Even to myself, it had sounded unconvincing. “Lucas wants to see me; if I go to dinner with him and find out what he knows, then we’re one step closer to ending this nightmare.”
I had ultimately won the argument, and Henry had (grudgingly) driven me into the next town to look at clothes.
For the dinner with Lucas tonight, I had chosen to wear my new boot cut dark jeans and a simple gray t-shirt. It was nice to finally have something to wear that actually fit me. I had my hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. I liked the overall effect: stylish without looking like I had tried too hard. Or looking like a whore, I thought, picturing Kayla. I shuddered and tried to put that image out of my mind.
I was excited about tonight, and although I did really hope to get some answers, I was equally eager to get to know Lucas a little bit better.
Lucas was picking me up where he had dropped me off after our first encounter. I had to use the rope ladder to leave – another reason I couldn’t have dressed up if I had wanted to – since Henry’s parents were home.
This is definitely the most unusual first date I’ve ever gone on, I mused as descended the ladder. I slipped out the gate (since I now had the code) and walked the couple of blocks to where Lucas was meeting me. Much as I had protested, Henry had insisted that I take one of his baseball caps to wear while I was walking around the neighborhood.
“You can’t risk someone recognizing you,” he had said, and I knew he was right.
This had better not mess up my hair. I had spent awhile perfecting the messy (but not too messy) casual ponytail look. Being a girl is tougher than it looks.
When I reached the corner, there were no cars in sight. I bit my nails nervously. Where is he?
Just then, the black sedan pulled up next to me. Lucas hopped out of the car. He was wearing the same long hooded trench coat he had been wearing before. I can’t believe I’m going out on a date with the same guy who I thought was going to kill me three days ago.
“Hey.” Lucas opened the back seat door for me. “It’s dark out, but we still need to be cautious. Lie down in the back seat, like last time.”
I did as I was told. For the first few minutes of the ride, we sat in awkward silence. “Where are we going?” I finally asked.
“You like pizza?”
“Um, yeah, sure.” I used to, at least. I hadn’t decided how I was going to handle the whole not eating thing at dinner. I guess I was a little bit surprised that he didn’t already know about that aspect of my ‘condition.’ It would have been the perfect time to tell him, but just as I was opening my mouth he started speaking again.
“Great. There’s this new pizza place in Collierville. Supposed to be really delicious.” Collierville was a town about half an hour away.
“Uh, cool.” Here goes nothing.
Lucas turned on the radio. “I think you can sit up now,” he said. “We’re far enough from town to where no one should see you.”
I did as he suggested. “Oh, you have tinted windows!” I exclaimed. “No one can see in anyway.”
“I don’t like to take any chances.”
We pulled into the restaurant. It didn’t look very crowded. It was a brick restaurant with a large neon sign out front that said Luchessi’s. Lucas hopped out and opened my door for me. What a gentleman. I tried to conceal the big dopey grin on my face.
It smells delicious. Maybe I can eat, even though I don’t need to? I wondered as we walked into the restaurant. The familiar scent of tomato and herbs was tantalizing.
“How about a corner booth?” Lucas asked, pointing to the far side of the restaurant.
“Perfect.” It was dimly lit and secluded. Even though we were in Collierville, it wasn’t completely safe to assume that nobody from my high school would come here.
“What looks good to you?” Lucas asked, skimming the menu.
“Uh, I don’t care.” Play it cool, Aurora. Just try to eat a slice or two. Surely it won’t re-kill you. Why hadn’t I tested this before, in the safety of Henry’s house! Stupid, stupid, stupid, I chastised myself.
“How about thin crust pepperoni?” I suggested. If worse comes to worse, I can chew and just spit it out in my napkin.
We ordered the food. Now it was time to get to know the mysterious Lucas.
But Lucas didn’t give me a chance to start barraging him with questions about himself. “I guess you are wondering why I brought you here?” he asked me.
To declare your undying love for me? Aloud I said, “I assumed it was to clue me in on why you broke into Henry’s house and took me to some secluded building in the woods.”
Lucas’ piercing stare made me look away. He is so intense! He brushed his hair off his forehead and sighed. It was the first time I had seen him look perplexed. During our initial encounter, he had always been strong, in control of everything, and appeared to have all of the answers (even if he wasn’t sharing them with me).
“I am probably going to get in trouble for telling you this,” he said. “I could even get killed.”
“Go on.” I was hanging on his every word.
“I work for an agency that…handles things. The orders come down from the top, and I follow them. And I’m damn good at my job. I’ve been doing it for a while now. Longer than you could imagine.”
I was confused. “What do you mean by ‘handles things’?” I asked.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Paranormal things. I help keep the world a safe place, and the majority of people live their humdrum lives none the wiser to my existence.”
“All of those creatures you’ve heard about: werewolves, vampires, shape shifters. They exist,” he continued. “And that’s just the beginning of what’s out there. The creatures that mean no harm are allowed to live amongst the regular people, as long as they never reveal their true identity. Unfortunately, that’s a small minority of them. Most of these beings have dark, powerful urges that they just can’t overcome. So they give in to the addiction, and innocent people pay the price.”
