In the Dark (3 page)

Shit.

My foot went out
from under me. My teeth cracked together as I sat, hard.

Dammit!
Somebody’s spilled drink . . .

Furious at
whatever idiot had tripped me up, I started to pick myself off the
floor. A familiar smell stopped me.

Blood.

I knew it. The
scent made me faintly hungry. I hadn’t slipped in a drink. I
leaned in for a better look. The liquid gleamed red, but the lighting
of the club turned everything red. I sniffed again – I didn’t
want it to be, begged it not to be – that smell could only be
blood. As I pulled away, the scope of the whole puddle came into my
view. I had to measure it in feet.

Never reveal
yourself, Kent had told me, over and over, and this, I was
hysterically sure, would reveal me. Sitting on the floor beside a
huge puddle of blood obviously meant I was a vampire. I had to get
away.

Before I could,
a dark, red lump caught my attention, lying in the middle of the
giant puddle of blood. It could only be a heart. Nothing so neat and
tidy as a valentine. More like hamburger.

A pig’s
heart?

The thought died
as soon as it came. I knew the sweet-iron smell of blood all too
well, and that wasn’t animal. Animal blood smelled weaker,
saltier.

This wasn’t
human, either, I realized. It smelled too rich. Vampire blood. But
the only vampire here besides me was Kent.

Kent’s
. . . oh, no.
I skittered back from the puddle, choking and
repeating that to myself.
No, no, it can’t be him. It’s
not.

“Oh, my
God!” someone said somewhere above me. The noise startled me,
made my throat clench closed.

Never reveal
yourself!
Kent’s voice drilled in my head.

Woman. Kent.
Blood. Crowd.

Get away.
Get
away!

I scrambled to
my feet and ran.

S
ebastian
stood at the end of the line against the brick wall, arms crossed,
watching. This club frequently offered easy feeding or he would not
have been there. Too crowded. Too loud. He didn’t intend to go
inside. The few people leaving alone gave him plenty of opportunity.

When the girl
came pounding out of the club, eyes wide, he barely glanced at her.
Just long enough to notice that with every other step, she left a red
footprint.

Odd.

He checked her
face, searching for signs. He couldn’t be certain, but she was
pale. He thought he saw the points of two sharpened canines under her
lip.

What could this
be?

Casually, while
people called after her or asked each other questions, Sebastian
pushed away from the brick wall and followed her.

I
ran to the car without looking back. I was sure that if
I let myself, I’d see someone behind me. I could practically
hear footsteps following me. But I made it to the car and no one got
me.

With shaking
hands I felt at my hip, looking for my copy of the car keys –
except I didn’t have them. No pockets. I’d left my keys
at home, on my dresser. Right next to my cell.

“Dammit!”
I slid my hand down my hip again, then again. “Dammit, dammit,
dammit!” I punched the side of the car.

“Something
I can help you with?”

I whirled,
throat closed tight. Someone
had
followed me. A young man,
late teens, maybe; tall, dark blond, and too lovely for his own good
– big blue eyes and delicate features. He wore an utterly bland
expression, watching me freak out.

Running was my
first impulse, followed by the urge to stiff-arm him like they showed
us in Women’s Self-Defense. I got hold of myself before I could
act on either one. He was probably just a curious bystander, looking
out for me. No prob, right? Yeah. Right. Okay.

My breath came
out too hard. I tried to breathe gently.

“No, I
don’t think so,” I lied. “I left my keys at home, I
guess, my roommate and I share this car, so it really is mine, except
he drove here, with me, of course, and he ditched me is all, and I
didn’t figure on him ditching me, so I didn’t bring my
own set, and now I don’t know where he is, you know, probably
with some bimbo or something and I guess I could just call a cab.
Thanks, though.” I heard myself babbling and clamped my teeth
shut. Tried to make it look like a smile.

A small handful
of people peered at me from behind him, all dressed for the Half-Moon
and all watching the show. Just what I needed. An audience.

