Bitten & Smitten ib-1

by Мишель Роуэн

  I shook my head. I wondered where I should throw the bachelorette party. Maybe I was overreacting. Who, me? I took a few deep breaths. Maybe I just needed to take a little time and relax, do some deep yoga breathing. Find my zen. I think I’d lost my zen about the same time I got fired last week. That’s assuming I ever had a zen in the first place. Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure what a zen was. I pushed open the black door to the club and walked inside. It was empty, but I’d expected that. It wasn’t due to open to customers for another six hours. It felt eerie being in there all alone, the chairs up on the tables, the lights off. Everything was so still and quiet.

  I went to the bar and helped myself to a few shots of blood. It’s amazing how good such a disgusting thing made me feel. Funny how you can get used to the craziest things if given enough time. Thierry’s office was empty, too. There was no one there but me. And Amy out in the tanning bed. It would be good to have a little peace and quiet for a while. I had to think through everything I wanted to talk to Thierry about. I needed to know if he had anything to do with Quinn’s mother’s death. I wanted to know why he’d let Eugene go when he’d given me the impression that he’d die.

  Sitting down at Thierry’s booth, I laid my head on the table. After a while I must have dozed off.

  I awoke to a sharp pain on my shoulder. Somebody was poking me.

  “What the hell?” I looked up.

  “Hey,” Zelda said.

  I rubbed my eyes. “Hey yourself.”

  “What are you doing here?” She slid into the other side of the booth.

  “I wanted to talk to Thierry, but he’s not here yet.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Amy was out front using the tanning bed.”

  “Oh, right.” She smiled. “Our little bride-to-be.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “Can you believe that?”

  “I think it’s kind of cute.” She pushed a newbie special across the table. “I made this for you.”

  “Oh, thanks.” I took a sip. The diluted blood tasted weak, now that I was used to the real stuff. “You seriously think it’s cute?”

  “Why not? Love is always cute.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Love. Right. I think it’ll take me a while before I’m convinced that they’re in love. And can you believe it? He actually turned her. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind the next time I see him. Maybe a piece of my fist, too, while I’m at it.”

  She smiled back at me. “Barry’s harmless. Your friend could do a lot worse.”

  “If you say so.”

  She looked at me for a moment. “You seem a little down.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong?”

  I sure wanted somebody to confide in. Normally, it would have been Amy, but it didn’t look as though she was going to be much help. I still needed someone’s opinion about everything. Somebody I trusted. Zelda waited for me to answer. It was funny, but looking at her across the table, I felt like I could be looking at my younger sister. If I had one, that is. Zelda appeared to be only in her late teens, and even though I knew she was three hundred years older than that, the illusion was still pretty persuasive. Maybe we could braid each other’s hair later and talk about boys. Maybe not.

  “I went to see that guy,” I said. “The cure guy. Met with him and everything.”

  “Really?” Her expression was guarded. Maybe she didn’t know how to react, if it was good or bad news that I went to see him. I was still trying to figure that part out myself.

  “And it’s true. There is a cure.”

  “You went there all by yourself? Wow, that’s brave.”

  “Actually, I took Quinn with me.”

  Her eyes widened. “The guy who practically remodeled this place the other night? The hunter?”

  “That’s the one. He’s calmed down a bit, though. He wants the cure, too, so I took him with me.”

  “Well, that makes sense. So, what happened?”

  I sighed. “You’ll never believe how much the cure costs.”

  “There’s a cost? Oh, I never even thought about that. I guess it makes sense. Okay, how much?”

  “Try one million bucks on for size.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit. That’s a lot of money.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he wasn’t able to come down at all? He wouldn’t lower the rate?”

  “Why would he?” I shrugged. “He doesn’t know me. Why should he do me a favor?”

  “God, Sarah. I don’t know what to say. I know you were counting on it.”

  I chewed my bottom lip while I tried to decide if I wanted to tell her any more. It was eating at me like ants on a moldy egg-salad sandwich—I wanted to get it all out on the table.

  I looked at her. “He did say there was another way to get the cure. I’m not going to do it, but there is another way.”

  “Did he want you to sleep with him?”

  I made a sickened face. “God, no. Ew. You should have seen him. Not the cream of anybody’s crop. No. He wanted to know where to find Thierry. Said he’d be able to sell the info to the hunters for big bucks. That he’d be some kind of a trophy kill because he’s so old and legendary and shit.”

  “You’re kidding.” Zelda’s eyes were so wide I probably could have seen my reflection in them if I still had one. “And what did you say to that?”

  “I played dumb, of course. Wasn’t hard.”

  “And Quinn?”

  “Same deal. He didn’t say anything. But then the guy said something about how Thierry was responsible for Quinn’s mother’s death. It was terrible.”

  “He said that? What did Quinn do then?”

  “I think he had a small stroke. But he still didn’t say anything. I think he was in too much shock. But all bets are off now. I don’t know what to do, Zelda. Tell me what I should do. Should I tell Thierry that this guy is spreading lies about him?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Why do you think it’s a lie?”

