A Bite to Remember (12 page)

Jackie had spent enough time around immortals to know
that boredom was their worst enemy. When they lost the passion for life and fed less and became reclusive, it could lead to indifference and depression, then self-destructive behavior. She didn’t like the idea that Vincent might be sinking into depression.

Her thoughts scattered as Tiny suddenly took her arm to turn her to the left. Jackie glanced around to find they’d reached the gate at the driveway and he was urging her up toward the house.

The lights on the ground floor were shining brightly, but Vincent and Marguerite hadn’t yet returned. Jackie wasn’t pleased that he was away from the safety of the house just now, she had a feeling things were going to start happening soon.

“You’ve got that hinky feeling,” Tiny commented.

Jackie smiled faintly at the term they’d coined for her sense that something was about to happen. “It’s showing, is it?”

“You’re about ready to crawl out of your own skin with tension. That’s usually a good sign that you’ve got that hinky feeling.”

She nodded and blew her breath out on a sigh. “I do and the walk hasn’t helped ease it much.”

“Why don’t you go for a swim?” Tiny suggested.

“Maybe I will,” Jackie murmured.

“In the pool or ocean?” he asked. While the house was on prime oceanfront property, there was also a heated outdoor pool. Excess in Hollywood.

“The pool,” she decided. Excess or not, Jackie had seen
Jaws
on television at an impressionable age. She wouldn’t be able to relax in the ocean if she was scanning the horizon for
shark fins and jumping every time some poor fish brushed against her.

“If you’re swimming in the pool, I’ll join you.”

“You saw
Jaws
as a kid too, huh?” Jackie asked with amusement.

“Oh yeah. Wouldn’t go in the local pool for a week afterwards.”

They chuckled together as they entered the house, then parted to go to their rooms and change, agreeing to meet at the pool. Jackie made quick work of stripping her clothes and donning her red one-piece swimsuit. She returned downstairs and went into the kitchen to find she’d beat Tiny back.

Pausing at the security panel, Jackie punched in the code to release the kitchen door so that their opening it wouldn’t set off the alarms. She then stepped out onto the patio only to hesitate.

The air was still warm from the day’s heat, but it was dark night outside and she briefly debated whether to turn the pool lights on. In the end, Jackie decided the light shining from the kitchen windows lit up the area well enough. It wasn’t as bright as daylight, but light enough they wouldn’t swim head first into the side of the pool, which was good enough for her.

The patio tiles were cool under her bare feet. Jackie dropped the towel she’d brought with her onto one of the iron chairs around the patio table, then walked over to sit on the edge of the pool. She dangled her feet in the water and leaned back to peer up at the star-studded sky, her thoughts wandering briefly. After a moment, Jackie glanced impatiently
back toward the house, wondering what was taking Tiny so long.

She was about to go look for him when the kitchen door opened and Tiny walked out in baggy swim trunks with Sylvester the cat on them. Jackie grinned with amusement and shook her head. The man’s size scared most people silly, but no one would be scared if they knew the real man.

Or perhaps they would, Jackie decided. Tiny had as much courage as common sense and was stronger than your average bear.

“What are you waiting for?” Tiny asked as he crossed the patio. “You’re dying to dive in. Go on.”

Chuckling softly, Jackie pushed off, gasping as the water enveloped her. Heated it might be, but the water was still cooler than her body temperature. She quickly dove under the surface to wet herself everywhere and speed up her body’s adjustment to the temperature. When she broke the surface again and glanced around, Tiny was in the water, swimming laps. Jackie relaxed for a while, just paddling her feet, then she too began to swim laps.

It was a good twenty minutes later when she noticed movement at the side of the pool. Stopping abruptly, Jackie peered about, relaxing when she saw it was Tiny. He’d got out and was now drying himself off at the poolside.

“Are you done?” Jackie asked.

“I’m here. Go on and keep swimming,” Tiny assured her as he sat down with the towel wrapped around his shoulders.

