by Chloe Neill
CHAPTER EIGHT
FANGS MEAN NEVER HAVING
TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY.
At sunset I woke to the smell of tomatoes and garlic, and trundled downstairs in my pajamas. The television blared, but the living room was empty. I shuffled into the kitchen and found Mallory and Catcher at the kitchen island, both tucking into plates of spaghetti with meat sauce. My stomach growled. "I don't suppose there's any of that left?"
"Stove," Catcher said, gnawing on the end of a piece of baguette. "We left it out. Knew you'd be down. "
Did we? I wondered with a smile, and shuffled to the stove. I wasn't sure how I felt about spaghetti for breakfast - or breakfast at nearly eight at night - but my stomach suffered no qualms, grumbling loudly as I poured the remains of the pot onto a plate. Seeking a drink, I went to the refrigerator to grab a soda. But my hand paused over the bags of blood, my teeth suddenly pulsing with the urge to sink into a bag. I touched my tongue to my teeth, felt the prick of my descended eyeteeth. Gone, though, was that raging, aggressive hunger I'd felt two days ago. Still, I pulled out a bag of type A and looked tentatively at Mallory and Catcher.
"I need blood," I told them, "but I can take it somewhere else if you're grossed out. "
Mallory chuckled and chewed a forkful of spaghetti. "You're asking for permission to bite me? 'Cause you should know I don't care about the other thing. "
I smiled gratefully and, permission granted, pulled a clean glass from the cabinet and filled it from the bag. I wasn't sure how long to heat it, so I set the microwave timer for just a few seconds, popped it in, and closed the door. When it dinged, I nearly lurched forward in eagerness to get to it, and drained the glass in seconds. The blood had a faintly plasticky aftertaste, presumably from the bag, but it was well worth the trouble. I repeated the move - pour, heat, sip - until I'd drained the bag, then patted my stomach happily, took my plate of spaghetti, and pulled out a stool next to Catcher.
"That took all of three minutes," he pointed out, sprinkling red pepper across his noodles.
"And was kind of anticlimactic," Mal said, "since you just stared at the microwave the entire time. I figured you'd at least give some kind of invocation, maybe some gnawing the plastic. Growling. " She ate another forkful of spaghetti, then offered, "Clawing the ground. Barking. "
"I'm a vampire, not a corgie," I reminded her and tucked into my own spaghetti. "So," I offered, when I'd chowed a couple of tasty forkfuls. Say what you wanted about Catcher's attitude, the boy could cook. "What happened around here today?"
"Mark's going to start skydiving," Catcher said. "Fortunately, we don't have to care anymore. "
Mallory gave him a skewering glance. "I really wish you wouldn't put it like that. He has feelings, you know. "
"Mmm-hmmm. "
"You could also temper that attitude a little," Mallory warned, sliding off her stool. She dumped her plate in the sink and stalked out of the kitchen.
"Trouble in paradise?" I asked when she was gone, sliding Catcher a glance.
He lifted a shoulder. "She had Mark come over so she could break up with him in person. He was pretty upset. They both cried. "
"Ah. "
We ate silently until we'd cleaned our plates, and he put both in the sink. "Let's give her some space. We'll go to the gym. I'll give you a couple of hours. Then I need to get to the office. "
"On a Saturday?"
He only shrugged in response. Catcher, I was learning, was a careful guard of information. The skill probably made him invaluable to my grandfather.
As we left the kitchen, I asked, "Can I hold your sword today?"
Catcher glanced back over his shoulder and lifted a brow.
"The sword," I corrected. "The sword. "
"We'll see. "
We trained for two hours, skipping the fitness evaluation and moving right into the basic moves Catcher had begun to teach me the day before. I'd always been a fast learner, a skill honed from the necessity of picking up dance routines quickly, but my muscle memory solidified even faster now, and the moves were nearly automatic by the time the session was done. That didn't mean I was elegant or graceful, but I'd learned what to do, at least.
Catcher made halfway good on his promise to let me hold the sword. He wouldn't let me touch the unsheathed blade, but he allowed me to strap on the belt that held the scabbard, before taking it away again to demonstrate how to draw and sheath the sword from a kneeling position. The moves he taught me, he explained, were similar to those in Iaido, and were designed to allow the sword bearer to react to a surprise - and thus dishonorable - attack. I almost asked why, if a surprise attack was so dishonorable, he needed to teach me how to defend against it. But I guessed the chip on his shoulder would color his answer, and I'd get a response about dishonorable vampires. So I didn't bother to ask.
