“Your tendencies do nothing more than fascinate me”—his mouth moved against mine—“and excite me even more.” He pulled back and looked at me. “What other tricks do you possess that I might enjoy?” His alluring scent surrounded me as his mouth covered mine—
“Riley?” A hand grasped my shoulder and shook—hard. “Riley, wake up, dammit.”
I gasped; my eyes fluttered open and I stared, confused, into Eli’s questioning gaze. Behind him, early-morning sun streamed in through my bedroom window, casting a hazy glow on his face. He frowned. “You’ve been dreaming of him again,” he said, his eyes hard and accusing. “Haven’t you?”
I glanced down. I still wore the same black yoga pants and sports bra I’d gone for a run in the night before. I’d encountered Victorian on that run. Hadn’t I? Or had it all really been a dream? I looked at my knuckles; the skin across them was scraped raw.
Inside my head,Victorian’s seductive laugh resonated.
Now, either that little fucker was messing with me, or I was losing my goddamn mind.
Part Three
TERRORS
“Death is when the monsters get you.”
—Stephen King, Salem’s Lot
“I’ve started having . . . visions. Night terrors.
Day terrors. And they’re not of Victorian. It’s
something—or someone—else; I get the sick
feeling they’re weirdly familiar. I’m seeing in-
nocents die horrible deaths at the hands of a
vicious monster; watching it happen through
my own eyes as though it’s me doing the kill-
ing; as if I’m the monster. I even feel what the
monster is experiencing, and it’s . . . disgusting.
I’m not kidding—something’s gotta give be-
cause I can’t freaking take it anymore.”
—Riley Poe
By the time I’d closed Inksomnia’s doors a few nights later, I’d realized with complete lucidity that our lives—all of our lives—would never be the same again. There were no rose-colored glasses here. Nope. My goggles were scratch free and squeaky-clean, and, to be honest, I suppose I’d rather it be that way. Better to know what’s coming than to ignorantly stand around with your thumb up your butt, waiting for junk to happen.
For instance, Preacher and Estelle no longer had to what the Gullah referred to as “fix” me. Let’s face it. My DNA was royally screwed up, so I no longer needed that particular concoction of God-Knows-What from Preacher’s special behind-the-haint-blue-curtain herb collection. I still had to have something—I mean, I was still human after all—but not such a heavy dose, and my Gullah grandparents no longer had to trick me daily into drinking my protective tea. I willingly did so and kept a mammoth canister of it on my kitchen counter. Gilles said that because I had the venom of two strigoi vampires’ mixed with my DNA, my blood would slowly start morphing into something unique, and soon I wouldn’t even need the tea. I’m not sure if I should have been happy or freaked about that. Lucky for my brother, he had the venom of only one strigoi mixed with his DNA. We’re both pretty messed up, though, I guess you could say. Messed up, but not stupid.
Another thing I’ve noticed, and this just since getting back home, is my senses. They’re changing. I mean, I’d known about the whole werewolf/Arcos bit, but damn—I didn’t realize it’d get so intense. Or that it’d continue to alter as it has. My hearing is ridiculously acute. I’m starting to hear the most insane sounds, like the nuns over at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (aka Cinderella’s Castle by Seth and me), and that’s all the way over on East Harris Street. I can literally hear them praying. At first, it was nothing more than a cluster of hushed murmuring whispers; but, by the second day, the whispers were totally clear and I could understand every word being muttered—every single word. It made me feel like some freaky eavesdropping voyeur or something. Weird. Even weirder was that I could now pick up heartbeats, and only God knew how far away they were. I heard them everywhere, and after a while it began to seriously grate on the nerves. Thump thump thump thump thump thump. Thump freaking thump. Eli promised to teach me how to channel it, tune it out, or make use of it. I was looking forward to learning those tricks and hopefully soon, because I felt as if I’ were constantly holed up in a crowded bar with some drunken idiot banging a set of drums. The softer the sound, the louder it was inside my head. It was driving me frickin’ nuts.
