In the Dark (16 page)

So I stayed on
the couch. With Emily.

Now that I had
her here, alone and confident that she did want more from me than
friendship, I didn’t know what to say. She had her eyes on her
knees, her face sad. I wanted to draw her eyes to me somehow, but all
that would come to mind were lines – things I could do or say
to seduce her. I didn’t want that. Or rather I did, but not
like when I fed from strangers in clubs. I wanted to talk, to hold
her, listen to her woes and tell her mine. I wanted to make that sad
face go away.

“All
right?” I asked, easing a hand up to touch her arm.

She lifted her
head to look at me, her rich brown eyes tired and in pain. I felt my
own mouth tug down in sympathy and squeezed her shoulder.

“I’m
scared.” She reached up and set a hand over mine on her
shoulder.

“Me too.”
I didn’t say more. I didn’t know what would come out if I
tried to talk about it.

Emily took her
hand from mine and set it on my cheek. It felt very warm, and very
soft. I could smell a hint of scent on her wrist; sandalwood, I
thought. Her eyes flicked away for a second, then came back up to
mine after her cheeks had colored just a shade.

Adorable. If
only our budding flirtation hadn’t happened in the middle of
all this shit.

“Emily, I
understand if you don’t –” I started, but she
touched a finger to my lips and shushed me. I shushed and waited.

She kissed me.

A very light
kiss, very brief. Everything in my mind flew out. She opened her lips
a fraction, just enough to close over my lower lip before she leaned
away. My eyes opened. She watched me, her brown eyes sparkling.

If she’d
wanted to distract me, that did it. The only thing on my mind now was
how she tasted – clean, salty, just a hint of cinnamon –
and an urge for more.

I replied to her
kiss with one of my own, soft at first. She accepted with a hunger
that surprised me – delightfully so. Her tongue slid into my
mouth, running along my fangs to leave a sweet trail of blood. I slid
my hands under her shirt and pulled her to me, kissing her hard. She
gave a little sigh against my mouth –

“Ian, do
you know why he’s so –” Josephine’s voice
stopped suddenly, like she regretted even speaking at all. I jerked
back from Emily like a kid caught playing doctor. Josephine looked at
a wall, a little embarrassed.

Emily didn’t
move away from me. She looked up at Josephine, one arm around my
shoulders, as if we hadn’t done anything wrong.

We haven’t,
I realized, too late to undo my guilty kid act.

“He’s
got a lot on his mind tonight,” I said, answering Josephine’s
unfinished question.

“Ah,”
she said. “Well, I should leave him to it, then. Shall I meet
you at home, Emily?”

Emily looked
back up at her, considering, then back to me, her brown eyes no
longer sparkling. “No, I’ll come along,” she said
to Josephine. She leaned close to press her forehead against mine.
“She misses Evan terribly –” she paused. Swallowed.

I didn’t
let her keep talking. “It’s all right. I’ll see you
later. You go keep her company.”

The smile I got
for saying that was worth losing her for the rest of the night.
“Tomorrow?” she asked, face still close to mine. “Around
eight? We could maybe go out somewhere . . .”

She was asking
me on a date. A real date.

I nodded. For
that I got another kiss and another smile.

She got up
before I wanted her to, brushing her fingertips against my cheek.
“Tomorrow,” she said again, and turned to leave with
Josephine.

Josephine didn’t
say anything, but she gave me a knowing little smile before they got
on the elevator. I ducked my head, and then the doors slid shut,
leaving me alone.

Well, I had
Sebastian. Back in his dojo, swinging a big stick or whatever he did
to relieve tension. I sat on the couch a long time, staring at the
elevator, thinking of the feel of Emily’s lips against mine.
The memory made me smile.

Tomorrow seemed
so far away all of a sudden. I sighed and swung my feet off the couch
to go to my room. Better start amusing myself now. I still had that
portrait of Sebastian to work on. Maybe I could chase Gypsy around
this mansion that pretended to be an apartment. I got up and headed
back, my footsteps the only sound in the place. Back in my room, I
grabbed up my pad and flopped down on the bed.

