Cronin's Key (7 page)

“Jesus Christ.”

Cronin smirked and before he could speak, Alec did. “Let me guess. He wasn’t there?”

He chuckled. “No.”

After a moment’s silence, Alec furrowed his eyebrows. “Okay,” Cronin said. “Your questions.”

“I have many,” Alec said. “But one thing doesn’t add up. Saying works of literature were rewritten eight hundred years ago is fine, and agreed, quite plausible. Monarchs and churches alike did a lot of unthinkable things to suit themselves back then. But it doesn’t explain recent discoveries. Archaeologists have been discovering tombs in Egypt as late as the last decade with inscriptions and hieroglyphs and they’ve found nothing to suggest what you’re saying is true. Some of those hieroglyphs are thousands of years old. They can’t have been rewritten—they’ve only just been discovered.”

“You have a photographic memory, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can recall pictures, texts?”

“Yes.”

“It is similar to how a vampire’s mind works.” Cronin obviously liked that Alec was gifted with clear recall, and he apparently found intelligence appealing. Alec’s chest warmed knowing he affected Cronin in such a way. He liked it more than he should. “You studied histories in your schooling?”

“Yes.”

“Proof of vampire existence doesn’t need to be in the form of written words, Alec. Remember how I told you proof was there if you knew what to look for?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to recall what you learned about the Egyptians, Illyrians, Inca, Mayans, and Aztecs, even the Chinese and the Nigerians. They each lived thousands of miles apart, over many centuries, yet they are inexplicably linked.”

Alec was quiet for a moment, his mind flashing images and information, forging a profile on each culture. His eyes shot to Cronin’s when he realized what it was.

“Pyramids.”

Cronin gave a nod. “And?”

A cold shiver ran down Alec’s spine. “They all mummified their dead.”

Cronin couldn’t help but smile, and a flush of pride filled his chest. Alec, on the other hand, looked horrified.

“What does that mean?” he asked. “The mummification. Why is that important? It was to preserve the dead for the afterlife, was it not?”

Cronin shook his head. “Historians would have you believe so, but no. Embalming is the process of what, Alec?”

“Draining the blood…” Alec started to answer. Then he whispered. “Oh.”

Cronin shook his head. “Not for reasons you might think. Ancient vampires were embalmed so they could not be returned to life.”

Alec’s eyes went wide. “Returned to life? Jesus. This just keeps getting weirder.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “To a human life? Or a vampire life?”

“Vampire. The process of turning vampire from a human state cannot be reversed.”

“But vampires can die,” Alec said. “I saw that guy… he turned to dust! Now I’m no expert, but that looked pretty fucking dead to me.”

Cronin smiled at him. “Yes, vampires can die one of three ways. Wooden stake or bullet to the heart, as you saw—though the bullet is a relatively new development. Sunlight will kill a vampire, though not instantly. It may take up to five seconds for the ultraviolet light to penetrate the skin and pierce the heart. Then there is also embalming, a process that has not been used for millennia.”

“How…” Alec’s brows furrowed. “How does it work? I mean, if vampires have super strength and powers and… How did they not turn to dust before their blood was removed?”

It was a good question, Cronin conceded. And one many people wouldn’t think to ask. “We don’t know exactly—we can only speculate—though we believe the ancient covens had at least one member with the ability to paralyze. We assume the process needs to be done while the vampire is still alive.”

“Jesus.”

Cronin chuckled. “No.”

“He wasn’t there,” they said in unison, both smiling.

“And the pyramids?” Alec asked after a moment of silence. “What’s the significance?”

“Given the times and the resources they had available, pyramids were the logical choice. They are, after all, the strongest, most stable shape.”

“So it’s not some mystical powerful portal?” Alec asked, half-joking, half-not. “Because really, anything’s possible at this point.”

“There’s no magical reason,” Cronin said with an amused smirk. “They are burial tombs, that much is correct. But the historians were wrong about one fact: the walls of meter-thick stone and sealed chambers were not to keep people out.”

Alec concluded. “They were to keep vampires in.”

Cronin stood up. “Enough talk for one night,” he said with a smile. “It is getting late.”

Alec looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He had no idea they’d talked for so long. “I’m not Cinderella, you know. I’m not going to lose a shoe when the clock strikes twelve. I worked night shift for years.”

