Blood and Kisses(10)

“Eyasses?”

“Nascent vampires, fledglings you might say. At my age, I fall into an almost irresistible sleep at dawn, but it soon lightens to a normal sleep. I can be active during the day as long as I stay out of the direct rays of the sun.”

“How old are you?”

Gideon had to think for a minute. “Twelve thousand two hundred and twenty-three.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Thalia’s jaw drop. “More or less,” he added. “The calendar has changed several times since I was born. It’s hard to keep track.”

“What do you consider young in a vampire?”

“Five hundred years or less.”

Thalia’s eyebrows twitched over her expressive eyes. Gideon could see her considering her next words. “How can you tell a vampire’s age?”

“It depends on the vampire. The older they are, the more talents they’ve learned, illusion, transformation, telekinesis, and so on. That’s why the older vampires are expected to enforce the Code.”

“The Code?”

“We call the loose set of rules governing vampires the Code. They include unspoken laws, like not hunting in another vampire’s territory. And written laws, such as not taking a life while feeding. But taking a life while feeding has consequences that have nothing to do with the Code. If a vampire takes a life while feeding, he drains more than blood. He receives the life energy of his victim. We call it the Claiming. It gives him a burst of incredible power, but that power has its own price. After a time, the effects wear off, and he begins to age. He has to continue taking lives to sustain himself. The interval between each feeding grows gradually shorter, until he can’t face a sunset without killing.”

A pair of innocent brown eyes flashed into his mind. They belonged to Everett Fale, an eyas Gideon had turned during the American Civil War. In life, Everett had been too young to shave. From Company A of the One Hundred and Fortieth Infantry, he’d been wounded at Gettysburg and deserted when surgeons had threatened to amputate his leg. A native of Brockport, all he could think of was getting home, and he had gotten close, but the infection had spread rapidly, and by the time he’d reached Gideon’s home, he could go no farther.

Gideon remembered finding him hiding, close to death, in one of his outbuildings.

How he’d pleaded to live.

Everett had grasped Gideon’s shirt and begged him to save him, his eyes burning peat in his pale, freckled face. Although Gideon had turned only a handful of vampires in the lengthy span of his life, he had been unable to ignore the boy’s desperate pleas. As the last gasps of air slipped past Everett’s bloodless lips, Gideon had brought him over.

Everett had been pathetically grateful. He’d followed Gideon like a duckling, and Gideon grew fond of the boy. Had begun to think of him almost as a son. But as time passed, Everett had begun to disappear for long periods of time, seemingly distancing himself from Gideon.

At the time, Gideon had assumed it was natural. Eyasses rarely stayed with their mentors for long. Then the rumors started. People were going missing in nearby towns.

The evidence led straight to Everett.

Gideon confronted him as he stumbled up the front walk just before dawn, high on the energy of those he had slaughtered.

Eyes wild, Everett once more pleaded for his life. It had been an accident that first time, he alleged. He could stop. But Gideon knew the truth. The Claiming was a terminal disease. The boy he’d known was gone forever.

But as Everett realized Gideon could not be swayed, he exploded, his face bright red. “You’re just like O’Rorke! Always asking too much!”

“I’m sorry, Everett.” Gideon stepped forward, intending to carry out Everett’s sentence as quickly and as mercifully as he could, but Everett had grown in guile.

With reflexes augmented with stolen power, Everett plunged the sharp wooden stake he’d hidden behind his back toward Gideon’s heart. But Gideon needed no augmentation. At a speed invisible to human eyes, he parried Everett’s thrust, drove his hand into Everett’s chest and removed his heart.

The fight took no more than a second. Everett was still striking out with the stake as he crumpled to his knees, dead. This time for good.

Gideon never knew how long he’d held Everett’s lifeless body while the sky lightened toward the dawn. Grief for the boy he’d known strafed his large frame with bone-rattling shudders.

The monster had destroyed another innocent life.

It would have been better to permit Everett to die the night they’d met, to allow him to meet his god peacefully, with a clean conscience. But the demon was always there, in disguise, ceaselessly searching for new victims.

He was no better than Everett.

He should have faced the justice of the dawn long ago.

But as the sun had peered over the horizon, and the first cruel rays branded his skin, the demon had taken control. It refused to allow him to surrender his life, forcing him to rise to his feet and return to the safety of his room in the basement while Everett’s frail body withered into a pile of ash and swirled away on the indifferent wind.

“Gideon?” Thalia’s voice was husky with concern, and he realized he’d been lost in the past for several minutes.

“There are only a few ways to kill a vampire,” he continued, as if nothing had happened. “Beheading, draining all the blood, and even then, if he makes it to the dawn, the healing sleep will save him. Others, such as destroying the heart through the use of a stake or other instrument, fire, and sunlight, are permanent. Garlic, holy water, crosses,”—he shook his head—“all useless. We can recover from almost any injury, including a broken neck. As for fire, only a complete burn will do. We reflect light, so we do have a reflection. We have amazing vision and hearing. We’re incredibly fast and strong, and some of us can even fly and change our shape.”

“Can you?”

Gideon nodded. “I’ve even learned to change my mass. I could be as small as a bat or as large as an elephant.”

He locked her eyes with his. He had to make her understand exactly what she intended to confront. “A vampire that has gone rogue has nothing left to lose. The Claiming is a madness that poisons the mind. He will use any weapon, mental or physical, to get what he needs. He will lie and cheat and manipulate. He will play on your weaknesses, and he will kill anyone who gets in his way.”





Chapter 6



“Let me do the talking,” Thalia said as she slammed the car door and headed up the brick front walkway of one of the Victorian houses that crowded Park Avenue.

Moths danced in the fuzzy light of a nearby street lamp. Their fluttering wings reflected the light and cast the shadows of their tiny, fragile bodies on the ground.

The night was warm and sweet. Flowers perfumed the air. Fireflies glowed and faded over the tiny front garden. It seemed impossible that somewhere a killer hunted.

She caught her heel on a crack, and Gideon put a hand under her elbow to steady her. The touch of his hand on her bare arm stirred her senses, sparking a fire that coursed up her arm and through her body like a bolt of lightening.

She smoothed her blue silk sundress to regain her composure, but it didn’t help. It only reminded her of Spirit’s surprise when she’d come down wearing the dress. She’d assured him she’d worn the garment because some of the older witches were conservative in matters of dress. He hadn’t said a word, but she could tell he hadn’t believed her. Why should he? She hadn’t believed it herself.

She had dressed for Gideon.

She might not be pretty, but she was proud of her body. She couldn’t help wanting his approval.

Gideon fell silently into step with her, his aspect dark and closed. He dropped her elbow and put his hands in his pockets, but Thalia got the sense that he was on high alert and could spring into action in seconds should the need arise. It was rather like taking a pet leopard for a walk. She scanned the flawless lines of his face under the cover of her lashes.

He turned to her, onyx eyes glinting. Scratch that, Gideon was no one’s pet.

“These houses are beautiful, aren’t they?” she said, following some inner need to banish the heavy quiet that had descended over them. She indicated the string of elegant, well-maintained hundred-year-old houses with her head.

Gideon shrugged, a gleam in his eye. “I don’t care much for new construction.”

A smile spilt Thalia’s face. He was joking. Who knew he had a sense of humor? “Yeah, well, for you the pyramids are probably new construction.” They shared the smile for a moment, and Thalia realized she had never seen him smile. It lightened his face, making him even more stunningly attractive.

Something fluttered in her stomach, butterflies that had nothing to do with nerves. She sucked in a gulp of night air. She had to stop thinking of him in that way. This was just business, and he was just a different kind of consultant. There was no way it could be anything else.