by Amy Corwin
Then he realized its usefulness for a woman who hunted vampires. Anyone who entered would be reflected in its silvery surface, unless he or she was a vampire. The test would be quick and effective.
The air in the room smelled of soap with a light undercurrent of chlorine, and he sniffed, the astringent odor tickled his nose. He rubbed it absently. Even the scents were no-nonsense, practical without any effort to make the atmosphere more pleasant by plugging in an air freshener with the scent of freshly baked pie or cookies to recreate the sense of coming home.
Two dark windows, covered with pale green drapes, broke up the far wall. A matching set of double windows graced the wall above the kitchen sink. The heavy, unattractive drapes shut out the streetlights and any gleam of life from passing cars.
“I told you not to come up.” Despite the defiance in her stance, her voice was soft, sad. She glanced around once and then stared down at the counter in the kitchen, refusing to look at him. “I don’t have room for guests.”
“You have room. Lots of room. You just don’t want guests.”
She glanced up then, and her eyes flashed, silver sheet-lightning rippling through the depths. With controlled violence, she threw her keys on the counter. They skittered over the surface and clinked to a stop against the edge of the stove.
“Why don’t you go home? You’ve done your duty. I don’t need a guard—what I need is sleep. I have a class at ten tomorrow morning.” She looked at a small, round clock hanging above the kitchen window. “In four hours.” Her eyes glinted with sudden, sardonic amusement. “How about if I promise not to kill any vampires between now and then?”
“That’d be a relief, that’s for certain.” He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the kitchen chair before sitting down. The chair wobbled beneath him on uneven legs and he hurriedly slapped a hand on the table before the chair tipped him over onto the shiny floor. He cleared his throat, trying not to feel like an idiot. “However, I’m not just protecting them. There’s also this inexplicable desire to protect you from them.”
“You? Protect me?” She pulled off her jacket, her rounded breasts shifting under her silvery-gray shirt. He dragged his eyes away to stare at the stove. “Don’t make me laugh.” She hung up the garment in the closet built into the tiny, walled-off section next to the bathroom. “How do you intend to do that? Divert them with your brilliant banter?”
His browse rose. “Have I brilliant banter, then? I had no idea.”
Her lips trembled as she tried not to laugh, and he felt a chuckle rumble in his chest in response. As she stared into his eyes, the air between them stilled, strumming with silent electricity. His breath stopped.
Then, she glanced away, her gaze bouncing from one piece of furniture to the next before returning shyly to him. She shifted from one foot to the other, repeatedly plunging her hands into her pockets and then pulling them out to rub her upper thighs.
“I guess bantering comes naturally to a people-person, especially a negotiator.” She turned away, but not before he noticed her side-long glance at her single bed. A flush tinted her pale skin. “I’ll call a taxi.”
He raised his hand, still bound by his handkerchief and changed the subject. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Yes.” Cheeks flushed bright pink, she opened the cupboard beneath the sink and got out a fishing tackle box. Inside, dozens of bandages, ointments, and other supplies neatly filled each compartment. She pulled out a small, brown squirt bottle of hydrogen peroxide, antibacterial ointment, cotton balls, and bandages.
When she gestured impatiently, he removed the stained cotton and held out his hand. Quicksilver grabbed his wrist to hold his hand over the sink and poured hydrogen peroxide over his palm.
“Ouch,” he said as the cold liquid bubbled over the wound.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she commented as she gingerly swabbed the area with a cotton ball. “It’s already stopped bleeding.”
“Great,” he said, leaning closer. She smelled good, not from perfume, just a warm, clean scent of skin and soap. “Maybe I don’t need a bandage, then.”
“I don’t want it to reopen and bleed all over my floor.” She squired ointment on it, covered the cut with a gauze pad and taped over it before releasing him. When she saw how close he was, she stepped away briskly.
“Thanks,” he said.
Loosening his tie, he strolled over to the overstuffed easy chair and sat down. He snagged the footstool with his foot and dragged it over before crossing his ankles on top of it.
