Tall, Dark & Fangsome

by Michelle Rowen

  I glanced at Veronique. “Please tell me he’s not the vampire the Ring assigned to eliminate me. That would be so embarrassing.”

  “Of course not. Such an important task would not be given to a mere servant.”

  “That’s kind of derogatory, don’t you think?”

  She looked confused. “There are those who are servants and those who are masters. Knowing where you fit into that equation helps one in a very long existence.”

  “So what am I?”

  “You are a servant,” she said simply. “Your lack of wealth and status gives you no other choice. But you are a charming and amusing girl whose company I greatly enjoy, so that is something for you to hold on to.”

  “Thierry was poor when he was a human. I think you called him a peasant once, didn’t you? But now he’s considered a master vampire.”

  “He has earned that designation over many centuries, but no, not from birth.”

  “Is that why you wouldn’t sign the annulment? Because you think of me as a servant?”

  She sighed. “The subject wearies me, my dear. Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore now that you and my husband are no longer together.”

  “Fine.” I tried to push away any extra ill feelings I had toward the woman facing me. “Thanks for the info on the… the Carastrand. Obviously it’s a very good thing to know.” I stood up from the table.

  She eyed me. “And what of the Red Devil?”

  “Honestly, Veronique? I don’t think you’re his type. I’ll mention you to him, but I figure if he wanted to hook up, he would have done it already. Two hundred years is a long time not to call somebody back after a first date. Maybe he’s just not that into you.”

  A microscopic sliver of doubt slid through her gaze. “Are you saying you believe him to be homosexual?”

  I blinked. “Is that the only reason a man wouldn’t want you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then that’s what he is—he’s gay as a handbag full of rainbows.” I glanced at the window to see that Barry’s face had gone a few shades darker red and the top of his head looked about ready to blow off. “I’ll see you later, Veronique.”

  “Of course.” She nodded but still looked disturbed by the possibility of her mystery hunk-o-love being unattainable.

  And to think, the man that she wanted, that she thought was the cat’s meow—where did that expression come from?—that she was willing to go to great ends to meet… she was already married to him and couldn’t recognize him to save her own life.

  The knowledge that I knew who he actually was bubbled inside me like a teapot ready to whistle loudly. Balanced out, of course, with some major-ass annoyance.

  Then again, it was par for the course with Thierry. He had serious trust issues. Did he think I’d go blabbing to everybody in town?

  Could I be with somebody who tried to keep nearly every part of his life a secret from me?

  Barry was waiting impatiently for me outside the café when I exited.

  “Have you seen my wife?” he asked tightly.

  I wiped a few flakes of falling snow off my cheeks. The skies above were thick and gray this morning. “I’m doing just fantastic, Barry, thank you for asking. How are you?”

  “I don’t have any time for your nonsense today. I’m looking for Amy.”

  “Have you tried her job? She’s typically there during Monday work hours, you know.”

  “I’m not an idiot. Of course I tried there already. They said she went out for an early lunch.”

  A woman walking a Great Dane passed us and looked at us curiously. I eyed her warily wondering if she was one of Gideon’s spies. The dog stopped to do his business and the woman crouched to pick it up in a plastic bag.

  Gross.

  I returned my attention to Barry. “Then I guess that’s where she is. Eating something. Somewhere.”

  His brow creased further than it already was. “She isn’t answering her cell phone.”

  “Maybe she needs some time away from you. Can’t imagine why.” I studied him for a moment. “Is that all you wanted?”

  He seemed to deflate a little in the anger category. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but I saw you with Veronique and thought I’d ask.”

  “You’ve asked. I’ve answered. Now, if there’s nothing else, I need to deal with my daily traumas.” I brushed past him, but he grabbed hold of the sleeve of my coat. I turned back to look at him.

  “She’s happy, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “Define happy,” I said. “I seem to forget what that entails.”

  “With me.” He visibly swallowed. “I mean, she doesn’t have any issues that would cause her to find me… lacking in any way, does she?”

  Oh, brother. Not something I needed today. A miniature vampire with an inferiority complex—who hated my guts.

  “Amy is happier than she’s ever been,” I told him. “She’s like a werewolf after a flea bath. Don’t ask me why, because I honestly couldn’t tell you. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  A few more potential spy-types walked by us. One even had the audacity to ask me for the time before continuing down the sidewalk. “I’m sure she’s off shopping somewhere. Just chill. You two have something special. I guess it was love at first bite. Old joke, but whatever.” I turned away from him again before something occurred to me. “Hey, you don’t happen to know the Red Devil’s real identity, do you?”

  He shook his head. “Whoever he is, I think he should have remained in hiding. The master says that his presence in the past did more harm than good.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I just bet he did.”

  Of course Thierry would say something like that to help take any attention off the obvious—to me, anyhow—similarities between him and the Red Devil.

  Barry raised his chin. “You should know that the master is seeing someone new.”

  “I know.” My eyes narrowed. Even though I knew it was only a cover, it still bugged me. “How do you like her?”

