In the Blood

by Abigail Barnette

  “Anthony,” he barked into his cell phone the moment the man answered. “Find out what you can about a drug called—” He sounded the word out, then spelled it, hoping that would be sufficient for his assistant.

  “Do you need me?” Anthony asked. “If the girl is in some kind of trouble, you need to call 911.”

  “I don’t know if she’s in trouble. Please, just get me the information.” He would do whatever it took to see that she survived. Something about her was linked to him, and he could not see her die before he found out what it was.

  In her dreams, Cassandra was no longer fighting monsters. Instead, she fought the temptation to let her heart stop beating, her lungs to cease filling with breath. It was as if she were drowning, over and over, and each time she began to pull herself above water, she would slip.

  His voice was there, most disturbing of all. Telling her to calm herself, that she was safe. She did not doubt that she was safe from the moment she heard his voice, but even on the edge of death she had enough sense to know that something about him was strange, too strange to be trusted. All through the night, she fought her body’s wish to die and her brain’s insistence to wake, suspended in an in-between world with a man she did not know and who couldn’t be there.

  With a strangled cry, she sat up, suddenly loosed from the medicated grasp of sleep. She felt her face, her hair, then felt for the phone. She’d had it in her hand just a moment ago, to call for help. She patted the bed, her hand coming to rest on another hand, a cold hand, lying atop the bedclothes. With a scream, she lurched away from the figure who straightened himself, casting bleary eyes around the room.

  “Cassandra,” Viktor breathed. “Thank God.”

  He sat beside the bed on the stool that usually stood before her vanity. His shirt, blindingly white in the dark, was rumpled and the sleeves rolled back. His pale forearms had pillowed his head on the edge of the bed. He looked as though he’d been there all night.

  “What are you doing here?” she shrieked, reaching for something, anything, to throw at him. It was a gross invasion of privacy for him to walk into her home and sit beside her as she slept and—

  Her hand closed on the bottle of pills, and she remembered.

  “I almost didn’t get here in time,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m glad you called me.”

  “I didn’t call you,” she snapped, but she couldn’t remember. She’d had the phone in her hand, hadn’t she? Where was it now?

  “You must have broken it when you fell, because the line went dead,” he explained patiently, scooping up broken plastic pieces off her vanity. “I don’t think you’ll be able to fix it.”

  “But why would I have called you?” she asked, not that he would know the answer. Her mortification grew by the second. She’d called him, despite barely knowing him, which showed she was, like, obsessed with him or something. And he was a client. Unprofessional on so many levels. “I’m so sorry, I would never—”

  He waved a hand. “Nonsense. I could tell from your voice that something was wrong and came straight over. What on earth were you doing, Cassandra?”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know. It was an accident.”

  It had been an accident, hadn’t it? She scrolled through the events of the night in her mind. She’d taken too many pills, she knew that well enough. When she’d realized her mistake, she’d tried to call for help…but had it really been a mistake? Why hadn’t she called 911? Why hadn’t she gotten real help, instead of calling a client who might not have bothered to come to her aid at all? Had she really wanted to die?

  “I am glad to hear that,” he said, his soft accent making the words sound more intimate than they really were. He ran his fingers through his mussed white hair, a gesture he must have performed countless times while she’d slept. The top buttons of his shirt were open, revealing the pale flesh beneath, and the sight held Cassie’s gaze for longer than she meant it to.

  “Why did you come?” She squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment. “I meant, why would you bother? I called you, so I obviously wanted you to come here. But you don’t know me. Why would you take the time?”

  He shifted on the stool, stretching one long leg out, then the other. “I don’t know. I think if I were in need of help, I would want someone to come to my aid.”

  A rich, powerful man like Viktor Novotny coming down from his ivory tower to help her? She hated herself for being so jaded, but she couldn’t help but feel there would be some kind of ulterior motive woven in to this act of kindness. With his type, there always was. “Well, thank you. I think I’ll be okay now.”

  “You wish for me to go?” he asked uncertainly, as though he wanted to stay here in her apartment that smelled like puke and was probably smaller than his guest bathroom at home. There definitely was something weird about this guy.

  She smiled weakly and nodded. “Don’t worry, I won’t call you again.”

  “If you need anything,” he said, reaching to put one hand on her arm. The shrieks of the monsters filled her ears, and she flinched from him. His eyes clouded with hurt.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just…jumpy. Probably the drugs wearing off.” She shrugged, knowing she was a good liar who had just had a rare slip up.

  He swallowed, the sound audible, the way his throat moved looking almost painful. “I know that you are troubled—”

  “It was an accident,” she snapped.

  “And I believe you.” He hesitated. “I know you have…nightmares. Episodes, perhaps? During your waking hours, as you did at my apartment?”

  Her cheeks burned, and she knew he could see the embarrassment written on her face. “No. That never happened before. I was kind of thinking you had something to do with it.”

  “Me?”

  God, how could she do this when the guy had just saved her life? Self-preservation, that’s how. “Yeah. How do I know that wine you gave me wasn’t drugged?”

  He leaned forward. “You think I would have to drug you?”

