Real Vampires Don't Sparkle (6 page)

Voices leaked out of Quin’s study. Matheus stopped outside the door, pressing his ear against the crack, the book in his hands forgotten.

In the ten days since his premature death, Matheus knew of no one who had come to Quin’s house. Sometimes Quin went out, but Matheus stayed behind. Outside meant the smell of blood and a reminder of the hunger that gnawed at every cell in his body. He read constantly, sometimes waking up for the night with a book still resting on his chest. Stacks of books teetered on the nightstands, sat in tall piles around his bed. Unless Quin prodded him loose, Matheus distracted himself with fiction until sunrise sent him into blissful unconsciousness. Raised voices disrupted the routine; Matheus couldn’t help his curiosity.

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” The woman had an unfamiliar accent, with the ringing vowels of a nineteen-forties stage actress.

Matheus squeezed closer to the door, but he couldn’t hear Quin’s reply.

“Honestly, Quin, you’re…. What are you doing?”

The door swung open, and Matheus landed in a crumpled heap at Quin’s feet. He saw his reflection blurred in Quin’s shoes.

“Really, Sunshine? Eavesdropping? It’s a little tacky.” Quin leaned down and hauled Matheus to his feet.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Matheus replied. He shoved at Quin.

“Of course you weren’t. The door just flew open and sucked you in.”

The woman gave a snort of laughter. She stood beside the desk, manicured fingers tapping lightly on the scarred wood. She had honey blonde hair, and a round, smooth face, with a mouth made up into a pout. Matheus knew even less about women’s designers than men’s, but he doubted she shopped at the local mall. Her dress had a pencil skirt, a cinched waist, and capped sleeves. Heels brought her within an inch of Matheus’ height. She looked expensive, and Matheus knew he couldn’t afford her.

“Another pet?” she asked. “After the last one—”

“Matheus, this is Juliet,” Quin said. “She’s just leaving.”

“I was not,” Juliet said, raising an immaculate eyebrow. She took a seat on the dark blue loveseat, one ankle tucked neatly behind the other. Her eyelashes swept down, but her small smile belied the demure attitude.

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say,” Quin said with a hint of growl. He used the voice from the alley, the one that made Matheus concerned about bladder control. Even if he didn’t need to worry about urination anymore, fear-induced or otherwise.

Juliet opened the clasp of her purse and pulled out a palm-sized mirror. With deliberate care, she examined her face, then closed the mirror with flick of her wrist.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll talk to your new pet. Come sit next to me, Pet.” She patted the seat beside her.

“I have a name,” said Matheus.

“As though that matters,” said Juliet.

Matheus glanced at Quin. He didn’t want to get involved in some weird power struggle. When Quin said nothing, Matheus shrugged and walked over to the loveseat.

Perfume tinged the air around Juliet, the scent a bit heavier than he expected with the dress and the mirror trick.

Juliet tilted toward him, her knees just barely brushing against his.

Quin looked from Juliet to Matheus, then stared at his bookshelves for a long moment.

“I’m going out,” he said abruptly.

“Oh, good,” said Juliet. “Your new pet and I will have time for a nice chat.” She waved in the manner appropriate for the queen as Quin stalked out of the room.

Matheus raised his eyebrows, impressed with Juliet’s skill. She had managed to annoy Quin without prompting horrific violence in response. His admiration dissipated as Juliet turned her attention in his direction. He found himself thinking of hawks and sympathizing with the field mouse.

“So,” Juliet said. She placed a slender finger underneath Matheus’ chin, then tilted his face left and right. Her nail bit into his skin, hooking him into passivity.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Juliet made a humming noise.

“Blond, of course. The man is nothing if not predictable. A bit old though. Surprising.”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

Juliet laughed. “Oh, much too old, then. Gray eyes, too wide-set. Gives you a caught-in-the-headlights look. Your mouth hanging open doesn’t help either, Pet.”

