Rafe's Rules (3 page)

Slung across my back was the bag with the tools of my trade.

(Just what
is
in that bag? you’re wondering. Ah, but that will have to wait till later.)

I pressed the doorbell and waited. After around a minute I heard footsteps and the door opened.

I caught my breath.

Oscar DeVane stood there in a bathrobe, his hair wet and tousled as if he’d toweled it in a hurry. His feet had left faint damp prints on the parquet floor behind him. The front of the robe had been carelessly belted and a deep V of hard, taut, muscular chest was visible. His head was lowered a little, his eyes a sharp gray, almost silver, under thick sooty lashes. It was the first time I’d seen him up close and his features were impossibly handsome. Beautiful, even. His nose was thin and straight, his lips curved and full.

I might have looked nineteen, but at that moment I felt sixteen again.

‘Yes?’

His voice was a rich baritone, not arrogant but gently curious. He didn’t look at all self conscious. Even with my shades on I felt a jab of nervousness at letting my gaze dart down to his chest, his sinewy legs below where the robe ended, in case he noticed.

In a moment I realized it was my turn to speak. I wrenched my face into a big, shit-eating grin.

‘Hi!’ I chirped, pitching my voice an octave higher than normal. ‘Pardon me for troubling you, sir, but the Girl Guide group I manage, the West River Woodchucks, is doing a fundraiser for homeless animals.’ I’d pulled the name out of the air. ‘We’re baking cookies, and I’d really love for you to sample some.’

I opened the box with a conjurer’s flourish. They really did look good, if I say so myself. I’d spent my Sunday morning preparing them using my own special recipe.

Oscar’s gaze lingered on my face for a few seconds, and I felt a delicious and quite unexpected tightening at the tips of my breasts as my nipples rose. I didn’t think they’d show through my bra and sweater, but I raised the box of cookies a little higher just to be on the safe side.

No member of the living dead had ever made me feel this way before. It was disorienting.

He dropped his gaze to the cookies, a slight frown appearing at his brow as he examined them.

‘They look good,’ he said.

And he reached for one.

Rule Number Two: garlic makes vampires puke, and also gets them real pissed off.

Again, this is one of those myths that’s more-or-less accurate. In fiction you’ll see the undead kept at bay by clumps of the stuff. It’s not quite as powerful as that, and they can just about bear the smell of it, but tasting it makes them have a reaction like alcoholics have when they’re on that Antabuse stuff and take a drink. Getting a vampire actually to ingest garlic isn’t easy, as they’re really careful about what they put in their mouths – God knows how they get by in places like Italy or France – which is why you have to disguise it.

In my case, I’d baked a ton of the stuff into my cookies, using my special secret recipe to mask the smell.

DeVane raised the cookie to his mouth, his eyes fixed on me.

I kept the rictus grin planted on my face. Inside, my pulse was climbing, and this time it wasn’t because of the sexual effect he was having on me. Well, not only that. I was tensing myself, preparing for the moment when he’d bite into it, go apeshit, and I’d whip the sword out of my bag and deprive the undead son-of-a-bitch of his head.

Yep, that’s what I had in my bag. A
katana
, a Japanese sword, plus a set of stakes and a mallet. They don’t have to be wooden. You take out a vampire permanently by both staking it through the heart and decapitating it. Staking alone leaves it in a condition of suspended animation, so that when the stake’s removed it comes back to life, or undeath, or whatever you want to call it. Lopping its head off can work, but often the body carries on running around like a farmyard chicken.

The cookie rose towards those ruby lips…

And paused.

‘Are there nuts in this?’ he asked.

Shit.

‘Uh… yeah,’ I muttered through my grin.

He dropped the cookie back in the box, a smile of regret reaching his eyes. ‘Sorry. I’m allergic.’

Dammit. I couldn’t very well rustle up another batch without nuts and come back. It would look suspicious. Plus, the trouble was that the secret recipe that disguised the garlic aroma relied upon nuts as one of the ingredients.

‘Um… sorry, thank you, sir,’ I mumbled. ‘Have a nice day.’

I scarpered. So much for Rule Number Two.

Well
, I thought as I headed home.
That leaves Number Three.

And although it’s always more complicated to have to proceed to Rule Number Three, I couldn’t help feeling pleased.

And more than a little excited.

*

MidTown Columbus is where most of the city’s nightlife is. There’s a range of bars and clubs, from flashy tourist traps to seedy dives that wouldn’t have been out of place in 1970s Manhattan. I was a little surprised when Oscar Devane parked his Camaro outside one such dump and went inside. Then again, a vampire was hardly going to avoid the sleazier parts of town because he feared for his safety. Maybe Oscar had a taste for a little darkness, what with having to spend all day in the frustratingly mundane and wholesome atmosphere of middle-class life.

Whatever. I’d been shadowing him all week, from when he left for work until the time he got home. This morning, Friday, I’d seen Letitia leave the house with a couple of suitcases, giving her husband a peck on the cheek before stepping into a cab. So she was going out of town, and it looked like for a few days at least.

Perfect. Now all I needed was to contrive an opportunity to get close to him, and test out Rule Number Three.

Oscar left work at six and came straight home. I’d left off the surveillance of his office that afternoon and returned to my own apartment, where I’d tried out a combination of different looks before deciding on one that was just vampy enough to be alluring, but not one that made me look like a hooker.

I watched his house for a couple of hours. He was a guy on his own on Friday night. Surely he’d go out, even if only to the movies?

At half-past eight he emerged. As he got into his Camaro I saw he was dressed in a natty evening suit and was freshly shaved. No movies for him, then.

The bar he went to was named
Buffy’s
. How goddamn apt. I’d never been there before. The bouncer, a bull’s body with a toad’s head, looked me up and down. He openly licked his lips.

