"Yacht?"
"No."
"Mansion?" I asked, then added, gleefully, "Oh! A castle?"
"No."
"A history at Yale that involves membership in Skull and Bones?"
"No."
"You"re violating all my stereotypes about rich people," I said in faux exasperation.
"Good." It was the first time since admitting to having money that Sebastian smiled at me. It was a warm look that made me grin back.
"You do realize that from now on if we go Dutch, I"ll totally think you"re some kind of Scrooge McDuck."
Somehow the laughter that followed relieved all of the tension that had come up between us, and I forgot for the moment about the stolen book of shadows in the bag on my lap, Matyas, and even the Vatican agents hunting us.
We talked about nothing of any real consequence on the rest of the ride home: the weather, the strangeness of living in such a groovy-political town like Madison, and the appeal of manual over automatic transmissions.
He"d released my bike from the bungee-cord death grip and leaned it against the streetlamp. "Right, well, then I"ll pick you up tonight at say, eight?"
"Tonight?" I asked, clutching the grocery bag full of stolen goods to my chest.
"Dinner."
Which is what he"d want to make of me when he discovered I had his grimoire. "Uh." Sebastian misread my hesitation. He rested his hands lightly on my shoulders, turning me toward him gently. "You"re not going off me, are you?"
I shook my head. What did I say at this juncture?Why don"t we just wait and see if you"re still interested in me in say, a half an hour or so when you"ve discovered I not only invaded your sanctum but also took your most personally valuable property? What I should do is confess , I told myself.Tell him now .
Of course, that"s when he chose to kiss me.
It wasn"t just a friendly peck on the cheek, either; it was full-body-contact pa.s.sion. My lips tingled, and I felt myself swept up into it, until the grimoire poked me in the ribs. It was smashed into the s.p.a.ce between our bodies. My heart pounded. Did Sebastian feel the sharp edge of the book? If he did, he never broke the kiss. Despite my nervousness, I delighted in the strength of his arms around my waist, the faint scent of cinnamon that always seemed to cling to him, and the way his hair tickled against my ear when the wind blew.
When he released me and looked anxiously into my face for a response, I was sure he could see the heat on my cheeks. "It"s not you." Jesus, that sounds lame, I thought, and watching his face crumble a little, I felt the need to continue, despite a nagging sense that less was more. "I mean, I want to, but..."
But what, Garnet ? What was the point of breaking his heart on top of stealing his stuff? Why not just end things happily before he came to hunt me down like a dog? "But, nothing," I finished, letting out the breath I didn"t realize I was holding. "That would be great, Sebastian. I"m looking forward to it.
Seriously."
"I know I"m rushing things," he said. "And you"d think with the long life I"ve had I could be a bit more patient, but, to be truthful, the longer I exist, the more I"ve come to realize that there"s no point in not saying what you feel when you feel it. Seize the day, and all that. It"s true, you know. I want to see you. I don"t really want you to leave at all, but I understand that you have a lot to digest, what with Matyas showing up like that, and-"
I cut him off with a finger to his lips. "I"ll see you tonight," I said. And, one way or another, that was probably true. "Let"s make it eight thirty. I need a nap."
He smiled at that. "Good. I"ll be here at eight thirty, then."
"I"m looking forward to it." With trepidation, but, hey.
"Great."
He gave me another kiss, this one quicker, though still pa.s.sionate enough that the grimoire poked me again.
After Sebastian carried my bike up the outside stairs, we said good-bye with a few more kisses. He was a good kisser. Part of me wanted to invite him upstairs for an afternoon of spooning on the couch. A corollary advantage to that would be to delay the whole discovery of my theft, but I was tired enough that a nap held a tiny bit of higher appeal. Besides, my apartment was a mess.
"Okay," I said, finally giving his chin a light push, "Enough now, you. You want me well-rested for this evening, don"t you?" Sebastian flashed me a wolfish grin. "I do."
"Then you"d better go," I told him, making shooing motions with my hand. "Go on."
He blew me a final kiss as he slipped out, and I felt a pang of regret as I watched the door close. We could have had a nice relationship, I thought as I trudged up the stairs. Or at least a lot of hot s.e.x.
At the top of the stairs, I reached into the pocket of the sweatpants for the keys to my apartment and came up empty. Of course, these were Sebastian"s pants, and I just realized I"d left my emergency bag at Sebastian"s.
Ihad to get it back.
