"I've heard of being caught between a rock and a hard place, but this is ridiculous." Behind me the ghostly Antonio was swearing at the vampire who blocked the door. "Hi!" I said to the vampire. "You must be Melissande's cousin. We weren't expecting you back. I'm... uh... she asked me to... um... you're probably wondering what I'm doing here, huh?"
"Beslubbered 'edgepig!" Antonio spat at the intruder, pulling a rapier from his side. "It is not enough that I must tolerate that other evil one putting 'is 'ands all over my beloved Allegra, now you come to claim my one true love! What is your name, my darling?" he asked in an aside to me.
"Uh..."
"It is enough! I will not tolerate you claiming the most beautiful Uh and 'er glorious breasts! She is mine, all of 'er!"
The vampire Christian, who had been watching the ghost with an amused cock to one of his glossy chocolate eyebrows, transferred his gaze from Antonio to my breasts. Impudent hussies that they were, they tried to thrust themselves forward toward him. I wrapped my arms over my chest and glared at both Antonio and the vampire, mentally telling my body that no matter how handsome the vampire might be, the last thing I wanted was to get involved with someone who was technically undead. "Look, I know this seems weird, you catching me here digging around your library, but I have an explanation."
"You will go now, un'oly dead one, else I shall cut off your man'ood and feed it to you." Antonio floated between us and whipped his sword around in a manner that probably would have left us both dead if it had been real.
Christian closed his eyes for a second. "Just what I need, an antagonistic ghost," he said. "Go away. My business is not with you." He waved a hand through the middle of the ghost. Amazingly, Antonio started to disintegrate.
"I am not antagonistic! Me, I went to Mass every morning!" Antonio's sword flashed in an intricate move no doubt intended to geld the vampire. Evidently he noticed he was fading, because he stopped gelding and shook his fist instead. "Basta! I shall call the others. They are watching Angel DVDs, but they will leave their precious Spike for you, you 'ideous spew-specked..."
"There's a lot to be said for exorcisms," Christian muttered under his breath as Antonio faded away into nothing.
"I thought only people who were possessed with a demon could be exorcised?"
Bright blue eyes snapped to mine, narrowing as they examined me from toes to head. Nervously I stepped back a few paces, my hands behind my back as I tried to stuff the stolen notes and earring into my back pocket, hoping that if Christian caught a glimpse of them, he'd believe they belonged to me. I wasn't sure he wouldn't mind Melissande having them, but I'd leave that to the two of them to work out.
"Who are you?" Christian asked, his voice low and rough, but with an edge of something that sent a little shiver down my back.
"I'm... uh... your cousin Melissande hired me."
He took two steps forward until he was a hairbreadth away from me. "Melissande isn't my cousin, and do not make me repeat myself again."
As he spoke, fangs flashed white in his mouth. Out of the blue a thought struck me, one so startling that my brain processed it without giving overdue thought to just how precarious a position I was in. "You know, I always assumed that vampires' fangs retracted or something when they weren't using them. Kind of like a cobra's fangs - present and accounted for when you want to use them, and out of the way when you don't."
They do, in most Dark Ones. Christian's voice had an almost ethereal quality, such a physical presence that I felt it in my head as well as heard it.
"But not you?" I looked at the pattern of red that wrapped around his torso. Like the one on the book, it was almost so faded I couldn't see it, seeming to shimmer in and out of my vision, like a half-glimpsed shadow seen out of the corner of my eye. I knew what it was the minute I saw it, though. Some things are just too horrible to ever forget, no matter how hard you try. "Does it have something to do with the curse that binds you?"
Christian stared at me for a moment, and I knew I'd gone too far. Just because Melissande had assured me that this vampire wouldn't hurt me didn't mean he couldn't if he was peeved enough. What did you say?
"Nothing," I said, moving to the side. "It's not important. You know, Melissande is just outside. Why don't we call her, and she can clear up this whole mess - "
"You heard me," he accused, grabbing my arm in a grip that was borderline painful.
"Ow," I said. His grip loosened a smidgen. "Yeah, I heard you. I'm standing right here."
You heard what I said about Dark Ones.
"Well, duh! I'm not deaf. I understand you're miffed about finding me here, but I promised Melissande - "
It is not possible. You are not Moravian. You are not a telepath. And yet you hear me. He pulled me up close to his body, the heat from his chest burning my arm. You can see the curse?
"Yeah, I can see it, but not clearly. If I look straight at it, it disappears. I have to kind of peek at it from the corner of my eye to see the patt... oh, my God. Your mouth didn't move just then. I was watching." The skin along my back and arms crawled as a horrible realization dawned upon me. "What's going on? Why can I hear you talk without your mouth moving? You're not like some sort of vampire ventriloquist, are you?"