The kid raised
an eyebrow, a gesture so exquisite that despite everyone staring at
me, despite the craziness going on, I myself taking a long look at
this pretty boy.

Yum. Very pretty
boy.

Except he’s
not buying it.

My throat
tightened again.

He gestured at
my foot. “You look as though you need a doctor or a police
officer to me.”

I followed the
sweep of his hand. Blood. All over my boot. It went up my leg and
ended below my knee.

“No, no,
I’m fine . . .” I faltered.

My mind centered
on one, clean, easy thought:
Run for it.

The kid leaned
closer to me. I leaned away, giving him a glare meant to make him
back off. It didn’t work. Running seemed like a better and
better idea.

He
sniffed.
Eyes pinned to my boot, he sniffed me like a dog.

“Excuse
me!” I shouted, ready to slug him.

Deep blue eyes
came back up, meeting mine and holding me as tight as if he’d
grabbed me.

“I have a
car,” he said mildly. “I could give you a ride. It would
save you cab fare.”

“I don’t
think –”

He smiled. Not a
friendly smile, or a manic grin – no, it wasn’t even a
smile. He’d simply pulled back his lips and I’d mistaken
it for a smile.

Despite having a
pair myself, his fangs shocked me. I jerked away and gasped like an
idiot. He dropped his upper lip and cocked his head at me.

“Sorry,”
I managed. “I never –”

He glanced
around suddenly. Looking around at the people surrounding us. People
watching and listening, wondering about the blood on my boot. I
shifted uneasily and trailed off.

“It is
never wise to accept rides from strangers,” he said, holding my
eyes. I knew what he meant.
Not here.
“I promise you, I
am only out to
help.”

Help? I blinked
once. Did he mean that, or had he said it for the people listening
in? Did he have any idea what I needed help with? Oh, please!

“I . . . I
suppose I could use a lift,” I said.

“This
way,” he said, and turned.

I blinked at his
back. I hadn’t thought Seattle had any other vampires . . .
well, I’d never thought about it. I’d never seen any; why
think about them?

But stranger or
not, vampire or not, he kept walking, and he was all I had. I ran to
catch up.

The car he led
me to belonged in a movie, a sleek, fast-looking thing like an action
hero would drive. Blue-black, the windows tinted too dark to see
inside. It came up to my waist, if that. He remotely unlocked the
doors as we approached. I didn’t realize how bad I’d
started shaking until I watched my hand quake as I reached for the
door. I got in and almost fell into a seat that was just about on the
ground. He started the car and pulled away from the Half-Moon,
leaving curious eyes behind.

“What
happened?”

I blinked,
rubbing at eyes that had started to mist over with blood. “I’m
sorry. I just . . . I’ve never met another . . . another one.
Of us. I didn’t mean to jump. I hope no one noticed.”

“In the
club,” he informed me. “What happened in the club?”

Oh. That.

“Someone
grabbed Kent. There was blood all over the floor, and a heart –”
I looked at my bloody boot. Now it had made a bloody mess on the
floor of his fancy car.

“Did you
see who grabbed Kent?” He was apparently unconcerned about the
blood.

“A woman,”
I told him. “A scary looking woman.”

“Whose
blood was on the floor? You do know the difference between our blood
and mortals’.” He looked at me, the look you give a
little kid when you’re not sure they’ll understand a
question.

“Of course
I do,” I said, a touch defensive.

“Whose was
it?”

“A
vampire’s, I don’t know whose. Why are you leaving the
Half-Moon? Kent’s probably still there. We have to find him, we
have to make sure he’s okay!”

“He is not
likely to be okay,” the young man said. “At this point,
if he is still alive we can do him no good.”

He said it
without any hesitation, so for a second I thought I hadn’t
heard him right.

“No good!”
I yelled. “You turn this car around right now, you hear me?
Now! What do you mean no good?” My fingers clutched the edge of
the seat.

He didn’t
turn the car around. “I mean that if he has lost his heart, he
is dead.”

His words
punched me in the chest, in that sudden way where you know you’ve
been hit but you can’t feel it yet. I waited for him to tell me
he didn’t mean that, or ask what I thought he said.