That bag had my emergency-money in it, two thousand dollars" worth. It contained Jasmine"s prayer beads, the only memento I had left of the coven. My mouth went dry at the thought of having to abandon it, but what else could I do? Sebastian would never agree to anything short of an exchange of property, and though it was not my idea to steal the grimoire in the first place, I was certain it was worth more than two thousand dollars and personal effects to Lilith.
I was wondering about the wisdom of a preemptive strike-maybe a quick taxi out to Sebastian"s farm, some even quicker talking-when I heard a delicate cat sneeze from the other side of the door. What would be causing Barney"s allergic reaction to magicinside my apartment?
Another sneeze, this time closer to the door. A paw stretched through the gap between the door and the floor.
Maybe, I considered, it was me that made Barney so miserable. Thanks to a pleasant chat with Sebastian, I"d successfully avoided thinking about the fact that Lilith now apparently rode so close to the surface that she could shove me out of the way whenever she wanted something.
"I hope it"s not me, Puss," I said. I hustled downstairs to grab the spare keys from where I kept them hidden behind a loose baseboard. I"d managed to lock myself out of my apartment enough times in the past to always keep a set on site.
As I opened the door, I set the grocery bag on the floor and reached to pick Barney up. She purred contentedly in my arms, but her claws dug into the skin of my shoulder. I looked up with the intention of finding a surface to set her onto, when I saw a figure shrouded in shadow sitting in the middle of the room. I reached for the light.
"Don"t," came a voice from my past. "This place is already too bright."
It was Parrish. Daniel Parrish, my long-lost vampire lover.
Fourth House
KEYWORDS:.
Home, Concealment, Addiction
Parrish had managed to make my living room surprisingly dark. The old Victorian had a number of windows, and since I was on the second floor, I never bothered with heavy curtains. The previous renters had abandoned lace ones, and Parrish had pulled those-for good measure, I guess, since blankets of all sizes and colors had been tacked to the window frames. Including, I noticed with some irritation, my grandmother"s hand-st.i.tched quilt.
He sat in my oversized beanbag, which he"d pulled into the middle of the room. Compared to Sebastian, Parrish hulked. His body dwarfed the chair, making him look a little bit ridiculous lounging as he did on the black vinyl lump. With his auburn heavy-metal curls, poet-shirt, and leather pants, Parrish exuded s.e.xuality.
"You"ve been out all night," he observed dryly. "Should I be jealous?"
The possessive tone in Parrish"s voice should have made me angry, but instead I found myself flushing with a frustrating combination of annoyance and excitement. Mostly, I was annoyed at myself for still finding Parrish so d.a.m.ned attractive. He was such an obvious bad boy, and he played the part to the hilt.
I should know better than to be charmed, but... well, Parrish and I were very unresolved, honestly.
My coven had never liked him. The group"s disapproval had caused a lot of friction in our relationship.
The majority of them felt that vampires fell under the category of black magic. They managed to convince me.
Of course, I ended up saddled with Lilith less than a day after I broke up with Parrish. The coven probably wouldn"t much like that development, either. It was strange to think that Lilith and Parrish had never officially met, in fact.
Parrish had never been part of my coven, so he wasn"t there when I first called Lilith into me.
"How many times do I have to tell you that women don"t find men who break into their apartments and lay in wait for them attractive?" I tried to sound serious, but I couldn"t quite hide a fond smile.
"How about ones that help them bury bodies?"
I did phone him afterward to help me dispose of the agents" remains.
Parrish had proven himself a true friend in that regard. Dead bodies wrapped in landscaping cloth turned out to be heavier than I could lift on my own. Without Lilith, I hadn"t been up to chopping the corpses to bits. Of course, that was the first thing Parrish suggested when he answered my desperate phone call, but, in the end, he agreed to do things my way. He"d said something about the killer"s prerogative. Ugh.
I"d forgotten that particular bit until just now.
Seeing Parrish brought back all sorts of uncomfortable thoughts. Not the least of which was a desire to curl up beside him and stroke that gorgeous mane of hair. "What do you want?"
"What I"ve always wanted, darling. You."
"Right," I said, trying to sound sarcastic, despite the flutter in my stomach that his flattery evoked. "What do you really want? How did you find me, anyway?" He sat perfectly still, not moving a muscle. Meanwhile, I held my ground with my back to the partially open door. Barney, I noticed, had fled down the stairs. I could hear her plaintive mewing at the main entrance.
