Blood Sugar

by Kat Turner

  Eve rested her bag against a wall and strolled to an open window. Saying nothing, she looked out on the city. A breeze lifted her hair, making it flutter. In the absence of their speech, horn music and tourist laughter filled the silence.

  Compelled, Jonnie walked over and stood behind her. He touched a coil of her silken hair, stroking the curl so gently that she couldn’t feel it. Because she wasn’t supposed to take notice of his touch. She shouldn’t register him as much of anything other than a problem to solve. He wasn’t a person. He was an other.

  Eve turned around. In the soft light of his shaded lamps, he could finally make out the color of her eyes. Slate gray, a brewing storm cloud passing over placid ocean. Did the hue of her irises reflect her essence, still waters running deep?

  “How long have you lived with it?” Her lips parted. On purpose? Why did it matter either way?

  “Been twenty years now.” Jonnie scratched his neck. No pleasantries, right. He needed to give her information.

  “Have a seat?” He gestured with an open palm to one of two plush easy chairs resting against the wall opposite his record collection. She chose the cobalt fabric one, sat, and crossed her legs.

  Jonnie joined her, sinking into his russet leather recliner. In between them sat the circular, white marble table with its claw-footed stand. He fingered its glass-smooth rim.

  Eve waited, looking into his eyes like she was searching behind them for something. It made his heart hurt, and he didn’t want to think too much about it.

  “How about we chat over a drink?” he said.

  Her posture relaxed, legs uncrossing as shoulders loosened. He couldn’t get over the feline fluidity of her movements. She came off so self-assured, so at ease. A person who didn’t fear him. Wasn’t repulsed by him. “Sounds great.”

  “Sazerac alright?” He sprung to his feet, chancing her a glance of affirmation over his shoulder. She blushed and looked away, lower lip sliding between her teeth. Hold on. Had she been checking him out?

  “Perfect.” Eve cleared her throat, the sound cute in its awkwardness. He couldn’t deny she excited him. The entire situation excited him. The danger of it. The risk.

  He strutted to the kitchen, took down two lowball glasses and several bottles, and mixed up fragrant drinks with rye whiskey, absinthe, bitters, and a touch of sugar. After swirling the contents with a long silver spoon, he peeled off a sliver of lemon and dropped it into each pool of amber liquid. Nodding to himself, he gathered up the drinks.

  When was the last time he’d felt so content around a woman? Probably never. The calm in his chest had him feeling fine about this meeting, about who he was, right down to his vampire self. Not proud, but not humiliated either. Unrepentant. An emotion that was downright sexual, positively kinky.

  “Thank you.” Eve took the drink from his hand. “Floral. I can smell the licorice.”

  “Cheers.” He offered his glass, and they clinked.

  “Hold up now.” She wrapped those lush lips around her glass, a twinkle sparkling in her stormy eyes. “I thought you were a vampire. Aren’t you only supposed to feed on blood and the terror of your hapless victims?”

  Laughter charged up his throat, and he had to press a fist to his mouth to avoid spitting out his beverage. Eve’s irreverence swept away his gloom like a broom to cobwebs. “I was brought up to believe it was déclassé to serve bodily fluids to guests.” A sip of the heady, sweet and bitter concoction warmed his throat and loosened his muscles.

  “At least not on the first date.” With a wink that tickled his balls, she took a big sip and set her glass down on the table. The ensuing soft clack was an invitation to banter, a shot fired.

  “This a date?” The question popped right out, packaged in a flirty tone he didn’t intend. A smirk stole its way onto his mouth. On their own volition, his long legs widened. He knew he had great legs, but tantalizing Eve with them hadn’t been part of tonight’s plan. But if the hot, thick energy between him and her was any indication, plans might be begging to be led astray.

  “It’s a consultation.” Her tone smoothed over, growing tart as her body returned to its prim comportment. She finished her Sazerac.

  “Right. Fancy another?” He knocked his down the hatch and set his empty beside hers, enjoying the sight of their side-by-side glasses in some off-limits way. Like they were matched pieces of a set.