I did not do
such a great job focusing on my art. I drew a little, then drifted
off into a wonderful daydream that involved Emily and not a lot of
clothing.

“I would
not recommend it,” Sebastian said. I nearly jumped right off
the bed.

He stood in the
doorway of the guest room, arms crossed, face blank. I thought about
snarking at him for startling me, then decided that would go over his
head. Or invite him to make a creepy joke.

“It?”
I repeated instead.

His eyes flicked
meaningfully back toward the living room. My eyebrows shot up. “I
have seen enough things in my life, Ian, to know when two people are
attracted to each other. I would not recommend it."

I blinked. He
knew. There was no dancing around the subject, no decision to come
out, just boom. He knew.

His eyes flashed
a silent laugh. “You seem surprised.”

“A
little,” I confessed, and looked down at my drawing to look
away from him. “How did you – I mean, am I that obvious?
How did you –”

“You are
not the first woman interested in other women I have met, Ian, nor
are you the most proficient actor. I am advising you against forming
an attachment to her.”

“Why?”

“Humans
are fragile things.” His voice went suddenly soft. Just
slightly. “Vampires are not. If you care for her, you won’t
pursue a relationship with her.”

“You think
I’d hurt her?”

His eyes
darkened. “Not intentionally, certainly. But yes.”

That had not
occurred to me. But as sincere as Sebastian sounded, I couldn’t
picture it. Me hurting her. Me hurting anyone. I shook my head.

“It is
only my opinion,” he said, in the hard voice that I’d
come to know again. “Take it for what you will.”

I looked down at
my drawing pad again, at the pencil Sebastian silhouetted in the
pencil doorway. At his face. The far away face I’d glimpsed on
him for just one second when I’d asked him if he was happy. I
bit my lip, then looked back up at him in my real doorway.

“Sebastian
–”

He wasn’t
there. I hadn’t heard so much as a swish of fabric. I stared at
the empty doorway, then sighed. I’d sort of wanted to see him
in the doorway like I’d drawn him, to see if I’d gotten
all the details right.

And I’d
wanted to ask him about why he thought I’d hurt Emily. Why he
said humans were fragile things. See if maybe he’d talk about
whatever had been eating at him earlier.

I waited to see
if he’d come back. When he didn’t, I shook my head and
went back to my drawing.

I
sat up out of bed with a gasp, certain for one horrible second that I
hadn’t woken up, that I hadn’t been dreaming and it was
all real.

With another
gasp, I realized I was sitting in bed, awake. Just a nightmare. For
another, equally horrible second, I felt incredible relief. Kent
hadn’t
been murdered, it was all part of the bad . . .
dream.

No. That part
was real.

Gypsy blinked up
at me, all sleepy-eyed adoration. I rubbed her head between her ears.
The nightmare slowly lost substance, became a thinner type of memory
than real-life.

I had watched a
faceless creature stalk and kill first Evan, then Kent, then Emily,
all one right after the other, then turn around and come after me. It
had a wide, smooth skin patch where a face should have been –
with two glowing red pinpricks for eyes and ice-pick long fangs in a
thin slit of a mouth. A vampire, definitely. As soon as I thought
that, it turned into Sebastian, chasing me through downtown Seattle
with that huge sword of his, the whole time telling me to trust him,
while he cut down the people we passed on the streets. They fell
screaming and moaning, bleeding more than real people would, until
the blood covered the sidewalk and I slipped on it, falling to my
knees and thinking –

–
I’m
going to die –

Just before the
sword came down on my neck, I woke up. Thinking about the dream now,
I saw the symbols of my waking-world fears. Maybe the dream didn’t
make a whole lot of sense, but it didn’t have to make sense to
scare the shit out of me.

I scratched
Gypsy’s chin. She lifted her head to let me get a better angle.
“I’m scared,” I told her. She purred.

Sebastian wanted
to use me as bait. Set me up and wait for them to come and get me,
and hope that he could stop them from succeeding.

If he couldn’t
save me, I felt certain he’d avenge me.

