by Rye Brewer
I could understand that sentiment, The atmosphere down here was one of solemnity, as though we needed to be respectful of the dead. Like being in a church, though I hadn’t been inside one of those in far too long to quite remember the feeling.
“Very admirable,” I added.
“Yes, well, we’re not all bad. You should know that, my friend.” Micah shot a carefree smile over his shoulder. “We have souls, still.”
“Some of us do,” I chuckled. “I can think of more than a few who do not.”
“Which is just as true of humans,” he pointed out. “Anyway, that was one of the few times when we’ve allowed ourselves to be stumbled upon. There was another time, much more recently, when one of our more careless clan members accidentally led the police straight to us.”
“No! What did you do?” Cari asked.
She sounded like a little kid listening to a bedtime story, hanging on every word. I couldn’t help but understand how easily he’d put her under his thrall. This was all new to her, an exotic world she hadn’t even known existed until recently.
“We allowed them to discover our set-up. It was a movie theater of sorts—projector, screen, and a collection of classic films. It’s something we all enjoy, the classics. Along with more than a few horrors and thrillers,” he chuckled with a shrug. “We need entertainment, and since there’s no going aboveground during the day…”
“And the police found all that?”
“They did. It was quite a story, made the newspapers. Who set up this theater in the Catacombs? Fully powered, everything. They never did figure it out.” He paused for effect. “Of course, that had to do with our unique way of silencing those who chose to dig deeper. Some people just don’t know when to mind their own business, do they?”
“So you killed them,” she whispered.
“We did.” As though it meant nothing—because to him, it did mean nothing.
I would’ve done the same thing, if it meant ensuring the safety of my clan. She would understand that in time, once she let go of the last of her human hang-ups.
We had reached a more widely-traveled section of the tunnels, I could tell, as the passageway widened just before ending at a central hub of sorts. Several additional tunnels jutted out from the hub like spokes on a wheel, all of them lit with the same strings of light bulbs. I could hear conversation, running water, the sounds of television and music coming from all directions. Like an apartment complex of sorts.
The only thing setting it apart was the presence of stacked skulls lining the walls.
They clearly unnerved Cari. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed them briskly, as though goosebumps had spread across her flesh.
I slid an arm around her waist, and she smiled in gratitude.
“Here we are,” Micah announced, leaving the bags in place and turning in a slow circle, arms outstretched. “Home, sweet home. And you’re more than welcome to make it your home as well.”
“This is all too generous.”
“Not at all,” he assured me. “Besides, I’m sure I’ll get my payment from you somehow.” His wink was full of promise.
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that—or the way his gaze drifted over to Cari, who was examining the skulls more closely and still rubbing her arms as though she were still more than a little perturbed by them.
“Does it ever get to you?” she murmured, completely missing the flirtation from him.
“Does what?”
“Being here? Around these bodies?”
“They’re no longer bodies,” I reminded her, going to her side and wrapping my arm protectively—possessively—around her.
He needed to know she was mine. There were lines I wasn’t willing to cross, not even if he had saved our skins by offering us a place to live.
“I know, but that’s only semantics. They lived, you know?” She looked at me, and in her eyes, there was more humanity than I had seen since I turned her. “They had lives, and they loved and worked and played and laughed. And they’re all here. Reminding us that we’re not the only ones who’ve ever been on this planet.”
“You have a poetic soul,” Micah murmured, standing just behind her left shoulder.
She didn’t reply—instead, she leaned against me with a soft sigh. I reminded myself that one vital characteristic separated Micah and myself: I could relate to her on things like that without trying to turn them into a come-on attempt. I had loved her heart and intelligence before anything else ever happened between us.
“I think we should get settled in, then find something to eat.” I looked at him over the top of her head.
“An excellent idea,” he replied, rubbing his hands together with a wry smile. “And let it never be said I’m not a thoughtful host.”
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he went to the bags and took the handles, wheeling them along one of the tunnels, seemingly at random.
Only it wasn’t random. All we could do was follow him.
It was when we reached a small room, and he opened the curtains hanging in front of the rough, hand-carved doorway that I understood his meaning.
Along with a large bed with its thick mattress, the shelves stuffed with books, even a television, and stereo, was a young, terrified girl whose wrists were cuffed to the bed frame.
She tried to back away from us when we entered, but that was useless. She was firmly bound, the metal of the cuffs digging into the sparse flesh of her wrists as she fought in vain to free herself.
I almost felt sorry for her—the rings of smudged makeup around her eyes and black tear stains on her cheeks told me of the agony she had gone through while waiting to see what her captors planned to do with her.
“Who is this?” I murmured, never taking my eyes from her.
Fresh tears rolled down the girl’s thin cheeks. Her long, lean legs curled against her chest. The wasted body, heavy makeup, short skirt and barely-there blouse told me what the girl had done for a living before getting picked up by the clan.
“Who do you think?” Micah teased. “Your welcoming gift. As I said, I’m a thoughtful host, and I knew you would be hungry after your long journey.”
