by K M Smith
“Wait, what? You were in the woods behind a restaurant? What woods? What restaurant? Where? Did you have a coat, at least?”
The last question caught Alice off guard. She’d been ready to jump in with answers to all her mother’s questions, but that one struck her. She barked out a laugh, and she was thankful she hadn’t been taking a drink at that moment.
“That’s your biggest concern?” Alice squeaked and scrunched up her face. “You’re most concerned about whether or not I had a coat? Not that I could have mental conversations with a vampire?” She wrapped her hands around her middle, her body bouncing with laughter, and tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes.
Sarah shrugged and wiped at her cheeks. Alice imagined that was her mother throwing away the stress of the last few weeks. Sarah gripped Alice’s hand and squeezed. Alice squeezed back, and she and her mother held each other’s hands while they silently giggled. Alice relished this fleeting moment of understanding, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it would not last long.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Adam
On his own and on a mission, Adam stole through the second-floor corridor of Drew’s building, the soles of his black leather boots connecting soundlessly with the poured concrete floor. A whole building? Who does this guy think he is? Located in lower Manhattan, the red brick building, complete with metal fire escapes and uniform rows of windows, appeared to house several swanky apartments, but inside it was a multi-leveled rabbit’s warren of echoey corridors connecting cavernous rooms adorned with crown molding, large ornate fireplaces and plush, Victorian era furniture. And five befuddled vampires.
Adam streaked down the hall and noticed Drew’s female companion standing in a doorway. The room was presumably hers. Unsure if she was blocking him from entering or waiting for him to run by, he kept moving.
“You shouldn’t go out there alone,” she said, her forearm resting on the doorframe with one foot crossed in front of the other, as though she didn’t actually care if he went out on his own or not.
Ignoring her, he never broke stride as he headed for the carpeted stairs at the end of the hallway. She sped past him and waited for him on the landing at the bottom of the stairs.
“What do you hope to accomplish?” she called after him as he passed her and moved down the next flight. Adam didn’t have time to worry about this woman. He needed to go out and find Alice.
When he made it to the front door, the vampire was there waiting for him. She stood with her back to the door and her hands resting on the doorknob. He managed to stop just before crashing into her.
“Who are you?” Adam asked impatiently.
“You know who I am.”
“No, I don’t. You’re in my way. Kindly step aside.” Adam stepped forward to reach around her for the doorknob.
“Just stop,” she said, not stepping aside. “Wait.”
Arching an eyebrow, he took a step back and glared at the woman who kept him from his mission.
The two vampires stared at each other until Adam couldn’t stand it any longer. He crossed his arms and declared, “I’m waiting.”
Slipping her hands away from the doorknob and bringing them to rest at her side, she leaned in conspiratorially before she dropped her voice and said, “If you go out there now, you’ll have lost the opportunity to fix things with Drew, and you’ll never find Alice on your own. You’re just as clueless about what happened here as we are.”
Adam rolled his eyes.
She tutted before continuing, “You know that’s true. This is different. You know it.”
Adam looked down, studying his boots. A tiny piece of a dried leaf wedged itself between the sole and the upper part of his boot. He considered how that came to be there, thinking back to his confrontation with Jake and Leo… and Alice, in the woods just hours before. This had been the strangest month in a lifetime of strange things.
The woman was right. This was different. But different, how? Or why? Being reckless won’t bring Alice home. It could get him killed. What if his actions put Alice—or Sarah—in danger? How would he rationalize that away? No, the vampire was right. He should wait. There was no need for an entire crew go out hunting for Alice, but that didn’t mean he should act rashly. Resigned, he looked up at Eliza. Pain cast shadows across her face. They may share a common goal, but that didn’t mean they were a team. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay…what?”
“Okay, I’ll wait. But I don’t know what you expect to happen between Drew and me. He left. Not me.”
“That’s rich,” she laughed.
Adam raised his eyebrows in response.