When Catcher was done with me, I changed back into street clothes and said my goodbyes. He left for my grandfather's South Side office, while I opted to play the good little Cadogan vamp. I drove to Hyde Park with the intention of updating Ethan on the events of the day before. I wasn't thrilled about seeing him again, not after our last encounter, but I had no doubt he'd come to hear about our activities at Red. And that tale, I thought, would be better coming directly from me. I wasn't sure how to broach the issue of Morgan, of the fact that I'd flirted with a Navarre vamp not even twenty-four hours after our shared kiss and Ethan's ignominious proposal, and decided as I walked into Cadogan House, his domain, that it was probably best not to mention it at all.
Ethan, the guards informed me, was in his office. I walked directly back and knocked on his door, although I was sure he'd been informed of my arrival. He barked out a Picard- worthy "Come," and I walked inside and closed the office door behind me. Ethan, in his uniform a la Armani, was behind his desk, an open file folder in front of him. He stared intently at its contents, his eyes tracking across the page as he read.
"Look who's come willingly into my den of iniquity. "
I relaxed incrementally, more than happy to accept sarcasm as the prevailing mood, and stopped in front of his desk. "Can I have a minute?"
"What have you done now?"
Evidently we were going to avoid the topic of our kiss altogether. Fine by me.
"Nothing, but thanks for that ringing vote of confidence. My ego's all swelled up. "
"Hmmm," he muttered with obvious doubt, his gaze still on the papers on his desk. "If you're here willingly, and I didn't hear any screaming from Malik's having dragged you down the hallway, I assume you've" - he paused contemplatively - "resigned yourself to your fate?"
"I'm working on accepting the fact that I'm a vampire," I said, perching on the edge of his desk.
"Our hearts are simultaneously aflutter," Ethan responded, finally looking up, those haunting green eyes on me. He relaxed into his chair. "Although I can't see that your wardrobe has improved. "
"I was training with Catcher Bell. He's introducing me to the katas. "
"Yes. We've spoken about that. What brings you by?"
"An unpleasant run-in with Navarre vamps. "
Ethan watched me quietly for a moment, then folded his arms across his chest. "Explain. "
"I went to Red last night. You know the place?"
He nodded. "It's the Navarre club. "
If only Catcher had mentioned that going in, I ruefully thought. But no sense in dwelling. "They let us in, Mallory, Catcher and me, but kicked us out when a Navarre vamp discovered I was from Cadogan. "
Ethan's brow furrowed. "Since I doubt you spread the information yourself, how did they find out you were from Cadogan?"
"I met a vampire from Navarre - Morgan?"
A careful pause; then Ethan nodded again.
"He introduced himself, offered his House affiliation, and I did the same. "
I nodded. "That's when he found out I was from Cadogan, and when he became a complete jackass. Celina and some other vamps were called out, and they kicked us out of the club. I wanted to tell you in case you heard about it from someone else and assumed I'd been out - I don't know - wreaking vampire havoc and giving Cadogan a bad name. " Or a worse name, I mentally corrected.
Ethan's gaze narrowed. "Would I assume that?"
"Why lay blame where it belongs when you can use me as a scapegoat?"
"Touche," he allowed, one corner of his mouth tipped into a smile. I inclined my head.
Ethan rose from his chair, hands linked behind his back, and walked to the conference table at the end of the room. Then he turned and leaned back against it between two of its matching chairs. The move put distance between us, and I found it interesting that he was so eager to get away.
"And yet they let you into the club in the first place. Why?"
"They may have known who I was. We found flyers, Catcher and I, for Red on our cars. He suggested we give it a whirl, and they let us in at the door. "
"She wanted a look at you. "
I nodded. "That was Catcher's theory. "
"Celina likely knew your family name, saw the registry list in the paper, and arranged a very passive-aggressive hello. "
"She sounds like a treat. "
"Celina isn't the most . . . philanthropic of vampires," Ethan said. "But she's smart. She's focused, determined, and very, very protective of her vamps. Navarre has flourished under her leadership, and the GP loves her. Added to that is the fact that she's one of the most powerful vampires in the U. S. "
I met his gaze, and thought about the test she'd given me, thought about the fact that I'd withstood enough of it to put a sulky look on her face.