  “I better not.” Ah. Okay. Eve would act as the brake. Just as well.

  “So shall I take it from the top?” He glanced left to his study, his project, where papers plastered where wallpaper once showed. Wallpaper he’d smothered to make room for his obsession.

  “The more facts I have, the more accurately I’ll be able to assess whether or not I can help.” With her index finger, she stroked a side of her empty glass. Jonnie imagined that finger tracing the seam of his lips. He forced his eyes to his wall of records, their slim spines pressed together, sections delineated with a label maker.

  “It started with a fringe medical procedure.” He launched into the entire asinine spiel that would no doubt make him appear vain, impulsive, and irrational. Appearance obsessed, uncritical, deserving of what he’d gotten. Let the buyer beware and all.

  Nevertheless, he confessed it all to Eve. The youth treatment that Fyre’s then-manager Joe pushed him to get. The onset of the first symptoms, their progression. Murray Connors. Cara. The bizarre labyrinth his research led him into. Fading hopes for an antidote. Brighter ones that she could end him.

  “So, the gist of it is that I’m a huge sodding fool. And I’m not telling you any of this to tug at your heartstrings. I don’t want your pity, but I could use your help.” He blew out a puff of air, freeing about ten pounds of stress.

  Time passed, seconds. He avoided looking at her, into the mask of her judgment. Instead, he counted his records. Counted the row across the top. Then the column stretching from floor to vaulted ceiling. He mentally multiplied them. A lot of records. Wait, since when had he been into counting?

  “I’m sorry, Jonnie,” she finally said, her voice a slow, quavering whisper.

  He glanced at her, a gust of warm air from the window caressing his skin. Her eyes were misty, her features soft with lips parted and head bent at a slight tilt. He itched to hold her, to touch her. Take her to his bed, lose himself to her body and the street sounds of this enchanted, haunted city. “Don’t be. It’s my fault.”

  “No. You were misled. Ill-informed. It’s unconscionable how they withheld information from you. Does this company have a medical license? Because if they do, it should be revoked, and you should sue them for malpractice.”

  Her storm-cloud eyes grew turbulent, a sheen upon her light brown skin catching the light. A corner of his mouth twitched, and along with it a twinge plucked below his navel. “I don’t think they’re exactly on the up and up.”

  “So what do you know?”

  He stood, beckoned with one hand, and led her to his study. Boards creaked behind him as she followed.

  “Have you heard of any of this?” He pointed at poster boards, news clippings, and highlighted paper he’d printed out. In front of anyone else he’d fret about looking like some conspiracy nutjob, but Eve he trusted.

  Sure, he barely knew her, but Jonnie respected his instincts. His gut. The same force told him to pursue a music career in the face of impossible odds, to stick with Fyre even when things had gotten shaky. It had only failed him once, the time he’d told it to shut up and go along with the Vampivax procedure.

  She settled beside him, close enough he could feel her body heat, smell her scent. Was the woman just plain comfortable with proximity and touch, or did she want to be close to him in particular? His brain hoped for the former, while his heart and body longed for the latter.

  A weighty exhale left her. “Yeah. I have. I saw something about the trial online, then tooled around social media reading about it. It’s a weird story, this Scarab thing. But I figured the trial in The Hague ended their misch
ief.”

  A hodgepodge of thumbnail pictures and strings of colored yarn and printed websites stared back at him like a chaotic jigsaw puzzle. “From what I can tell they just went deeper underground. Changed names, locations, moved operations into subsidiary companies. For awhile I hoped I could track down a cure.” He touched his jawbone, remembering how he’d shaved for her visit and worn a long-sleeved Henley tee to hide the bruises on his arms.

  She touched his wrist, prompting him to make eye contact with her. Something stern and serious, no-nonsense, hardened her gentle features. “Forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, but when you talk about all of this you don’t sound certain.”

  “Of what?” His heart rate quickened as he played dumb. She saw right through him.

  Eve shrugged, scanned the wall of evidence, looked back at him. “That being through with this vampire thing is what you want.”

