by Lynsay Sands
He glanced thoughtfully off into the distance, and Jackie thought that would be the end of his answer, but then Vincent spoke again. “At first, it was great fun and I felt sorry for mortals who saw their youth and beauty wither away with each passing year while I stayed young and healthy.”
When he paused, Jackie found herself saying, “It must be incredible though. Traveling the world, seeing the different ages, meeting great people like Shakespeare.”
Vincent smiled faintly. “If only you knew they were great when you met them.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Well, now, four hundred years later, Shakespeare is ‘the bard,’ but back then he was just another playwright, a successful one, but still just a playwright. When I met him, I had no idea I was in the presence of someone who would be so important historically.” Vincent grinned. “Had I known, I might have treated him with more respect.”
“You were a child when you met him,” Jackie pointed out.
“I was a spoiled brat,” Vincent corrected, and shook his head.
“The file my father’s company had compiled on you says meeting Shakespeare convinced you to become an actor.” There were files on quite a few of the immortals in the agency’s cabinets, all holding bits of information gleaned over the years.
Vincent laughed. “Then the file is wrong. It wasn’t meeting him so much as seeing all the pretty ladies that haunted the theatre and admired the actors. It also helped that the church was up in arms over the theatres then, calling them immoral and indecent. That just made it more attractive.”
“Rebellious youth,” Jackie said with amusement.
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But I’ve always backed the underdog and without the support of royalty and the nobles, theatre would have been crushed by the church.”
Vincent leaned back against the pool edge and allowed his feet to float just under the surface, gently paddling them in the water. “The theater was special back then, so much energy and excitement.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Now.” He frowned. “Now it’s a lot of cold ambition and the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Very little seems new and creative anymore, especially in Hollywood where—rather than create brilliant new scripts and shows—they just repeat old money makers or bring video games to screen.”
Jackie frowned. Vincent did sound tired and cynical and she wondered if Marguerite’s fears weren’t justified after all.
“If you think so little of Hollywood, why do you live out here? Why not live closer to your family?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself, lately,” he admitted, then gave a laugh. “To tell you the truth, I half suspect I have been rebelling.”
“Really?” she asked with surprise.
“Well, you know, fathers want their sons to follow in their footsteps.”
“And sons often rebel,” Jackie said with a faint smile, but her smile faded as she added, “Your father is an enforcer for the council.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow and she knew that some of her anger had shown in her voice. The council was the governing body for immortals, and the enforcers were the equivalent of their police. Jackie had always resented that immortals saw themselves as above human laws and felt they had a right to their own laws and enforcers.
On the other hand, she knew mortal police couldn’t enforce mortal laws on them. The idea was laughable. Should Vincent, or another immortal, be pulled over for speeding, all he need do was slip into the officer’s thoughts and convince him that he hadn’t been speeding, and, in fact, that the officer had never seen him. It was pretty much the same for every law. Having experienced having her mind controlled and what they could make mortals do against their will, Jackie knew how scary their abilities were. One of their kind could probably kill someone in front of a room full of witnesses and make every last person forget what they’d seen. Their enforcers were necessary.
As for their own set of laws, while Jackie wished they had to follow all mortal laws, she understood that immortals were so spread out that the enforcers couldn’t possibly keep up with making them follow every law. So, they’d decided on the laws that were important to them such as restricting them to bagged blood and not feeding off mortals except in emergencies and in cases of medical issues that required live donors. Most of the rest of their laws seemed to simply be meant to prevent the possibility of overpopulating the earth; restricting them to having only one child every hundred years, and allowing each to turn only one mortal in their lifetime.
Jackie knew these laws were enforced with death, and not a very pleasant one either. According to her father’s files, the last immortal to try to turn more than his allotted one, had been hunted down here in California. He’d been staked out in the sun all day, then beheaded at sunset. The beheading had probably been the kinder action. Leaving him out in the sun all day, so he dehydrated and his nanos began to eat his organs in search of needed blood was apparently the true punishment. According to Bastien, there was no worse torture for one of their kind and the man would have been grateful for the beheading when it came.
“How many enforcers are there?” Jackie asked suddenly. It was a subject she’d always wondered about.
“I’m not sure,” Vincent admitted. He guessed, “Perhaps a dozen or so here in North America.”
“How many of your people are here?”
He shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure about that either. I’d guess there are about five hundred here in North America.”
“And Europe?”
“More,” he said solemnly.
Jackie nodded. She knew that the European immortals were ruled by a different council than the North American council and that there had been friction between the two for centuries. It went back to when some of the immortals had first moved to the Americas, scared out of Europe by the witch hunts. The European council had felt the immigrants should still have to answer to them, but the immigrating families had different issues, and felt the European council was out of touch with their needs. They’d wanted to rule and police themselves.
According to Bastien, the battle that had ensued had paralleled the American battle for independence in a way, but on a much smaller scale. In the end, the European council had just washed their hands of their people in the new world. They hadn’t really had a choice. They weren’t in the Americas to enforce their control.
