Immortal Distraction (18 page)

“How’s Brit doing? She seemed rattled this morning.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“And a fairly understandable response.”

“She can’t cope with who we are—what we do. She’s made that quite clear to me.”

Truman chuckled, but it was a far-off laugh that held no humor. “Hell, I can’t cope with who I am at times. Give her time.”

“Why? There’s no real point.” Fuck he sounded depressed.

Truman was silent for a long time before speaking again. “Do you love her?” Only Truman could get away with asking a question such as that.

He sighed, rubbed his forehead, contemplated telling him to fuck off, but he eventually answered. “Again, I fail to see how it could possibly matter.”

“Well you asked what the point was … and frankly, love is kind of its own point, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question.

“You’re a dick, Tru.”

He chuckled but said nothing. Truman wasn’t a dick at all. He was ten times the man Angus had ever been. He was far more moral, far more in touch with himself, and far more open to the investment of himself in another person. It was easy for him to simplify the whole thing. Truman had his partner, and she was immortal just like him. Ember wasn’t tied to a deep, driving force she’d built her life around like Brit, and that conflicted so completely with everything Angus was. There was no question in Angus’ mind that Brit would never be able to accept who he was. And it was one hell of a hopeless feeling.

He couldn’t love her. Even if he might want to.

* * * *

She woke when she felt the bed move. She’d fallen asleep feeling empty. Something was missing. It was like one of those many times in life when restlessness caught up to her, when she needed something, wanted something, craved something just out of her grasp, and yet, she couldn’t put her finger on it. She was usually craving a good glass of wine, sugar, hell a good, old-fashioned regular soda. In this case though, it was him. She needed him. And now he was there. He was sitting on the side of the bed at her hip. He looked just as he did when he’d left.

But he was different. He’d killed someone, and she knew it, and as she watched him, her breath caught in her throat and she choked on a painful, agonized groan that she only barely stifled. She felt as though she was close to panic looking in his eyes. She hated that he could do it. She hated it more because she cared about him. It was oddly like the hurt she felt every time her mother chose drugs over her. He couldn’t give it up and survive, and for some damn strange reason it hurt.

It hurt because she wanted him, she loved him in some strange way and for some strange reason, and it meant there was no hope of that love not hurting her. Just like her love for her mother hurt. She felt the tears prick her eyes as he watched her. It was a physical struggle to stay in control of her body and fight the urge to break down, but she was Brit, and she couldn’t give him that emotion any more—not now that the decision had been made to end her affair with him. She swallowed and it hurt. Her eyes burned from the strain of not crying in front of him, and her chest was tight as though her ribs would break if she tried to breathe. Her world and the loss of him was closing in around her and suffocating her.

But she didn’t give him any of that emotion—those damn painful feelings. Instead, she stared at him as he stared right back. He looked beautiful, and she wanted to reach out and touch him. He licked his lips as she watched him, and she imagined what his mouth had done, what his lips had touched, and what his teeth had destroyed. The person likely never saw it coming and never imagined an end such as that. And the man she was looking at, and whose comfort she was craving like a drug she could barely resist, was responsible for it.

“Your heart’s pounding. Your adrenaline’s spiking.” He paused before he spoke again. “And there isn’t a trace of that arousal I enjoy so much.” She blushed at her transparency to him. When he opened his mouth to speak next, he closed it, contemplating for a moment. He looked embarrassed, ashamed even. “Your morality is not a luxury I have, Brit. But I do envy it—shocks the hell out of me quite frankly.” And then he stood and turned to walk away, turning back to her once as he reached the door. “You’re really quite incredible.” His jaw clenched as he watched her a moment longer, and then he turned and left.

She felt heartbroken when she crawled from his large, empty bed, but he was right. She couldn’t accept what he was, and she sure as hell couldn’t condone what he did. Why couldn’t he have been a fucking doctor or teacher… Hell she’d have taken a lawyer or … or anything but a damn bloodsucking vampire. Brit just had all the luck.

