She sat beside him and lightly smoothed his hair. “Your head still hurts, doesn’t it?”
He couldn’t deny that, since Britt shared his sensations at will. “That was a hellish time to be on the freeway.”
With a husky laugh that quickened his heartbeat, she said, “You’re incredibly spoiled. I could have made you drive, you know.” She patted her lap. “Come on, at least I can help you with the headache.”
He couldn’t resist that offer. Depositing the cat on the rug, Roger laid his head in Britt’s lap. Her fingertips traced delicate circles on his temples. He gave in to her invitation and let his tight muscles relax. Inhaling her fragrance and settling into the heat of her body spread a sweet lethargy through his nerves. If only he could rest here for an hour—
Britt picked up the thought, of course. “Why don’t I call the Hilton and tell them we’ll be late? That session at the hospital was harder on you than me. Trying to shield against all that...” Her sympathy soothed his restlessness, yet made him thirsty for more. “You need—”
“No. Snatching half an hour with you would be worse than nothing.”
“Maybe for you. What about me? I can’t stand watching you suffer.”
He savored her unabashed desire, even though it made him ache for her. “Dear colleague, I’m hardly in extremis yet.”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Britt reached for his hand. He let her slender fingers clasp his—a tactical error, since she immediately began stroking his palm in a tantalizing spiral pattern. The sensitive cilia there tingled in response. Roger suppressed a groan. After fourteen years together she knew his trigger points too well.
“Claude and Eloise wouldn’t mind the delay,” she said. “They’d understand.”
“Yes, and Claude would snicker. No, thank you, I’ll wait.”
The tapered fingernails of her other hand skimmed along his neck and jawline. He flinched. “If you don’t stop that, I will bite you, and not gently.”
Sensing, as usual, the exact point at which she would be pushing him too far, she suspended her teasing. “Okay, we’ll wait—for dessert.” At that moment Sigmund leaped onto Roger’s chest, curling up as he would on any convenient surface. “Who invited you?” said Britt.
“He doesn’t like to share your attention, a feeling I thoroughly identify with. But I suppose we’d better go now, anyway.” With a sigh he again dislodged the cat.
Britt bundled up for the short walk from her apartment through downtown Annapolis to the Hilton. In good weather the few blocks between her place, outside the Naval Academy’s Maryland Avenue gate, and the hotel near the dock would be a pleasant stroll. This evening they chose to walk simply because finding a parking space in the heart of downtown would take longer than covering the distance on foot. Roger didn’t bother with cold-weather gear other than his overcoat, mostly for appearances; at temperatures in the mid-thirties he felt comfortable in a light jacket.
As they started up Maryland Avenue, Britt drew a deep breath of the frosty air and said, “Do you think we’ll get heavy snow tonight, colleague?”
Roger sniffed the air, too. “I never claimed to be a weather prophet. It smells like snow, yes, but as for the amount, I’ll go along with the newspaper forecast—chance of flurries.”
“Unusual to get this much in December,” said Britt. “Does it remind you of back home in Baahston?”
He acknowledged her imitation of his “accent” with a weak smile. From his viewpoint, of course, she had an accent. But did he try to induce her to say Bal-ti-moah rather than Balt’mr? Certainly not. The very idea of attempting such a project brought a more spontaneous smile to his lips.
She fell out of step with him to scoop up a glove-full of already slushy snow. “Too soupy to make snow persons with.”
He edged away from her, glancing speculatively at the nearest front lawn. “No space to build them, anyway, unless you trespass on your neighbor’s property.” He collected a handful of snow and began packing it between his palms, eying Britt.
She held up her hands defensively. “Roger Gallagher Darvell, don’t you dare!”
He pretended to relax. “I wouldn’t think of it, colleague. Like shooting ducks on water.” When Britt let down her guard and resumed walking, he pitched the snowball straight at her chest.
With a shriek of outrage she threw one back at him. He dodged. He let her score the next hit and deliberately missed his return shot. A chortle of mock triumph caught in her throat. He saw her slip on a patch of ice.
