* * *
He’d needed something to take his mind off the fight. The fight that was surely coming. And the lack of Nepeta Dynatos wasn’t helping.
Hell, Clarkson had thought he’d been going stir-crazy on Archi. Now that he was off it, though, he saw the truth: he’d been happy there. Oh, there were things he’d change about the island, but… but given complete freedom, he’d reverted to his old self: gone to a pub and tried to pick up a girl. That had always come easy to him, taken his mind off the lack of direction in his life, but today it had come too easy. The girl had been too willing. He could have taken her innocence or – lacking innocence – just taken her roughly against the shelves in the little storeroom she’d led him to. It would have posed no challenge.
So instead he’d continued the part of the gentleman. Sat Suzi down on a crate opposite him – a crate he’d spread his dinner jacket on – taken another crate opposite her, and they’d talked. Turned out she’d lived in Estika her whole life; never really considered leaving because, well, where else had real, live vampires?
“You guys really love the undead, huh?” he asked.
“There’s a… lure there,” she admitted, giving him her best smoky-sexy eyes.
“And the cost?”
“Feeding on humans?” Suzi shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” She leaned her head away from him, offering her scarfed neck to him.
“Not the feeding,” he said. Snapped, almost. That wasn’t like him. He hadn’t spent this long off Nepeta for a while and it was getting to him. He felt… awake, alert. Like he’d had too much coffee. Not that he could drink coffee anymore. “Sorry,” he added.
“Touchy subject?”
“I don’t drink blood.”
He intended to explain that no vampire did, but she cut in. “You’re a vegetarian? It’s okay if you are.”
“I know it is.” Wait, was she making some kind of connection between his ability to drink blood and his male potency? Was she about to ask if he’d like to try again later? Because he’d slap her for that, respect for women be damned.
“So if you don’t want… me… why are you here?” she asked. Gods, she was making that connection, wasn’t she? And Paddington was always saying that Clarkson only had one thing on his mind.
“Because I saw you and wanted to talk to you.” It wasn’t even a lie. It was pleasant being around a pretty young girl. Took his mind off having to decide whether to help murder the women he’d been bedding for three years or to stay out of the conflict and feel guilty when someone on the Team inevitably died.
“I still don’t get why you chose me. There’s plenty prettier girls at the bar.”
Clarkson shrugged. Slowly. Playing the part of the eternal creature of night. He was in no hurry; he’d seen millennia pass by. Also it gave him time to think of a reason. “Beauty changes,” he said. “Years eat it away; definitions change. After an aeon, you stop caring for the current concept and focus on the beauty within.”
Wow. He’d really just said that. Pretentious, overblown, clichéd. As awful a pick-up line as he’d ever heard. Worse than he’d ever used. That should have garnered him a slap.
But because he was a vampire, she lapped it up.
“How old are you?” she asked, her pinkly-lipsticked mouth hung slightly open. Then, jolting herself out of her reverie, she said, “I mean, you uh… you must have seen a lot of beautiful women in your time.”
“I’ve seen women twist themselves into monsters so that people call them beautiful. And I’ve seen true beauties wither and die. Every flower is seasonal. Every bloom, momentary.” He paused until she stopped looking at the details of him – the suit, the way he sat, his hair (which he hadn’t cut since becoming a vampire three years ago, and now tied back in a ponytail) – and was looking at his eyes. “But in that moment… they can bring joy, hope, light. They can be the sun to those who dwell in darkness.”
She leaned forward. If she’d had much in the way of cleavage, it would have bulged out of the white tank top. She didn’t. It didn’t. Any of the Andrastes would have.
Then he was remembering them again: the good times he’d had with them, the fights, the make-up sex. That Paddington and Truman were planning their deaths…
Some of his grief must have shown on his face, because Suzi placed her hand on his. “It must be so lonely… Theodore.” Who? Oh, right, that was supposed to be his name. “But you don’t have to be alone anymore,” she whispered.
