Aileen stuck out her bottom lip and sighed. “You’re being rude, Zephyr,” she whispered, quite loudly.
I turned to Amir. “I’m terrified. What’s the punishment for rudeness in Arabia? Something terribly barbaric?”
Aileen took another drink and giggled. “Yes, is it? Do you cut off their hands?”
Amir looked as though he wanted to laugh out loud, but said quite gravely, “Oh, noses, for certain.”
My extremely drunk—and extremely gullible—roommate gasped and put a hand quite comically to her face. “No!”
Amir nodded sagely and took a drink from his own glass. “I’m quite serious.”
“You lop them off with your own scimitar, I’m sure,” I said.
Amir gave me a long, amused look and my heart began to pound. I supposed I would have flushed, had I not been red already from the excitement. “Forged of the finest steel—” he began.
“And quenched in the heart of a virgin?”
Amir laughed out loud at that. The sound was even more affecting than I remembered. Surreptitiously, Aileen squeezed my elbow. I couldn’t even feel annoyed with her, because I knew precisely how she felt.
His grin was distinctly predatory. “No, Miss Hollis. We only quench our blades in the blood of vampires.”
Aileen finished her drink in one long pull and set it firmly on the table. “That is probably a load of bollocks,” she declared, loudly enough that a few nearby people turned to hear what lady would use such language. “But you tell it quite well.”
Amir bowed slightly. “You’re very kind.”
I grabbed Aileen’s elbow and turned her away from Amir. “Do me a favor and flirt with some other eligible chaps? I need a moment.”
“Oh, you two know each other?” she whispered. “Don’t tell me he’s that weird one from your class—”
I nodded.
She whistled. “Lucky Zephyr. All right, I’ll back off. I don’t stand by poaching, and never have. Good luck to you.”
She tipped her feather at me and tottered off between the tables, and had no trouble at all striking up a conversation with a young gentleman of average looks who was perhaps made more appealing by his diamond cuff links and hand-tooled leather shoes.
When I turned to face Amir again, he had reseated himself at the table and was looking up at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. He seemed almost sad, which was odd. I leaned against the edge of the stage, where a much larger band was setting up, and faced him. I felt a little more in control of the situation when I could look down at him.
“You were excellent,” he said, surprising me.
“Scimitars?”
He smiled. “Singing.”
I bit my lip and looked away. “Right. Of course. Um . . . thank you.”
He shook his head and signaled to a nearby waitress. “A gin and tonic, please.”
When she returned with the drink, Amir handed it to me.
“But I don’t drink,” I said.
This seemed to delight him. “The tireless efforts of the Temperance Union, vindicated. I thought we’d have a toast. To the singing vampire suffragette.”
He raised his glass. Bemused, I clinked his with mine and tentatively sipped. The alcohol was as vile as I remembered it, but it made my throat tingle and heat in a not unpleasant manner. I took another.
“What a bloody stupid name. Did you know they called me that?”
“Darling, who doesn’t? And now you sing! It’s a coup.”
I frowned at my glass—much safer than staring for too long at his face—and took another gulp. “Is that how you found me?”
“I heard a rumor. I was curious. You are a bit of a contradiction, aren’t you? A wholesome Montanan girl comes to the city, dabbles in demon hunting and then reinvents herself as a martyr to the poor and disenfranchised?”
I looked down at him in immediate indignation. The alcohol seemed to have made all my other confusing reactions of far less consequence.
“I did not ‘reinvent’ myself. I’m not proud of working with the Defenders, but I never staked a vampire that didn’t deserve it. I tried to restrain them.”
Amir looked contemplative. “The lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night,” he said softly. “Fine. If you believe that. Still, I’m glad you were good at your job.”
“Why? So I can murder someone for you?” I was honestly furious, now, and the taste of the alcohol didn’t seem to matter, compared to the way its warmth fed my fire.
He shook his head. “I’ll be the one to commit murder, if it comes to that. But you know I need your help to find him.”