"It wasn"t difficult. You"re still using your real name. You only moved three hundred miles from Minneapolis."
I hated to hear Parrish mock me. Starting over had been one of the hardest things I"d ever done. Okay, so maybe I didn"t excel as a criminal mastermind; that was never supposed to be my gig.
Besides, despite what Parrish implied, Ihad been careful. The coven was dead. All the Vatican agents were dead. The covenstead had burned to the ground. None of us had ever used our real names, not even in the privacy of the magical circle. I doubted anyone other than Parrish could connect Goth-chick Garnet Lacey with blond, blue-eyed Meadow Spring.
The memory of that night surfaced again. I could smell the fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies I"d made for the "wine and cakes" part of the ritual. The sound of the shattering plate echoed in my ears.
"Why are you here?"
"To warn you," he said.
"I"ve already seen the Vatican agent," I a.s.sured him.
"Vatican?" He shook his head, sending waves of curls bouncing on his shoulders. "No. Despite all your-well,our -careful work, one of the bodies surfaced, Garnet. A drought lowered the cemetery"s lake. Murder, as you know, has no statute of limitations."
"Murder?" I bristled. "Self-defense."
"I imagine that rationale would be more convincing had you not so expertly concealed the bodies."
Parrish hadn"t moved. He was so completely still that he seemed to be barely breathing. Not that he needed to take in air-well other than to talk-but Parrish, like most vampires, breathed out of reflex.
I began to wonder if, during the daylight hours, he was somehow paralyzed. I"d never seen Parrish during the sunlight hours, despite all of our time together. Like a lot of vampires, he was really secretive about where he slept. Before I could ask him more about it, he continued, "The Minneapolis papers suggested the FBI might get involved, or, possibly, it was hinted, Interpol."
"Interpol?"
"It"s possible the police suspect your victims were residents of Vatican City."
"My victims?"
"You tore their throats out, Garnet, what would you have me call them?"
Not me, I wanted to say,Lilith . But, Parrish didn"t know about Her and, anyway, he would only remind me that wasn"t how a jury would see it. My fingerprints were on the bodies, my DNA in the strands of hair, no doubt, carelessly scattered throughout the crime scene. Although, probably the bodies were mush by now, eight months later.
I comforted myself with the fact that I had never committed a crime of any sort prior to Lilith"s murderous rage. I"d never even been pulled over for speeding. All the forensic evidence in the world was useless unless they had something to compare it to. There was no record of my fingerprints anywhere, and, thankfully, any DNA signature would not actually spell out my name.
"Yeah, about that night," I started.
Parrish graced me with a bedroom smile. "I usually dread conversations that start this way."
"I wasn"t alone," I said, ignoring the s.e.xual twinkle behind his eye.
"I know."
"You know?"
He smiled. "I was happy to be of service," he said. "But I don"t leave behind fingerprints." He held up his hands as though to demonstrate. "No sweat. No oil. They"ll never come looking for me."
"No, I don"t suppose they will. So, why are you here?"
Parrish"s face was obscured by the darkness, but I thought I detected the quick flash of a smirk. "I"d hate to see you come to harm, my dear Meadow Spring."
"You are such a bulls.h.i.tter, Daniel Parrish." I couldn"t contain the smile this time.
A stiff nod, which confirmed my supposition that being awake during daylight hours crippled Parrish.
Normally, he"d have done some kind of grand sweeping gesture, like a courtly bow or some such. At any rate, it would have been graceful. Parrish was nothing if not a man of style and aplomb. "Very well,"
he said. "I"m thinking about relocating to Madison. Any chance I could stay with you until I get a few bob in my pocket?"
He wanted to crash here? I should have known. Parrish was always a freeloader. I wanted to tell him to scram, but I couldn"t push him out into the sunlight. Despite what he implied about my character, I had no stomach for cold-blooded murder, even if the guy was already dead. Besides, he had warned me about the investigation into the death of the Vatican agents. He didn"t have to do that.
"I don"t know," I admitted. I mean, rooming with an ex-boyfriend seemed like more than just a bad idea; it had the potential for a real recipe for disaster. Especially considering I"d just taken up with the local vampire. There would be rivalry on all sorts of levels. Although considering how p.i.s.sed Sebastian was probably going to be when he discovered I stole his journal, having another vampire around might come in handy.
"Look, no offense, but quite truthfully, I"m going to need a much darker place sooner rather than later,"
he said. "I can"t impose on you forever."