42nd & Lex (37 page)

Lucan, Mark, Zaid, and Amelia take their
leave of us and head down to the garage. I look at my watch. It is only eight
o’clock. Sarah looks to be somewhere between enthralled and bewildered. I am
only few weeks into the world of vampires, and Sarah only a few hours by comparison,
neither one of us knows exactly what to say to the other in this situation. It’s
going to be a long night.

“This is it,” Zaid’s wife said from the
front seat. She rolled down the window of the incredibly jacked up Hummer with
beyond illegal window tint and smiled at the valet man. In an instant, she had
convinced him the other members of her party were running upstairs to get
something and would back in a few minutes. No need to park, she’d just idle it
out by the curb.

Mark had made himself scarce since moving in
here with Serge so the doorman simply nodded as he opened the door without
stopping to make idle chitchat.

The men made their way to Serge’s room
without a word spoken between them. Mark was calm and his mind clear thanks to
Sarah's blood. He wanted to ask his vampire companions how long that would last
but there would be time enough for that later. He settled for eyeing the
metallic briefcase Lucan carried in this left hand, wondering what it contained.
When the elevator signaled their arrival on the 43
^rd
floor Mark took
a deep breath and rummaged in his pocket for the brass key that would unlock
the apartment’s door. 

“Let us go in first, mate,” Zaid commanded.
“If he is up and around he’s going to be pissed and there’s not much he can do
to us.”

Relieved, Mark handed Zaid the key and
stepped back. “It’s at the end of the hall, on the left. 43D.”

Lucan patted Mark on the back “You can hang
back here if you want.”

“I'm good. How are you going to get him into
the car without a fight?”

“Silver and garlic lined handcuffs. If that
doesn’t work, there’s always the Holy Water mace,” Zaid replied with a smile as
he unlocked the door. “What else do you think he’s got in that briefca—?”

The metallic tang of blood hit them in face
like a ton of bricks, stopping Zaid mid punch line. Mark was slightly
embarrassed that his fangs ran out in response, but that feeling was quickly
replaced by fear. What the hell had Serge done and how had he done it? When
Mark left Serge last night, he was a crippled, blind mess. He’d hardly made it
down the hall from the elevator. Lucan and Zaid crouched into a predatory
stance and surveyed the room.

“I thought you said he hadn’t had any blood
recently?” Lucan said at barely a whisper.     

“He hadn’t, as far as I know. I took his
cell before I left last night. I don’t know who or how he could have gotten
someone up here.”

Lucan and Zaid moved forward into the
apartment. The serious lack of furniture made it easy to see no one was hiding,
waiting to pop up and rip out their throats. The blood smell was coming from
the bedroom he’d left Serge in. Maybe the guy had done them a favor and finished
bleeding out. They couldn’t be that lucky. 

The scene in the bedroom was enough to turn
even Zaid’s stomach. Blood covered the walls, the bed, and the floor. It looked
like the aftermath of a Quentin Tarantino movie. No Serge. Mark began to panic.
The room felt like it was closing in on him and he broke out into a cold sweat.
He was so dead. Serge would find him and see to that. Or worse, that
motherfucker knew where Lucan lived thanks to him, and Sarah was sitting in the
man’s living room.   

Zaid snapped him back to reality with a
quick shake of his shoulders. “We need to search around the flat. I can smell
at least three distinct blood signatures here, at least one of them vampire,
but it’s hard to tell with all the mixing going.”

Lucan set down the briefcase and cracked it
open. It was full of weapons and a very large syringe filled with a greenish
substance. No garlic handcuffs. Mark was still thinking of what the syringe
might hold when Lucan palmed him a Glock. “Can you shoot?” he asked.

“I'm from Texas,” Mark replied with a smile
he didn’t really feel. “Of course I can shoot.”

“Good, at least I won’t have to worry about
you shooting yourself in the foot or something. The bullets are laced with a
tranquilizer that only works on vampires so careful not to shoot Zaid or me, or
yourself for that matter. I'm not sure what effect it would have on you.”