“You’re counting on that, right?” God, his eyes were so dark close up. They seemed to suck in the light around them, to almost glow themselves. A new drink appeared in my hand without my being aware of taking it.
“Have you ever refused help to someone who asked it?” he said.
An image flashed through my brain: Amir in a sweater and knickers, a boy cradled over his shoulder.
“How is he?” I asked, sitting down abruptly in the chair closest to him. Aileen’s shoes were too small, my knees too weak. This close, I caught myself breathing deeply of his impossible scent. I wondered if he noticed.
“Safe,” he said.
I understood why he wouldn’t tell me more—what we had done was illegal enough to put us both in prison for de cades if anyone found out. “Is he still . . .” I trailed off, unwilling to say “blood-mad.”
He shrugged. “The same.”
“I have to find his family. They should at least—”
“Yes. At least.”
The reminder of my debt to him made my insides twist and my heart pound. Or maybe that was just the intent look he had fixed on me. As though we were alone in his bedroom instead of in the middle of a nightclub. “He couldn’t have been older than eleven,” I said. “We don’t know if they ever . . . come back. The children. What if he’s like that forever? What should we do?” I took another sip and saw that I was halfway through the glass. Impressive for a chick who doesn’t drink, Zephyr.
He reached across the table and brushed the top of my hand with his fingertips. I took a moment to marvel over the relative darkness of his skin, a milky coffee to my own antique pearl.
“Zephyr. What ever happens, I’ll take care of him.”
I heard the hard double entendre, but I was familiar with such choices. I nodded.
“So,” I said, forcing myself to sound light, to look at him, “you want me to help you? I think you ought to give me a good reason, first.”
The slow traverse his eyes made of my secondhand dress, rayon hose, scuffed shoes and tattered lace bandeau made me suddenly cringe. I had the impression that he’d made an exact calculation of my worth.
“Two hundred dollars,” he said. I didn’t know whether to be elated or offended. Or hurt.
I slammed my glass on the table, sloshing some of the drink on my hand. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some high-class whore,” I said. “I may be poor, but I won’t do this just for the money.”
His expression was bemused as he knocked back the rest of his drink. “I find that it suffices for most of you.”
I stood and gave him an ironic curtsy. “We’re humans, Amir, not a bloody monolith. Good luck finding someone else to buy.”
I’d gone perhaps three steps when he roughly grabbed my wrist and swung me around to face him. He looked so furious that I flinched and tried to back away. His grip was uncomfortably warm.
“Rinaldo has taken something very precious from me,” he said in a low whisper, and I realized that most of his anger wasn’t meant for me at all. “And it behooves me to get it back. There are . . . consequences if I don’t. Does that satisfy you?” he said.
He let go of my wrist and I stared at him. It was not, in fact, much of an apology or an explanation, but it did feel like a peace offering.
“I need your help,” he said, when I didn’t respond.
“Now you’re
just manipulating me.”
That laugh again. And why was his body so warm? “Of course.”
“I’ll still need two hundred dollars.”
He nodded with faux gravity. I couldn’t help but giggle. To my surprise, he held out his hand. And quite a lovely hand, too, with long tapered fingers and perfectly manicured nails. “Will you dance?”
I frowned, and turned around. Behind me, Horace’s crew had pushed back enough of the tables to make room for a small dance floor, and the main act was ready to play. The white piano player acted as band leader, so he was angled toward the musicians while they all faced us. They started with the Charleston—of course—and dozens of couples streamed into the center of the room. For fortification, I went back to the table and finished my drink before allowing Amir to lead me into the crowded space. The Charleston is like a full-contact sport in any joint smaller than the Cotton Club. I tend to spend most of my time dodging every one else’s elbows and trying not to stomp on people’s feet. With Amir, however, the area around us seemed miraculously clear. Maybe because he was a good dancer—on beat and relaxed, he moved like the Charleston was an actual dance and not some kind of race.
