Books by Maggie Shayne (182 page)

"I'm sorry."

He stood there for a moment longer, gathering himself, she thought Finally he drew a breath, straightened his back and turned to face her again. "I beg of you, tell me what I need to know. The more time I spend near you, the more you place yourself at risk."

She quelled the fear in her belly. "At risk of what, Dante? Being killed? It's a small risk, I promise you that I'm dying anyway. I'm not sure I'd have made it through the day if you hadn't… " She remembered vividly drinking from his neck and quickly slammed the door on the memory. "I need to know some things first."

"So you can use them in your next screenplay?"

She lowered her head. "When I wrote the script, I didn't know you were real. I thought I was mining the delusions of a crazy old man who was probably long dead."

Sighing, he turned and began walking toward the cliffs. She fell into step beside him, but his strides were long and powerful, and she had to take two steps for every one of his. "You have to believe me, Dante. I would never betray you. Not now."

"And why not?" he asked.

"Because I am in love with you."

They had reached the cliffs, and he stopped walking when she said the words, just stood there, facing the sea. "You don't know me. You don't know what I am. What I truly am. Your writer's mind has spun some sort of fantasy from the romanticized myths and legends you've heard and read. But you don't know the truth, and you need to get it fixed firmly in your mortal mind, Morgan. Vampires are predators. Killers. And mortals are their prey."

"Is that the way it was with Laura Sullivan? Was she your prey?"

He shot her a heated glance. "I was young. In love. I thought I could overcome my natural tendencies with her. She turned on me before I ever had the chance to find out." He lowered his head. "It was the second part of a vital lesson, Morgan. Mortals and vampires are mortal enemies. Do you believe for one moment that a mongoose could love a cobra? And even if it did, they would be doomed. One of them destined to destroy the other."

She swallowed her fear. "What does it mean to be one of the Chosen?" she asked.

He turned his head to stare down at her. "Where did you hear that term?"

"The same place I learned all the other things I know about you. I know that certain humans are called the Chosen. I know that it's something to do with their blood, and that vampires sense them and feel protective of them."

He looked away. "Then you know as much as I do."

"Not quite."

"This is a waste of time. I'm leaving." He turned his back to her.

"Am I one of them, Dante? And does it mean I don't have to die?"

He went utterly still.

She moved closer to him, slid her hands up his back and curled them over his shoulders. "When you fed me from your body, Dante, I felt… alive. Every sense heightened, every nerve ending awake and feeling everything. But it didn't last. I want to feel that again. All the time. I want to be what you are."

"So now we come to the heart of the matter at last. You seek entry into the world of the undead. That is what these declarations of love and desire are truly about." He turned to face her. "You don't have a strong enough mind to bear it, Morgan. You'd be dead inside a year."

"That's a year more than I have now."

He shook his head. "I won't do it to you. I refuse to visit this madness on another."

"Then it is possible. I am one of the Chosen!"

He pushed a hand through his hair in frustration. "Yes. Dammit, yes. You carry the Belladonna Antigen in your blood. You're one of the Chosen. It's why you're wasting away so soon. Your caste do."

She nodded, processing the information and reviewing the tale she had read in her mind. He would be far less likely, his evil aunt had told him, to harm one of the Chosen. "How is it done?"

His eyes gleamed softly in the night. He was angry at her for forcing this and yet aroused at the prospect. His gaze danced over her throat. "I sink my teeth deep into your lily-white throat, Morgan, and I suck the very lifeblood from you. I gorge myself on you until you hover on the very brink of death. If I take a little too much, you die. You lie there, hovering between life and death, until I decide to feed you from me. If you have enough strength remaining in you to drink, then you do. You drink from my veins. You swallow my curse."

The wind blew in harder from the sea. "And that's all?"

"You sleep. You wake. You feed. And it's complete."

She nodded firmly. "All right then." She pushed her hair behind her head, held it bunched there in one hand and tipped her chin up toward him. "Do it."

He looked down at her, a feral gleam in his eyes. Tracing the back of his forefinger over her throat, he growled very softly, like an animal in the night.

"Yes, you want to. You know you do," she whispered.

His breath came harsh and raspy. But she felt him fighting her, fighting his hunger and his desire. And then she remembered what she'd read. How closely the hunger for blood and sexual desire were linked.

He turned his head away from her.

She tugged free the sash of her robe and let the wind part it for her, driving it from her shoulders, down her arms, and then tearing it away. She stood naked, arms outspread, the cold wind razing her.

Dante's gaze came back to her. Riveted to her breasts as they pebbled in the cold wind. She moved closer, slid her arms around his neck and, standing on tiptoe, pressed her mouth to his.

