“Black and Blonde” (Conclusion)

The cartridge took her in the chest. She staggered but held her ground, her face falling in disbelief. There was a wisp of smoke, the smell of gunpowder, then the flare ignited within her and she screamed.

Raymond bellowed and yanked the knife from Jett’s shoulder. Black swung and aimed as he made to lunge. “There’s one more in here, pal.”

The threat worked. Raymond stopped. Clare had begun to burn. Stalled in the act of dying, she stood fully conscious with her skin lit like a paper lantern. The wound in her chest steamed and spat blood. She turned wide eyes to Black and stretched a hand toward him. “Ariel …”

He swallowed hard. Raymond stepped toward her. Black’s voice stopped him. “Don’t, or you’ll go down with her.”

“You would be wise to wish me that foolish,” Raymond snarled.

Clare screamed again. The flare was eating her from the inside out, burning away at muscle and internal organs. She folded to her knees and began to scream in earnest; piercing, feral shriek after shriek as her body collapsed in upon itself. Smoke rolled from her gaping mouth, leaked from her nose and ears. The last thing Black saw before he grabbed Tess and bolted was the hideous, squelching pop of her eyes. Red flame shot from the sockets and she fell forward to the floor. Raymond let out a roar of anguished rage. Black pulled Tess to her feet and pushed her ahead of him through the door.

“Go!”

She ran for the stairs with Black on her heels. He hit the fire alarm as she reached the door. The bell went off and the sprinklers kicked in; the ensuing confusion made it impossible for Jett to follow them.

They pounded down twelve flights of stairs, swinging off the rail at every landing. Hotel guests in everything from evening clothes to bathrobes trickled into the stairwell on each floor; Tess ran headlong into an old woman with a cane and Black had to stop and right her before they could go on. The growing stream of guests frustrated their escape and there was little comfort in knowing the chase would be hampered as well. He tried not to think about Clare.

They filtered onto the pavement with the rest of the crowd at the front of the hotel. Black took hold of Tess’s hand to keep her from straying. Sirens wailed in the distance. A police cruiser pulled into the alley to see what was going on. There was no sign of Raymond or Jett. Tess jerked on Black’s hand. “Let’s go.”

People were coming from all directions to see what was happening at the Four Seasons. No one took note of the couple in their thirties as they strolled hand in hand to the end of the block and turned the corner.

* * *

Aurora set them up with a buddy of hers on the strip, well away from the waterfront where Raymond and his gang were sure to go looking. The room wasn’t any higher-end than the room Black had called home, but it would do until they could get out of town. And getting out of town was their only option. Black had committed the unpardonable sin of killing one of his own. Not only would the mortals be after him, now the vampires would be, too.

Tess wanted to go home. “You can’t,” he told her. “It’s not safe.”

“What about after sunrise?”

He shook his head. “Raymond has mortal cronies like I do, but his are more dangerous.”

Her eyes filled with tears—and allowable offense since she had been so brave at the hotel. “All my stuff is there.”

What she meant was all her memories of Travis were there, but that wasn’t something Black could help her with. “You’ll have to carry him in your heart, sugar. He’s gone, and unless you want to join him, you can’t go back.”

She wiped her eyes with her fingers before the tears fell. The amethyst on her left hand sparkled darkly in the dim light. “I guess I’ve screwed up both our lives.”

“Looks that way.”

“You think I should have let it alone, don’t you?”

He gave her a look that she couldn’t miss, even through his sunglasses. It earned a reluctant smile, and she ventured closer to the corner where he sat slumped on the floor.

She knelt before him. “I have to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“What she said about Travis, about him wanting to be with her before he died. Did you believe her?”

“Nope.”

His answer surprised her. He saw hope leap in her eyes, then die back when it occurred that he was trying to spare her feelings.

“I believe that they had a relationship before he met you,” he said, sitting forward, “but I think that she came back for him and he didn’t want to play.”

“Why not?” she whispered.