“Have you ever done a dance marathon?” I asked him. I might have yelled it, actually. The alcohol had rushed to my head and I had passed over corked and was well on my way to splifficated.
He laughed. “Do I hear an invitation?”
I shook my head in strenuous disapproval. “Flagrant waste of the public’s time and energy,” I said in my best schoolmarm voice.
“Ah. And singing in nightclubs?”
“Oh, just undercover work for the Temperance Union. A wilier bunch of criminals and deviants I have never seen.”
I was quite shocked when Amir whirled me around for a partner dance. His hand rested with gentle pressure on the small of my back, and he held me a quite unseemly inch away from his torso.
I am very bad at partner dancing. Daddy might have shot me himself if he caught me doing it back in Montana, and practicing with Aileen hadn’t been much help to either of us. So of course I stepped on Amir’s shoes.
He gave a little wince and put a few judicious inches of extra distance between us, wearing a smile that was at once ironic and thoughtful.
“I imagine the Temperance Union doesn’t give you much time to practice,” he said. His voice had gotten very low. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be able to hear it over the din of the band and other people’s chatter, but every syllable hummed in my ears like bumblebees. As though we were dancing in our own bubble, separated from the vulgar world.
He isn’t human, Zephyr. I looked up at him, unnerved by how intently he met my gaze and yet unable to look away. How much of this is real? For the first time since we met, I felt threatened. I didn’t like to think about why.
Behind me, a dancer smashed his elbow into my shoulder, sending me sprawling into Amir. So much for the magical bubble. Angry, and not a little embarrassed, I whirled around and looked for the offender.
“God damn it,” I muttered. There were at least fifty people dancing around us, and all of them seemed to have rather overenthusiastic elbows.
“Don’t tell me you’re upset there’s someone here clumsier than you?”
His breath tickled my ear. A second before I turned to retort, a strange movement near the door caught my eye. It was Aileen’s ratty ostrich feather, hanging from her turban at an odd angle. She was stumbling up the stairs, her limp hand gripped by a well-dressed man. After a moment I recognized him as the fellow with the diamond cuff links she had discovered after I kicked her off Amir. I felt a grudging admiration for her fast work.
Amir tried to pull me back toward him. “What, no reply?” he said, gently mocking.
I shook him off, distracted. The man opened the door and yanked on Aileen’s arm. Slowly, she followed him.
“Zephyr?”
Something was wrong. Like I said, I don’t have any special senses. But I notice things. Too bad the alcohol was delaying the translation of my vague unease into something concrete.
The man pulled Aileen through and shut the door.
I didn’t hear the click, but it felt like a blast through my thoughts. Aileen’s feather hadn’t been knocked askew. It was broken. And what kind of gentleman who can afford diamond cuff links goes abroad on a night as frigid as this without a coat and hat?
One who can’t feel the cold.
“Oh, God.”
I broke away from Amir and sprinted to the door. How long? About ten seconds. They couldn’t have gotten very far. But they didn’t need to get very far, did they? Horace was a smart guy; he picked a quiet street for his illicit operations. All this flashed through my head on a detached, parallel track as I threw open the door and sprinted up the snow-covered steps.
Prints in the snow on the sidewalk—one large male, one stumbling female—headed to the right. But they were mixed with others—the two vampires I’d seen earlier were giggling and staggering in the opposite direction down the street. Could Aileen . . . but no, she wasn’t with them. My breath rasped in my throat. But my hands were steady as I reached under my shockingly short skirt and pulled out the silver knife from my girdle. My thoughts focused, short and staccato. The gentle, shearing sound of the blade pulling free from its casing. The barely audible crunch of my shoes on the snow. The deserted street. The dim gas streetlights. Aileen’s footsteps disappeared a few feet away from the club. The larger ones continued around to the small garbage alley two houses down from Horace’s. I followed them, pressed my back against the cold, wet brick and peered into the darkened alley.