It wasn’t long before Brit was dressed and ready to leave. As she left his bedroom, she found him at his desk working on his laptop. He glanced up at her, but his expression was serious. Far different than when they’d first met and all he would do was torment the hell out of her in the most ridiculously arousing way. He’d been boyish almost, or maybe not boyish but carefree, in his playful and inappropriate antics.

“I’m not going to stay here.” She spoke the words, knowing there’d be an argument. He simply studied her. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, and pushed the confidence from her body unwillingly. “It’s not going to be easy on either of us with my being here. And…”

“No, Brit.” He found it far easier than anyone she’d ever met to disagree with her outright. And she loved it in a way. But not right now. “It isn’t about what’s easy. It’s what’s safe for you.”

“We have no way to know how long this might last, and I can’t…”

“You will. It’s not a choice. If you refuse, then you’ll find me living in your home. Trust me, my home is larger than yours. You’ll find it far easier to avoid and ignore me here.”

“I can take care of myself.” That remark earned a humorless smirk.

“There is no taking care of yourself when it comes to Driscoll. You’re human, Brit. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Then tell me how to kill him. I may not agree with taking his life, but I do agree with protecting myself if the need arises.”

He cocked his head and studied her intently. “So long as you don’t think this changes anything. You’re staying here, and if you’ll agree to stop fighting me on that, then I’ll tell you everything you need to know. There’s little hope it will actually save your life if you were up against one of us, but I would feel better if you at least had some idea of how we work.”

She thought for a moment about what he was asking. She had no doubt he’d give her no rest until he got his way, so there was really little reason to argue. “All right. I’ll stay.”

“Well then pull up a seat, dear.” His endearment was flat and more sarcastic than sweet. He watched her as he picked up the phone and dialed. “Can you come to my residence? Thanks.” And as they waited, he explained. “Dr. Bremmer studies our species as well as humans. He’s extremely interested in the pathology of vampirism as well as human diseases. He’s likely the most studied doctor in the world, thanks to centuries of medical school. I can’t even tell you how many times he’s gone into a different specialty just to learn something new. So when I say he’s smart as hell and the only person you’ll need to talk to about what we are, I mean it. He can answer any question you have and then some.”

Dr. Bremmer entered, and Angus indicated the chair beside her. “Brit would like to know how to kill a vampire. I told her you were her man. And I have no problem with you telling her exactly what she needs to know. In fact, I encourage it.”

Dr. Bremmer studied Angus for a moment before nodding his head and turning to her. Brit liked Dr. Bremmer, and as he looked to her, he commented, “So long as you don’t use this power against us.” And he winked. “There are two primary means of killing a vampire. Removing or destroying the heart or destroying and severing the brain stem. We’re not nearly as different from humans as you may think. We have blood, and the circulation throughout our body is what keeps us alive. The difference is your blood circulates to move oxygen throughout your body, and ours circulates to move the toxin that keeps us alive throughout our bodies. The toxin, in some sense, does what oxygen does for your body—though by a decidedly different mechanism. It keeps our tissues in a state of stasis—hence why we don’t age, and it keeps our bodies functioning. Your body takes in oxygen through your lungs to oxygenate your blood, and this oxygenated blood is then pumped by your heart through your body to your tissues and organs to keep them alive. Our bodies take in blood through our GI tract and process that blood to feed and replenish the toxin that keeps us alive. Then, much like humans, our heart pumps the blood throughout our bodies. Our toxin is similar to the oxygen you need in that it breaks down quickly and constantly has to be replenished. When our bodies process blood, it provides what the toxin needs to replicate and replenish itself. With me so far?”

Dr. Bremmer was watching her, and she was staring in fascination as she listened. She wanted to tell him he was full of shit, but she knew damn well everything he told her was true. Angus was watching her as he leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. The most Brit could manage was to nod her head.

“So, if you remove the heart or destroy it to the point it can’t heal itself quickly enough to keep pumping blood through our body, then you’ve killed us. The brain stem is our other weakness. Not the brain, but the brain stem itself. You have to keep in mind that we heal very fast. If you damage the brain, we’ll heal, if you damage the spinal column, we’ll heal. But our brain stem functions just as yours does, so if you cut off our most basic functions, such as the synapse that regulates our heart rate, we’re dead. Our heart actually isn’t as hearty as yours—no pun intended. Your heart will continue to beat at a particular rate even if the synapse is cut off from the brain. Our heart becomes weakened by the toxin when we transition, and becomes largely dependent on the brain stem for its stimulus—far more so than humans in fact.