He didn’t
speak. Just watched me, waiting for me to freak out some more. When I
sat and stared, he turned back to the road. “We can survive
quite a bit, but losing a heart or a head will kill us instantly. If
Kent has lost either, he is dead. I am guessing he has.”

“No, no,
no, no.” I shook my head. “Our hearts . . . I mean, they
don’t even beat. How could that . . . how could he die?”

“I do not
understand it myself,” the boy said in a flat tone. “I
only know that it is true. Heart wounds are fatal.”

I didn’t
say anything to that.

Fatal.

“I’m
going to leave you on the corner here, with the car,” the boy
said. “I’ll be back to pick you up. I’m going to go
back to the club to find out what happened. Do you understand?”

I stared out the
windshield, frozen.
Dead.
It didn’t feel real.

He pulled over
to a side street and parked.

I stayed still.
Dead.

“My name
is Sebastian.” He held out one hand. I took it automatically,
letting him shake my hand. “What’s your name?” he
asked carefully.

“Ian.”
As soon as the word made it out of my mouth, my eyes welled up.
Dead.
No, no, no. I just saw him, he couldn’t be . . .

“Ian,”
the boy repeated, watching me close.

Dead. Gone.
Lifeless. Not coming back.

“I’m
going to leave now,” he said, and I realized he’d said it
before. “I’m going back to the club to look around. Don’t
leave. Understand?”

I gasped and
started breathing. Hard. Sebastian watched me, patiently, almost
curiously.

“He might
be all right?” I choked out. “He might still be alive,
right? Just maybe?”

Sebastian’s
eyes flashed – briefly – then darkened. “I will
admit a possibility. I do not know whose heart you found, or if you
saw correctly.”

“I saw a
heart!” I snapped. “I know what I saw, and I saw
someone’s heart lying in a puddle of blood!”

He nodded
gently. “Unless Kent killed one vampire and then was subdued by
a second, he is most likely dead. You said the blood and heart were a
vampire’s, and that Kent was taken by a woman. If there is a
second vampire, or if you did not see correctly, Kent may still be
alive.”

The logic of
that made too much sense. Sebastian waited for me to say something
else, popping the door open when I didn’t. Watching me like he
expected me to bolt, he got out, shut the door, and left.

I thought about
bolting, except that I felt too stunned to move. And what would I do
if I did leave? Call the police? And tell them what? If anyone
listened to me at all, I’d get locked away for sure. Go home?
I’d just sit in my house, wondering what happened, and never
find out. I had nowhere to go, no one to call, no one to tell about
this except the boy who’d just left.

I hunkered down
in the seat and hugged myself, shivering and gulping back heavy
breaths.

S
ebastian
left the girl – Ian – with the Vector and walked back to
the Half-Moon. If Kent were dead, he knew he wouldn’t find the
killer there. The evidence, however, should still be fresh and mostly
untouched. He felt a surge of excitement as he approached the club;
it had been decades since he had last pitted himself against a
dangerous opponent. Used his skills as a trained hunter. He found,
now, that he’d missed it.

Human police
officers had arrived, as expected. It would be near impossible to get
inside and examine this puddle Ian had described. No matter. In all
probability any blood or organs had turned to dust by now. Sebastian
had not thought it prudent to say as much to the girl, but her father
must still have been alive for her to find his heart. A few minutes
of survival would not change the end result, however.

Sebastian joined
the crowd of mortals that had gathered and craned his neck. Several
squad cars had blocked the street in front of the club as well as an
ambulance, though Sebastian didn’t see any wounded being loaded
onto it. That implied reports of injuries but no injuries found. A
vampire normally decomposed immediately upon death – that would
account for both those circumstances.

On a hunch, he
slipped away to the alley behind the club. No one noticed his
presence in the crowd, no one noticed him leave. At the mouth of the
alley he paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, then made
his way to the back door of the club. The kitchen and delivery door –
where the staff threw out refuse.

Aha.