I was overwhelmed by what Lucas was telling me. “Wait. That doesn’t make sense. These hideous creatures, the ones from horror stories, are real?” He’s crazy. That’s the only explanation for this. I’m at dinner with a mad man.
Lucas laughed. “I know how incredible it sounds the first time you hear it. It’s one of the reasons it’s not public knowledge. It would upset the equilibrium, cause mass panic and chaos. I thought you of all people would be easy to convince. What do you think you are, after all?”
“I have no idea. That’s what Henry and I are trying to figure out.”
“Right,” he said. “Which brings me back to your connection to all of this. My job is eliminating the non-human creatures that are threatening mankind.”
“Do you mean like a hunter?”
“Yes. I am a hunter. And I was hired to kill you.”
Chapter 14
He still speaking but I couldn’t hear over the deafening roar in my own ears. He’s going to kill me, I thought wildly. Henry was right. This was too dangerous.
I scooted out of the booth and made a dash for the door, praying my legs didn’t give out on me. I had no idea what I would do, where I would go. I just had to get out of there, away from Lucas.
I had brushed off the notion that coming here with Lucas was dangerous, justifying it by telling myself that I was already dead so he couldn’t harm me.
“Aurora!” Lucas was right behind me. He grabbed my arm and literally dragged me to the edge of the parking lot, which was surrounded by trees and bushes. “Jesus Christ!” he roared. “What the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to get us both killed?”
His eyes were blazing. Something was different than before. Even when he was threatening me in the house in the woods, Lucas had never looked so…menacing. He had clenched my arm so tightly that if I tried to move it would probably come unhinged.
“I’m not going to kill you!” He laughed bitterly. “Don’t you think I could have done that a
lready if I wanted to?”
“Shit!” He kicked at the ground in anger.
I couldn’t look him in the eye. I had made everything worse. Of course he was right. He would have killed me the other night if that were his intention.
“If I let go of your arm, are you going to try to run?” he asked. He sounded like his old self again. I looked up at him. His face looked normal, too.
“No,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I just got scared. I thought you were going to hurt me.”
He looked around. “There’s no one else out here. Let’s go back inside and finish dinner. If you can handle it,” he added sarcastically.
We got back to our table just as the confused waitress was bringing the pizza. “My apologies,” Lucas said smoothly. “My girlfriend got an upsetting phone call, but luckily it was a false alarm.”
Girlfriend! I thought I might swoon. Aurora, get a hold of yourself. He was about to rip your arm off two minutes ago.
“Dig in.” He pointed to the sizzling pizza in front of us.
“Um, sure.” I grabbed a piece and set it on my plate. “Aren’t you having any?”
“I was trying to tell you before this arrived. I actually don’t eat human food.” He seemed a little bit embarrassed.
“Come again?” I raised my eyebrows.
“I told you I was a hunter, but I haven’t always been so committed to protecting the well being of the human race.” He leaned in. “I’m a vampire.”
I gasped. “You drink blood?” I asked in disbelief.
“I used to,” he admitted. “Now I live off of the synthetic version.”
“Synthetic blood?” This is getting better and better.
“It’s an acquired taste for sure, but it keeps me from killing.” I stared at Lucas, dumbfounded, expecting him to tell me this was a big joke at any second. But he didn’t.
“Okay, so let’s just say you are a vampire.”
“Yes, let’s.” Lucas looked amused now.
“How can you come out in the daytime? I’ve felt like I was being watched all the time. “
“There are ways around the whole no sunlight thing.”
“Like?” I still wasn’t sure I believed him.
“It’s amazing what modern medicine can do,” he replied. “I don’t think I could spend a day at the beach, but getting around during sunlight is manageable, as long as I take one of these.” He reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a small white pill. “This protects me from the sun for up to 3 hours,” he explained. “It’s still uncomfortable, but at least I know I won’t burst into flames.”
“This is nuts,” I said. “Wait, is that why you always wear that huge coat?” He hadn’t even taken it off when we sat down.
“Yes, I have to wear it in the daylight.”
That doesn’t explain why you’re wearing it now. I couldn’t help but wonder if a vampire had a normal body. Surely he wasn’t trying to cover up some disfigurement?
“So what do you know about my situation?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Not much, I’m afraid.” Lucas sighed. “Aren’t you going to eat something?”
“I have a confession to make, too,” I said. “I don’t need food. I’m not sure what would happen if I tried to eat, but I’m also not too eager to find out.”
Lucas started laughing, a deep, sexy laugh. “Of course you don’t eat,” he managed to say. “What was I thinking? A vampire brought a dead girl to a pizza café. It’s like a bad joke.” His laugh was contagious, and pretty soon we were both doubled over.
“I have to say this is the weirdest situation I have ever been in,” I said, once we’d regained our composure.
“Me, too,” he agreed. “And I’ve seen a lot over the centuries.”
“Just how long have you been around?” I asked curiously.
“Long enough.” He smiled mysteriously.
“Why didn’t you just kill me, if that’s what you were hired to do?” I asked.
