, and for some reason, I’m still hungry.”
She gasped. Had he really said that? She stared at him, trying desperately to figure out how to get herself out of this without being fed on. “Uh…not tonight. I have a headache.”
He pulled back. “Don’t worry. I can make you forget that.”
Before he could lean in again, she wrenched herself away and, trembling almost uncontrollably, she raced to the far side of the room. “You told Tanya we had a thing going, didn’t you?” She forced herself not to stammer.
“Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to her. She’ll get over whatever is bothering her soon enough. Don’t worry about it.”
Zoe fought off the sudden wave of nausea. He was manipulating her, telling her exactly what he wanted her to believe, and she saw right through his deception thanks to Hester’s spell. But what would he do when he realized she was on to him?
Think. Think. “Right. Tomorrow everything will be fine. That’s good. Well, good night, Bryan.”
His smile returned. “That’s right. Now come here.” He reached for her, and she managed to elude him.
“I’m so tired. I could really use a good night’s sleep and so could you, so thanks for dropping by…” She whirled around and headed for the front door, hoping he’d follow. He looked a little bewildered, but seemed to be accepting her responses.
“Before I go, maybe we should talk for a while.”
“We’ve been talking for a while,” she parroted as she opened the door. “And you’re right, we both need to get some sleep.”
“I didn’t say—” Bryan stopped mid-sentence. He stared at her as if he were trying to delve into her soul. Zoe fought not to look away too soon.
“What’s wrong, Bry? Everything will be okay tomorrow, right?”
He held for a moment as if suspended between thought and action and cocked his head to the side like a dog listening for a distant sound. Zoe’s heart froze. She hadn’t fooled him, not that she’d expected to for an instant. She’d never been mu
ch of an actress, and Bryan had always possessed the uncanny ability to read her too well. Panic swept through her, and her knees turned to jelly. Did she dare try to run from him?
His chest expanded in a caricature of a deep, disappointed sigh. “Right. I’ll take care of everything, and it will all be like it was before Julian Devlin showed up.”
Zoe nodded. “Right. No more Julian.” Bryan had made it to the threshold now, and Zoe swung the screen door open for him. “I’ll feel so much better tomorrow. And you have all that work to do.”
“Right.” He stepped through the door.
As much as it pained her, she patted his shoulder when he passed her. “It’ll all be okay, Bryan. Somehow.” She forced herself not to slam the door once he was completely outside. When the handle clicked, she double locked the inside door, turned and leaned her back against it, as if she could somehow keep out all the bad with sheer force of will.
She remained that way until she heard his car start and drive away, then Zoe sank to her knees. Blinded by tears, her heart pounding, she gulped shuddering breaths to keep herself from passing out.
What was she going to do…now that Bryan was a vampire?
Chapter Eighteen
The surge of humanity normally would have made Julian hungry and a little bit irritated. Tonight, as he squeezed through the press of bodies in the crowded police station, he just felt tired and disappointed.
He still possessed a vampire’s ego, after all, and on some level he’d expected instant recognition when he showed his face and announced his return from the “dead”. A little fanfare would have been nice, given that he’d been the subject of news stories for an entire week now.
Instead he was given a number and told to wait for the officer in charge of “the Devlin investigation” to call for him.
Uncross My Heart Page 19