Jackie steered the topic away from the councils and asked something she’d wondered about since arriving in California. “How much blood do you need a day?”
Vincent hesitated, then said, “Most go through three or four bags a day. Some need more. It varies.”
“And you?” she asked. “How many people do you bite a day?”
“Only one or two a day now.”
“Why do you need less blood?”
“It’s not that I need less, but…” He shrugged indifferently. “I only feed enough to get by.”
“Enough to get by,” Jackie echoed, recalling Tiny saying Marguerite thought Vincent had lost weight when she’d seen him in New York. Obviously, feeding “enough to get by” wasn’t enough. “Why?”
Vincent didn’t pretend not to understand what she was asking, but avoided her gaze as he said, “I’m beginning to find the hunt a terrible bother.”
“A bother?” Jackie asked with concern, positive this was bad.
“Everything seems to be a bother these days,” he admitted with dissatisfaction. “You were right. I didn’t eat before you and Tiny got here. I stopped eating about three hundred years ago. I shouldn’t have, because it helps in building my own blood and reduces the amount I need to feed, but having to eat food as well as hunt became a bother. Food became boring, and hardly worth the trouble.”
“Food became boring?” Jackie goggled at him, sure he was joking. She’d never imagined boredom was the reason vampires didn’t eat, and had difficulty believing it. How could anyone think food was boring?
Vincent chuckled at her reaction. “Yes.”
“So you all stop eating eventually because of boredom?”
He hesitated, then said, “Some stop eating and some don’t. My cousin Lucern was born two hundred years before me, during a time when size and strength were important. He was a warrior, large and muscular. It takes a lot to keep his muscle mass. He has always eaten as well as fed, and when he tires of eating, he continues to do so out of necessity, to keep his mass. On the other hand, my cousin Lissianna, as a woman, has no such concerns. When she tired of eating, she simply stopped…though, she has started eating again since meeting Gregory.”
“And you weren’t concerned about body mass?” Jackie asked.
Vincent grinned and held out his arms. “By the time I was born, skill was more important than strength in any battle one engaged in. We dueled with épées, or used pistols. I didn’t need the same muscle mass Lucern did to wield his great sword and have never desired to have it. So, when I grew tired of food, I simply stopped eating.”
Jackie tilted her head and eyed him. He made it sound like he was a skinny little guy, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t as muscle-bound as Schwarzenegger, but he had nice wide shoulders and a muscular physique all the same.
She shook her head. “I still find it hard to believe you could find food boring.”
Vincent chuckled at her expression. “Lots of things become boring after a couple hundred years.”
“Like what?”
Vincent raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“What else has become boring to you? What else have you stopped doing because it seems more trouble than it’s worth?” she explained.
“Sex.”
The answer startled her and Jackie felt herself blush in the darkness.
“Cat got your tongue?” Vincent teased when she remained silent.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “I guess I find that as surprising as that food could be boring.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I was pretty surprised myself. I used to enjoy sex a lot. I was good at it too.”
Jackie really didn’t know what to say to that. Vincent said it so nonchalantly, not bragging, just stating a fact like someone else might say they were good at crosswords. It was hard not to believe it was true. On the other hand, she supposed all men thought they were good at sex, whether they were or not.
Growing tired from treading water, Jackie gave up her position in the center of the pool and swam to the edge a little way down from him. She held on to the side of the pool like he was doing to give her arms and legs a rest as they talked.
“Enough about me,” Vincent said suddenly. “I know your father started the detective agency. What about your mother? What did she do?”
“Mother died when I was four,” Jackie admitted. “I don’t recall much about her. She was a secretary in my father’s company before and after I was born.”
“So your father raised you?” When she nodded, Vincent asked, “So, were you a tomboy, or a girlie girl?”
Jackie smiled with amusement at the question, then blinked in surprise when he said, “I bet you were a tomboy.”
“Why?” she asked warily.
Vincent shrugged. “You were an only child, raised by your father and probably eager for his attention. That usually leads the girl to try to be the son he never had to gain his approval.”
Jackie scowled. She had been a tomboy, and she supposed she had tried to be the son he never had to gain her father’s attention and approval. Perhaps she was still doing so despite his being dead, trying to be the son he would have wanted.
“Come.” Vincent suddenly propelled himself up and out onto the tiles around the pool. Standing, he then bent to offer her a hand. “You’re starting to shiver; time to get out of the water.”
Jackie realized with surprise that he was right, she was shivering. Still, she almost refused his hand, but then sighed and reached up. Vincent caught her fingers and suddenly she was standing dripping wet on the patio tiles. He’d lifted her out one-handed and with no effort whatsoever. Almost before that realization had struck, he’d collected her towel and wrapped it around her.
Jackie shouldn’t have been surprised, but always found it startling how strong and quick immortals really were. She’d decided long ago that most of the time these beings moved at what must seem a sluggish rate for them, probably in an effort to appear normal to the mortals around them.