Nodding, Jackie continued with her laps. When next she
stopped, Tiny was no longer in the chair and Jackie glanced around sharply to see where he’d got to. She then saw the shape moving toward her through the water and gave a little laugh.

A heartbeat later, her amusement gave way to confusion and even fear as she realized the figure moving through the water was too small to be Tiny. Just as Jackie was about to strike out for the pool’s edge, the swimmer surfaced in front of her and she blinked as Vincent’s head and shoulders popped out of the water.

“You’re home.” As greetings went it was pretty lame, but it was the first thought that popped into Jackie’s head.

Vincent chuckled at her surprise. “We got home a couple minutes ago. When I realized you two were out here swimming, I changed and came to join you.”

Jackie nodded and glanced toward the house. “Where did Tiny go?”

“He headed in to change and dry off now that you wouldn’t be left alone.”

“Oh.” Jackie shifted in the water. While she hadn’t been ready to get out when Tiny was there, now that Vincent was there instead, all she could think of was getting out. It suddenly felt dangerous being there, like she’d suddenly discovered she was swimming with a shark.

Jackie headed for the ladder, but then recalled Tiny’s words earlier, about her fear and Vincent not being Cassius. Tiny liked Vincent and Jackie trusted her co-worker’s judgment. She decided to stick it out and try to be pleasant despite her fears and anxieties. She could handle it, Jackie assured herself, and determinedly ignored the defense
mechanisms screaming at her to flee, or insult him, or do whatever was necessary to get herself out of his sphere of influence.

As if sensing her discomfort, Vincent began to backstroke away from her, giving her space. Jackie watched, finding herself admiring his efficient stroke.

“I’m surprised you chose to swim in the pool rather than the ocean,” he commented.

Jackie’s gaze flickered to his face, then she eased into a side crawl as she said, “I like to see what’s in the water with me.”

Vincent chuckled softly.

“I take it you like to swim in the ocean at night?” she asked.

“Yes. I rarely use the pool.” They fell silent for a minute, then he asked, “Is the ocean cold to swim in during the day?” Before she could answer, he said, “I suppose it would be, wouldn’t it?”

“You’ve never swum during daylight?” Jackie asked.

“No, never,” Vincent answered. “Is it nicer than swimming at night?”

Jackie frowned as she considered. “Not nicer, just different,” she decided. “Do you miss the freedom to go out in sunlight when you wish?”

“You can’t miss what you’ve never known,” he said simply.

His answer made her wonder what else Vincent didn’t miss because he’d never known it. She tried to think of things that were strictly daytime activities, but found she couldn’t come up with anything. Jackie worked days and there wasn’t
much she did on her days off that couldn’t just as easily be done at night. Swimming, fishing, barbecuing…all of them could be done at night. She supposed sunbathing with a book would be out, but then the specialists claimed the sun caused skin cancer anyway.

“What’s it like to live so long?” Jackie asked suddenly.

Vincent stopped swimming and moved to the side of the pool to hold on to the rim while he considered her question. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. It’s all I know, I have no way to compare it to
not
living long.”

He glanced thoughtfully off into the distance, and Jackie thought that would be the end of his answer, but then Vincent spoke again. “At first, it was great fun and I felt sorry for mortals who saw their youth and beauty wither away with each passing year while I stayed young and healthy.”

When he paused, Jackie found herself saying, “It must be incredible though. Traveling the world, seeing the different ages, meeting great people like Shakespeare.”

Vincent smiled faintly. “If only you
knew
they were great when you met them.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Well,
now,
four hundred years later, Shakespeare is ‘the bard,’ but back then he was just another playwright, a successful one, but still just a playwright. When I met him, I had no idea I was in the presence of someone who would be so important historically.” Vincent grinned. “Had I known, I might have treated him with more respect.”

“You were a child when you met him,” Jackie pointed out.

“I was a spoiled brat,” Vincent corrected, and shook his head.