Was she propositioning him? Or asking him to turn her? Was there a difference in her mind? Or did she assume that if she wanted a relationship with a vampire she must be one herself?
Ironic, really, since a physical relationship with a vampire was what would turn her into one.
Where the hell was he going with this? Leading her on; for what? He could never have a life with her and wasn’t sure he wanted one. He’d wanted a bit of fun. Mindless entertainment. A conquest. Instead, she was throwing herself at him and he was restraining himself.
And it wasn’t distracting him at all.
Clarkson looked up at her. “This is wrong,” he said. “I shouldn’t be here. You’re, what, twenty?”
“Twenty-two.” She came closer to him again, kneeling between his knees, her hand reaching up for his face. “I know what I’m doing. You’re not taking advantage.”
She kissed him, soft lips pressing against his, and Clarkson felt his unease, the nervous energy he’d been containing, slip away. He reached out a hand for her jaw and her scarf fell away. There was something hard on her neck, a small mark, maybe a mole, but tough not smooth and soft like the rest of her.
Clarkson opened his eyes. “They bit you?” he asked.
“They didn’t claim me or nothing,” Suzi said. “I’m not… their property.”
No, but she was a puppet. Another gullible kid. True, he was actually only eight years older than her, but she was still a kid to him. It wasn’t so much the age as it was the power imbalance. He could do anything to her and she’d let him, because he was a vampire. It wasn’t a relationship, it was worship. He would be her god, her idol, and she would be his subject, willingly bending to his every whim.
Fuck that.
Clarkson held her at a distance as Suzi went in for another kiss. “This isn’t happening.” He stood. “Don’t have anything more to do with vampires. No matter what.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said.
“Sure I can. I’m a vampire, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean you can—”
“That’s exactly what it means.” He regarded her. Not looked at her; that was different. This time he saw her with a wider gaze, tried to see what her life would be if she kept following him like a lonely puppy. “You have no idea what we are or what you’re getting in for. So, yeah, I’m making this decision for you and I don’t care if you hate me for it. In fact, it’s better if you do. Get out while you still ca—”
The sound was dull, more roll than bang, distorted from the intervening blocks, but Clarkson knew it all the same: an explosion.
“What’s that?” Suzi asked.
Clarkson was in the corridor, halfway to the Crypt’s main floor, when the first shot rang out through the silence. The DJ had killed the music after the explosion and consequently the customers heard the shot clearly enough. They now stood in little groups, talking quietly about what they should do. The consensus was, so far, to pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Was that a gun?” Suzi asked from a step behind him.
“An L-one-fifteen A-three,” Clarkson said without looking at her.
“Huh?”
A man all in black leather – vest, trousers, and long jacket – burst down the stairs to the Crypt and didn’t even stop to examine the frightened crowd before yelling, “It’s the castle!” and disappearing back upstairs.
In the ensuing shouting, one thing became clear: as scared and foolish as they were, the Estikans w
ould come to the vampires’ aid. It might take them a while to organise themselves, but they would. And the Team wouldn’t survive a fight on two fronts.
Clarkson still didn’t know whose side he was on: whether he was an Archian loyal to his duke, a vampire loyal to his women, a Team member loyal to fighting dangerous supernatural creatures, a policeman loyal to his chief, any, all, none of the above. Hell, there probably wasn’t even any one side who “should” win – nothing was that black-and-white.
“Go home!” he roared over the gathering murmurs. “You have thirty seconds.”
“Who are you?” someone shouted.
“He’s one of them!” Suzi yelled.
That caused a few closer to Clarkson to peer closer. He bared his teeth at them, eyes open wide, and a few stepped away. The ones already away, though, couldn’t see the slitted eyes or elongated canines. All they saw was a formally-dressed man making vague threats.
“Bullshit.”
“He can’t be.”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
The unique and valued flowers fighting to be heard drowned out Suzi’s pleas for calm and compliance.
Clarkson counted down the thirty seconds as he walked to the Crypt’s only entrance. Then he showed them why they should fear, not love, vampires.