Her thoughts on their speed and strength scattered as Vincent used the ends of the towel he’d wrapped around her to brush the drops of water from her face. It started out as an almost maternal action, but then his hands slowed and softened and she became aware that his eyes had settled on her mouth and stayed there. His expression stilled, becoming serious. It was an expression Jackie was not used to from Vincent Argeneau. He generally wore good humor and amusement like a uniform, but neither of those masks was on his face now. His expression was solemn, his eyes beginning to glow silver-blue with a hunger she didn’t think had anything to do with blood.
Jackie found herself holding her breath. His body was a whisper away from her own and if she swayed just the teensiest bit forward, her breasts would brush his chest. The idea made a shiver of anticipation ripple down her back and that made Vincent blink and frown.
“Come, it’s chilly tonight and you’re cold.” Vincent released her towel and took her arm to urge her toward the kitchen door. “Inside to warm up.”
Jackie nodded and led the way, telling herself she was relieved he hadn’t kissed her. All in all, this encounter had been relatively painless, nice even. She hadn’t sensed his trying to read her thoughts, and he hadn’t taken control of her and made her do anything she didn’t want to do. Perhaps she had allowed her old fears to make her treat him unfairly. Maybe he was just as nice as Bastien. And perhaps all immortals didn’t look down on mortals and set out to use and hurt them as Cassius had done. This was a huge admission for Jackie to make; it shook the foundations of a belief system she’d lived by for years.
Seven
“Perfect timing,” Tiny announced as Jackie and Vincent stepped into the light and warmth of the kitchen. “I’m just taking out the first batch of cookies. By the time you change into dry clothes, they should be cool enough to eat.”
Jackie smiled at Tiny and shook her head as he pulled a sheet of cookies out of the oven. The man had changed into cream-colored joggers and maroon slippers and was wearing the I’m the cook! apron again. He was six feet, seven inches and two hundred and eighty pounds of domesticity running about the kitchen in a pink apron and flowered oven mitts.
And he was her best friend in the world, Jackie reminded herself as the scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies hit her.
“Tiny, you’re going to make me gain ten pounds on this job if you keep cooking like this,” she complained, drawing her towel tighter around her.
“It’s your fault,” Tiny said with a shrug. “Your hinky feeling made me nervous and—”
“Cooking relaxes you,” Jackie finished with amusement.
“What hinky feeling is that, dear?” Marguerite asked, drawing Jackie’s gaze to where the woman sat leafing through one of Tiny’s women’s magazines full of recipes. Seated at the table, she was a knockout in the short black dress she’d worn to go out with Vincent earlier and didn’t look a day over twenty-nine or thirty. Damn, Jackie thought, there were some real benefits to being an immortal.
“Jackie sometimes gets these feelings,” Tiny explained as he carried his tray of cookies to the cooling rack. “A sort of tension and anxiety just before something happens on a case. She had it earlier tonight.”
“Before something happens?” Marguerite asked with interest.
“Usually something bad,” Tiny muttered as he used a spatula to slide the cookies from the tray to the cooling rack before they began to stick.
“How bad?” Vincent asked with a frown of concern.
Tiny gri
maced. “She had it the time I got shot.”
“Shot?” Marguerite asked with alarm.
Tiny nodded. “We were working for Bastien. He suspected someone was sneaking out paperwork and samples of some of the different miracle medicines his scientists were working on.”
Jackie grimaced as she recalled the occasion Tiny was talking about. Argeneau Enterprises was heavily into medical research. It could be a very lucrative field, especially if you saved on expenses by stealing someone else’s ideas and research. That had been happening at Argeneau’s and the Morrisey agency had been called in to look into it. This was at the start of her father’s illness, when he’d started delegating more important cases to Jackie. She and Tiny had been on the job.
“Well,” Tiny continued. “We had narrowed it down to two suspects and were following one of them after he’d left work when Jackie got her hinky feeling. He parked in a big public lot and left on foot, and we parked and followed. He led us down this alley and Jackie really started getting itchy, but the man was way ahead of us so I was sure it would be all right.” He shook his head. “Then, all of a sudden, two guys jumped out from behind these bins and took a couple of shots at us.”
Tiny scowled. “The bastard knew we were following and used his cell phone to call his buddies and set us up before leading us to the parking lot.”
“Were you badly hurt?” Vincent asked with a frown, but Jackie noticed his gaze had moved to her and was sliding over her as if looking for possible bullet wounds.
“Nah, I was just winged,” Tiny assured them. “But ever since then, when Jackie starts getting her hinky feeling, I get nervous.”
“Has she ever been wrong?” Marguerite asked.
“Never,” Tiny answered solemnly as he finished with the baked cookies and moved to start plopping little balls of batter on the now empty tray.
“Oh.” Marguerite considered that and then frowned as she saw Jackie shiver. “You’re turning blue, child. You’d best hurry upstairs and change.”