Instantly he was at her side, his arm around her waist.
“Thanks,” she said a bit shakily. “Roger, somebody could have seen you.”
“As if your safety weren’t more important! Forgive me, I should have thought about the condition of the sidewalk—”
“Will you stop apologizing!” Steadying herself, she lightly held onto his arm. “It was well worth it. When we first met, the word play wasn’t in your vocabulary.”
“Yes, you’ve corrupted me.”
She burst into helpless giggles, clinging to him. “Oh, Roger, I do love you!”
In this position her mouth was perilously close to his. He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “Let’s go, unless you want to provide a show for the entire block.”
“It’s dark, remember? We could just move away from the street light.” But she complied, her hand sedately resting on his elbow as they continued toward Market Circle and the Hilton.
At the hotel they took the elevator upstairs, since Claude had proposed they meet in the room instead of the lobby. Roger welcomed the chance for private conversation before facing the restaurant ordeal. When Claude opened the door to them, Roger immediately noticed an anomaly in the aura surrounding Claude’s wife, Eloise. Nothing that an ordinary man, even a doctor, would have seen—no change in her porcelain-pale complexion or her thick auburn-brown hair, trailing down her back in a French braid—but when she gave Roger a quick hug, his paranormal senses confirmed the curious flicker in the halo of energy she radiated.
Britt sent him a wordless query.
[Eloise is pregnant,] he said.
Britt responded with surprised delight. [Are we supposed to notice?]
[I think they want the pleasure of telling us.]
Roger couldn’t help tensing at the sight of Britt greeting Claude with a hearty embrace. Of course Roger trusted his half-brother, yet his instincts screamed in protest at another predator’s touching her. And he still, against all logic, felt slightly inadequate beside Claude, who didn’t share Roger’s half-human heritage. Claude, blast him, always projected such unadulterated self-confidence.
Claude greeted him with a sidelong smile that made plain to Roger how obvious his momentary discomfort had been. “Good to see you, little brother. Sit down, if you can find a place. Before we go to dinner, we’ve got some good news.”
Eloise and Britt sat on the king-size bed, leaving the two chairs for the men. The women made an aesthetically pleasing contrast, Britt slender and too tall for the culture’s feminine ideal, Eloise below average height and saved from plumpness only by her liaison with Claude. Yet both shared qualities the average observer wouldn’t notice, because few people believed such phenomena existed—skin translucently pale and strangely unmarked for middle age, eyes bright from chronic metabolic speed-up, pale violet shadows from borderline anemia—the stigmata of a long-term donor.
Claude lifted a bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket on the dresser. Dom Perignon.
Britt whistled. “Obviously this is a higher order of celebration than a new movie or book.” Eloise wrote novels and literary criticism as well as film scripts, all in the horror-fantasy field.
Roger helped Claude hand out the glasses, regulation champagne goblets, not plastic makeshift. “You couldn’t have brought this with you on the plane from Los Angeles—at least, I certainly hope not.”
Claude laughed at the outrageous notion. “No, I picked it up at the liquor store across the street
when we arrived. Only bottle they had. I didn’t ask how long it had been there.” He filled three glasses and served Eloise only a token splash. He raised his drink in tribute and nodded to his wife. “Cherie?”
She gave a broad smile, and her pale cheeks turned pink. “We’re having a baby.”
After they’d all drained their glasses, Britt hugged Eloise in a convincing display of surprise. Shaking Claude’s hand, Roger said, “Congratulations. But how—?” No male of their species could fertilize a human female, since male potency depended on the female’s estrus.
“Artificial insemination,” said Claude.
“With you as donor? But how—?” Roger checked himself. Most likely by the same process used when he had sired his own child. A male vampire didn’t need physical contact with a female in order to respond to her pheromones.
Claude grinned with what looked suspiciously like embarrassment. “Let’s talk about it later.” He lofted the bottle. “Refill, anyone? Not you, my love.”
Eloise gave him a long-suffering look. “Can’t one of you medical experts tell him he’s overdoing the clean-living emphasis? A single glass of champagne couldn’t be lethal.”
