Текст книги "Legacy"

Автор книги: Jeanne Stein

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CHAPTER 4

“HE WANTS YOU TO WHAT? OH MY GOD! ARE YOU fucking kidding me?” I’m screeching like a scalded cat. I can’t help it. Neither can I help lunging toward Gloria. It takes great effort not to bare my fangs and howl. My fist connects with a crystal hunk on the top of the desk, and it flies across the room and crashes into the wall.

“You pulled me away from a wonderful afternoon with my niece because of this bullshit?”

Gloria looks stunned at my reaction. “That paperweight was a gift from David. You broke it.”

I snatch up another crystal knickknack and heft it. For two cents, I’d hurl it at her cheating head.

She raises both hands in front of her face and takes a step back. “Anna, please. This is serious. Rory won’t take no for an answer. He keeps pushing and pushing. He’s threatening to go to David. To tell him that we’ve slept together. You know how David will react.”

“I know how I hope he’ll react.”

She pays no attention. “It will kill him. He may do something foolish.”

I’m shaking I’m so angry. I hold the crystal whatever-it-is like a weapon and advance on her. “I have an idea. I’ll save O’Sullivan the trouble. I’ll tell David. It will give me great pleasure.”

Gloria is smart enough not to argue, to remain quiet for a minute before offering a subdued rebuttal. “I know you don’t like me,” she says softly. “But think about how this will affect David. He still adores me.”

I glare down at her. “I don’t know that. In fact, I only have your word that he wants to get back together with you.”

She leans over and picks up her purse. She opens it and pulls out a cell phone. Without a word, she scrolls until she finds what she’s looking for, queues up a message and holds it out to me when it begins to play.

“Gloria. It’s David. Again. I miss you. Please call me. I don’t know what I did to make you angry, but whatever it is, I want a chance to make up for it. Please, baby. I love you.”

She lets the message indicator play, too. The time of the message was ten fifteen, December 14. This morning.

She lays the phone on the desk, waiting for my reaction. Her expression is carefully neutral. It’s a good thing. One smile of smug satisfaction and I would hurl this knickknack at her.

As it is, I pass a hand over my face, take a deep breath and ask, “What possessed you to come to me with this? You must have known how I’d react.”

“It’s simple. I love David. I know you love him, too. You don’t want him to get hurt.”

Her reply surprises me. Or maybe it’s the way she says it. She actually sounds as if she means it, but there’s something else. A thrill of apprehension touches my spine.

“Has Rory threatened to do more than speakto David?”

She looks away.

I reach over and grab her chin with my hand, forcing her to face me. “Has he?”

She flinches and draws a quick breath. “I don’t think he’d really do anything to him. If you’d talk to Rory. Tell him you’ll go to the authorities, or the press, if he doesn’t leave me alone. Tell him you have connections in the police force. Tell him you’ll have him arrested for harassment or something if he doesn’t stop. He’ll listen to you. I know he will because you’ll make him.”

It bubbles out of her in a torrent. When she finally runs down, I step back from the desk, afraid if I don’t put some distance between us, I’ll give in to the impulse to bitch slap her across the room.

I shift the thing in my hand and see it’s a crystal clock. I toss it from one hand to the other, thinking. I’ve seen pictures of O’Sullivan. I can’t tell from a picture how big he is, but my partner is an ex-football player and I knowhow big David is. I also know he can take care of himself.

But thinking about the picture makes another image skitter through my head like a rat released from a trap. “O’Sullivan is married. He was here with his wife and kid for the opening of this place.”

She lowers her eyes. “That’s why I thought sleeping with him the one time would be harmless.” She emphasizes “the one time” as if the qualifier makes it excusable.

“Unbelievable. Only you would call adultery harmless. So turn the tables on him. Tell him you’ll go to his wife. Or the press. He has as much to lose as you do. More since this is a community-property state.”

She shakes her head. “I tried that. He doesn’t care. He says he and his wife have an open marriage and the publicity might actually be good. For both of us. He likes the idea of being seen as a philanderer. Improves his bad-boy image, and if we’re seen as a couple, that won’t do the restaurant business any harm, either. Anna, he’s not normal.”