  His lips thinned. “She is a crude and sharp-tongued woman. I don’t know why he would choose her so quickly after the end of your… relationship… when his preference is typically for solitude and reflection.”

  “Thierry is a party animal, isn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “What a surprise.” He eyed me. “I will say I was surprised by what happened between you and the master. While I didn’t feel that you would be together very long, I didn’t think it would end so soon, given his questionable infatuation with you and your abnormal stubbornness.”

  I smiled at him. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Give me a hug?”

  He took a step back from me. “For a moment, despite your numerous flaws and issues, I think he was…” He cleared his throat. “Happy is much too large of a word, really. But perhaps… hmm, I’m not really sure. Perhaps not unhappy would be a better way to describe his mood of late.”

  “Please stop. All of these gushing compliments will go to my head. If I hear from Amy I’ll tell her you’re looking for her, okay?”

  He nodded stiffly. “Very well.”

  As I walked away from him, I touched the gold chain I wore—the Carastrand—and thought about what Veronique had said earlier. Maybe she was making it up. Maybe she’d heard wrong or had forgotten the details after so long. If she was right and the magic holding my nightwalker back was a fading thing, then I was going to be in bigger trouble than I already was.

  Gideon said the grimoire was mine if I handed over the Red Devil so he could have a challenging kill to keep his mind off his problems.

  Obviously that was out of the question. Thierry might have pissed me off a lot lately, but I wasn’t selling him out for an easy answer to my issues.

  The eradication wasn’t an option for me because of the memory issue. It was worst-case scenario only, and the
kid who’d do it wouldn’t agree to go through with it even if I wanted him to.

  There had to be a third option. I hoped the strand would hold out long enough for me to figure out what it was.

  Too many eggs to juggle at the moment; it was inevitable that some of them would end up broken. The only question was, which ones?

  When I got back to George’s bungalow, there was something on my doorstep I hadn’t been expecting.

  It was pasty, stringy, greasy and it wore a “Death Suck” concert T-shirt.

  The Darkness was waiting for me.

  The Darkness did not look happy.

  Chapter 9

  The Darkness had somebody with him—a middle-aged woman with red hair who had him by his upper arm so tightly that even from a distance it looked painful.

  I walked up the driveway and gave them both a guarded but curious look. How did he even know where I lived?

  “Looking for me?” I asked.

  The woman shook the kid. “Tell her.”

  “Fine. Fine, okay? Geez, Mom, let go of me.”

  She unhanded him. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

  The kid hissed out a breath and looked at me. “It was wrong of me to take your money yesterday. I’m really sorry. I’ve come to return it to you.”

  After another poke from his mother, the kid extended his hand, which held the thousand-dollar retainer from yesterday. I walked up to them, studied them to see if there were any catches or tricks, and then took the money.

  “Thank you.”

  “Whatever. I got another job that pays way better anyhow.”

  “Yippy for you.”

  The kid absently scratched at a pimple on his chin. His pasty gothboy skin was sickly looking under the cloudy skies. Terrific. This was the person I was relying on for my tenuous Plan B? It was a good reminder how desperate I was.

  “Okay, Steven, we need to get going.” His mother’s voice was firm.

  “I have to take a leak. I had that Big Gulp and I can’t make it all the way back home or I’m going to explode.”

  “Feel free to use my bathroom,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”

  They followed me inside. George was sitting on the couch watching TV and he looked over at us.

  Steven’s mother frowned. “We rang the doorbell several times, you know.”

  “Yup, I heard you,” George said. “But your kid makes me jumpy.”

  Steven clutched his lower region, and he looked very uncomfortable. I pointed him in the right direction and he disappeared down the short hallway.

  “I’m very sorry about my son.” The woman extended her hand. “I’m Meredith Kendall.”

  I shook her hand. “It’s not a problem.”

  It was a problem, but I didn’t want to go into any further detail because I had no idea how much she knew about what her son was capable of. Finding out your son was a wizard who practiced black magic was a little higher on the parental panic scale than finding out he smoked cigarettes.

  “This isn’t the first time, you see,” she said. “And it doesn’t always turn out quite so well in the end. There have been… issues.”

  Yeah, I bet.

  “Really,” she continued, “I suppose it should be common sense not to hand over large sums of money to children, but vampires have different morals than the rest of us normal people.”

  Alrighty then. So she knew what I was and wasn’t screaming or whipping out a wooden stake. Except for the veiled insult, that was encouraging.

  “Obviously you’re very savvy about this sort of thing.” I decided to ignore her ignorance instead of educating her about what vampires actually were. There were only so many hours in the day. “How did you find out where I lived?”

  “Steven did a location spell. I allowed the small bit of magic because it is important that he learn his lesson.” She wrung her hands anxiously. “I thought that moving out of the country might curb his interest in the occult, but I don’t think it’s going to be as easy a solution as I’d hoped. He’s beginning to remind me a great deal of his father.”

  “He said his father had passed away,” I said.