“I’m staying. You heard Sutton. I don’t expect to physically defend you, but—” His eyes flicked to her waist. She still had the three whips dangling from her belt. “I still need to make sure neither side decides to do anything rash. There are already too many weeds wrapped around the axle now. So we’re going to stay calm and get the negotiations unstuck and moving again. And I’m here to make sure everyone stays calm.”
“Then I hope you like sleeping in a chair. There’s only one bed, and it’s mine.”
He eyed her. “I’m comfortable.”
The flush staining her cheeks deepened. Her glance bounced from the bed to the bland surface of the battered, nineteen-fifties, white refrigerator and back again. “Great. Just great.”
Chapter Ten
“What about a blanket? A towel? Anything?” Kethan settled into the cushy chair with a long sigh. It was comfortable, a fact which surprised him given the rest of the Spartan furnishings.
He eyed Quicksilver, surprised she hadn’t objected, especially since he wasn’t convinced of the purity of his intentions, either. On the surface, he needed to interpose himself between the vampires and Quicksilver in order to avoid more conflict. The confrontation in the alley convinced him of that.
But he couldn’t guard her forever. His Jesuit-trained mind probed and questioned his position, seeking logic and from that, answers. A minefield of mistaken assumptions spread before him, littered with the bodies of those already fallen. Tyler and how many others, human and vampire alike, had died?
Too many, far too many lost souls.
However Quicksilver was not lost, at least not yet. He sensed ambivalence and a quality that hinted she might be amenable to peace, if given the proper incentive, or if he applied the right pressure. He needed to find the right path to extricate himself from the war zone of her life and maintain the tenuous cease fire they had established.
“I’m not prepared for overnight guests,” she said.
“What do you do when it’s time to wash your sheets? You must have two sets, right?”
“I—yes. I have one spare set.”
“May I at least borrow the spare sheet?”
“I’ll have no spare if we do that. This is really inconvenient.”
“So I hear.” He smiled.
The effort was wasted, however, since she turned away without seeing it. She walked with a stiff back toward a tiny cabinet near the kitchen. To his surprise, she pulled out not only a plain white sheet, but a light fleece throw as well.
“The blanket’s not very big,” she said in a grudging, apologetic voice.
He held up the deep turquoise throw. It stretched from his chest to mid-shin. When he glanced over at her, one brow quirked, a blush rushed in a torrent, spilling under her skin. Her gaze skimmed the fleece blanket before resting briefly on her bed.
“Take my blanket.” She ripped it off her cot and thrust it into his free hand. Before he could reply, she tore the small lap blanket out of his grip and threw that onto her narrow bed.
He almost laughed at the expression of disgust rippling over her face. She was so easy to read. For her, kindness meant weakness, and she had no desire to show such a soft spot, no matter how small.
What had happened to her to make her so defensive? She was as wild as the cat in the alley with her suspicions and sharp claws barely sheathed. Why had she never learned that it took more courage to expose the tender feelings than to be c
ruel?
“You’re what—five foot eight? That throw isn’t going to cover you, either,” he said.
“I never get cold. Now shut up so I can get some sleep.”
Ignoring him, she proceeded to follow what he assumed was her nightly routine. With an efficient economy of movement, she grabbed a few items from a chest of drawers and disappeared into the bathroom. A sharp click indicated she’d locked the door. Then the sound of running water leaked through the flimsy walls. Five minutes later, she threw open the door and strode into the room wearing nothing but a sleeveless T-shirt and pair of baggy cotton underwear cut suspiciously like men’s boxers. The shorts even had maroon and gold vertical stripes.
His chest tightened at the sight of the thin material sagging over her slender thighs. Not a good idea. He stared down at the blanket covering his knees and kicked off his shoes before he pulled it over him. Settling into the chair, he concentrated on relaxing, which he could not do.