She took another step forward, closing the space between them. She pointed her finger at Adam’s chest, “Drew has held onto—”
“Drew has held onto what?” Adam broke in abruptly. He narrowed his eyes, “Eliza, is it?”
Eliza’s face tensed. Adam looked up and was about to ask what was going on when the lightbulbs in the sconces crackled and hissed. The air became noticeably thicker with electricity. The flickering lights cast eerie shadows along the red and black damask-wallpapered walls. Adam looked over his shoulder. Drew stood behind him, and from the scowl plastered on his face, he’d heard the whole exchange. Adam smirked and thought at Eliza, ‘How’s that hot seat feel, love?’
Eliza pursed her lips but said nothing.
Drew joined them in the hallway, and the tension rose. Relishing the pressure from the standoff between the two, Adam refused to back away. Eliza broke down first.
“Drew, I—,” she began, but Drew waved her off. Scorned, she stopped speaking and turned away. Drew’s dominance shocked Adam. He’d never seen him so confident before. And he couldn’t help but feel a little proud of his protege.
“Eliza, please go back upstairs. I need to talk to Adam.”
Eliza nodded and rested her hand on Drew’s arm as she walked past him. Drew looked more like a defiant child attempting to be grown up than a skilled and dynamic leader. So much for pride.
“It’s true, then?” Adam asked.
“What’s true?” Drew asked defensively.
Adam nodded, then looked down at his boot, and contemplated the leaf that remained wedged in it. Stalling, Adam thought about how he wanted this conversation to go. It was obvious to him that he still had the upper hand in this relationship—even after two decades apart. Should he use Drew’s weakness to advance his own agenda, or should he extend an olive branch?
“You’re the one running things in New York now,” Adam said. Drew’s features softened at that statement. Adam narrowed his eyes, then bent down to pick the leaf out of his boot, glancing up at Drew on his way down. The blade’s torn edge played havoc with his mind. The boot was sleek, refined; the perfect silhouette destroyed by the foliar intrusion. With his forefinger and thumb, he plucked the leaf and gave the leather a quick brush before standing back upright and saying, “And, by you, I clearly mean your girlfriend.”
“You’re still an asshole.” Drew faced Adam and clenched his jaw.
Adam grinned broadly and quipped, “Apparently so.”
“I’m not doing this with you. You’re in my house, you can’t waltz in and make demands and threats, and you don’t get to be an asshole to me. Not here.” Drew stepped around Adam and reached for the doorknob. The hall light above the door dimmed as Drew neared it, then brightened when he grabbed the brass handle. “Get out,” he demanded. He stood back and opened the door.
“Drew, ol’ boy, you know as well as I do that I’m not going anywhere,” Adam said, stepping forward, and clapping Drew’s shoulder before reaching out and closing the door.
Drew shook Adam’s hand off his shoulder. When Adam turned to snarl at him the lightbulb overhead exploded, showering tiny particles of glass and filament over them both.
“You should invest in energy-saving lightbulbs,” Adam said, unable to keep the mischief off his face.
“God, you really do suck. Do what you li
ke, you’re going to anyway.” Drew brushed his hand through his hair and swore as tiny shards from the busted lightbulbs sprinkled down to the floor. He stalked off toward the stairs.
Adam whizzed past him and waited for him at the top. “Drew, I’m glad you’ve come to your senses, we really do need to talk about Alice, and what just happened. It would be fantastic if we could do that without you acting so childishly.” Adam raised his voice for the last part, playing up for the audience he couldn’t see, but knew was there.
Drew rounded the last step and shoved his shoulder into Adam’s as he passed him.
Eyes wide, Adam mouthed, “ow!” soundlessly as he rubbed at his shoulder. After several seconds, his lips curled into a small smile and his eyes lit up. Game on, he thought and followed Drew down the hall.
