The Vampire's Curse (19 page)

Again, Kyle was quick to pick up his train of thought. Maybe he should take up becoming a mind reader. He seemed to be pretty good at it already. "So the killer is still a vampire hater, and he's attacking stores that offer to sell to them."

"Not to mention kidnapping them and starving them until they go wild."

Kyle shivered. He remembered the feeling of nearly losing it, of being so thirsty that sinking his teeth into someone, and ripping until he got blood and flesh, didn't matter. Only a man with the emotions of a shrub could want to put someone through that.

Suddenly he wanted to get to Jackie, take her back home as she'd been none too pleased about being forced to her mother's, and curl up with her while doing nothing but giving her his apologies with his mouth all over her body.

There was one thing he needed to do first, and he stopped just outside the automatic front doors.

Carter looked back at him and stepped off the black pad so the doors would close again and keep the cold out. “What is it?”

"Give me a minute." Kyle went back to the front desk and spoke to the man sitting behind it. "Is there a patient named Evey staying here? I don't know her last name but she’s a vampire."

He raised a thick grey eyebrow. "Are you family?"

Carter came up and flashed his badge. "We need to speak with her right away."

He shook his head, too tired and frustrated with his workload to argue. "Fine." He clacked away at his computer before looking at him again. "She's still here for one more night under observation. Do you need the room number or were you here once already?"

"We were here already, thanks."

Carter was already walking with him back to the area of the hospital reserved for people who were impaired against the light. "You don't have to come. I just need to ask her a few things and then I'll pick up Jackie."

Carter flinched at that. "Alright. I'll let you know when I find out more. If you want to tell Jackie what I told you, you can. Just be gentle about it. I don't want her worrying if it turns out I'm wrong."

Kyle heard the warning in his voice. He didn't like it and hated that he had to defend himself against it. "I'd never put her through any grief unintentionally."

Liar
.

Carter nodded and left. When he was out of sight Kyle slipped into the gift shop, put a bouquet of generic flowers that he could ill afford on his credit card, and took them to Evey.

To his shock he didn't find her in bed, pale against the sheets and recovering steadily like she should have been. She walked around her room, restless, her arm not weak and crisp against her body, but unbandaged, thicker, healthier, and just plain not charred black like when he'd found her.

She saw him standing in the open doorway, her eyes traveled to the flowers in his hand, and she smiled. "It's been years since anyone's given me flowers."

He came and handed them to her. She reached her good arm out and took them, like she would take an infant, sniffed the buds, and held them protectively close.

"I can't imagine why,” he said. He really couldn’t. “Your arm looks better."

Understatement.

She sniffed the flowers again and stroked a few petals between her healing fingers. "Vampires and plants don't do so well. They die because we can't give them the sun unless we plant them outside. But I like them anyway." She set the bouquet on her bed. It chilled him the way she did it. It reminded him of how someone might set flowers on the bed of a person who'd recently died.

"As for my arm," she continued, shifting the arm in question enough to show him that it worked. "Vampires are excellent healers, as you must know by now."

He figured as much. "I came to ask a question."

"Shoot." She took a seat on the edge of her bed next to her flowers. Despite her spotted hospital gown and the place they were in, it was like watching lady take seat and invite a guest to tea. "I've got nothing better to do except read old magazines and books that the other patients leave me."

He got straight to the point, even then feeling the pull of Jackie’s heartbreak tugging at the inside of his chest. "There may not be a connection, but if there were I figured I could trust you to be honest with me since you're the only other vampire I really know." And he knew almost nothing about her, which was an indicator of how badly he wanted the answer.

"I can feel Jackie's emotions. It's like cold water rolling off her and splashing me in the face, it's vivid and real, and it's how I knew to go to the store the night you two were attacked. This has never happened to me with anyone else and I'm positive it has something to do with my curse. I need you to tell me if that means anything."

He watched her face, her eyes becoming hard as she calculated him and what to tell him.

“Basically,” she started with a sigh. “You’re her perfect match.”

THIRTEEN

Kyle came back for her just before the sun came up.

Jackie couldn't summon the energy to be mad at him for dumping her there, or the extra emotion to be sad when she grabbed her bag of things, and on the way out saw that her mother had still not come out of bed.

Patty was an early riser. Jackie was being avoided by her own mother.

She didn't bother trying to disguise these emotions as she allowed Kyle to put his hand on the small of her back and lead her out of the quiet house. The door clicking shut behind them with a finality Jackie couldn’t stomach.

She would have wanted Kyle to hold her, comfort her, but he smelled like something that died.

A cab waited for them, and inside the back seat was a brown paper bag of what smelled like coffee and pastries. Next to it sat a bundle of bright red roses.

She slid inside wordlessly, shoving her duffel bag on the floor. When the car started to move Kyle took the roses by their wrapped stems and handed them to her.

"You look like you could use these." She felt a swell of emotion for him in her chest and inhaled deeply. Even the weird smell coming off him couldn’t ruin the gifts.

“I was in the morgue today.” Kyle said. “That’s where Carter took me, and, as you must have noticed, that’s why I smell like this.”

She nodded dumbly. He could’ve told her he was in the garbage dump in the land of Oz and she wouldn’t have blinked an eye. “I didn’t know morgues smelled like that.”