“Because he loved you, Tess. I saw it in every stroke of every drawing. You were the girl for him, and not even Clare could make him break the commitment. I’m sorry that he died for it, but that’s what I think happened.”

“That’s no reason to kill someone. It’s so petty.”

“It’s easy to kill over petty things when you’ve lived for centuries.”

“Then I never want to live that long.”

He smiled. “That’s too bad, sister. You’ve got potential.”

Her eyes widened so much that an errant tear spilled. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Because you saved my ass at the hotel. You did everything right, just the way I told you to. You were great, Tess. I’d have you at my back any day.”

She blinked another tear from her lashes, but he could see that she was grateful for the praise. “You saved my butt, too,” she pointed out. “If you hadn’t had that knife in your boot—”

He waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done now. It’s over. But it won’t help with the matter of suicide. You still can’t prove anything to the police.”

“I know.” She sounded sheepish. She glanced away, then back to his face. Her own was earnest. “You understand, though, don’t you? I had to do it. I had to know the truth. I loved him so much, I just—” She bowed her head and finally broke, sobbing into her cupped hands. Black leaned over and pulled her between his legs, cradling her in all fours while she vented her grief and anger in tears. He laid his cheek against her fluffy blonde hair and closed his eyes to do a little grieving of his own.

When she had quieted, they sat together in silence. The sky brightened outside the window, turning a crystalline shade of mauve that matched the reflection of Tess’s pink shirt in her blue eyes. She sat curled against him with her head in the hollow of his shoulder. She felt good, solid. Real. She smelled good, too.

“You owe me a dossier,” he said.

Her head moved but didn’t tip up to let him see her face. “I have a confession to make,” she said slowly.

He almost groaned. “Don’t say it. I’m already depressed at how gullible I am.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded sincere—but her life was wrecked as well.

“It’s okay,” he sighed. “I’ve spent my whole life at the mercy of wily women.”

She almost laughed; he felt it in her staggered breath. “But I owe you ten grand,” she reminded him. “I can deliver that.”

He thought for a minute, watching the mauve sky shift to azure. It was pleasant here despite the shabby room and the knowledge that he was now officially on the lam. He wasn’t as upset as he had imagined he would be over losing Clare. It was actually a relief to be free of her. He had done more than avenge Travis by shooting her. In a funny way, he had finally avenged the peasant boy she had tormented for as long as he could remember.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” he told Tess. “This one’s on me.”

THE END

July 15, 2001

“Black and Blonde” (Part 7)

Clare was waiting for him in her suite at the Four Seasons. She had just come from the shower when he arrived at the door; she answered his knock wearing a loose terry robe bearing the hotel crest on the breast pocket. Her hair was wet, slicked back from her face to accentuate the prominent angle of her cheekbones. She grinned, pleased. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you.”

He brandished an old Army issue duffle bag. “I had to pack my gear.”

Her grin broadened over jagged white fangs. “Then you’re coming with me.”

“Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

She caught him by the waistband and yanked him over the threshold, making him drop the bag and kicking the door closed behind him. “How’s this for starters?” she growled into his mouth. She pinned him against the door and wriggled free of her robe as her hands worked him out of his jeans. It was like being hit by a meteor: he saw stars, felt nothing, then every nerve lit up like a sparkler. Whenever he imagined himself accustomed to senses amplified by immortality, Clare proved him wrong. She took him higher and dropped him further than should have been possible. In his lucid moments, he wondered if it was in him to foil her—but lucid moments were few and far between when she was in his arms. The force of her nature overpowered his every time; he obeyed her because he didn’t know how to disobey her … and wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

“Clare—”

“Don’t talk.”

“Clare, I—”

She sank her claws into the tender flesh of his belly and he gasped. He felt her smile against his open mouth, felt her hands slip deep into his jeans. He tried to drive her back a step, stumbled over the duffle bag and went to his knees. Clare went down beneath him, laughing, snaking those long legs around his hips. Black gave up. Give her what she wants, he thought on the downward thrust, then she can lie to me and I’ll believe her and we’ll both be happy.

