Dead If I Do (8 page)

Recovering his dignity, he quickly got to his feet. Despite the minus-degree windchill, Parrish’s only nod to the weather was a leather biker jacket. He didn’t even bother to zip it. Underneath was a thin cotton T-shirt and faded blue jeans. If it wasn’t for the ice that frosted the edges of his shoulder-length auburn hair, you’d have thought he was out for a summer buzz around the lake on his motorcycle.

“Your skills as a pugilist have improved since we last met,” he noted, rubbing the spot on his abdomen where I’d bashed him.

“Lilith,” I said, flexing my hands inside my wool mittens. I expected to feel the beginnings of bruises on my knuckles, but there was nothing beyond a pleasant warm buzz just under my skin. “Were your ears burning?” I asked him. “William and I were just talking about you. And, oh, are you stalking me or something? What are you doing here at this time of night?”

He laughed. “At least some things haven’t changed. You’re still as effervescent as ever, I see.”

“And you’re still evasive as ever,” I said, though I smiled.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Parrish asked theatrically, indicating Sebastian’s house.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Besides, it’s still Sebastian’s. He’d have to do the honors. And, anyway, Benjamin the attack ghost would probably kill you on principle.”

“Then I’d best make this quick.” He took my mittened hand in his and cleared his throat. “You’re making a mistake. No one will ever love you as I do.”

I smiled. “I know,” I said quite sincerely. “You’d sacrifice your life for me.”

“Time and time again,” he said with a nod.

“I love you,” I admitted, “but we’d never make it together—not long-term. The things I love about you are also the things that’d break us up in the end.” I’d had a long time to think about all this while Parrish was gone. Parrish was the kind of man that instantly turned me on: a bad boy. He was strong, impulsive, and more than a little bit crazy. “And even if you could somehow change to suit me, well, then you’d lose the essential you-ness I adore. We’d never work.”

Parrish leaned down and kissed me. His lips were as cold as ice. “I had to try,” he said. “One last time.”

My body heated to his touch, but my toes slowly went numb in the cold. Even so, I held Parrish’s hand and looked deeply into his storm gray eyes. “If you want the ring back, I’ll understand.”

“No,” he said. “I want you to keep it. Besides, there’s no one else for me.”

Aw. A tear welled in my eye, and I was completely ready to risk Sebastian’s wrath and try inviting Parrish in, when I heard the moaning.

Teréza stood about fifty feet away, swaying in the ankle-deep snow piled near the edge of the road. “Oh, God,” I murmured.

“What in heaven’s name is that?” Parrish asked. His head moved in sympathy to her rocking, and I was starting to get seasick watching the both of them.

“A vampire zombie. A vambie? A zompire? Anyway, it’s Teréza, Sebastian’s . . . well, Mátyás’s mom.”

“Who’s Mátyás?”

“Sebastian’s son.”

“Ah, I see.” After a moment’s consideration, Parrish added, “The man you prefer comes with a surprising number of extraneous family members.”

Parrish had a point, and I was definitely starting to see the downside of that. Teréza lurched forward.

Like a gentleman, Parrish put his body between Teréza and me. She hissed at him, like something out of a B movie. Parrish frowned down at her, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “She seems rather harmless,” he noted, as she continued to make booga-booga noises at him.

I cowered helplessly behind his back. I peeped around his torso, and Teréza lunged at me. Her fingernails raked my cheeks. Parrish used that super-ninja speed of his to grab her wrist in his hand. She squeaked. He held her firmly, casually. “Your vambie is unimpressive,” he said.

Teréza made a few swipes at me, but Parrish deftly kept her from reaching me.

“Don’t underestimate her,” I said. “She’s a witch.”

As if in response to my words, Parrish let go of her like his hand was on fire. Actually, it was. Bright whitish yellow flames leaped from his fingers and palm. He stared at it, horrified. I could smell burning flesh. Teréza made a grab for me, but I ducked. Grabbing a handful of snow in my mitten, I quickly pressed it into Parrish’s hand. Teréza snarled, as she came around again for another attack. I watched her warily as I continued to dump snow on Parrish ’s still-burning hand. Our eyes met. I thought Teréza was going to make another jump at me, but she held her fingernails up to her lips and licked them, as though licking my blood from her fingers. Then she blew me a kiss. Lilith sparkled under my skin and began to rise in defense—to what, I wasn’t sure. I felt myself begin to surrender to Lilith’s control. But just before I lost consciousness, Teréza winked. A moment later, she disappeared. I almost got magical whiplash from the speed at which Lilith retreated back into me. I turned my attention back to Parrish. The skin on his hand had puckered and swelled. My astute medical opinion was, “That looks bad.”