“Stop that,” Matheus said, shaking himself loose. He moved to the far end of the loveseat, resisting the urge to go examine his eyes in a mirror.
Too wide-set
, he thought.
Ridiculous
.

“Don’t be tetchy,” Juliet said. “You haven’t got much of an accent, but then you have been here a long time, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie spilled out, while Matheus frantically replayed the conversation in his head. Had he said something, used the wrong slang, arranged his verbs in the wrong order? It’d been so long since anyone had noticed.

“Don’t play dumb, Pet. I won’t tell Quin. It’s much more fun to see how things fall.” Juliet gave Matheus an unsettling smile.

He clasped his hands together, knuckles going white. Fear that his voice would betray him welded his mouth closed.

“You shouldn’t trust him, you know,” Juliet said after a moment.

“What?”

“Quin, Pet. Don’t trust him.” Juliet’s fingertips brushed over his arm, her nails scratching against his skin.

Matheus shifted away.

“I figured that out when he killed me,” Matheus said. He concentrated on each word, testing its shape before letting the syllables leave his mouth.

“Just a warning.” Juliet leaned back, stretching her arm along the back of the sofa. She moved like a character in a film. Matheus had never met a woman so elaborately feminine.

“Do you know what he’s doing? Why he needed—”

“I can guess. My advice to you is to stay out of it. If Quin wants to turn himself into a pile of ash, that’s his business.”

Matheus tapped his foot. His anxiety grew stronger, beyond the fear of discovery. A buzzing moved through his nerves. He tried to focus on Juliet, her face a mask of genteel breeding. Matheus had known the upper class, and Juliet didn’t fit. She covered well, but he could see the edges of her veneer.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“That’s a complex question,” Juliet said. “Would you like to start somewhere simpler?”

“Are you a friend of Quin’s?” Matheus asked, pressing his palm against his thigh. “How long have you known him?”

“Friend? Quin isn’t the type for friends, Pet.”

“He must trust you,” Matheus said. “To leave you here with me.”

“Trust?” Juliet laughed. “It’s not trust. I just know what will happen if I push Quin too far.”

“Are you lovers?” Matheus didn’t see it, but he’d only watched them interact for a few minutes. His whole leg shook now. He pushed both hands down, the heel of his shoe clattering on the hardwood floor.

“Definitely not.”

“Why do you say it like that?” he asked.

“You’re more Quin’s type than I am, Pet,” said Juliet.

“You mean he’s…he’s…?”

“A homosexual? Of course. You couldn’t tell?” Juliet grinned at him.

“No!” Matheus jerked to his feet, the result of a combination of discomfort and the jerking in his veins. His insides felt as though they were trying to become his outsides.

“You needn’t be so twitchy about it,” Juliet said, her grin dipping a little in disapproval. “He’s not going to jump you. Whatever his faults, Quin doesn’t go where he’s not wanted.”

“It’s not that,” Matheus said through chattering teeth. “Something’s wrong.”

He paced around the room, circling the worn carpet. Juliet’s eyes followed him. Cool-eyed intelligence pierced her socialite façade.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I just told you.”

“I meant, how long has it been since you were turned?”

“Almost two weeks,” Matheus said. He delivered a kick to Quin’s desk, leaving a scuffmark on the antique wood. The kick didn’t help the buzzing in his veins, but Matheus did it again. Matheus despised the desk, an early twentieth century monstrosity by an overrated designer. Its destruction would be a favor to the world.

“That’s it?” Juliet raised her eyebrows. “And Quin already—”

“What?” asked Matheus.

“Nothing, Pet.”

“I’m going after Quin.” Matheus spun around. He couldn’t explain why, but he knew Quin caused the buzzing. Somehow, Quin had hijacked his nervous system. Matheus was going to find him and beat him until it stopped.

“Are you sure that is a good idea? You might get hurt. Quin does know how to look after himself.”