If only that were true.

She put on a good show. She broke a sweat on him and lay back sated, flinging her arms wide though her legs remained coiled around him. They hadn’t made it beyond the little alcove at the door before the wrangling had started. God knew what the neighbours had heard. He tried to get up but she locked her legs and held him in place, rolling her hips under his. “You like?”

He shook his head, fighting the creeping tingle at the base of his spine. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

She released a gale of crazy laughter. “That’s the beauty of it, Ariel. You can’t die.”

Oh, yes I can, he thought. He lowered his head and nipped at her breast. She made a noise of vague protest, urging him to violence but he didn’t take the cue. “We have to talk.”

“Not now. I don’t want to talk. I just want to feel you inside me. It’s so good, we should have stayed together from the start.”

“Yeah, it’s good, but we have to talk. So let me up.”

“Yes, Clare, do let him up. I want to hear what he has to say.”

Black swore aloud, recognizing the gravelly drawl. A pair of polished patent boots had appeared by Clare’s head, but Black didn’t bother lifting his to see who owned them. Instead, he looked accusingly at Clare. She stared back, revealing nothing—but she let him up.

Raymond bent to help her to her feet. Black used the opportunity to get up and shove everything back into his jeans. “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, dryly.

The silken smile flashed. “Surprise.”

“Why do I have the feeling this isn’t the last one of the evening?”

“How astute of you, Ariel. Why don’t you tell Clare why you’re really here?”

“You tell her, then we’ll both know.”

Clare tried to look puzzled, but her close proximity to Raymond betrayed her. She knew why Black had come, and was worried enough to have called on her maker. Black saw no reason to hedge. He reached into his jacket and showed her the photo of Travis. “You know this guy.” It was not a question.

“I know a lot of guys,” she said. “Why do you care about this one?”

“He’s been dead for six months now, but there’s some debate about whether or not it was suicide. I don’t think it was. I think you killed him.”

Her jaw dropped. “You bastard; how dare you!”

“I dare because I know you. He was your type, for one thing. You’ve always had it for pretty boys with problems and when you met him, this boy had plenty. What I don’t understand is why you came back for him. Your usual style is to leave them wanting more.”

A knock came at the door before she could reply. “Answer it,” Raymond said.

Black nudged the duffle bag to one side and opened the door. Tess stood in the hallway. She had exchanged her jeans for roomy fleece pants that matched her sweatshirt, and the shell pink outfit made her look small and vulnerable. Jett the vampire loomed behind her. He grinned at Raymond. “I found her downstairs.”

Raymond came forward like a host welcoming the guest of honour to a party. He smiled warmly, took Tess by the hand. “Come in, my dear. It’s time that we met face to face, don’t you agree?”

She didn’t glance at Black as Jett steered her into the suite. Jett did. Black knew instantly that not all of them were going to get out of this alive. “You know him?” he asked Tess.

She shook her head. “Ah,” Raymond cooed, “but I know so much about you, little thing. You’ve been a very naughty girl, spying on Ariel. Not too smart, either, from the look of it. He wasn’t your best bet.”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied steadily. “He’s brought me to you.”

Raymond looked condescending. “And now that you’re here …?”

“I want to know which one of you murdered my lover.”

Raymond laughed. “What makes you think any of us murdered anyone?”

“You gave me the first hint,” Black told him. “You changed the subject when I asked if you knew who might have seen Travis before he died. Then you told me way too much about the blonde on my tail. You couldn’t have known that she suspected a vampire was responsible for her lover’s death unless she had told you herself.”

“You’re only guessing,” Clare spoke up. “You don’t know for sure.”

He rounded on her. “And you finished up by appearing on cue, hellbent on getting me out of town when you haven’t given a rat’s ass before now. You don’t want me with you, Clare. I’d be with you now if you did.”

“You can still come with me,” she said. “I want you to come with me.”