He moved restlessly in the increasingly uncomfortable chair. His neck already felt stiff, and the soft noises made by her restless movements made him too aware of her presence. A light draft from the bathroom carried the clean scent of ordinary soap. It caught at his senses more intensely than any fragrance from a perfume bottle glittering on top of a department store counter.
Then she turned out the lights and climbed into bed, leaving him sitting there in the dark with a rigid body and dry mouth.
His eyes slowly adjusted to the not-quite-dark. A thin line of light seeped through the drapes covering the front windows. Not much, but enough to let him see her huddled form under the thin blanket covering her bed.
Uncomfortable and restricted by his clothing, he got up and stripped down to his underwear. Then he made his own awkward trip to the bathroom with his arms outstretched to avoid running into the wall. A cold shower calmed him down until he toweled off and faced the mirror.
Crack!
Something crashed through the bathroom mirror, showering him with jagged fragments of glass.
The door burst open. “What was that?” Quicksilver stood in the doorway, staring at him.
He stared at the object spinning slowly amidst a pool of brittle fragments of glass. A head, the neck severed messily from the body rocked on the floor. When he caught sight of the face, he recognized a face from his own, unholy past. He froze, staring into the unseeing brown eyes of the vampire who had ripped away his soul and left him, years later, trying to regain it and erase the mistakes of multiple lifetimes.
Her long, black hair, once so beautiful, spread across the floor, rank with blood. As he watched, the head smoked and flared with a hissing crackle. The odor of very old, musty bone burning filled the small bathroom.
Quicksilver pushed past him, staring out the broken window opposite the sink. “What happened? What did you see?”
“Nothing.” He struggled to control his reaction, the shock of recognition.
“Who was that?” She pointed accusingly to the pile of ash, still steaming on the pink tile of her bathroom floor. “Did you recognize her?”
“I don’t know.” He felt lightheaded as he stared at the floor, his mind clinging to irrelevant details like the color of the bathroom rather than deal with his past sins.
Pink tile with black trim. Feminine….
“That was the head of a vampire. You saw how it burned.” She stared at him and repeated, “Did you recognize her?”
He shook his head. She’d kill him if she knew the truth, that much was certain.
“It was a woman, a woman’s head. Why would someone throw it through my window?” She went to the window and stood on tiptoe to peer outside. “What’s going on? I don’t get it. If it was meant to scare me, it failed. It’s a cause for celebration to know another one of them is dead. One less vampire to hurt someone.”
“I don’t understand it either.” That much was true. He didn’t know why someone would kill the vampire who had created him.
Unless it was a warning that someone else knew his secret, someone willing to reveal it to Quicksilver if he didn’t…what? Do as they wanted?
As far as he knew, he was trying to do what everyone wanted and bring peace.
Unless peace threatened someone…. He rubbed the back of his neck.
She turned abruptly. “I’m going—”
“No.” He caught her arm. “No. Don’t go out there.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” She shook him off. “Someone threw that thing through my window!”
“And they’re long gone by now.”
“Maybe not. Maybe they’re waiting for me.” Her eyes glittered.
“If they are, then let them wait. Don’t meet them on their terms.”
“Why not? I thought you wanted me to be nice and work with them.”
“Not this way, no. You know as well as I do that if you go out that door, there’s nothing but death waiting for you.”
“For them maybe. Not for me.”
“No. Please. Don’t play into their hands.”
She paused, clearly considering his words. A cold draft blew through the broken window, ruffling the towel he held in his hand. At that moment, he realized he was naked. He held his towel in front of him in what he hoped was a casual way.
Quicksilver flashed him a smile. She must have caught his sudden realization and stealthy movement to cover himself.
Busted.
“Fine. But you’d better put something on. It’s going to get cold in here tonight with the window out.”
“You can’t leave it open.” Somehow his mind had stalled and refused to restart. He closed his mouth for fear of looking more moronic than he felt.
She shook her head, a grin playing over her lips. “I’ll see if I can find a piece of plywood or cardboard to cover the opening until I can get it fixed.”
