In the Dark (25 page)

Well, whoever
had taken my parking spot, we were about to meet. I straightened my
shirt, checked myself over for stray drops of blood, and headed for
the door. Cool, confident, and ready to grab Amanda and run.

She had propped
herself up on the couch in the living room, picking idly at her
beat-up old fender guitar, purple hair slowly parading down her face.
Gypsy hunkered behind the living room couch, eyes bright, fur puffed
up. She didn’t care for strangers.

“Who’s
here?” I asked, taking it from Amanda’s posture that the
visitor probably wasn’t a threat.

“Hey.”
Amanda looked at me upside-down at me from her spot. “Some guy.
Said he was family.”

My middle
clenched. The only family Kent could possibly have would be other
vampires.

“I figured
it’d be okay to let him in,” Amanda went on, then paused,
unsure. She must have seen my face. “I mean, with me here and
all, just to look around. Is that cool?”

I nodded
vaguely, watching the door to Kent’s studio. A small sound came
from inside. Like something being picked up. Or set down.

“That is
okay, right?” Amanda asked.

A tall, slim
body came to the door of Kent’s studio. He wore a dark suit,
brown hair pulled into a yuppie-tail, with a square jaw and the kind
of classically handsome features you expect to see on a star
quarterback in college. I recognized the face as soon as I saw it. I
had no idea who he was, but I’d seen him before. It was the
handsome man from Kent’s yellow, tattered photos. Kent had
quite a few shots of him.

“You must
be Ian.” His voice was smooth and deep. His eyes were shot
through with red, like he hadn’t slept well recently. Or like a
vampire who’d been crying.

I bobbed my head
cautiously, eyes still wide. “And you are . . . ?”

“Alec,”
he replied. “Alec DuMond.”

That told me
absolutely nothing. I had never heard the name before. A vampire.
That was all I had on him.

Amanda watched
us, her face going back and forth between us. I kept my eyes on
Mister DuMond. Who knew what he wanted, or why he’d come here?
Hell, he might not even really be Kent’s family. But then why
would Kent have so many photos of him?

More
shape-changing?

That made me
look him over again, more carefully this time. As if I could tell by
looking. All I saw was a guy in an expensive suit.

No, you’re
being paranoid. Sebastian’s never heard of it, there can’t
be that many. Besides, if he meant trouble, he would have tackled me
and Amanda both by now.

Comforting
thought.

He made an
amused face. “You’re jumpy.”

“Shouldn’t
I be?” I asked. “Coming home to strangers in your house
would make you jumpy, wouldn’t it?”

His eyebrows
twitched in surprise before his face darkened. “You have no
idea who I am, do you?”

I crossed my
arms. Amanda kept watching, like this was a movie. The red in Alec’s
eyes welled up, then faded away. He turned to go back into the
studio. I followed after him. It seemed the best way to have a few
words with him without Amanda getting a premature earload.

“Jen?”
she said after me.

I held a finger
up over my shoulder. “Wait there.”

In the studio, I
found him squatting beside Kent’s favorite guitar, studying it.
That bothered me. It belonged to Kent, not him.

“Look,”
I began in a low voice, “I don’t mean to be hostile,
really. I’ve had a rough week and I have no idea who you are. I
assume you talked Amanda into letting you in?

“I do have
a key,” he said, as if I’d insulted him.

“You have
a key?” I repeated. “To my house?”

“Indeed.
In case of an emergency, which I would say has occurred.”

Something in the
way he said that made me shift my weight and stare at him.
Irrationally, I wondered if he’d stolen it.

He sighed. “Ian,
I’m your older brother.” Like he resented having to tell
me.

“I don’t
have any brothers,” I said. But what he meant had already
popped into my mind. In flashing neon lights.

He sighed again,
as if nothing else in his entire life had ever annoyed him more. I
frowned. I didn’t know why, but he made me want to keep an eye
on the silverware.

“Still
thinking like a human,” he murmured, running his hand over
Kent’s guitar strings. They thrummed. I clenched my jaw to keep
from snapping at him. “Your mother and father didn’t
copulate to conceive me,” he said in a pained tone. “Kent
made me, the same as he made you.”