"Her psychic skills are particularly noteworthy," he continued. "She has an amazing ability to glamour. It's rather like the stories of old about mortals who go dopey-eyed after ill-timed eye contact. "
He cocked his head at me, gave me an appraising look. I felt - just as I'd felt with Celina the night before - the subtle flow of a testing magic. But where Celina's investigation was pushy, aggressive, Ethan's moved like water over rocks - slipping, trickling, checking the shape of what lay beneath.
"You'll measure up," he finally concluded.
I nodded, opting not to tell him that she'd tried to glamour me, or that she'd failed. That I'd felt the pull, but shaken it off. If that was a sample of my burgeoning powers, he'd find out soon enough.
Without elaborating, Ethan moved across the room to the wall of bookshelves behind the leather couches, and pulled out a slim book. "Come here, Merit. "
I pushed off the desk and followed, stopping a few feet shy of him. Ethan flipped through the red leather volume until he found a particular page, then handed the book, the pages spread open between his long fingers, to me. When I met his gaze, he tapped the book with a finger. A sense of dread coiled in my abdomen, but I made myself look.
They were as horrible as that bit of prescience predicted. On each side of the page were woodcut prints, their black lines stark against thick linen paper. Each woodcut depicted a vampire, or medieval imaginings of vampires anyway. The left-hand print showed a busty maiden lying beneath a forest tree. An animalistic caricature of a male vampire, his inch-long fangs bared and ready to bite, reached over her. The vampire was naked from the waist up, and he wore no shoes. His fingers were tipped by claws, his hair long, dark and mangy. Perhaps most telling, his feet were cloven hooves.
Beneath the woodcut, in elaborate script, were the words: Beware Ye the Vampyre, Whose Luste Tempts the Chaste.
But the industrious peasant who'd carved the original block had offered not only a problem - the virgin-despoiling vamp - but a solution: On the facing page, the vampire stood alone, his hands bound behind the tree to which he was also tied at the ankles and neck. His neck had been cut, his head tipping precariously to the side, and his gut had been split, organs spilling from a gaping wound in his belly. Through his heart, which lay on the ground beside him, was a wooden stake.
Perhaps worst of all, his eyes were open, tears streaming from the corners, his gaze on something just off the page, his expression one of terror, pain, and loss. This wasn't caricature. This was portraiture, an image of the vampire in the depths of agony. The artist, if that was the appropriate word for the creator of something so gruesome, had offered little sympathy. This woodcut bore the inscription Rejoice In The Terror Cut Downe.
"Jesus," I mumbled, suddenly trembling enough to shake the book in my hands. Ethan took it back, closed it, and slid it carefully back into place.
I glanced up at him. His expression was unsurprisingly solemn. "We are not at war," he said. "Not today. But that could change at any moment, so we do what we must to protect peace. We've learned to be careful to distinguish our friends from our enemies, and to be sure that our enemies understand who our friends are. "
That, I mused, echoed Catcher's sentiments regarding the state of vampire-shifter relations. It made sense to me that shifters, who'd opted for anonymity over stepping in to protest the massacre of vampires, weren't a popular bunch among the Houses. It also explained the vamps' tendency to band together, to nest into Houses, to form explicit alliances and view outsiders with wariness.
"Did you see" - I groped for an appropriate word - "punishments like that?"
"Not exactly like that. But I lost friends in the Second Clearing, and barely lived through it myself. "
I frowned and worried my bottom lip with my teeth. "But if that's true, wasn't it ill advised to hold a press conference? To announce our existence at all? What did anonymity risk?"
Ethan didn't answer. His expression didn't change. He just looked at me, as if willing me to reach a conclusion he was unwilling to speak aloud.
The conclusion wasn't hard to reach: Coming out of the closet put us front and center before humans, endangered our survival, even, as my grandfather put it, in the post- Harry Potter era. We'd been lucky so far - Congressional investigations and minor rioting notwithstanding. Curiosity had generally won out over vampiricide. God willing, our luck would hold, but the fact that a vampire killer was loose in Chicago and that our House was suspected of involvement didn't bode well. The tide could so easily turn.
I was suddenly eager to be home again, safe inside my locked house, safe behind wood and stone and sword-bearing guards.
