In the Dark (12 page)

I had finished
out the basics: outline, hints of shadows, bits of detail that needed
defining. I considered the drawing as it was so far, then settled in
to add those definitions. Leaned back with the sketchbook propped
against my knees, I let the tip of the pencil hover over the eyes.

A phone rang.

I jumped a clear
foot and a half in the air and landed shaking. The phone rang again.

I swore at
myself. It was the phone on the little table near the elevator. A
courtesy phone, most likely. I stalked over to it and picked it up.

“Mr. Cain,
please?” a young male voice said.

I checked back
down the hall. No sign of him. “He’s . . . indisposed.”

“Are you
his house guest?” the voice continued politely.

“Uh . . .
yes. Can I help you?”

“This is
the lobby attendant. Misses Josephine and Emily Gray are here. Will
you send the elevator down for them?”

Phew. Was that
all? “Tell me what to do.”

He did. I
thanked him and hung up.

On the wall by
the elevator, the call button lit up with a soft, rosy glow as
promised. I got up and pressed it, then waited. Sure enough, a minute
later, the doors slid open and there they stood.

“Hey, how
are you?” I said as they came in.

“Good
evening,” Sebastian said from the other side of the room. I
jumped again.

“Hello,
Sebastian,” Josephine said demurely. “I can’t thank
you enough for this.”

“Yes,
thank you,” Emily echoed. She shrank in behind Josephine.

“Thank
Ian,” he said. “She was the one who felt it necessary to
include you. You may thank me when this has been solved.”

They both
glanced at me, not quite sure what to do or say. I gave them a short
smile. I’d sort of expected Sebastian to just take the credit
for changing his mind.

“Please,”
he went on, “sit. We must talk.”

They did, with
an air of tension.

“Ian, some
privacy?” Sebastian said to me. “I need to speak with
Josephine about Evan, and perhaps on subjects that will make her
uncomfortable.”

I shrugged,
picked up my drawing things and left. I would have liked to have
listened in, but I understood some kind of need for privacy. Besides,
once I let myself into my room and took another look at the rough, I
had to admit I did like this drawing. If I could keep my
concentration on my work, I thought it would flesh out nicely. I
settled on the bed on my stomach, eraser in my mouth, sharpener
within reach, and went back to pondering Sebastian’s face.

It was some time
later when I spat out my eraser and looked for my sharpener, thinking
of adding some more creases and shadows to the coat. As I lifted my
head, I just barely noticed someone in the doorway. I gasped and
jerked my head up – Emily. She stood very still, watching me
with a smile tugging her mouth.

“You do
that so well,” she said, ignoring my surprise.

I let out a
breath and tried to relax.

“Been
drawing a while,” I said. My voice barely shook.

She smiled at
me. A warm, eyes-lingering sort of smile. I noticed it and felt a
little mixed up, startled and trying to calm down, drawn in by that
seriously warm and interested look. “I tried to learn, once,”
she said.

My trembles gave
way to her warm expression. I set my pencils aside and sat up.
“Really?”

She nodded,
blond curls tumbling around her face. “I wasn’t very
good. I had a teacher, an old nun, who kept yelling at me. She said
if you couldn’t do something well, you shouldn’t do it at
all. I mean, I know how wrong she was now, but still . . .”

“That kind
of criticism sticks with you.”

“Yeah. I’m
Emily, by the way. We were never introduced.”

I held out my
hand, which she came in to take firmly. “Ian. It’s nice
to know you.” I meant that.

“I didn’t
know Kent had any children,” she continued, apparently happy to
keep talking. She stepped back far enough to lean against the wall
instead of the doorframe.

I started to
answer, then stopped. How much did she know about vampires? To all
appearances, I should have been Kent’s little sister, not his
child.

“I guess
that’s fair,” I said, “cuz I didn’t know
about Josephine or Sebastian or you until the other night.”

“He didn’t
tell you there were others?” She asked as if that surprised
her. She sounded like she knew plenty, but I didn’t intend to
chance anything. The last thing I wanted was Josephine angry at me
because I made assumptions.

“I think
he planned on telling me, just . . .” I didn’t finish.