Cronin rolled his eyes. “No, but you did warn me that you functioned better with adequate sleep. And I’d rather not argue unnecessarily.”

Alec raised one eyebrow at him. “You’re seriously sending me to bed?”

Cronin barked out a laugh. “Uh, no. You wanted to go to your apartment.”

“Oh!” Alec said, embarrassment heating his cheeks. “I forgot about that.”

“It will require leaping,” Cronin reminded him.

“Ugh,” Alec groaned. “Nothing like volunteering to have your body shredded at a cellular level.”

Cronin frowned. “You don’t have to go. I can order you anything you wish.”

“No, no,” Alec said, sounding resigned. “Let’s just get it over with. Now, how do I do this again?”

“You need to put your arms around me,” Cronin said softly.

Alec moved right in front of him and slowly slid his hands around Cronin’s back. Jesus, it felt good. It felt so unbelievably fucking right. He’d never experienced anything like it.

With no more than a quiet gasp from Cronin, they were gone.

* * * *

The pain was just as Alec remembered. So complete and blinding, every fiber of his body screamed in agony. Every pixelated cell blurred and burned, and then… everything shifted, like Cronin changed course… and it was over.

The pain was gone, Alec realized, and he sucked back a ragged breath. And then in its place was immediate pleasure. Cronin was pressed against him, pushing him against a wall. Alec’s bathroom wall. “Shhh,” Cronin whispered followed by a quiet moan. “There are two people in your living room.”

Alec couldn’t move, not even if he wanted to. And he really,
really
didn’t want to. He could feel Cronin against him, all of him. He was all strength and smelled like nothing Alec had ever smelled before, like earth and heaven. His face was against Cronin’s neck, and Alec realized that Cronin’s was against his.

A vampire’s mouth was at his neck, and all Alec could do was stretch to give him more skin, silently urging him to do it, to sink his teeth into him. He wanted it, God, like he’d never wanted anything else.

“Alec,” Cronin warned, a quiet rattle rumbling in his chest. “Don’t move.”

Cronin was hard, his erection pressed against Alec’s own aching cock and it took every ounce of self-control, every conscious effort, for Alec not to groan and grind against him, to bring Cronin’s mouth to his…

“Ah, come on,” a voice said on the other side of the door, startling Alec from his Cronin-lust-induced haze. “He’s not here. He hasn’t been here since we were here last. I think De Angelo’s as crazy as what MacAidan was.”

“De Angelo didn’t go all beam-me-up-Scotty like MacAidan did,” the second voice replied.

The first cop laughed and there was a mumbled reply about leaving before the front door slammed, followed by silence. Cronin took a step back from Alec, then took a very slow, calculated breath.

Alec saw what he thought were fangs before Cronin shook his head and they were gone, his normal human teeth in their place. He also had a rather pronounced bulge in his trousers.

Jesus.
He was as turned-on as Alec was.

Alec closed his eyes and leaned over, his hands on his knees, and took some deep breaths. It wasn’t the effect of leaping that had him so breathless. It was Cronin…
God, I wanted him to bite me
.
I wanted him to fuck me.
Alec knew he would have let him do either. Bite, fuck, preferably both.

“That was close,” Cronin whispered.

Alec, still leaning his hands on his knees, looked up at him. He wasn’t sure if Cronin meant it was close that they’d almost leapt into a room where people were standing, or if it was close that he’d nearly bitten him. “Close for what?” he asked, still catching his breath.

“Exactly. Alec, I will say this once, and only once,” Cronin said. He lifted Alec’s chin with just a finger, bringing Alec to full height. His tone was deadly serious. “If you offer me your throat again, I will not refuse it.”

Alec swallowed. “You… I… couldn’t help it… your body…” Then anger flared in his belly. He pushed Cronin’s hand away and pointed his finger at him. “Maybe if you didn’t press me up against a wall and shove your face in my neck, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

Cronin made a sound that Alec could only describe as a growl, and the vampire took a step back from him. “I apologize.”

Alec bit back a snarl of his own. He had to remind himself that this was new to both of them. Again, he took a breath and shook off his anger, trying to quell the intense and not-always-rational emotions he had around Cronin. He looked around his bathroom: the old blue and white tiles were popular in the 1950s, the shower curtain hid the stained grout in the shower, and his toothbrush was exactly where he’d thrown it into the cup. Everything looked the same, just as it did a day ago. Jesus. Was it just
one
day?