"I should go," I told him, and he walked me to the office door. "Do you think you'll hear from Celina about the club incident?"
"I'll hear from Celina. " When we reached the office door, he opened it and waved an invitational hand. "Thank you for informing me about your . . . escapades. "
I objected to the phrasing, but could tell he was trying to lighten the heavy mood, so I just smirked in response. "No problem. Thanks for the history lesson. "
Ethan nodded and began, "If you'd only read - " but I held up a hand.
"I know. I've been advised to read the Canon. I'll hit the book when I get home. " I held up two fingers to my brow. "Scout's honor. "
A corner of his mouth tipped up. "I'm sure if you only applied yourself, you could find some use for that intellect beyond sarcasm. "
"But what would be the fun of that?"
Ethan leaned out the door. "I realize that obedience would be a novelty to you, but I'd find it thrilling. You've two days left before the Commendation, the oaths. You might spend that time contemplating your allegiance. "
That stopped me, and I turned on my heel to see him again. "If I'm one of twelve, have you given the rest the same speeches you're giving me? Made the same threats? Doubted?" Made the same offer?
I wondered if he'd lie to me, give me some speech about duty and being the Master of the House. But instead he sai
d, "No. The stakes aren't so high with the rest of your cohort. They're foot soldiers, Merit. "
When he didn't elaborate, I prodded, "And I'm . . . ?"
"Not. " With that enigmatic response, he went back into his office and closed the door behind him.
It was nearly midnight when I returned to Wicker Park. The house was empty, and I wondered if Mallory and Catcher had reached some kind of peace after the dinnertime fight. I was starving, so I made a ham sandwich, layered on some tortilla chips, squished the concoction into a napkin, and carried it into the living room. I turned on the television for background noise - and it was unfortunate that I now lived in the hours of infomercials, B-movies and syndicated garbage - and pulled the Canon into my lap. I ate as I read, filling an hour of time and finishing chapter one, then moving on to the "Servicing Your Lord" tutorial. Luckily, the text was a little less connubial than the name sounded. Where the first chapter was a kind of introduction to vampirism, chapter two offered more detail about the duties of the Novitiate vampire - loyalty, allegiance, and something the book referred to as "Grateful Condescension," which was as ass- backwardly Jane Austen-esque as its name suggested. I was supposed to offer Ethan my "Polite Regarde," treating him with deference and respect and generally meeting his requests and demands with gratefulness that he'd deigned to make them of me in the first place.
I chuckled, realizing the degree to which my unacquiescent behavior probably shocked him and wondering why the Canon hadn't been substantively updated since, what, Regency England?
I'd just balled up my napkin and tossed it on the coffee table when a knock sounded at the door. Mallory, maybe, having forgotten her keys, or Ethan with a demand that I Gratefully Condescend to his Honored Personage. A little too comfortable with the guards out front, I made the mistake of opening the door without checking the peephole first. He stuck a black boot in the door before I could slam it shut in his face.
"I'm sorry," he offered through the three inches of open space.
"Get your foot out of my house. "
Morgan shifted, peering through the crack. "I'm here to apologize profusely. And I'm willing to genuflect. " His voice turned softer. "Look, I'm really sorry about the scene last night. I could have handled it better. "
I pulled open the door and offered him my haughtiest stare. "You 'could have handled it better'? In the sense of not humiliating my friends and me? In not backing me up when I said - when you knew - that we hadn't been causing problems? Or in not treating us like trash because I'm from a different House than you? Which part of it could you have handled better? Specifically. "
Morgan smiled sheepishly, an expression that was irritatingly cute on a dark-haired, bedroom-eyed boy. He was in jeans again tonight, this time paired with a smoky blue quarter-sleeved T-shirt that snugged his torso. I noted a hint of gold around his neck, and I guessed it was the medal of Navarre House, similar in style to the one worn by Ethan, but, as last night had shown, symbolizing a very, very different philosophy.
I stared him down, but he met my gaze, one corner of his mouth tipped into a charmingly lopsided smile. "Please?"