“Yeah,”
she said.

“Yeah,”
I said, looking at my hands.

I didn’t
want to cry or get upset. I wanted to keep talking to Emily, maybe
flirt a little.

“So you
live with Josephine?” I asked. I sounded distracted.

“Oh, yes,”
she said at once, like she could tell I needed to talk. “For
eight years now. I run errands for her during the day, keep up
appearances, keep her company, that kind of thing.”

And they
share a last name, apparently.

What did that
mean? Were she and Josephine a couple? Related? If they were a
couple, was Emily interested in me or just flirting? If they were
related, would Josephine kill me if I made a move on Emily? I tried
not to fidget.

“Eight
years? That’s a lot of company.” Oh, that sounded dumb. I
might as well club her with a brick.

She laughed, her
head thrown back, her mouth open wide. Laughing at me. I was glad I
couldn’t blush. When she looked back at me, her eyes sparkled.

“Yes,”
she said simply.

“Was that
funny?”

“A little.
Don’t worry about it.” She shifted her weight and tugged
a curtain aside to look out the window. This room had a perfect view
of the mountains. Pretty.

“So how
long were you with Kent?” she asked, turning back to me.

The subtext in
that wasn’t much better than my question. I resisted laughing
at her. At least we were starting out even.

“About
four years,” I said. “Not including how long I knew him
before –” I caught myself before I said “he changed
me,” choked and managed to get out “– before we
moved in together.” I suddenly realized I hadn’t talked
to anyone very intimately since Kent had changed me. I usually kept
conversations to a breezy minimum. Staying in secret and chatting
warmly at the same time would take some practice.

She nodded
faintly. “Are you from Seattle?”

“No, I
moved here from Eugene. Oregon. To go to school, originally. That’s
how I met Kent. I mean, not in school, but after I moved here. At a
poetry reading at Crawl Café. They have them once a week and I
didn’t know anybody, so I figured I’d go by myself and
have a good time.”

“You write
poetry?” She asked with so much interest I wished I could say
yes.

“No,
that’s Kent’s department. Was.” I cleared my throat
and tried not to think about Kent again. But I could see his face so
clearly, the way his words had reached out to me that night. How I
knew I had to talk to him.

“He was so
flattered when I walked up to him.” My vision went red with
tears. I tried to wipe them away discretely, but that only turned my
fingers pink. “I’m sorry.” I tried to turn away.

She set a hand
on my shoulder, stopping me. It was firm. I couldn’t pull away
to hide my eyes. “Come here,” she ordered softly, sitting
on the bed beside me. “It’s okay, you have every right to
cry.”

I hid my face.
Maybe I could plead nosebleed, get to the bathroom where I could let
go and sob.

“You’re
afraid I don’t know,” she said, so matter-of-factly I
froze. Carefully, I peeked between my hands, hoping to see her face
without showing mine. Her expression was sympathetic – knowing.
“You’re fine, you aren’t breaking any rules.”
She tucked her fingers under my chin to turn my face towards hers. “I
know about you, about them.” She gestured back at the living
room.

I almost forgot
how much I wanted to cry. Almost.

“Come
here,” she said, tugging me. I wanted to – I couldn’t
think of a reason to say no. I scooted closer to her. Emily put an
arm around me and pulled me against her shoulder.

“Now,”
she said. “Tell me something about Kent.”

I
didn’t know what to say. There was so much, how
could I sum him up?

“He . . .
I . . . we always . . .” I sighed. Made a helpless gesture in
the air with one hand.

Emily smiled and
pushed my long hair away from my face. “Well, I know how you
two met,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me how he
decided to change you? Then I’d know something about both of
you.”

The shock must
have shown on my face, because she laughed at me, gently. “You
can tell me.”

When I hesitated
still, she pressed her lips together and set one fist on her hip.
“You know how Josephine got changed? She met a woman, a
beautiful woman, who fell in love with her and swept her away.
Lillian stole her from her family and changed her before Josephine
knew what had happened.”

I felt my
eyebrows raise, and then as the words registered, I gawked. A mortal
knew that? About any vampire? Then I had to smile. “Are all
vampires queer?” I asked, half-chuckling.

