by J S Hazzard
The key lime pie shifted uneasily in my stomach. “Okay, duly noted. And the other possibilities?”
“Our search covers option two as well. It’s possible that Eggplant will have assisted Nicky in healing himself, used him for whatever she needed him for, and released him in the wilderness after clearing his memories. Or, in a similar vein, there’s always a chance he may have escaped. Never underestimate a vampire’s ability to underestimate a human,” he said, clearly enjoying his new role as teacher.
“Okay.” I resisted the urge to point out Keanu’s own underestimation of me at that moment and kept my voice bland. “Whether Nicky’s body has been discarded in a remote spot, or he’s alive and lost, you and Ian will search for him. And the third possibility?”
Keanu was all business now, his playful lecturing tone gone. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but as I’ve yet to find a trace of Nicky’s body, I believe the third possibility has merit. Despite the difficulties of hiding a human, history has no shortage of vampires who’ve tried. Therefore, whatever her reasons for coming here, Eggplant may well attempt to keep Nicky as a benefactor by force for as long as she feels safe. A specimen such as him would be hard to resist.”
“If you start licking your lips, I’m out of here.” Not that I had anywhere to go, but it was the principle of the thing.
“Alright, perhaps I was straying off-topic,” Keanu admitted. “Anyhow, there are loads of ways the authorities find evidence of human trafficking, most of them involving a money trail. Ian is the financial wizard and he’ll be staying on top of that.”
“Money trail?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “If Nicky is alive, he’ll be weak from blood loss.” He looked at me expectantly but I had nothing.
“Okay…” My mind was blank. So much for the Nancy Drew books I’d read as a child. Then again, Nancy Drew had never faced off with vampires.
Keanu laughed. “All I meant was that Nicky will require food in order to heal. Groceries aren’t easy to come by for a vampire and purchases can be tracked.”
My face burned in embarrassment at having missed something so obvious, but I had more important things to deal with. “It sounds like you two have given this a lot of thought. Just tell me how I can help.”
Keanu’s confusion at my request was obvious. “Didn’t Ian already tell you?”
My sneer spoke volumes. “You need to ask?”
“We’ll be teaching you to drive later tonight, and we need you to practice over the next week. In order to prevent rumors about Dominic’s absence, Ian has asked me to assist with Luigi’s deliveries.”
My confusion put Keanu’s to shame. “Assist how?”
In lieu of a verbal answer, a blur of light shimmered around Keanu for an instant and I found myself beside Nicky. My shriek shattered the air as I hurled myself off the sofa, knocking both pie tin and fork to the floor. I also landed on the floor, and it goes without saying that Ian arrived before the fork had finished clattering.
“Have you lost your bloody mind?” Ian threw himself between me and the apparition and a second waver of light made me blink before Keanu stepped out from behind Ian, once again looking like himself.
“I’m sorry!” Keanu apologized. To his credit he looked horrified. “Ian, have you told her anything? Anything at all?”
Without a word, Ian scooped me up and set me back on the couch.
Keanu sighed. “I’m sorry for frightening you, Rory. I assumed you knew about a vampire’s ability to throw a glamour.”
Slightly recovered, I lashed out. “How the hell would I know anything about anything? You’re the second vampire I’ve met and I’ve known you three hours, which is approximately twenty hours less than I’ve known my first vampire!”
Ian began speaking in what he clearly considered his ‘soothing’ voice—which was beginning to grate on my nerves. “I’m sorry you were surprised but you need to get used to it fast. If you want us to help with Nicky’s deliveries, one of us needs to mirror him.”
“Which one of you?” I asked quietly, not that it mattered. Seeing Nicky had been like a punch in the face.
“We’ll take turns,” Ian said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Why do you need to take turns? Is…” What the heck had they called it? “Is throwing a glamour difficult?”
