Savannah Vampire - The Vampire's Kiss Part 4

"Who's going to put who in jail?" Connie stepped from around behind me. This was just my night to be snuck up on. But if I had to be snuck up on by somebody, I could do a whole lot worse. Every time she came along when I wasn't expecting her-and sometimes when I was-the sight of her shocked my heart almost back to life. She was like a s.e.xy, luscious human defibrillator.

She was wearing tight jeans and a fitted white shirt under a leather bomber jacket. Her long black hair flowed over one shoulder and silver jewelry glittered at her ears and throat. I took a deep breath. Even from several feet away I felt like I could breathe in her light and warmth and humanity.

From the direction she had come, she didn't see Seth-and he didn't see her-until she was standing right in front of him.

When their eyes locked, both of them went still.

"Seth," Connie said. "I thought I recognized your voice. But I didn't figure it could possibly be you."

"Connie. Well, I'll be a-" He stood up and made a little move like he might hug her, but he stopped himself. He 'd seen the silver pendant and earrings. I'd heard that just touching silver could give a werewolf a nasty burn, not to mention a case of the heebie-jeebies. I found myself feeling really glad that Connie was wearing silver tonight.

Instead of hugging her he just stood there speechless, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. I had seen Seth Walker be a lot of things, but speechless was not one of them. He had what you might call the gift of gab, but not now. He looked at her like she was a long, tall drink of water and he was dying of thirst.

"It's been a long time," she said.

It was hard to tell if she was glad to see him or not. She was being very reserved, which wasn't like her at all. I narrowed my eyes, studying her reaction to my old friend.

"I haven't seen you since, well, it seems like ages." Seth seemed to have recovered somewhat.

"Old friends, are you?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "Where do you guys know each other from?"

"The academy," Connie answered quickly.

Well, wasn't this just old home week? "You two couldn't have gone to the academy together," I said. Seth had been a lawman for years longer than Connie had been in uniform.

"No," Connie said. "Seth was one of my firearms teachers there."

"You mean of all the times Seth here has come down to spend his vacations hunting and fishing with me, you've never run into him here at the garage?"

She shook her head, never taking her eyes off my buddy. My good, good buddy.

"I can't believe I'm meeting up with you again here in Jack's garage," Seth said. "I heard you'd moved out of the Atlanta area, but I never heard where."

Connie shrugged. "Here I am."

"Here we all are," I pointed out. I wanted to ask just what the h.e.l.l was going on between them, but I was afraid of the answer.

In my heart I considered Connie to be my girl, but our relationship had become strained lately. For one thing, I'd had to fess up to being a bloodsucking vampire. That would put a damper on any budding romance, let me tell you. I mean, hot chicks never listed "evil dead" amongst their turn-ons in the personal ads.

And if that wasn't bad enough, turns out she wasn't 100 percent human either, and what she was and what I was didn't mix.

The only time we'd tried to get it on, when I touched her it was like I'd picked up a live wire. And not in a good way. I ended up with the burn marks to prove it. The best my friend Melaphia could figure, Connie was part Mayan G.o.ddess of some sort. The two of them had been trying to discover more about what Connie was-until Renee was kidnapped.

"So, how have you been?" Seth asked her.

"Fine. Actually, I just came to tell Jack my good news," she said. "What's that?" I asked.

"I made detective. I'm on duty now, in my plain clothes."

Her clothes were anything but plain. Not with that bodacious bod filling them out. I could see that Seth was taking in the sight as well as me. And she was taking in the fact that he was taking her in. I thought about how the waitresses at the honky-tonk had flirted with Seth and realized that Connie probably thought he was something special, too. Why did he have to look like that?

Cripes, he was a werewolf for Pete's sake. If there was any justice he'd look like Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy.

I knew what a disadvantage I was at when it came to competing with other guys for Connie's affections. Regular guys, that is.

They had the advantage of not being blood-drinking fiends, d.a.m.ned for all eternity. That is what you call baggage.

But Seth here was not a regular guy-far from it. If Connie knew Seth was a part-time carnivorous, man-eating beast, that might even up the playing field a tad. I could just let that little bit of info slip out accidentally, you might say. As in, Say, Connie, did you know that Seth here sprouts a pelt and a vicious set of choppers at least once a month? And if you don't mind your dates baying at the moon now and then, why, Seth's the guy for you.

But there was one problem. The denizens of the dark have a sort of gentlemen 's agreement not to rat one another out to humans. It's something that all the nonhumans take very seriously, an honor -among-thieves kind of thing. I couldn't tell Connie that Seth was a werewolf. Only he could do that.

I wondered what their relationship had been. She couldn't possibly know already that Seth was a werewolf. I mean, she 'bout flipped when I told her about vampires. Like most humans, she clearly had no idea that the shadow world of monsters and their mayhem existed just beyond humans' reach and understanding. That's the way G.o.d had evidently intended things to be. Those born beasties, shape-shifters like Seth, seemed to understand this instinctively. Those of us who were made instead of born-that is, vampires-had to learn it. Sometimes one of us forgot, went rogue, and had to be reminded the hard way.