With a shuddering sigh, he kissed her. His mouth tasted hers, their tongues twined and mated, and he held her body nestled against his almost tenderly. His lips left hers to trail over her jaw, onto her neck, where they suckled and kissed, and then he lifted his head as if with great effort. "Please, don't make me hurt you. I couldn't bear it, don't you understand? And I will hurt you. I will."

"It will be different with me. I'm one of the Chosen. I love you, and I know. I won't let you hurt me, Dante."

"You couldn't stop me."

"I have nothing to lose, don't you see that?" She tipped her head back again, her hands pressing to the back of his until he shivered and let her push him lower. His lips brushed her flesh. He groaned softly. "Please, please, Dante, please… "

Growling, he opened his mouth and sank his teeth into her. She felt a stabbing pain and then only warm waves of increasing ecstasy as he nursed at her throat He suckled her, drank from her, and her body vanished. All that remained was that place where his mouth possessed her throat and his teeth pressed into her flesh.

There was a sound. A hiss of air and a thud. Dante grunted in pain, and let her go, staggering backward. Morgan slumped to the ground, dazed, weak.

"I've got you now, you bloodthirsty bastard!" a voice shouted.

Morgan looked up and saw a rod embedded in Dante's shoulder, blood oozing from around the wound; then her gaze shot the other way, and she spotted the scarred man running toward them, a crossbow in his hand.

"Morgan… "

"I'm fine. Run, Dante. Go. Now!"

He did. Vanishing in a single burst of movement over the edge of the cliff. When he jumped, Morgan screamed from sheer instinct. And then the hunter was kneeling beside her, looking over the edge in search of his quarry. She looked, too, but Dante was nowhere to be found.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, swung a weak blow at the man. "Damn you! What the hell is wrong with you?"

The man looked at her. His gazed moved down her naked body in the darkness. Damn him, he looked as such as he wanted. Getting to her feet, weak and dizzy but determined not to show it, she looked around, and found her robe hanging from the gnarled branches of a geriatric apple tree. She walked unsteadily toward it, snatched it free and tugged it on.

"I just saved your life, you know!" the man Aerated, hurrying after her.

"You shot my boyfriend and probably killed him," she snapped. "I'm calling the police."

"You're not calling anybody." He gripped her shoulder and spun her around. She clutched the robe tight around her, especially the wide part around the neck. "Not until you let me have a look at your throat, anyway."

"You had a look at everything back there," she replied. "Should have looked your fill while you had the chance, because you won't get another."

"He was drinking from you. You were letting him. Fucking bloodwhore!"

"You're insane." She started toward the house again, but her knees buckled and she had to stop, lean against a tree and breathe deeply.

"He's taken too much," the man said. "He'd have killed you if I hadn't come along."

"It's the shock of seeing my boyfriend shot with a crossbow and knocked off a cliff, you lunatic!" She was vaguely aware of a car pulling into the drive out front. She heard it clearly, saw the headlights. Heard a door slam.

He grabbed her arm again. "Tell me the truth, dammit."

"Let go of me! Help! Someone help!"

"Hey! What's going on out there?" a man's voice called. There were running feet, and then she saw forms in the darkness, coming around the side of the house. Three of them. It was too dark to make out faces at a distance. The newcomer in the lead said, "I'm a cop, mister, and you'd better let that lady go before I decide to put a bullet in your ass."

The scarred man released her arm, turned and ran into the night.

The new man muttered a cuss word and took off in pursuit, while the other two, both women, rushed to either side of Morgan, asking if she were all right.

She kept her head down, clutched her robe tight, not wanting to reveal the telltale punctures on her neck to anyone. "I don't know who you all are, but I'm glad you came along when you did," she muttered.

"Just point us to the nearest door, hon," said one of them. "We'll get you inside."

She nodded, pointing to the back door, and she got her knees steady again. They helped her inside, through the back door into the kitchen, and she kept her head down, face averted, as she hurried through ahead of them. "Just wait here, will you? I just need a minute… "

She felt their eyes on her—curious, no doubt—as she hurried through the house, but they did respect her request. No one followed her. She paused at the study to lock the doors, and then she dragged herself upstairs to her room.

God, she was so weak. That bastard. His interruption might very well be the end of her. She shed the robe, dragged open a closet and located a silk pajama set. She pulled on the bottoms, slung the top on the bed and went to a dresser drawer, digging until she found a black turtleneck. She pulled it quickly over her head, then put on the pajama top and added slippers for good measure. When she stood in front of her full-length mirror, she saw a pale, frail woman. Curling her fingers around the neck of the shirt, she tugged it down, leaning closer to her reflection. The two punctures were there. Tiny, purple.

