Heroes

by Susan Sizemore

  “I was a depressed, suicidal Goth kid when Jimmy approached me. I could feel everyone’s pain, and wrote about it in very bad poetry. Thought the world and everything in it was evil and doomed. Then I met a real vampire who told me to cheer up.” He shook his head. “Jimmy’s a teacher, a healer.”

  Char’s breath caught, and her heart ached with missing her first lover. “I know.”

  “He teaches that vampires, vampires like us, are meant to protect, to be superheroes. You were obviously ready to believe in his view of the underneath.”

  She nodded.

  “I took a lot more convincing. I’m still not convinced, by the way. He told me about Nighthawks—not that I was going to be one—but about them. The Enforcer of Seattle wasn’t exactly a prime specimen of the breed.”

  “I remember.”

  That Enforcer, and every vampire in Seattle, had eventually been executed or exiled for involvement in magic that used child abuse in dark rituals even most vampires found unforgivable. Istvan the dhamphir came in and wiped out a city’s vampire population to put a stop to it. Char had the bad feeling that something similar was going to happen here. She had no evidence, but she trusted her instincts. And she hated being used by fate nearly as much as Geoff Sterling did.

  “So, among the things Jimmy did to teach me the Bluecorn Way was he told me about this ancient document.”

  “The Scrolls of Silk.”

  “Said to be written in strigoi blood on scrolls—”

  “Of silk.”

  “In the vampire city. Blah, blah, blah, very mysterious, protected by spells, so secret that the Nighthawks hunted down anyone who read it and wiped the memory from their minds. Or ate their hearts, which is a much more efficient way of making sure forbidden information doesn’t get passed around.”

  “How did Jimmy know about the scrolls? He’s not a Nighthawk.”

  “Yes he is. Just not a changed one.”

  “Of course. Still, how did he—?”

  “He’s a very old vampire. From the Bronze Age, at least. I think he started out as a tin trader from Cornwall and met the vampire who made him in one of the Greek city-states. And that’s only my guess from things he said and things I’ve heard. I don’t really know. What he told me about the Scrolls of Silk is that they claim that Nighthawks aren’t really vampires.”

  Char laughed. “Excuse me? That’s it?”

  “It’s a revolutionary idea.”

  “That’s the stupidest—”

  “But we’re not really vampires, are we?” he questioned.

  She found his enthusiasm daunting. “We start out as vampires.”

  “But we change. Grow into something different. We aren’t vampires anymore. We hunt vampires. Consume them the way they consume mortals. What creature eats its own kind?”

  “Rats and humans,” she countered. “And—us.”

  He shook his head. “No. Nighthawks aren’t vampires. So,” he concluded.

  “I don’t think this conclusion is what Jimmy had in mind when he told you about the scrolls.”

  “No, it isn’t. But I’ve always thought for myself. Only I hadn’t thought about the scrolls in years, forgot about them until Val mentioned them last night. Maybe Jimmy wanted me to forget when the lesson didn’t take.”

  “You sound awfully pleased to have remembered.”

  “It’s a freeing concept.”

  “It’s a stupid one. There’s no proof.”

  There was no stopping his enthusiasm. “Why do we live under the same restrictions that limit the strigoi? The Laws don’t apply to us.”

  That was when he pulled her close and kissed her.

  Chapter 12

  THE THING YOU always had to remember about Eddie was that he was sneaky. Devious. Deceitful. He could have played Gollum in the movie if the part hadn’t already been taken. And he was a born con artist. His biggest con was promising immortality to those who couldn’t have it. It was just plain cruel. And he wasn’t exactly stupid. Vain. Oh, yes, very vain. He could be cowed, and threatened and coerced, but when you did that to him, he was likely to turn on you in a secret, slithering, poisonous way.

  And I used to sleep with this guy?

  Concentrate, Valentine chastised herself. The clock is ticking here.

  The trick was to approach him through his strengths rather than his weaknesses. Let him remember his triumphs and he wouldn’t notice anyone there eavesdropping on his mental masturbation.

