42nd & Lex (36 page)

“Nice to meet you, too. I'm glad you’re here,”
she says politely. “I actually want to talk to you both.” 

Ah, so Mark has outted us all. I am going to
remember to slap him next time I see him. Lucan takes the lead before either of
us can say anything more.

“What do you want to know, Sarah?” Lucan opens
the door as wide as it will go for all things vampire.

“Is it true?” she asks. “Are you a vampire?”

“Well, that cuts to the chase doesn’t it?” he
replies with a smile. “Yes, I am.”

So it has all come full circle. Sarah knows
about Mark, she knows about Lucan, she knows, or is about to know, about Serge.
I have kept it all a secret for so long it seems weird to have it all out in
the open. I feel naked. Max knew but that doesn’t count because he knew before
I did. Sarah blinks a few times as if she expected Lucan to lie or at least
deny it for a while before telling her the truth.

“Oh,” is all she manages to say.

“So what do we do now?” I ask them both in
exasperation. “I'm assuming the reason you are here is because you and Mark
want to get back together. Which is something I’m sure I can’t persuade you out
of now that you’ve met Lucan.”

“No, I don’t think you can,” Sarah affirms
with a smile. “I love Mark. I love him no matter what he is now. The divorce
only started because I didn’t have an explanation for his behavior. Now I do. I
was—we were—hoping Lucan would help us.” She looks Lucan in the eye the entire
time, daring him to challenger her. He meets her stare with a knowing smile I
don’t quite understand.

“What turn him completely?” I charge before
she can explain. “Is that even possible?”

“Aye, it is. But it will take someone very
powerful to do it. More powerful than I, I’m afraid. I was actually on my way
to meet with just such people now. Can you and Mark come to dinner tonight at
my apartment? I believe Mark knows the location.”

Sarah winces a little before she responds. I
guess Mark told her about our first meeting. “Of course.”

We exchange a few more affirmations about
how this whole thing will be okay and how we will get to the bottom of it before
Lucan excuses himself, saying Zaid is waiting downstairs. 

“So I guess this means you’re going to have
to tell your boss you lost your biggest client, huh?” she says softly,
fidgeting with her purse straps.

“Yup. But that’s okay, it happens more often
than you’d think. That’s why the retainer was non-refundable. That’s all they really
care about.”

We laugh a little at that. I can’t find the
right words to express my misgivings about all of this. Lucan is not helping me
take a stand against it with his willingness to help Mark. Not that he
shouldn’t help him given what Serge has done, but I worry for Sarah’s safety.
There’s no guarantee Serge won’t come after her as well.  

“Are you mad, Abri?” Sarah continues.

“Not at all. Worried, but not mad. If I was
mad, it would be a little of the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn’t it? Why
don’t you guys come over around seven o’clock and we’ll sort this all out.” If
you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?

When I step off the elevator Zaid, Amelia
and Lucan are sitting in at the dining room table discussing something in
earnest. My first stop is the SubZero for a beer. I’m going to need a drink to
get through this evening.   

“So what’s the plan?” I ask since they look
like they’d been discussing it for a while. “Zaid’s not going to kill Mark or
anything, right?”  

“No, of course not,” Zaid confirms. He
doesn’t even look disappointed about it either. “Mark is an ally as far as I'm
concerned. He doesn’t like Serge anymore than we do.” He is pushing the copy of
Mark’s letter around the table while he talks.

“Good.” I excuse myself to change out of my
work clothes.

Mark and Sarah arrive at seven o’clock sharp
and Lucan leads them into the living room. We make the introductions and settle
in around the giant coffee table. I haven’t even thought about food but we have
invited them to dinner. I guess we can always call for take-out, although I have
a feeling this conversation is going to leave everyone without an appetite. 

“Abri, before we go any further, I feel I
need to apologize to you for our, uh, first meeting,” Mark offers. “I was not
myself back then, as you might have guessed. I am really sorry I scared you.”

“No harm, no foul,” I say. “I understand you
couldn’t help it.” My adventure in the elevator the night before gave me an up-close
look at what bloodlust could do to a person. I imagine venom rot, or whatever
you call it, was much the same. Any anger I’ve had towards Mark is vanquished.