  His entire being, from the looming expanse of his broad shoulders to the dark promise of seduction in his deep voice, caused sparks of awareness to race through her, but she wouldn’t show it. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and shot back, “What, because I’m a prostitute? You don’t need to drug me, you can just throw a wad of cash at me and my panties will fall off?”

  “No.” He leaned closer. Their noses almost touched. If she had wanted to, she could have brushed her lips against his. He continued, in a voice every bit as deep and dark as her most erotic daydreams. “I would not have to drug you because if I wished to seduce you, I would. I could do things to you that would make you beg for it, Cassandra. I could give you pleasure like you’ve never felt in your life, and by the time I was finished, you would be screaming my name.”

  She cleared her throat to hide the huge gulp of air she took. She’d had a taste of him already, and knew with aching certainty that he could make good on his threat. As much as she hated herself for admitting it, a part of her wanted him to. “Well, I’m glad you think so. But I’m not interested. Don’t call me, don’t contact me through the club, don’t ever come here again. Do you understand?”

  He straightened, looking as though he’d suddenly remembered his surroundings. He fastened the top two buttons of his shirt, his face so devoid of emotion that he appeared almost alien. “Yes, of course. I understand perfectly. Good night, then.”

  Only after he’d collected his jacket and left did Cassie notice the broken window pane.

  Chapter Three

  For three nights, Cassandra didn’t sleep. She didn’t take her pills. She sat up in bed, staring at the cardboard she’d taped over the hole in the window. Rationally, she knew that if a window hadn’t kept him out in the first place, a broken window wouldn’t make much difference in him getting in, but cold logic wouldn’t set her at ease. Constant surveillance at least gave her some charade of control.

  How had he found her? She
was certain she hadn’t called him, after she saw the broken window. Had he intended to, what, attack her? Kill her? But then he’d stayed and nursed her through an overdose. Those didn’t seem like the actions of a cold-hearted murderer. Every time she tried to convince herself otherwise, she remembered the way he’d fallen asleep at her bedside, waiting for a sign that she was all right. Of course, she would have been better off in a hospital, but they might have locked her up for attempting suicide. A rich, smart guy like Viktor would have known that. Maybe he hadn’t called for help because he wanted to protect her.

  She forced that notion from her mind. It bordered on something almost romantic, and she definitely didn’t need to be mooning away her life in day dreams about a client, even if that client set her blood on fire just from being near her. She shivered at the memory of the sensual threat he’d delivered before storming out of her apartment. There was no doubt in her mind that he could really do those things, make her scream with pleasure and beg for more. Chills raced over her skin at the thought of those elegant hands stroking her, her skin flushed and perspiring.

  She had to stop this. It was one thing to fantasize about a client, another to fantasize about the guy who’d broken into her place. How on earth had he gotten up to her second-floor window? Someone would have noticed a guy with a ladder on the street in the middle of the night, right? Briefly, she’d considered reporting the incident to 4-1-2. They’d make sure he stayed far, far away from her. She’d changed her mind when she thought about what might happen to him. Even if he had broken into her apartment, she couldn’t deal with any more blood on her hands.

  She couldn’t stay in her apartment forever, and she couldn’t call in to work forever. She made an appointment with one of her easiest-to-please clients, a nebbishy thirty-five-year-old who was set for life owing to the sale of the Internet search engine he’d created at twenty-four. He worked late—whatever someone worked on once they were independently wealthy—and wanted to meet after dinner. Fine by Cassie. The longer she stayed awake, the better.

  As if her retreat from life had provided respite for the weather, as well, Cassie stepped out onto a sidewalk wet with melting snow. The smell of spring rain in the city played tricks on her. Had she been cooped up for five days or five months? It should have been pleasant on the street, but her gaze was drawn away from the last, retreating dregs of winter to the sleek black car parked on the opposite curb. A Maybach 62 S. Cassandra was no stranger to expensive cars; this one didn’t belong in her neighborhood.

  She started to walk slowly, checking over her shoulder only once to see if the car moved. It did, a slow, menacing crawl. The glare from the street lights created an impenetrable reflection on the windshield. She could not see who drove, but she knew who would be in the back, watching her. Viktor.

  A thousand women’s self-defense classes came through her mind, but she couldn’t remember any tips for hiding from a vehicle that was clearly following you. Her first instinct was to duck into the narrow alley up ahead, and she followed that instinct.

  The moment she veered off the sidewalk, into the space between the two buildings like the walls of a coffin, she knew she had made the wrong choice. A shock of fear stiffened her spine, the kind that gripped her in her nightmares. Something moved in the darkness at the back of the alley. Nothing. It’s nothing. She rolled her neck, staring up at the patch of sky, tinged orange with light pollution, that she could see between the rooftops.

  A hiss, a flash of fangs, and the creatures from her nightmares were falling, teeth bared, to the pavement all around her.

  “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” she shrieked over and over, sinking to her knees as the ring of them closed around her, their freakishly long arms and blank, white faces closing her in. She couldn’t watch, squeezed her eyes shut tight and covered her ears to block out the sound of their harsh, drooling respirations in her ears.