I blew out a slow breath that ruffled my bangs, but stood back to let him in. "Come in. "
"Thanks. "
I walked into the living room, assuming he'd follow, dropped onto the couch and crossed my legs. I looked up at him expectantly while he closed the door behind us. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
I waved a hand at the room. "Start genuflecting. Let's see some knee action. "
"You're serious. "
I lifted my brows. He responded in kind, but finally nodded his head, then walked between the couches. He dropped to one knee, then held out his hands. "I'm monumentally sorry for the pain and humiliation that I caused you and your - "
"Both knees. "
"Pardon?"
"I'd prefer to see both knees on the ground. I mean, if you're going to grovel, be the best groveler you can, right?"
Morgan watched me for a moment, mouth twitching, the smile threatening to break, but acquiesced with grave solemnity. He bent both knees to the ground, then looked up at me through those navy blue eyes with an expression that would have worked on a loyal hound. "I'm really sorry. "
I watched him for a moment, let him linger there on the floor, then nodded. "Okay. "
So I wasn't immune to a cute boy with a sappy expression. Really, what twenty-seven- year-old ex-graduate-student-cum-Cadogan-vampire was?
Morgan rose and dusted off his knees, then took a seat on the love seat behind him. Just as I was wondering why, exactly, he'd decided to play contrite, he offered, "There's a lot of talk in Navarre about Cadogan. About Houses that drink. There are a lot of vampires with long memories, and a lot of them are affiliated with Navarre. It's not you personally - it's more like decades of inbred fear. Fear that everything we've worked to build - the House system, the Presidium, the Canon - will be brought down by vamps who drink. "
It was a good argument, and one that I could appreciate, having seen a sample of the punishments doled out to vampires by humans. However, I reminded him, "It was Navarre that held the press conference, Morgan. It was Navarre that announced our existence. "
"It was a precautionary move. Every day that passed without vampires taking the initiative was one day closer to humans doing it for us. Pushing us into the spotlight in a way we couldn't control. In a way we couldn't spin. This was about coming out on our terms. "
I stretched my legs out on the couch and rested my head on the armrest. "And do you believe that?"
"It doesn't especially matter what I believe. I'm Celina's Second. I act as she wishes. But having said that, yes, I do believe it. The world's a different place today. "
"You act as she wishes, yet here you are, conversing with the enemy. "
He chuckled. "It seemed worth the minor mutiny. "
"And I wasn't worth it last night when she was calling us out?"
Morgan sighed, then lifted both hands to run them through his hair. "At the risk of sounding ungrateful for your forgiveness, I already apologized for that. " He let his hands fall and offered me a hopeful look. "Maybe we could talk about something else? Not vampires or drinking. Not alliances or Houses. Just pretend to be normal for a couple of hours?"
I let the smile spread slowly. "How do you feel about the Bears?"
Morgan snorted, then looked down the hallway. "Kitchen down there?"
I nodded.
"Can I get something to eat?"
Had I any interest in dating the boy - had it not evaporated last night when I'd promised never to flirt with another vampire again - I'd have decided this was the lamest second date ever. "I guess. "
He popped up and walked to the threshold. "Thanks. " He disappeared down the hallway, but called back, "I'm a Packer fan. I was born in Madison. "
He was rustling through a drawer when I reached the kitchen. "You have to admit it - Green Bay's a better team, especially this year. Chicago has problems with its O line, there's a quarterback issue, and you've got no defensive secondary. "
I leaned back against the doorframe and crossed my arms. "You're going to stand in my kitchen, eating my food, going through my things, and bash my Bears? You're either brave or stupid. "
Morgan pulled out a knife and cutting board, then moved to a stack of sandwich items he'd already arranged on the countertop - a loaf of nutty bread, mustard, mayo, ham, American cheese, Swiss cheese (an international cheese detente!), smoked turkey, a jar of bread and butter pickle slices, black olives, lettuce, and a tomato.
In other words, the contents of our refrigerator but for the sodas and blood.
Then he grabbed two cans of soda. He popped the tab on one, and offered the other to me as he sipped, one hip cocked against the cabinets.
"Thoughtful of you to o
ffer," I drily said, accepting the soda as I joined him at the counter. "Don't they feed you at Navarre House?"
He cut off two healthy slices of bread, then went to work on the tomato, slicing as he talked. "They throw out some gruel between the indoctrination sessions and propaganda films. Then we're off for a good marching around the grounds and the recitation of sonnets to Celina's loveliness. "
I chuckled and tore off a couple of lettuce leaves, then held them up for his approval. He nodded, then began the very careful process of layering meats, cheeses, vegetables, and condiments on his Dagwood.
