by Sky Winters
Kieran said nothing, instead keeping his eyes forward as the sports car made the turn from the Williamsburg Bridge onto FDR drive. Now the East River was completely visible to Nora’s right, the Brooklyn skyline now fading into a mass of twinkling rows behind them. Driving was a luxury that she couldn’t afford in New York, and part of her wanted to simply sit back and enjoy the ride. But the need to know where she was, where she was going, and just who this man driving her was won out over any other desire.
“I’ll tell you when we get to my apartment,” he said, “but right now I need to focus.”
“Your apartment?” said Nora. “What makes you think that I want to go to your apartment? Or that you have any right to take me there?”
“Well,” he said, his voice lowering to a smooth honeyed tone, “in case the events of the last few hours were unclear to you, you’re now my property.”
“Well, in case what country you’re in is unclear to you, you can’t own someone as property. All I need to do is find the nearest NYPD officer and tell him that some psycho thinks he bought me and I’ll be back home, and you’ll be in jail.”
“Try that, see how far it gets you,” Kieran said, with a condescending tone, as though speaking to a stubborn child. “You’d be hand-delivered by the city’s finest to my apartment within an hour.”
“What are you talking about?” Nora asked as they peeled off FDR Drive and entered the maze of glistening skyscrapers of Midtown.
“This isn’t some gentlemen’s club you’ve gotten involved with; this is something bigger,” he said, whipping onto 42nd Street and weaving around the slower-moving cars, who honked at him as he passed.
“Then tell me.”
“In time.”
Nora was brimming with frustration, but she sensed that continuing to press Kieran for more information before he was ready to give it would be like wringing water from a dry towel. Instead, she slumped back into her seat and crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling a combination of scared, angry, and ridiculous.
They went along 42nd until they reached 8th Avenue, which Nora recognized from the glittering marquee of the Majestic Theater.
Yeah, I could really go for a Broadway show right about now. Nora kept her thoughts dry in order to avoid sinking into the feeling of terror that bubbled like a swamp at the pit of her stomach.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” she asked.
“Hell’s Kitchen.”
Nora didn’t know much about this part of town. She knew from stories her grandmother told her about the history of her Irish immigrant relatives that it was a hotbed for crime and violence back in the 18th century. Gangs like The Gophers and The Parlor Mob kept a strict, if blood-soaked, order around the area back when the police didn’t have the manpower to be everywhere at once. Though make no mistake, she remembered her grandmother telling her, this kind of order had nothing to do with the justice system.
But Hell’s Kitchen was a different story now, and Nora could tell this by the clean manicured look of the streets as they made their way into the neighborhood. The area was a different sort of hotbed now: One of gentrification. The few times Nora had been here, she’d seen that the gangs of her grandmother’s stories had been replaced by attractive young couples pushing strollers. It was a prime spot for the gay community as well; Nora sometimes wondered if there were more French Bulldogs and Shih Tzus here than people.
Nora gazed out the window at the reflection of the amber lights of the city on the random puddles of water on the streets and sidewalks. Eventually, Kieran made a sharp turn into a small side street. Then they stopped, and before them was a massive, metal door. Kieran reached up, pressed a small button on the sun flap, and the door rumbled up and into the roof of the building.
Of course, this guy’s got a private parking garage. Nora realized that she’d seen more wealth up close in the last few hours than she’d probably seen over the course of her life up to that point.
Kieran slid into his parking spot, and they both exited the car. She followed him to the dark mahogany doors of a private elevator, which slid open as they approached. The elevator walls were lined with red satin that was soft against Nora’s still-bare shoulders. The doors slid shut, and the elevator began to rise with a hum that increased in volume. Nora looked over at Kieran as the elevator ascended; the tension that marked his face during the drive over seemed to be dissipating, though his brow remained tight and knitted.
The next seconds passed in silence as the elevator rose, and the questions that Nora had were roiling in her like crashing waves. Now that they were about to be alone, he had to explain to her what was going on, why she was kidnapped, why she was put in lingerie and made to walk a stage in chains, why this strange, handsome man leaning against the elevator wall spent so much money on her to… what? Have a live-in maid? Or a sex slave? But as those last words crossed her mind, as she spoke them in her mind’s voice, she felt that same hot, tight feeling, the words lolling in her mind as she looked at his outline out of the corner of her eye—the strong, jutting jaw, the piercing gaze that could melt steel, the body of dense, taut muscle obvious under his suit.
Then the elevator emitted a soft ding, and the doors slid open.
Nora’s apartment was small, cozy, and, though she had only been there for a time, was on the verge of feeling like home. But it wasn’t much, just a studio of a few hundred square feet, a simple bed, a small TV, and a handful of Ikea furniture that she was able to buy with the money she scraped together before moving here. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.
Nora’s cozy little apartment, however, could’ve easily been tucked away into a small corner of Kieran’s penthouse home and forgotten.
