The Color of Light (64 page)

Alone in his glorious mansion, Raphael Sinclair was afraid of sleep, afraid of dreaming again that he was being pursued through every floor of his lovely home before being torn to bloody bits and devoured by the shadowy child and his malevolent companions.

He knew of only one cure. Rafe threw on his overcoat, pulled the fedora low over his forehead and slipped off into the night.

“Wow,” said Blesser. “Were there any witnesses?”

Slumped on a chair in Bernard’s office, Whit was applying a bag of ice to a purplish mark swelling on his Adam’s apple. “Levon says he was looking out the window when it happened,” he replied hoarsely.

Blesser peered closer at the hematoma. “If he hit you any harder, he would have killed you.”

Whit grimaced. “Maybe I should get a police order to keep him out of the building. He’s dangerous.”

“I don’t think you can do that. He actually owns the building.”

Whit looked gloomy. Blesser went to the door, peered up and down the hallway before quietly closing it and turning the lock. When he returned, he drew his chair close to the Chairman of the Painting Department.

“Look, Whit,” he said. “The vote is in four days. What if Rafe shows up at the meeting to rally the troops? Most of the teachers are on his side. Geoff, Tony, Harvey, Ted, Randy, just to name a few. And though a lot of the board members claim to support us, it’s not a lock. You know how it goes. When Raphael Sinclair speaks, people listen. By the time he’s done giving his side of the story, I’ll probably stand up and applaud, too.”

“Maybe I should look into that police order.”

“That’ll end up in the papers.” Blesser shook his head. “I don’t think we want that kind of publicity.”

There was something perpetually apologetic about Bernard Blesser. Meek, with thinning hair and a slight sloping belly, he had been with a small technical college in Maine before answering an ad the Academy had placed in the
New York Times.
Despite his mousy demeanor
—
he was partial to wearing nondescript brown suits set off by unfashionably wide blue ties
—
Whit found him to be a dogged ally in the battle to free the school of its dependence on its charismatic founder.

Bernard pulled his chair closer. “Look, Whit,” he said cautiously. There was an undertone of something like apology in his voice. “We’ve all heard the rumors.”

“What rumors?” Turner put his hand to his Adam’s apple; it was feeling a little better now.

“You know. The vampire thing.”

“Oh. That.”

“You know, the way he looks at you…sometimes, even I believe it,” said Blesser. “What if we…” He cleared his throat; he was playing with a coin, twiddling it back and forth between his fingers like a magician. “There’s this store called Magikal Childe. Maybe you know it, Nineteenth Street between Fifth and Sixth. Full of skulls and jars and crystal balls and whatnot…I pass it every day on my way from the train. Today, I stopped in there on my way to work, told them I had a…” and here he paused out of sheer embarrassment, “…vampire situation. They mixed up some kind of potion.” He held out a small brown glass bottle.

The bottle seemed to absorb all the light in the room. Whit offered a fleeting incredulous smile. “You can’t be serious.”

Bernard sighed, drummed his fingers on the desk. “I know. It’s crazy. It’s ridiculous. It’s idiotic. It’s laughable. But look at it this way; if he’s not a vampire, all it will do is keep him in the bathroom for a few days. But if he really is a vampire, then…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

Whit felt a whiff of unease. “This doesn’t feel right, Bernard.”

Blesser raised his hands. “You know, you’re right. I don’t even know why I stepped into that store. It probably wouldn’t work anyway. Never mind. We’ll just go to the meeting and hope for the best. Maybe Rafe will be feeling too humiliated to show up.”

“No,” said Turner glumly. “This school is his baby. He’s not going to give it up without a fight, even if he has been thrown off the board. He’ll be there.”

For a moment, Turner thought about how good it felt to be walking through the hallways of the school with the glamorous April Huffman at his side, warmed by the thrilling possibility that he might exhibit his paintings alongside her celebrated artist friends. April had told him she liked his work; she said his canvases had a surreal, de Chirico-esque quality to them.

“Forget I said anything,” said Bernard, getting up to leave. “It’s probably just Ex-Lax, anyway.”

Whit looked down at the bag of ice melting in his lap. It hurt to swallow. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead. I just don’t want to know anything about it.”

10

A
t seven forty-five the following evening, they closed the May issue. To celebrate, Anastasia took the entire staff out for dinner. “Make reservations at Florent,” she told Tessa. “I have heard so much about it.”