“Hurts like a sonuvabitch, too,” Parrish said with a weak smile. I could tell it really did pain him. Hospital was out of the question. The guy was a two -hundred-year-old vampire. They wouldn’t know what to do with his physiology. “Will it get better? I mean, like, soon?”

He shook his head. “Takes time.”

“Should we wrap it or something?”

“That would be helpful,” he agreed.

So I needed to get him into the farmhouse. Problem was, Benjamin the killer ghost would fricassee another vampire in Sebastian’s house.

“Hang on,” I said. I ran up the drive to the door. I put my hand on the ward and opened the door with my key. Stepping over the threshold, I felt the heat of the interior on my cheeks. “Benjamin?” I called softly. “I need to let another vampire in for a moment. He’s a friend, he . . .”

The lights flickered.

“It’ll only be for a second.”

A lamp tipped over and smashed onto the floor.

“Okay, I’ll just get what I need.” I ran upstairs to the bathroom. In the cabinet, I found some gauze and medical tape. I grabbed them, even as I felt a cold breath at my neck. “He was burned,” I told Benjamin. “By Teréza.”

The atmosphere changed instantly. The cold at my neck disappeared and was replaced by a pleasant warmth. I got the sense Parrish would be welcome. Apparently Benjamin disliked Teréza more than the idea of another vampire.

“Should I go get him? Bring him in?”

Nothing broke or flickered. That seemed like a good sign. I grabbed the stuff and bounded down the stairs.

“I think you can come in,” I told Parrish.

Parrish appeared at the door using that freaky undead speed again. “Shouldn’t you be more formal?”

“Like you really need that,” I muttered. I knew he didn’t. Previously, he had a tendency to break into my apartment on a regular basis. “Please come in, Daniel Parrish,” I said. “But only tonight.”

He snorted, “A caveat, I see.”

“Like any of it matters,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “You don’t really need an invite. Do you?”

Parrish gave me an I’ll-never-tell-you smile. Cradling his hand, he stepped in the door. He looked around the room slowly, no doubt taking in the multitude of books and expensive furniture. “Well,” he sniffed, plopping himself down on the suede sofa. “Isn’t this cozy?”

Yeah, he was jealous. He might have the accent, but Parrish was never aristocracy. In life, he had been a carriage robber, a highwayman. I could almost see the dollar signs in his eyes as his gaze calculated the value of each object in the room. The books must have baffled him. I’m not sure Parrish had ever learned to read beyond a sixth grade level, if that. Barney, who had always been fond of Parrish, came out from wherever she’d been hiding and plopped herself down in his lap. He reached down with his uninjured hand to pet her. She purred loudly.

Benjamin rustled the curtains. He might have decided to let Parrish stay, but apparently he wanted me to know that if Barney liked Parrish, he most certainly did not. I shook my head at the absurdity of the ghost ’s rivalry with my cat. “Let me see your hand,” I said to Parrish.

Parrish offered me his hand. The skin of his fingers and palms had puffed up and seemed weepy and wet. His hand was an angry red mess. “I’m afraid to touch it,” I said.

The door opened. Cold air rushed in, and I looked up to see Sebastian frowning at the tableau of me kneeling before Parrish. I stood up quickly, despite how guilty it made me look. Before Sebastian could even open his mouth, I said, “I can explain.”

Sebastian’s eyes strayed to the shards of broken vase on the rug, and his frown deepened. His jaw flexed, but he turned to hang up his coat. “Okay,” he said.

“Teréza was here,” I said. Touching my cheek where Teréza’s fingernails had scratched, I continued quickly. “She attacked me and burned Parrish with her magic.”

“It’s true,” Parrish said, standing up. “I’d come to congratulate you both on your upcoming nuptials.”