◆◆◆
After Adam’s brief dalliance with the thought of leaving, all five vampires reconvened back in Drew’s study. Eliza perched herself on the arm of the tufted leather sofa and shot a knowing look and an innocent grin at Adam as he made his way into the room. He held his head high as he crossed the room to sit in a high-backed chair. The air changed, and he sensed that all eight eyes were on him as he moved. Taking his time as he sat, he crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands over his knee. With his back ramrod straight, he exuded dominance. Too bad the other vampires didn’t pick up on that. With a frown, he accepted that he had been bested by the house vampires and slouched in the seat to wait for Drew. Casting a glance at Eliza, he acknowledged her place in the hierarchy with a slow blink and a bow. She shrugged.
“We don’t have enough time left tonight to make any mad dashes into the city, but clearly, we need to do something,” Drew began. Adam and the others nodded in silence. Drew paced as he spoke, and Adam cast his mind back to when he’d been newly turned and hadn’t yet shaken his human habits. Drew was young, in vampire years, but he commanded the respect of his group. It seemed that quite a lot about Drew had changed over the last twenty years.
“Leo, did you find anything in your search through the debris?” Drew asked.
“A couple o’ leaves, some broken bits of glass, and water.”
“Water?” Eliza perked up. “Where did water come from? Even when the ‘Count,’” Adam looked away as Eliza glared at him, “whooshed in with his big bad storm, I never felt any water in the air. And no windows were broken, so nothing came in from outside. Are you sure it wasn’t sweat from your brow, or something else?”
“Coulda’ been, but probably not. There was a pretty big puddle of it.”
“Is it still there?” Drew asked. He’d stopped pacing and placed his hands on his hips. Adam nodded from his chair. He was still amazed that Drew carried so much weight with these people. Did he have something over them?
Leo shrugged. “I don’t think so. At least not as much as when I first checked. Jake took pictures. I still can’t work these camera phones—my pictures are always blurry.”
“That’ll be your sausage fingers, Leo.” Jake chimed in. Leo shrugged and rolled his eyes. Jake then addressed the group. “I’ve got a couple pictures, but I just assumed the water was residual from all the commotion in the air.”
Adam couldn’t get the thought of that leaf on his boot out of his mind. Jake was still talking, but Adam had zoned out, trying to figure out why he couldn’t shake the leaf. He had a feeling it meant something, but he chose to stay quiet for now. He kept his eyes on Drew, scrutinizing his every move.
Jake passed the phone around, and everyone looked at the pictures in turn, each member of the group swiping through them and shaking their heads. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but something about the water being present, and the amount of it, troubled everyone. By the time the camera was back in Jake’s hands the room had gone silent, as five minds went to work.
Eliza was the first to speak. “Do we have any theories?”
“My theory is that she got pissed off at everyone and just decided to hell with us and left,” Leo said.
“How? Nobody saw her leave, Leo. Unless you did?” Jake questioned his partner harshly, and Adam perked up at the impending mud-slinging, but it never came. Jake and Leo seemed to be joined at the hip. Adam couldn’t get a read on Jake yet. He thought Leo looked an awful lot like he belonged in the Mafia, and he clearly did all the dirty work that required brute strength.
Leo looked over at Jake and shook his head. Adam narrowed his eyes at the pair and wondered what they were hiding from the group. Leo knew something, and Adam wanted to know what it was.
“Alright boys,” Eliza said. “Let’s drop it for now. We’ll rest, and maybe we can figure this all out tomorrow night. As it stands now, she is simply not here, and we don’t know any more than that. Adam, as much as it pains me, we have a safe space if you want to spend the day here. Nobody here will make an attempt on your life.” Eliza glared at both Jake and Leo and finally arched her eyes at Drew. “Right?” The three men nodded their agreement.
“Of course, if you’d rather go, that’s fine, too,” Drew said. “Alice is not really any of your concern, so you don’t need to stay here.” The tension in the air went up a notch.