The first thing she noticed when the gold doors of the apartment slid open was the view. The walls to Kieran’s apartment were glass from top to bottom, and the glittering, golden skyline of lower Manhattan seemed to sprawl on forever against the deep black of the night sky. Then, when the automated lights of the apartment blinked on, the rest of the home became visible to her.
The apartment was a wide, open room, decorated in a clean, simple style. In the center of the room was a recessed middle wherein sat several couches of deep, black leather. The ceiling was high and flat, and traced with lines of soft, clear lighting fixtures, and when the lights turned on, the black marble fireplace crackled to life. There were a few pieces of minimalist art here and there, along with sculptures of designs of strange, hard angles, but beyond that, there was very little in the way of adornment, as though Kieran realized that nothing he could put on the walls would match the splendor of the view.
Kieran strode past her and into the open expanse of the apartment. He rolled his sleeves up, exposing his forearms, which were as white as cotton, but thick and toned. He turned to Nora and beckoned her with a flippant “come here” flick of his fingers.
Her eyes still wide from the view, she obliged, moving into the space with small steps.
“Welcome,” he said, his voice a low purr.
Nora said nothing, instead walking around, her mouth agape.
Who is this guy? Nora wondered, looking over Kieran as he fixed a pair of drinks. He can’t be any older than thirty; how could someone so young afford a place like this? Is he one of those finance guys? Or maybe just someone with a lot of family money.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, placing another one of those small, red capsules in his drink before gesturing to the longer of the couches in the recessed section of the room. Nora obeyed and slid into the soft leather, which was cool against her skin. Kieran came over and handed her a drink, which she took, against her better judgment.
She took a small sip; it was vodka and some kind of lime flavoring. She allowed the sweetness of the lime and the sharp astringency of the vodka to wash over her palate for a moment. But as soon as she drew it down with a heavy swallow, she snapped into awareness of her situation, and her eyes began to narrow.
“Okay,”
she said, setting down the drink onto the glass coffee table with a clink, “tell me just what the fuck is going on.”
Kieran made a slight exhalation through his nostrils and took a sip of his drink. He reached over to the far end of the coffee table, took a pair of black coasters, and tossed them onto the table before setting his on top of one. He then looked at Nora with an insistent glare, and with a sigh, she placed her drink on the coaster closest to her.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I like my place to be in order.”
“Fine,” she said, “but tell me what’s going on.”
Kieran crossed his legs, exposing his socks, which were black with thin white stripes, and sat back into the couch. “You’re meat,” he said, a slight twinge of pain to his voice, as though admitting a long-kept secret.
Nora’s vision became blurry. She fell back into her seat, a feeling of lightheadedness overwhelming her. “M-meat?” she said, her voice weak. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Where to begin?” Kieran said, his voice trailing off.
Nora regained her bearings, and her eyes went immediately to Kieran’s glass, red-tinged, just like the drinks of everyone else at the gathering.
“Start with that; what’s that? Why is your drink red?”
Kieran leaned forward and traced the rim of his glass with the tip of his index finger. “It’s blood.”
Nora’s eyes widened. “Blood?”
“Yes. A blood extract, essentially.”
Nora leaned forward. “And why are you drinking blood? Is this some kind of fucked-up cult?”
“Something like that,” he said, taking another sip of his drink. “We’re what you humans know as vampires.”
Nora became even more dazed. This must be some kind of joke. “Stop this bullshit right now and tell me the truth.”
His eyebrows raised. “But I just did.”
Nora was unconvinced, but decided to not press the point. “And what was tonight? Why was I kidnapped? Why was I sold? Why am I here?”
Kieran stood up, took his drink, and walked over to the glass wall, the towering spires of the city glowing against his silhouette. “We have something of an arrangement with this city. As I’m sure you know through your movies and books, consuming humans is an important part of the vampire way of life.”
Nora tensed, wondering if running for the door was an option. But she decided to listen.
“We came here from the old world over a hundred years ago, when immigrating to America was the dream of every heart in Europe. And our people had power. We ruled the nights, and our wealth and influence affected the course of nations. But just as we had our lineage, so did the hunters. And their numbers grew with each generation as those who wished revenge for their slain kin joined their ranks.
“And then there were those of us who gave themselves over completely to the blood. They embraced the death, the destruction of life, the light of life draining out of their victims’ eyes as they drank the last drops of blood that coursed through their veins. They had no place in our society. But despite our total disavowal of them and their ways, we were still considered one and the same by the humans who knew of us.”
He took another drink and closed his eyes for a moment, his face cast in a ghostly orange pallor from the city lights.
“So, toward the end of the nineteenth century, many of us, from different nations, decided to start new societies in the New World, to leave the mistakes of the past in the nations of Europe.”
Nora sat back once again, taking a sip of her drink and letting what Kieran was telling her settle in her mind. “And you’re the Irish?”
“Yes,” he said, “the Irish settled in this part of the city, in Hell’s Kitchen. The Italians are in the East Village, the Ukrainians in the West, and the Polish across the river in Greenpoint.”
“And the city knows about you?”