“I’d like to,” he said truthfully, “but it’s not going to happen. See, you and I don’t share the same point of view on very many things. You’ve always considered people as playthings; little mice to bat between your paws until you nail one with a claw. Well, sugar, you’ve nailed me one too many times. Tess, here, has offered me ten grand to take you out for Travis’s murder, and that’s the sort of offer I find hard to refuse.”

Clare was appalled. “Ten thousand? Is all you think of me?”

“Oh, no, honey, I think a lot less.”

Raymond drew Tess against his chest and embraced her from behind, placing his hands square on top of her breasts. His eyes gleamed on Black. “I’ll give you ten times that to take out this troublesome little thorn. She’s doomed anyway, and you would be so much more merciful than me.”

Black studied Tess’s face. She was pale but resolute, and though he expected her to bring up the dossier, she stayed silent. Even when Raymond’s fingers closed on her breasts, she gave no sign that it bothered her. Hang in there, honey, he thought, don’t let me down. “Maybe Jett would like her,” he suggested.

Raymond frowned, brushing his chin over the top of her head. “She’s far too delicate for Jett. Mortal women tear so easily, don’t they, big fella?”

Jett smirked. “I don’t mind.”

“I do,” Raymond replied, matter-of-factly. “This room is rented.”

“Let me have her,” Clare said. “Then I’ll have the pair.”

“Ah, but then poor Ariel loses his commission. What will it be, Ariel? Ten or ten times ten?”

Black’s eyes were fierce on Clare’s face. Even through his shades, she felt the weight of his stare. She set her jaw and turned to him, brown eyes faintly triumphant. She saw no way out for him or Tess. They had gambled and lost. “You did it,” he said flatly. “You killed Travis.”

She smiled.

“Why?” Tess burst out. She gripped Raymond’s wrists in white-knuckled hands, holding him to her breasts whether he wanted it or not. “What did he ever do to you?”

Clare turned her lazy eyes to Tess. “Oh, lots of things, in the beginning. Wonderful things. When we first met, we had great fun together—so much that I suppose he never got over it. When we met again six months ago, he wanted to resume the relationship, but I was done with him. I didn’t mean to kill him. He forced it on me.”

Black watched Tess crumble in Raymond’s arms. She tried to stay composed, but Clare’s venom was more effective than a rattlesnake’s. The colour drained from her face, and she seemed to shrink. “That’s not true.”

“Trust me, dearie. There isn’t a mortal alive who can be satisfied with just a little.”

Tess’s hands clenched on Raymond’s wrists. Her eyes closed, and for a second Black believed all was lost. He was on the point of saying he would take her when she suddenly doubled over and drove an elbow deep into Raymond’s gut.

Raymond released her with a surprised woof; she dropped, rolled and pulled the flare gun from the makeshift holster Black had strapped to her ankle before leaving the house. She tossed it blindly in his direction. Jett moved to intercept it and took a knife in the shoulder for his effort. Black caught the gun and aimed it at Clare, freezing her before she could get to Tess. “Get behind me,” he snapped at the blonde, and she scurried to obey.

Raymond had recovered and was warily eyeing the gun. Clare faced the barrel head on. “You don’t have the balls,” she said.

“Surprise,” he retorted—and fired.

to be continued ...

“Black and Blonde” (Part 6)

Tess met him at the appointed place, pulling up to the curb in a white BMW that blended into traffic about as well as she had blended into the bar crowd two nights ago. The top was down; he had her put it up before he got into the passenger seat. “Couldn’t you have been a little less obvious with the wheels?” he grumbled, slamming the door.

“This is Travis’s car. Mine is in the shop. Where to?”

“Just drive where I tell you. Did you bring the books?”

She nodded, checking her blind spot before pulling into the street. “In the back seat. He had tons more, but those were the last.”

Black reached behind her seat and hauled a tote bag full of hardcover sketchbooks from the floor. He counted six spines with his fingers. “Go left here,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere. It’s harder to hit a moving target.”

