The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires (7 page)

“An interesting supposition. Would you care to prove it?” he asked, holding out a hand for me.

I glanced nervously from his hand to the floor. I knew, I
knew
that the floor hadn't disappeared into nothing despite the apparently yawning chasm in front of me. It was physically impossible. Thus, what I was seeing had to be an illusion. And if it was an illusion, then it was perfectly safe for me to walk across the floor.

At least, that's what I told myself. My legs refused to move, however.

A little bell jangled over the door to the street, heralding the arrival of someone…someone tall, dark, and incredibly handsome, someone whose mere presence had me grinding my teeth.

“What have you done with Sarah?” I asked before Theo was fully into the reception area. He stopped as soon as he stepped over the threshold, two tiles suddenly appearing beneath his feet. He glanced down at the apparently missing floor, then over to me. “I see the trial has begun.”

“Ahhh,” Terrin said, giving Theo a shuttered look. “Now I remember. You are the one who has been petitioning the Court for the last two hundred years.”

Theo made a small bow. “Two hundred and twelve, to be precise.”

“Indeed. And you are also now a champion?” Terrin looked thoughtful.

“Yes.” Theo shot me a quick look.

“That might just do it, you know,” Terrin told him. “Hasn't been done in a few centuries, but there is precedent.”

I mustered up as much of a glare as I could, given the odd circumstances. “Where is Sarah? What have you done with her? And don't tell me you haven't seen her; she drove off to find you, and she's very single-minded when she wants to be.”

“She went back to her room. She wished to see the trial, but I told her that you would no doubt prefer to conduct the trial without an audience.” Theo's gaze swept around the room. “Unusual spot you chose to have it.”

“I didn't choose anything! You people keep hounding me wherever I go, and I'm getting sick and tired of it.” I carefully turned and waved my hands in the air to catch the attention of the police behind the glass walls. “And I'm going to put a stop to it right here and now. Hey! Hello! Need help out here! Dangerous criminal and his buddy right here in your station!”

The police people paid no attention whatsoever to either my frantic arm-waving or shouts, not so much as a single person looking up to see what was going on in their reception area.

“Portia, they can't see or hear you. They can't see or hear any of us until the trial is over,” Theo said, holding out a hand for me. “Walk over here and it will be over, and then I can explain to you what's going on.”

“Dream on,” I snapped, wondering if they'd drugged everyone in the police station. Maybe some sort of drug in the water cooler that made everyone unaware of what was going on around them?

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to put this down as a refusal,” Terrin said, pulling a small notebook out of his pocket. “This will be the second trial you've failed, I believe. You know, of course, that if you fail a third you will be disqualified and your application denied?”

“What is it you want?” I asked Theo. “Money? You won't get it, you know. I don't have any, and Sarah's husband is a lawyer who would grind you under his heel if you so much as thought about holding her for ransom.”

Theo dropped his hand. “Is the floor here?”

“Yes, of course it's here,” I answered, avoiding looking directly at the abyss in front of me. I'm not afraid of heights per se, but they did make me a bit nervous. Even though I knew what I was seeing was an optical illusion, it was good enough to make my palms sweat.

“Then walk over here and prove that you believe what you are seeing is not real.”

I licked my lips, looking from him, to Terrin, to the floor. It's not real, I told myself. It's just an illusion, a very high-tech illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. Things like floors do not just disappear into nothing. If I march over there now, I will be able to prove to both of them that whatever their nefarious plan is, it won't work on me. I will laugh in their faces.

Despite my brave pep talk, my feet remained rooted to the two tiles.

“I'm sorry, I have no choice,” Terrin told both Theo and me. He made a few notes and gave me a sad look. “I must mark this as a failure. I do hope you do better in your remaining trials, the third of which will commence tomorrow. Good afternoon to you both.”

He turned and walked out the door, each step he made causing the tiles to appear in front of him, slowly rippling out until the entire floor was once again visible. I nudged the newly reappeared tile in front of me with the toe of my shoe. It seemed perfectly normal, perfectly solid.

“Hello, can I be of help?” a policeman asked as he walked in from the back rooms. He set down a cup of coffee and peered inquiringly over the desk at us.

“I am Portia Harding. I filed a complaint for assault and kidnapping against this man,” I said, pointing at Theo. To my horror, my hand was shaking. “If you could arrest him now, I'd would be eternally grateful.”

“Portia Harding?” The policeman frowned, seating himself in front of a computer. His fingers danced over the keys for a few seconds. “I'm sorry, but I don't have a record of a complaint by you, Miss Harding. What is your assailant's name?”

“Theo North. Er…Theodore, I assume.”

“It's Theondre, actually,” Theo said, walking over to the counter. “You will have to forgive Miss Harding. She has had a trying last few days, and is a bit confused at the moment.”

