In the Dark (4 page)

Thrown to one
side of a large green dumpster, loosely concealed by a plastic bag,
he found it. As he’d thought. The killer had no interest in
hauling the victim away, nor did the killer mind if the police
discovered a dead vampire behind the club. This was a body, however,
where Sebastian had expected a pile of dust. Had he found Kent, then,
another vampire, or a mortal? All possibilities certainly existed.
Wherever vampires lurked, one tended to find bodies.

Sebastian knelt
beside the body and lifted the bag. White-blond hair tumbled down
from the head. Crimson pooled and spilled from a gaping hole in the
chest. The blood obscured sight of internal organs, bone, muscle.
Vampires held so much blood. Sebastian had met Ian’s father
only once before. Even so, he recognized Kent. He did not know why –

Steel gray eyes
flicked toward Sebastian, cloudy, but aware.

Alive.
Interesting.

“Ian . .
.” Kent managed, sputtering. Fresh blood leaked from the hole
in his chest. More dripped from his mouth. Perhaps not so aware –
his eyes did not move again, or focus. “Find Ian . . .”
he barely whispered, then lost his breath in one gasp.

Unexpectedly,
the sight flung Sebastian to another time, another place.

He heard himself
draw in a single breath of his own, echoing, a thunderous sound.

In less than a
second he came back to the alley, that other time lost. Kent had
already started to lose form, turning to dust.

Letting out that
single breath, Sebastian watched. “I have,” he told the
corpse before it vanished entirely.

Impressive. Only
one other vampire he knew had survived losing his heart, and that had
been for much less time than Kent had apparently hung on. Sebastian
stood, scattering the dust with a flick of the plastic bag.

The sound of
footsteps warned him of the arrival of the police. He slipped out of
the alley in silence before they could discover him there.

I
stayed in the action-hero car the whole time Sebastian left me alone.
Thinking of Kent smiling, or dancing, or singing, or anything.
Turning it over.

Dead.

Kent was my
family, my dearest friend, my everything. Well, I still saw my real
family. I would drop in unannounced for a night occasionally, then
vanish again. My mother, my father, my sister . . . I cared about
them, but they couldn’t replace Kent. He’d changed me,
cared for me, taught me, loved me.

“Ian.”

Sebastian got in
the car, started it, and pulled into traffic. A light, hopeful
feeling rose in my chest. Maybe Sebastian would tell me Kent was
okay.

“I’m
sorry, Ian. Kent is gone.” Sebastian didn’t look at me.

The airy feeling
stayed a moment. Giving me hope, filling me with the urge to yell,
you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
And then it deflated.
I already knew. Something deep inside me had already begun mourning.

“Oh . . .”
My chest tightened. I wanted to go home. “Do . . . do the
police have him?”

Sebastian gave
me a strange look, face blank, eyes curious. Like he didn’t
know why I would ask that.

“No. The
police do no have him.”

“Then
where’s . . .” I didn’t want to finish that
sentence. I didn’t even want to think the last words.

“Vampires
return to the earth upon their deaths.” He didn’t look at
me. “Kent is gone.”

My jaw worked a
couple of times, like I wanted to talk, except I didn’t. Return
to the earth. He meant we decomposed instantly. Kent had mentioned
something like that in passing. Dust. Gone. I couldn’t pinpoint
why, but learning that there was no . . . body . . . somehow that
piece of information upset me even more.

“I’m
going to take you to my home,” Sebastian said. “I am not
certain yours will be safe.”

I wasn’t
certain my home was safe either, and I didn’t care. My eyes
burned and red tears blurred my vision. Kent was gone. My handsome,
funny, talented best friend was gone.

“He told
me to . . . he wanted you to know he loved you.”

Those words felt
like a punch in the throat. I glanced at Sebastian. He watched the
road, not looking at me or giving me any clue how he felt. Kent loved
me. While in pain, dying, his last thought had been of me. I started
to cry.

I love you,
too, Kent. But I can’t have anyone tell you that. I hope you
know.

Sebastian drove,
silent, as if I didn’t exist. In a way, I felt like I didn’t.
I didn’t notice where he had headed until he stopped.

