Not Another Vampire Book (13 page)

Damien’s
gaze automatically cut over to the lantern beside him.  Those electric lights
could come
indoors?
 Why hadn’t he thought of that?

 “Why
didn’t you try to kill Slade in the barn or at the building site?”  Kara
continued.  “Why did you just threaten him and monologue?  Why not go for the
swords?  I mean the whole point of your life is to kill the Vamp and those were
perfect chances, right?”

He’d
thought so too, for that brief moment.  Damien’s eyebrows drew together.

“Or
why didn’t you just kidnap Slade’s Eternal One before the party even started? 
Why wait for him to get there and try to stop you?  You could have snatched Melessa
and
then
used her as live Vampire bait.”

The
fog clouding Damien’s life somehow lifted at her words and he blinked in the
sudden brightness.  It felt like something had washed through his mind,
clearing out the debris.  What had he been
thinking?
  Kara was right. 
Absolutely right.  His actions made no sense, in retrospect.  His entire plan
was flawed.

“Gods.” 
He dropped his head back on the chair and sighed in disgust.

She
knelt down in front of his chair, taking in his shock.  “It wasn’t your fault,
Damien.  This is
Eternal Passion at Sunset
.  We’re all stuck within the
four corners of the page.”

He
didn’t believe that, but he believed that
she
believed it.  The truth
herbs told him just what she thought was really happening.  He watched brooding
as Kara opened the manuscript and wished he could burn it, again.  He didn’t
want her reading those lies.  “I hate that book.”

“Join
the club, Vlad.”  She made a sudden excited sound.  “Chapter five’s here,
now!”  She held it up for him to see.

Damien
felt a chill.  He’d flipped through those pages not ten minutes before and
they’d been blank.  He knew it.  There was no way they could suddenly be filled
with words.  Not without some kind of magicks at work.  He grabbed the book
from her, his eyes scanning the neatly printed words.  “What the hell is doing
this?  Are you sure you’re not a Witch?”

“Of
course not!  Look, I’m not sure how it’s happening.  All I know is this is the
real
book.”  She tapped the page.  “Unaltered by me being here.  The blueprint for
the plot.”

“This
tells you what will happen?”

“Well,
what
should
happen.  I think we need to try and match this reality back
up to the text.  Will you really help me do that?  Help me get home?”

Damien
digested all that for a long moment.

He
wasn’t living inside a book.  He’d
know
if he was.  Still, there was no
denying that this manuscript contained secrets and information that no one
should have.  Regardless of where it came from or why it had appeared, the
details of Slade’s life could certainly be useful for a man on a mission to
kill him.  Supernatural occurrences were the norm Damien, so it didn’t take much
adjustment to accept this phenomenon.  He couldn’t really explain it, but he
wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Who cared how it was happening? 
Karalynn and her book could help him finish Slade off once and for all.

What
was more important than that?

Chocolate
brown eyes stared up at him hopefully and Damien nodded.  “I can help you.”

She
beamed.  “You will?  Really?”

“Yes.” 
Well, he’d at least help her manipulate Slade.  Damien wasn’t thrilled about
restoring the book’s plot, though.  So far, he wasn’t all that impressed with
it.  Clearly, the whole thing needed to be rewritten and he was just the Wizard
Warlock for the job.

“Damien!” 
She leaned forward to hug him.  “Thank you.”

His
body leapt to attention at the warm scent of her, too astonished to do more
than sit there and feel her body against his.

The
‘helping her leave’ part of the plan wasn’t high on his priority list, either.

Damien
had never really considered what to do with Slade’s Eternal-One after he captured
her.  Now, he inhaled the fragrance of Kara’s hair and realized he could just…
keep her.  Who could stop him?  She said herself she was alone.  Weak and
defenseless.  No one protected the weak and defenseless from their fates. 
Damien had found that out firsthand when he saw his desecrated homeland.

He
was the most powerful sorcerer alive and Kara was just a small human.  Damien
wanted the woman.  He’d captured her.  He would keep her.  It was inevitable.

Simple
Darwinism.

Better
not mention the caveats to his pledge of assistance, though.  He liked Kara
thinking she had a choice in all this.  Liked her being naïve enough to
actually feel safe with him.    “We’ll need to talk about everything from the
beginning.”  He prompted as she released him.  “Everything you remember.” 
While
you still have to tell me the truth
.