“Oh, no, better safe than sorry,” Britt said. “Don’t you think so, Roger?”
“I have to agree. Since we have no body of clinical experience with interbreeding, we don’t know the threshold of possible damage. Better not take chances.”
Britt tucked her legs under her and sipped at a fresh glass of champagne. “So, when do you expect to deliver?”
Eloise shrugged. “I’m hoping for June, but that’s if the pregnancy follows a human schedule. The idea of an eleven-month gestation period—” She feigned a shudder.
“What are you doing for an obstetrician?” Roger asked.
“That’s not one of our customs,” said Claude, pouring himself another drink and taking a seat, “and obviously we can’t turn to a human practitioner. Fearless Leader is keeping an eye on her progress.”
“Volnar?” Roger had troubling imagining the hard, remote Prime Elder functioning as a physician, even though the man did have a legitimate medical degree. “You’re letting Volnar touch your bond-mate?”
Claude grimaced. “My sentiments exactly. But whatever we may think of him personally, it’s a fact that he never trespasses. And the whole procedure was his idea after all.”
“What?” Britt looked wide-eyed at Eloise. “Volnar suggested you get pregnant by Claude?”
“Well, Claude mentioned to Dr. Volnar that my one regret about our commitment was that I’d never have a child. Volnar sort of leaped on the idea.”
“Pounced like a tiger,” said Claude. “You know his obsession with interbreeding, Rodge.” Roger certainly did, he himself being the product of such an experiment. Volnar was also Roger’s advisor, and the Prime Elder’s cold manipulation of Roger’s upbringing was one reason he had as little contact with Volnar as possible. “I could practically see him salivating over the prospect of testing his latest brainstorm. I relayed the idea to Eloise, and she wanted to try, so we did. The first attempt failed. The second month, with the reserved—uh—specimen Volnar saved, we scored.”
Britt put aside her empty glass and reclined next to Eloise, leaning on one elbow. “How have you been feeling?”
“Well—I’m queasy when I don’t eat and when I eat too much, I’m sleepy all day long, and I run to the bathroom three times in every hour.”
“Wonderful,” said Britt. “Sounds like a textbook normal pregnancy.”
Claude smiled at his wife’s rueful expression. “I don’t mind admitting it’s a very intriguing experience.”
“Easy for you to say,” Eloise shot back. “Seriously, I never expected to be going through a first pregnancy in my forties—I’d given up on the idea long ago—but I’m thrilled.”
Roger picked up a tinge of wistfulness in Britt’s thoughts. [Beloved, do you wish—?]
[Good grief, no! I made that choice before we met. Still can’t help wondering what it would feel like.] She derailed that train of thought and dug into her oversize purse. When she took out a wrapped package, Eloise got up and fetched a similar package from her suitcase.
“Merry Christmas,” Britt said. “Or happy Yuletide, I guess.”
“By all means,” said Claude. “Appropriately pagan.” He called himself a rational deist and found Roger’s practicing Catholicism amusing.
Britt and Eloise opened the gifts while the two men watched. Britt and Roger always faced the archetypal “man who has everything” problem in buying for Claude, especially with gifts of food out of the question. This time they’d opted for a signed Arkham House first edition obtained through a local rare book dealer. Eloise goggled delightedly at the volume, and Claude made appreciative noises, smiling indulgently at her pleasure. The two of them presented Roger and Britt with a videotape of Claude’s latest horror movie, scripted by Eloise, who remarked, “We haven’t even seen the finished product ourselves yet.”
“Great, we’ll watch it at Roger’s after dinner,” said Britt. “The invention of the VCR must have been a great boon for you guys, culturally speaking. Before, it was crowded theaters or nothing.”
Claude nodded. “Not that I’d classify ninety-nine percent of the stuff you see on film as culture.” He glanced at his watch. “What time is that dinner reservation?”
Roger stood up and shrugged into his coat. “Six thirty. It’s less than a ten minute walk, but we may as well go ahead.”