  It seemed years until one of them touched her, its talons scraping her wrist. She tried to scream, but the terror froze her lungs. This was how she would die, then: on her knees in an alley, out of her mind, killed by a hallucination that seemed so real it stopped her heart.

  Something growled beside her ear, but instinct told her it was not one of the creatures. It was an oddly familiar sound, and she stopped cowering long enough to catch sight of its source.

  Viktor, his white hair and skin glowing in the darkness, stood beside her, his hand at one of the creatures’ throats. It thrashed its arms and legs, snapped its strange, wide jaws. The other creatures stood back, defensive, their mouths stretched into eerie grimaces over their long, pointed teeth.

  With a jerking motion, Viktor lifted the creature he held and smashed it straight down, into the pavement. The ground seemed to part like water around the body, and a shockwave rumbled beneath them as Viktor turned for the next one.

  One of the creatures darted out of its protective stance and grabbed Cassie. She found her lungs this time, and Viktor whirled at her scream. He quickly dispatched the monster in his hands by breaking it over his knee like sticks for a fire and lunged for the one that held Cassie.

  In her life, she’d seen plenty of angry people. Her parents, the judge, Emily’s parents. Herself, as she’d screamed obscenities at her own reflection.

  She’d never seen anyone as angry as Viktor when the creature laid its hands on her.

  Grasping each of the monster’s arms, he twisted the limbs in opposite directions until bone snapped and broke through the rubbery skin of the thing’s shoulders. It howled, and its cry sounded like wind blasting through the cracks in an abandoned house. Bringing up his leg, Viktor put one foot on the creature’s chest and kicked. The beast flew into the building across the alley, connecting in a shower of brick shrapnel. Viktor still held its arms, now detached from the body, which wriggled and went still, a bloody pulp on the ground.

  He shouted something at the remaining creatures in a harsh, foreign language, and they cowered, hissing in one last display of bravado before receding into the darkness.

  Viktor watched them for a moment, his chest heaving, then turned to Cassie. “Cassandra, get in the car.”

  Only then did she notice Anthony standing patiently beside the Maybach at the end of the alley. She was too numb, too frightened to argue, but she couldn’t quite move. Viktor pulled her to her feet, looped one arm around her and tucked her close to his chest as he helped her stumble toward the car.

  “Drive us home,” he ordered Anthony in a low voice, then slid into the car beside her. He laid a hand on her knee, and it was cold through her jeans. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded stupidly. Of course she wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right. Either the monsters of her dreams were real or Viktor was part of her hallucination. In either case, she was crazy, and she had no clue how long she’d been that way.

  For a long time, she said nothing, and he did not try to engage her. She stared out the window, imagining that all of the people on the sidewalks would turn to her with blank faces and yellow teeth. A woman juggled a paper bag of groceries on her arm, and Cassie watched with terrorized fascination, waiting for her to expose her startling lack of features. When she did turn her head, she was only another human being, but Cassie still startled.

  Finally, she had the courage to ask Viktor. “What were those things?”

  “Vampires.” The word was hard and unapologetic.

  She nodded again, content to withdraw and continue staring out the dark-tinted glass as she slowly lost her mind.

  Viktor was not as content to let her. “It was my fault. My mark is on you now, from feeding. They can track you, as they can track me.”

  “Your mark?” Cassandra shook her head. “Did you know that would happen to me? That monsters would try to attack me? And you drank my blood anyway?”

  Jesus, what was she saying? She couldn’t possibly believe a word he had to say.

  “Usually, it does not happen this way. If we had—”

 
“Why would they be tracking you? They’re my nightmares. I’ve been dreaming about them my whole life.” Well, not her whole life. Ever since the accident. But she didn’t feel like rehashing those details with a stranger.

  “They’re tracking me because they wish to make me one of them.” He cleared his throat and looked away, out the window, as though he were ashamed to meet her eyes. “I have taken a life before, out of hunger. It fractured my soul, as such an act always does, and they are…attracted to that kind of despair. I carry a scent that is irresistible to Minions. When I fed off you, it mingled our essences. If we had…finished our business together, the humanity restored to me through the act would have lessened my connection to you. But I let you leave my apartment. Then, stupidly, I led them to your home.” He looked out his own window, hopelessness lining his face. “I should have known better.”

  An angry laugh burst from her throat. “About what? About vampires?”

  “Yes, about vampires.”

  The authority with which he spoke was dangerous, pulled Cassie in, made her want to believe every word he said. Yet her brain refused to adapt to this new and absurd reality. “You can’t just say that to me. My life can’t be part of your sick fantasies. There isn’t enough money in the world to—”

  “What do you think they were, then?” he asked calmly, cutting her off as though he were a patient father dealing with a toddler’s screaming tantrum.

  The monsters from her nightmares were vampires. Or Minions or whatever. They existed, like humans and dogs and cats and trees. And not just tonight. Probably forever. And she’d never had a clue, besides her dreams.

  Though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, she asked him anyway. “What are you? Why could you fight those things the way you did?”

  He let go of her hand then, as if suddenly uncomfortable with their closeness. “I am a vampire.”