Juliet followed him out of the room. A red trench coat lay carelessly thrown over the coffee table in the entranceway. She slipped it on as Matheus yanked one of Quin’s coats out of the front closet, his own having gone missing. Although, as Matheus pulled the jacket up, the thought occurred to him that anything belonging to Quin would be too tight around his shoulders.

The coat fit as though it’d been tailored to him. Matheus traced the line of meaning to its end, torn between rage at Quin’s manipulation and rage at finding the coat comfortable and attractive. Somehow, Quin’s presumption would have been tolerable if the damned coat had been hideous.

“What is Quin going to do?” Matheus asked. “It can’t be worse than this.”

“I promise you it can,” said Juliet. “But in this case, it’s not Quin you need to worry about.”

“You aren’t making any sense.”

“Didn’t Quin explain anything?” Juliet sighed. “He’s hurt, Pet. You can sense that.”

“What? Why?”

“That is something you should ask Quin.”

“Fine.” Matheus jerked open the front door.

“You’re going to save the man who murdered you?” Juliet asked.

“Apparently,” Matheus said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Outside, Matheus appreciated the coat, albeit against his will. Only a few days of September remained. A hint of winter touched the air, the temperature low even for late fall. The squatters bundled together in the doorways of their ruined buildings, visible breaths mixing with streams of smoke. Matheus watched their eyes follow Juliet, wondering what they saw to make their faces go slack. Juliet ignored the stares. She wrapped her coat tight around herself, tying the belt with a jerk.

“Do you know where you’re going?” she asked.

“He’s this way,” Matheus said, moving as fast as he could without breaking into a run. At the end of the street, he turned left, toward Jorey Hill. A sign welcomed people to the neighborhood, gold leaf flaking off, and graffiti tagged over the motto. Matheus found the idea strange, when communities inside cities put up welcome signs, like the losing side refusing to acknowledge the war had been lost and everyone else had gone home. Before his death, Matheus lived in Kenderton proper, the seed of the city, but Kenderton itself had expanded far beyond that. Judging by the occasional farmhouse lurking among the new buildings, Jorey Hill had been a farming village. Now, single-family homes made up the area, houses pushed so close together someone could spit out his window and into his neighbor’s kitchen.

“He won’t thank you for interfering,” Juliet said, heels click-clicking as she struggled to keep up.

“I don’t care.”

“Will you stop for a minute?” Juliet grabbed his arm.

“What?” Matheus asked. The buzzing tugged at him, urged him forward.

“Think. Why are you doing this?”

“Because…because I have to.”

“You don’t,” Juliet said. Her expression softened. “Matheus, you don’t.”

“What are you doing?” Matheus asked, staring down at her.

Juliet looked away, then back, the familiarity in her eyes gone.

“Quin can be very charismatic. Don’t follow him blindly.”

“I’m not. I hate the bastard. But I need him right now.”

“There are others. He’s not the only one.”

The words hung in the air. Memories flickered through Matheus’ mind. The dead thing in the alley, the pressure on the back of his neck, Quin ordering him to kill the woman, carrying him home, sitting quietly while Matheus raged.

“He’s the one I want.” Matheus started to move again, sending Juliet rocking on her heels. With a disgruntled noise, she sped up to match his steps. Matheus hoped she didn’t push the issue.

“You hate him, but you want him.”

Matheus scowled, walking faster. “Yes,” he said.

“Sounds like somebody has a crush,” Juliet said in a singsong voice.

Matheus whirled on her. “I’m not gay!”

“Good for you, mate!” a frat boy across the street called back.

“Shut up!” Matheus stalked away, cutting between two houses and a miniscule yard to the next street over.

Juliet stuck close, cursing softly as her heels sank into the grass. “You know what they say,” she said.

“I don’t have a problem with it. I’m just not gay.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Matheus turned left, ignoring the screech of car tires as he crossed against the light. He was dead, what the hell did he care? A cacophony of beeping started behind him; angry drivers singing the song of their people.

“I just want it noted that when you say you both hate and want someone, that usually implies lust of some kind,” Juliet said.