“And you are? Christ. You betray David, and now you want my help to keep it from him. Why should I?”

Gloria pauses, then her face brightens as if my asking that question is a good thing. “I know what you’re thinking, how this looks.” Her tone glimmers with hope. “The night it happened, David and I had a fight. A bad one. I was vulnerable and Rory took advantage of it.”

Gloria vulnerable? Beyond belief. I have an easier time picturing a rhinoceros being victimized by a flea. “When did this happen?”

“A couple of months ago. You were off doing—whatever it is you do when you disappear.”

She cuts herself off with a sharp intake of breath.

Too late.

“You’re saying the fight was about me? That this was my fault?” She doesn’t have to answer. It’s there on her face. “Oh, Gloria, you are dumber than a sack of hair if you think I’d help you.”

There’s a long, tense silence while we stare at each other. I don’t know why I don’t walk out. I don’t know why I’m not pulling her hair out and screaming. I don’t understand any of it until it hits. The flash of inspiration. It must have been simmering in the back of my mind from the moment Gloria mentioned the word “blackmail.”

This could be the opportunity I’ve been waiting for.

I smile. “You know what, Gloria. I’ve changed my mind. I will talk to Rory.”

Relief softens the lines around her mouth until she realizes I’m not quite finished.

“In return, you are going to do something for me.”

The frown comes back.

I wish I could tell her she was going to disappear out of David’s life forever, but that isn’t my call. What I can do is see that she’s out of mine.

“If you and David do work things out, you are never going to denigrate me to him again. You will never disparage our partnership or try to convince him to find someone else to work with. You are going to become my biggest fan.”

Gloria’s mouth opens in protest, but promptly closes again. I see the wheels turning in her rattrap of a brain. She’s trying to figure how long this deal would have to stand.

“Forever, Gloria.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“Then you’ll have two people blackmailing you.”

It’s her turn to stare at me. I’m patient. I’m immortal. I stare back until she comes to the only conclusion she can.

“All right. I agree.”

“Great. Where can I find Rory?”

She releases a long sigh. “He’ll be here tonight. Around midnight. Can you be here then?”

Good. I want to get this over with. I smile a toothy smile at Gloria. “One thing you need to understand. This is a onetime deal. You fuck around on David again . . .”

Gloria folds her arms in a weary gesture across her chest. “You may not believe this,” she says. “But I really do love him.”

I toss the clock to her and she almost trips over her own feet to catch it.

She’s right.

I don’t believe it.

CHAPTER 5

I’M SO KEYED UP WHEN I LEAVE GLORIA, I CAN hardly stand it. My skin feels too tight, my nerves tingle like exposed electrical wire. There’s only one sure thing that relieves pressure for a vampire. Well, two things, actually. Unfortunately, I don’t have a sex partner right now and Gloria has made me so angry I don’t trust myself with an unsuspecting human male. I have to do the next best thing. Feed.

Needing human blood to subsist has its problems. It’s not like you can walk into a hospital and ask for a transfusion. Even if you could, it would be of no use to the vampire. Blood that’s been pushed through tubes and refrigerated loses its essence.

Hunting on your own can lead to unfortunate consequences. While the existence of vampires is a secret well kept from most of society, there is a faction that not only knows we exist, but makes it a mission to exterminate us. Leaving hysterical victims or desiccated corpses is a sure way to attract unwanted attention.

What’s a vampire who needs fresh, warm, straight-from-the-donor blood to do?

Luckily, I know.

It’s a little after six, and I have plenty of time. Beso de la Muerte is a Mexican “ghost town” not on any map. It’s about an hour from San Diego, depending on traffic and the backup at the border. My need is great and my car is fast. I make it in forty-five minutes.

As I pull into town, if that’s what you can call a dirt road lined with decrepit wooden buildings, I’m amazed to see three dozen motorcycles lined up in front of the saloon. I’ve been coming here since the beginning of my vampire existence, and usually there’s a car once in a while. But I’ve never seen anything like this.

