Pretty When She Dies (17 page)

Somehow she knew that he could not know that her cousin and grandmother knew exactly what she was. It was dangerous for her and for them.

Cian rubbed his chin, then nodded. “That makes sense. Did they ask you why you hadn't gone to the police?”

“Yeah, but I told them I couldn't. I think...” she hesitated. “I told them cops were in the cult.”

“That was smart of you,” Cian said with a bemused smile.

“Hey, I'm not always stupid. Just sometimes.” And she thought bitterly of Professor Sumner's offer for coffee. Why on earth would a man like him be interested in a tattooed girl who was into metalheads?

“So you have not fed since the trucker?”

She shook her head, then rubbed her stomach. “I am getting hungry though. I should go, right?”

“No,” he answered coolly. “You shouldn't.”

Looking down at her hands, she felt tears swell up. She hadn't cried this much in years and it was pissing her off to no end. “Look, I know I fucked up, but I didn't mean to. Please, don't kill me. I want to learn how to be...this.” She waved her hand distractedly at her tears and her mouth. Her fangs were still pressing down. She could feel them with her tongue now. She was growing hungrier.

“I'm not going to kill you.” He rubbed one hand over his short hair, mussing it up. It only seemed spikier and sexier. “Who made you Amaliya?”

She let out a slow, wavering sigh. “His name is Professor Sumner. He was supposed to be this bigwig psychologist from England. It was a big deal that he was teaching a psychology class and I signed up for it immediately. He was so smart and so sexy and I had the stupidest, biggest crush on him. Then one night he asked me out for coffee and I went with him.” Tears seeped down her face and dangled on her chin.

“He killed me.” She wiped at her face with her fingers, smearing it with her bloody tears.

“And woke up buried in the forest?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him at all? Did he speak to you?”

Blushing a little, she nodded. “He came to the room where the orgy was and I had already started to...eat. He blocked the door and wouldn't let anyone out as I killed them. Then he...” She rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. “He took blood from me again. When I woke up he was talking to me. Telling me that I was now a vampire and he was anxious to see if I would survive or something like that.

He wouldn't be helping me, but watching me from a distance. He did give me his coat to cover up, though. But he said that was all the help he would give me.” She slowly dropped her gaze back to Cian. “I think I feel him sometimes. And I get afraid.”

Cian pressed his lips together, then slowly lowered his head, rubbing the top of it again. “I see.”

“I don't know the rules. I don't know what I can or can't do. I don't even know what my powers are! You gotta understand that!”

“I do. I do.” Cian stood up and walked to a nearby window to stare out at the city. “We have the same creator. He said nearly those exact same words to me.”

“So you know who the asshole is?”

“Yes, I do. Or at least the legend about him,” Cian answered somberly.

Amaliya stood up and walked over to him. “You have to tell me. You can't leave me in the dark. He's stalking my ass.”

Cian looked at her then sighed. “You're right. I will tell you...”

***

Cian stared into the blue-gray eyes of the young vampire and felt a pang of sorrow for her. She was terribly innocent despite her sultry, bad girl look. The fact that she had survived thus far was truly amazing. He was shocked that she wasn't still mad with the hunger, but actually quite lucid. She also seemed to have a good sense of self.

Despite himself, he was kind of liking her.

“Well?” She crossed her arms. “Tell me.”

“Very well. His real name is unknown, but he is called The Summoner. Legend says he is very ancient. A Chaldean necromancer of Sumeria. The story I was told was that he could manipulate the dead and have them do his bidding. He grew more and more powerful and terrified the king, who ordered his death. The king sent an armed regiment to kill The Summoner, but an army of the dead defeated them. And as each of the king's soldiers fell, they rose to defend The 154

Summoner as a dead warrior. The Summoner seemed to have the kingdom in the palm of his hand when a witch cursed him to die. He could not revoke the curse and he began to suffer a great illness. But he had heard of the living dead, those who drink blood to survive and wander the night.”

“This sounds like a bad horror movie,” Amaliya interjected.