And my sense of smell was almost just as crazy. I could detect everything from a joint being toked three blocks away in an upstairs apartment, to some nasty drunk dude farting batter-fried onion rings in the corner booth at Spanky’s.
I was standing in my kitchen, steeping strong Gullah tea, when the first terror-vision hit me. I wished to God it was my last. It wasn’t. I remember glancing at the time on my Kit-Cat Klock—8:44 a.m.
A paralyzing grip suddenly snatched control of my body; I dropped the spoon I was using to stir sugar into my tea, and it clattered against the granite countertop, then hit the floor. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes, and, at first, I couldn’t breathe. The insides of my eyes, behind the sockets, turned boiling hot, then frigidly cold. A loud ringing in my ears drowned out any and all noises, including the ones I heard blocks away. Then everything went pitch-black. I tried to speak, but my vocal cords were paralyzed, too. Panic, mixed with anger, seized me.
All at once, a live scene flashed behind my lids. It was nightfall, and I was following a girl out of the mall. I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the place, but it definitely wasn’t Savannah. Young, petite, and blond, looking to be in her early twenties, wearing red flip-flops, holey jeans, and a purple tank top, she swung her hips as she made her way toward the covered parking garage. She happily chatted to someone on her cell and didn’t seem to notice me. A horn blew from somewhere in the garage, and the girl squealed, then giggled to her phone companion. I grew closer. In the distance, sounds of traffic filled the night air.
Long shadows, birthed from low light cast from the overhead lamps bracketed onto concrete pillars, fell over the row of sparsely parked cars. Not many people were about on a weeknight; no one was in the direct vicinity of the girl. She turned down the row with a white metal sign marked by a black capital B. I watched her closely. She dug through her purse and retrieved a set of keys. At the same time, she stopped at a white Camry and pushed the key release. The horn gave one short blast as it unlocked the doors. With her chin she held her cell, and she reached for the door handle.
Hands not my own grabbed her, whipped her around, and slammed her back against the car. Large blue eyes widened in fear and confusion as they stared, horrified, into mine. Tremors of fear wracked her body; I could feel them. Adrenaline rushed through her veins; I could hear the swooshing sound it made as though magnified, only to my ears. Her heart slammed rapidly against her ribs, faster, harder. At the indention in her throat, her pulse beckoned me. The moment she filled her lungs with air to scream, I lunged at her neck and sank my teeth into her flesh. The scream died in her throat as I ripped through her larynx and her vocal cords, until the vessel I sought popped; a rush of wet warmth, sweet, erotic, and heady, saturated the inside of my mouth. I suckled her blood, excitement rushing through me as I felt the liquid slide down my throat. The girl’s body jerked, involuntarily, as life left her. The jerks were hard at first, then weaker. The instant she sagged against me, her heart having stilled and her eyes dull and lifeless, I dropped her body. It crumpled into a heap at my feet, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Riley!”
Strong hands gripped my shoulders and shook me until my blurred vision cleared, and Seth’s worried face came into view. He shook me again and shouted so loud my ears rang. “Ri, wake up!”
“Whoa, back off, Bro,” I said, and shook his hands off me. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, and looked around. Slowly, my surroundings came into focus. I glanced at the Kit-Cat Klock on the wall. It was 8:50 a.m. Six
minutes had passed.
What the fu—
“Your eyes were blank, but your face . . . ,” he said, and it was then I noticed for the first time his voice had deepened.
“What about my face?” I asked. I moved to the sink, flipped the faucet on, and splashed myself with cold water.
Seth passed me the hand towel. “You looked, I don’t know,” he said, then looked at me with his expressive green eyes. “Mean. You looked mean, Ri. Scary-mean. Not yourself.”
I dried my face and thought about that. “Did I say anything?”
Seth shook his head, a hank of dark hair falling into his eyes. He pushed it back. “No. You just stood there, staring, and looking . . . hateful.”
The memory of the vision struck me, rushing back full force. I met my brother’s worried gaze. “I saw something, Seth. Like a daydream, only it was so freaking real. It was”—I searched for the right word—“sickening.”
“What was it?” he asked, and I noticed then how worried he truly was. His brows pulled into a frown, his mouth thin. “Tell me.”