I have to park a good block from where I want to go, and walk. The bikes, all Harleys, gleam under a half-moon like jewels. Softails. Fat Boys. Big V-Twins: Flatheads and Knuckleheads. Custom and vintage bikes that set their owners back serious money.

The throbbing beat of a heavy-metal band pierces the desert quiet. I know the owner of the place, Culebra, and this is not his type of music. He prefers the shrill cheerful wailings of Mexican corrido music. If he’s agreed to play what I’m hearing now, it can only be because the patrons inside are spending a shitload of money.

I send out a mental probe—testing to see if I can determine who or what is inside. I get nothing back. No vibrations that indicate otherworldly beings. A raging libido jumps into overdrive along with my salivary glands. Humans who come here do so for two reasons: they are willing to allow vampires to feed from them and/or they have been granted Culebra’s protection for one reason or the other. In either case, if the bikes belong to humans, I’m sure to get what I need.

I’m sifting possibilities through my head as I approach the door. Humans agree to be donors not only for the money they are paid, but because it is an erotic, extremely pleasurable experience. If you are a vampire, combining feeding with sex is pleasure amplified a thousandfold. It’s taken me a while to get over the hang-up of indiscriminate sex/feeding with a stranger. I’ve come to accept it as one of nature’s ironies. Take procreation away from the vampire, but make the act so agonizingly pleasurable that the vampire craves sex as much as he craves blood.

Still, I’m not ready to do what most of my vamp pals have—establish a monogamous relationship. “Marry” a human to have both a partner and host. Not that I have that option. At the moment, I don’t have a human boyfriend.

Which is where Beso de la Muerte comes in.

I push through the swinging doors. The place smells of pot and patchouli. I’m glad I don’t breathe anymore. Two deep breaths, and I’d be high.

No one pays the least bit of attention to me as I make my way through the crowd. It’s largely female. Amazon women dressed head to toe in leather, sporting jackets with an insignia I’ve never seen before—a wolf superimposed against a full moon. They’re loud. Brittle laughter and shrill voices compete with the throb of the music.

I look around for my friend, Culebra. He’s a shape-shifter and the owner of this supernatural safe house. He’s not behind the bar. His mortal employee and a woman I don’t recognize are bartending. I send out a mental greeting.

Culebra? Are you here?

At first, there’s no response. Then I detect a ripple in the karmic fabric that feels a lot like alarm. I’m about to follow the path of the transmission when Culebra bursts from the back room.

What are you doing here, Anna?

Not exactly welcoming.

Nice to see you, too.

His distress at my presence blazes forth like an astral flare. His thoughts radiate a peculiar vibe I can’t read and he’s shut down the conduit between us that would allow me to understand what’s provoking his reaction. It’s a cerebral roadblock that ratchets my frustration up another notch.

What’s the problem? I had a stressful day. I want to feed.I make a sweeping gesture with my hand. Plenty of humans in here.

He steps close and the lines around his mouth tighten. There are no donors here for you. You should go. Now. Come back tomorrow.

No donors? The place is full of them.

No, Anna. You won’t want to feed from anyone here. Trust me.

I don’t. It doesn’t make sense. You’d better explain. I’m not picking up any mental vibes. No shape-shifters. No vamps, either, that I can detect.I stop and reconsider, “tasting” the air like a dog sniffs for a scent. Something is coming through that I hadn’t picked up on earlier. Okay. There is one vamp. In the back. She’s feeding. Why can’t I?

Culebra has a face that Sergio Leone would have cast as a villain in one of his spaghetti westerns. Craggy, world-weary, expressive.

Right now, the expression is embarrassment—a strange emotion coming from one who has been nothing but a good friend to me. What could possibly be causing this kind of reaction?

Unless he’s trying to protect me from something—or someone.

Who’s in the back?

No answer. But I know I’ve hit on something. He’s exerting such great effort to shield that information from me mentally that he doesn’t detect the physical movement behind him.