As if she’d
know,
I thought, too late to take it back.

She took it in
stride, though, laughing that wide-open, happy laugh. “Josephine?
She’s only bi because she’s been around. Blood is blood
after a while. So she says,” she added, in a voice that said
she wasn’t so sure.

“You think
she was a closet case?”

Emily looked at
the ceiling, one hand up defensively. “She says she was
straight as an arrow – Lillian never had a chance. Let’s
just say she hides it well.”

I chuckled while
Emily gave me a grin. “So, how did it happen to you?” she
asked.

Just that little
bit of talk helped. The question didn’t shock me like it had
the first time. In fact, I felt like talking about it – I’d
never told anyone before.

I thought of how
to begin, remembering, and then had to throw my hands up. “He
just asked me one night.” I started laughing. Emily cocked her
head. I nodded. “I thought he was nuts. That he was on drugs,
delusional, something. But I’d known him a while and I didn’t
think he was a druggie or a nut. So I laughed him off. Something
like, ‘oh, is that why I never see you during the day?’
But he just said ‘yes,’ and let it drop. But then he
stayed out with me, you know? Talking about drinking blood, getting
in before the sun came up. That kind of thing. Hearing that stuff
creeped me out at first, but I got used to it.”

I stared at a
carving on the post of my borrowed bed. “I don’t think I
really believed him. And then one day he said, ‘so have you
thought about it any more?’ And I said ‘what?’ And
he said, ‘being a vampire. I was serious when I offered it to
you. You don’t have to accept, but I want you to know I meant
it.’”

I shivered a
little, thinking of his face when he said that. So serious. But so
casual, too, like he wanted an answer about meeting for coffee.

“I don’t
know what finally made me believe him. He was just very honest with
me from the time he told me, but still himself. Like that was all
he’d ever hidden from me, and I knew him, and I knew I could
trust him. So I asked him to tell me about it.”

And he’d
told me some of what to expect, that it might not work, that I had
some time to decide since I was still young and probably wouldn’t
die soon, but that accidents could happen. We talked all night.

I’d
thought to myself,
this is my best friend. I love him so much. How
can I not be part of this with him?
Emily squeezed my shoulder
while tears traced down my cheeks.

“He
answered some questions and explained some things, and just before
the sun came up, I accepted. And he said, ‘go out today. Be in
the sun. Don’t go to bed, no matter how tired you are. Cut
class – you won’t need school anymore anyway. If you have
to sleep, nap on a lawn somewhere out in the sun. Then come here
tonight after the sun sets.’”

I’d done
what he said. I went out in the sun, even though I was tired. I felt
too curious, too excited to sleep, even a little. I stared up into
the sun, leaving dancing purple spots behind my eyelids, wondering if
I would really never see it again. I walked through the campus art
gallery, thinking of never going there again . . . thinking of
everything I might give up. School, my family, my friends –
coffee, sunbathing, food. I’d felt half-awake the whole day,
but I could remember everything I’d done perfectly. And when
the sun finally sank, I had one last cup of coffee and went to his
house.

“And here
I am,” I said.

Emily touched my
face, and through the grief, through the pain, I thrilled to it. Her
fingers raised goosebumps on my skin.

“You must
miss him like a second father,” she said. “I think that’s
why they talk about each other like family. It’s like that,
isn’t it?”

The word “they”
made me pause. I let it go, nodding at her question. “If he
wasn’t a second father, he was an older brother. Always looking
out for me, always letting me make my own mistakes but picking me up
afterward.” I sniffed. “Yeah. I miss him. It’s only
been a couple of days, but I miss him like crazy.”

“Yeah,”
she murmured. “I know.”

The pain in her
voice reminded me why she and Josephine had come in the first place.
I squeezed her shoulders. She had to miss Evan as badly. I wondered
what her relationship to him had been – their names suggested
brother and sister to me, maybe twins. I opened my mouth to ask.

“Ian,
would you join us?” Sebastian’s flat voice cut past mine,
stopping me. He stood in the doorway, framed by the light. Like my
drawing. “Josephine would like to speak with you about what
happened.” He mercifully didn’t elaborate.