"They put out healthy stuff in the cafeteria - I just don't usually have a chance to make a sandwich my own way, you know?"
Having grown up with too much brie and foie gras and too few processed carbs, I knew very well. That was why I stopped him before he added the final piece of bread. I grabbed the bag of tortilla chips from the other end of the counter and handed them to him.
"Layer of chips," I solemnly explained. "Adds a good crunch. "
"Genius," he said, then squished a layer of tortilla chips into his sandwich. We both looked down at it for a moment, four vertical inches of deliciousness.
"Should we take a picture?"
"It's pretty damn impressive. "
He cocked his head at it. "I almost hate to ruin it by biting in, but I'm starving, so. . . . " Regrets spoken, he picked it up with two hands and bit in. His eyes closed as he crunched through the first bite. "That's a damn good sandwich. "
"Told you," I said, leaning against the counter and pulling the bag of chips toward me.
"Tell me about yourself," he said between bites.
The bag crinkled noisily as I reached for a chip. "What do you want to know?"
"Origins. Interests. Why the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Chicago decided to become a vampire. "
I watched him for a minute, a little disappointed that he'd asked, and wondering if the fact that my parents had money was the lodestone of his interest in me. And since he'd known, I wondered if news of my changing and my family connections was circulating through the Houses. Of course, since he thought the decision was mine, he clearly didn't know everything.
"Does it matter who my father is?"
Morgan shrugged lightly. "Not to me. To some, maybe. I wonder if Ethan cares. "
He had, I ruefully thought, but that was not how I answered. "He saved my life. "
Morgan's gaze shot up. "How?"
I debated what to tell him, but opted for the truth. If he really knew nothing, all the better. If he knew something, maybe the boundaries of his knowledge could help signal the guilty parties. "I was attacked. Ethan saved my life. "
Morgan stared at me, then wiped his mouth with a napkin he'd taken from the stainless steel holder on the counter. "You're kidding. "
I shook my head. "Someone assaulted me when I was walking across campus. He nearly tore out my throat. Ethan found me, and started the change. "
Morgan's gaze narrowed. "How do you know Ethan didn't set it up?"
An uncomfortable twitch arced through my stomach. I didn't know that, not for sure. I was relying on instinct and Ethan's explanation, his professions of innocence. I still wondered why he'd happened to be in that spot in the middle of the night, and his answer - something about luck - hadn't been satisfying. I didn't think he'd purposefully hurt me, not physically anyway. Emotionally, though, was a different matter, and all the more reason for me to steer clear of him. He was my boss, and I'd acquiesce as far as necessary to get my job done, whatever that might be. But he was off-limits for anything else, his (conflicted) interest beside the point.
"Merit?"
I blinked back to my kitchen, to Morgan staring at me across the countertop. "Sorry," I said. "Just thinking. I know he didn't set it up. He saved my life. " I crossed my fingers under the table, hoped that it was true.
Morgan frowned. "Huh. They found that Cadogan medal at the scene of Jennifer Porter's death. "
"Anyone with access to the House could have planted it there - even a Rogue trying to make the House system look bad. "
He nodded. "That's a theory. Actually, it's what Celina thinks. "
"She doesn't think Ethan did it? Or someone from Cadogan?"
Morgan watched me for a careful moment, then shrugged and finished the final bites of his sandwich. "It would be more accurate to say that we fear people's responses to Cadogan, not the vamps themselves. Peace is fragile. "
So I'd heard, but somehow the sentiment didn't ring as true coming from Morgan as it did from Ethan.
"What did you do - before?" he asked.
Having finished the first soda, I moved back to the refrigerator and grabbed another one, popped open the top, and returned to our spot at the counter. "I was a graduate student. English lit. "
"Here in Chicago?"
I nodded. "University of Chicago. "
"So you wanted to, what, teach?"
"At the college level, yeah. I wanted to be a professor. Romantic medieval literature was my specialty. The Arthurian sagas, Tristan and Isolde, that kind of thing. "
"Tristan and Isolde. That's interesting. "
I dug into the chip bag for a single whole chip, found one, and crunched into it. "Is it? What did you do before?"
"My dad owned Red, or at least the bar it was before I rehabbed it. He died a few years before I switched, and I took it over. "
"Why did you decide to become a vampire?"