“I'm sorry,” the policeman said again, tapping away at the keyboard. “I see no entry for a Theo or Theondre North.”

“Sweet mother of reason, you bought off the police?” I asked Theo. “I can't imagine how much it must have cost you to do the hologram of the floor, but to buy off police—that's just wrong in so many ways, I can't begin to name them!”

The policeman looked at me with suddenly wary eyes. “Are you quite yourself, madam?”

“She's fine,” Theo said, taking me by the arm and gently pulling me to the door. “Just a little overset. I'll see that she gets back to her hotel.”

“You're kidnapping me again, aren't you?” I asked him as he opened the door and all but shoved me through it. “You're kidnapping me right in front of a policeman, but because he's part of your horrible scheme, he's not going to stop you.”

Theo sighed and gently pushed me through the door. “You need a drink.”

“That's the first thing you've said that makes any sense,” I agreed, looking around quickly for the best route for my escape. It was just starting to get dark, the little town in the middle of the busy hour when everyone was hurrying to the shops, then home. I shivered a little, rubbing my arms as a gust of wind hit me. It was raining slightly, more of a drizzle than a rain, but it was enough to chill me. I didn't relish running the mile through the damp night to the pub, especially with Theo on my tail, but I had no choice.

My escape plan was squelched when Theo grabbed my hand and held it in a no-nonsense grip as he started up the sidewalk. “Don't even think about it. We need to talk, you and I. And we could both use a drink. We'll take my car—”

“Over my dead body,” I answered, digging in my heels and coming to an abrupt halt.

He eyed me for a moment. “As tempting as that offer is, I need you alive. We will walk if it makes you feel any better.” So saying, he started up the hill to where the pub sat at the crown.

“Infinitely. Release my hand.”

“No.”

We marched along in silence for a few minutes, Theo looking straight ahead with a grim expression on his face, me desperately trying to catch the eye of townsfolk.

“Excuse me, could you help me? I'm being kidnapped.” The man to whom I spoke glanced at Theo and hurried on his way.

I spotted a lady with her arms full of groceries. “Pardon me, but could you possibly help me? This large man next to me is kidnapping me.”

“Oooh,” the woman said, her eyes lighting up as she gave Theo the once-over. “He can kidnap me any day.”

Theo snorted and continued to haul me up the road.

“Help—” I started to scream, feeling I had nothing left to lose.

Before I got more than the H out of my mouth, Theo jerked me toward him, both his arms coming around me in a steely grip. His black eyes flashed with irritation, the last thing I saw for a few seconds as his mouth descended on mine in a bruising kiss that drove everything from my mind.

I would like to think that I'm a rational, relatively intelligent, down-to-earth sort of person, who doesn't get rattled when a handsome man plants his lips on hers. I'd like to think that, in that sort of a situation, I would handle myself with aplomb and dignity. I would like to think that, but the sad reality was that the second Theo stopped trying to shut me up by swallowing my yells for help, and started really kissing me, I was a goner.

Oh, the analytical part of my mind had quite a pleasant time examining the mechanics of the kiss. It noted that once his lips softened against mine, my breath started coming in short little gasps that had me parting my own lips. It understood that the act of his hands, sweeping down my arms, around to my back, and finally down to my butt, where they pulled me up against his body, were responsible for a sensation that left me feeling as if my entire body was tingling. It noticed that when his tongue touched mine, my knees seemed to be unable to support my weight, and deep within me, sensitive areas started to throb with an almost primal need. It made no judgment when I started kissing him back, sliding my fingers through his hair as I twined my tongue around his. It didn't even care when people walking by us giggled at the sight we made, kissing like crazy on the sidewalk.

But when Theo managed to retrieve his tongue and lips from where I was nipping at them, the analytical part of my mind pointed out that I had just been necking with a man who only the day before had kidnapped and assaulted me.

Oddly enough, that seemed to fade into unimportance in the face of what must surely be the world's best kisser.

“Sweet mother earth,” I swore when he stepped back, releasing me.

“Salus invenitur,”
he said at the same time, his black eyes mirroring my surprise.

“What was that?” I asked, ignoring the giggles of three teenaged girls as they skirted us.

“A kiss. I think.” Theo looked just as disconcerted by the experience as I felt. His expression changed to one of annoyance, though. He looked upward for a moment, then frowned at me. “Stop that.”

“I would like to point out that you are the one who kissed me, not vice versa.”

He raised one ebony eyebrow. “Really? So that wasn't you trying to suck my tongue out of my head?”

“I kissed you back. I did not initiate the kiss. If your tongue gets sucked out of your head, it's no fault of mine,” I said righteously, straightening my shoulders and ordering my knees to stop melting at the memory of the kiss.