“Thank you, Abri. And Lucan, I'm sorry for
breaking in here. You’re one hell of a fighter though, I have to say.”

“All is forgiven, Mark. No hard feelings. In
fact, Zaid and I want to help you in any way we can. All we would ask in return
is that you accompany us to the Enclave tomorrow to meet with the Council
regarding your situation.”

“Enclave?” Sarah asks.

“That’s where Serge works, right?” Mark adds.
“Is it a place for vampires?”

God, that jerk hadn’t told him anything. Mark
and Sarah listen while Lucan explains the Enclave and its hierarchy and the
investigation into Serge creating Mark. Sarah’s face is pale and Mark is
tapping a nervous foot on the floor before Lucan is done. 

“Is there a cure for me? I can hardly
function in this state. Serge hasn’t told me anything about being a vampire and
what I’ve learned has been from my own trial and error. Can I be made whole
again?”

“A cure? No, but a very powerful vampire could
turn you completely. Then you would be able to regain normal function. Well,
outside of the whole drinking blood thing,” Zaid replies, not mincing words as
usual. “But you get used to that.”

“It can’t be any worse than eating raw meat
like you have been,” Sarah chimes in and all eyes turn to Mark.

“Raw meat?” we all exclaim at once.

“Ah, yeah. I think I still need to eat food
but my mental clarity improves greatly when it’s raw, bloody meat. I figured
that out
after
our first meeting… sorry.” He offers me an apologetic
smile.

 “That’s fucking ingenious, man. How did you
come up with that idea?” Zaid claps Mark on the back and Mark’s eyes bug out
form the force. “Most Halflings die within their first few months from
starvation. Literally rot away into a pile of steaming goo.”

“You’ll have to forgive Zaid,” I add. “He’s incredibly
macabre and horribly blunt.”

“It’s true though,” Zaid defends. “How did
you figure that out?”

“Ah, well, I’m a big meat eater as it is and
it just sounded like a good idea one day to combine food and blood in one. I
noticed a huge difference right away so I just kept at it. I didn’t have the
guts to try human blood until….” Mark looks down at the floor. “Until last
night.”

I want to scream. From jealousy or concern,
I’m not sure. Sarah’s face is as red as fire but Mark pats her on the knee in
comfort. Lucan is fidgeting next to me and I quickly calm my thoughts. I understand
why he can’t take my blood but it still irks me for some reason. It is the
final step in bringing us together and I ache to be joined with him. That magnetic
pull in my chest flares up in response. 

“Since then I’ve felt like my old self. So
I’m thinking the blood drinking thing won’t be an issue for me,” Mark finishes
and then looks at Sarah and smiles.

“Sarah, my dear, you’ve been quiet. Is there
anything you want to know?” Lucan asks.

Sarah clutches Mark’s hand before she speaks.
“We can stay together right? I mean, this Council’s not going to make Mark
leave me because I’m human, are they?”

A wave of pity overtakes me. I’ve been so
confident in my future with Lucan and the whole Sodali thing that I've never
really considered that vampires and humans make an odd, if not impossible mix.

“The Council won’t make you get a divorce,
but if Mark becomes a full-blooded vampire he will become immortal. That doesn't
mean you can't be together, but well, you can guess where I’m heading with
this,” Lucan answers, trying to be as sensitive as possible. Actually, I am
glad he is the one to answer and not Zaid. No telling what Zaid would have
said.

“Am I aging now?” Mark asks. “There is so
much I don’t know.”

“There are many things we don’t know as
well. Sadly, since most Halflings die or are killed out of mercy before their
first year there’s not a lot of long-term knowledge on the subject. The rest are
able to be turned completely. To answer your question, you are more human than
vampire at the moment. You had just enough vampire venom to start the process,
but not enough to transform you into an immortal. Constantly replenishing your
blood supply is what’s letting your human side stay intact and keeping the
venom from killing you.”

“Would they turn me as well?” Sarah’s voice
is quiet but seems to echo around the apartment deafening us all.

A collective gasp goes around the room. No
one here was turned of their own volition. That thought has never even entered
my head, even before Zaid and Amelia explained the anti-aging power swap thing.
Amelia looks sickened by the thought as well.              