He shook his head. "This is not happening."
"I know how you feel," I said on a sigh. "I've had that feeling all evening, ever since the imp episode, but I've given up trying to make sense of it and am now going with the flow. Look, Christian - "
He frowned, his warm, strong fingers flexing into the soft pudge of my arm. "Why do you call me that? I am not Christian Dante."
I went still, very still, bunny-rabbit-spotted-by-a-dangerous-predator still. I didn't even chance breathing. "You're not?"
"No."
"But you're a vamp."
An annoyed look passed across his face. "Dark One. I am a Dark One."
"Whatever. What are you doing here if you're not Christian, the guy who owns the place?"
"The same might be asked of you. More, since I would like to know why you have the ability to hear my thoughts, and how it is you can see the curse that binds me."
"Yeah, but I asked first. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
He eyed me for another minute, then released my arm and spun around to look around the library. "Melissande hired you. You are here, obviously seeking the same as I. You can hear my thoughts. You can see my curse." He stopped and pointed to a sea-green vase on a bookshelf. "What do you see there?"
"A vase?" He stalked toward me until I scurried in the opposite direction, which just happened to be toward the vase. "It's a green vase. Pretty. Looks like it's valuable."
"Look closer," he commanded, his eyes turning to an indigo color. I looked away, curious as to how he did the eye thing, but figured now was probably not the best time to question him about vampiric skills and abilities. Glancing at the vase again, idly I wondered if it was possible to knock out a vampire by cracking him on the head with a vase.
"It would take much more than a vase to render me unconscious. Do not even think of trying. Now look at it again and tell me what you see."
I bit back the words of surprise that he knew what I was thinking and toyed with the thought of refusing him outright, but the few steps he took toward me, menace all but pouring off him, had me changing my mind. I hurried to do as he commanded. "It's just a vase. About twelve inches high, with a gold rim and faint pattern etched into the sides."
"Describe the pattern," he demanded, his gaze boring into mine.
"Fish," I said desperately, just wanting to get the hell out of there, away from the frightening - and bossy - fanged mystery vampire. "It has fish on it. Looks Greek or something."
He half turned away, disappointment flashing across his face. A brief stab of guilt flared within me, as if I had let him down somehow. What on earth was I thinking? He was a vampire! Bad news no matter how you looked at it. It didn't matter that somehow, what I had said had not been what he'd hoped to hear. Except... somehow, it did matter. Sympathy rose within me as I caught another glimpse of the red curse binding him. I supposed even a vampire has a right to be crotchety if he's bound by a demon lord's curse.
I glanced back at the vase, keeping one eye on the vamp in case he should try to grab me and make me a late-night dinner. I might feel sorry for him, but I wasn't completely stupid. "The fish are swimming in a couple of schools. The waves they are swimming on are curvy, turning back upon themselves. Kind of like the pattern I saw on the book - " I clamped my mouth shut, horrified with both what I said, and what it meant.
The vampire spun around, pinning me back against the wall with the force of his gaze. "You can see the ward?"
"Uh... maybe."
"Melissande," he murmured as he glanced down at himself to where the curse flickered red. "She found a Charmer. I didn't think she'd find one who has the power to help."
"Well, she hasn't. That is," I said quickly when his blue-eyed gaze was back to goring me, "I would be more than happy to help, but I can't. Charm, that is. I never could. My Charming skills are stunted, you see. But I did promise to help her find her nephew by poking around Christian's library, and that's what I'm doing here. Now that I've spilled my info, it's your turn."
"Damian," he said, his eyes doing the indigo thing again. I was just about to throw caution to the wind and ask him how he did it, when he moved. I didn't even see it coming - one minute I was standing near a bookcase, the next I was slammed back against the wall, pinned by two arms of steel attached to one very large vampire. "You will relay everything to me, from the beginning. What did Melissande tell you?"
"I should warn you, I'm an expert on vampires. I've seen every episode made of Buffy, Angel, and Forever Knight, so don't think a little fang-flashing is going to scare me," I started to say, but an up-close look at those sharp white incisors sent my bravado flying out the window, leaving me babbling like a brook. Power and desperation rolled off him, swamping me with the knowledge that this man would kill to find out what he wanted to know. Had I any state secrets to hand over, I would have gladly given them. "She hired me to charm a curse, but I don't do that sort of thing, so she promised me a breastplate if I would break in here and find some notes her brother had found that told where Damian was, only I didn't know it was breaking in, because she said the castle belonged to a cousin vamp who evidently wouldn't mind, although he went and left the door warded so she couldn't enter the castle, and come to think of it, since you're a vamp too, shouldn't you be, you know, locked out? Ward-wise?"