“I almost did,” he admitted. “That first day you were back. I had come to Henry’s house to kidnap you then. But something was wrong. I could hear the two of you talking, and it was obvious you were just out of the grave. But I had gotten the order to kill you two days before. I was confused and wanted to get more information.”
“I went back to my boss,” he continued, “to find out if there was some sort of mix up. Normally, my boss will tell me whatever I want to know about a case, but this time, he refused. I was told it wasn’t my place to ask questions, and I had been hired to do a job. If I didn’t complete the job, I would be fired. He even hinted that if I didn’t go through with it, he couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be a bounty on my head next.”
“Scared for my life, I stalled for a few days and watched you closely. I had never been given an assignment before where the killing wasn’t justifiable.” Lucas shuddered. “Some of the things I’ve seen these creatures do unnerves even me, and I thought I had seen it all.”
“But then you didn’t do anything!” Lucas continued. “I couldn’t see one reason to complete the job. I knew you were having blackouts, but I could never get close enough to monitor you and not risk Henry seeing me. So I took you. It was the night I was supposed to kill you. My boss had given me an ultimatum and that was my last chance.”
“But you didn’t,” I whispered. My head was spinning. This was too much to take in. “What happened?”
“Nothing. You muttered a few things after you blacked out, but you didn’t try to do anything. I couldn’t in good conscience kill you. As far as I can tell, you’re completely harmless! And here we are now.” He threw his hands up in surrender.
“What did you tell your boss?”
“I was given a spell to read, that was supposed to send you back to the grave and stop you from ever being resurrected again.” He looked sheepish. “I lied and told my boss that it didn’t work, that nothing happened when I read it. He will pass the message on to his boss, and so on, and it will finally be relayed back to whoever put the hit out initially. I figured that would buy some time; it will probably still be a few more days before I hear anything else about you.”
“So at any given time you could say this spell and – poof – I’m gone?” I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
He laughed. “It’s a little more involved than that. There are some items that have to be gathered in order for it to work, but essentially, yeah.”
“Why did you bring me here to tell me this?” I was still hoping he’d confess that he liked me. But did vampires even have sexual desires? I had a ton of questions, but obviously I couldn’t ask Lucas that one.
“I’m not sure how safe you are at Henry’s house.”
“If I’m in danger then Henry and his parents are also in danger,” I whispered. “I would never forgive myself if something happened to them.”
“I won’t let it. I promise.”
Lucas reached in his front pocket and pulled out a card. “Take this,” he said, handing it to me.
“What is it?” The card was plain white with a phone number in black on the front.
“If you ever feel like you’re in danger, just call me,” Lucas explained. “Day or night.”
“Okay.”
Lucas motioned the waitress over and asked for a to-go box and the bill. “Not hungry?” She raised an eyebrow at the untouched pizza.
“My girlfriend isn’t feeling well,” Lucas answered.
I was a little disappointed that we were leaving so soon. Lucas had only brought me here to tell me his secret. Sure, it was a big deal, but it wasn’t a romantic reason. Oh well. A dead girl and a vampire would never work out anyway.
Chapter 15
I got back to the house and quietly went through the gate. Henry’s window was open; he was waiting for me to signal I was back so he could throw the rope down.
“Henry!” I hissed from below.
His face immediately appeared at the window and he lowe
red the long cloth rope. I quickly made my way to the top and through the window.
Instantly, I knew something was wrong. Henry’s face was flushed and he was teetering slightly from side to side.
“How’d your date with Thor go?” he asked loudly.
“Henry, keep your voice down!” I reached my hand out to steady him but Henry slapped it away. “Have you been drinking?” I thought I could smell liquor on his breath.
“Just a few shots of brandy.” At least he had lowered his voice now.
“Why would you do that?” I demanded. Henry never drank. Even at parties when the other kids were drinking, he wouldn’t touch the stuff.
“I got bored while you were making goo goo eyes at The Incredible Hulk.”
Did I really talk that much about how tall Lucas is? I had tried to play it cool when Henry and I had discussed Lucas. Obviously I had gushed about him a little more than I’d intended.
“Henry, you’re worrying me. Sit down.” I tried to take his arm to lead him to the bed, but he pulled away.
“I can walk by myself, thanks,” he said flatly.
“You’re not acting like yourself. What’s happened?”
“I told you already. I was bored. So how’s your new boyfriend?” Henry asked.
“He’s not my boyfriend. It wasn’t really a date.”
Henry seemed to perk up a little bit. “You didn’t kiss him?”
“No. Like I just said, it wasn’t a date. We didn’t even hold hands.” I sat down next to Henry on the bed. I had been planning to tell him everything that Lucas had said, but he was tipsy and the familiar head pain was coming back, which meant I had anywhere from a few minutes to an hour before I passed out.
“But you still like him?” Henry asked me.
“I don’t know what I want anymore.” It wasn’t really an answer to his question, but it was the truth.
Suddenly, before I knew what was happening, Henry’s lips were on mine. My initial reaction was to pull back, but Henry had cupped the back of my head with his hand, holding our faces together.
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