"Congratulations, Detective. That's wonderful news," Seth said. "The bad guys in these parts need to watch out. You'd better keep on the straight and narrow, Jack." He elbowed me in the ribs a little harder than I thought necessary for ordinary joshing purposes.

"Yeah," I said. "You've got to watch those bad guys. You never know when somebody's going to turn out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing."

Seth narrowed those yellow-green eyes at me, but Connie seemed not to notice. "I guess I should get going. Your tax dollars at work, yada, yada," Connie said.

"Let me walk you out." I put my arm around Connie's shoulders and steered her gently away from Seth, and she let me. I had the impression that she wanted to put some distance between herself and him. I wondered about that, particularly since otherwise they seemed so cordial. I'd try to get to the bottom of that soon.

"Jack," she said when we were out of Seth's earshot, "I really came here to talk to you about something else."

"What's that?" We stopped at her car and she leaned against the hood.

"I've been thinking about that...talent you said you had. The one I saw you use at Sullivan's funeral when you communicated with him after he was dead. You kind of acted as an interpreter so that Iban could talk to his old friend one last time."

"Yeah?"

"I need you to do that for me. Sort of."

"You mean-"

"There's somebody in the...afterlife I need to reach. It's very, very important to me." I wasn't expecting that. It had been so long since I was mortal and without the power to speak to the dead, I never really thought about how it must feel to lose someone forever. I guess it was only natural to try to get in contact. I looked down into Connie's eyes and saw need bordering on desperation. Maybe William was right after all. Maybe something good could come of my gift if I could use it to help Connie.

"Well, sure," I said. "I'll do my best. You know I'd do anything for you."

"Anything?"

"Yes." I gently reached out to move a lock of hair back from her face. I just had to touch her. "Anything that is within my power to give you, I will give. If I can act as interpreter, a sort of medium for you to speak to somebody important to you who's pa.s.sed on, then consider it done."

"Thank you, Jack. But you should know, I don't want to just talk to him."

Him? "I don't understand," I said.

"Ever since you told me you were a...what you are-"

"Vampire. I'm a vampire." I won't lie to you. It hurt a little to think that she couldn't even bring herself to say what I was.

"A vampire," she said. "Ever since then I've been trying to get my head around the idea of someone being dead but...not. I mean, the idea that you are an undead and the fact that Sullivan can speak to us even though he's dead and buried, well, you can see why it's blown my mind."

It wasn't exactly how I wanted to blow Connie's mind, but it would do for a start. "Sure, I can understand that," I said. "It's a lot to absorb, I guess. But what did you mean when you said you wanted to do more than just talk?"

Connie smiled and her eyes lit with a manic gleam that gave me a bad feeling.

"I want to go there, Jack. Wherever he is, I want you to take me to him."

Four.

William It is said that of all the senses, smell has the greatest a.s.sociation with memories, a.s.signing certain scents to specific persons, places, and events. As I glided down the stairs, the scents of Eleanor brought back vivid images. The first time I kissed her long, fragrant neck, the musky odor between her legs the last time I touched her s.e.x. The reek of fear and excitement when she'd first tried to stake me in one of our little games.

The odors of s.e.x, fear, and something I couldn't recognize guided me toward her as my vampire eyes grew used to the darkness. She was here and someone had been at her. Finally I saw Eleanor, my dark angel turned betrayer, chained naked to the ceiling by her manacled wrists. I flipped on a light switch and a bare bulb illuminated the dingy s.p.a.ce. She began to stir, as if coming out of a long sleep in the earth. My elegant Eleanor, whose hair was always beautifully coiffed, whose skin was always soft and supple thanks to the most expensive lotions and oils, looked like a rough street urchin. Her hair was grimy and disheveled. Her skin looked lifeless and dirty. The snake tattoo on her torso, which she could make seem almost alive by her undulations when she rode me, looked cheap.

As I came closer I noticed that some of the spots on her body were not dirt but were bruises. When I came closer still, I saw the bites and more. Worst of all, I now recognized the odor I'd been unable to identify. Eleanor's body had begun to decompose.

"William," Eleanor rasped. "My beautiful green-eyed angel. You've come for me. Thank G.o.d."

"For you?" I laughed harshly. "Don't flatter yourself. And don't bring G.o.d into this or you'll be more d.a.m.ned than you already are. I'm here for Renee. Where is she?"

Eleanor looked as if I'd struck her with one of the implements of torture that were hanging on the wall on either side of her.

When she recovered her composure, she said, "I don't know. She's not here. They took her someplace else. And they go to...

visit her."

"And feed off her," I said.

"William, I never meant for Renee to be harmed."