A vamp walks into the room, a tall, willowy redhead with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose and green eyes shining with contentment. She acknowledges me, a fellow vamp, with a subtle nod of her head. She doesn’t shield her thoughts. Why should she? She detects no threat. She’s fed and she’s had sex. She’s content. She’s holding the arm of the donor whose expression mirrors her own. He’s a big man, walking with a slight limp. When he looks up and sees me, his eyes flicker, his face goes blank.

For an instant.

Then he smiles. A cold, impersonal smile.

“Hello, Anna.”

The vamp looks from one of us to the other, a spark of interest quirks one perfectly shaped eyebrow. You two know each other?

Oh, yes. It takes a minute for me to recover from the shock. Another to acknowledge her question with a nod. Oh, yes, we know each other.

“Hello, Max.”

CHAPTER 6

MY VOICE ECHOES IN MY HEAD, COLD, SHARP AS the crack of ice on a frozen pond.

Max and I stare at each other.

“This is getting to be a bad habit.” The bitterness in his voice is as obvious as the vamp on his arm.

I don’t respond. I don’t need to. I know exactly what he means. This isn’t the first time we’ve run into each other unexpectedly here in Beso de la Muerte. He’s a DEA agent, or at least he was the last time I saw him. He and Culebra have worked together. Neither has ever explained how or why, and I haven’t pushed.

Tonight, though, is different. These circumstances are different.

I’m struck dumb by what I see in front of me. I can’t take my eyes off the man who, until a few months ago, was my boyfriend and lover. Max and I have had an on-and-off relationship for the last few years. The off times have always been my fault; I accept that. When he walked out of my life for good, he did it because he found out what I was. He saw me turn. He saw me kill. The circumstances warranted it. Still, I assumed he couldn’t come to terms with a girlfriend who needed to suck more than the obvious every few weeks.

To find him here, and know that he and this vampire shared what he didn’t want to share with me, provokes hurt and confusion. I don’t deal well with those emotions. When I was human, I tended to wield them like a double-edged sword against whoever had the bad fortune to injure me. That hasn’t changed. Instead of beating my breast and asking him why, I revert to the familiar. I attack.

“Well, well. This is interesting. You decide getting fucked by a strange vampire is better than getting fucked by one you know?”

The vamp with Max takes a step back. Whoa,she says . I didn’t know he belonged to someone. He showed up and offered himself.

At the same time she’s conveying that message to me telepathically, Max is throwing me a puzzled frown. “How did you know we had sex?”

I feel my face split into a sour smile. “I smell it on you. Was it good, Max? It must have been to overcome your sensibilities about screwing a vampire. Which is why I assumed you left me.”

His expression hardens, confusion into anger. “Don’t lay that on me, Anna. You hid what you were from me for months. You would never have told me at all if I hadn’t been there to see it.”

He’s right. Hiding what I’ve become from the mortals I want to stay close to has been the hardest adjustment to this vampiric experience. “I was right to hide it, wasn’t I? You walked out on me. Didn’t bother to say good-bye, and yet here you are. When did you decide to become a donor? Was it when you realized how great the sex is? Not so easy to get off with mere mortals when you’ve experienced the ultimate, is it?”

“You should know.” There is a resentful edge to his voice. “You hadn’t gotten off with me until that last time. It’s what made it so great, wasn’t it? You fed from me. It was the only time I’d satisfied you since you turned into . . .” His voice breaks off. “This.”

He reaches behind him and grabs the arm of the vamp. She is not expecting it, caught up in the exchange between Max and me. She recovers in an instant. She puts her head down, snarls and bites down on his hand hard enough to draw blood.

I don’t come to his defense. I would have reacted the same way to being manhandled.

He snatches his hand away and looks down at the ragged wound. “This is what you are, Anna. An animal. I come here to remind myself why I can’t love you anymore.”

Culebra interposes himself between us. “Take this outside,” he says. “You’re making the natives restless.”

For the first time, I’m aware that, except for the pulse of the music, it has grown quiet in the bar. A half dozen women have separated from the others and are creeping toward us. They seem to be sniffing the air, mouths open, eyes narrowed.