“The file my father’s company had compiled on you says meeting Shakespeare convinced you to become an actor.” There were files on quite a few of the immortals in the agency’s cabinets, all holding bits of information gleaned over the years.

Vincent laughed. “Then the file is wrong. It wasn’t meeting
him
so much as seeing all the pretty ladies that haunted the theatre and admired the actors. It also helped that the church was up in arms over the theatres then, calling them immoral and indecent. That just made it more attractive.”

“Rebellious youth,” Jackie said with amusement.

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But I’ve always backed the underdog and without the support of royalty and the nobles, theatre would have been crushed by the church.”

Vincent leaned back against the pool edge and allowed his feet to float just under the surface, gently paddling them in the water. “The theater was special back then, so much energy and excitement.”

“And now?” she asked.

“Now.” He frowned. “Now it’s a lot of cold ambition and the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Very little seems new and creative anymore, especially in Hollywood where—rather than create brilliant new scripts and shows—they just repeat old money makers or bring video games to screen.”

Jackie frowned. Vincent did sound tired and cynical and she wondered if Marguerite’s fears weren’t justified after all.

“If you think so little of Hollywood, why do you live out here? Why not live closer to your family?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself, lately,” he admitted, then gave a laugh. “To tell you the truth, I half suspect I
have
been rebelling.”

“Really?” she asked with surprise.

“Well, you know, fathers want their sons to follow in their footsteps.”

“And sons often rebel,” Jackie said with a faint smile, but her smile faded as she added, “Your father is an enforcer for the council.”

Vincent raised an eyebrow and she knew that some of her anger had shown in her voice. The council was the governing body for immortals, and the enforcers were the equivalent of their police. Jackie had always resented that immortals saw themselves as above human laws and felt they had a right to their own laws and enforcers.

On the other hand, she knew mortal police couldn’t enforce mortal laws on them. The idea was laughable. Should Vincent, or another immortal, be pulled over for speeding, all he need do was slip into the officer’s thoughts and convince him that he hadn’t been speeding, and, in fact, that the officer had never seen him. It was pretty much the same for every law. Having experienced having her mind controlled and what they could make mortals do against their will, Jackie knew how scary their abilities were. One of their kind could probably kill someone in front of a room full of witnesses and make every last person forget what they’d seen. Their enforcers were necessary.

As for their own set of laws, while Jackie wished they had to follow
all
mortal laws, she understood that immortals were so spread out that the enforcers couldn’t possibly keep up with
making them follow every law. So, they’d decided on the laws that were important to them such as restricting them to bagged blood and not feeding off mortals except in emergencies and in cases of medical issues that required live donors. Most of the rest of their laws seemed to simply be meant to prevent the possibility of overpopulating the earth; restricting them to having only one child every hundred years, and allowing each to turn only one mortal in their lifetime.

Jackie knew these laws were enforced with death, and not a very pleasant one either. According to her father’s files, the last immortal to try to turn more than his allotted one, had been hunted down here in California. He’d been staked out in the sun all day, then beheaded at sunset. The beheading had probably been the kinder action. Leaving him out in the sun all day, so he dehydrated and his nanos began to eat his organs in search of needed blood was apparently the true punishment. According to Bastien, there was no worse torture for one of their kind and the man would have been grateful for the beheading when it came.

“How many enforcers are there?” Jackie asked suddenly. It was a subject she’d always wondered about.

“I’m not sure,” Vincent admitted. He guessed, “Perhaps a dozen or so here in North America.”

“How many of your people are here?”

He shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure about that either. I’d guess there are about five hundred here in North America.”

“And Europe?”

“More,” he said solemnly.

Jackie nodded. She knew that the European immortals
were ruled by a different council than the North American council and that there had been friction between the two for centuries. It went back to when some of the immortals had first moved to the Americas, scared out of Europe by the witch hunts. The European council had felt the immigrants should still have to answer to them, but the immigrating families had different issues, and felt the European council was out of touch with their needs. They’d wanted to rule and police themselves.