I snorted. Gypsy
opened her eyes to give me a questioning look. I gave her one more
good chin-scratching, then got up. I wanted nothing more than to hide
under the covers until my enemies went away, but I couldn’t do
that. Hiding was no kind of life. And I doubted they would simply go
away if they couldn’t find me.

Gypsy got up
with me, heading straight to the two bowls I’d set down for her
food and water. I chuckled at her.

“The only
thing you fear is an empty stomach,” I told her, and filled her
dish for her. She happily stuffed her face in the food. I left her to
it, going to pick clothes for the night. Some nice clothes. Because
Emily would be over later.

My fangs inched
over my lower lip, dragging across it slowly, leaving a thin little
welt that didn’t quite break open and bleed. I was still
hungry. More so thinking about her – this was
steal-it-with-a-kiss hungry, not like the other night when I’d
needed to open a real vein and take a few mouthfuls.

I dumped my
duffel bag out on the bed, surveyed my options, and sighed. I had a
few nice enough things along, but nothing really wow. Then again,
this was a first date. Did I want wow, or just nice?

No choice.
Decision’s been made.

I pulled out a
low-cut wrap-around shirt in dark green, with a set of tight black
slacks to go with. It would have to do. I thought about trying to do
something with my hair besides the usual bun, then remembered all I’d
brought with to Sebastian’s was a brush and my hair chopsticks.
Decision made. I got dressed and did my hair, shoved the rest of my
things into my duffel, and left Gypsy in my room curling back up on
the bed.

Sebastian had
the little TV on in the living room again, standing in front of it
with his arms crossed. Watching the news. I came in and stood beside
him, watching little black-and-white people talk about local events
in tinny voices. A break-in here, a fire there, a high school girl
won an award for helping the elderly. Sebastian leaned forward and
flipped the set off when they started on the sports.

“Hi,”
I said.

“Good
evening.”

I nodded my head
towards the set. “Keeping up with current events?”
Personally, I couldn’t imagine being five hundred years old and
giving a damn about current events.

“Looking
for coincidences.”

He didn’t
have to say what kind of coincidences. I looked at the blank screen
and swallowed.

“Any
luck?” I asked.

“No.”

I felt a stupid,
shaking, giggling relief at that, and had to yell at myself in my
head.
That means they’re still out there, moron.

I swallowed
again to keep my composure, nodding at his answer. “Ah.”
I didn’t want him to find either of these women because then it
meant I’d have to face them. Have to face him really killing
one, like when he took that girl behind the club. Only this time it
would really happen.

And if he found
them, maybe they would kill him first and come and get me.

“I assume
you expect Emily some time this evening?” he asked, utterly
derailing my train of thought. It took me a second to catch up with
his question.

“Yeah,
she’s coming over tonight. I’m not sure exactly when. Is
that all right?”

He lifted one
shoulder in an indifferent shrug. His blue eyes stayed flat, agreeing
with the gesture. He honestly didn’t care. “I still say
it is unwise. But I have given my opinion and the choice, in the end,
is not mine.”

That song and
dance again. That I might hurt her, because I was a vampire and she
wasn’t. It baffled me that he could even think that about me. I
had to be the biggest wimp known to human kind.

“I
appreciate what you’re trying to say,” I said, “but
it just doesn’t apply. I’m not going to hurt her. I would
never hurt anyone.”

“You will
live long enough to test that statement.”

This had gone
far enough into the creepy zone for me. I opened my mouth tell him
so, but his eyes caught me. Made me stop cold.

He meant it. He
meant it in a way I could never understand.

I nodded slowly.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Sebastian looked
away from me. “I assume you’ll be leaving with her?”

“If . . .
if that’s okay, I’d like to.”

He shrugged
again. “I would not advise it, but it is your decision. I would
like to know where you intend to go.”

I scuffed a foot
against the hardwood floor. Where did I intend to go? To a movie?
Dancing? Dinner? Going out anywhere didn’t seem terribly safe.
But I didn’t want to stay in Sebastian’s apartment, where
he’d listen in on everything we said. Or did.

“Probably
just down the street for drinks,” I said finally. “That’d
be safe enough, right?”

Another shrug.
“As you like.”