She glanced at him, alarmed. “What does that mean?”

“You’ve been made, sugar. I might not be the fizziest beer in the two-four, but I’ve got friends who are. I visited one last night. He told me all about you. Well, not everything; just that you’ve been tailing me for some weeks and it’s a concern.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Much as I hate to admit it, since any trouble you’re in is trouble for me. Turn right at the next street.”

She guided the car as directed. Black pulled out one of the sketchbooks and started flipping pages. The drawings were good, mostly of women in various stages of undress. The faces had been dashed out in the fewest strokes, yet he recognized Tess in more than a few racy positions. Travis had stayed true to her build as well; her curves were deeper and sexier than the contours of the others he had drawn.

“Did you tell your friend about the safe deposit box?”

“He’s a bright boy. He figured it out.”

She hit the brakes to avoid a tabby cat that streaked across the road. Black stuffed the book into the bag and pulled out another one, dated a month before Travis had died. Tess started the car rolling again.

“Why did you want to see the sketchbooks? Are you looking for someone?”

“Maybe.”

“A vampire?”

“Did he work with other models?”

“What do you mean ‘other’?”

Black tapped his forefinger on a sketch of Tess sleeping naked on a sofa. “He did these from memory?”

She flushed a luscious shade of pink. “He had a good memory,” she said, “and a better imagination.”

“He was good,” Black allowed.

“Yeah,” she breathed, “he was.”

Tess drove while Black went through the books. Melissa Etheridge played on the stereo and after a while, Tess asked if she could drop the top on the Beemer again. He agreed because they had gone beyond the city limits and were driving along the coast road. Traffic was light and heading in the opposite direction. His paranoia seemed excessive in such conditions.

“Did Travis make any money doing this?”

“Some. It was half and half between art and the band; sometimes he made more playing, other times he did better drawing.”

“I suppose his life insurance didn’t kick in since the report said it was suicide.”

“That’s not why I’m doing this, Black.”

“Did I say it was?”

“You still don’t believe me, do you? You’re just humouring me.”

“No, I think you might be on to something. That’s what scares me.”

“Why?”

“You can’t call the cops on a vampire. They already think you’re nuts. So what happens if I find the one who killed your boyfriend? What do you expect me to do?”

Her hands clenched on the steering wheel. “I expect you to kill him.”

“Now, wait a minute—”

“No,” she cut in, fiercely. “That’s the deal. You find and kill him, then I destroy the dossier I’ve got on you.”

He scowled at her profile, etched pale and stark against the night flowing past her window. “I can’t kill another vampire. It’s not allowed.”

She snorted. “Since when have any of your kind worried about what’s allowed and what isn’t? Killing humans isn’t allowed, either, pal.”

“You don’t think we’re human?”

“No, I don’t!” she cried. “You forfeit your humanity when you start drinking our blood. It’s a drug for you; the more you get, the more you want until someone finally dies for it. It’s what happened to Travis, I know it is. He got in over his head. He was dumb that way, too sweet and trusting for his own good. He was suckered into dying for one of you, and by God I’m going to see justice done for it!”

She was sobbing as she drove. Black laid a hand on hers where it clung to the leather-wrapped wheel and she flung him off with a sweep of her arm that caught him in the face and knocked his shades off his nose. He swore at her, making a grab for them before they got out the open window.

Too late.

“Fuck!”

She swerved onto the gravel shoulder and stopped the car in a biting cloud of dust. Black opened the door and rolled out with one hand shielding his eyes from the fine silt that sought to blind him. He scrambled alongside the car, scanning through his lashes for the black Ray Bans. Tess got out to look as well.

“Get back in the car!” he snapped.

She ignored him. “I think they landed back here.”

He gave up arguing and sank to his knees by the rear wheel, closing his eyes against the red glare from the tail lights. Stupid eyes; they were so damn sensitive to everything. Clare had laughed at him for keeping them shut while making love, but he couldn’t stand the onslaught of his perfected sight.

“Here you go.”

