Bleeding Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde

by Ash Krafton

  The speakers burst with sound as the DJ began his set. The music wasn't loud enough to drown out conversation but it provided sufficient excuse to not have to talk. I enjoyed this rare kind of peace. Sometimes a mood was so right I didn't need to pad it with words.

  Apparently, Marek didn't seem to share my contentment. From time to time, he appeared ready to blurt out something, before resetting his jaw in a resolute line. Something heavy weighed on his mind and I could almost feel his tension.

  One thing, though—whenever he looked at me, his eyes held me. His gaze made me feel as if part of me already belonged to him. And I liked it. I liked it a lot.

  I should have kicked myself. I should have left right then and there, making an excuse to use the bathroom but sneaking out altogether. I should have stood up and said, Thanks for the drinks and the lovely physical caress of your eyes. See you around.

  But I didn't.

  Maybe I suspected he'd figure out my plan and slip into the elevator beside me. Maybe he'd just follow me home. Maybe didn't matter anymore. I sat at the table, knowing I should leave. Things had gotten too intense. Instead of obeying my inner voice, I pushed those thoughts clean aside.

  How long had it been since I'd spent time with anybody? My heart was lonely, my body practically needed dusting off, and I'd already imagined a whole lot of fun stuff with Marek. Maybe my heart and my mind didn't connect on the whole Marek subject but I had to face it—my mind tended to play it safe.

  Marek and "playing it safe" were mutually exclusive concepts.

  I couldn't lose anything when I didn't have anything. For years I contented myself to live sparsely, material and immaterial things alike. The mere threat of loss—any kind of loss—paralyzed me.

  Sitting here with him made me realize what I'd been living without.

  I wanted Marek in my life. I wanted to know his touch, to be anchored once more in the present instead of blown around by the past. I wanted the thrill and the stability and the pain of hanging up the phone. I wanted to have someone worth losing.

  I'd lived alone and untouched since calling it quits with Stan. He was only an interruption in the drought left in Jared's wake. The solitude should have made me immune. I had no one but my cat and my priest and the occasional pity date with Barbara and her husband.

  And yet. Patrick. Guilt. Pain. Memories haunting and hurting and hollowing me. I still wasn't safe. Giving up everything didn't protect me. I starved myself of closeness and companionship and the pain still found me.

  Enough of the martyrdom. If I was destined to bleed anyway, I might as well do it with someone who could peel off a Band-Aid.

  Reaching for my glass with one hand, I lifted my chin and met his gaze. I stretched out my other hand to him and he grasped it, pulling it to his mouth. Leaning to kiss it, Marek gazed back up at me from under his black lashes.

  A flash of triumph surged into his eyes.

  I trembled but blocked out the warning sounds in the back of my skull, turning instead to listen to the din of the night. Its empty arms still waited and I faced it with a mixture of anticipation and dread.

  "I want to show you something." Marek squeezed my hand and stood, pulling me up.

  Behind him people drifted in twos and threes to the space in front of the DJ's set-up. Please, anything but dancing. To my immense relief he led me in the other direction. Tucking my hand into the bend of his arm, he guided me away from the crowd, toward to the far end of the patio.

  Leaning close, he spoke. "We can get up to the roof from here. It's spectacular."

  People glanced our way as we passed them, the women openly admiring him. One by one they lost interest and went back to their smoky conversations and trendy drinks. Beyond the open booth where the DJ checked his equipment, I could see Marek's destination.

  A white steel door, painted with big red letters.

  EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.

  "Um, are you sure about this?" I dragged my feet. I didn't want to cause a scene. Alarms tended to cause scenes.

  He never faltered or even acknowledged I did. "Don't worry. I go up there often."

  Before I could pull him back, he pushed open the door. No alarm, except the pounding of my heart. We slipped through and I glanced behind us as the door closed quietly.

  Our footsteps made dull thuds on the steel staircase, the sound swallowed by the concrete walls. Relieved by the lack of trouble at the door, my trepidation gave way to anticipation. This type of miscreant behavior was so unlike me. Recklessness sped my pulse and I let him lead me up the stairs.