I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into the sockets, rubbing hard. I looked at my brother. “I saw a kill. I saw a vampire feed.”
Seth’s face grew pale, and his eyes widened. “What?”
My mouth went dry as the memory of the vision, so clear and realistic, pushed to the very forefront of my mind. “It was as though I were him; I saw everything as if I were the killer, only when my hands reached out, they were not mine. They were his.” I shook my head. “I felt everything, Seth. The girl’s terror. The rush of excitement as my teeth sank into her artery. The blood as it pumped into my throat. Every freaking thing.” Suddenly, my stomach rolled, every detail returning in vivid recall, and I felt the color drain from my face. My skin grew clammy. I covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m gonna be sick.”
Seth grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall and into the bathroom with such speed, my head spun just as violently as my stomach. Even then, we barely made it. I stumbled, kicked the lid open with my foot, and retched into the toilet. Seth held my hair back while I lost last night’s lo mein noodles.
A cold, wet washcloth was suddenly resting on the back of my neck. Seth flushed the toilet, closed the lid, turned me around, and pushed me down onto it. I rested my forearms on my knees and breathed, and my baby brother, who seemed so grown up lately, squatted down to look at me. Green eyes just like mine met me with intensity.
“You gotta tell Eli,” Seth said.
I thought about it. “Maybe. But I’m not. It’s probably just my mind effing with me, you know? That night at Bonaventure still haunts me. Seriously. It’s just a lot of crap to take in. We’ve been through hell, little brother. Nasty-hell.”
The frown still on Seth’s face proved he didn’t really believe me. “Yeah, I know, he said. He ducked his head. “You okay, Ri?”
I wasn’t. Not at all. “Yeah. I’m totally fine. Let’s get out of here, okay? And,” I said, playfully punching his arm, “thanks. Not many dudes would hold a girl’s hair while she puked her guts up.”
Seth’s eyes softened. “Well, I’m not just any ole dude, and you’re my sister. I love you.”
My heart was melting.
“I love you, too,” I said. “I’d hug you, but—”
“Yeah, gross,” he finished, taking a step back. He held up his hands in defense. “No postpuke hugging, please. That’s just nasty.” He shuddered.
We both laughed, and I did my very best for the rest of the day to forget the horror of the daydream. Good thing it was Sunday and Inksomnia was closed. I’m not positive I could have kept it to myself.
Eli had gone with his brothers and Gilles to some monthly guardian meeting at Bethesda with Preacher and his people, and while I missed being with Eli, I’d craved time alone with my little brother. So I spent the early part of the day with just Seth. It seemed like forever since we’d done that, and even in spite of the awful, realistic daydream, we had fun. We had breakfast with Estelle and took Chaz to Forsythe Park for a long walk. Then later we hit Cleary’s for lunch. We both had the Reuben, and, swear to God, they make the best ones in Savannah. I could have eaten two and had to literally stop myself from ordering a second.
One of the tendencies Seth and I shared: voracious appetites. We both ate like friggin’ hogs. Luckily our metabolisms kept up with the amount of food we dumped in.
On the way home, we hit the Pig (that’s the everpopular southern grocery chain store Piggly Wiggly, aka Hoggly Woggly, aka the PW), picked up some milk, dog food, a twelve-pack of Cherry Coke, a pack of T-bones, another twelve-pack of Octoberfest, some junk food, and a few things for Estelle, then headed home. As we cruised the city streets with the top off the Jeep, the sun pelted me through the sporadic holes in the overhead canopy of oaks and pines. As my skin warmed, and the briny breeze wafted from the Savannah River to my nostrils, I could almost put behind me the horribleness of that damn daydream, and the way that girl had died; the way I’d felt it, tasted it, experienced it, and how wickedsick real it had been. I mean, I’d tasted her blood. I’d felt it slide down my throat. How the hell could that be?
The girl’s face kept randomly flashing behind my lids, and it was disturbing as holy freaking hell. Her facial features, right down to the small gap in her front teeth, seemed so exact. It was almost as if I’d met her before. Maybe she was a past client I’d inked? That could definitely be a possibility. I’d inked a lot of people. Overall, though—why her?