Keanu rushed in, eager to be helpful. “It’s practically a lost art. After the conversions, vampiric bloodlines diluted to the point that some of our gifts are nearly impossible to master. Besides, not all vampiric abilities were public knowledge to begin with. If not for Ian, I wouldn’t have thought to try.”
“But you can do it,” I said, embracing my role as She-Who-States-The-Obvious.
Keanu straightened a bit from his slouch. “Ian spent decades teaching me the old ways, though I’d be useless without continuing to have his blood.”
“Not to sound rude,” I began hesitantly, not wanting to offend, “but if Ian is so amazing, why does he need you to take turns?”
Ian couldn’t resist answering that one himself. “Unless Luigi’s customers will take nighttime deliveries,” he suggested acerbically, “Keanu and I will be spending considerable time recovering from sun sickness until this situation is resolved.”
I blinked as that sank in. Of course Nicky’s business was scheduled during daylight hours. “How is that even possible?”
Overall, the plan was simple. To limit their exposure I’d load Nicky’s truck and bring it over the day before. We’d leave at first light to lessen the sun’s impact and complete the deliveries as quickly as possible. Then I’d drive Ian or Keanu back home, where they’d spend the next few days feeling like garbage.
I wasn’t keen on the last portion of the plan, but I had nothing better.
With everything decided, the next half hour was weird in its normalcy. Ian retreated to his office to continue running computer searches, while I followed Keanu to his rooms.
Although I was there for a verbal driving lesson, being in Keanu’s rooms was its own lesson altogether. Had I seen these rooms earlier, I would have known immediately that another man was in residence.
As Keanu droned on about the accelerator and brake pedals, I took in my surroundings. Instead of the art and antiques in Ian’s immaculate rooms, framed posters competed with a gigantic pile of laundry as the main focal point.
After fifteen minutes of fidgeting amidst the mess, I began sorting Keanu’s laundry. It consisted mostly of dozens of jeans and hundreds of t-shirts—many of which could have doubled as dust rags—and after a minute Keanu joined in to help.
As he absently kicked a pile of white boxers off to the side, oblivious to the red shirt lurking amongst them, I hoped he was better at driving than he was at laundry. “Not to lecture my elders, but I doubt this is where you want it to be.” I tossed it back to him and he threw it on the appropriate pile with an exasperated expression.
“Shit. Thanks, Rory. I do that all the time. Didn’t even see the damn thing.”
I grinned companionably, relaxed by the familiar chore. “You can’t be that bad, I see no pink underwear.”
“You have no idea. Ian and I wore pink underwear for half a century after we met. He finally stopped buying white underwear altogether.”
I blurted it out. “That’s why he only owns blue underwear!”
Keanu cocked his head as I realized what I’d said and what it implied.
“Oh shit, that’s not what—” I gave up.
Keanu was smirking and I glared as I stomped away to get ready. “Shut up, Keanu.”
“Hey, I didn’t say a word!” I heard him laughing long after I’d left the room.
Back in Ian’s bedroom, I not only found my dry clothes and duffel bag at the foot of the bed, I found Nicky’s knapsack and sneakers beside them. Since I hadn’t left Keanu until now, I could only conclude Ian had retrieved everything, for which I was simultaneously grateful and annoyed that he’d been eavesdropping.
Of course,
seeing Nicky’s things kicked my emotions into high gear, which led to a stern self-lecture on the edge of Ian’s copper-trimmed toilet as I changed into my clothes. It took nearly ten minutes to stop crying and by then my eyes were so bloodshot and swollen I could barely tie my sneakers.
Ian was waiting as I emerged, and when he saw my face his inclination to panic was obvious. Fortunately, he managed to repress his instincts and merely told me Keanu had left to complete some preparations. We were to meet him outside.
I braced for unpleasantness as we left the bedroom. I hadn’t been in the guest rooms since the Eggplant incident and wasn’t looking forward to seeing them again. Then I realized Ian was leading me in an altogether different direction.
We walked through several empty rooms I may or may not have seen before. After maybe the seventh one, I stopped mid-room.