We’d
pulled into a ritzy neighborhood; tall buildings, expensive cars. He
pulled his expensive car into an underground garage, and I heard the
door roll shut behind us. He parked in a spot that probably had his
name on it and got out. I followed woodenly, not bothering to look
around. Sebastian activated the car alarm and led me to an elevator
labeled “Penthouse Only.” He hit the call button and the
doors slid open. The elevator had better décor than my house.
Mirrors, wood paneling, thick red carpet. I sniffed and felt
outclassed.

Sebastian got a
key out of his pocket to put in a keyhole beside the buttons. The kid
had his own private elevator. I shifted and stared at the LCD numbers
above the door, watching them go higher and higher. The elevator
opened silently into a plush room. The room had the same rich décor
as the elevator, mostly wood, marble and shades of red. For a second
I thought the doors had opened into an incredibly elaborate hallway –
then realized they’d opened on an entryway that led into his
living room. His place took up the entire floor.

The –
apartment? – had class, which struck me as odd for someone so
young. Heavy oak chairs upholstered in velvet, an oriental rug on the
polished hardwood floor, gilt-framed mirrors, art pieces by Renoir
and Matisse. Wide picture windows looked out over the skyline to the
mountains and Puget Sound. Through a set of sliding glass doors I
could see a balcony so large it held a pool. It reminded me of photos
of old gentlemens’ smoking rooms. The only thing I could call
modern in the whole place was a small TV. Not a flat-screen and
covered in dust.

It dawned on me
to wonder how old Sebastian was. As old as smoking rooms? Or older?
He looked around eighteen – but Kent had looked about twenty.

“You’re
welcome to stay until this is resolved. I doubt anyone will find us
here.” He swung his long coat off and hung it up beside a rack
of decorative knives.

I stood where I
was, silent, arms crossed.

Sebastian
glanced at me, an odd mix of curious and wise. His movements and
expressions seemed older – older than what, I didn’t
know, because every time I looked at him I saw a teenager.

“You may
sit,” he said, as if I might just be shy.

I stood. I
wanted to cry, or be held, or sit down, or scream, but I couldn’t
decide which one and they all seemed like too much effort. Sebastian
waited for me to move, then let me stand while he went over to a rack
on the wall.

He didn’t
walk, really, so much as float. Not pretentiously, though, like an
actor or someone trying to impress. Sebastian didn’t seem to do
it on purpose.

The way he moved
set my alarms off, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. I
shifted uneasily. I’d trusted him because of his fangs –
what did that prove? He drank blood too? Reeeal good reasoning there,
Ian.

While I stood,
Sebastian took off a sword I hadn’t noticed before. Probably
due to the long coat. He handled the large edged weapon with perfect
ease, hanging it reverently on the rack he’d gone to. The
nervous feeling crawled up the back of my neck.

“Who are
you?” I asked, even though it was dumb. He could tell me
anything he wanted.

“Sebastian
Cain.” He settled into a chair. The way he moved reminded me of
Gypsy.

Gypsy!

“My cat!”
I said out loud.

He cocked his
head at me. “Your what?”

“My cat,
Gypsy. She’s still at home. Will she be all right? I mean, no
one would try to hurt a cat, right? But she’s all alone, and
you said the house might not be safe . . . I really should go get
her.”

He gave me a
funny look. Like he was trying to imagine the inside of my head.

“My cat!”
I said again.

He resettled in
his chair. “Your cat, I am sure, will survive one day without
you. And no, I don’t think anyone would try to hurt it.”

“
Her,”
I said. “Are you sure? Really?”

His lip twitched
when I corrected him, blue eyes blazing with humor more than his face
showed. Actually, his face didn’t move much at all. “I am
certain she will be fine. She is only a pet, after all, and perhaps
important to you, but not to anyone else.”

I bristled.
Maybe some people treated their pets like objects, but Gypsy meant as
much to me as Kent. But I couldn’t think of a reply to give to
Sebastian, and in this case, it wouldn’t hurt if she seemed
unimportant.

“I guess
if you’re sure.”

“I am.”
He gestured to a chair. “Sit. You are the only witness I have
to this crime and I must question you.”

“What are
you, a vamp-cop?”

