“I didn’t want to take the chance of anyone else finding out I’d contacted you,” she said secretively. “I knew you’d come back here sooner or later.” Her anxious gaze scanned the club for a moment, then came back to rest on Slade. She leaned even closer toward him. “I think I know who killed Megan Ramsey,” she said.
Slade’s hand shot out and ensnared her slender wrist. “Who? Damn it, tell me what you know.”
Again Christina’s gaze raked the club, a little more frantically this time. “I can’t,” she said. “Not here. It’s too dangerous. Meet me.”
“Where?”
“Tomorrow night. In the alley outside. I’ll be there after midnight.”
“No,” Slade said. “I don’t want you anywhere near this place. We’ll leave here together. Now.”
“No! We have to do it my way. You’ll know why tomorrow night. You can trust me, Nick. I owe you my life. I’ll never forget that night…What would have happened to me if you hadn’t come along…?” Her words trailed away as she lowered her eyes.
Images of that night flashed through Slade’s mind. The vampire had lured Christina outside the club and had been ready to sink his fangs into her neck when Slade found them. If Slade hadn’t destroyed the vampire, Christina would be dead now. Or worse.
Christina’s gaze lifted. “You helped me, Nick. Now I want to help you.”
“Why can’t you tell me tonight?” Slade demanded suspiciously. “I don’t like this, Christina.”
“I know,” she said worriedly, “but I’m taking too much of a risk as it is just talking to you, being seen with you. Please,” she begged, “don’t follow me out of here. I don’t want to end up like Megan.”
Slade watched her go. Her last plea effectively doused any idea he might have had of following her, of demanding she tell him here and now what she knew.
I don’t want to end up like Megan. What the hell had she meant by that? Why had talking to him scared her so badly?
Slade scanned the bodies on the dance floor, the looming shadows in the alcoves. Was he here? Was the vampire who had killed Megan Ramsey watching and waiting in the darkness? Had he seen Slade talking to Christina?
Slade glanced at his watch. It was getting late, and as much as he wanted to find Christina again, to see her safely out of this place, he knew he couldn’t. He had to be somewhere. He had to make sure someone else was safe tonight.
He tried to tamp down the feeling of urgency rushing through him, but he found himself thinking of Erin Ramsey again. He imagined her alone in that apartment, frightened, unprotected. He thought about her warm skin and her scented hair….
His heart started pounding and his pulse raced. It was almost midnight, and he was here and she was there. An unprecedented sense of danger surged through him as he strode from the club into the night.
* * *
It was almost midnight. The clock on the mantel ticked off the minutes as the shadows outside grew deeper, the night darker.
“Do you believe in vampires?”
Try as she might, Erin couldn’t seem to get Megan’s last question out of her mind. She went over and over their final conversation, remembering the quiet excitement in Megan’s voice when she’d urged Erin to come back to New York to see the play that Megan was starring in.
“It has a vampire hero, just like in your Demon Lover. Don’t you love the coincidence?” Megan had said, and then laughed.
But it hadn’t been the coincidence or the excitement in her sister’s voice that had brought Erin back here. What had brought her back, she realized now, was the question her sister had asked her at the onset of their conversation.
“Do you believe in vampires?”
Erin closed her eyes, thinking about her latest book, the novel which she had thought at the time had precipitated Megan’s question. Now, as she sat in Megan’s apartment going through her sister’s things, Erin had to wonder if Megan’s question—her fascination with the supernatural as Racine had suggested—had been prompted by something else. Something more than their bleak past. Something more than a book or a play. Something more…terrifyingly real.
“Do you believe in vampires?”
What kind of woman would be drawn to the thing that frightened her the most?
Was that the real reason she’d come back? Erin asked herself. To confront the monsters of her past? To prove to herself once and for all that she didn’t believe?
Had Megan believed? Had she succumbed to the darkness both of them had been terrified of years ago? Had she come to…welcome it, instead?
The deeper Erin dug into Megan’s personal belongings, the more intrigued she became with her sister’s life, and the more convinced she became that, as close as she and Megan had once been, in many ways—in important ways—Erin hadn’t really known her sister at all. Not at the end.
She only had to look in Megan’s closet to realize that fact. Where once they had both dressed in pastel colors and simple styles, now Megan’s wardrobe consisted of dozens of sexy outfits, mainly in black. Obviously Megan’s tastes had changed dramatically. Had she started dressing for a man? Erin wondered. A man who reminded her of Erin’s demon lover?
In the distance, Erin heard the chimes as the clock in the living room struck midnight. A strange chill crept up her spine as she fingered Megan’s clothing. Some essence of her sister still seemed to linger in the soft folds of fabric. Erin closed her eyes, concentrating. And as the chimes fell silent, the feeling that she was no longer alone enveloped her.
Terror, as cold and black as an ocean, swept over her.
“Megan?” She whispered the name aloud, sensing a presence.
A breeze, as soft as an illusion, whispered through the room, stirring potpourri in a glass bowl atop Megan’s dressing table. The scent of roses filled the room. Bloodred roses. Megan’s favorite…
“Megan.” The name slipped from Erin’s lips with more certainty this time. Her heart pounded in fear as the breeze drifted over her, lifting the loose tendrils of hair, caressing the skin at her nape. Touching her…
We’ve been waiting for you, Erin.