When he pulled a large coffee out of the bag and began tearing sugars packs and pouring them in two at a time she wanted to cry, simply because he remembered.

“Just make sure that if you ever visit one, you take the mask,” he said with a light chuckle.

He handed her the cup and she inhaled the scent gratefully, thanking Heaven she didn't have to work until her mother finished the repairs to the shop. She could go home, enjoy her coffee, and let everything slide away while she relaxed.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. I have some good news for you."

She looked up at him. He'd been watching her carefully. She decided not to make anything of it, she probably looked like crap after the horrible sleep she had,
and
he was likely wondering what was going on with her emotions. "What is it?"

He stared ahead, speaking as though the driver couldn’t hear a word of their conversation. "Carter thinks the attack on you and your friend wasn't personal."

She blinked and rubbed some sleep from her eyes, not quite comprehending. "It might be just me, but I tend to think of any attempt on my life as personal."

His lips twitched. "Let me rephrase that. When I took you to your mother's last night it was because another store was attacked, burned down this time. So far the only connection between your mother's store and the one from last was that they both sold blood to vampires."

Jackie's eyes focused a lot faster now, and she was no longer tired. "So this is just someone who really hates vampires?"

He nodded. "The fact that you're good friends with a vampire, and that you’re helping me, probably doesn't help."

The fact that I'm falling for you doesn't help either
. Jackie choked on the hot coffee she sipped when the thought entered her head.

"Are you okay?"

Despite the fact that he sat a little closer and straighter to make sure she wasn't choking, his little satisfied smirk was not lost on her.

He couldn’t read her thoughts, just her emotions, but he obviously knew the jolt of what she felt involved him. Now would be a good time to start keeping a lid on her emotions before she let anything else slip.

"Fine. I’m fine. Just swallowed the wrong way." Was she crazy? She couldn’t let this happen. He didn’t feel the same way and he wasn’t even going to be sticking around long enough for anything to happen between them.

"Hmm," he said.

She cleared her throat and felt the soft petals of her roses with her fingertips. Actually, was it possible he did feel something for her? "Why the flowers?"

"I got them from the hospital after I saw your friend, figured you could use some flowers too."

He answered her question without answering it.

The cab dropped them off at her building. Kyle paid the driver and they were walking towards the door, both silent, then he said. "I figured I should get something nice for the woman who's my match."

She dropped her roses and keys in the middle of trying to unlock the door. Sharp panic attacked her heart and she felt like she was falling. Kyle picked up the dropped flowers and keys and opened the door for her.

"Coming?" He called when he entered the building and she didn't follow.

Finally she got her feet working; he kept walking up the stairs to her apartment, not looking back at her. She watched him stop in front of her door and unlock it, holding her roses and the bag of breakfast in one hand while opening the door with the other. He stepped inside, removed his shoes at the door and placed the items on the table.

She couldn't help but think that he already belonged with her, in this apartment. The image of a live-in boyfriend certainly fit.

When the door was safely shut behind her he grabbed her shoulder. She jumped a bit but there was no anger in his eyes or tightening in his face. “Stay here a sec.”

She did as she was told, not understanding why she had to or why he moved in and out of all the rooms. She heard him opening and closing her dresser drawers and other pieces of heavy furniture in her room.

“What are you doing?” She called.

He came back out and peered under the kitchen table, she then understood what he was doing before he said anything.

“Making sure no one came in here while we were gone and left a little something for you. No sign of forced entry on your door, no scratches at the windows, and so far I’m not finding anything hidden.”

Her cheeks colored and she pressed herself a little closer to the door. “You’re checking for bombs?”

“Anything really.” He pulled a chair away from the table to stand on and even looked inside the glass bowl on the ceiling that held her light bulbs.

He glanced down at where she pressed herself into the door, ready to run at the first sign. “Don’t look so tense, I didn’t find anything,” he said, getting down from the chair and returning it to its proper place.

“But you think something might be here.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s just a precaution. If you ever see anything out of the ordinary you might want to tell me, no matter how small it might seem.”

She nodded, torn between dreading an argument with him about hiding the strange bond they shared, and the possibility of being attacked in her own apartment.

They stared silently at each other. Actually, did he purposely change the subject on her?

She could see the gears in his head turning, trying to find the right words. Maybe he wasn’t looking forward to this either.

She couldn’t even look him in the eyes, and she shifted her eyes to the floor.

Instead of speaking to her, Kyle moved like a man confined to a train track towards the bathroom.

Somehow, that was much worse than an argument.

She heard the spray of shower water running in seconds and took a seat in the living room to wait for him. Her hands turned into fists on her knees as she ran over and over what she was going to say when he came out.

Was he doing this to prolong her torture?

He walked out with only a damp towel hanging limply over his narrow hips, his arm raised to dry out his hair with another, and she had a perfect view of his chest.

Yup, he definitely took the shower to torture her.

She didn’t get out of her chair, just watched him walk around wet and barefoot in her kitchen.

“I’m going to have to burn my clothes.”

Oh right, the smell on his clothes.

He looked into her eyes, looked through her, transfixing her with his steady stare. That weird smell on him earlier vanished from her thoughts. His face was still wet, a single drop of water breaking away from his dark brow to roll down the side of his nose, cheek, then finally touching his lips where he licked it away.