Morgan frowned, rubbed the back of his neck. "I had a girlfriend. She was sick, and she was approached by someone in Navarre. We made some overtures to Carlos - he was
Celina's Second at the time - and they approved our becoming Initiates. She was bright, strong, would have made a great vampire. "
He paused and stared blankly at the counter, and the volume of his voice dropped. "The night came for the change. They changed me, but she couldn't go through with it. She died about a year later. "
"I'm sorry. "
"She said she didn't want to live forever. I was young and stupid, felt immortal anyway - who doesn't at that age? I was with her when she died. She wasn't afraid. "
We sat quietly for a few minutes, as I let him work through that memory.
"Anyway, that's my story. "
"How long ago was that?"
"Nineteen seventy-two. "
"So that would make you . . . "
He half chuckled, and I was glad to see a little more color in his face. "An age that will make you uncomfortable. "
I leaned against the counter, crossed my arms, and gave him a good looking over. "You look about, what, twenty-eight? That would mean you were born around nineteen forty- four. "
"I'm seventy-two," he offered, saving me the subtraction. "Not so old that it seems unreal enough to discount, and just old enough to think of me as . . . old. "
"You don't look seventy-two. You certainly don't act seventy-two. Not that there's anything wrong with that," I belatedly added, a finger in the air to emphasize the point.
Morgan laughed. "Thanks, Mer. I don't feel a day over seventy-one. "
"A spritely seventy-one. "
"A spritely seventy-one," he agreed. "There's actually some pretty serious debate out there on the impact of looking young on how we act, on the age we pretend to be. "
I smiled dubiously. "Vampire philosophers?"
He smiled back. "Immortality does pose its own set of quandaries. "
Immortality was a quandary I hadn't fully considered yet, and I wondered what the rest of the vamps were thinking about. "Like?"
Morgan reached out and grabbed the bag of chips, our arms just brushing as he pulled it away. I ignored the little shock that spilt down my arm, reminding myself that I'd sworn off boys with unusually l
arge canines.
"Vamps change identities every sixty years or so," Morgan responded, waving a chip in the air. "And yet, to stay under the radar, we've had to operate within the system. That means we fake our deaths. We have to lie to the friends and family we accumulate in each human lifetime. We forge social security numbers, drivers' licenses, passports. Is that ethical?" He shrugged. "We justify it by saying its necessary to protect ourselves. But it's still lying. "
Thinking of my own hasty exit from academia, I wondered aloud, "Where do they work? These philosophers, I mean. "
"They stay pretty cloistered. Some in academia, usually with enough tenure to get basement offices and night classes. You ever see those guys who hang out in coffeehouses - they've got their laptops and those little black notebooks? They're always there at night, scribbling furiously?"
I grinned. "I used to be one of those guys. Well, girls, anyway. "
Morgan leaned forward conspiratorially and hooded his fingers into a claw, then pawed at the air. "You never know if they're vamps on the prowl. "
"Good to know," I offered with a chuckle. Morgan smiled back at me. It was a nice smile, but it broke when he pulled an empty hand from the plastic chip bag, apparently realizing we'd finished it off. I took it away, crumpled it, and tossed it into the trash, a perfect arc on the shot.
"Nice," he said. "And speaking of hoops, you have something planned?"
I didn't know we'd been speaking of hoops, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. "What did you have in mind?"
He checked his watch. "It's one fifteen. SportsCenter's probably on. "
"It's a date," I said with a firm nod, and led him back into the living room.
He was right. It was on. Even as late as it was, I shouldn't have doubted SportsCenter was rolling tape on ESPN. Was it ever not on in the wee hours of the morning? We settled back into the living room, watched forty-five minutes of sports-related sarcasm, and debated the this year's potential NFL draft picks. When the show was over, Morgan pushed up from the couch.
"I should get going. Couple things I need to check into before dawn, and I should run by Red. "
I belatedly realized that it was Saturday night, surely a big night for the club, and that he'd opted to spend it here, eating sandwiches and watching ESPN. As he went for the door, stretching his arms above his head and revealing the curve of smooth skin at the small of his back, I found myself wishing that he wasn't a vampire. We'd reached a kind of comfortable rapport, and a quiet night with ESPN and lumpy sandwiches was a nice change from political intrigue, death threats, and supernatural revelations.