  Though the changes scared him, he could no longer deny they fascinated him as well. To an extent, he liked his new self. “I hate the procedures. Spending money on them.” He flicked a dismissive wrist at a headshot of the corrupt “doctor” Connors he’d clipped from some magazine. “I hate dealing with him.”

  “What if there was another way to sustain yourself.”

  His heart jumped, an illicit feeling brought about by a forbidden suggestion. “I know what you’re getting at.” He could never bite people, though. Not against their will, at least.

  “Don’t you think you’re more help to your family alive than dead?”

  A stiffening sensation, like an exoskeleton forming over his skin, hardened Jonnie. He needed to quit with his fantasies and flights of fancy. All signs indicated she was spooked and trying to extricate herself from the project. He should have known.

  “You know what? Forget it.” He brushed past her and out of the study, aimlessly making his way into the kitchen. Beyond the window with the deep crack, a drunk, screeching bachelorette party stumbled down a busy sidewalk. Their blood smelled of ethanol, and he wrinkled his nose while moving the pot of food to the side. What a dolt he’d been, to cook her dinner.

  “Just hear me out.” She emerged in the kitchen beside him. “Something smells amazing. Wow, did you make this?” Peering into the bubbling Dutch oven, Eve licked her lips.

  “Mum’s recipe. Threw it together in case you were hungry.”

  “Actually, yeah, I’m starving.”

  Jonnie marshalled his rational faculties. He could stand to be less defensive and hear what she had to say. “Good. Let’s talk, then.” He got down a pair of simple white ceramic plates.

  “You like wine?” Tilting his chin at the full, six-bottle iron rack sitting on the counter, he grabbed a ladle from a drawer and scooped two portions of food onto the dishes.

  “I do. And I think this conversation calls for more libations.” Brushing up against him, she took the liberty of opening the glass-front cupboards and taking down two stemless glasses.

  He laughed lightly, like he found himself doing sometimes in her presence. “Without further ado.” With a wry look in her direction, he snagged a bottle of red and a corkscrew and popped the cork, indulging a daydream about the taste of her as he poured two measures.

  “To thinking outside the box.” With her usual poise, Eve raised her glass and clinked it into his, a tiny gesture that shored up the early stages of a budding partnership.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Jonnie managed to escape his malaise as they sipped in unison, an action charged with layered, subtle eroticism he didn’t allow himself to get too caught up in.

  In the dining room section of his place, his rustic, dark wood dining table awaited like an old friend. Sure, he’d had dates over for dinner before, but none had felt as natural and seamless as this.

  She settled into her high-backed chair, glancing up at the ceiling with its exposed pipes and sleek, minimalist chandelier. Her gaze drifted to the slotted wooden partition marking the boundary between the dining room and his bedroom. He swore her eyes lingered on his low bed, its dark blue sheets. He’d always found it sexy, how the bed was undeniably visible in his flat.

  Impossible to ignore, its presence daring the mind not to entertain suggestive thoughts.

  Nuanced seduction via home design. Rather brilliant if he did say so himself.

  Jonnie straightened the leather belt cinching his snug black jeans, drawing a breath of warm air spiced with the fragrant Indian dish. “What was it you wanted to say?”

  He pushed food around his plate, sneaking glances of her plump, pursed lips blowing steam off her fork. A brush of tint reddened her pout, a gleam of gloss catching the light.

  “I know I’m probably stepping out of my lane here, but it seems to me like the piece of this that really bothers you is the treatments, not what they made you into.”

  He considered the point, savoring a bite as he tore his focus from her lush lips and to his predicament. “There’s a truth there, I suppose.”

  “Have you told anyone but me?” As she ate, her eyes widened. “This is fantastic.”

  It had been a while since he cooked for a woman, and the pride he took in her enjoyment of his traditional fare lifted his spirits and made him sit up taller. “Thank you. And no, I haven’t.”

  “May I ask why?” Eyes flicking between her food and him, she took a bite and chased it with wine.

  “I suppose there is some shame and embarrassment that I went through with the stupid procedure in the first place.” Jonnie ate a big forkful, in part to stop himself from talking any more. What was it about Eve that put him so greatly at ease? Christ, a part of him wanted to curl up in her lap and tell her his life story.