  He felt her settling on him, into him, as nothing more than a passing dream of a woman he’d bedded long ago. The dream sent a shiver through him, but Valentine made sure the reaction merely reminded him of the damp cold of a bedchamber in a thick-walled castle. His castle, where he was the lord of all.

  Those were the days, weren’t they, Edward?

  So they were. He nestled his head against her ample bosom.

  These days are better.

  Bitches rule the world.

  But you outsmart them. You outsmart them all. Time and time again.

  Time. That’s what they always want.

  Give me immortality or give me death, right?

  Ha. Ha. Very funny.

  You’re the funny one. Always having the last laugh.

  Can’t give everyone what they want.

  But you make them think you can. Like in Moscow. With the boy who bled.

  Good scam. Too bad the boy had no gift.

  History would have turned out differently.

  I still miss Gregori. What a gift the monk had. That was the last time I used a companion as a front. Hurt too much when he was assassinated.

  There, there. Valentine sent warmth and comfort to a psyche that still grieved for long-ago loss.

  Better him than me, Eddie thought.

  You don’t need anyone’s help, she coaxed, gentle and admiring, keeping disgust hidden. You work wonders on your own. Like the last time you pulled a con. The most recent. Here in town. With—

  The skinny old coot.

  Harsh laughter rippled through Eddie’s mind, rippled over her like a heavy, wet blanket. One that smelled of swamp water.

  Light addiction’s a minor neurosis compared to his problems, Eddie’s thoughts rolled on. He was too easy.

  Maybe you made it look easy.

  Eddie preened. Maybe I did. He was so impressed when I just slipped past his guards one night. Sat on the end of his bed and promised that I could help him live forever. Did a few hypnotism tricks. Pulled on shadows, put on the masks.

  Impressed him.

  Yeah. He had all the money in the world. I wanted it. We made a deal. His blood tasted like dust. He had enough gift to be a slave. He was—sickly when I found him. Press and his board of directors never knew how feeble he was. I started out to scam him, but turned out I did prolong his life. But he was crazy, really crazy. Tried to tame him, but the guards he kept around him suspected. They were all members of some kind of rigid Christian sect. Decided I was a devil.

  Fools.

  Lots of fools. More of them than me. Mortals always have us outnumbered. Better part of valor was to back off, let them take my meal ticket out of town. It lasted a few good years, though. He owned a lot of property in town. I made sure some of it was transferred to my name before they took him.

  Good investment, real estate.

  Land, and peasants to work it, that’s true wealth.

  Even without the peasants, property comes in handy. Helps to have a few places to hide.

  Yeah. Things get hidden. I ain’t going to take the blame.

  She sensed his resentment, resistance, and fear. To go after the root of these things would bring up walls. She continued coaxing out clues instead. You still have this land?

  Some.

  Smart to hang on to property. They’re always looking for land for new casinos.

  Tell me about it. I’ve got an old warehouse near the airport. Going to sit on it awhile longer. It’s worth millions to the resort developers already. I’v
e got time. Property values in this town are always going up, up, up.

  That’s nice, sweetheart. Valentine began to drift away from Eddie’s mind. She now had all she needed, and felt covered in mental muck from the time spent with her old lover. Go to deep, dark sleep now, she instructed him.

  And whatever you do, don’t dream of me.

  It was not the scent of coffee that woke her. Char woke because that was what vampires did at sunset. But there was comfort in the scent of coffee, in knowing that there was someone from the daylight world that cared enough to have the warm drink waiting for her. A gift. A gesture of affection. Jebel Haven didn’t have a warm, fragrant cup waiting for her every night; he wasn’t even always there when she first came back to life. But waking now, knowing he was with her, that he cared—

  Left her feeling a traitor. Dirty. Unfaithful.

  It had only been a kiss. She hadn’t instigated it. It had been without substance.

  And it left her so aroused she woke blind with the need. Beyond the scent of coffee, overwhelming that dark richness, there was blood. There was flesh. There was need in him that ran near the surface as blue veins beneath fragile flesh.