Not Megan’s voice, but a man’s voice, taunting and elusive.
Close your eyes. Feel me.
The breeze brushed her lips, and Erin gasped, terrified by the sudden thrill racing through her.
Dress for me. Make me desire you.
Erin tried to deny the voice in her head, tried to fight the compulsive urge to obey it. But she no longer had control of her actions. As if watching herself from a distance, Erin saw herself lifting one of Megan’s dresses from its hanger and slipping into it, then turning to face herself in the mirror.
Long and black with a slit up the thigh and cutaway sleeves that bared her shoulders, the dress completely transformed her. Her hair was no longer worn up, but flowed wantonly over her shoulders, down her back. Gone was the woman who harbored her secrets deep within. For just a moment, Erin was no longer Erin. She was a woman who didn’t run from the darkness. A woman who didn’t hide from the monsters. She was a woman who embraced the night.
The woman in the mirror was no longer Erin, but Megan.
A man appeared at her side, his reflection obscured so that Erin got merely an impression of his imposing height. He bent and touched his lips to Megan’s neck, and Erin felt the sting of his kiss, the deep, dark thrill of his touch. She laughed, a throaty, self-satisfied sound.
Erin took a step closer to the mirror, her hands brushing down her sides, caressing her curves as the man in the mirror caressed her sister’s reflection. She knew everything her sister was feeling. She experienced the thrill, the desperate craving.
Suddenly Megan’s laugh turned into a scream as the man’s kiss deepened. Erin felt a sharp, piercing pain at the side of her neck, and then a wave of darkness began to roll over her. As the lifeblood flowed from her body into his, she experienced a pleasure so intense that she was lifted up and sent soaring.
And then the darkness engulfed
her. A blackness so complete Erin knew she could never fight her way out of it overwhelmed her. Dimly she heard another voice calling to her, but she couldn’t be sure if it was outside her window or inside her head. It was a male voice that sounded strangely enough like Detective Slade’s. Almost instantly, the image in the mirror shattered, but not before Erin saw her sister’s discarded body fall to the ground.
Then Erin’s own knees buckled, and the floor rushed up to meet her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Erin opened her eyes and gazed around. Sunlight streamed through the window and slanted across her face. Automatically she threw up a hand to protect herself from the glare. It took her a moment to orient her senses, then she realized she was lying on the floor in her sister’s bedroom.
Had she fainted? She frowned, lifting a weak hand to her forehead as she struggled to remember what had happened. She’d been going through Megan’s belongings last night and then—
Dear God, she thought, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. She’d read Megan’s script, she remembered—a story about a vampire. She must have fallen asleep and had a nightmare. That was the only possible explanation for the vision she’d seen in the mirror and for the feelings she’d experienced that had not been her own, but Megan’s.
The man’s image in the mirror came back to her, and without thinking Erin touched the side of her neck, remembering the terror, the intense pleasure.
“Vampires don’t have reflections,” she murmured. It had to have been her imagination. “You don’t exist,” she said more forcefully. “I made you up.”
But Megan was dead. Megan was dead because the blood had been drained from her body by a…a what? A psycho? Or a vampire? Did Erin really believe that? Did she dare?
She squinted again in the sunlight. Megan’s bedroom window faced west. It had to be late afternoon, which meant that Erin had slept for more than fifteen hours straight. It was frightening to think of losing so much time. Of being unconscious during the night. Of losing control.
And becoming vulnerable to the monsters that came out while she slept.
She’d even dreamed she heard Detective Slade calling to her. Strange that she should cast him in the role of protector. Even though he was a policeman, when she’d first seen him, Erin remembered thinking how very much he looked like something spawned by her nightmares. A demon lover…
Erin fought for balance as she struggled to her feet, then stood for a moment clutching a post on the canopied bed. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was still wearing Megan’s dress, and her stomach rolled sickeningly.
What’s happening to me? she thought desperately. God in heaven, why had she come back here? She should have stayed away. She should never have challenged the monsters, because at that moment, Erin had the terrifying feeling that they were winning. That they were luring her slowly but surely into the darkness.
Just as they had lured Megan.
Trying to fight back her panic, Erin tore off the black dress and tossed it onto the floor of the closet. She grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater from her suitcase, and headed for the bathroom. For a long time, she stood under the steaming water, trying to make sense of everything that had happened since she’d returned to New York after being away for so long.
New York…the very name conjured up images of darkness and demons. Of monsters waiting all these years for her to come back.
Shivering, Erin turned off the shower and toweled herself dry. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she muttered, trying to avoid her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Fresh air. That was what she needed. Fresh air, sunshine and miles between herself and this apartment. When she had dressed, Erin grabbed her purse and coat, and hurried out into the late-afternoon sunlight.
* * *
Surrounded by vacant warehouses and aging brick buildings converted into vintage clothing shops and alternative music stores, the Alucard Theater was located at the end of an obscure little street in the Village.