  “You know, the thing is, it’s been quite awhile. I really doubt that your bandmates would turn their backs on you now. After all of these years.”

  “Fair.” Considering her point, he used his knife to scoot a few saucy peas onto his fork.

  “And as crass as it is to talk about things in strictly monetary terms, there are the numbers to think about, too. If you die, Cara gets an inheritance. Sure. But these things take time to process. I won’t pry into your finances, but I’m guessing among the tours and record sale royalties and all the rest, you pull in a pretty good salary. It stands to reason that your better bet is to continue to do what you’re doing and get her money for the treatment that way.”

  A flush heated his cheeks, and he stuffed a silly, boyish grin as he pushed food around. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you liked having me around.”

  Another big mouthful of curry shut him up before he spilled his guts. He hadn’t felt this way around another person—an intoxicating combination of shyness and boldness—since he’d been the outsider at secondary school.

  Jonnie had found solace in the music room and auditorium, freedom from the bullies who tormented him for being skinny and sensitive and smelling of ethnic food. In those sacred spaces, Brian, Thom, and Jonas accepted him into their ragtag band of misfits. With Jonas being the only other non-white kid in the secondary school, and Brian and Thom having train wrecks of home lives, the other three blokes who would one day become Fyre felt Jonnie’s outsider pain.

  Eve pulled the fork out of her mouth slowly. He caught a flash of her tongue but couldn’t tell if she was flirting or not. This woman was guarded, careful, difficult to read. Traits which drove him wild, made him want to reduce her to a moaning mess of lust.

  “Yeah, you seem like an alright guy. But I need to tell you something.” She clanked her fork against the plate as the words landed heavily, her stare falling to the table. “I don’t think I can help with the spiritual piece of this. I, um, I don’t think I’m qualified anymore. I made a mistake by coming here.”

  Her reversal of position made his heart tumble, shrinking to a chilly lump as he watched her fidget with her utensil and avoid eye contact. “Why not?”

  A band of silence tightened the air. Metal clinked against ceramic in a three-quarter beat. With the night wearing
on, the intensity of sounds from the street below picked up. Smells of fried food from the restaurant mingled with Jonnie’s cooking. He fought the urge to tap his foot.

  Finally, she looked up, though she didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she cranked her neck to the ceiling like the answers she needed floated up there. “This is going to sound nuts.”

  “I’m the one who told you I’m a vampire. I’d say we’ve long since left the territory of the mundane.”

  A quick chortle, and she moved her face to level with his, fingering a spot above her cheek when their eyes met. “Touché. Okay, here we go. A while back I was transitioning a soul who was a special case. Not the garden variety dead person with your standard unresolved problems. She had some heavy spiritual issues, and I didn’t manage them right. I’m reluctant to take on another case out of my comfort zone, to work with someone whose soul is in a space that I don’t one hundred percent understand.”

  Jonnie licked spicy sauce off of his lips, his appetite vanishing. He knew it—she did find him to be a freak. Not like he could blame her. He laid his napkin over his half-eaten plate and pushed it toward the center of the table. “What happened?”

  “This girl, she moved out to Los Angeles to pursue acting and singing, and along the way she got mixed up in some cult. Hollywood occult nonsense, wannabe Illuminati. At least I assumed it was wannabe. Anyway, her parents told me all of this when they commissioned me. They flew out to Los Angeles to rescue her and bring her back to Louisville, our hometown. By the time they got there she was sick. Physically, but also mentally. Babbling about demons and mind control. She, well, she killed herself the first night back home, and the parents found me and begged me to help. But I messed up.”

  Coldness settled in Jonnie’s stomach and spread outward. Hollywood cult? No way was this connected to the Hollywood cult his deceased manager Joe had been embroiled in. Jonnie didn’t know the entire story there, but he knew that Joe’s involvement with the lunatic group had somehow gotten him killed. A group of occultists were also tied to Scarab, as far as he could surmise. His skin crawled as he processed the too-perfect coincidence. “Messed up how?”