Swallowing hard, she eased the collar back into place against her skin, reached for a hairbrush and wondered who these new people were. She was going to have to go back downstairs and face them in a matter of minutes. How, when she could barely stand upright?

She would manage.

God, where was Dante? He'd vanished over the cliff but had never hit the water. She was certain she would have heard the splash if he had. What, then? God, was he all right?

Tears welling in her eyes, she tiptoed onto the balcony and looked out at the night sky. "God, Dante, are you all right? Tell me you're still alive. Tell me something, somehow. If you died because of me… "

Morgan.

His voice came clearly in her mind. And with it was a bolt of pain that was nearly blinding. She pressed her hands to her head, dropping to her knees.

I'll come to you again.

It was a promise, given with another blast of unbearable pain.

"Dante, where are you?" she said aloud. "Let me help you. Let me do something."

But there was no reply. Nothing. And she knew he wouldn't say more. Because when he sent his thoughts to her, he sent his agony, too. God, that they could be this connected—ah, but he had drunk deeply from her tonight. That might have something to do with it.

"I love you Dante," she whispered. "I swear I didn't know that man was coming. I swear it. And I'll kill him myself to protect you. I will." She had to prove it, though. She knew that. God, what he must be thinking! That she had planned this, set him up for that animal to shoot down.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, she backed inside but left the doors open so he could return to her if he were able. And then she turned, squared her shoulders and went to face the strangers downstairs.

Maxine paced Morgan De Silva's large kitchen, taking in every detail, from the tiny square marble tiles that lined the walls to the larger marble slab in the exact same pink and gray swirls that formed the surface of the island in the center. The oblong island had four flat burners and a sink on one end. The other end was bare, with stools arranged around it. Lydia occupied one of them, but Max couldn't sit. Not with Lou out there in the night, chasing after God knew who—or what.

"Did you see what I saw?" she asked. Really just to fill the silence. There was no doubt in her mind that Lydia had spotted it.

"What?" the older woman asked.

"On that white robe she was wearing? The collar?"

Lydia looked at her blankly, then shook her head.

"Blood, Lydia. Just a little, a drop or two. But it was there. And so was the way she clutched that collar around her neck."

"I assumed she was cold, or shaken. Maybe both."

Max shook her head firmly. "She was hiding something. Did you see how fast she hurried out of here?"

"She was upset, Maxine."

"Ten to one she comes back here wearing something that covers her neck." She paced toward the back door again, parted the curtain to peer out. "God, I wish he'd get back here." Max sighed in frustration, gripped the knob. "To hell with this. I'm going after him." As she jerked the door open, Lou came puffing tiredly up the steps.

Max managed to keep herself from flinging her arms around him, but she did give him a good look. No damage that showed. "You catch him?"

"He's long gone. I didn't even get within sight of him."

"Damn."

Lou sank onto a stool, only to rise again when the woman they had inadvertently rescued reappeared in the kitchen. Max's gaze went straight to her neck, and when she saw the black turtleneck, she sent a smug look at Lydia. But Lydia wasn't looking back at her. She and Lou were both staring at the woman as if seeing a ghost.

Frowning, Max looked back at her. Then she blinked and stared. "My God… "

"Who
are
you? What is this?" the woman asked, gaping at Max.

Max knew the feeling, because the same questions were spinning in her mind.

"You two are almost identical!" Lou said it as if he thought no one else had noticed.

No, they weren't, Max thought. Morgan De Silva was pale as a ghost, so thin she was bony, and her hair was long, endlessly long, and perfectly smooth, shiny. Maxine was no stick figure. Her hair was shorter and tended to curl if she let it grow at all. And she had color. At least enough to distinguish her from a corpse. But aside from those differences… this woman could have been her twin.

Max sank onto a stool, and that word, "twin," played and replayed in her mind. God, was it possible?

"You're Morgan De Silva," Lou said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes. But I don't understand what this is all about. Why… what… ?"

"Ms. De Silva, please, this is as much a shock to us as it is to you," Lou said slowly. He was still standing. Morgan De Silva was, too, though it didn't look as if she would be much longer. Hell, Max had to wonder how those skinny legs carried anything at all, much less an entire human being. Even one as scrawny as her.

Right on cue, she wobbled. Lou took her arms in that way of his. Non-threatening, easy. "Come on, sit down," he said. She did.