  I blinked at her. “Because it has to be. Thierry’s not a murderer. He couldn’t have done it; there’s no way.”

  She didn’t say anything to confirm that I was 100 percent correct. In fact, she wouldn’t even meet my eyes anymore.

  “Zelda.” I felt panic rising in my chest. “Talk to me.”

  “Thierry’s always been kind to me,” she said. “I told you he helped me out when I was a fledgling, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Not that he shared any of his blood with me”—she eyed me for a moment—“but I owe him, okay? He’s been good to me, and I’ve always felt a sense of obligation to look out for him and not do anything to cause him pain directly. I don’t want to say anything that’ll make things worse than they already are.”

  “Things couldn’t possibly get any worse than they are.” My voice had turned shrill.

  “Please, Zelda, tell me what you’re thinking about.”

  She shrugged a little and shifted around in her seat. “Don’t you ever wonder why there are vampire hunters at all?”

  “Just to make life interesting?”

  She shook her head. “They all do what they do because, for the most part, they honestly think they’re doing the right thing. That they’re the good guys and we’re the evil hell spawn.”

  “But they’re wrong. We’re not evil.”

  She paused. “It hasn’t exactly always been that way.”

  “Okay, Zelda, stop beating around the bush. Tell me what you’re trying to say.”

  Her face was grim. She didn’t want to tell me whatever was on her mind. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to hear it, but there was no going back now.

  “First of all,” she said, “try to remember that things haven’t always been as easy as they are now.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Look around. You’re in a vampire bar. For a few bucks you can get all the blood you need, with or without alcohol. We can live norma
l lives, interact with regular people, hold so-called normal jobs if we need to. Nobody has to know what we really are, unless we tell them.”

  I clenched my fist. I wasn’t going to hit her, but it helped ease my stress a bit. Or maybe it added to it. I don’t know. “Still beating around the bush. Move away from the bush.”

  “Hundreds of years ago things weren’t so simple. We need blood to survive. Not that many people are going to say—hey, you can have my blood. Sure, just sink your teeth in my arm or neck and have at it. When we feel the pain of true hunger, and I believe you’ve felt it yourself, we’ll do whatever is necessary to get what we need.”

  My fists were so tight my nails dug painfully into the palms of my hands. “You’re going to have to spell it out for me, Zelda. I’m a slow learner.”

  She sighed. “I’m not all that old, in the grand scheme of things. It was hard for me. Still is, actually. But before was much worse. The vampires took what they needed, and sometimes they took too much.”

  “And bled people to death by accident,” I said numbly.

  “Hunger is a terrible thing. Accidental deaths happened. And after a time it became accepted. I guess they had to rationalize it or they would have gone crazy.”

  “What does this have to do with Quinn’s mother?”

  “Nothing. But it tells you why vampires are now considered monsters.”

  “Because they once were,” I finished, my heart thudding in my ears.

  “Mostly, it was a select group that originated in Europe who gave us the bad name we still have. They were the partiers of that age. Drinking all they wanted and, after a time, not really caring if they took too much. A great deal of blood can be intoxicating, and if you’re constantly drinking… well, you get the idea.”

  She took a breath and waited to see if I had anything to say. I didn’t, so she continued speaking. “So the vampire hunters gathered to rid the world of this group of murderers. Chased them out of Europe, but all it did was scatter them through the rest of the world. Most of them were killed over the next couple of hundred years, but I know of two that survive to this very day.”

  “Let me guess,” I said dully. “Veronique and Thierry.”

  She nodded. “They’re legendary. Oldest vamps I know personally, anyhow.”

  “So you’re saying that Thierry may or may not have had a bit of a drinking problem in the old days. But that was then and this is now. Quinn’s mother would have been killed only around twenty-five years ago. Sorry, but I don’t buy that explanation.”

  “You’re sweet,” Zelda said. “And so young. You look at him with rose-colored glasses because he’s so handsome and powerful. But don’t fool yourself. He’s also very dangerous and always has been. Anyone who gets in his path isn’t usually in his path very long, if you get my meaning.”

  I felt my frown deepen. I wasn’t enjoying story time very much today. “Veronique told me about their lives back in the old days. She called him a coward. Somebody who’d hide at the first glimpse of danger. Doesn’t sound like somebody who’s all that dangerous.”

  “Veronique told you that?” She laughed softly. “Well, consider the source, would you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Veronique has always loved to tell stories that make her shine and everyone else pale in comparison.”

  “Are you saying that she was lying?”

  “Hundreds of years can color a story. Just like an old photograph, the details fade, the edges get worn. I don’t think Thierry is, or ever has been, a coward. But I don’t know. All I know is the Thierry from today, and that’s nobody you want to mess with. I also know that he hates the hunters. Beyond that, I suppose I’d just be guessing.”

  I leaned back in my seat. I’d always hated history in high school. Too many dates and people’s names to memorize. Now I hated it for an entirely different reason.

