Blacker than Black (3 page)

Steps pass beneath my feet as I descend them, driven purely on instinct. When I reach the concrete of the sidewalk, I glance back over my shoulder in confusion. Reluctance and loss flit through me like the chill night air sinking past my skin.

I try to wrestle the thoughts in my head into some kind of order, to clear space for coherency. My surroundings are slow to come into focus.

It’s a sensation I’m familiar with, the disorientation, although I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. I blink a few times, scrubbing moisture from my cheeks with rough impatience. I’m alone. It surprises me, though I can’t think why.

That I’ve survived should fill me with relief. Or something like it. It doesn’t. Deep down, I know it was a gift. Restraint. He could have destroyed me so easily.

Tearing my gaze from the building’s entrance, I walk away. Every step’s an exertion of will. Every stride creates a gulf between myself and that part of me I’ve surrendered and left behind.

A larger part than I intended. The pull is stronger than any I’ve experienced. None have ever delved so deep into me, stripped me so thoroughly. It makes me feel hollow, empty.

I lift my hand and run a finger over my smooth, pale skin, blue veins prominent. My john paid handsomely for what I offered; the price I exacted is greater than he knows. The strength of his filched chi pulses through me like liquid fire, unnatural. It will assimilate slowly. But I can afford the luxury of time now. Judging by the translucent quality of my skin, I need it.

Looking back over my shoulder once more, I study the architecture of the building and its unfamiliar red aura. Beginning to fade now with the encroaching sunrise. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.

My pace quickens as the glow of imminent dawn illuminates the city’s eastern skyline. Buildings jut into the vivid color like some mythical beast gaping its maw to breathe fire on the remnants of humanity. I have just enough time to make it back to my little hovel in the heart of the Blue District—to put some distance between me and the john, to weaken the resonant sensation, before he recovers from his feeding thrall.

Exhaustion is weighing down my feet by the time I make it back to the flat. Litter lines the hallway, remnants of life, or escape. All of it trash. The faint smell of mildew and decay hangs in the air, paint peeling off the sweating concrete walls. As I pull my key from its chain around my neck, the door opens.

“You look like cold shit, Black,” Jhez says. Her brow is furrowed in concern, relief flooding off her so heavily it’s discomfiting. As if she doused in flowery perfume during my absence.

 “I love you too, sister.” I’m sure it sounds like I’m snarling; my tone is at once both rough and edged even to my own ears, but I’m too drained to care. Mind and body. One feels like someone pureed it, and as for the other? Well, I did just hoof it across half the city.

I shove past her, though gently, and thump into the living space. Its dreary features swirl around me, familiar and comforting, and I’m relieved when my gaze catches on the small painting that lives on the wall where it always has. The strong, heavy lines of pattern in the cheap print are better than any drug at staving off the persistent blurring and dizziness. Aftereffects we’re both accustomed to coping with. Thus the framed mandala hanging across from the couch.

The door clicks shut, the lock slides into place. “Didn’t you recognize him?” Jhez sounds annoyed.

“Recognize who? I don’t get why you’re so upset. He was a john, just like any other.”

“What the hell, Black? Did your brain short-circuit or something? That wasn’t just a vamp. That was
Le Gross
himself, the Monsieur of York.”

I turn and stare at her, not comprehending. My brain feels like it’s in reverse.

“Monsieur Garthelle?
Hello?
That name ring your bell?”

I know what the reigning vamp in this city looks like. What the heck did she bum off her street partner this evening? Seriously? I shake my head and frown. “Jhez, I don’t know what you think you saw. But that was
not
Monsieur Garthelle in the car. I think I’d know if I was sitting next to him.”

At least she doesn’t bother asking that one question I hate. I managed to survive the encounter—thanks to my john’s restraint—but I’m not “okay,” not by a long shot. There’s a reason why I look like cold shit. It’s about the way I feel at the moment, too.

I sink into the threadbare couch, beige more from dirt and stains than intention. For the space of a heartbeat, it’s transposed with a black velvet creature, its cushions so soft and deep I want to lose myself in them.

But then it’s just smudged tan corduroy again.

That’s happened before. It’s normal, the juxtaposition of reality with memories. Like the tug I still feel, it usually fades with time. I let my head fall back and massage my temples.

I don’t have the strength to pull my boots from my feet. It doesn’t stop me from propping my heels on the corner of the battered coffee table, though.

Jhez reaches over my shoulder, holding a tumbler full of chilled liquid. “How strong is the pull?”

“Strong.” I throw the entire contents of the tumbler down my throat without breathing. I learned some time ago not to try sipping anything she offers.

She slips over the back of the couch to sit beside me.

Holding the empty glass out to her, I roll my head to meet her gaze. “I almost turned back so many times, I lost count.”

Jhez takes the glass and sets it on the coffee table. “Given who—” She breaks off and starts again. “What if it doesn’t fade this time?”

I grunt and close my eyes. “It’s a chance we take, isn’t it?” My eyes flutter open, and I stare at her again. “Why do you care all the sudden? It’s no more likely to happen this time than any other.”

She won’t look at me, and doesn’t respond. I fumble the credit chit from the front pocket of my pants and toss it on the table. The sliver of plastic holds the balance of the vamp’s payment. The part he’s aware of.

Jhez’s gaze follows it, but she remains poised on the edge of the couch, unmoving.

A heavy tread in the hallway precedes a solid, insistent rap on the door.

I share a look with my twin. Our expressions mirror one another, and slowly we turn to regard the door.

“You expecting company?” I ask. Softly, just to stall the inevitable. I already know the answer.

“No,” she murmurs, drawing out the response. Her gaze swivels to me as the rap repeats, her eyes widening. “How much did you take from him?”