Then he remembered the sudden shift he felt when they’d leapt here. “You changed direction?”

Cronin’s dark eyes shot to Alec’s. “You felt that?”

“Well, yeah. It was a shift or a—” Alec jerked his shoulders to the right, then felt stupid for doing so. “—change in direction, or something.”

Cronin’s lips twitched as though he might smile. “Yes. I can leap anywhere, but it’s not until I almost reappear that I get a sense of who else might be there.”

Alec nodded slowly. “Hang on. How did you know where I lived?”

“Eiji told me.”

“How did he know where I lived?”

“He’s been following you your entire life,” Cronin said simply. “Apparently.”

Alec’s eyes went wide. “He what?”

Cronin put his hands up, palms forward, in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger notion. “I knew nothing of it.” Then he corrected himself. “I knew nothing of you. Eiji did, and he kept you from me.”

By the way Cronin snarled, it was pretty obvious to Alec the vampire wasn’t happy with it.

“Well, it explains the déjà vu I get from Eiji,” Alec said. “I’ve never seen him directly—I’d remember if I did. But he’s familiar to me in a non-familiar kind of way, if that makes sense?”

Cronin nodded. “In your peripheral vision. In the shadows, never in plain sight.”

“But he’s followed me since I was a kid?”

“Yes. To keep you safe.” Cronin shrugged, but made no apology for the invasion of privacy. “He knew what you were going to be before you were born.”

Alec scrubbed his hands over his face. “He what?”

“He met your father when your father was just a boy,” Cronin explained. “He read him, his DNA, and saw that he would father a significant child.” Cronin shrugged again. “Significant to me, at least.”

“My father? Oh Jesus, Dad.”

“Your father was never harmed,” Cronin said. “In fact, Eiji protected him as he did you. Or so he said.”

“You trust Eiji?”

“With my life.” Cronin stared at Alec. “With your life.”

“But he never told you.”

Cronin shook his head. “Though I don’t agree with it, I can see why he chose secrecy. I would have… interfered had I known that you were even alive.”

Alec took a moment to process what Cronin had told him. “God. He saw me as a kid? I had acne and braces, for fuck’s sake. No wonder he never told you.”

Cronin smiled at that. “I would not have cared.”

Then he thought of something else. “Jesus. He’s seen the guys I’ve—”

Cronin did that growly noise again.

“Yeah, I can see why he never told you.”

“He also never told me you lived with someone.”

“What?”

“Were you lovers with this…
Sammy
person?” Cronin asked. He said the name as though it tasted bitter.

“Shit! Sammy!” Alec said, and he pulled the bathroom door open. “Sammy!” Alec darted across the short hall and into the open living and kitchen area. “Sammy?” Nothing. There was no sign of him. He looked under the sofa, finding nothing. He went back to the hall and opened the bedroom door, scanning the room, and finally looking under the bed. “Oh, little guy, there you are.” Alec went around to the far side of the bed, got down on his knees, reached in, and pulled out the tabby cat. He stood up, holding the cat to his chest and scratching under its chin. “Did those cops scare you?”

Cronin stood at the door, smiling. “Sammy is a cat?”

“Sammy is,” Alec said, “though I don’t tell him that. Sammy thinks he’s human.”

The cat looked at Cronin and turned in Alec’s arms. At first Alec thought he was trying to run away—Cronin being a vampire and all—but the cat didn’t want to run
from
Cronin at all. Sammy meowed like Alec had never heard and pushed away from Alec until he let him go. The cat jumped on the bed and padded across to where Cronin stood, meowing again.

Cronin smiled and walked over to the bed, and Sammy mewled until Cronin picked him up. The cat purred and nudged his face to Cronin’s chin.

Alec was floored. “Cats like vampires?”

“Cats protect vampires,” Cronin said, then he amended it. “Well, cats will protect a good vampire and deter a vampire with bad intentions.”

“How…? You know what? Never mind,” Alec mumbled. He still couldn’t believe his own Sammy had betrayed him like that, still purring in Cronin’s arms.

“What symbol is on most Egyptian hieroglyphs, Alec?” Cronin asked. “What animal?”