My eyes cut to Cari, who was breathing as heavily as a bull after a red flag waved in front of its face. She wanted the girl. Needed her. Nothing else mattered as much as tasting her blood to Cari at that moment. Her tongue darted out over her lips.
“What are you waiting for?” Micah whispered, enticing her.
Cari wasted no time in descending upon her hapless victim, sinking her fangs deep into the girl’s throat before there was even time for a scream. She drank hungrily, lustily.
I couldn’t bear to watch her lose control of herself that way.
When I glanced at Micah, it was obvious that he enjoyed it. He’d expected it. And he knew how to work his way into her affections: provide fresh blood, and often.
“Don’t worry, mon ami,” he grinned when it was obvious I wouldn’t be dining on the now dead prostitute. “I have another one for you. You’ll feed well here, trust me.”
9
Cari
Once I finished feeding and came back to my senses a little, the familiar sense of shame washed over me like a wave. It was becoming a familiar cycle: hunger, then hatred, then more hunger. Hunger so strong, I couldn’t see straight or think or do anything but obsess over where my next meal was coming from.
Arriving at the Catacombs had distracted me, but not for long.
One of Micah’s friends, a beautiful vampire with waist-long braids and ebony skin, came in to remove the body. “I’m Naomi,” she explained with a warm smile. “It’s nice to have you with us.”
“You don’t have to clean up after me,” I told her, feeling more ashamed than ever.
She merely waved a hand, shaking her head. “Don’t worry about it. This one’s on me. We’ll go over the procedures for disposal once you’ve had the chance to become accustomed to being h
ere. No worries.”
The procedures for disposal.
So businesslike. So nonchalant.
Well, evidently it was business for them. The business of surviving without discovery. I watched her pick up the dead girl in her arms and carry her from the room.
Micah gave Gage and me a knowing smile, one eyebrow raised, before leaving us alone.
I stretched out on my back, staring at the blank, stone ceiling. “What’s wrong with me?” I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut.
“What do you mean?” Gage had watched me gorge myself on the girl without saying a word. He sat beside me, waiting for me to continue.
“I mean, how could I care so much about the centuries-old skulls lining the tunnels, but not think twice about draining that girl’s blood? She was alive. She had a life.”
“She was a whore.”
I frowned at him. “Whore or not, she was a human being.” I covered my eyes with my hands. “I wish I could make sense of this. I wish I could feel either fully human or fully vampire. It’s this in-between crap that’s killing me inside. I can’t get past it. The second I smelled her blood and heard her heart beating, I had to have her. Nothing else mattered. I forgot literally everything around me—even you.”
“Me?”
“You have to be hungry. I didn’t even save any for you. I didn’t give you a second’s thought.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he chuckled. “I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”
“You don’t understand.” I sat up, eyes locked on his. “You’re the most important person in my life. You know that, right?” I was glad that I’d started to feel some of the feelings I’d had when I was human. For a brief time, I’d lost much of what I felt for Gage.
He gave me a smile. “I do.”
I couldn’t be consoled. “But at that moment, you didn’t matter to me. Get it? That’s what scares me most. The fact that you didn’t matter even a little bit.” My cheeks burned with shame. “If anything, if you had gotten in my way… I might have pushed you aside.” I couldn’t look at him anymore, so I chose to stare at my lap.
“I understand.”
“How can you understand? How can you still love me when I told you something like that?”
“Because I’ve been through it.” He leaned in, planting a tender kiss on my temple. “There’s nothing you could go through right now that I don’t understand. And wouldn’t it be right of me to persecute you for giving in to bloodlust right now—I’m the one who turned you, after all. Wouldn’t that make me the world’s biggest hypocrite?”
“I guess so. I don’t know. I’m so afraid that I’m making a huge fool of myself in front of you.”
He chuckled, not unkindly, and pulled me close so I could rest my head on his shoulder. That was nice. That felt almost normal. “Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t make a fool of yourself if you tried.”
I wished I could believe him.
10
Cari
After resting in an actual bed for the first time since we left my apartment in New York, I awakened feeling energized. And hungry. Already.
It had been early evening when Gage and I had arrived in the city, so I held out hope that I’d be able to hunt before the night was over.
I was alone in the room. Maybe he had gone hunting without me.
The thought stirred jealousy, even anger within me, before I managed to calm myself down. I was being ridiculous, jumping to conclusions. Even if he had gone hunting, so what? That was my human brain speaking to me, trying to reason with my irrational, always-hungry, lustful vampire brain that seemed to get bigger and stronger every day. Instead of getting easier to manage, it was harder and harder all the time.
All I could do was hope that it would get better with time, the way Gage promised.
I pulled back the curtain and peered out into the tunnel, looking both ways. Lights came from most of the rooms, all of them with curtains like mine. They were pulled back when their inhabitants were up and about, I supposed.
I made my way back to the hub where we’d stopped with Micah, glancing back and forth in the hope of seeing Gage in one of the rooms.