"Thanks for coming by to apologize," I said, rising to walk him to the door. "It would have been nicer if you hadn't been a jackass in the first place, but a girl always appreciates a nice dose of remorse. "
Morgan laughed. "Does a girl?"
I smiled back and opened the door, and we stood next to it for a minute, watching each other. Then he leaned down, one hand at my hip, and pressed his lips to mine. Morgan kissed me in slow increments, meeting my lips, then pulling back and moving in again. It was teasing by kiss, and he was incredibly good at it. But I wasn't eager to repeat the mistake of kissing a vampire, so I pushed him back with the flat of my palm.
"Morgan. "
He protested with a groan, then diverted his mouth to my neck, where he trailed a line of kisses from ear to collarbone. My eyes drifted shut, my body apparently as eager as his to push things forward.
"You're a hot single vampire," he breathily murmured. "I'm a hot single vampire. But for your unfathomable allegiance to the Bears, we should be together. "
I pushed him back again, and this time he stayed upright. "I'm not up for a boyfriend right now. "
Morgan's face furrowed into an exquisite frown, and he ran a hand through his hair. "Do you and Ethan have a thing?"
"Ethan? No," I replied, probably sounding a little more defensive than I should have. "God, no. "
Still frowning, he nodded. "Okay. "
"I don't do fang. "
He pulled back, apparently shocked, and gazed at me. "You are fang. "
I grinned at him. "Yeah, I get that a lot. Friends, though?" I offered a conciliatory hand.
"For now. "
I rolled my eyes and pushed a hand against his chest again, pushing him over the threshold. "Good night, Morgan. "
He turned and walked down the steps. When he got to the sidewalk, he turned around and began strolling backward. "I'm going to worm my way into your life, Merit. "
I waggled my fingers at him. "Uh-huh. Let me know how that works out for you. "
"Hey, you're missing out. I've got mad skills. "
I rolled my eyes dramatically. "I'm sure you do. Find a nice, sweet Navarre girl. You're not ready for Cadogan. "
He faked pulling a knife from his heart, but then winked, and crossed the street to his car - a convertible roadster. The car beeped cheerily as he approached, and in seconds he was inside and zooming down the street.
I was asleep when they came back at five thirty a. m. They fought at first - Mallory screaming at Catcher, Catcher yelling back. The topic was magic and control and whether Mallory was mature enough for Catcher to leave her to her own devices. Mallory rued his arrogance, and Catcher rued her na?vete. The argument woke me, but it was the making up that kept me awake. They slammed into her bedroom, and that was when the grunting and moaning began. I loved Mallory, and I was beginning to appreciate Catcher's sarcasm. But in no fathomable way was I interested in listening to the two of them engage in a rowdy bout of makeup sex. When she screamed out his name for the third time - Catcher was apparently a machine - I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and stumbled groggily through the still-dark house to the living room, where I swaddled myself and fell asleep again.
The second time I woke it was almost noon. The house was quiet and dappled in sunlight, and I was just dazed enough - just stupid enough - to attempt to stumble back to my bedroom. I resituated the blanket, only one forearm, a few toes, and my face visible above the quilting, and began the trek back upstairs. I made it through the living room unscathed, unaware of how lucky that made me. With only a few days of vampiredom under my belt, I'd yet to come into contact with that terrible little vulnerability known to all who've ever seen an episode of Buffy - the sunlight allergy. I was just conscious enough to tread carefully through the dining room, and it wasn't until I'd made it halfway to the stairs that I felt the pinch and sudden burn. I'd walked directly across a shaft of sunlight, my uncovered forearm catching the full exposure. I gulped in air, the pain of it nearly bringing me down into the beam - it stung like a burn, but tipped to unfathomably painful levels. The heat was astounding - like punching my arm into an overheated oven - and the skin immediately began to redden and blister. I yanked it back and clutched at the blanket with my safe hand, searching frantically for some way back into the dark, realizing that I'd trapped myself in a tiny sliver of shadow. I felt behind me for the doorknob, and pulled open the door of the tiny hallway closet, careful not to push myself back into the sunlight. When I'd maneuvered it open, I stepped backward into cool darkness, hunkered down on the hardwood floor, tears streaming from my eyes from the needle-sharp pain in my arm, and fell asleep.