DeVante's Coven (6 page)

“No.”

Roderick just wanted to look at him—lithe frame, slender limbs, long smooth black hair—he didn’t want to explain anything yet. Explaining would cause a great burst of confusion and this beautiful boy was standing naked and unselfconscious in Roderick’s bedroom. Could anyone blame him for just wanting to look for a little while?

“No what?” The boy shifted form foot to foot, his hands hanging at his sides. “You’re not a client? I didn’t hit my head? You’re a client and you drugged my hot cocoa and had your dirty way with me?”

He smiled then, and it was beautiful, almost as beautiful as Daniel’s smile. Roderick was a sucker for a pretty smile. “What price did they quote you, anyway? You must at least tell me that. I specialize in giving head, so however much, you get your money’s worth.”

Roderick sighed. Too bad. Here we go.

“No, I’m not a client. No, you didn’t hit your head. You died.” He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head to the side, and waited for an appropriate response.

“I what?”

Roderick nodded. Yep, here it comes. “You died.” He kept his voice matter of fact. Deadpan. He was in absolute humongous trouble for this, so he might as well milk all the fun there was to be had.

The boy looked down at himself. Wriggled his toes in the plush carpet. Walked over to the mirrored wall and stared at himself. Turned around and peered over his shoulder at his back. Touched his soft penis and then cradled his balls for a long moment. Then he turned to face Roderick, hands hanging at his sides again. “No. I seem to be quite alive, thanks.”

He smiled again. Radiant. “Good joke, though.”

Roderick’s laugh came out long and low. He didn’t mean it to be cruel or frightening, but the boy stiffened and his comfortable stance changed to that of one about to flee.

He held up a hand to stop the boy’s flight, then sprang across the room to his side and told the story of last night in a quick, firm tone. “My name is Roderick. I found you bleeding to death in an alley last night, mortally wounded, barely alive. I could not save your human life, but gave you rebirth in another.”

The boy turned back to the mirror and scowled at his reflection.

Roderick waited for him to act like a normal fledgling. He was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen, that something was wrong. This boy wasn’t acting in the frenzied manner of a fledgling. He should have stayed unconscious in the bathtub for a couple more days, at least, while his body reorganized, leaking yuck and stinking. But the strangest thing was he didn’t even seem hungry. Fledglings were hungry. They were crazy with boundless energy, a new vision of the world, and, more than anything else, they were
starving
.

Always.

Roderick remembered the confusion born of the hunger. It was so urgent and painful he thought he might tear through walls if they impeded his quest for food. Daniel, his first fledgling, had been in a mad rush to find a victim lest he break down and feed on Emily, his beloved human friend.

This boy wandered around the room, touching table surfaces and lampshades, stopping to peer at a small figure of a gargoyle hiding behind a fake plant.

New vampires were driven awake by the hunger. Always. If it were not so they would never feed. And then they would weaken and eventually die.

But this boy called Anthony looked calm. There was no sense of urgency, of frenzy, in his manner whatsoever.

Roderick fingered his necklace, sliding the red and black marbled ankh along its cord from side to side.

It seemed stupid to just ask. But the compulsion to understand what was going on was too much. He had to ask. His voice burst across the silence. “Aren’t you starving?”

The boy turned to face him. “What?”

“Starving. Don’t you want to eat?” Roderick asked, incredulous.

“Eat? No, I just want to know what the hell’s going on. I’m trying to remember how I ended up here. Where my clothes might be, my contact lenses. Why, is it late?”

Roderick stared at him. “You ought to be starving. You ought to practically attack me to let you out of this room. You should be so damn hungry that you can’t even think.”

What was wrong with this boy? How could he be worried about clothes and contact lenses? It wasn’t right. And anyway, he wouldn’t need the lenses anymore. Roderick almost snickered.
I know something you don’t know.

The boy shrugged. Shook his head, “No, I’m not hungry at all.” He looked around the room. “Do you maybe have some clothes I can put on?”

Roderick gestured toward the closet. “Sure. Anything you can find that’ll work.” He was taller. The boy was slimmer. They’d have to get clothes somewhere. Roderick dropped onto a chair and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. Thought about the previous night, how the raging selfish beast had taken over. Had he been able to think rationally, he would never have made this boy a vampire. Oh, the trouble he was in. He clapped his hands over his eyes and almost groaned out loud.

But this boy would be dead right now if Roderick hadn’t done something. Roderick didn’t know how he could have had blood enough for the change, but
something
happened. He wasn’t dead, although he couldn’t have changed so soon. And the boy didn’t smell bad, but Roderick would have heard the shower. So he can’t have changed, yet his body was healed.

He wasn’t acting like a baby vampire at all.

Whoa, Mavis,
Roderick whispered, more to himself than to his dead great-grandmother. He had a bad feeling that he might be in worse trouble than he expected. Not only had he made a fledgling without his Master’s permission, this one was even younger than the last. And this one was not acting right. Not at all.

He watched the boy dress in black cotton slacks and a black t-shirt, then one of Roderick’s long-sleeved white dress shirts. A soft leather belt cinched the waist. The bottoms of the pant legs covered his feet. He looked as yummy in the too-large clothes as he had looked naked. Well, almost.

“Anthony, what do you remember about last night?”

“Nothing. I woke up here in the bathtub in a panic but I feel fine now. Um. I was going to a party, working. It was supposed to be very exciting. And I feel this huge letdown because something bad happened. Like I was going on some rollercoaster ride but the track busted. Something like that.”