Squinting, he raised his head. Tess stood before him, holding out his shades. The lenses were tinted so dark they looked opaque. He reached for them; she jerked them away.

“For Christ’s sake, lady—”

“Look up,” she said.

He ducked his head and counted to ten.

“Do you want them or not?”

He muttered a vehement curse under his breath. “Just give me the damn glasses.”

“Come and get them.”

Peering through his lashes, he saw her figure painted in shades of blood. Her hair was a corona of fire, her blue eyes tinted lilac. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, but he saw the curves Travis had depicted so accurately beneath her clothes. She was small but powerful. She’d have made a good vampire.

Now there was a thought.

He shook it from his head and got slowly to his feet. “I don’t like you,” he growled.

“I don’t like you, either,” she said. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“Nothing. It’s what was wrong with them. Give me the glasses.”

She handed them over in silence.

He replaced them on the bridge of his nose and inhaled a shaky breath. “Now take me home.”

* * *

He meant her home, not his. The books in the tote bag had revealed nothing save a promising talent and a love of the female form—one in particular. Not the one he was looking for. The books were too recent. He had to go further back to be sure.

He hoped he was wrong. He doubted that he was.

Tess dropped him off a few blocks from her house and continued home alone. He walked slowly along the sidewalk, spreading his senses outward in search of another’s presence. If any of Raymond’s spies were handy, he wanted to know about it. It was an odd feeling, dropping the shields he had constructed so carefully. The mortal world was noisy and crowded; he had been forced to devise a means of locking out the mayhem before he lost his mind. Timing had been critical and nearly missed. Becoming a vampire had not been easy. Without Clare, he might not have made it.

He was supposed to meet her at the Four Seasons before dawn. She wanted to show him a slice of the life that awaited if he agreed to go with her, and he was tempted to try. If he could find a place where blood ran rich and thick, if he could fool the elite into believing he belonged among them, he could leave the waterfront. He could quit bargaining for blood with poison, quit stealing cash from corpses. Clare could help him find his way, teach him the trick of living in society. He wasn’t dumb. He could fake it. And if he went with her, it would be harder for her to leave him.

But he had to finish with Tess, first.

She had done as he said and parked in the driveway, waiting in the car until he signed it was safe to get out. The house was a cute little character cottage nestled on the property of a main house. A good place for vampires, he thought, noting the lush foliage and thick, droopy trees. Tess led him to the front door and handed him the key.

“Will the neighbours talk?” he asked.

“At this hour, they’re all asleep.”

The deadbolt clicked and Black opened the door. He was met by an aromatic gust of spice-scented air. Gingerbread had been baked that afternoon. “You cook?” he asked, over his shoulder.

She pushed him inside. “I’ll take you to the studio.”

A sun porch had been built onto the back of the house, behind the kitchen. They had converted it to an art studio. Paints and canvases were everywhere; the work in progress on an easel in the corner was a portrait of Travis. He had been a handsome man made irresistible to women by the sweetness Tess had mentioned. She had captured it in his eyes, giving life to a work that was not near finished. “That’s very good,” Black remarked.

“I started it eight months ago,” Tess told him. “I haven’t touched it since.”

He suddenly regretted being so hard on her over the sunglasses.

“The books are over there.” She pointed to a low set of bookshelves against the far wall, crammed with more of the hardcover sketchbooks. They were labelled and arranged in date order; Black found the year he was looking for and pulled the book free.

“When did you meet him?”

“Last spring.”

The book in Black’s hands was dated Jan­­–Mar/99. Before Tess. She wouldn’t have been at Raymond’s New Year’s party. Travis wouldn’t have been clean then, either. He might have been trying, but he hadn’t succeeded yet.

“Have you looked through the older books, Tess?”

“There are too many.”