Mark nodded. He was somewhat surprised at
how nice Lucan was to him considering he’d once stalked his girlfriend—and by
once he meant a few weeks ago. Either the guy didn’t hold a grudge or he liked
to keep his enemies closer and didn’t mind if they were armed.

Mark gripped the gun in his hand, getting
used to its weight. He had shot competitively in college and it felt good to
trust himself with something so dangerous again. Well, other than whatever
lethality his own body was capable of, not that he fully trusted that yet.

Who knew all it would take was a little
blood. He could kick himself for not trying that sooner. Of course, he’d have
probably been too scared to take it from anyone other than Sarah. And God
forbid, if he had, he might have fallen in with Serge’s brutality. A low growl
emerged from his throat and he heard Zaid laugh in approval.

Refocusing his clarity, Mark turned back to
the task at hand. The three men fanned out to search the empty apartment. Mark
headed for the living room with Zaid and then into the kitchenette alone. It
was just as he’d left it, actually. Nothing outside of the bedroom was out of
place. Of course there wasn’t that much in the apartment to get in the way of a
physical struggle and as a vampire, even injured, Serge would be able to
overpower a human without even breaking a sweat. There were no bodies, no
evidence of how the blood came to be in the apartment. Lucan found a trail of
blood droplets leading from the bedroom and followed them out to the terrace. The
trail stopped on top of the waist-high wall that surrounded the balcony on
three sides. Serge was gone.

***

Sarah and I settle on watching some rom-com
starring Jennifer Aniston to pass the time. My stomach is protesting the lack
of dinner so we devour a few bags of microwave popcorn and a couple of king
sized Hershey bars while Jen blathers on about her love life. 

“So is it always this dramatic being with
a…” her voice trails off.

“Vampire?” I finish. “Yes and no. Things
were pretty calm and slow before Serge took a liking to me but since he showed
up it’s been nonstop. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. Zaid is a
professional.” I blanch at how easily that comes out of my mouth, as if I have
just recommended my accountant to her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Sarah replies shocked that I have a
question she can answer.

“Was it different last night…being together?”
I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. “I mean…from the last time, from before?”

“God, yes,” she breathes. “I’ve wanted to
ask you about it, but I was afraid you’d think I was making it up. It was still
the same Mark, but different, better.”

“Us too. I can’t describe what’s different
about it but it’s so—” I am cut off by the sound of my phone ringing across the
room. I dash over to retrieve it, relieved to see Lucan’s number on the screen.
“Hey Lucan. That was fast.”

“Lock the doors to the stairwell and pull
the emergency stop on the elevator.” His voice is quick and efficient.

“What! Why?”

“He’s gone, Abri. There’s blood everywhere
and he’s gone. It must have been a maintenance worker or a delivery person with
the wrong apartment number. Someone came to the apartment and he slaughtered
them. We are on our way back now. Don’t open the door for any reason. If you
hear anything get in the bathroom and lock the door. There is a gun on the top
shelf in the closet.”

I want to ask how I will know the difference
between Lucan letting himself in and Serge breaking in, but I can’t verbalize
the thought so I just say okay and be careful. When I hang up the phone I can't
hide the terror on my face. “They didn’t find him. He killed someone and he’s
gone. We’ve got to lock the doors.”

Suddenly the floor to ceiling windows and wide-open
spaces of Lucan’s apartment look deadly rather than beautiful. I want to be
back in my tiny apartment where the only ways in and out are the door and the
fire escape. Sarah springs from the couch and follows me to the elevator. I
pull the stop while she throws the locks on the stairwell door.

“Is there any other place he can get in?”
she asks.

“No. I mean, at least I don’t think so.” Surely,
Serge can’t climb up the side of the building and through the tiny window we have
yet to replace.

***

Mark, Lucan, and Zaid walked as nonchalantly
as they could back to through the hotel lobby. Mark envied the people milling
about, completely oblivious to the carnage that just occurred a couple of dozen
floors above. They would go about their lives without knowing something of the
sort was even possible, that vampires even existed. He was jealous of their ignorance.