Erin stood on the sidewalk, gazing up at the dark facade of the theater. A handbill posted on the locked front door announced the premiere of Roman Gerard’s play, Dark Obsession, two nights away. It would have been Megan’s opening night, Erin thought.
A movement on a tiny balcony overlooking the front of the theater caught her eye and she looked up. She grew uneasy, imagining that someone was standing there watching her. Racine’s words about the director came back to haunt her.
“Roman Gerard is practically a recluse,” the redhead had told her when Erin had questioned her about the director. “Rumor has it he was in some sort of accident that left him horribly disfigured. No one ever sees him now. He stays in the balcony and issues the stage directions from the shadows.”
Images from Phantom of the Opera leapt to Erin’s mind. She had visions of some poor, hideously deformed creature watching her from above. She’d read enough from Megan’s script to know that the brooding protagonist of Dark Obsession was a vampire, but unlike the demon lover in Erin’s book, a monster who embodied evil, Gerard’s vampire was a tortured creature who sought justice in an unjust world. A lonely soul who yearned for the love of a woman who could understand him. Who would embrace the darkness with him. Who would walk through eternity at his side.
Erin’s vampire was destroyed in the end.
Gerard’s vampire triumphed over those who sought to destroy him.
Erin’s gaze lifted again, drawn by another movement on the balcony. The wind stirred a set of wind chimes, and a hanging basket swung to and fro. There’s your phantom, she scolded herself. Some detective you’d make.
Still, she couldn’t shake the disquieting notion that she was being watched. As the shadows on the street grew even longer, Erin tried to shove away the darkness of her thoughts and concentrate on finding a way into the theater. More than anything, she wanted to talk to Roman Gerard, to find out why he had cast her sister in a play about vampires.
Following the side street that ran parallel to the theater, Erin located the stage door. As she reached for the knob, the wind in the street picked up, rustling leaves in the alley and stirring trash in the gutter. The hair at the back of her neck prickled as her hand slowly turned the knob. The door opened and a man stood staring at her from the darkness within.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled.
Erin jumped back and would have stumbled over the concrete step at the stage door if a scarred hand hadn’t reached out from the darkness and snagged her wrist. Her throat closed over a scream as she watched Detective Slade step out of the theater into the fading light.
He was wearing his long black coat and the dark glasses, and for a moment, Erin thought he looked no more substantial than one of the shadows moving in the breeze. But the hand on her wrist, warm, flowing with life, was real enough. Erin’s own blood began to pound in her ears.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“I wanted to talk to Roman Gerard.”
“About what?”
“About Megan, of course.” He was being purposely dense, she thought, just to goad her.
“I thought I told you to leave the investigation to me.”
“And I thought I told you that I don’t intend to rest until my sister’s murderer is caught.”
“If you had any sense at all,” he said, “you’d be on the first plane out of here.”
There was something shocking about his voice. Something raw and elemental about the way he was staring at her. The pulse in Erin’s throat began to throb. “Why?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Do I threaten you that much?”
“You have no idea,” he said, his voice rough, angry. He tugged on her wrist, and Erin stumbled toward him. To catch herself, or perhaps to insure some distance between them, Erin put up a hand to his chest. No illusion, this. Beneath her hand was a solid wall, warm and beating with life.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
They were standing impossibly close, his mouth only a few inches from hers, and something in his expression altered. The challenge melted. The grim line of his mouth softened almost imperceptibly, and his hand moved back to her arm. But not to imprison her this time. To touch her. To hold her. His head moved slightly toward hers.
He was going to kiss her, Erin realized, her heart beating like a drum. He was going to kiss her and she was going to let him. Emotion, stark and wild, swamped her. Not anger any longer. Not fear this time, but desire, basic and primal.
Suddenly she wanted more than anything to see his eyes, to eliminate the barrier that hid his gaze from her. That shielded his stare. That masked whatever emotion he might have been feeling at that moment.
As though sensing her intentions, he moved away from her sharply, as if she had burned him. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice flat and cold.
In a flash, just like that, the moment became only a memory. Or an illusion, Erin thought, surprised at the regret she felt. “I haven’t talked to Gerard,” she protested.
“There’s no one here,” he said. “You’re wasting your time.” Then he strode past her toward the street.
Erin hurried to follow him out of the alley. She caught up with him at the street. “Have you talked to Gerard?” she persisted.
His gaze scanned the darkening sky, but he said nothing.
“Look, you might as well answer my questions,” she said angrily. “I’m not going away until you do.”
He started walking down the street toward his car.
“I’m sure you’ve made the connection in all this,” she called after him. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what it is.”
He kept walking.
“It’s vampires,” she said. A man passing by on the street gazed at her in shock. Then he hurried his steps.
But Slade’s stride never slowed. He said over his shoulder, “Sounds like you’re starting to believe your own stories.”
Exasperated, Erin started up the street after him. “Surely you have to realize it’s more than a coincidence that I write books about vampires, my sister was cast in a play about one, and then she turns up dead, all the blood…” Erin trailed off, unable to finish. Every time she thought about what had happened to Megan, the world around her began spinning madly out of control. When she thought about what she was saying, what she was actually thinking…
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