“Good
thinking.”  She settled down on the ottoman and gave a short laugh.  “This is
such a relief.  To have someone else to tell, who will actually
get
it. 
You have no idea.”

“I
think I do.”  He understood loneliness far too well.  Now, he had this woman
and he wasn’t going back into that silence.  Damien’s eyes traced the arc of
her neck.  “By the way, do I really remind you of that child you went to school
with?”

“Alex
Murphy?  Nah.”  She shrugged dismissively. “You’re much hotter than he was.” 
She hesitated.  “Do people use the word ‘hot’ like that in 1892?  Probably not,
but with this book it’s just one more anachronism for the pile.”

“I
understand the meaning.”  Damien rumbled.  Damn, but he loved hearing the truth
when it told him just what he wanted to know.

Kara
would be his downfall.  He could feel that more clearly than ever, but it
didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered to Damien when he wanted something.  Perhaps
he was as obsessive as that ridiculous book suggested, because risks were
meaningless to him if it meant getting what he desired in the end.

Now
he had two goals:  He wanted Kara’s soft body and he wanted to destroy Slade.

She
would give him both.

Damien
studied the innocent curve of her face.

Maybe
he really was the villain.

Melessa ran from him, her delicate velvet shoes gently
thudding against the foggy ground.  The handsome Vampire king chased her, as
she ran both from him and from her own unleashed desires.  “You must stop!  I
cannot handle the desire you’ve unleashed within me!”

Slade caught up with her, his powerfulness catching
her easily and spinning her into his grasp.  “No, Melessa.”  He held her
against this massive chest, ignoring the ineffectual movements of her small
hands.  “There’s no escape from me or our passion.”  His lips captured hers and
Melessa helplessly collapsed against him, helpless against the onslaught of
desire. 

She knew then that she’d never want to escape his
otherworldly clutches.

Eternal Passion at
Sunset- Chapter Six

“No.” 
Kara jabbed a finger at him.  “You don’t get to do that, Damien.  You don’t get
to look out the window and pretend like we’re not having a fight right now.”

He
shot her a frustrated glance.  “Only one of us is fighting, Kara Lynn.”

When
he used that patronizing tone, she wanted to hold his head in a blender.  Not
having one handy, Kara reached her foot over to the other side of the carriage
and kicked his shin as hard as she could.  Not that it had much force with the
layers of skirts she was being forced to wear.

She
hated 1892.

Hated
the fashions, and the slow as hell horse-drawn transportation, and bumpy road
she was traveling on, and the Vampires, and especially that son-of-a-bitch
sorcerer across from her.

Damien
rolled his eyes at her attack.  “Do you have no sense, at all?”  He demanded. 
“Do you really want to fight with someone who outweighs you by a hundred pounds
and has magical powers?”

“No,
I want to fight with the sneaky bastard who
drugged
me last night.” 
She’d woken up with a splitting headache and an absolute certainty about what
had happened.  Damien hadn’t even bothered to deny it.  He’d used some kind of
truth serum on her and he thought he’d had a perfect right to do it.  He
actually seemed surprised that she was making a big deal over it.  Vlad was so
used to being a bad guy he didn’t even register when he was crossing the line.

Kara
had been incensed about it all morning.  Both at him and at Tanya St. Clair for
including polygraph herbs in her stupid book.

Damien
remained unfazed by her anger.  “It was harmless.  You remember everything that
happened.  At no time were you in danger or…”

“That’s
not the point!”  She interrupted, sharply.  “It was a rotten thing to do,
Damien.”

He
snorted.  “Well, you’re the one who said I was the villain.”  Since the night
before, he’d been doing some fuming of his own.  Being told he was a bad guy
really didn’t sit well with him.  He seemed especially pissed that Slade was
therefore the hero of the piece.

That
didn’t give him the right to be self-righteous and irritated, though.  Not when
he’d put a mickey in her drink and didn’t even care.  “If you do anything like
that again, I’m done working with you.”  She said, flatly.

Damien’s
head came around with a snap.  After all his pointed efforts to disregard her
complaints, she suddenly she has his total attention.

“I’ll
leave you.”  The threat came out more personal sounding than Kara had intended,
but it was true.

