He’d risen, arms crossed. “Look kid, I’m sorry I don’t have better answers for you.” And something about how smug he looked pushed me over the edge.
“I’m so sick of being treated like a mistake and an inconvenience. I know you didn’t want a kid, and ultimately my mother didn’t either. All I came here to figure out was how to survive being a monster, being a fucking vampire. I need to understand what I am. And for some reason I thought you could help me. God, you and my mother were a perfect match. Selfish, cruel . . . you’re acting like I need you to go to a daddy/daughter dance or something. I am so sorry to impose. I’ll just keep flailing around in the dark trying not to kill anyone.”
I yanked the door open, but his arm shot out and he grabbed me. I snarled at him, trying to pull away. Hugh’s hand tightened and he pushed me against the wall with a thud. Just like the journal. He did this to my mother all those years ago.
Panic crept up into my throat, tempting me to call out. Hugh leaned in close, eyes cold like a reptile. Polished onyx. Spilled ink. The same eyes I saw in the mirror every day. His breath smelled of liquor, and beneath that, the coppery hint of blood.
“I can’t have you running out there and causing a scene. This is my business. You need to calm down.”
“And you need to take your hands off me.”
His stare bore into mine, nearly nose to nose. I sniffled, I was scared, but I meant it—I wanted his hands off me. He couldn’t just toss me around and rough me up like some disgruntled abusive tyrant.
He let go. My arm ached where Hugh had grabbed me. I rubbed it absently, glaring at him. He stepped away and actually appeared embarrassed by his violence. He swore at the floor, then walked off across the gallery space.
“Sorry about that. Come along, if you want.” I reluctantly followed Hugh through to his office, where he’d taken a seat behind a large glass-topped desk. He gestured for me to sit across from him, and after a bit of indecisive panic, I walked over and dropped into the chair.
“I need a drink.” Hugh reached across his desk and pulled the top off an ornate, crystal decanter, and poured some amber liquid into two small glasses that were arranged on the corner of his desk. He slid one toward me. He took his and shakily I reached for my own. I had a sudden, impractical fear of poison, but I pushed it aside and took a sniff. It was pungent, the alcohol instantly making my eyes water.
Hugh smirked at me. “I assure you, it’s very good whiskey. I think we both could use a belt or two. Cheers.”
He slugged it back with a quick tip of his head. I stared at my glass before trying to imitate him move for move. I tried to mirror his confidence as I swallowed it. The whiskey seared my throat, the burn instantly reminding me of that night with Sabrina. I gasped and coughed while Hugh laughed, pouring himself another. He offered one to me but I shook my head.
The silence stretched, but it was less hostile. I glanced around the room—one wall had a large nude painting of a woman floating in water. Another wall had a black and white photograph of a goat skull. The other wall had a floor to ceiling bookshelf sagging with art books. There was no window. I tried to imagine Hugh working here all day, living his life all this time, while I led mine a few hundred miles north. And we never knew the other existed. I risked a look at him. Hugh was staring up into the corner, miles away. Finally, he cleared his throat, sat forward and steepled his fingers, regarding me over them.
“I handled this badly . . . Jane. And I apologize for being so brutish a moment ago. You’re right. It’s not your fault that you were born, nor is it your fault that you don’t know who you are or where you come from. It just caught me off guard. Frankly, I haven’t thought of your mother in years. And that ominous email had my hackles up.”
I shifted in my seat, strangely more uncomfortable about his apology than anything before.
“Okay. I guess I could have handled the situation better too,” I said. “I could have tried to call you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t see me or you wouldn’t believe me.”
He laughed at that. “You know me better than you think. I probably wouldn’t have.” He crossed his legs, picking up a round stone paperweight and tossed it from hand to hand.
“Vivian was an amazing artist and had such lovely red hair. Does she still paint?”
I shook my head, eyes on the floor. “She’s too sick. She been bedridden for a long time.”
“And where do you live? Surely not in the city? I vaguely remember gossip that . . . your . . . mother had moved home.”