He glanced at Max. She wasn't sure if he was nudging her to speak or checking to see if she was okay. Maybe a little of both. She looked back at him, not knowing what the hell to say.

Nodding almost imperceptibly, Lou took the lead. "I'm Lou Malone," he told Morgan De Silva. "I'm a cop from White Plains, New York. This is Maxine Stuart, and over there is Lydia Jordan. They're friends of mine."

Looking at Max unblinkingly, Morgan said, "Are you a cop, too?"

"P.I.," Max said.

Licking her lips, Morgan turned her gaze inward. "You were adopted?"

"Yeah. You?"

Morgan nodded. "Your birthday?"

"May 4th, nineteen—"

"Seventy-seven." Morgan lifted her head slowly.

Lydia was getting up, Max noticed with the part of her brain that was still capable of noticing anything beyond the woman sitting in front of her.

"Lydia?" Lou asked.

"This is private, Lou. They ought to be alone."

Nodding, Lou pressed a hand to Max's shoulder. "We'll take a walk by the water. Yell if you need us."

She nodded, not really even processing what he was saying. When the door closed, she was alone with a strangely pale, frail woman who could have been her twin. Who—maybe—
was
her twin. "This is really tough to wrap my mind around. I mean, I always knew I was adopted. But no one bothered to tell me I had a twin sister running around somewhere."

Morgan stared at her. "You mean this little surprise visit isn't the culmination of some kind of search?"

Hell, she sounded a little hostile. "No, it's not the culmination of anything. Until I saw your face, I had no idea."

"You hadn't seen my face before?"

"I've never even been to Maine before."

"I meant in the press. On TV."

The light dawned. "That's right. You must be kind of famous now, with the nomination and all."

"Kind of," she said. She seemed to be striving for some sort of authoritative posture, head up, spine straight, eyes focused. But Max could see the struggle, and it ruined the entire effect. "So if you didn't know about me, what are you doing here?"

"Jesus, does it matter?" Max got to her feet and moved just a little closer. Lifting a hand, she touched Morgan's face with her fingertips. "We're sisters. I can't even believe this, it's… "

Morgan lowered her eyes. "We shared a womb for nine months. It's not that big a deal."

Max let her hand fall to her side again. "Is that all this means to you?"

"Our mother obviously didn't think it was all that important. Why the hell would she have given us up—much less split us up—if it meant anything to her? It's a biological coincidence."

"You're one cold bitch, aren't you?"

Morgan's eyes snapped to Marine's. "Why don't you just tell me what you want from me so we can get to the point here."

"What I
want
from you?"

The pale woman lifted her brows and waited.

Max rolled her eyes. "Oh, I get it. You've got money. Success. You think that's why I'm here, that I'm after a cut."

"I was just nominated for a major award. I've had a lot of press. Are you telling me that has nothing to do with your sudden interest in me?"

"I told you, I didn't know you existed until I saw your face." Max said the words as firmly as she knew how without shouting them. "The reason I came here has nothing whatsoever to do with your money or your damned award nomination. God, who the hell raised you, anyway?"

"A pair of glittering Hollywood cocaine addicts, not that it's any of your business." She closed her eyes, and her head fell forward. She didn't try to fight it this time. Just let her long red locks hang in her eyes. "Once more, why are you here?"

"I'm here because my best friend is lying in a hospital bed with a bullet in her brain, in a coma from which she probably won't recover. And I want the son of a bitch who put her there."

Morgan blinked. It seemed to Max she had perhaps finally penetrated the shell around the woman's soul "I'm sorry. But I still don't see what that has to do with me."

"It has to do with vampires, Morgan."

She flinched. Max saw it clearly. She tried to cover it, but it was too late. "That's ridiculous. Vampires don't exist."

"Oh, I'm not talking about the fictional ones. I'm talking about the real ones. You know. Like in your film."

"I've had a very difficult day," Morgan said softly. "I hate to be rude, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

The woman honestly didn't look well. "I'll leave right after I tell you a very short story. All right?"

Meeting Max's eyes only briefly, Morgan nodded. "So long as it's very short."

"So short it has no ending. Not yet, anyway. There was a compound in my hometown. Supposedly a government-run research center. It had been there for as long as I could remember, but five years ago it burned to the ground. I sneaked past the firefighters, hoping to finally get a clue what had really been going on there all those years."

Morgan interrupted with a short burst of air. "What made you think anything was going on there, besides research?"

"Armed guards. Surveillance cameras. Vehicles with government plates in and out all the time. Electrified fence. Dogs. You name it. I found two things when I got inside: an ID badge and a CD filled with information on vampires. Years worth of information. One of the vampires was called Dante, and the information about him recorded on the CD is very similar to the background of the Dante in your films."