“Well, it would have something to do with the party. I mean, that’s what I do.” He stared at the floor and his silky hair fell forward to cover his face. “For a living, I mean. I thought you knew. I thought you were a client, at first, you know, waking up naked in a strange guy’s apartment.”

“Does that happen often, waking up naked in a strange guy’s apartment?”

The boy blushed again. “No, actually, it’s never happened before. That’s not the kind of service I sell. At least until last night it wasn’t.”

“I’m no client,” Roderick said. “We’ve got to talk about what happened last night. You’ve got to understand what I’ve done to you.”

Anthony flopped on to the bed, laying on his stomach, head propped on hands. “All right. You said that I died. Now, either you’re mistaken or I just don’t understand what you mean by that. I feel very much alive. I think I look quite lively, too.”

Aw shit. This wasn’t going to be any fun at all.

“Here’s what I meant; I meant that last night you were thrown out of a white van into an alley. You were wrapped in a canvas tarp, and you were bleeding to death. If I were going to be crude I would say that you had literally been fucked to death. So it appeared to me.”

Anthony’s eyes were bright and clear. He wasn’t alarmed. “All right, that’s blunt. But I’m obviously fine now. So what drugs were you taking?”

“So. That’s what I meant.” Roderick paced across the room and back. He stood in front of the boy and looked down at him. “But you’re not acting like a vampire fledgling.”

Anthony’s eyebrows creased. He stared up at Roderick. Shook his head from side to side in the slow expected manner of disbelief. “You have to be joking.” He tried out his radiant grin, but it slipped out of place. “You are joking, right? I mean, vampires don’t exist. Right?” His body was starting to tremble.

Roderick stared into the boy’s eyes, compelling him to move. “Stand up.”

The boy stood.

“I am a prankster, have no doubt. But this is not a joke.” He reached for the boy’s left hand and tucked all but the index finger to the palm. He held eye contact while lifting the finger to his mouth and brushing the tip across his fang. He raised they boy’s hand to eye level between their faces.

Both broke eye contact to gaze at the bubble of blood on Anthony’s fingertip. “No joke.” Roderick’s tongue darted out and captured the red drop. “No joke at all.”

Roderick laughed out loud. Man, what a relief. “See? Didn’t I say so?”
The boy just needs to hunt,
he thought,
and then everything will be all right.
He’ll start acting like a normal vampire.
“That settles it. We’ll hunt, you’ll be normal, and we’ll go from there.”

The boy grinned and said, “I don’t know about normal, but I feel great. I just need to find my contact lenses.”

“No, you don’t. You should be seeing better than ever before.” Roderick slung an arm about the boy and steered him out of the room. At the apartment door Anthony slipped his bare feet into Roderick’s favorite soft black leather boots. Roderick hesitated, shrugged, and led the way down to the street. As they walked the five blocks to the Strip he tried to dip into Anthony’s mind and was amazed to be completely blocked out.

What the hell? He tried again, watching the boy’s facial expression closely. Anthony’s expression never wavered. Roderick didn’t think the boy was keeping him out on purpose, but it was as if there were a brick wall between him and the new vampire’s thoughts.

Roderick laughed. New vampires were so amusing. This one especially. “S’all right, as long as you follow my rules.” He gave Anthony’s neck a little squeeze. “And there’s only one: Do as I say.”

Chapter 6



How to tell your sister the (almost) truth

With Roderick gone, Daniel thought he might die from sheer loneliness. DeVante was serious and brooding and terrible company, but now that he was moving into the San Francisco house he wouldn’t even have that. Maybe DeVante was grieving Emily, or he was pissed that Roderick was gone or… something. Daniel couldn’t even guess DeVante’s issues or motivations for anything. He’d actually had sex with Katarina, hadn’t he, even after, well… after everything, after she nearly killed Roderick, for keeps. Daniel couldn’t fathom it. That one night proved to him that he would never be either welcome or comfortable trying to get into DeVante’s head.

He thought about being with Reed last night, how gentle Reed had been handling him, easing into him like he would break, and the memories made him warm all over. And restless. His instinct was to stalk Reed, capture him. But he also wanted to take it slow, get Reed intrigued, get Reed to want him.

So tonight Daniel kicked back and stared at the television, kind of hoping Trina would come, so he’d have company. But DeVante said she would come once a week, the day of her yoga class, and Daniel didn’t know what day that would be.

Over the past few weeks he’d tried to get a taste for Project Runway, American Idol... whatever other stupid reality shows were on every station. All Daniel really got out of it is that the whole country was, well, excuse the term… fucked. This is what people stared at night after night? This is what they talked about at work? The whole premise seemed that one contestant after another needed to be publicly humiliated until there was a final winner. Or rather, not-a-loser. It didn’t make Daniel feel good; it made him feel embarrassed. And the number of reality shows out there led him to believe the majority of people living the American Dream loved it. It made them feel good to see another human humiliated. It made Daniel queasy.

There were a couple things he liked on satellite television that were kind of reality TV, like American Chopper. The creative drive of the people on the show kept him glued. It was a father/sons team of bike builders from New York, and they designed and built phenomenal custom motorcycles. Daniel watched them build a “fire bike” commemorating the NYFD lives lost when the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. Among other accents, the bike had an actual piece of debris from Ground Zero bolted onto the tank. So freaking cool.