“Maybe,” he conceded, and thought Bruce Campbell would be great in it. “But it may be the truth. Anyway, as I was saying, he had heard of vampires. He summoned one with a potent spell. Of course, the legend says it was one of the first vampires in creation, but it doesn't matter who it was. The terribleness of it was that The Summoner managed to capture a vampire and torture it. At last, the vampire revealed how The Summoner could become a vampire.”

“He should have kept his damn mouth shut.”

“Her mouth shut. It was a woman. A beautiful, ancient blood drinking goddess, so the story goes. He made her drink his blood, then sliced her throat and drank hers. And then he died. And when he died, all his dead companions died once more. The vampire screamed for three days and nights and all who dared to approach his haven could hear her. But no one would go in and rescue her. The Summoner rose on the third night, but he had forgotten the restrictions of his new existence.”

“He can't go out in sunlight.”

“Exactly. It took awhile for the King and his advisors to figure it out.

But they began to notice that everyday the dead army vanished from their posts. They finally were brave enough to invade during the day.

The Summoner was nearly burned to death by the invaders and his mortal servants barely managed to escape with him. No one knows what happened to his prisoner. I suppose she was killed.”

“Poor thing. Being stuck with that sadistic sonnobitch her last nights on earth,” Amaliya decided.

“I agree. But the legend says that The Summoner was angered by his limitations. Daylight effectively destroyed all his spells cast by night.

So he learned how to manipulate mankind through other means.”

“The games he plays with our heads,” Amaliya snorted.

“Exactly. A lot of the old vampires blame him for wars and pestilence and all sorts of troubles through the ages, but I think its just The Summoner giving himself credit to make him more terrifying to his own kind. He made me over three hundred years ago and spent a good time torturing me over that time. I am one of the few of his children that is still alive. He slaughters most of us. We're his pawns.

His toys.” Cian could feel his bitterness rising once more. “I have spent a large portion of the last fifty years insuring he would leave me be.”

“Does he?”

Cian nodded. Of course, the price he had paid had been high. But now he was closer to his mortal existence than he had ever been throughout the centuries. At times, he felt almost human.

“Will he leave me alone?”

“No,” Cian said softly. “No he won't. It's only a few days into his game.

He's seeing if you survive on your own. How strong you are. Do not doubt, he is watching you.” Cian's gaze swept over the city slowly.

“He is probably in Austin watching us at this very moment.”

The thought angered him and, for the thousandth time, he thought he should just kill Amaliya and spare her the torment that was to come.

A large portion of that inclination was him feeling immensely selfish.

He had fought long and hard to remove himself from The Summoner's influence. Having Amaliya with him was just an invitation to have the ancient vampire back in his life.

Amaliya rested her forehead on the glass and stared down into the street below. People were on their way to the clubs, laughing and talking animatedly. Cian could almost read her thoughts and he saw the weariness settle into her shoulders. She understood and he was strangely comforted with that knowledge.

“It's like having the world's worst stalker on your case,” she said at last.

“That it is,” Cian admitted.

“Why does he do it? Make us then torture us? Stalk us? Not help us?”

“It amuses him. He's old and bored. He doesn't wield the power he did alive so he plays these games to make himself more powerful. Or at least that is my official diagnosis of his psychosis.”

“Why don't the other vampires kill him?”

Her gaze was so soft and afraid. She almost looked human, but her skin was too pale and translucent and her eyes glittered.

“Most of the ancients are in Europe. There are a few in South and Central America, but they never travel this far north. America, and I'm including the U.S., Canada and Mexico, have much younger vampires. I am most likely one of the oldest here. He is thousands of years old and possibly one of the very first of our kind to walk the earth. Despite his limitations in his magic, he is quite dangerous. We all live with the knowledge that should he decide to wreck havoc on the earth, he could. By night, of course, but how much damage could an army of the dead do in one night against mortals?”

“Why hasn't he done it yet?”

Cian shrugged. “No one knows. Rumors are that he tried once and the Ancients crushed his army and crippled him. In other words, wounded him so terribly it took decades to heal. But it's all legend and rumors. What I have seen him do with my own eyes is enough to terrify me.”