Black
eyes narrowed and, for once, Kara saw why he’d been cast as
Eternal Passion
at Sunset’s
duck-and-cover antagonist.  “No.”  He said with cold confidence.
 “You won’t.”

Her
stomach knotted, even as she kept her gaze locked on his.  She wasn’t exactly afraid
of Damien, but he could intimidate mountains with his stare.  You had to
stand-up to his aggression or he’d run all over you.  It was part of his
nature, like a wild animal.  “Yes, I
will
.  Count on it.”

Damien’s
expression darkened at her defiance.  “You think to return to Slade so
quickly?”

“Newsflash
asshole, I don’t need you
or
Lestat.  Neither one of you is even
real
. 
I can do just fine on my own.”  Kara hugged the manuscript to her chest.

She
had a plan and all she had to do was follow it.  Once she found Melessa, she
could convince the girl that Slade was Prince Charming in a Nosferatu cape and
everything would be fine.  She was sure of it.  The plot was all screwed up,
but once that was fixed, the book could end happily and she’d be back home in
time for
The Simpsons
.

Focusing
on the nuts and bolts of her plan kept her complete panic at bay.  The whole
thing was only bearable because she had faith –utter faith-- that she could do
this.  If she believed it hard enough, she could will it to happen.

It
would work.

It
had to work.

She’d
make
it work.

“I
am
real.”  Damien snarled.  Another touchy subject for him.

“Yeah,
well I’m real-er, and you had no right to use that magic on me. 
None
. 
How would you like it if
I
did it to
you
?  Huh?”  How did he not
see this?  “Look at it from my point-of-view.  How do I know you won’t poison
me, or turn me into a toad, or knock me unconscious and rape me?  Would you
trust
me
, if I drugged
you
?”

“I
will not harm you.”  But, something shifted in his face, like her words finally
registered.  “Even if I’d intended that, I wouldn’t need an herb to help me.”

“Well,
how can I be sure?  You’re a super-powered Wizard Warlock and I’m not.  You’re
bigger than I am.  Stronger.  You know what the hell you’re doing in this place
and I’m lost.  You don’t see how that would make me feel vulnerable?  I have to
know that I’m safe in that house with you or we can’t be partners in this.”

Damien’s
jaw tightened.  “I needed to be sure you weren’t working with the Vampires. 
That you hadn’t come home with me as a trick of some kind.”

Kara
gave a dismissive snort and took her turn staring out the window, not caring
that he had a point about that.  Maybe, she would’ve thought she was a Vampire
spy, too, if the situations were reverse.

But,
she wouldn’t have drugged
anybody, because
she
wasn’t a damn
villain.

At
least he smelled nice, though.  The rest of this time period stank.  You’d
think if Tanya was going to fib about one bit of history, it would have been
the horses and livestock and unwashed bodies.  Tanya had added modern bathrooms
to the nineteenth century experience, which Kara appreciated.  She’d just
appreciate it
more
if a greater number of people took advantage of the
running water that Tanya so thoughtfully provided for them.

Kara
sighed.

She’d
grown up in Chicago, so was odd to see it look so different.  Different
buildings, different streets, different people.  A streetcar rumbled past,
filled with happy and excited looking families.  They must have been headed for
the Exhibition.  What Kara knew about World’s Fairs, she’d learned from
Meet
Me in St. Louis
and that Elvis movie set in Seattle.  But, even she could feel
the pull of the Exhibition in the air.  Chicago had become a tourist Mecca.  An
1892 Disneyland.  Over a single summer, twenty-seven million people packed into
the city to celebrate technology and art and life at the cusp of a new century.

If
she wasn’t so busy escaping this even worse version of
The Last Action
Hero
,
Kara would have joined the party.  See the Fair.  Taste the world’s first Crackerjacks
and stare up at the incredible buildings that had only been designed to last
six short months.  It wasn’t like she’d get another chance to tour it.  It
would be fun.

Of
course, she’d probably have to go alone.  Good old Vlad seemed immune to the
party-like atmosphere of the streets.  He must have been inoculated against fun
at birth.

“All
I wanted was the truth.”  He insisted, in one last-ditch effort to make himself
the wronged party.  “That’s all the herb does.  Get people to tell the truth. 
I had to be sure.”