The temptation to ruminate on the unfairness
in his life was cut short by the weight of the pistol tucked into the waistband
of his slacks. He wasn’t ignorant and never would be again; and in this
situation, knowing your enemy was probably better than ignorance. He’d spent
countless hours with Serge in the last few months, surely that gave him an
advantage. The guy was predictable in his unpredictability. He looked out for
number one more than anyone Mark had ever met. Even the blood lust wouldn’t
leave him making stupid decisions. He would know his physical limitations and
avoid any situation where they could be exploited.   

 “Wait,” Mark said as quietly as he could
given their location. “What if he went back to my hotel room? I left work and
picked up Sarah to come to your place, I haven’t been home since this morning.”

“I'm on it,” Zaid said. “I’ll check it out and
then head over to the park. I’d bet ten denari that’s where he’s at, looking
for his next meal.” With a muttered curse, Zaid turned and headed back to the
elevator bank.  

Lucan began explaining what they’d found to
Amelia as soon as he opened the door to the Hummer without Zaid at his side.

“He’s gone. Killed at least two people,
drained them most likely, and fled. Zaid is checking Mark’s hotel suite and the
park. Given his injuries, it wouldn’t be enough blood to fully heal him, just
enough to make him mobile and dangerous. He’s going to be looking for another
victim. We need to get back to my place fast.”

The look of worry on her face made Mark sick
to his stomach. He guessed Zaid was more than capable of handling Serge, or
anything else that came his way, but he could understand the concern for the
one you loved. He would die if anything happened to Sarah.

“Will he be ok?” Mark asked to no one in
particular.

“Aye. Zaid is a tracker. He will find Serge
and bring him in. He was tracking you after you came to visit Abri,” Lucan
replied, matter-of-factly.   

Maybe he didn’t get over things so easily. “Sorry
about that. Really.”

“Just stating facts, my friend. No hard
feelings, truly. Now let’s get back. We have no real idea how long he’s been
out here.”

With that, Amelia peeled out onto the main
street and blew through a red light. “Careful,” Lucan reminded her. “This isn’t
Rome. We’ll get pulled over here for driving like maniacs. I don’t want to
explain the weapons to one of NYPD’s finest.”

Mark let out a breath he hadn’t realized he
was holding and flopped back against the seat. Things had changed so much since
he left the courtroom Monday morning: He had Sarah back. Serge was hopefully on
his way to being dead. The people he’d thought would be his enemies were now
his friends. And he’d figured out that he might be able to continue on a normal
life path, so long as Sarah was willing to give him blood.

Serge was still a piece of shit, but Mark
could see hope on the horizon. Zaid and Lucan were doing all right with human
women so it was at least possible. A smile, totally inappropriate given the
circumstances, crept across Mark’s face. 

***

Serge was tired of hiding out. After his fortunate run in
with the lost maintenance workers Serge had left the rented apartment headed to
Mark’s suite. Mark wasn’t there and he could smell the scent of a human woman
mixed with Mark’s stench. Maybe the idiot had finally figured out he could
drink live blood instead of eating raw meat.

Mark had taken his card key so Serge was forced to find
shelter somewhere else. No doubt that tracker would get wind of the blood bath
he’d created and be on his trail. Eventually, someone would find the bodies
stuff into the A/C duct as well but he didn’t give a shit about that.  

Serge headed for his apartment. He hadn’t been back there
since Mark moved into the Essex. That tracker had been inside, but not
recently. Of course the Enclave would give their hired muscle his address. Mark
knew where he lived too but there was no way that guy would be looking for him
after he found the mess in the apartment.

The blood of two full-grown men had done wonders for him. His
sight was better and his hand was on its way to reforming. This was cause for
celebration. Serge showered and changed into clothes he usually reserved for
club going. He was feeling invincible. Even if he had to wear an old pair of
prescription sunglasses from when he was human to help him see and keep
questions about his jacked up eyes to a minimum. 

Serge hiked the ten blocks to the garage where he stored his
Mustang and then headed downtown to his favorite bar. The same bar he’d met
Mark in. There was always a steady crowd of lonely drunks ready to strike up a
conversation with a friendly stranger. Ready to take a spin in his suped up
ride. Ready to die.