"Only the doors and windows were warded. I entered through neither."
"Oh. So how did you get in?"
He ignored my question, his brows pulling together in another frown. My mind warred with my body at his nearness. I kept telling myself that he was a vampire, a man whose prey tendencies didn't stop at wanting a date. I could be his dinner, for Pete's sake! I tried pointing that out to my libido, but all it saw was one extremely dishy guy. He was tall, taller than me and I'm no slouch, with lovely broad shoulders and a chest that had my Inner Nell doing a girlish swoon. His hair, a thick, heavy auburn, brushed the top of his collar. Reddish stubble grazed his lower cheeks and chin, turning my girlish swoon into a full-fledged strumpet-attack. His eyes changed from a light sky blue to a blue-black that was almost indistinguishable from his pupils. But it was something else, something more profound, that kept me from fighting him or trying to escape. Somewhere deep within this man, this vampire, I sensed a need, a cry for help that struck an answering chord inside me. I looked into his beautiful eyes and for a moment, for a breathless moment of time between seconds, I glimpsed the true nature of the darkness within him.
Life as I knew it ceased to be.
"Take slow breaths and keep your head down."
The words, rough and abrasive, were oddly calming as awareness returned to me. I was sitting on the floor, my head between my knees. All I could see were two booted feet swimming in a nauseating spinning pattern until slowly they settled into unmoving solidity. I lifted my head and looked at the vampire. "You don't have a soul."
"No," he said dryly. "Are you better now?"
"Yeah. I've never fainted before. Then again, I've never looked into a man's eyes and seen nothing but hell, either, so I guess this is a first all around. Since I don't hurt anywhere, I take it you caught me when I passed out?"
"Yes. Can you stand?" He held out his hand for me to take.
I beat down the warm thought of what it must be like to be held in his arms, and got to my feet. "Yep. A little wobbly in the knee department, but other than that, everything is OK. Listen, I'm sorry about the soulless thing. I'm sure it's nothing you care to be reminded of."
"Come," was all he said to my apology, holding open the door to the library.
"Sure. Oh, just let me grab the notes. I think they say something about where her nephew is being held." The torn sheets of paper lay scattered on the floor. I had no idea how they had fallen out of my pocket, but my brain, jet-lagged and paranormaled within an inch of insanity, decided it wasn't important.
The vamp glanced at the window. Through a crack in the heavy curtain I could see that the sky was starting to lighten. "Leave them. I don't need the notes. I know where Damian is being kept."
"You do? Great! You can tell Melissande. She's outside, waiting for me. Uh... we're going the wrong way. Her car is behind the castle, by a big crypt thingy."
"We're not going to Melissande."
I put the brakes on. The vampire snared my wrist in one of his steely grips and tugged me forward. "Wait a minute! Melissande is desperately trying to find her nephew and her brother. If you know where Damian is, you have to tell her so she can rescue them."
"Saer needs no help." His eyes were ice blue now, so cold I felt as if I'd been burned where his gaze touched me. I tried fighting his hold on my wrist, but he pulled me through the empty hall like I were a sack of potatoes. I hate pushy vampires!
"You know Saer?"
"Yes. Stop fighting me. You cannot escape."
"Ha! Just watch me," I yelled, grabbing at a nearby suit of armor.
The vamp spun around and scooped me up in one move. The breath slammed out of my lungs as he stalked off with me slung over his shoulder.
"Hey!" I yelled, dragging my gaze off the fascinating sight of his upside-down butt. I pounded my hand on his back. "Let me down! All the blood is rushing to my head!"
"Perhaps it'll do a little good there," he muttered as he flung open a wooden door, my body bouncing painfully as he raced down a long flight of stone stairs.
"I heard that! Now put me down and we can discuss this kidnapping plan you have."
"No. Stop struggling or I will be forced to subdue you."
"Subdue me?" I asked his butt, which, I'm ashamed to admit, I couldn't seem to stop ogling. Encased in snug-fitting black jeans, it was a thing of joy to behold as it moved. "Oh, right. Like what, you're going to bite my leg?"
He didn't even pause. One minute I was bouncing on his back as he trotted down the stairs, the next minute a sharp sting burned the back of my thigh.
I rose up as far as I could, shocked (and strangely thrilled) to my very core. "Oh, my God! You bit me on the leg! You drank my blood! I am not an appetizer!"