‘Go right in, honey.’

The place was crowded, dark and noisy as hell. Nevertheless, heads turned when I stepped inside. That was good. I wanted to be noticed.

I was wearing skin-tight leather pants, thigh-high boots with heels that weren’t quite stilettos but were getting there, and a black lace top with red half-cup bra that pushed everything up to create an impressive cleavage. I’d applied a deeper red lipstick than usual, and even added a little mascara to my already black lashes. I moved through the fug and beer smell to the bar, tossing my hair back to make it ripple.

‘Tequila.’

‘Yessum,’ the bartender said to my chest.

The first of them moved in within thirty seconds. My height, my age, a gym freak if ever I saw one with a face made small by the unnatural thickness of his neck.

‘On me, babe.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’d prefer to pay for my own.’

Beside him, two of his friends laughed and dug him in the ribs. He shifted closer down the bar. I could smell the liquor on his rancid breath.

‘Aw, come on, babe,’ he wheedled, slurring a little. ‘It’s just a drink.’ And he hoiked himself up on to the barstool next to me, his thigh brushing against mine.

‘Take a walk, pal,’ I said pleasantly.

His face darkened. He thrust it close to mine. I could see his eyes were a little unfocused. Maybe that’s how they always were.

‘’S your problem, bitch?’ he snarled.

I felt myself tense. Taking him down wouldn’t be a problem; I could do it in a few seconds and he wouldn’t know what hit him. But I didn’t want to. It would spoil the setup.

And as if he’d read my thoughts, Oscar DeVane appeared close behind us, between me and the meathead.

‘Everything all right here, miss?’ he said, barely raising his voice and yet audible over the hubbub.

The big guy swiveled to stare at Oscar, dropping his eyes to his suit and his polished shoes. ‘What’s
your
problem, asshole?’

Oscar didn’t say anything, just gazed into the idiot’s face. The big guy stared back belligerently, hauling himself off the barstool to face off. Then something changed in his expression. A flicker of uncertainty in his eyes turned rapidly into fear.

‘Come on,’ he muttered to his companions. ‘This place blows, anyhow.’

I watched his back as he moved away, his buddies frowning at him incredulously. Then I turned to Oscar.

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ His mouth was wry, his eyes probing mine. I returned his gaze, feeling a slow heat spread from my belly up into my chest and down through my pelvis.

My my
, I thought.
If vampires can be as sexy as you, Mr Oscar DeVane, I might just consider becoming one myself.

I kicked the heel of one boot against my other shin, hard, making me wince.
Stop thinking like that. It’s what he wants you to think. What they all want, him and his kind. It’s their charm. They’re trying to seduce you into joining their ranks. Don’t go there.

In a voice like molten chocolate - God,
listen
to me - Oscar said, ‘I know this might be unwelcome after what just happened, but may I perhaps buy you that drink?’

And so it started.

Cut to a half hour later, and we’re together in a booth, which manages to be private, intimate even, despite the crowdedness of the place. I’m leaning in close across the table to hear him above the noise. He’s touching the tip of an index finger to my wrist, making some remark about bone structure that doesn’t sound corny even though it should by rights. I notice he’s removed the wedding band he normally wears.

I let the words flow smoothly over me, ignoring their content, concentrating instead on his face. I marveled at how human he looked. In the past I’d been up close and personal with these beings, but there’d always been something slightly...
off
about them, something that betrayed them as
other
in a fundamental way. Maybe it was a coldness deep in the eyes, or a deadness to the skin tone. But I saw none of that in Oscar. He could have been a suave, tuxedoed James Bond across a croupier’s table in a Monte Carlo Casino. There was a vitality, a heat, pulsing beneath his skin that made me respond in a primal, female way.

Maybe Letitia, his wife, was wrong. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was fully human after all.

Well, I was going to find out tonight, once and for all.

‘Another drink?’ he asked, tilting his glass. I shook my head.

‘Feeling a little woozy.’

He watched me in silence for a few moments, and I wondered how the dance was going to play out. Was it going to be
may I give you a ride home
, or was he going to offer to call me a cab, putting the job of seduction onto my shoulders? But he murmured, ‘There’s a hotel a block away.’

The implication was he’d used it before, in similar circumstances. It should have sounded impossibly sleazy, but for some reason it didn’t. It sounded exciting. And dangerous. And just right.

Without a word I stood up. He rose with me.

The hotel wasn’t actually too bad, a rather nondescript building with dull but new carpeting and a fresh coat of paint on the walls. The man behind the reception desk said, ‘Uh-huh,’ when Oscar booked us in as Mr and Mrs DeVane, not even bothering to smirk knowingly at me.

Up in the room, which was clean and had a bed that felt only a little lumpy when I tested it with my hand, Oscar lightly touched my elbow.

‘Excuse me for a minute,’ he said, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Quickly I familiarized myself with the layout of the room. Outside the French windows in the far wall there was the briefest of balconies, no more than a man’s height across. I stepped out and peered down. We were three floors up; below, a railing fenced off the hotel’s swimming pool, which looked dark and murky.

I came back through the French windows just as Oscar was emerging from the bathroom.

‘I was feeling a little hot,’ I murmured. He smiled drily. I left the French windows slightly open behind the floor-length drapes and stepped toward him. He’d taken his jacket off and washed his face. In his shirtsleeves I could appreciate the breath of his shoulders, the expanse of his chest.

He reached out his hand and laid his fingertips on my lips. I parted them a little and touched my tongue against his fingers, lightly, keeping my eyes steady on his.

He stepped closer. I reached up with my own hand, grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped the front open, sending buttons popping and flying. Beneath the cotton his pecs were smooth, sculpted, the result of substantial gym time. I put my hand against his chest and dragged the nails down, not hard enough to hurt.