The girl's shoulders drooped even more. “I'm pretty much dead, aren't I? Even if you don't kill me, he will.”

Cian turned to look at her. In the light of his apartment, she looked younger than in the club. Her black hair fell long and untethered almost to her waist. Her body was shapely without being heavy. The tattoo on her arm was marred and he could see where it probably held a cross or rosary tucked into the design before her transformation. He had caught a glimpse of the wings on her back earlier. She was very different from Samantha, yet both of them looked very Austin.

“The one thing about being a vampire is that you become immensely terrified of death,” he said finally.

She looked at him with a plaintive expression on her face. “Tell me about it.” She ran the back of her foot down her other leg and sighed.

“Can I go eat now? I'm really really hungry.”

“No,” he said with a weary sigh. “It's not safe anymore. You will have to stay here.”

“Look, I have a hotel room. I have a car. I can get the hell out of Austin.”

“And go where?”

She shrugged. “Maybe Mexico. Or New Orleans?”

Cian laughed at that. “There is no Lestat living there. There is a Master there, but she'd rather kill you than deal with you.”

Amaliya sighed softly. “I can't stay here. I got my own life to figure out.”

“Just stay here tonight and we'll sort it out. You are right. You do need to learn our ways or you won't survive. I can teach you. Then you can go. Decide where you want to go and just go. I won't stop you.”

He didn't mean for his voice to sound harsh, but he was angry at himself for not immediately turning her out. But he just couldn't do it.

No one had been there for him when he had become what he was.

Just throwing her into the night seemed inordinately cruel and very much like something The Summoner would do. He would not walk in the footsteps of his creator.

“You got blood in storage or something? Because I'm starving.”

Cian could see that she was struggling. Her skin was looking even more pale and her eyes were sparkling dangerously. He reached out and touched her cheek and found it cold to his touch.

“No. But I have fed tonight. You can drink from me.”

She glanced at his neck and drew slightly away. “What will that do?”

“Nourish you,” he snapped, then said in a softer voice, “It will enable you not to feed for another day or two without hunger. I apologize. I have not been around my own kind very often over the last thirty years.”

Giving him a sharp look through slitted eyes, she moved away from the window. Her arms folded over her breasts, she looked around the apartment taking in the furnishings and the artwork. “My car is down in a parking lot. They'll tow it if its still there in the morning.”

“I'll send Roberto to get it,” he answered.

“My clothes are at the hotel,” she added.

“He can get those, too.”

Cian hit an intercom button and Roberto's voice said, “Yes?”

“Could you come down here? We have a guest and I need you to attend to some duties.”

“Of course.”

“You have a servant?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

“You're so the cliché.” She hesitated. “I think.”

“Never watched vampire movies I take it?”

“Salem's Lot scared the crap out of me as a kid. That floating little boy vampire scared me to death and I never watched another vampire movie after that.”

Cian smiled and had to agree. Children vampires were terrifying. He had met a few in his time.

Roberto appeared and gave their tattooed guest a look of disapproval.

“I need you to take care of Ms. Vezorak's car and retrieve her personal belongings from a hotel.”

Much to his amusement, Amaliya pulled her car keys and the key to her hotel out of her bra and handed them to Roberto. The man could not have looked more horrified.

“The car is in the lot up on 7th and the hotel is down by Riverside.”

Amaliya looked at Roberto thoughtfully. He regarded her like she was a bug.

“I will take care of this, of course. I take it she is staying for a short period of time?”

Cian chuckled at Roberto's emphasis on the word “short.”

“Yes, yes. We have business to attend to.”

Roberto slightly narrowed his eyes, then nodded. He looked down at the key card and saw the hotel name and address.

“My car is a big black Lincoln. I put a Rolling Stone air freshener on the rear view mirror.”

The Hispanic man's gaze grew more pained, but he nodded. “I will return shortly.” He turned on his heal and walked stiffly down the hall to the front door.