“No. We live up in northern New Hampshire.”
He wrinkled his nose at that, sipping his drink and looking back to me now. “Rural?”
I nodded. “Quite.”
“My condolences. It’s hard for people like us to find friends in small towns, I can imagine. Like finding a needle in a haystack.”
“I found one,” I said, stopping myself before I said anything more.
“One?” He chuckled. “Explains why Vivian isn’t in good shape, I imagine.”
My face heated with shame. I glared at him. “That’s why I’m here. Tell me about people like us.”
“It’s not a close-knit community. We are pretty territorial, and there are a limited number of willing donors, as you’ve noticed. So, we tend to stay clear of each other. But respectfully. We can reproduce, but it’s rare. And the mortality rate is high, for babies and especially mothers.”
There was a knock on the door. Hugh frowned but called out a response. Natsuki peeked in, a smile on her face. I didn’t like this woman. Despite the blonde hair, she reminded me of a crow. Her eyes glittered as she glanced between the two of us.
“Yes?”
“Just checking on you, dear. Some people are asking for you.”
“I doubt it.”
“They are!” she said, petulant. Her nosiness was obvious and unattractive.
“I’ll be out soon. Thank you, Natsuki,” he dismissed her evenly. She nodded, her curiosity appeased, and closed the door.
“She knows about you, doesn’t she? What you are. You feed off of her. Don’t you?”
Hugh sighed. “She does. She’s my fiancée.” He saw the shock on my face and chuckled, leaning back. “Natsuki is a brilliant artist. Not only that, but she’s from a very wealthy family, and she has a profitable career here and in Japan. It would be foolish not to marry her, don’t you think? A bad business decision.”
I flailed around for a response. “Do you even love her?”
“That’s a gauche question, Jane. You don’t know me.”
“You don’t know me either,” I snapped, and would have continued, but Hugh held a up a hand.
“Of course I love her. But for you and I, love means something different than to regular humans. I would have never started my first gallery if not for the money left me by my first wife. You will understand all this as you get older.”
“Did you love my mother?”
Hugh didn’t hesitate. “I did. She was a vibrant woman.” But he was lying, I could see it plainly, and besides she wasn’t rich, she was just a means to an end. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry, or leave, or scream.
He glanced discreetly at his watch and got up, taking the choice away from me.
“I really do need to get out there. Duty calls. You should leave me your cell, or the hotel you’re staying at.”
I dropped my eyes to my chest, too quickly.
“Uh . . . maybe we could just set a time to meet again? I don’t have a phone.”
He opened a drawer and dug around in it. “It’s snowing and below freezing outside. Where did you plan to stay, Jane?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.” I didn’t want to give him any information about Sabrina, or her cousin’s dorm.
Hugh cocked his head. “You really had no plan past finding me? Well, I guess the least I can do for a surprise illegitimate child is offer you a place to stay for the night.”
“You real
ly don’t have to,” I protested. I had the feeling that Hugh did very little out of the kindness of his heart.
But Hugh held a hand up in protest. He then produced a set of keys out of the drawer and slid them to me across the desk. I stared at them confused.
“You’re very lucky that I have a small apartment down the street for visiting artists. Natsuki is local so no one’s using it right now.” He scribbled on his business card and slid the address across the desk as well.
“I’ve got a place to stay. It’s a generous offer, but I don’t think so.”
“I insist, Jane. If you’re in the city, I would prefer to know where. It’s close, and then we can talk more under less pressing time constraints.”
I opened my mouth and he cut me off: “Take the keys, Jane. It’s freezing and snowing. I know you don’t know me, but you can trust me.”
I took the keys, unsure what to say.
Hugh came around the desk and coolly smiled at me. “See? I can be a nice guy.”
I felt like he was teasing me. Like I was one big joke. I didn’t respond, just stood and turned away.
“Oh. Before you leave. One question.” I stopped. “Does anyone else know where you are? Or why you’re here?”