  She let out a long, shaky sigh. “Vanquished is the correct term, actually.”

  That made George sit up straight and give us his full attention. “Vanquished? Are you trying to say that his father was a… a… demon?”

  She nodded gravely. “I’m afraid that’s where Steven is channeling magical ability from—the demonic energy that already exists within him. That’s why we’re moving.”

  “You’re moving out of the country so—”

  “So his father can’t find us again. He wants joint custody.” Her expression soured. “Over my dead body. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my darling son from that jerk.”

  “I can’t imagine having a demon for a dad would be a good thing,” George said. “For one thing, the commute between Toronto and hell during rush hour would be… well, hell.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with his being a demon. The creep cheated on me when we were together and I want him to suffer eternally.” Her bottom lip wobbled. “Sending him back to hell wasn’t a good enough punishment, in my opinion.”

  I heard the toilet flush, and a few moments later, Steven rejoined us. I looked at him a bit differently now.

  Demon spawn.

  I was seriously going back to church. ASAP. And not just for Easter and Christmas.

  “Steven, let’s go,” his mother said sharply. “We have more packing to do.”

  I opened the door for them. Meredith went out first with barely a glance at me. Steven paused and extended his hand.

  That seemed rather polite, considering how ornery he’d been in the past. I took it to be a good sign and hoped very much that he’d washed up after using the facilities.

  I shook his hand. I wouldn’t have minded talking to him in private about my eradication options, demonic or otherwise. “When did you say you were leaving for Germany, again?”

  He didn’t answer me. His hand was cool to the touch and his grip tightened so much that it hurt.

  I grimaced. “Hey, you can let go of me now.”

  Steven raised his gaze to mine, and I couldn’t help but gasp in surprise. His eyes had turned red again—dark red with no whites showing.

  “Let go of the nice vampire lady,” his mother snapped. “Now.”

  “We’re close to the end now,” Steven said. “And if you don’t step aside when the blood begins to flow it will devour you whole.”

  His voice didn’t sound like a teenager’s at that moment; it was deeper and raspier and filled with darkness.

  “Let go of me,” I managed. My fingers were turning white.

  But he didn’t let go. He grasped my other wrist, his gaze fixed on my own. “You should have died long ago—immediately after you were sired. But fate shifted that night.”

  I didn’t think it was Steven who was doing the talking anymore—it was a demon. Just an educated guess. Cold fear slithered through me.

  “Uh,” George approached us. “What exactly is going on here?”

  Steven narrowed his red eyes at George, who staggered out of the door as if he had been shoved by a large, invisible hand. He now stood beside Steven’s mother on the front step.

  Then the door slammed shut.

  “Okay—” My heart rate was going twice as fast as normal. “Party’s over. You can leave now and there won’t be any problems.”

  The demon currently hanging out inside Steven tilted his head to the side as he studied me with those freaky eyeballs. “You cause nothing but problems, vampire. The fact that you still exist is a problem.”

  “You’re actually not the first one to say that. You don’t know somebody named Barry by any chance, do you?” I tried to keep the tremor from my voice but was failing miserably.

  The demon brought his face close to mine, and he sniffed along my neck. “Your blood runs thick with power. I don’t think I like that.”


  “You and me both.”

  “A witch has touched you. She left a trace of her magic on your skin.”

  “You make it sound way sexier than it was.”

  His red eyes went to my gold chain. “Such a tentative hold you have on the eternal darkness inside you. Perhaps it would be easier for you if you simply embraced your true nature.”

  I tried my damnedest to pull away from him but he was, not surprisingly, supernaturally strong. “My true nature isn’t being a nightwalker, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then, in the end, this flimsy object you wear will mean nothing.” He smiled and I felt it chill my insides. “We shall see if darkness or light will be the stronger force for you.”

  “Who are you?” I gasped.

  “Someone with a great interest in the choices you will make.”

  “How about a little hint about what I should do? Pretty please with fire and brimstone on top?”

  “Very well.” The cold smile widened. “He who kills your kind, but gives you diamonds, holds a clue in his hand—a glimpse of a betrayal you would never expect. One has already stepped too close to the flames and your choices will decide if they will burn.”

  “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, then lowered my voice. “Are you talking about Gideon? Something he holds in his hands? He was burned by hellfire.”

  A smile twisted up the side of his mouth. “His and your destinies are now bound together.”

  “I’m not in love with him. I love Thierry.”

  The demon’s eyes brightened with intensity, and I could have sworn I saw the flicker of flames inside. “Love is not enough to save you.”

  Before I could respond to that, the smile fell away from his pimply face and in the blink of an eye his hands shifted to my throat. He squeezed hard.

  The door pounded as George tried to get back in. I heard Steven’s mother yelling his name.

  I clawed at his hands, trying to get away from him. This wasn’t the grip of somebody who just wanted to give a friendly squeeze. I was strong enough to peel a few of his fingers back until he finally released me completely and I gasped for breath.

  I held a hand to my tender throat. “What are you trying to do?”