Black didn’t want to open the book in his hands. There wasn’t much point. But he opened it anyway, hoping for negation and finding confirmation. He recognized the long, limber form sketched in bold strokes on page after page, in pose after erotic pose, unabashedly nude or playing peek-a-boo in slinky designer gowns. Her hair was long and straight, burnished even in black and white, but the siren’s eyes were the same.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, his back to Tess while she clattered around in the kitchen. If he asked to borrow the book, she would be suspicious and he didn’t want that. He would have to manage without the sketches. Then he remembered the photo in his pocket.

He replaced the book on the shelf and took a stool at the breakfast bar. Tess gave him an inquiring glance.

“Let’s talk money,” he said.

to be continued ...

“Black and Blonde” (Part 5)

He woke at dusk. She was all over him again, voracious with teeth and nails, playing him like the fool he was. His body responded as if its need for her outweighed its need for blood, and maybe it did. For a blissful, thoughtless moment, he let himself enjoy the rasp of her tongue on his belly, willing her further south. Reading his mind—or had he mumbled under his breath?—she obliged.

She bit him and he came in a shower of blood and fruitless semen, arching with a mangled cry off the worn mattress while she gulped once and grimaced. “God, I hate that stuff you call blood,” she spat, tossing her hair like a filly in the winner’s circle. “How can you drink it night after night? It might as well be bilge water.”

He lay, panting, on his back, gazing at her through the stars that danced before his eyes. He had no answer. Becoming a vampire had not made him a duke or an earl. He was still a peasant boy spread out for her amusement. He hadn’t decided how he felt about it, yet. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

“I’m taking you out of here tonight,” she declared, rolling off the bed in a glorious tangle of arms and legs. “I’ve got a suite at the Four Seasons; I’d have taken you there this morning, but …” She flashed him a naughty smile “Are you still happy to see me?”

He nodded, following her with his eyes as she collected her clothes. He was hungry but didn’t want to lose sight of her. She wouldn’t hunt with him, anyway, and he couldn’t hunt with her. They were from different worlds. The gift of immortality had not altered that.

“Then you’ll come with me,” she said.

“No,” he croaked.

She slid into her shirt but left it open. “Why not?”

“This is my home.”

She snorted. “Get over it, Ariel. You’re a god now; you don’t have to live like this.”

“I’m no god,” he answered. “I’m a predator like you, and they’re catching onto us, Clare. They’re starting to figure out what we are and how to stop us. I don’t want to die. Do you?”

She didn’t understand the question. “I am death. So are you. There hasn’t been a mortal yet who could cheat either of us. You give them too much credit.”

“You give them too little,” he said, and as he spoke, an awful possibility dawned on him. She held mortals in as much contempt now as she had done at the beginning, when Raymond had taken her from her father’s castle and raped her for her blood. Black knew she preferred to kill. She loved it, revelled in it. Raymond had taught her well—but even Raymond had tempered his appetite with the passage of time.

She grabbed his hands and pulled him upright. “Come with me, my love. I will show you pleasure beyond your wildest imagining.”

“Have you been killing?” Black asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How long have you been in town?”

“A few days. Long enough to set myself up at the hotel. Why?”

“Clare, if you’re lying to me—”

“What? You don’t believe me? Ask Raymond. He’ll be as shocked to see me as you were.”

“Raymond is a liar. I’d be a fool to believe anything he says.”

She smiled, sidling close. “You are a fool, though, aren’t you, my beloved? Look at the way you live, scraping out an existence by the grace of inferiors. They don’t love you, Ariel. They’re afraid of you, so they pretend to be allies. Any one of them would turn you in for the price of a mickey.”

He got out of bed, convinced that his hunger was making her make sense. She didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t know his people. She had never known his people. She came from a world frosted with illusion. What did she know of the hideous truth?

“I’ve made you angry,” she said.

He pulled his t-shirt on over his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sure you are.”

“I can’t bear to see you living this way. You’re so much better than this.”

He turned to face her. She was sitting on the rumpled bed, hands dangling between her knees. Her nails were painted pearl white, curved like claws. He wanted them to scrape him raw so she could lap up the blood that oozed from the wounds. “I can’t come with you, Clare. Not tonight.”