He had her against the fire escape. The broken feather had fallen to the snow. Her eyes and jaw were slack. She could have just been drunk, except for the way her neck angled so invitingly toward her partner. For a moment, I caught his silhouette, and there could be no doubt about what he was. His eyes glowed like inhuman searchlights. His lips, in anticipation of a feed, had turned bloodred, but the rest of his skin was pale and blue-veined as a corpse. I adjusted my grip on the knife, fury building up under my rigid focus. He wasn’t blood-mad. For him to disguise himself so well in the club, he must be firmly in control. No, he was joyriding, and he was about to take my best friend.
“I told you it was a stupid feather,” I said, walking into the alley.
He whirled on me, and moved a few steps from her body. She wobbled and dropped to her knees on the slushy bricks. Without his Sway focused on her, she should regain consciousness in a few minutes.
Of course, now that I had his full attention, it occurred to me that this murderous, experienced vampire was staring at me like a tasty treat. Any human blood nourishes vampires—which is why we have the Blood Banks—but fresh blood drained from live bodies is apparently pure plea sure. A few vampires renounce all claims to morality and indulge in it. And if I could, I would personally pour a gallon of holy water down each of these vampire’s throats, because their reckless, immoral actions tainted and destroyed the lives of millions of decent Others.
Was I really thinking of politics as I stood shivering in a deserted alley, a vampire stalking toward me, armed with only a blessed silver blade and righteous indignation? Of course I was—they don’t call me the vampire suffragette for nothing.
“Lucky chance,” he said, his eyes pulsing like a lightning bug. His voice was achingly melodic, a sign of an old, powerful vampire. Even I wasn’t immune to the force of a perfect vampire voice. Thankfully, I’d never had the misfortune to hear one.
Oh, the dance was so familiar. Something like plea sure thrummed through my veins as I let my muscles relax, my mouth drop open, my chin fall back. He saw the blade in my hand, but it didn’t worry him. Why would it? I was just a girl, and under his Sway.
He was mere inches away from me now. He raised his arm, and diamonds refracted the glow of his eyes. He caressed my hair, and I could hear the stiffened locks crackle beneath his touch. He frowned.
“Vamp freaks,”
he muttered.
I slowly raised my right hand, so that the blade hovered behind his back. Piercing the heart from behind was a difficult move, and I was out of practice, but I never doubted that I could do it. I’m Zephyr Hollis, and there aren’t many in Montana who don’t know Daddy’s name. I waited for the moment just before feeding when a vampire is at its most vulnerable, but instead of baring his fangs, he looked up.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Killing you, I almost answered. But he wasn’t speaking to me. Someone else had entered the alley. Every instinct screamed for me to turn around and confront this new threat, but I knew that to do so would ruin my ruse and probably kill Aileen. But damn it, what timing! A second later, and this playboy vampire would have exsanguinated right in the snow.
“I think you should leave.”
I actually whimpered, the only evidence of the truly Herculean force of will that had prevented me from turning to Amir and screaming in impotent rage.
The vampire smiled and yanked me closer to him. “Do you? Well, after I’ve had a snack.”
I had another chance! I prayed that Amir would repent of the world’s dumbest, most completely unwelcome rescue attempt and stay back. Dear God, I thought with fervent desire, please don’t let him be an idiot.
For the record, I do not believe in prayer.
Amir didn’t make any noise, but one moment my vampire was a fingernail-length away from death and the next he was rolling around in the powdery snow with my would-be Galahad. It appeared they were both attempting to strangle each other. I took a moment to debate the merits of still pretending to be Swayed.
“You complete bloody, ignorant . . . misogynist!” I yelled. Ah, that was so much better.
I was pretty sure the snow-encrusted one on top, attempting to bang the other’s head into the ground, was Amir. “You’re quite welcome,” he said, only a hint of gasp in his voice. With a roar, the vampire overwhelmed him and they began to roll around again.
“Oh yes, I can hardly thank you enough. If you had come just a little later, I might have killed him.”
Moonshine (2010) Page 6