Adam harrumphed and raised his eyebrows before standing up and replying, “I appreciate the kind offer, Eliza. I will take you up on it. I’m sure nobody here means me any harm. Isn’t that right, boys?” Mischief flashed across Adam’s features as he mirrored Eliza’s reprimanding tone, and he waved as he followed Eliza out of the room.
◆◆◆
“You set me up earlier,” Adam said as they walked down the hall.
“Hmmm?” Eliza replied, not looking at Adam.
“Why?” Adam asked, assuming her tone was one of agreement. The question hung between the two.
They made their way up the stairs to the third floor to a light-tight space where he could rest for the day. Eliza made no attempt to answer his queries, and he kept quiet. He tried to think why she might want him to stick around. His eyes glanced down at the curve of her ass in her leather pants and a smile spread across his face.
‘Not for that,’ Eliza projected then turned around to face him. Adam stopped abruptly, and even in the darkened hallway, he knew she could see him blushing. Rolling her eyes, she unlocked the door at the end of the hall. The heavy metal door whooshed and cracked as it opened, and Adam timidly followed Eliza into the room and looked around. The space was definitely light-tight. It was dark in there, even with his vampire vision.
“So, for what, then?” Adam said.
Eliza shut the heavy meditation room door behind them and walked further into the room. “You and Drew have unfinished business. You need to sort it out.”
Adam nodded slowly. “And you know so much about this….” his voice trailed off at the end.
“You’re joking, right?” Eliza walked over to the metal chair. It was the only piece of furniture in Drew’s meditation room. She sat down, draped her arm over the back of the chair, and crossed her legs.
“Obviously I’m not joking. What do I know about you and Drew? Other than you’ve clearly spent time getting to know each other—in a biblical sense.”
“Even undead, that’s all you can think about—sex?”
“It’s not all I can think about. But when you make it so obvious, what else am I supposed to think about?”
“Whatever. You need to fix Drew,” Eliza said. “Whatever that entails, I don’t care. Just do something, and make things right. Either that, or leave now.”
“I didn’t break Drew; he did that to himself a long time ago. Well before I ever knew him, I might add.”
“I heard all about it. I keep hearing all about it. He needs to move on. You need to help him.”
“Look, I don’t know why you and Drew are together, and, frankly, I don’t care. But I don’t need to help him do anything. He fucked up his relationship with his wife, I moved things forward for him so that she could move on with her life.”
Eliza stood up. “It’s al
ways about the girl, isn’t it?” She walked toward Adam and the door but stopped before opening it. “Listen, you’re obviously in love with his wife. And, clearly, you turned him as part of some sadistic payback so that if you had to suffer, then you’d make him—and everyone involved—suffer, too. Drew didn’t handle things well with his wife, but at least he didn’t make choices for her.”
Adam began to protest, and Eliza put her hands up to stop him, “I don’t care. Really. I don’t. Just fix things or leave. If you’re going to leave, you should do it now, it’s going to be morning soon. And we never had this conversation.” Eliza cracked open the door and left Adam alone to consider his next moves.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Jake
Jake and Leo made their way down to their sleeping quarters on the first floor. As the main undead members of Drew’s security force, they were the first line of defense in case humans came seeking retribution. That didn’t happen often, and it never ended well for the humans. Jake assumed Leo had chosen the first floor because he leaped at the opportunity to say things like, “You’ll get up there over my dead body!” before tearing holes in flesh and feasting on the blood of the courageous yet ignorant. Also, they were the two newest members of Drew’s force, so they had no choice but to reside where they were told.
“So,” Jake began as he flopped down on the sofa and stretched out, subconsciously making himself seem large and important, a throwback to his wild investment banker days. “Are you going to tell me what you know, or are you keeping secrets from me now, too?” He glanced up at Leo, his eyes wide with expectation.
“Like I said, I don’t know nuthin’.” Leo sat down in the armchair across from Jake. His actions were slower and more deliberate, those of someone thinking carefully about how to explain something they aren’t looking forward to explaining.