“As much as we wanted to stay hidden, we could only lurk in the shadows for so long. Eventually, those we drained were found in large enough numbers for the police to notice a pattern, and we were discovered.”
“But… why didn’t they just make you leave the city? Or kill you?”
“By the time they learned of us, the wealth that we had brought to New York had already worked its way into the city. We owned property… and politicians. To leave would’ve sent the city into a tailspin. So, we came to an arrangement with humans. We would cease regular feedings. In their place, we would have a yearly auction in which hundreds of humans would be bid upon. And those humans would be the only feedings of the year.”
Nora knew that she should’ve been feeling fear at this revelation. After all, Kieran had just admitted that he’d purchased her for the purpose of killing her and drinking her blood. But something put her at ease. Something in the way he was openly offering this information gave her the impression that he had other plans for her.
“So, that’s what you’re going to do with me? Feed on me?”
He turned to face her, a look of mild uncertainty on his face. “No. At least, I think no.”
Nora took a long sip of her drink. “That’s not very reassuring.”
“It should be. If that other vampire, the Italian, had won the bid, well, let’s say that you wouldn’t be sitting comfortably and enjoying an evening drink.”
Nora was stunned. If it weren’t for Kieran, she would be dead by now.
“So, what is it about me?” said Nora. “Why aren’t you going to kill me? Why spend so much money on me?”
“I… don’t know,” he said, a pained look crossing his face that seemed to indicate that even he wasn’t sure of why he had done what he did. “I just knew that when I saw you up there, I had to have you. At any cost.”
“Sympathy for a fellow fair folk?” she asked, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Ha. Who knows,” he said, allowing himself a whisper of a smile.
Nora drummed on the side of her glass with her delicate fingertips. “So… does that mean you’re going to let me go?”
“No,” Kieran said, his face turning grim once again. “Buyers have one week to dispose of their… merchandise. After that, it’s a violation of society law to keep them. The punishment for such a violation is… severe, to say the least.”
“Then just let me leave,” she said, her voice a pleading tone, “I’ll leave the city; I won’t come back.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Then what, I have to sit around and wait until you decide whether you’re going to kill me?”
He hesitated for a brief moment, finished his drink, and leaned against the glass behind him. “I’ll figure something out; I need to find out what it is about you. There’s something to you, something that neither of us know about, but can both sense.”
Does he mean my “gifts?” Nora considered telling him, but decided to wait until she could get a better sense of how he’d react.
“But in the meantime, you’re not to leave the apartment. I have several bedrooms; you’re more than welcome to any one you’d like. I’ll be… indisposed during the day. If you give me your word you won’t leave, I can refrain from restraining you.”
She hesitated
“Let me say this: If you left, you would be found. And if you’re found, that means a quick end for both of us, if we’re lucky.”
She realized that as strange and horrible as this situation was, there didn’t seem to be any way out of it. For the time being, at least.
“Fine,” she said, feeling frustrated, but less afraid. “Just as long as you can promise that nothing will happen to me while I’m here.”
His countenance softened at this. “I promise,” he said, his voice warm and comforting.
“Okay, then just tell me where I can sleep.”
At this, he rose and walked past her, gesturing for her to follow him. The walked down a long hallway off the main room, which was just as spare and neat as the rest of the apartment. They reached a door, which Kier
an opened.
“This should be suitable for tonight,” he said, as the door opened and revealed a massive bedroom. It had the same glass walls as the rest of the apartment, and the east side of Manhattan and Long Island beyond were visible.
“Yeah, this should be okay,” Nora said, stepping into the room.
“If you need anything, please, help yourself,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
Nora, alone for the first time since this strange, terrifying evening began, wanted to sit, collect her thoughts, and formulate a plan for how to get out of this predicament. Part of her wanted to plot an escape, despite the warnings. And part of her just wanted to think, to figure out the best course of action to survive these next few days.
Instead, she collapsed face first on the soft white sheets of the bed, and fell into a restless slumber within seconds.
Chapter 9
When Nora awoke, she expected daylight. But when she opened her eyes it was still dark, the city beyond still twinkling with white and honey-colored lights. She reached for her phone, but remembered that it, along with whatever else she had on her when she was taken, was gone. She looked around for a clock, and found one, a simple, black-and-white clock inlayed with Roman numerals, hanging on the wall.
Four o’clock, it read; she had only been asleep for a few hours.
But she felt awake and alert, and her body was still tense from the events of the evening. She stood, placing her bare feet on the soft, plush carpet beneath her. Then, she sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. Under any other circumstance, being in a bedroom like this would be an unthinkable luxury for a girl like her, but now it only served to remind her of the situation she was in. Anxiety began to well in her, and any hope of sleep vanished.
She looked out the window, off into the distance, the twinkling oranges and whites of the city lights an endless, stellar sprawl. She thought about what Kieran had told her, about being a vampire. It then occurred to her that there was a very good chance he was making everything up, that he was just as in on it as the rest of them, and this was all some kind of elaborate plot to lull her into a false sense of security before moving into the next stage of his real plan.