  “Jebel,” she said, and reached for him.

  Arms came around her, pulling her up, pulling her close. A mouth came down on Char’s. She tasted coffee on his tongue. She drank him in, demanding. He was the first to moan with desire. The sound was muffled against her mouth, but roared through her.

  She strained against his hands when they moved over her.

  “Damn, woman!” he muttered, then sucked hard on one nipple, then the other.

  One of the things she loved about Jebel was that he didn’t ask questions in the bedroom. Didn’t need to be seduced. He was always willing, always ready. And so very able. He gave her everything a man could.

  Everything a mortal man could.

  She forced the thought away. Forced herself not to think at all. At least, as much as she could. She was so used to the ache in her mating fangs it had become a part of her arousal. Most of the time the need to taste him was something she could ignore. This wasn’t most of the time.

  “Damn, St—”

  Jebel’s head came up from her breast. “Wha—?”

  “Damn, good,” she said, and pushed his head back into the softness of her breast. “More!”

  His lips closed on her hard nipple once more. She gasped with pleasure. And ran her fingers through thick, dark hair. Salt and pepper hair, she noticed. He wasn’t getting any younger, and he led a hard life. His body was hard-muscled, his wits sharp—but he was mortal.

  She could fix that.

  She needed the taste of him on her tongue, salt copper sliding down her throat. A drop of him to quench her own thirst. Just a drop.

  She was a creature of claws and fangs. He knew what he was getting with her. She was a wild thing. Dangerous to bed. He liked the danger, loved the razor’s edge, knew he’d have to pay for the thrill.

  And he was hers. Oh, yes. Hers.

  Char ran her hands over the taut muscles of Jebel’s back, caressed his buttocks and thighs. She kissed his shoulder and throat, scraped throbbing fangs against warm flesh. She breathed in the scents of sweat and lust—and the perfume of mortal decay. The subtle, constant, born in blood and muscle and bone smell of death was always mixed in with the vitality of life. There was no hint of fear in his emotions, only the fire of lust. He knew what she was, wanted her. Trusted her.

  Not to turn on him. Not to take without asking.

  Does he think I’m weak? a stray thought threaded through her desire.

  Strong, a thought came back to her in Jebel’s deep, rough voice. Strong and beautiful.

  She wasn’t used to his touching her like that, caressing her thoughts as well as her body. He was growing stronger, and reveling in that strength was aphrodisiacal for Char.

  She came even before he entered her. When he did, her body arched in a spasm of pleasure, and she felt him respond through a sudden psychic link that was nearly as strong as a companion bond.

  Love, he thought at her. Then he was lost to words, lost in visceral, male sensation.

  She held him tight, vampire tight, leaving bruises, drawing a groan, and a dark, deep laugh. He pumped into her hard and fast then, a wild man answering the needs of a wild woman.

  She needed this. Damn, how she needed this. She needed Jebel Haven.

  Needed him so much that she didn’t realize what she was doing until her mouth closed over his shoulder. She tasted the salt of sweat, felt the resistance of flesh, the erotic pop as the tips of mating fangs broke through the fragile barrier of skin. Then there was sex blood on her tongue, full of the rich, musky taste of hormones and heat.

  Jebel howled, but not with pain. As she took a drop or two of rich red blood, Jebel stiffened against her, his orgasm filling her body and stabbing deep into her mind. Satisfaction settled on her like a heavy blanket, the same way Jebel covered her when he collapsed on her in a heavy, satiated heap.

  She was greedy, wanting more blood, more sex. She was almost as hungry for it as a new-made vampire. How lovely it would be to lose herself in the craving, satisfaction, craving cycle that required no thought, no responsibility, no action outside of take, take, take.

  She could do it, she knew. All she needed was to put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, then pin Jebel on the bed and have him the way a vampire was permitted to use any mortal with strong psychic gifts. Bleed him, fuck him, fuck him and bleed him. She wouldn’t even have to make him a companion, though she’d have to be careful not to bleed him dry if she didn’t give him her blood to replace the energy she drained from him.