At dinner, Tessa sat between Gaby and Ram. There were the usual Bellinis, appetizers, entrees, wine, molten chocolate cakes and cappuccinos, all paid for by the generosity of Agha Publishing. Tessa toyed with her food, pushed it around her plate. She had no appetite tonight.

Three more teachers had been given notice on Tuesday. The first-year students were panicking; the school they had signed up for was dissolving before their eyes, and it was already late to apply anywhere else for the following year.

When the students went see Levon, they found him sitting in his office, gazing absently out his window.

“You haven’t been let go, have you?” Ben asked, worried.

He shook his head. “No, they made it very clear they want me to stay. Only black guy on the staff and all.”

“What can we do to help?” Portia got right to the point.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” said Levon evenly. “Raphael Sinclair is our only hope. If he shows up at the meeting, gives one of those rousing St. Crispin’s Day speeches like the one he gave at the new student party, well…they stuck with him this far, I think they’ll give him another chance.”

He had turned to Tessa. “Is he up to it, Moss? What do you think?”

A waiter wearing a blond beehive wig and large breasts set a plate with rounded indentations in front of Ram. “I’ll be right back with your salmon,” he promised Tessa before scurrying off again.

Ram leaned forward, closed his eyes and inhaled.

“Snails again?”

“Oysters, honey. Want some?”

“No, thank you. If I was going to eat
traif,
it would have to be really special. A great big slab of Kobe beef at the Old Homestead Steakhouse, maybe. Followed by the cheesecake.”

“Mmm,” said Ram, twinkling at her. “Ever notice how Rafe rhymes with
traif?”
He leaned closer, his eyes twinkling. “Say, Crumpet. As long as we’re in the neighborhood, let’s hit the gay bars after dinner. I’ll tell them you’ve just discovered you’re a great big lesbian. We’ll start with the Anvil. Then, maybe, the Glory Hole, the Spike. Followed by the Vault. We’ll end the evening at the Mineshaft. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“You’re such a liar,” said Gaby. To Tessa. “He’s never been to those places. He’s been with the same guy since high school.”

“Really?” said Tessa, surprised and intrigued. “Is he a vampire too?”

Gaby paused in coaxing a mussel in her bouillabaisse out of its shell to stare at her like she was an idiot. “Of course not. He does window displays for Barney’s.”

“But…how can that be? Ram’s a…” she lowered her voice, whispered. “…you know. Isn’t he afraid that Ram will…um…hurt him?”

Gaby’s short hair was lavender this week. Today it stood up in stiff spikes. She observed Tessa with wise brown eyes. “Ruben has stayed with him through all of it. You don’t just leave someone you love because something bad happens to them.”

At eleven, the cappuccinos drained, the wine drunk down to the dregs, the staff of
Anastasia
began to call for limos. As a temporary employee, Tessa was not eligible for a car.

“Walk with me,” said Anastasia to Tessa. It was not a request. “It’s lovely out.”

Tessa had had a Bellini, a Kir Royal, and not much else; she was a little unsteady on her feet as they left the restaurant. Anastasia observed her gait, and smiled in amusement.
“Ma petite jeune fille.
Let me put you in a taxi.” But the cobbled street was deserted. Looking around, Anastasia frowned. “Perhaps we should try Fourteenth Street.”

Tessa could barely see the other woman’s face in the dim light of the nineteenth-century streetlamps. The drinks had dulled her senses; it
occurred to her that she should probably be frightened. An old townhouse stood sentry on the corner, the peeling brick facade almost hidden behind iron grillwork and skeletal wisteria vines. Blue light from a television set flickered behind closed shutters.

Tessa shuddered. “Who would want to live here?”

Anastasia smiled. “It’s become quite popular among photographers. You see, there are no high buildings to block the light.”

They came to a stop at the poorly lit heart of the Meatpacking District, where the arteries of Gansevoort, Little West Twelfth Street and Ninth Avenue intersected in a wide and crooked hub. The slush and sleet that had fallen from the sky earlier had moved eastward, leaving the old square Belgian blocks, laid in great arcing fan patterns, shining with a lacy pattern of frost. Transparent veils of clouds lingered overhead in a muzzy aura around a crescent moon.

Simultaneously, they both heard it; a cry, a tussle, the sound of a wooden crate being kicked aside. It seemed to be coming from an alleyway behind the restaurant.