I raise a questioning eyebrow to Culebra.

It’s the blood. Take Max outside and heal the wound. Quickly.

But the redhead steps forward. He’s with me. I’ll do it.She looks up at Max and says quietly. “You need to come with me. Now. You’ve made the pack nervous.”

He has his eyes on me, but he follows her outside without arguing. He’s seen what a vampire can do when provoked. When the doors swing closed behind them, the six who were creeping up on us turn as one toward someone behind them. Though I don’t detect movement of any kind, they must get some kind of signal. They slink back to their places at the bar.

I skewer Culebra with a look. The pack? What are they?

He doesn’t answer right away. He’s watching the crowd at the bar, waiting for the tension to drain from the room. When the decibel level rises to its former ear-splitting pitch, anxiety still clouds his eyes, and I can tell he’s far from relieved.

Culebra,I ask again. What are they?

His eyes flick back to me. Werewolves.

Werewolves?I repeat stupidly. I look around. There are at least forty of the creatures in the bar. A shudder of revulsion runs down my spine. The fact that they look and act human is not a comfort. I look and act human, too. Most of the time. All of them?

Culebra follows my gaze as it sweeps the room. Yes.

Explains the emblem on the jackets. I know how strong I am and how powerful Culebra is, but still, these are not good odds. Are we safe?

He takes my arm and steers me toward the door at the back of the bar. If that’s his answer, it’s not reassuring. But neither is going through the same door Max and his new girlfriend exited earlier. I smell Max. His sex, his blood. It’s distracting enough to make me ask, When did Max start coming here?

Six weeks ago.

Not long after we escaped from Mexico. Where Max found out my secret.

Culebra is watching my face. He’s not prying into my thoughts. Maybe he doesn’t want to feel the emptiness. He says, “You asked me if we were safe from them.” He gestures toward the bar.

Perhaps he does feel it. “Nice change of subject.”

He nods and waves me into a chair. “We are safe. In theory. Weres are only dangerous in their animal form. Still, they are a pack. Bloodlust can bring the animal to the surface. There have been documented cases of a pack in human form tearing apart a large animal for sport. Especially when drugs or alcohol are involved.”

I glare at him. “So you let them into your bar to drink and smoke pot? Doesn’t sound so smart to me.”

“I know the leader of this pack. She promised me there would be no trouble. They are on their way across the border. She asked to stay the night. I agreed. They are paying well for the privilege.”

This still does not sound like something Culebra would agree to. He shrugs, divining my thought.

I had no idea you would show up tonight. You fed only a week ago. The weres are moving on in the morning. The camp is otherwise empty. I saw no harm in granting the request. As for Max . . .

He pauses, eyes on me while he lets himself into my head. I don’t try to stop him. It’s easier than trying to explain what I’m feeling. Anger toward Gloria and her ridiculous situation, and now hurt and disappointment because of Max.

The problem with Gloria can be easily fixed. You may be able to settle it tonight when you see this business partner. I am sorry seeing Max upset you. I didn’t realize you had come in until it was too late.

Is that supposed to make me feel better? I come to this place as much for refuge from the irritations of the mortal world as for sustenance. Should I call ahead from now on to make a reservation?

Culebra lifts an eyebrow.

I know I’m overreacting. Max has as much right to come here as I do. Maybe more, since he and Culebra were friends long before I came into the picture. Still, the thought that I might run into him again on the arm of another vamp sends a stab of resentment through my gut.

Culebra’s expression softens from irritation to sympathetic acknowledgment, but he says nothing. What can he say? This is my problem.

I turn away abruptly. I can’t think of any reason to stay here. I can’t think of any clever parting remarks. Maybe I’ll go back to Glory’s and wait for O’Sullivan to show up. Then, after I take care of him, I’ll pick up one of those eager yuppies and bring him home with me. Fuck his brains out and send him on his way.

I feel Culebra’s disapproval. It hums through the air like radio waves, but he can’t help and he can’t stop me.

He doesn’t try.

Just as I don’t bother to say good-bye.