“Okay, where are we headed and why do you have these empty rooms?”
“I’m taking you to the rear exit and these rooms are exactly what they appear to be.” Ian took my hand and tugged gently, which left me no choice but to move whether I wanted to or not.
“They appear to be a confusing waste of time and space,” I snarked under my breath, but of course Ian heard me anyway. Stupid vampire hearing.
“That’s their main purpose,” he replied calmly. “If anyone made it past the guest rooms, they’d have to penetrate multiple rooms before reaching anyone. On top of that, Keanu hung the doors to deliberately misdirect people. It’s impossible to reach the inner house in a straight line without smashing through the walls.”
“And your security system would alert you if that happened,” I assumed.
He shrugged like it was a non-issue. “It would, but we’d hear it first. Hell, you’d hear it.” He rapped a knuckle against the wall. “The outer walls are thick concrete and the inner walls are reinforced with steel plates in several places. Breaking through them wouldn’t be quiet.”
Then he turned serious and looked at me. “Rory, if you’re going to spend time here, should we ever have another intruder you have to promise me you’ll do exactly as I say. I don’t expect trouble, but I want you to promise.”
“Your plan, your rules,” I said lightly. “You’re the boss. I promise.”
Looking like he wanted to be certain I meant it, Ian stared me down before we resumed trudging through the empty rooms. Some dead part of my brain sputtered back to life. “How did you cram so many rooms in here anyway? It’s a big house but it didn’t look this big from outside. Have you been doubling back to keep me confused?”
Ian’s expression was one of amusement. “The underground portion of this property served as the basement of a research facility centuries before the house was built above it. The lower level is much larger—I thought you’d realized.”
I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Being used to windowless construction I hadn’t realized we were underground, which was particularly embarrassing having seen the dozens of windows before I’d entered. Still, there hadn’t been a flight of stairs when entering with Nicky and I said as much.
He laughed. “You didn’t miss any stairs. The vestibule opens directly into the house above ground, but that’s off limits to guests. However, it also functions as an elevator car. If you know how to activate it, it descends and opens into the guest rooms.”
I paused in mid-doorway, remembering. “That’s what the vibrations were!” Damn. I would have paid more attention had I realized I’d been taking my first elevator ride. “Are you that concerned someone will find you and hurt you?”
“Privacy is a valuable commodity around here.”
Remembering our initial meeting it was easy to believe him. Then, for the first time since Nicky’s abduction, I remembered Ms. Parkes and stopped in my tracks. Nicky’s words popped back into my head. Rumor has it she has a vampire lover…
Ugh, how much more dense could I get? This place was neither her home nor his home, it was their home—a show place fit for a famous human liaison on the outside and secured living quarters where a human and vampire could be together underground. The enormously rich ‘interspecies liaison’ was Ian’s lover, and he was her source of funding.
Ian noticed me lagging, an observation he mistook for me being tired. “We’re almost there, Aurora.” He extended his hand but I pretended not to see it. Instead, I shambled after him through two more rooms before he blessedly stopped at a wide, dim stairway leading outside.
As if to echo my thoughts, Keanu called down, “Finally! I’ve been waiting forever!”
“By forever, he means about half an hour, most of which he spent working,” Ian said dryly as we climbed to meet him. I watched with interest as Ian closed the exit with a heavy trapdoor.
Once it was down, Keanu kicked a quick layer of dead leaves over it—his sneakers being as beat up as the rest of his clothes—and made my eyes widen by lifting a felled tree with one hand and laying it across the trapdoor.
I looked around curiously and was surprised to see the lights of Nicky’s truck a hundred feet away, shining in the middle of what appeared to be a recently cleared patch of woods. The earth was so freshly turned I could smell it.
The walk to the truck was suspiciously easy, even in the dark. Having seen Keanu move an entire tree I had a sneaking suspicion Ian’s version of ‘preparation’ had involved Keanu doing some extreme gardening.