  It was only a selfish impulse, of course. She was a grown-up vampire, and didn’t behave like that. Then again—if she changed the scenario, made it into a give and take—Jebel would be a vampire within a week.

  What a glorious week it would be.

  Then she’d never see him again, and that would be awful. Well, never see him was possibly an exaggeration, but they could never be together again as lovers, and that was awful.

  And Geoff Sterling really had her rattled if she was considering a scenario where all she had to do was exactly what she wanted for the amount of time it would take to get Sterling out of her head, and out of town as well.

  The things he’d said, the things Sterling had done—kissing another vampire, for Goddess’s sake! Maybe the Scrolls of Silk did make you go blind. Crazy, for sure. Geoff Sterling was crazy.

  Worse, he was the snake holding out the apple. How did snakes hold out apples? With their fangs, she supposed. And Geoff Sterling had certainly extended his fangs when he kissed her. She’d felt them when their tongues twined and—

  She hadn’t remembered that she’d kissed Sterling back until this moment, and the memory sent a shiver she told herself was disgust through her. Had to be disgust, because she was too sated from making love with Jebel for it to be anything more intimate.

  She sighed.

  “What’s the matter?” Jebel asked. His head was resting on her breasts, and the way his breath brushed across a nipple stirred warmth inside her once more.

  “I want you again,” she told him. This was the truth, even if it wasn’t the truth that bothered her.

  “But we have things to do,” Jebel finished for her. With that, of course, he rolled off her and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Jebel wasn’t much for cuddling. “There’s coffee.”

  “I know.” She propped herself up on her elbows, and took a moment to appreciatively look at the length of his back and the width of his shoulders. “Smelled it when I woke up. Perfect aphrodisiac. Of course, it gets cold while we’re fooling around.”

  “We weren’t fooling, and it’s in an insulated carafe.”

  “You never used to use words like carafe.”

  He grunted, then reached for the carafe on the bedside table, only to stop the motion and rub his shoulder. He turned his head to look
at her. “You never used to be a biter.”

  She laughed. “Uh, Jebel—”

  “Thought you were going to eat me alive for a second, sweetheart. That wasn’t Little Mary Sunshine sex we were having.”

  Char fluttered her eyelashes at him in mock innocence. “You know very well I am not a man-eater, Mr. Haven. Not that type of girl, at all.”

  He continued rubbing his shoulder, though she knew very well the bite mark had already healed. “Uh-huh. Have I just lost my virginity?”

  At least he didn’t seem upset at her having bit him. “You were never a virgin.”

  He chuckled, and nodded, and put his hand over her breast. “Does this mean we’re engaged?”

  Char sat up, pushed pillows behind her back, took a cup of steaming coffee from Jebel with her right hand, and wiggled the fingers of her left. “I haven’t seen a ring yet. And I haven’t—” She saw the sudden look of amusement in his eyes, and found herself flustered. “I know this has never happened before. It was only a little. Harmless, really.”

  “Major rush, sweetheart. It’s not going to turn me, is it?”

  Of course he knew better than that. He was only teasing, but Char still felt compelled to explain, “You have to drink my blood for that. Mutual transfusions. I should have asked before I bit, but—”

  “Heat of the moment.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

  “Heat of passion,” she answered. “I’m—hungry.”

  “Should have ordered a steak along with the coffee.”

  “Hungry for you,” she asserted. Firmly. Maybe too firmly, because a certain speculative interest entered his gaze. “And I had really dirty dreams last day,” she added.

  “So, you spent the day fooling around while I was out working. Sweet life you have, McCairn.”

  She’d been working, but she didn’t want to tell Jebel about it. Not because of Geoff Sterling, but because of the Scrolls of Silk. It seemed to her that the less anyone knew about these things, the better. So instead of bringing up her own activities, she asked, “What were you up to today?”

  “Looking at the Scrolls of Silk among other things,” he answered, casual as could be.