  The steps ended at another massive door and Marek leaned into it with his shoulder, forcing it open. Fresh air rushed in like cold water. We emerged from the stairwell and stepped out into pure night.

  "Amazing," I whispered.

  The city lay too far below us to intrude. We had risen high above sight and sound. The wind sang a gentle melody as it ran laughingly across the top of the building. Nothing stood between us and the night sky that hung around us like a tapestry. The stars—could I touch one if I reached out? And how did the blackness of the velvet sky get deeper with every moment? Was I the only one who knew what the night looked like?

  I wanted to preserve this moment, bottle it up, store it for the times I grew weary of ordinary sunlight. I threw back my head and slowly spun, delirious and delighted. I laughed into the wind. It rushed around and through me, refreshing me with its clean sharpness. Throwing open my arms, I embraced the night as it had beckoned me to do from the first moment I came here with Marek.

  Night returned the embrace. I found myself in Marek's arms.

  "Got you," he whispered.

  My laughter was the sound of release from unknown bonds as he lifted me. My arms slipped over his shoulders and he held me up into the night.

  For a perfect moment, we'd become a monument to joy.

  As Marek set me back onto my feet, I slid down along his body. His sly smile told me there had been nothing accidental about it and I blushed to think how many parts of mine had become briefly acquainted with parts of his.

  His arm forming a protective mantle around my shoulders, we circled the large cooling units that created the landscape of the roof and wandered toward the edge overlooking the same part of the city we'd seen earlier from the patio. We were only about twenty or thirty feet higher but everything seemed so much farther down. Maybe the lack of a guard rail created this illusion.

  Releasing me, Marek strolled to the edge and sat down, swinging his feet over. Raking his hair back, he grinned at me and beckoned me to join him. He lounged on the edge of the skyscraper as if he sat on someone's front porch.

  Not me. I really didn't like heights. Call it self-preservation.

  "And you come up here a lot—why?" I stalled, although I knew I couldn't risk looking like a sissy. The threat of humiliation lent me false courage and, although I crawled on my hands and knees to get there, I eventually scooted my way over to sit beside him.

  Once I was firmly anchored, it didn't seem so bad. As long as I didn't lean over and look down, that is.

  "The view doesn't impress?"

  "Oh, it impresses, all right." I kept my eyes trained on him rather than the big empty space right in front of me or, worse yet, our table far below. "But what in the world possessed you to come up here? Do you make a habit out of trying alarmed doors?"

  Marek reclined slightly, leaning back on his arms. We sat close enough so our sides touched. "My business has offices in this building. I explore every building we use, top to bottom. The tops are generally more enjoyable to visit."

  I nodded and surveyed the cityscape. Lights dotted the sides of buildings and traffic lit thin streams of red and white glow as it flowed through the canyons of downtown labyrinth.

  His chest made a spot of warmth into which I nestled my shoulder, a sharp contrast with the cool nip of the night air. Time slipped by us momentarily, offering sanctuary, a place where we could enjoy a single, peaceful mome
nt. No pressure, no demands.

  Perched up at the top of the National Bank building, one of the tallest in the city, I had a fleeting feeling of how it must have felt for an old king to look out over his great kingdom and find everything to be well.

  Contented, I tipped my head and rested against Marek's shoulder. My anxiety from being close to more than six hundred feet worth of free fall had dwindled away to a vague tremor. He turned his head slightly, his gentle expression mirroring my own. Closing my eyes, I wished I could keep a piece of this feeling with me forever.

  "You can..." Marek whispered into my hair.

  My eyes snapped open as the daydream disintegrated. I stiffened as if I had a clothes hanger in my shirt. "What did you say?"

  Marek remained still, his expression indecipherable. "You can keep a piece of this forever."

  "I don't think I said anything." Puzzled, I tried to think back. "What was in that drink, anyway?"

  I could see it on the table, where my jacket draped over an empty chair. Did we sit long enough to drink anything before coming up here? My confusion turned into frustration. I must be tipsy. But I hadn't drunk anything.