As I stepped into the clearing and looked up, the air caught in my throat before reaching its intended destination. I struggled to breathe and Keanu pulled me back against his chest while Ian pressed his back to me, scanning for the source of the threat. They looked very swashbuckling, but my chance to admire them was cut short. Head spinning, I pushed them both away and sat down hard, tucking my head between my knees.
As the vertigo receded, I opened my eyes, forgetting the cause of my dizziness and screaming bloody murder at the two sets of eyeballs faintly glowing approximately ten inches from my face. Talk about freaky.
Keanu let out an answering shriek in response and jumped five feet in the air. He recovered before he hit the ground but looked thoroughly embarrassed as he landed.
Ian, on the other hand, was made of sterner stuff and was clearly vacillating between concern for me and disgust for Keanu—whom I suspected would later receive an earful for conduct unbecoming to a vassal.
I was tempted to mock Keanu myself, but was too grateful he’d taken Ian’s attention off me. Of course, when I realized the eyeballs belonged to Ian and Keanu I stopped mid-screech and demanded they help me up.
“Sorry about that,” I said briskly, dusting the palms of my hands on my jeans. I felt no lingering ill effects from my dizzy spell other than embarrassment, which I was determined to hide as best as possible.
Annoyed with myself, I turned to the truck again, only to realize I didn’t have the keys. I turned back. “You know, you might’ve told me that the stories about vampire eyes glowing in the dark were true.”
Keanu helpfully unlocked the doors. “Our eyes don’t really glow in the dark, you know. They simply reflect moonlight at a high intensity.”
Still tense, Ian’s glowing eyes shot from side to side. “You didn’t notice it earlier because the forest canopy lets very little moonlight filter through. Out here, with the trees removed…” He gestured upward. “Full moon.”
I had braced to climb into the truck, stubbornly refusing assistance, only to glance up a second time as Ian did. Once again, I felt a surge of dizziness that brought both men to my side.
“Everything’s okay, Aurora,” Ian crooned.
I felt aggravation surge through me at his condescending soothe-the-human voice—the one that made me want to strangle him. Either he didn’t notice my reaction or didn’t care because he kept talking. “If this truck upsets you, we’ll find another one for the deliveries.” He smiled like he’d solved all my problems.
“You’ll find another truck?” I asked, baffled.
“We’ll do what?” echoed Kea
nu, equally confused.
Ian’s tone remained in there-there mode, but he shot Keanu a dirty look. “If seeing Dominic’s truck upsets Aurora, we’ll find another way.”
Oh. He thought my strange behavior was due to the truck.
Then I felt guilty—was the truck supposed to upset me? I was uneasy at using Nicky’s truck without him, but it hadn’t caused my lightheadedness.
“I’m not upset about the truck. It’s the sky.” I fought back the urge to giggle, knowing I’d upset everyone.
“You’re upset at the sky?” Keanu sounded wary, which did make me laugh, but I kept it under control.
“I’m not upset, I’m breathless! Do you realize this is the first time in my entire life I’ve been outside after sunset? I didn’t faint from fear, I was just…”
Nothing seemed adequate.
“It’s overwhelming,” I said. “Experiencing this is an incredible gift, so thank you. I’ll never forget it.”
I took another few minutes to admire the dangerous beauty of the night before climbing into the truck. Then I laughed silently. If I wanted to admire dangerous beauty, it was sitting right in the front seat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE only good thing about learning to drive was I only had to do it once. Everything else about it sucked.
Our first trial run took three times longer than it should have as Ian kept stopping to make poor Keanu destroy more trees every few yards. The only thing keeping me awake was their endless bickering over directions, but after a few suggestions I left them to it. Apparently vampires get exceedingly annoyed when accused of being lost.
The eventual route they chose measured approximately fifteen miles as the crow flies, maybe twenty miles total, and they argued the entire trip—mostly about how best to wind a path through the trees and make it appear as natural as possible. Also, the new path exited near the vault at an angle to better hide its entrance.