My blood chilled. Hugh’s forced casualness felt like a threat. I didn’t want to give up Sabrina, but couldn’t think of a deft way to lie to him off the cuff. “My friend, who drove. And her mother. And my mother up north.” He nodded, reassured (or pretending to be), passing around me and out the door.
After composing myself, I followed him out, heading back into the throng. The crowd had doubled since I went into the office. The reek of alcohol, perfume, and sweat were thick in the space. I tried to find Sabrina, and, after standing dumbly in the middle of it all and turning in a slow circle, I finally spotted her. She was at the hors d’oeuvres table, hands filled with finger foods.
XXVII.
“What happened?” Sabrina hissed, her eyes scanning back and forth. We were pressed into the corner near the bar, the busiest part of the gallery. “I saw you two talking and suddenly Hugh dragged you away. I tried to follow, but that blonde Asian lady cornered me and I got stuck talking to her. I didn’t say anything . . . but she was really nosey.”
A tinkling of silverware on glass caught our attention. Everyone was now facing the opposite corner of the room, listening to Natsuki thanking everyone for coming. I used the opportunity to leave the gallery, Sabrina at my elbow. My father’s gaze met mine as I opened the door to leave, but it gave nothing away. Natsuki followed his gaze and that same damn eyebrow rose. She kept talking, but I could feel her eyes on me even after the door was closed and we were out on the street.
I told Sabrina what had happened as we trudged through the snow to her car. After brushing it off, we drove the few blocks to the apartment scribbled on Hugh’s business card. When we parked before the big nondescript brick building, the feeling I was leading us into a trap kept me from getting out of the car. I stared at the banks of black windows reflecting the city. The snow fell undisturbed on the streets. It felt deserted and post-apocalyptic out there. I had always imagined every inch of New York City was constantly buzzing and thriving with life, like an ant’s nest, or a beehive. But this street was completely still.
“He wanted to know if anyone knew I was here, and I told him you were with me. I didn’t want to risk lying. And I figured it was safer if I told him someone knew we were here,” I blurted.
Sabrina frowned. She lit a cigarette and rolled the window down, expelling a plume of smoke.
“I don’t know if we should stay, Sabrina. I can’t figure Hugh out. I don’t know if we’re safe here. I think maybe we should go to Isabelle’s. Can you call her?”
As Sabrina talked to her cousin, I stared out the window, lost in the thought. Hugh was real, and there were other vampires in the world. But if they were all like Hugh, I might not like or want to be around any of them.
Sabrina raised her voice into the phone and pulled my attention back into the car. “What do you mean you aren’t at school? At a party? In Philly? You said we could crash with you! Remember?” Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we are in the city. This is super shitty—there’s a blizzard on in case you hadn’t noticed! And, hello? Now we’re homeless.” She swallowed loudly, and glanced at the apartment building. “If we end up dead because of you, I’m gonna haunt you forever. And no, I am not being overly dramatic. Thanks for nothing. Yeah, have fun.” She hung up her cheeks flushed. “Asshole.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“My dumbass cousin went to some house party in Philly and won’t be home until Sunday night. I can’t believe her. So, okay . . . we could try to get a hotel, see if my mom could call in a credit card. Or we could sleep in the car?” She looked at the backseat frowning. “It’s gonna be below freezing, so that’s probably a bad idea.”
“So, what should we do, Sabrina? Drive back tonight? I don’t want to lose the opportunity to talk more to my father, even if he is also a huge asshole.”
Sabrina chewed her lip, “Maybe we risk it and go check out Castle Dracula up there? We have knives, we can protect ourselves. If it’s too scary we bounce . . . and I dunno, park in a pay garage and sleep in the car or something.”
“Ugh, I don’t know. A part of me—and this could just be the lost little girl who wants loving parents talking—thinks he’s trying to be nice but lacks normal social graces. Like me. That maybe he offered us a place to crash because he didn’t want us to freeze to death. We’re kids on his doorstep, after all.”
“So, are you talking us into or out of going up to the apartment, Jane?”