  "No, you didn't say it," he admitted after a few moments. "But I can hear the words of your heart as plainly as if you'd spoken them. I hear the wishes you offer to the stars while you sit here, dreaming with me."

  "I don't understand, Marek." I struggled to find words and I struggled against the placid mood I drifted in. "Why do I feel like this?"

  He shifted so he could look straight into my eyes. We were still so close and it was hard not to be aware of my attraction to him—his broad shoulders, his high cheekbones and slender nose, his alluring mouth. My pulse raced, my mouth ran dry, and a hundred other clichés manifested themselves, right down to the clenching deep inside that betrayed my deepest feelings.

  He leaned close, temptingly close, and I could almost taste his breath. His soft voice wrapped around me, drawing me closer still. "Do you long for me, Sophie?"

  I closed my eyes and drew a wavering breath. My loins all but screamed out affirmations but this was about more than screaming loins. Every nerve in my body buzzed as if I'd been plugged into an electrical outlet. My arm shivered with cold now that we no longer touched.

  I remembered how my insides tightened in pleasure when he had his arms around me, even for that single innocent moment. I contemplated the grim line of his mouth and knew, more than anything, I wanted to see him smile. I thought about how much better my life was with Marek in it. About how much Marek was in my life.

  "Marek..." I could barely whisper past the knot in my throat. Tears blurred my eyes and I found myself in the grips of a powerful emotion, one so much bigger than I, so much more than I could possibly hold.

  Who was this man, to unlock such things within me?

  I did long for him. I wanted to say yes but was afraid to. Something wasn't right. The menace that swirled around him, the threat that radiated from him, even if it never once seemed like I myself was in danger... I'd be foolish to ignore my instinct.

  His rugged hand reached up to cradle my face. Closing my eyes, I laid my hand over his, pressing into his warm touch. A tear broke loose and slid down, becoming a streak of quicksilver as it cooled in the night air.

  "Sophie, I must tell you something." His eyes appeared full of urgency. "I would give you so much. I would reveal your heart's desires and grant them all to you. I would keep you from pain and disappointment all the days of your life." Leaning close, he brushed his lips against my cheek, resting them next to my ear. "Would it be worth any price to have that?"

  His voice, melodic and mesmerizing, ran like cool water through me, soaking down into thirsty places. It was a mixture of sound and texture that I felt as well as heard, wrapping like crushed velvet to clothe me and drawing me to him, into him.

  Lost in the sensations of being so close, so desired, I pieced together my dreamy thoughts. What price would I pay to be with him? To be coupled with a man who defined the ideal essence of a man, a perfect balance of conflicting qualities: strength and gentleness, danger and security, mystery and honesty?

  Yet I was not all of one accord. My mind struggled against the bliss the rest of my senses floated along in. What price had I paid to be with others, only to receive faulty goods, no guarantees, bad investments? I'd paid terrible prices in the past, and some days the debts still haunted me.

  Looking up at Marek, I fought to free myself of the spell my hungry heart had cast and tried to determine his true intentions. I looked past the strong jaw and soft green eyes, the black hair hanging like a veil over his shoulder, blown back from his brow by the winds sweeping around us. I looked into those eyes, the supposed mirrors of the soul, pushing my way in to peer into the depths of the man who had so captivated me.

  Perhaps misinterpreting my intensity as eagerness, Marek smiled to encourage me. I ignored my inner voice no longer and saw everything.

  A predator coiled like a sleeping beast inside, stirred by my nearness and the scent of my skin. His danger was real, his stories all true. His ever-present threat wafted like wisps of smoke from a banked and resting fire, subtle but sure. A small glimpse of teeth, like tips of icebergs.

  My instinct rang with a clarity I'd never before experienced, and the world spun a quarter turn around me. I gasped and grabbed Marek's arm to steady myself, keep from pitching forward and falling. These secrets were never meant to be revealed.

  Not until this moment, when something about his intentions changed. The veil lifted and the truth exposed, the realization of it all settled upon me like cold spring mist.

  Marek had been hunting me.