Theo walked next to me as I continued up the hill toward the pub, taking my hand again in what was no doubt a precautionary move to keep me from bolting. The fact that escaping him had slid down my top ten lists of things to accomplish in the next half hour was neither here nor there. “I would like to think the responsibility and praise for a kiss lies with both participants, not just one. Will you please stop that? It is getting annoying.”

“Stop what?”

He pointed overhead. “Stop raining on me.”

Good gravy, the cloud hallucination was back, and it was following me!

I'm not ashamed to say that, for a moment, a wild irrational fear gripped me. “I'm not doing that!” I wailed, then shook my hand free of Theo's and raced up the hill to the safety of the pub.

“Portia—”

The damned cloud followed me the whole way, raining harder and harder with each step, so that when I arrived at the pub, my breath coming in big rasping gasps as I clutched the stitch in my side, I was soaked to the skin.

“Portia, stop!” Theo had been right beside me as I bolted, a look of concern on his face. “You can't outrun it. You have to make it stop.”

I spun around, water flying from my sodden hair. “I cannot control the weather!” I yelled.

“Yes, you can.” We stood outside the pub in the parking lot, which was thankfully unoccupied at that moment. Theo grasped my forearms and looked me deep in the eyes. “You have the Gift. You do not wish to acknowledge it, but you must in order to control it.”

“It's impossible for a person—”

“Don't you have any faith in yourself?” he asked, shaking me slightly.

“Of course I have faith in myself!” My teeth started chattering with cold.

“Then prove it! Prove that no matter what situation you are in, you believe in yourself.”

“This is asinine. I can't control the weather!” Overhead, my cloud rumbled ominously, the hairs on my arms standing on end with the feeling of static electricity.

“Yes, you can,” Theo yelled over the noise. “You can make it stop, Portia! The power is yours. Will it to go away!”

Rain pelted down on us with such force that it stung my bare skin. I looked around frantically, but there was nowhere to hide from it except the pub itself. “I'll go inside—”

“No! You must learn to deal with this!” Theo said, pulling me back. His fingers tightened on my arms as, around us, three streaks of lightning exploded so close that my skin buzzed with the power. “Make it stop!”

“I can't!”

“You have to believe, Portia. You have to have faith!” he yelled in my face, his voice barely audible over the roar of thunder immediately overhead. My skin tingled, heralding another round of lightning.

“I lost that years ago,” I screamed, giving in to the horror and frustration that were roiling inside me. I threw myself into his arms, clinging to his rain-slicked body and wishing I could hide from it all.

“Believe!” he bellowed as lightning danced around us in a circle of blue light. “I know you can do this!”

His heartbeat was as wild as mine, and I knew instinctively that, about this, he was telling the truth. He believed I could stop this freak storm. For a moment, for the time between seconds, I considered the possibility that he was right. What if I could control the weather?

The storm overhead dissipated into nothing.

Theo peeled me off his chest, his black eyes unreadable. “That was very well done,” he said slowly. “We'll make a virtue of you yet.”

Water dripped down my face, down my soggy clothing, to fall with soft little patting noises at my feet. “I didn't just…no. It's impossible. It can't possibly happen.”

He laughed and turned me toward the door of the pub. “Let's have that drink and we can talk about it, all right?”

My legs were shaking so hard Theo thought it wise to help me up the stairs to my room first. “Change into something dry. I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes.”

“You're just as soaked as I am. You'll catch pneumonia or something if you sit around in wet clothes.” I wondered why I cared whether or not the man who had tried to kidnap me got sick, but I did, and since I didn't seem to be able to change that, I decided it wasn't worth angsting over. There would be time enough later, when I had life in control again, to worry over the fact that I found my kidnapper incredibly attractive.

“My things are in my car. I'll bring them up here and change.” He bent forward, his lips brushing mine for a moment in a caress that promised so much. I clutched the door frame to keep upright. “I'll see you downstairs in a few minutes.”

I peeled off my wet clothing, towel dried my hair, which was hanging to my shoulders in limp strings, and hesitated at the wardrobe over what to put on to meet Theo. It was inconceivable that I should be dithering over what to wear to meet a man I had tried to have arrested practically since the moment I'd met him, but dither I did. I selected and discarded a few pairs of pants, finally settling on a long crushed-velvet dress that I'd bought for visits to the theater and any publishing parties Sarah would drag me to. I twisted my hair up into an untidy French twist, wishing that it was a more attractive color than walnut. My hazel eyes peered back at me in the mirror with acknowledgment that they would never inspire anyone to write sonnets.

“You've never found yourself lacking in the looks department until now,” I told my reflection with a grimace. “So let's just not go overboard, shall we?”

I tried, I really tried not to care what Theo thought about me, but in the end I broke down and dug out my bag of cosmetics, quickly applying mascara, eye shadow, and lipstick before telling myself I was completely insane.