“Umm, I don’t know. He’s a killer! I’m sure of that. He basically confessed to marrying and killing women for their blood and money back there. It was creepy.”
Sabrina smoked and thought. She squinted up at the building, then down the street for signs of anyone. For signs of Hugh. Finally, she said, “But maybe that isn’t so weird among your people. What does your gut say?”
“My gut?” I blinked.
“Yes, your intuition. Do we go in and check it out? Or should we just drive away?”
I covered my eyes and groaned. “I just worry he doesn’t think like . . . people. You wouldn’t get it.”
“Oh, because I’m a mere mortal and all that?”
“Don’t joke, Sabrina. I’m totally serious. I know nothing about this guy. I’m worried that I’m so desperate to connect with someone like me, to share this burden, that I could put you in danger.”
“This is what we came for, Jane.”
“It may not be worth it,” I said. I didn’t want to be like my father—I couldn’t be so cavalier about loving someone to death.
Sabrina was silent a moment, taking a drag off her smoke. The coils escaped from her nose and mouth, serpentine, toward the sliver of open window. “I care about you, Jane. But you piss me off. I think we should risk it. We drove all the way here to find this guy! You want to just sit there in that house of yours with your mother until the whole thing collapses in on itself?” She turned and glared at me. “You’d rather lie there wasting away in the debris than actually take control of your life! You got dealt a bad hand. Like it or not, you need blood to live, and you need him.” She pointed hard out the window, at the building.
“You need his help. People aren’t meant to live like you do. I’m saying this as your friend, or your girlfriend, or whatever I am.”
“I’m not ‘people,’ though, am I? I’m not even human, really. Maybe I deserve whatever I get.” I sucked in a breath, unsure whether to yell at her, or weep. “Plus, I just don’t think I can survive being disappointed. At least if I went home . . . I know my mother. I know we’d be safe. I know that life.”
“But you can’t go back to that life now. Do you think you can just ignore everything you’ve found out? Wake up, Jane!” Sabrina was really yelling now.
I recoiled. I didn’t trust my father. I didn’t tr
ust his generosity, but at the same time, there was no other real choice. Especially if I wanted any kind of a different life.
We sat in silence. I watched, though unfocused eyes, the blobs of city lights as the snow on the windshield melted away. Finally, I opened the door and crunched out onto the pristine snow. Sabrina followed and we both grabbed our bags.
The building had an enormous industrial door. I tried the key, and it swung open easily for its size. I had expected a dramatic creak and the need to throw my body weight against it, but it opened without complaint. The hallway was generic, a greenish buzzing light above, and a large empty space that echoed as we stepped into it. To the right was a row of mailboxes, to the left a painted black stairwell.
The apartment was on the fourth floor, so we climbed the stairs, Sabrina audibly breathless by the time we reached the top. I was unaffected, felt as if I could go up two or three more flights before noticing. Her healthy blood was changing me. I noticed it more and more. My senses, my body, in some ways even my emotions. Would I have taken this trip even two weeks ago? Unlikely. Would I have made it up this many stairs without puffing? Doubtful.
The hallway was concrete, the door stainless steel, the walls painted white. There was only one door along the hall that I could see, but to be safe, I knocked. We waited. Sabrina leaned against the wall to catch her breath, encouraging me to unlock the door. It gave easily, the door swinging open into a dark space spilling out stale air. It was cold.
I hit all the lights and one by one the tract fixtures above went on, illuminating a large rectangular room with mammoth windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline and the bridge.
“Holy shit,” Sabrina said and ran to the windows, pressing both hands against the glass to look at the view.
I walked carefully around, noting the simple cream sofa and chair, the large kitchen with wooden stools, the modern polished cement floors. There was a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall above a fake mantel and a half-dead houseplant beside it. A few paintings, mostly abstract, hung on the wall. There was a small bathroom with a shower and toilet in black and white, and a good-sized bedroom with a large bed, bare mattress, and a small desk and chair. The space felt like a hotel room, enough furniture to be comfortable, but not enough to feel at home.
Parasite Life Page 18