  Full of conflict, I searched his face for something that would make sense of my thoughts. I wanted him to deny it, to once more wear the puzzled expression he wore whenever I uttered aloud these strange feelings, these emotional vibrations I detected when we were together.

  I begged silently to be wrong about what I felt. Marek only nodded, almost imperceptibly, his eyes firmly trained on my own.

  Oh, my God. He'd been hunting me.

  So why did I long for him still?

  I might have offered him my soul and undying devotion had there not sounded a crash of metal on metal as the roof door clanked open.

  We froze.

  He gripped my shoulder in a warning to be silent. The large cooling unit blocked our view. If we couldn't see the door, then there was a good chance we hadn't been spotted yet, either.

  Harsh male voices came in pulses as we crept back from the edge of the roof and crouched against the cold metal box. Marek moved like liquid.

  Craning his neck while trying to remain undiscovered, he stretched to see who had opened the door. Apparently, his view was not obstructed. His eyes widened and he swore a quiet but deadly curse.

  My heart knocked, punctuating my breath. I sure as hell didn't want to get arrested. That would be bad. Oh, shit. I knew we shouldn't have come up here.

  Marek slid over me, covering me, hiding me between his massive frame and the cooling unit. Dipping his head, he barely whispered. "Don't even breathe."

  Cops? I mouthed up at him.

  He shook his head once.

  Worse, he mouthed back.

  Air solidified and jammed my throat. Worse? What could possibly be worse?

  I could discern two voices now. One sounded deep, hard. Rage rolled the words around, making them impossible to understand. The second voice pleaded, explaining something while the first interrupted with angry barks of accusation.

  Marek pressed up against me, watching over my head through a gap in the machinery. I was trapped between steel and steel.

  Suddenly, the argument escalated. A protest, cut off in mid-scream. Wet choking.

  Silence.

  Marek froze as if he'd turned to stone. A sharp tang flitted by, a weird smell I couldn't identify. He inhaled sharply, one last time, before he ceased breathing.

  Alarmed, I twisted beneath him and sto
od on my tiptoes to look.

  Two men stood chest to chest, one nearly eclipsing the other. His broad back made him appear as wide as he was tall. The other's knees were bent at right angles, jutting out to the sides like a broken puppet. Broad Back held him by his shoulders, pulling him down to his face as if he spoke into his ear.

  After a moment, Broad Back shoved him away. He sagged like an empty coat to the ground, legs folding beneath him like stiff wool.

  His shirt was saturated with blood. It spread down his chest like a second garment, oozing like syrup, slow-moving and sluggish. My eyes zeroed in. Slashed throat.

  He hit the ground with a thud, head lolling, limbs bent underneath him. Open eyes stared unfocused at a sky he no longer saw.

  Broad Back hunched over him, swiveling at the waist to scan about. When he faced the cooling unit that sheltered us, I saw him.

  Not him. It.

  Its face barely looked human. Bone and skin rose in ridges that formed pits around its eyes. Eyes glowed as if lit from within, cold silver light. The gaping twisted maw, full of impossible teeth, gleamed crimson.

  That thing had torn open the throat of the fallen man. With its teeth.

  My mind refused to cooperate and my heart twisted into an unending contraction. It fisted, cramped, crushed. I fought to breathe. I forgot how to think.

  "We have no choice." Marek shook off his catatonia and backed away, hands firm upon my shoulders as he pulled me back. As he moved, he kept the metal box between us and the creature on the other side.

  I noticed how close to the edge we stood. I realized what he planned. As if there were possibly room inside me for it, new horror surged, reanimating my heart with a jolt. I shook my head desperately and dug my fingers into his arms, back-pedaling. No, no, no—

  He bent close, mouth on my ear. "Deep breath."

  Wrapping his arms around me like a straitjacket, he jumped off the roof backwards, pulling me with him.

  I couldn't scream. Descending at nine-point-eight meters per second squared ripped every coherent thought from my mind and the air from my lungs. Time slowed in that peculiar way that meant events were unfolding too fast. I slipped from Marek's grasp and watched as he pushed away from me, falling faster below.