She nodded. “You want time to think.”

“Yeah.”

“You do want something better, don’t you?”

“Don’t we all?”

She smiled. “I just want you.”

He laughed softly, a reflex aimed at deflecting the usual hope that she wasn’t jerking him around this time. She was so beautiful, so desirable. He had loved her from the first moment and been grateful to her for saving him when Raymond would have let him die. How ironic that she who had spared him was the one who killed him every time she left.

He wanted to say, “I’m yours.” It was smarter to say nothing. 

* * * 

He dealt for blood with one of the warehouse squatters, a man in his forties whose engineering career had been snuffed by a drug problem that eventually cost him his house and his family. “I want to die,” he told Black. “Can you do it for me?”

“It’s not my place,” Black said, “nor yours, either. Have we got a deal?”

The fellow thought for a minute, then nodded. “Give me the dope.”

Black hesitated.

“What is it?”

“When did you last eat?”

“What’s it to you? Just give me the dope, man, then you can have as much blood as you want.”

He didn’t want tainted blood. He was tired of it. It was sour and left him slightly disoriented, the way scotch burned his throat but didn’t make him drunk. This guy was hardly a pure specimen on either end of the syringe, but he wouldn’t be so harsh on the tongue if Black drank before handing over the goods.

“Forget it,” the man said. “If you’re not going to kill me, you give me the dope first or walk away now.”

He conceded victory with a grim face. When the fellow was pleasantly glazed, Black bent his head and pierced the quivering jugular with his fangs. The blood spouted, surprised, into his mouth. It ran cold over his tongue, heating up as it hit the back of his throat. He swallowed, conjuring the flavour of Clare to mask the bitterness. She had expensive taste and fed from the best—the rich proceeds of greed and avarice in the upper classes. Last night, he had scented caviar and champagne in her blood and been hurt when she refused to drink from him. Little wonder, he thought now, sucking back the sting of despair; this was the hemoglobic equivalent of Aqua Velva. He drank the fellow to unconsciousness, then settled him as comfortably as he could beneath his newspaper blanket. It might be more merciful to kill him, but Black doubted he could stomach the job. It was getting harder to take what little he was offered.

He met up with Aurora on his way to the bar; she had paused to light another in a long chain of Marlboros when he spotted her at the corner. She grinned at him. “Hey, Black, that was some serious combat happening over my head last night. You get lucky with another girl?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘lucky’,” he answered. “Have you got a quarter? I need to make a phone call.”

“This from a guy with a pocketful of fifties,” she grumbled around her smoke. She dug through her bag for change. “I swear I don’t know why I let you use me this way. You sure you can’t hypnotize people through your shades?”

He took the quarter. “I’ll make it up to you, honey.”

“Go a round with me like you did with your mystery chick last night and I’ll call us even.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t want to go a round with ol’ Black.”

“Says you,” she retorted, accepting his kiss on her cheek. She blew a lungful of smoke into his face. “Not gonna tell, are you?”

“Nope.”

She studied him through hooded eyes. “Old girlfriend,” she decided.

“I wouldn’t say that, either. Any luck with the search for Travis?”

She shook her head. “If your boy did fall off the wagon, he didn’t do it down at our level. Cokeheads are upper crust junkies, Black. You’re fishing too low in the pond.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry, honey.”

He waved her off. “Didn’t hurt to try. You’d better get back to work.”

“Sure you don’t want a quickie on the house?”

He laughed at her. “I’ll take a raincheck. Go on, get lost. I’ll catch you later.”

“Promises, promises,” she sighed, wandering off in a cloud of blue smoke.

He went to the bar and called Tess at the number she had given him. It turned out to be a cellular phone, and he was instantly angry about it. Cell phones were glorified radios that anyone could tap into; he had her hang up and call him from a land line so they could arrange to meet without fear of being ambushed. Black was not naive. Clare was in town for a reason—and Raymond was well aware of it.

to be continued ...