He smiled with
his eyes again, which made me uncomfortable. His whole face stayed
rock still – except for those eyes.

“No. I am
willing to look into this for you, if you would like. I find it
interesting, and I believe I can offer more skills than you have.”
He gestured to the chair across from him. “Please.”

Tears welled up
in my eyes again. I’d nearly forgotten why I came here. Now I
remembered.

“Ian?”
Sebastian prompted when I just stood and cried.

I dropped into
the chair, arms wrapped so tight around myself that my shoulders
ached. I cried. I wailed until my lungs and throat burned, crying so
hard my eyes got sore. My mind ran in little circles, only adding to
the pain –
Kent’s gone, Kent’s gone . . .

It didn’t
go on forever. I cried and cried and thought maybe I wouldn’t
ever stop, but of course I did. It took maybe an hour. Not exactly
forever.

Sebastian sat
across from me through all of it, fingers steepled, waiting. I stayed
curled up in the chair, arms wrapped around my knees. We sat like
that, watching each other.

“So,”
he said. “Tell me what you know.”

I rubbed my
blood-reddened eyes. Where to start? With what I knew about Kent?
With what had happened tonight? Who I saw?

A shudder ran
through me. I almost started crying again.

“Why would
anyone do this?” Even as I said it, I knew I sounded
ridiculous. Only the killer knew that.

Sebastian
shrugged. “Did he have any enemies that you knew of? Did he
ever talk of living somewhere else, perhaps under another name, or
anything he did before he knew you?”

My instant
response was “No.” Kent didn’t talk much about his
past. I didn’t say that. Instead I focused on thinking back,
what Kent had told me about himself. I choked on a sudden memory,
gulping at a lump too hard to swallow.

“
So
what are you doing in Seattle?” Kent asked, leaning forward
over his cup of coffee. He kept his voice low to keep from
interrupting the poet on stage now. His manners impressed me.

“
Going
to school,” I said, turning my own mug between my hands. “And
getting over a broken heart.” I added it reluctantly. Couldn’t
help but reach up to touch my new and still-tender nose ring. My
declaration to myself that I had become someone else.

He aimed a
finger at me. “I thought so. Let me guess – high school
sweetheart didn’t know what he had? Took off on you for another
girl, am I right?”

A bitter
smile touched my lips. “Close. She couldn’t take being
called a dyke and left me for a boy.”

“
Oh,
girl.” He frowned gently.“Oh, that’s rough. Hey,
I’m sorry for bringing up a sore subject.”

I waved him
off, tears coming to my eyes. It had been almost a year, I hadn’t
thought I’d cry.

He laughed a
bitter laugh of his own. “My first boyfriend didn’t
understand why I didn’t want him chasing girls on the side,”
he said, distracting me from my own tears. “I mean, I
understood at first, honeymoon period and all, but there comes a
point where you don’t take their shit anymore, you know?”
He laughed again, his own eyes glistening faintly. “So, did
your ice-princess have a name?”

That had been
the night I met him, at a poetry reading at Crawl Café. I’d
been in Seattle for a month, and Kent was my first friend here. I’d
told him all about Delana. When I’d asked him about his
boyfriend, he put it off and said it happened a long time ago,
encouraging me to talk instead. At the time, I didn’t know how
long ago he meant.

“Sometimes,”
I answered Sebastian, wiping my eyes. “He always listened
better than he talked. He mostly talked about funny things, or stuff
I could relate to. I don’t think he could have pissed anyone
off.”

“How old
are you?”

“Old?”
The change of subject threw me. “How old are you?”

He smiled –
a real smile, on his lips this time – and didn’t answer.

“Twenty-three.”
I shifted to sit on my hands.

“How long
have you been a vampire?”

“’Bout
four years,” I said. “Roughly.”

“And Kent
related his entire life to you in those four years. How old was he?”

I didn’t
answer. I got the point.

“He was
sad, sometimes,” I said, mostly to myself. Like that face in my
studio earlier tonight. That happened a lot with him.

“Why?”
Sebastian asked it as I thought it.

I didn’t
have an answer for either of us. “He never wanted to talk about
it. Said he’d just seen a lot and sometimes it got to him to be
so old.”