I knew that.
When he said it out loud it felt like a brick to the head, but I knew
it.

He glanced the
room over, avoiding my eyes. “I’m not surprised he didn’t
tell you.”

“When?”
I asked.
And where have you been all this time? And why didn’t
Kent say anything to me about you? And why aren’t you surprised
he didn’t?

“Eighteen
fifty-three,” he said. “He was about eighty or ninety
then, I forget which.”

The way he
shrugged and turned away when he said that put me off.
He knows
exactly how old Kent was,
I realized.
He’s pretending
they weren’t that close.

Eighty or
ninety. Kent was two hundred and twenty-five now, including his
mortal years – well, would have been. What the hell had Kent
been up to the last two centuries?

“How many
more of us are there?” I managed.

“Oh, don’t
get too distressed,” Alec said airily. “Just you and
myself, little sister. Kent never really got into procreation.”

I put my hand to
the wall to help hold myself up. No others. Okay, good. But Alec was
still one more than I’d expected.

“Why
didn’t he ever tell me about you?”

The red seeped
back into Alec’s eyes. He touched one, delicately, and dropped
his hand. “We didn’t part on good terms.”
Pretending it didn’t hurt. Now I really didn’t like him.

“What does
that mean?”

He gave me a
black look. I stood my ground, staring back. He sighed and dropped
his eyes, though he made the gesture seem more annoyed than
submissive.

“It means
just that. Do you need anything else from me?” His tone was
concise. He meant, “I don’t want to talk any more, go
away.” I didn’t either. I shook my head to myself and
turned to leave the room.

He made a small
noise and went back to sorting through Kent’s things. I wanted
to tell him to stop, but if he really was Kent’s other . . .
child, I couldn’t. I didn’t like him, but I believed him.

I wandered back
out into the living room and bumped into Amanda’s curious face.

“Who is
he?” she asked, aiming a look at the studio doorway. “Kent’s
brother, or something?”

She glanced back
at me. I had lifted a hand to wipe my eyes.

“You’re
bleeding,” she said, not quite concerned yet.

I sighed, shooed
her back onto the couch, and dropped into a chair. The clock on the
kitchen wall said it was almost midnight. Sunrise wasn’t till
seven this time of year. Few good hours left to the night. Amanda
kicked her legs up over the arm of the couch.

“We need
to talk,” I said. “I just wanna wait until Mister
Drop-in-out-of-nowhere takes off.”

“It’s
late. I had a long drive in. Can’t it wait till morning?”

“No. It
can’t.”

She pushed hair
out of her eyes with a ringed hand. “Is it that important?”

“Yes, it
really is.”

With a sigh, she
stretched, then stopped and looked at me. I must have been wearing
some awful face. Her eyes widened.

“You all
right?” she asked. “You look like your face is bleeding.”

Ah. That.

“It is.
But I’m fine.” I wanted to tell her it was just a couple
tears, that I was stressed and she could expect me to cry a little.
The words stopped somewhere in my throat. My stomach balled up at the
same time. Where did that come from? Had Kent’s drilling taken
that deep in me?

“You
sure?” Amanda asked. “You look kinda rough.”

“Yeah, I’m
sure. I just need to talk to you, okay?”

She shrugged.
“Yeah, sure, that’s what I came for, right?” She
stretched again, long, wiry arms over her head, back arched. Not a
relaxed stretch, a nervous one. Something to do. I waited for her to
finish. “So, what’s up?”

I pointed over
my shoulder, back towards where Alec DuMond poked through my best
friend’s things. Amanda’s eyebrows raised. At first I
thought she meant she got it, but she kept looking over my shoulder.

“I take it
you’re too busy to chat with me,” Alec said from the
hall. He leaned in the doorway like he belonged there, the corners of
his mouth twitched up in amusement. I frowned. I hadn’t noticed
him there. He pushed himself away from the wall while we stared at
him, real slow and graceful. Putting on a show. “I just wanted
to let you know I’m leaving for now. I’ll be back later.
Perhaps we can talk then?” He raised an eyebrow, and I knew he
meant, “we
will
talk then.”

“We’ll
see,” I said.

“You might
like to know what I have to tell you.”

I locked my eyes
on his, going for a Sebastian expression. “We’ll see.”