  “Why did you tell me this?” I wasn’t crying. I just felt sort of numb.

  She reached over and touched my hands, which were clasped together on the tabletop so tightly, I couldn’t feel them anymore. “Knowledge is power. But please don’t tell Thierry I told you any of this.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’d better go get the bar ready. We’re opening up in a little over an hour.”

  I nodded but didn’t look at her. She moved away from the table, leaving me there alone. And I’d never felt so alone. Thierry was a bad guy. A storybook vampire who bit necks, drank blood, and left dead bodies in his wake. The kind of monster who is hunted down and killed, after which the townspeople cheer his death. The kind of man who could kill a loving wife and mother and not look back. I found myself on my feet. I wanted out of there. I wanted to go home. No, I wanted to find Quinn. Yes, find Quinn. I had to talk to him. Tell him… tell him what? That everything he’d heard was true? That we should sell Thierry out so we could get the cure? Did he deserve to die for the crimes he’d committed in the past? And if so, did we deserve to profit from his death?

  I put my thoughts on hold. I couldn’t deal with them right then. I needed some fresh air. No, what I really needed was to wake up and have it all be a dream. Everything. Every last piece of it. I wanted it all to go away. Practically running for the back door, I pushed it open and felt the cold air sweep the hair back off my shoulders. Maybe if I started running, I could leave it all behind me. Put some serious distance between me and the monster I’d become. Run far, far away. I noticed the tears on my cheeks now as the temperature made them feel like streaks of ice. Christ, I’d cried more in the past week than I had in all of my twenties. I hadn’t even cried this much when my senior-prom date dumped me and stuck me with the limousine bill. I felt someone grab my upper arm and stop me in my tracks. He pulled me around to look at him, to make me stare directly into his strange silver eyes.

  “Sarah,” Thierry said. “What’s wrong?”

  Chapter 22

  "Thierry, I… I was just leaving.”

  “Did you need to speak with me again?”

  “No.” I didn’t know what to say to him. “I have to go.” I could see my breath in the cold air in front of me. His warm grip on my arm didn’t loosen.

  “I didn’t like how we left things last night,” he said. “There are things that must be addressed between us.”

  I shook my head. “I saw Eugene. I know you let him go. Thank you for that.”

  He studied me. “Then why are you acting this way?”

  “What way?”

  “As though you can’t bear to look at me.”

  I swallowed and glanced up from the ground, forcing myself to meet and hold his gaze.

  “Why don’t older vampires like to sire new ones?” I asked.

  I don’t know where that came from. The question surprised me as much as him, I think.

  “Pardon me?”

  “The night after we first met, you told me that there are reasons why those as old as you don’t sire fledglings. I just wondered what they were.”

  “Please come inside, and we’ll talk about it.”

  “No… I don’t think I will. I just wanted to know.”

  He sighed. “The older the vampire, the more powerful his blood. This can have certain side effects on the young ones that are not always desired or wanted.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as many things you have experienced yourself. Your reflection, for one. It faded many months before it normally would have. Your fangs also grew early. I suppose they’re inconveniences more than anything, but it is sometimes sad to lose touch so quickly with what you once were.”

  “And that’s all? Just a fast-forward button on the vampire VCR? I already know all that.”

  “No.” He paused and moved closer to me so his face was only inches from mine. “It is said that the psychic and emotional bond between an older sire and fledgling is stronger and deeper in some ways. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about this, as I am not your original sire. You will not be bonded to me any longer than you
wish to be.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good, I guess. I’m not into bondage that much, psychic or otherwise, no matter what you’ve heard.” I stood there without knowing what else to say. And normally I was a blabbermouth. Thierry had turned into the one man, the one person in the world, who had me perpetually tongue-tied, especially when he stood so close to me.

  There was the smallest trace of a smile on his lips. “I think I shall miss you.”

  “Why? Where are you going?” His answering silence told me all I needed to know. I shook my head again. “Oh right. How could I forget about that?”

  “It’s not something to be sad about. It is simply an event whose time has come.”

  “Who said I was sad?” My words were harsher than I meant them to be. “I did promise to help you, didn’t I? Just name the place and time and I’ll be there. That’s what us fledglings are good for. I don’t seem to be good for much else around here.”

  He finally broke off our staring contest and put his hand on the partially open door I stood against. He pushed it wide open and moved away from me. There was still a smile on his face, but it felt like that was the wrong word. There has to be a better word to use than “smile” when it’s done with no joy or humor behind the expression. When it’s only a position your mouth chooses to be in at that particular moment. I realized then that if I didn’t know him—if I just saw him on the street and didn’t know he was a vampire or anything other than human—I wouldn’t assume there was anything unusual about him. Anything old and legendary. Anything evil, murderous, and cold-blooded. He simply looked like a very attractive man in his mid-thirties. A little sad, but perfectly normal.

  But as the old cliche goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Thierry was a many-paged, leather-bound book with a mint-condition cover—but the pages were worn and faded. And the story inside would keep you up at night, afraid of what might be lurking in your closet.