He nodded, holding the towel against his waist, unable to do more than fixate on a lot of things he shouldn’t even be noticing, like the way her thin T-shirt clung to her.
“Are you all right?” She moved toward the door.
He nodded more vigorously and tried to shift gears, his mind racing over the implied threat of the head. Would Quicksilver let it go that easily? Could he let it go?
Although the head had been reduced to a pile of ash, he had the unsettling feeling that its ghost floated behind his back, watching and waiting for him to take a wrong step.
When she left the room, he pulled himself together and grabbed enough of his clothing to be more-or-less decent. She brushed past him again as he exited the bathroom. She carried a splintered square of plywood, a handful of finishing nails, and hammer. He held out his hand to take the hammer, but the look on her face stopped him. He stepped aside and let her at it.
At this point, discretion was definitely the better part of valor.
Unfortunately, she’d left the living room dark. He stumbled toward the chair, bouncing off the wall twice before he found it. After each collision, he heard Quicksilver’s ghostly, hastily stifled laughter and then the jarring thuds of her hammer as she resumed her task. When the padded arm of the chair hit him in the groin, he suppressed a sharp gasp and swaddled himself in the sheet and blanket before sitting down with a grunt.
In the ensuing silence, he heard a few muttered words before she pounded another nail into the plywood. Nothing was going to come through that window tonight. After a few minutes, even the banging stopped, and he heard her pad softly back to her bed.
He tried to settle back in the chair and almost knocked over the reading lamp next to it. The top-heavy lamp wobbled and shook, hitting the wall and then his head, rattling its metal base. He grabbed it at the last minute, letting out a sigh as he steadied it. A few feet away, he heard a soft chortle and rustle as Quicksilver rolled over on her side. After pulling the covers around his shoulders, he forced himself to stop moving and relax without crashing into anything else in the darkened room.
Gradually, Quicksilver’s breathing slowed, becomin
g soft and regular. She was so close he imagined he could feel the whisper of her warm breath feathering his cheek.
He rubbed a bruise on his thigh he didn’t know he had and tried not to think. The angry glare of the head of the vampire who first cursed his life haunted him.
Who had killed her? Why? And why did they want him to know she was finally, irrevocably, dead?
Hours later, he slept, his dreams dark and silent with the ominous feeling of something bad, very bad, standing behind him.
* * * *
Quicksilver felt trapped within the confines of her own, small apartment. She couldn’t move without being aware of exactly where Kethan was, resting just a few feet away. It only grew worse after she turned the lights off. All her senses focused on him as he softly padded to the bathroom.
And then the sound of the window shattering and the bloody head rolling across her pink tile floor….
What was that about? Somehow, she knew it was connected to Kethan and his negotiations. Any vampire who knew her would also know that she wouldn’t be anything except thrilled to see one of the undead suffer such a fate. The action meant nothing to her, but she’d seen Kethan’s expression and the shock of recognition in his widened eyes.
Had the vampire been one of Sutton’s?
That answer didn’t feel right. This had seemed more personal in a way she couldn’t understand.
She shifted uneasily. It had to be a threat, but what was the message? Something that only Kethan knew, and he did know it, of that she was certain.
He’d lied to her when he claimed ignorance. So much for his holier-than-thou, I’ve-got-nothing-to-hide attitude. Again she rolled over, unable to sleep for fear of what awaited them outside the apartment in the shadows.
Thank goodness they had found Kathy in time.
Then she remembered the cat. It waited outside, hungry and vulnerable. She stayed in bed, rigid and listening to Kethan’s breathing until it slowed into a deep, regular rhythm. Then she got up and padded silently into the kitchen. In the cupboard next to the refrigerator, she had small, pop-top cans of tuna reserved for lunch. It had been several days since she’d seen the cat so she’d stopped buying cat food, fearing it was gone for good. She’d felt cold and deserted when she realized that. But tonight, it had showed up again, looking starved with rough, knotted fur and its ribs showing.