She
didn’t bother to look his way.  “Then, you should have
asked
me for the
truth and I would have told you.”  Probably not the
whole
truth, what
with the ‘Hey, this is all a book and you’re a character in it and I’m from the
future and I think you’re hot” parts, but still…  “I’ve never lied to you,
Damien.  Which I’m sure is more than
you
can say.”

Minutes
ticked by.  “I did not consider that the herb would frighten you.”  He finally
muttered.  “It was not my intention.”

She
snorted.

“But,
I
do
see how you might feel tricked or apprehensive.  I don’t want
that.  I… like that you feel safe with me.”

The
craziest part was, she still felt safe with him.  He hadn’t hurt her last
night.  He’d protected her from Slade.  Twice.  He’d given her a safe place to
stay in the midst of this craziness.  He left Kara in her own spooky room to
sleep in last night, not even trying to touch her.  He didn’t even outright
call her insane for believing she was stuck in a romance novel.

And
this morning, he’d manufactured some coffee for her when she’d complained that
she was caffeine deprived.  Coffee she’d been understandably leery about
drinking, but still...  Damien wouldn’t harm her.  She knew it on a deep,
instinctive level.

But,
he didn’t get to treat her like a science experiment, either.

“I
was wrong, Kara Lynn.  You are not in league with the Vampires.  I know that,
now.”  He sucked at apologizing, but at least it was genuine.  No one sounded
so grouchy and cautious unless they were sincere.

Kara
waited for him to finish stumbling over his words.

“I
am sorry.”

Kara
glanced over at him, expectantly.  “And?”

“Don’t
try and leave.”

“And?”

Black
eyes met hers.  “It will not happen, again.”

She
crossed her arms over her chest.  “You promise?”

“Yes.” 
It was unequivocal.  “You are safe in my home.  You have my word.”

A
vow from a bad guy wasn’t entirely reassuring.  Still, for some reason, she
trusted Damien.  She’d trusted him from the beginning.  His first reactions
were almost always scary but, beneath that, he had a heart.  He’d loved his
sister.  Missed his fellow Wiz-Wars.  He just didn’t know how to be around
other people in a non-creepy way, because he was cast as the skulking villain.

It
was all Tanya’s fault.

Luckily,
Damien could break through his evil box.  Possibly because he’d been through so
much, Damien could adapt to changes.  If you explained things to him, he at
least listened.  Kara needed that.  Needed him.  Without Damien, she wasn’t
sure how she could track Melessa down.

It
wasn’t like she owned a horse.

Kara
nodded.  “Thank you.  I accept your apology.”

He
blinked as if he’d expected more of an argument from her.  “You won’t try to
sneak away, then?”

She
arched a brow at him.  “I don’t sneak.  When I leave, you’ll have plenty of
warning.”  Hopefully, in the form of The Great and Powerful Oz flying her home
in a balloon.

“‘
When’
you leave?”  He repeated.  “Do you really think you can just escape back to
your old life that easily, Kara Lynn?”

“Of
course I can.  Stay positive, why don’t’cha?”  Not entirely liking the gleam in
his eye, she decided to change the subject.  “Hey, where’s Polly today?”  She
gestured towards his bird-less shoulder.  “Off foretelling some sailor’s doom?”

“I
left Lenore at home.”

That
seemed odd.  Tanya made a point of saying Damien was never without the raven in
chapter three.  Wait a minute…  “You named it Lenore?”

“What
else would you call a raven?”

“Right. 
Good point.”  Kara nearly smiled.  He must have read Poe in high school, too.  “No
offence, but have you ever considered getting
another
kind of pet?  A
dachshund or something?”

“Lenore
is not a pet.”

“Familiar?” 
Kara guessed.

“No. 
She just lives with me.”

“Why?”

His
brow furrowed.  “I… don’t know.”

Tanya
again
.

Kara
cleared her throat.  “At least, the bird’s companionship for you.  Kind of.”  It
got lonely living alone.  She knew that, all too well.  This time with Damien
was the longest she’d spent with anyone outside of work in ages.  “I have
goldfish, myself.”  Which, hopefully, Gemma would feed for her, if she was
stuck here much longer.

“The
raven and I are not companions.  She would much prefer to be free.  And actually
I…”  He opened his mouth, then closed it again and shook his head.