His lips turned
up a little more. “Well. I suppose we will. Good night Ian.
Amanda.” And he left.

This was Kent’s
other child? The one he’d chosen before me? I glared after
Alec. Maybe he deserved a chance, maybe I should get to know him
before judging him, but my first impression was “douche bag.”

Once I heard his
car start and pull away, I turned back to Amanda. She raised her
eyebrows in a “well?” expression.

My chest
tightened. I choked on anything I’d been about to say.

“You said
you needed to talk to me?” she pressed when I didn’t
speak up.

“I . . . I
need to tell you. About what’s been going on here.”

Her face tensed,
preparing for bad news. She couldn’t possibly prepare for what
I had to say.

“There’s
a reason I moved in here with Kent, why I never come home to visit
for more than a few hours,” I went on, backing myself into a
corner so I’d have to tell her.

Amanda nodded,
slowly, waiting for me to say it. I wondered what she expected.
Drugs? Violence?

“Have you
noticed that our bedrooms are downstairs? With no windows? Have you
noticed that I always visit after dark?” I said it all
carefully, hoping she’d read into it, figure something out so I
wouldn’t have to say it.

Yeah, sure.
It’s the obvious answer, after all. Right Ian.

She nodded,
puzzled. “Yeah. I just figured you were a vampire.”

It caught me off
guard. I flinched before I realized – she didn’t mean it
literally. She thought it was a metaphor that meant I loved the
night.

“All
right,” I said, like she’d said something profound. “All
right. What does that mean to you?”

She frowned.
“What’s it supposed to mean?”

“Just tell
me what it means to you.” My hands tightened over the arms of
my chair. “Then I’ll keep talking, okay?”

She shifted on
the couch. “Look, Ian, I noticed the fangs, okay? I don’t
wanna know how much you paid for ’em, but I think they look
good. I always figured you and Kent were into the whole
blood-night-vampire thing, so you aren’t going to shock me by
telling me you drank Kent’s blood, or he drank yours or
anything. Those teeth look sharp enough to do it. I’m not here
to talk about your lifestyle. I came because your best friend just
died, and I’m your sister and I care about you. Okay?”
Her eyes avoided me. It had taken her some effort to accept the
blood-night-vampire thing. But she was trying.

I nodded, my
fangs inching over my lower lip. It had been easier to tell her when
I was dating Delana. Hell, it would be easier to tell her I lived
like a vampire then to tell her I really was one. She reached out and
wiped some half-dried blood from one of my cheeks.

“Just –
Christ, Jen, don’t tell me you’re one of those freaks who
hunts down strangers to drink blood, huh? I’ve heard of people
who are into that, and they scare the hell out of me.”

I wiped my face
off, hard.

Oh, boy.

“I need to
talk to you about that,” I said. “I guess . . . I guess
you should know.”

“Oh, God,
Jen, what did you do?” She sounded afraid and frustrated at the
same time.

At least I could
reassure her that much. I was not some freaky mortal playing out some
freaky fantasy. The words came out as if I’d spat them loose.

“I died.”

A
manda’s
eyebrows shot about two inches up. Then she laughed, the light,
stilted laugh of someone who doesn’t think you’re very
funny. I sat still, waiting for her to settle down and listen. It
took her a second, shaking her head at me and letting that half-laugh
die. And then we sat and stared at each other. I didn’t smile.
Hers faded as she looked at me.

“You
aren’t kidding, are you?” she said, her voice so tiny I
almost didn’t hear.

I shook my head,
not really sure I could speak.

“Jen –”
she started.

My voice came
back suddenly. “Ian,” I said firmly. “Jen died
almost four years ago.”

Her face
blanked. I’d shot over her head. I pressed my lips together a
moment, gathering my thoughts. “I’m still your older
sister,” I said. “I’m still the same person. I just
died four years ago. That’s all.”

That’s
all.

I remembered my
own death, vivid in my mind like it had happened ten minutes ago. The
intense pleasure giving way to suffocating pain. Gasping for air. My
body on fire. It
hurt.
I tried to tell Kent I couldn’t
do it, I changed my mind,
stop.
But I couldn’t speak,
and the world had already started fading.