Morgan stared attentively at her now. She no longer looked as if she were suffering the tale just to be rid of the teller. She was rapt. "And the ID badge?"

"It belonged to Frank W. Stiles, an agent of the Division of Paranormal Investigations, which I suspect is a secret division within the CIA."

"Frank W. Stiles." Morgan whispered the name.

"The reason I found those things is because they were dropped by a badly burned man as he dragged himself out of the rubble. The next thing I knew, the place was surrounded by military. I managed to slip away, but what I didn't know was that the man had seen me. And the next day he let me know that if I breathed a word about having seen him, or about anything else I might have seen that night, he would kill my best friends and my mother. My adoptive mother."

"Is this the same best friend you said was shot?"

"Yeah."

"And you think it's connected? You said yourself this incident was five years ago."

"There's more. Just recently there was a murder in our town. A woman who was very close to Lydia Jordan. It looked like the work of a vampire, and I realized I couldn't keep the information I had to myself any longer. Not if people were dying. So I told Lou what I knew, showed him the CD. The next thing I know, my Mend is found in Lou's apartment. She'd been shot in the head with Lou's gun. I know Lou didn't do it, but it was pretty clear someone was setting him up. I know it was Frank Stiles. I
know
it."

"When did this happen?"

Max wondered why it mattered. "Last night between nine and ten p.m. Why?"

"And how long did it take you to drive here? You did drive, didn't you?"

"Yeah, we drove. About six hours, give or take."

Morgan nodded slowly, no longer in a big hurry to get rid of her newfound sister, it seemed. "So who is it you're after? The vampire who killed Lydia's friend or the scarred man who shot yours?"

Max blinked. "I didn't say he was scarred."

Morgan lowered her head, shaking it quickly. "You said he was badly burned. Same thing."

"No, it's not. Not really."

"I just assumed—"

"You've seen him. Hell, of course you have. He probably made the same connection I did when he saw the film."

"You're putting words in my mouth. I never said—"

"All I want is the truth," Max said.

"I don't
know
the truth!" Morgan's knees seemed to give, and she clutched the countertop to hold herself upright.

"You look really ill, Morgan. Have you been sick?"

"It's a… condition. A certain blood antigen. Belladonna. Although, if we're twins, I would have expected you to have it, too."

"Plain old A-positive."

"Is that even possible?"

"I don't know," Max said. "I suppose we'd have to ask a doctor or… something." She lowered her head, then raised it again. "Who was that, attacking you out there tonight? Was it Dante?"

Morgan shook her head slowly, pacing away from Max, her gait unsteady, feet almost dragging. "It was the scarred man—Stiles. Like you, he thinks Dante is real and that I can lead the way to him. But you're both wrong. There is no Dante. And even if there were—"

Her legs dissolved, and as she slumped toward the floor, Max grabbed her and held on, eased her down rather than letting her fall.

"You knew, didn't you, Lou?"

He looked at Lydia's face as they walked along the cliffs outside. Her hair had been pure honey gold once, but now a few strands of gray had appeared in its waves. Her face was sharper now, harsher, having lost the plump-cheeked look of youth. And yet she was still beautiful.

The grass fell away just beyond where they walked, vanishing into the face of a steep rocky cliff that plunged to the shore below. He liked the ocean up here. It smelled good. Salty and fresh, and the sea breeze wasn't as cold as he would have expected it to be. It seemed to roll in with the waves.

"I suspected," he admitted at length. "About Maxie, anyway. That's why I introduced you two. I honestly didn't expect her to take off with this vampire theory the way she has. It was just an excuse to put the two of you together and give you a chance to see what was obvious to me."

"And Morgan?" she asked.

"I had no clue whatsoever, Lydia. I swear."

She licked her lips. "You should have told me. About Max, I mean."

"I thought it was something you two ought to put together on your own." He put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry if I did it wrong, hon. You know I want the best for you."

"I know you do."

"You gonna tell them?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I need to think."

They both turned as Max's voice shouted for Lou from the house. Lydia gripped Lou's arm. "Could he have come back?"

"Come on," Lou said, taking her arm as they ran across the wide expanse of back lawn toward the house. "We haven't been out of sight of the house," he muttered. "He could have come in another door, I suppose, but—"

They reached the house, rushing inside to find Morgan unconscious on the floor and Max kneeling beside her, cradling her head and looking scared to death.

"Jesus, what happened?"

"She just collapsed!"

Lydia ran forward, knelt beside Max and touched Morgan's face. "She's so cold."