"Yet you helped them take her. You betrayed me in the cruelest way imaginable."

"You betrayed me first!" She choked back a sob. "When they came to town, you rejected me entirely. I'm a fledgling. I needed my sire to survive. You were slipping away from me."

"And when you found out that they were leaving town, you knew Diana would be out of my life. Why didn 't you just stay in Savannah? You would have been rid of her."

"I thought you would go after them, just like you have." Her voice held a note of accusation.

"Only to get Renee back."

"You would have come to fight Hugo for Diana even if they hadn't stolen Renee."

I thought about that a moment. Would I have? Would I have followed Diana knowing she had chosen another man? "No. I think not," I said. "I would have let her go." Eleanor's stricken look said she believed me. She strangled a sob and hung her head, realizing the error of her choice. "He beats me," she said.

"I can see that." While Eleanor was often a facilitator for those with more violent fetishes and could play the dominatrix as well as anyone, she derived no pleasure from being victimized. She had entered into a game over which she had no control. I felt sorry for her for the first time. It was true I could have been more responsive to her needs when Diana had first arrived and proved to be a threat. I should have rea.s.sured Eleanor. I thought that she would trust me. But she didn 't and the result had shaken my world. I created her to be a helpmate to me, not an enc.u.mbrance, and certainly not a traitor.

"He tricked me," she said. "Why didn't you tell me that I couldn't leave you for two hundred years without starting to...die?"

"Because I had no idea that you would be so foolish as to leave me," I said.

"You wanted to keep me in the dark like you always did with Jack. It's your way of controlling us."

"Nonsense. I thought I had an eternity to teach you the ways of the blood drinker. How did I know you would abandon me so soon after we started our life together?"

She screamed in frustration. "Because she came. And when she did, everything between you and me was different."

I could not deny the truth of that. "That still does not excuse your part in Renee's kidnapping."

"They figured out Renee's connection to the blood on their own. They knew that Gerard had used her blood to experiment with and they put two and two together. I couldn't have stopped them."

My mind reached out to hers for any sign that she was lying, but she blocked my psychic intrusion. An impressive trick for a fledgeling. Jack had taught her well.

She broke down in sobs and sagged against her restraints, and I felt nothing. It was as if what little compa.s.sion I had as a vampire was bleeding away as Renee's blood was being let in whatever hovel they had her hidden.

"You saw me in the sh.e.l.ls, didn't you? You saw me the first time he-he raped me." For the first time in our acquaintance, I saw shame on the face of my madam mistress.

"Yes, I saw. I was treated to the sight of another man ravishing you and boasting that he now owned everything I called dear. I also saw the moment when you realized you had made a grave mistake by trusting Hugo instead of me. I saw the horror of that knowledge in your face."

Eleanor sobbed again. "Diana couldn't wait to tell me, you know. We were still on the plane when she told me why I was beginning to feel sick. I thought they were giving me tainted blood at first. Then she came to me and said that I had signed my own death warrant by leaving you without being released from our bond. She laughed at me. Even as I first began to die, she laughed."

Eleanor's narrative chilled my blood even further. It was more confirmation that the Diana of my heart and of my memory-the human Diana-was well and truly gone. In her place masqueraded a beautiful demon capable of the most vile of betrayals and the most monstrous acts of cruelty. I realized that my inability to reconcile the sweet and loving Diana of my past to the fiend occupying her body was at the root of my disorientation and disillusion.

"Are they feeding you now?" I asked, noticing under the naked lightbulb her thinness along with the mottled grayness of her decomposing skin.

She shook her head. "I need blood. Please."

I rolled up my left shirtsleeve and offered her my wrist. She bit daintily but hard enough to open a vein. I thought once again what an elegant vampire she made. It was a shame her survival instincts were so poor-when given a choice of whom she should trust, she'd chosen badly. The next few days would tell if that error would prove fatal.

She put her cupid's bow lips to the wound. Her sucking was greedy, and I saw her cheeks grow rosier in moments. She broke the seal between her lips and my flesh well before I could feel the effects of blood loss.

"Take me with you," she said. "Help me out of these chains. Release me from my offspring bond."

"I cannot. Not yet. If they come back and find you gone, or if you begin to miraculously come back into your undeath, they will be alerted to my presence. That might put Renee at even greater risk. You must stay here a little longer."

"Stay here and rot, you mean," she said wildly.

"When I find Renee, I will come back and release you from your bonds, both mystical and physical. In the meantime you must not tell them that you saw me tonight."

She started to protest, but held herself in check with visible effort, knowing she needed what was left of my goodwill to survive.

She straightened and tossed her head to clear the unkempt hair from her eyes. "Come closer," she said.

I did as she asked, coming to stand near her. She pressed herself as close to me as the chains would allow and bent one knee, rubbing her leg along the outside of mine. "Is there anything I can say or do to make you want to take me with you now?" she said.