“I’ll bet you had,” Sebastian’s voice was tight with anger.

Parrish ignored his tone. Though he closed it, Sebastian stood at the door with snow melting on his boots. I hadn ’t moved either. I held the gauze and tape outstretched in my hands as if to say, “Here’s proof my intentions were innocent.” Parrish was the only one of us who managed to look the least bit comfortable. Though he cradled his injured hand close to his chest, the other stroked Barney. She stood on the arm of the couch and bumped her cheek against his knuckles, undaunted after having been dumped off his lap when he’d stood up suddenly.

“The zompire is quite the creation,” Parrish said. “Yours, I take it?”

“The what?” Sebastian said, looking to me for explanation.

I was about to answer, when Parrish said, “Zompire. Or do you prefer vambie?” A bit of an evil smile quirked at the edge of Parrish’s lips as he spoke. “I take it you had some trouble turning that one?”

“It’s no joking matter,” Sebastian snapped.

“No, I imagine not,” Parrish said. “An undead wife makes marriage a bit complicated, doesn’t it?”

“That’s none of your business,” Sebastian said, taking a step forward. “And we were never married.”

“Ah, so the child is a bastard,” Parrish said casually, as though he were remarking on the color of the curtains. Sebastian momentarily started, as though slapped, but then quickly regained his composure enough to offer a wry smile that implied he might be inclined to agree, but he wasn’t willing to give Parrish the point. “Keep my family out of this,” he said. “You’re uninvited, nightwalker. I suggest you leave.”

I cleared my throat. “Uh, actually, technically I invited him in.” Sebastian’s face tightened as though he’d suddenly contracted a headache. I moved to quickly take Sebastian’s hand. “Look, honey, Parrish just needs to bandage his hand. Then he’s leaving.”

Parrish flashed me a hurt expression as if I’d all but chucked him out into the snow on the spot. I gave him the what-did-youwant-me-to-say? eyebrow quirk in return. Sebastian glanced at Parrish’s wound. “It looks bad. I served as a medic in World War Two,” he said, taking the bandages and tape from me. “I’ll dress it for you.”

Parrish offered his hand, though there was a trace of sarcasm in his tone as he said, “You’re a true gentleman, sir.”

Sebastian snorted but gently inspected the burn. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped it in a clean bandage. “You’re a fool to come here,” he said, as he taped off a very neat turn of gauze. “You have no claim to Garnet.”

“Yet your heart is divided,” he said quietly as he admired Sebastian’s ministrations.

“No, it’s not,” Sebastian said, looking directly at me.

The intensity of Sebastian’s look made my heart flutter. Despite myself, I doubted him a little. I knew Sebastian loved me, but Teréza was more than just some past fling. She was his son’s mother.

Parrish’s nod was curt. “I see. Well, I look forward to the ceremony. I wish you both well.” He tipped an imaginary hat and made his way to the door. With his hand on the knob, he paused. Over his shoulder, Parrish said, “A medic in the Second World War? Hitler was an Austrian, too, wasn’t he?”

Sebastian stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “I believe you were leaving.”

Parrish nodded knowingly. “Well, then, good night to you both.”

Sebastian was agitated the rest of the night. Over a
midnight snack of peppermint ice cream with hot fudge, I told him all the gory details of my encounter with Teréza. He nodded absently as he cleared the dishes. In bed, after we’d changed and done all our settling in rituals, he finally said, “I want you to know I was never a Nazi.”

“I never thought you were, Sebastian,” I said quite honestly. In fact, I tended to forget that Sebastian had actually lived through things I’d only skimmed over in my high school history textbook.

“I fought in Africa with Rommel.”

I blinked at him.

“The Desert Fox,” he tried.

It still wasn’t ringing any bells. I stretched my knowledge of the events of World War Two, until I had a vague inkling. “That would make you on the wrong side, wouldn’t it? I thought you just said . . .”

“Things are more obvious in hindsight,” he said, perching on the edge of the bed. He wore blue and green flannel pajama bottoms. I could see the scar from the sword that pierced his heart. “If I had known . . .” He shook his head. “I thought . . . the economy, you see. National pride . . . I never saw. . . . No. No. There are no excuses.”