“Sarah? You there?” I stopped at her door and gave a soft knock, in case she'd gone to bed early.

“Come on in. I'm just making some notes. I've had the most brilliant idea for a book.”

I poked my head in through the door. “You OK?”

She looked up from her laptop, her face distracted. “Of course I am. Did you see Theo?”

His kiss still burned my lips. I licked them, tasting once again his masculine, woodsy taste, my nether regions throbbing heavily. “Yeah, I saw him. I'm…this is going to sound silly, but I've agreed to have a drink with him. Downstairs, in full view of everyone, I'd like to add.”

“Silly?” Sarah wrinkled her nose at me. “Why on earth would you having a drink with him be silly?”

“Is the English water affecting your memory or something? Did you forget that we've been trying to have him arrested for assault and kidnapping?”

“You've been trying to have him arrested. I haven't done anything other than try to reason with you. He's your champion, Portia. You need him.” Sarah turned back to her laptop and continued to type.

I shook my head, too tired to try to reason with her. “I'll be downstairs if you need me.”

“Enjoy yourself for a change. And kiss Theo for me.”

I shot her a piercing look, but her face was devoid of emotion, her eyes on the laptop screen as she tapped away.

Theo was waiting for me by the time I arrived at the pub proper. He had claimed a corner table, the one farthest away from the music videos. He had changed into black pants and a silky-looking crimson shirt that set off his dark skin, hair, and eyes. For one wild moment, he reminded me of a stereotypical pirate: deadly, dangerous, and
very
bad to know.

“There is a private room, if you would prefer to be away from all this noise,” he said, standing up as I approached the table.

“No thank you. I'd rather be in full view of everyone in case you get any ideas about attacking me again.” I sat in the chair he pulled out for me, the skin on my back tightening when his hand brushed the bare flesh of my neck.

He sighed. “Portia, I have told you repeatedly—”

“I know, I know, you didn't know I was mortal. But you haven't said what you expected me to be if not mortal.”

“That will make up a good part of the discussion. What would you like to drink?”

“Gin and tonic, please.” I sat primly while he went to the bar to place our drink orders, trying not to notice how wonderfully tight his pants were over his derriere. I didn't win the battle, but felt somewhat proud of the fact that I made the attempt.

“The opposite of a mortal would be an immortal, something that doesn't exist,” I said as he returned with our drinks and took his seat. “Unless there is some definition to immortality that I'm not aware of.”

“There are many concepts I suspect you are not aware of, and will probably resist accepting, but time is limited, so we will have to do this as quickly as possible. You recall the discussion we had about the Court of Divine Blood?”

“Yes. You claimed that Hope was something called a virtue, a person who controlled the weather, and that members of the Court couldn't be killed.”

“They can be killed; it's just incredibly difficult,” he said, sipping a glass of whisky. “More so than most immortals, and yes, Virginia, Santa Claus does exist. Or rather, immortality does. Would you care to hazard a guess as to how old I am?”

Since I was being offered the opportunity to examine him freely, I did so. Although his black hair was untouched by grey, there were faint laugh lines around his eyes that made me believe he might be older than he first appeared. “I would say somewhere in the mid to late thirties.”

“If you add approximately seventeen hundred years to that, you would be correct.”

I goggled at him. It's not a pretty expression, nor one I cultivate, but when someone tells you they are older than a millennium, a goggle is called for. “That's…very, very unbelievable. You do realize that, don't you?”

“I am a nephilim,” he said simply, and went on to explain before I could ask him what that was. “A nephilim is the name given to products of the mating between members of the Court of Divine Blood and mortals. We are considered fallen because our immortal parent more or less breached the laws of the Court in order to reproduce with mortals. In the eyes of the Court, we are damned, non-beings, immortal, but not allowed any of the benefits of Court membership.”

“So, you're seventeen hundred years old, but you know about Santa Claus and things like that?”

The look on his face was vaguely offended. “I'm long-lived, not an idiot. Of course I know about Santa Claus. I also know about iPods, the Hubble Telescope, and nanotechnology.”

“My apologies. I didn't mean to imply…oh man, this is a bit hard to get a handle on. Let me see if I have it straight,” I said, setting down my drink. “I'm some kind of a weather angel, and you're a fallen angel? A kind of mixed-race fallen angel?”

“I've told you—the concept of an angel is something Christianity and other religions formed based on the Court, but it is not an accurate representation. My father was a power, one of the members of the Court. Seventeen hundred and eight years ago he mated with a mortal woman located in what is now southeast India. I was the product of that relationship.”

I took a deep breath. A wholly irrelevant question popped into my mind. “Why do you have an Irish accent if your mother was Indian?”

“My father settled in Ireland once he was banished from the Court. He died a few years later, decapitated during a battle. I never knew him.”