“Yes, let’s get it over with,” said Claude with an exaggerated sigh.
Britt said, “We don’t have to. I can whip up something for us at Roger’s.”
“Nonsense, I want to treat you ladies to a good meal. And I trust you chose the place well?” He helped Eloise into her coat.
“I like it, anyway,” said Britt. “A restored Colonial inn up at the other end of Main Street.”
A minute later, they were on their way. Roger noted that even in December they had to dodge a constant stream of pedestrians. He’d never quite fathomed the attraction of a narrow one-way street lined with overpriced shops, many of them chains that had driven out the native Annapolis merchants who used to dominate downtown. At least on Main Street, the city had done a thorough job of clearing the sidewalks, making a safe path for Britt and Eloise. Still, with the impractical mid-height heels on their boots, the two women fell behind Roger and Claude’s long strides.
Roger overheard Britt murmuring to Eloise several yards back, “Think we should remind them they’re leaving us in the dust?”
“No, I hate to slow them down,” said Eloise. “Let ‘em race ahead; maybe they’ll work up an appetite.”
Britt dropped her voice slightly. “I never noticed they had to work at it.”
Roger felt himself blushing. “Confound it, women are absolutely shameless.”
“You’ve just got around to noticing that?” said Claude. “And you a psychiatrist. Their appetites are ordinary men’s loss and our gain, n’est-ce pas?”
“No doubt, but there’s a time and place for everything.”
By silent consent, they paused to let their companions catch up. “Tell me about this restaurant,” said Claude.
“I did my best,” said Britt, taking Roger’s arm. “It’s not Italian, Mexican, or Oriental, and I asked for the non-smoking section. We’re early enough that there shouldn’t be a crowd, and we’ll get in and out quickly.”
Once they were seated, the waiter did appear with commendable promptness. Eloise admired the Colonial tavern decor, and Claude pronounced his approval. While the two women ordered every course the menu offered, from cream of crab soup on, Claude performed his usual dining-out evasive maneuver—ordering a couple of light dishes that he would covertly pass on to his wife—and Roger asked for his customary rare steak.
“Why couldn’t I have settled into a society that views eating in public as obscene?” Claude sighed after the waiter vanished to fetch their drinks.
“That would certainly save trouble,” said Roger.
“Why should it bother you? At least you can eat meat.” He absent-mindedly shifted the burning candle from the center to the edge of the table out of his direct line of sight.
“Quit complaining,” said Eloise. “You’ll get yours later.”
“Restaurants really are difficult for them, though,” Britt said, glancing at Roger as he took a sip of the martini he’d ordered. Already he needed chemical insulation from the smoke that drifted from the adjoining room. Sitting in a cigarette-free zone didn’t provide enough protection for senses as acute as his. Britt said teasingly, “Maybe we should write an article on the covert anti-vampire prejudice in contemporary culture.” A passing busboy gave her a dubious look. “Look at the Bible—all those derogatory references to darkness.”
The waiter appeared with a tray full of salads, which he passed to each of them. Claude pushed his toward Eloise. “The entire Bible isn’t stacked against us. There’s a Psalm that compares the Deity’s protection to shadow and promises the sun will not strike you by day nor the moon by night.” Roger always found Claude’s knowledge of Scripture incongruous. Like many members of their species born within the past three hundred years, Claude, through overexposure to human superstitions, had developed a psychosomatic aversion to religious objects.
“Not just the Bible,” said Britt. She sprinkled oil and vinegar on her salad and passed the decanters to Eloise. “Popular songs are full of that stuff. You are my sunshine. And think of ethnic slurs like Count Chocula—degrading stereotype of a minority group.”
“Would you include the Count from Sesame Street?” said Eloise.
“Oh, I don’t think he’s degrading. He’s actually kind of cute.” Britt nibbled thoughtfully on her lettuce before continuing, “I’ve been thinking of writing an article for the Journal of Popular Culture on the monsters on Sesame Street. Maybe we could collaborate. The characterization of the Count is very suggestive, psychologically. That obsession with numbers, for instance.”
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