The afternoon sun waned, and weak early-evening shadows now fell from lampposts, live oaks, and parking meters as we crossed Bay, pulled onto the merchant’s drive and parked the Jeep behind Inksomnia.
“Hey, there’s Eli,” Seth said, and pointed.
Eli was there, waiting for me, and, I confess, he had the sole capability to take my breath away. His bike was almost as hot as he was. The liquid silverback chopper sat propped on its kickstand, half helmet hanging off a handlebar, the whole package looking kick-ass. Eli leaned casually against the seat; legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest, he was wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung worn jeans, boots, and a white T-shirt, and the silver hoop at his brow. I couldn’t see his eyes—they were masked by his shades—but I knew he stared at me. He studied every inch of me. My sex drive kicked me mule-hard, and I wanted him. Just knowing he watched me behind the privacy of his sunglasses shot a thrill through me. A sexier man did not exist, I swear it.
A small smile tilted the corner of his mouth. Freaking ego. Of course, he’d been listening and had joyfully heard every word I’d thought.
“Hey, Eli,” Seth said cheerfully, grabbing nearly all the bags from the back of the Jeep. He had a twenty-five-pound bag of Chaz’s dog food slung over one shoulder as he passed what no one would ever guess to be a nearly two-hundred-year-old vampire.
“What’s up, Seth?” Eli answered, but he didn’t move. Behind those shades his gaze remained fixed on me.
“Nothin’ much. Hangin’ with the sister,” Seth said with a grin, and disappeared inside. Chaz’s excited bark met my ears, and in seconds, Seth emerged with the Australian shepherd on a leash. “Be back in a bit,” he said, his smile wide. “We’ve got training at your folk’s place at eight. I can’t wait.” He waved and disappeared around the corner.
Eli didn’t move. He mouthed, Come here, and, oh hell yeah, I did just that. I stepped out of the Jeep and swaggered over to him, hoping I was half as distracting to him as he was to me. I was wearing my faded low-rise jeans and the fuchsia floral cami I knew he liked— mainly because it skimmed just above my belly button. I stopped when I was directly in front of him and placed one leg on either side of his. I leaned forward, bracing my weight with the heel of my palms on the sides of his hips. I drew so close, our noses nearly touched. I could see my reflection in his shades.
Neither of us said a word.
Eli’s hands slipped around my waist, grazing the bare skin of my lower back, and moved his
mouth over mine in a kiss that had me wet and burning for him within five seconds. My hands slid up his back and around his neck; I kissed him back. The slightest pressure pulled my body against his, and I briefly thought how well we fit together. His hands moved over my ass; his hard bulge let me know I affected him just as much, and I groaned against his mouth. “I’m not above taking you right here, right now,” I whispered, and licked his tongue. I felt his smile beneath my lips.
“Another thing I love about you,” he said in a low voice. “You’re not shy.” His fingers threaded through my hair and he pulled me tight against his mouth. His kiss drugged me.
Finally, breathless, and just a shade under being pornographic in public, I leaned back and took off his shades. His profound stare never ceased to stun me; the weight of it froze me. Fathomless and ancient at once, his eyes locked on to mine. It was then I knew with complete certainty that I’d never be satisfied with anyone else except Eli—a pretty scary thought, actually.
The sexiest grin I’d ever seen crossed his face. “Ah, my evil plan has succeeded. Come here, mostly mortal woman. There is nothing to be scared of. Let me ravish you,” he drawled in heavy French. I laughed, and he pushed a loose strand of fuchsia hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear. Then he stopped, studying me; his gaze narrowed, and a slight early-evening breeze rustled his already-tousled hair. All playfulness had vanished, replaced by uncanny perception. “What’s wrong?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. A dream I had earlier shook me up a little.” I sighed. “Freaking vampires.”
Eli pulled me close and buried his face in my hair. He inhaled deeply. “Must’ve shaken you more than a little.” He leaned back and frowned. “You’re making goofy jokes and you didn’t drink your tea.”