“What was that?” said Anastasia, startled.

The alleyway was dark and enclosed on three sides, slasher-movie-scary in the stuttering light of a bare bulb fixed over a black metal door. A couple was embracing against a leprous brick wall, surrounded by overflowing dumpsters and empty wooden fruit crates. The woman was young, with long clean hair and a fine-boned profile that suggested a Connecticut upbringing and an Ivy League education.

“Is that Poppy?” Anastasia wondered. The beauty editor. She was moving and making sounds that could have been pleasure or a struggle, it was hard to tell which.

“Maybe she needs help,” whispered Tessa doubtfully. There was no answer. When she turned around, she discovered that Anastasia was gone. Gathering up her courage, she edged forward.

The man was tall, well built, under his long overcoat. He wore a wide-brimmed felt hat over his light-colored hair. Tessa could not see his face, hidden as it was between Poppy’s jaw and her neck, but when he raised his arm to pin the girl’s hands against the wall, she could see a telltale flash of crimson silk from inside the jacket of his suit.

“Rafe?” she said.

He lifted his head, turned towards her. In the yellow light, the face was cruel, the cheekbones as sharp as edged weapons. His pupils telescoped down to pinpoints, then flared out again like the rays of the sun. Two triangular fangs gleamed, limned in blood. Frozen with horror, she watched him pass his sleeve across his mouth, wiping it clean. The whites of his eyes flamed a bloody red.

Quickly, she backed away. Rafe launched himself through the air like a leopard, landing on top of her, crushing her to the ground.

She lay perfectly still, paralyzed with fear. Underneath, she could feel the shattered wooden slats of a smashed orange crate poking into her sides and the wet cobblestones slowly soaking through her coat. She could smell the scent of the other woman’s perfume on his clothes, and the rank coppery tang of blood on his mouth.

He crouched on top of her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her arms. Inches from her face, the ice-blue eyes bored into her as if she were a stranger. He lowered his head, sniffed at her as if he were a dog, inhaled sharply.

Suddenly, the face changed; the fangs receded up into the bloody mouth, the cold, wolfish eyes morphed back to their familiar shape and color. “Tessa?” he said in his lovely, lulling voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Anastasia,” she managed to say. “Dinner. Florent.”

Rafe pushed himself up off of her, helped her to her feet. There was a long moment where neither of them spoke. Then he glanced at the girl collapsed in a heap behind him. When he turned back to Tessa, she saw that his eyes had flamed red again.

“For God’s sake, Tessa,” he said. “Get out of here.”

11

A
t precisely twelve o’clock midnight, alone in her bedroom in the apartment on Sixteenth Street, the hairs on the back of Tessa Moss’s neck began to tingle, then stood on end.

There was pounding at the door,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
She hesitated for only a moment before flinging off the covers and going to answer it.

Rafe stood before her in his fedora and overcoat, penitent, sorrowful, beautiful.

“Tessa,” he said, before running completely out of words.

He had waited a full fifteen minutes before mustering up the courage to knock, trying out different scenarios in his head. Tessa hurt. Tessa scared. Tessa angry. Tessa crying. And then the door swung open, and there she was, small, vulnerable, her hair in whorls around her face, wearing a floaty white nightgown thingy that made him sick with desire.

I’m sorry,
he wanted to say,
Can you ever forgive me, you should never have seen that, I will never allow this to happen again, let’s put this all behind us, let me make it up to you in a thousand ways, let me start here, now, like this, and this, and how do you like this,
and as he took a step forward into her apartment, he was bounced violently back, as if he had walked straight into a wall. His hat was knocked off with the force of it; it rolled to a stop at her feet.

“I’ve been to Magikal Childe,” she said. “They told me what to say. You can’t come in anymore.”

“Magikal Childe?” he said, baffled. “On Nineteenth Street? I’ve passed that place a million times. What is it, anyway?”

“A witchcraft store,” she said.

“Oh, come on, Tessa,” he said. “You don’t believe in that stuff.”

“They sold me this,” she said.

In her right hand, the small white hand that drew such beautiful pictures, the same hand that touched him with so much love, she held out a gnarled and twisted splint of wood. Foreign words were inscribed around the handle. At one end, it was engraved with a diamond pattern for a better grip. The other end tapered down to a sharp point. A stake.