You are much more than an appetizer. You are a twelve-course banquet.
"Oh!" I yelled, pounding his back again. "Stop it! Stop it right now! Stop whispering into my mind, and stop biting my leg. Let me down!"
"No."
Without the least sign of gentleness or concern for me, he continued down the stairs. He didn't even pause when he reached the floor, he just headed straight into the inky-black abyss of what must have been a very large basement. Looming up in the faint light coming from the stairwell I could see stone statues, statues that seemed oddly lifelike in the shadows that embraced them.
Worry began to well up inside me. It was one thing to banter with a vampire, but if he had plans of dragging me into his crypt with him... my breath stuck in my throat at the thought of being buried alive. It was my worst nightmare. "You're squishing my stomach! I'm going to barf if you don't let me down."
That did the trick. He came to a halt, lowering me to the ground, his fingers encircling my wrist as I took my first full breath since he'd picked me up. "Whew! That's better. Now, about this - "
"We have no time to waste in conversation. The sun is rising. Come."
"You know, I can walk and talk at the same time. I bet if you put your vampy mind to it, you could do the same. Now, I know you've got some sort of a bee up your" - incredibly attractive - "butt, but I'm not leaving without letting Melissande know where her nephew is. She's worried sick about him."
"Regardless, you will not return to her," he said grimly, pulling me after him as he entered a narrow stone passage. There was a metallic clink as he flipped open a lighter, the blue flame set high. It did little to illuminate the tunnel, however. All I could tell was that it was damp, seemed to go on forever, and smelled earthy. As I was dragged down the passage after the vampire, the floor changed from rock to sand, then to root-riddled dirt.
My worry turned to anger as he dragged me deep into the bowels of the castle. How dare he leave poor Melissande to worry and fret when a simple word from him could help? "You heartless bloodsucker! How can you be so selfish?"
"Selfish?" The vamp cast me a disdainful glance.
"Yes, selfish. I'm not an idiot, you know. I saw the way your ears pricked up when you found out I am a Charmer - not that I am, but Melissande thinks I am. You want me to unmake the curse I saw on you, don't you?" I asked, stumbling over a tree root that poked up out of the ground. He caught me, wrapping one arm around my waist. I ignored the voice inside me that was screaming to enjoy the embrace, realizing he was simply trying to keep me on my feet. "You think you can use me to charm away your troubles!"
"Yes."
The word was spoken with a coldness that left me shivering.
"Well, you can just think again. I can't charm anything. I'm just here to help Melissande... which is what you should be doing, as well. There's a boy's life at stake, and even if you aren't particularly kind or even polite, surely you're not so much of a monster that you don't care."
"How do you know I'm not a monster?"
Something flickered deep in his eyes, and once again I felt a warmth within me answering his silent call. "Don't be silly. If you were a monster, you would have ripped out my throat or made me your queen of eternal night or something like that. You're just a man, not a monster. Yes, a man with really sharp pointy teeth and hands like a steel trap, but you're still a man, and because of that, you're bound by the constraints of humanity to help Melissande."
He marched onward, not even pausing at my plea. "She wouldn't welcome my help."
"But - "
"No!" The word was spoken with a finality that was just shy of chipped into stone. I glared at him and promised myself that the first chance I had, I'd pry the information from him about the kid, and pass it on to Melissande.
"This way." He veered off into a yawning black opening, releasing me in order to throw his weight against a root-bound stone door. It squealed its protest, a nasty stone-grinding-on-stone noise filling the small chamber as the vampire slowly pushed the door closed. I stumbled backward over a large rock, the dim flame of the lighter not doing much along illumination lines.
"Who are you?" As I spoke, a dull, solid rumble shook the room, stopping with a horribly final sound. The vampire turned from the now closed stone door. "Who are you, and where are we, and just exactly why have you kidnapped me?"
The vamp searched until he found an arm-sized piece of wood. It must have been dry, because it flamed pretty quickly when he applied the lighter to it. He held the burning wood high like a torch, his shadow massive as it flickered on the rough-hewn stone walls behind him.
"My name is Adrian Tomas, this is a small room off the tunnel leading from the castle's bolt hole, and I have taken you so that you will unmake a curse created by the demon lord Asmodeus."
"Adrian?" I whispered, my brain reeling. "Adrian the Betrayer? The one who turns his people over to Asmodeus for endless torture and horrible deaths? That Adrian?"
"Yes," the vampire answered, the light from the burning wood glinting on his fangs as he smiled a grim smile. "I am the Betrayer, and you, Charmer, are my prisoner."