“The Enclave is not in favor of making progeny,”
Zaid answers. “I have seen it allowed in the right circumstances, but it’s not
something that is well received, even for love.”

Sarah’s face falls. I can tell then that her
love for Mark is deep and I feel bad for thinking her incapable of such things
when she first came into my office. He strokes her arm reassuringly. “We’ll
figure this out. I promise. I would not wish this life on you at all. I imagine
none of us would. If I can live on as a Halfling and finish out my life with
you as nature intended, then that is what I will do. At least we figured out drinking
blood helps.”

He seems so calm and resolved, nothing like
the snarly halfwit I met in this very room only a few weeks earlier. My mental replay
of that night cues Lucan to steer our conversation to the bigger issue at hand:
Serge.

“Mark, rest assured that we will do
everything we can to make sure you are both able to go on living as you
choose,” Lucan promises. “But let’s get to the bigger issue, at least for us
anyway, Serge.”

Mark lets out a quiet hiss at the mention of
Serge’s name. I can’t say I don’t feel liking doing the same. I have been quiet
up until this point in the conversation but I my feelings towards Serge are too
strong not to interject. “So what is it going to take for the Council to let
you do something about this asshole?”

Lucan reaches for the report he and Zaid have
worked on over the last week. “We gave the preliminary report this afternoon
but after I told them of meeting Sarah this afternoon, the Council wants us to
come back again tomorrow. All we need is testimony from you and Mark and they
will have no choice but to invoke the death penalty.”

“Wait,” Mark exclaims. “You’re going to kill
him?”

“Vampires have laws not unlike humans. Serge
has broken quite a few in making you and in attacking Abri. He must be punished
if we are to keep order.” Lucan’s voice is stern.

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t want him to die, I
just hoped he’d suffer a little bit first.” Mark says, giving Sarah a look of
apology for his bluntness. “For me and for Abri.”

“I like him,” Zaid grins and Lucan and me.
Of course he does.

“So where is this Serge idiot?” Sarah asks.

“At the Essex House. I was just coming from the
room I stashed him in when I ran into you last night. If you had been even five
minutes earlier…” Mark clenches his fists and glides his tongue absentmindedly over
a fang as it extends. “I rented an apartment on the top floor because I
couldn’t risk him draining the maid while I was gone during the day. Nice work
by the way, Lucan.”

My stomach lurches. Sarah starts to ask what
Mark is talking about but one look at my face makes her sit back in silence. “How
long do we have before he’s, uh, mobile again?”

“My guess is a few more days, if not a
week,” Zaid answers. “When was the last time he had any blood?”

“Just a pint from a blood drive a couple of
days ago. I was supposed to bring him some last night but Sarah showed up and I
never went back. He was still a blind southpaw the last time I saw him.”

Sarah flushes a little at Mark’s confession
that she stayed the night. I wonder if Sarah and Mark being together is
anything like being with Lucan is for me. I’ll have to ask her later. Damn,
Lucan probably heard that. I look at him but his face is blank. Maybe he is too
focused on the audible conversation to listen into my mental dribble. I tune
back in just as Zaid and Lucan are getting up from the couch.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?”

“We’re going to check on our dear friend
Serge,” Zaid answers with an evil grin.

 “Abri, you and Sarah must stay here. Amelia
is protected under her Sodali bond from anything Serge might try. Neither of
you have that luxury. We need someone to run interference for us at the front desk;
otherwise she would be staying here as well,” Lucan adds before I can finish
forming the thought in my head.

“Run interference? Mark lives there, it’s
not like you’re going to have to sneak in or anything.”

“It’s not that we’re sneaking in as much as
what we’re sneaking out.” Zaid is barely able to contain his excitement at the
mission. “Lucan and I will take him to the Enclave for holding.”

Vampire jail? Well, I guess that makes
sense.

Suddenly it feels like a full-scale military
operation in Lucan’s living room. Mark is filling Zaid in on the location of
Serge’s apartment and his hotel suite while Lucan makes a beeline for the
storage area one floor below. He returns almost instantly with a briefcase
worthy of holding nuclear launch codes. I assume it holds whatever tools might
be necessary to subdue and transport Serge against his will.