“Our bodies can’t go long without a beating heart, and though we heal fast, it’s not fast enough for the brain stem to recover and heal or for the heart itself to recover and heal. That’s why those two areas are so critical to our survival. It’s all about keeping our blood flowing.”

“So why is your skin cooler than mine? I mean, if you have blood flow, wouldn’t it be warmer?”

“Temperature is far more about burning energy and having a metabolism than blood flow. We don’t have a metabolism like humans. Our GI tract is solely used for processing and absorbing blood products to support our circulatory system. There is no other GI function happening in our body except that which occurs and ends in our stomach.”

“Makes what we did in the shower the other night far more untowardly on my account than yours, doesn’t it?” Brit could feel the flames of humiliation rising up to her cheeks as Angus smirked at her. But it was still a rather bitter smirk.

Dr. Bremmer chuckled and shook his head before he spoke again. “The only other real deal breaker for us is living or preserved blood entering our circulatory system. We may ingest blood, but that blood is processed and absorbed into our circulatory system from our digestive system. Our circulatory system is really quite volatile. Once the toxin takes over a person’s blood supply during transition, it jealously protects itself from outside elements. If you introduce living or preserved blood directly into our blood stream without processing it through our GI tract, it can easily kill us. Living blood is blood straight from a living human or blood that has been preserved chemically in blood banks for transfusions and the like. It’s similar to a cataclysmic immune response in that the toxin rejects the human blood and starts destroying the body from the inside out. It’s similar in fact to being given the wrong blood type in a transfusion, though the outcome is actually quite different. In a human the blood would coagulate within the veins, in a vampire the opposite occurs in that we would bleed out and our internal organs would liquefy and break down. Call it a chink in our armor, a malfunction of sorts similar to any one of hundreds of autoimmune diseases in humans.”

She was nodding and feeling a bit stupid all at the same time. She understood plenty of what he was saying, but it was so incredibly difficult to believe, and yet at the same time, it made more sense than she cared to admit. Angus was still watching her carefully.

“When it comes to a human killing a vampire, it’s not impossible, but it’s not likely either.” Dr. Bremmer had started to speak again, and now she was all ears. “We’re, at a minimum, ten times stronger than humans. It’s just part of what the toxin does to our tissues. Even those few vampires that don’t hunt and take only second blood, like Ember for instance, are far stronger than the average human. Every sense is heightened. We can smell you coming; we can hear you coming. There is no sneaking up on a vampire, so you have no element of surprise. The best you could hope for would be to incapacitate a vampire until you could sever its neck or remove its heart. And the best advice I can give you, try to put a few bullets in the brain stem if you can. If you’re shooting from the front, you’ll need to angle up along the jawline in order to be effective. It’s the best shot you have. And there’s a good chance even that wouldn’t work unless your shot is perfect or you can get off enough shots to sever it completely.”

She was starting to understand exactly why Angus was so adamant on having her stay there now that DeMarco knew who she was and where she lived. She didn’t care to admit it, but she understood it. When she met Angus’ gaze, he studied her for a moment before speaking. “When I say you don’t stand a chance against him, I’m not trying to sound like a chauvinistic asshole. We’re just not human. Not in the way you are. We have plenty of weakness, but we have far more strengths.”

Dr. Bremmer left a few minutes later and so did Brit. She felt more fear than she cared to admit. Brit wasn’t stupid enough to think she was invincible in this world. She’d seen far too much senseless killing and crime to believe anyone was, but as she stepped from his building to her waiting car at the curb, she shivered at just how weak and vulnerable she was. Brit had always known her job came with risk, but it was risk she could keep in perspective. She could marginalize it by being well trained, smart, on top of her game. But she had no control of this. And she felt like a sitting duck.