What I found were other vampires, all strangers to me. Men, women, with all shades of skin, all styles of dress. I wondered about them and hoped I’d get the chance to get to know them. Why wouldn’t I? Besides hunting, there was nothing else to do.
“Oh, it’s you.” Naomi noticed and waved me into her room. “Come on in. I’ve been wanting to introduce myself properly.” She sat cross-legged on her bed, with a book open on her lap.
I entered slowly, my eyes sweeping around. It looked the same as our room, with the books and TV and bed. She had tons of framed photos on the walls, too—portraits, mostly, all done in black and white. Men and women in bondage, positioned suggestively. But not erotically, I noticed. They weren’t meant to titillate. It was the lighting in them which fascinated me, and the way the bodies were posed. Elegantly.
“You like them?” she asked, smiling. “I haunt galleries, I confess.”
“They’re beautiful. Not something I would’ve hung in my apartment back home, I admit, but…”
“Back home?” Her warm honey chuckle reverberated through me. “You are home, cheri. Remember?”
“Oh. Right.” I felt a heat to the roots of my hair—blushing. Still split between two lives.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re new, I know. Even if Micah hadn’t told me, I could’ve read it on you.”
“It’s that obvious?”
“Absolutely. But it won’t be forever. Just follow our lead, oui?”
“Oui,” I smiled.
“Hey.” She looked out the door, then back at me. “I might not get this chance again for a long time, and I’m simply dying to know.”
“Know what?”
“Gage. He’s a Bourke, isn’t he?”
“That’s his name.”
Her sparkling hazel eyes widened, and only then did I notice how extraordinary they were. So light as to be almost white, with a dark ring around them. Micah’s eyes were like that, too.
“And he took such a chance by turning you? My gracious.”
“Yes, I know. It’s a very risky proposition.”
“Especially for one such as him.”
“What do you mean?” I hated feeling as though she had me at a loss, but that was exactly where she had me.
Gage hadn’t spoken of his life, not really, outside of sharing some of his experiences in order to ease my mind.
“His family very nearly rules the clans back in the States. Didn’t you know this?”
“No.” My knees suddenly felt weak.
“Oui. There’s a lot of serious business going on there right now, plenty of upheaval. But his family is quite important among our kind. For certain, on that side of the ocean.”
Why wouldn’t he tell me something like that? I could only assume that it was an effort to spare my feelings. He didn’t want me knowing how important he was, and how much he was giving up for me. How much trouble he could be causing for his family.
“That’s good to know,” I murmured, strolling out of the room. “I’m going to try to find him now.”
“He’s with Micah.” She directed me to Micah’s room, around the corner, and down the first tunnel to my right.
My hunger was growing. I hoped somebody would want to take me hunting, because I couldn’t wait much longer.
“Ah. There she is.” Micah rose in one smooth, graceful movement and came to me, his hands held out.
I took them, still a little intimidated by him.
He was such a large, looming presence. So overpowering while giving the impression that he was laid-back, relaxed, jovial. There was something dark just under the surface, something deep and seductive. In his eyes. The hungry way they searched mine.
Gage was seated at a table by the wall, watching us.
I saw something in his eyes, too, and it wasn’t happiness. He didn
’t trust his old friend.
All of this went through my head in an instant before Micah brushed his lips against my cheek. “I take it you’re feeling rested now?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And hungry.” A statement, not a question.
I loathed the way my appetite roared in response, but there was no ignoring it. There was nothing else in the world but the nagging, burning, insane hunger for blood. All I could get. My mouth went dry, too dry to speak, so I nodded my affirmation instead.
A knowing smile touched his lips, and a certainty danced in his eyes. So many promises there as he stared at me. “All right, then. Let’s see Paris.”
Less than a half-hour later, we were climbing the stairs which led up to the boarded restrooms. Micah had explained that this was the safest way to go, since humans had the tendency to ignore those things which held no purpose for them. “I would bet you none of them even realize this old building exists,” he chuckled when we stepped out into the night air.
It was a cool night, invigorating, and the scent of blood on the air only piqued my excitement.
The energy reminded me of New York, but had something altogether different. I couldn’t have put my finger on it even if I’d been able to think clearly instead of lusting after the blood of every passing pedestrian. They were all so enticing. I licked my lips, eager to get started.
“Take your time,” Micah warned softly, teasingly, and quirked one finger in an invitation to follow him.
Gage took my hand.
I wondered if he was being affectionate or only trying to keep some control over me.
“They only pick from the seedier parts of the city,” he explained in a low voice. “Prostitutes, if they have to, but too many of them are on drugs. Not our preference, clearly. We can sniff that out.”
“Right,” I whispered. I could smell it even from a distance. There was a distinct difference between clean blood and drugged blood.
“Otherwise, young people who should know better than to hang around there are the best targets. Tourists, mostly. Wide-eyed, looking to get into a little trouble.” He motioned with a jerk of his chin toward the neon-lit sign a few blocks down, along with the windmill I had seen in the movies.