“Oh, please. No vamp would have the—”

The door flies open, rebounding off the wall, and I flinch at the screech of metal and wood. A chunk of debris catches me on the cheek before falling into my lap—part of the frame the bolt hole screwed into.

“—presence of mind to track me down.”

Judging by the size of the individual whose silhouette fills the doorframe, my john is more than mildly displeased. Whoever he is. That the vampire employs muscle to begin with is no real surprise, given the luxury I witnessed.

“Your presence is required, Nightwalker,” the man intones, stepping forward. He is the personification of hired muscle if ever I’ve seen it.

Odd that the vamp noticed.
I lower my feet and push up from the couch. It’s rare for my clients to recover from energy thrall so quickly. Usually, they wallow in it. And none have yet complained about what they lacked in the aftermath. If they noticed at all.

I scrub the sweat that slicks my palms onto the well-worn softness of my pants, and try not to panic. There’s no taking this bulk of a man by surprise, not with me in the state I’m in. So despite the fear-fueled adrenaline pouring into my veins, I push to my feet and step past Jhez. She scoots her legs out of the way, staring up at me with equal parts horror, concern, and outrage. Impotence is a frustrating state, and I’m right there with her.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a bit.” Why I make the effort to reassure her, I don’t really know. They’re empty words, a meaningless promise. I’m just trying really, really hard not to think about the worst-case scenario here.

Yeah, and maybe my john just wants to share a spot of tea, right?

Muscle doesn’t glance at Jhez as he grabs me by the arm and hauls me in his wake.

This is not my preferred method of coping with the pull I feel after being with a john. Far from it. Close proximity only reasserts the connection, making it that much more difficult to dispel. Perversely, however, every step I take toward the john’s residence eases the tugging pain that much more. And I hate him that much more. Because I can. I have
that
much free will, at least.

By the time Muscle knocks on the entrance to the suite—with a great deal more care, mind, than he did on mine—my vision is as red as the hallway. I am seething with hatred. And the painful tug is all but gone. But my previous conclusion that the vamp is simply unhappy, I discover, was a gross misjudgment on my part.

The door slides open. Muscle doesn’t set foot inside, just shoves me through the doorway. The blackness in the room envelops me, the very air throbbing with disapproval. Dragon’s blood incense is thick in the air, burning my throat and making my eyes water. I don’t remember it doing that before.

That’s my disapproving john looming before me; who else could it be, in this place? And I haven’t pissed off anyone else of note, not that I’m aware of. He’s so close his face hovers inches from mine, faintly visible in the ambient red lighting of the hall. Black lights gleam faintly from tracks in the ceiling. They don’t offer a great deal of illumination, but it’s enough to see.

Something is wrong, because he doesn’t look as I remember. He’s so close I can see specks of gold scattering through the various hues of yellow that make up his irises. Daffodil, mustard, and sunlight. Artfully messy hair hiding a widow’s peak; it’s just long enough to sink my fingers into, I recall, and soft as silk. I don’t remember it being pulled back at the nape of his neck, though. Strong jaw, speckled with a shadow of beard growth this late in the day. Or night. Whatever it is. A muscle is twitching in his cheek. Very patrician nose, I notice, as his nostrils flare a bit.

Okay. I swallow hard. No doubt about it, this man is the Monsieur of York. Ruling vampire of the metro.

Why didn’t I notice all these little details when he picked me up?

I was
not
tripping on anything. Every bit as sober as I am now. All things considered, I was
more
sober then. Tripping on a chi-high like I am, my perceptions are obviously . . . wonky.

The red lighting fades—Muscle shut the door, I’m guessing. Despite that, I can still see Garthelle quite clearly in the darkness. The vamp licks his lips, cants his head a fraction.

“I paid generously for what I took.” I shudder as my skin pimples at the feel of his breath. There’s a faint scar at the left corner of his mouth, pulling the otherwise flawless line of his upper lip into a slight but perpetual sneer. “I exercised restraint, and yet you repay me with common thievery.”

Okay, so maybe he’s sneering deliberately. I want to argue with him; I don’t consider what I did thievery. I press my lips together and manage to stay silent as his gaze flickers over my face, eyes roving incessantly. It feels like he’s trying to devour me.

“I should finish what I started.” His eyes narrow, dark brows drawing down like the string of a cocked crossbow. When even his threat doesn’t garner a response from me, he takes a slow breath. His shoulders lift with the effort, chest expanding; he’s not a thick, bulky person, but with Muscle on his payroll he doesn’t need to be. “You don’t yet realize what you’ve taken, do you.”

Of course I don’t . . . not completely. I never do, until my body has fully absorbed it. It burns through my bloodstream like a bad high, even now. And that’s not normal either, now that I think about it.

I shake my head. My throat convulses as I try to swallow enough moisture to form words.

He leans closer, just a fraction, and his nostrils flare again before he stalks off into the deep shadows. “You feel this?” His words float through the darkness, and the heat in my veins morphs into something like acid, devouring me cell by cell. Pain lances along every nerve ending in my body.

The sensation vanishes as suddenly as it started. I open my eyes to find myself panting, huddled in a lump on his thick black carpeting, the back of my throat so dry it hurts.

I’d been screaming.

“And this?” It’s like he has a control dial to my body. After cranking it one way, Garthelle decides to crank it the other. The blood feels thick in my veins, heavy with pleasure not entirely unlike post-coital bliss.

This is the pinnacle of embarrassment.

“Stop.” I bury my face between my knees and tighten my arms around myself, feeling the flush of heat rising in my face. “I’ll give it back, whatever it is.”

How much worse will it get once I’ve fully absorbed what I took?

His tread is soft across the carpet. Monsieur Garthelle squats in front of me; his fingertips brush against my cheek as he tucks my black veil of hair out of the way.