Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr) (8 page)

“
You’re wrong. We might have crossed the line, but this doesn’t change anything.”

Jamison. Idiotic to the extreme. Yeah, that just about described him to a T, all right.

“Of
course
it changes everything! You think we can go back to where we were? When we were just Tanith and just Jamison? Just the witch and the vampire? As if
that
in itself wasn’t something strange in the first place! I told myself I was never going to take advantage of those close to me because then they’re not even friends to me anymore. You know what they are? They’re my prey.
You
were my prey!”

He got off the bed and pulled on the jeans I mistakenly thought belonged to a harmless college student. Harmless, my ass.

“So? I let you feed off me. It’s not like you put me up against a wall and took me against my will. I wanted this to happen.”

Maybe I
’m overreacting? But the thing is…I’m afraid. Afraid that once I start taking blood from my friends…that I’ll do it again. And again. And again until they have no more to give and continue to offer up their shrunken veins until they willingly open themselves up just to give up one last drop of blood….

And I couldn
’t bear to see Jamison like that—couldn’t bear to even
think
about him like that. To me, he was a thing of light, a Son of the Day. His laugh, his smile, eased me, made me…happy. He was my pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

To see him diminished…
would diminish me.

To see him reduced…
would ultimately kill me.

I needed to think, to clear my mind. I leaned against the wall, forehead against the chilly masonry, trying to force some of that c
oolness into my head. Into my mind.

“
Tanith,” he started, and I shook my head.

             
“Just go. Please, Jamison. Go.”

He sighed. "Fine. We'll do this your way."

The door unlocked, the sound another nudge on my fraught nerves.

“
Tanith.”

I did not reply. Did not
even open my mouth—because I was afraid. Afraid I’d come undone, that I’d bend, that I’d fall to my knees and beg him to stay.

“
I’m not going to say I’m sorry. Because I’m not sorry. I don’t regret what I’ve done,” he said.

The door closed, and his foots
teps echoed down the hallway.

No longer hearing his presence, I let myself completely break down.

What would happen now?

When the moon rose tomorrow night, would he come back, smiling the way he always did? Could we truly pass this off and still be the s
ame people we were before?

No. We couldn
’t. I couldn’t forget something like this. Couldn’t forgive something like this. 

Regardless of what Jamison had said, I knew things were not going to be the same. They couldn
’t possibly be the same.

We crossed th
e point of no return, and I could only hope we’d both survive.

In the end.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“
For where Thou wilt go, but I shalt follow; to the Depths of Hel, and to the Gates of Olympus, I shalt go….”

“
Well, I certainly think that’s quite a sticky predicament you’ve gotten yourself into, my love.”

"Yeah," I muttered. "No kidding."

Cale winked at me over the steaming mug of latte. “I told you, you should’ve taken his blood when you first met him. Then you wouldn’t have this moral dilemma crowding around in that tiny brain of yours!”

Normally, you wouldn
’t find me talking to Cale about such a personal problem, but he was a vampire—the only vampire I trusted enough to keep his mouth shut. In addition, he didn’t work for me, so that was another good thing. I employed a fair number of vamps, but ex-employees tended to talk about ex-employers, and I wasn’t about to take any unnecessary chances.

The fact I took Jamison
’s blood had to be a secret. If other vamps knew, they’d consider him fair game too, and I was too busy to be fending them off while screaming it was all one big mistake.

Hah.

If only things were that easy.

“
You’re supposed to help me, Cale, not belittle me,” I said, unbelievable tiredness overcoming me. “Don’t you think you should at least attempt to work for that highly overpriced drink in front of you? You’re not even going to drink it. Why the hell did you ask me to buy it in the first place?”

We sat in a small café
a few blocks down from Club Dragonne. This quiet Wednesday evening, only a few customers inhabited the place, but all of them shot curious glances at Cale, who looked like he stepped out from the pages of a Regency novel.

The customary silk top hat perched on the side of his head à
la Mad Hatter style. The collar of his lacy shirt seemed to cascade all the way down to his knees. On top of that, a bottle-green frock coat emblazoned with a golden insignia looked ridiculous. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he finished off the ensemble with brown breeches, white knee socks, and a pair of leather shoes with real silver buckles.

I had to admit, he did look all right, in a way.

In a really freaky way.

“
Because! I’ve seen those horrible human dramas on the telly! Whenever someone—a woman, mind you—has a problem, she calls her friends, and they talk over coffee. And then, at the end, all the problems get solved!” He grinned at me, and I didn’t have the heart to say anything that would break his illusion of feminine life.

“
So. You think because you have a cup of coffee and I’m a woman, never mind that you’re definitely not a woman, and we’re talking about problems, you think they’re really going to go away?”

He laughed. “
No, but it’ll be damn good fun to try.”

Cale was a weirdo, this I already knew. Bu
t I didn’t know it was this bad.

It
’d been three days—three long days and three excruciatingly harrowing nights where I tried to figure out everything that had gone wrong in my life.

Jamison was gone. I called him, waited out in front of his apartment un
til the landlord told me I was scaring everyone away, and did some pretty stalker-ish things that might’ve gotten me arrested if anyone actually had the nerve to call the authorities.

I didn
’t know what to do. Not anymore. I was worried sick about him. It wasn’t like him to suddenly run off like that.

“
I know you’re worried about Jamison, but he’ll turn up.”

“
Really? And in what form are you pertaining to, Cale? Are you talking about him showing up alive, or him showing up as a corpse?”

He shrugged. “
To be quite honest, they’re both the same to me.”

This was pointless. Spending time with Cale would only depress me more, take away time I could
’ve constructively spent in trying to locate my runaway witch’s whereabouts.

Besides, the thick, cloying atmosphere o
f the café was starting to grate on my nerves. What little I had left, anyways.

“
I’ve got to go. The club has a lot of work that needs to be done,” I said and pushed my chair away from the table.

We both knew I was lying. The club practically ran itself, b
ut it made me think better of Cale when he didn’t call my bluff. Instead, he looked at me with something akin to worry. Impossible. Cale didn’t feel anything for anyone but himself.

“
Tanith?”

“
Yeah?”

He paused for a moment, as if measuring his words. “
Don’t…push. Don’t blow matters out of proportion. Just take every night as it comes and deal with the problems one at a time. Don’t try to fight them all at once. Take a deep breath before you face the night and then tell yourself you can cope with anything that comes your way. And when it comes, then you can bare your teeth and tear it to shreds. Just like the girl I know you are.”

He smiled a sort of smile I never expected to see on Cale
’s face. Maybe on Jamison’s face, but never the over-dressed dandy sitting across from me. It was soft, slow, and filled with so much goodwill I had to blink twice just to make sure I wasn’t getting it from an angel in disguise.

But Cale wasn
’t an angel, and from my reckoning, he’d never be one.

“
I didn’t know you could smile like that.”

Cale laughed. “
Yes, well, there’s many things you don’t know about me. Now go. Run along. You haven’t been at the club for a few days. I’m sure everyone will be crying for you.”

He shooed me off with quick motions of his elegantly thin hands, an
d I walked out, even more confused than before.

* * * *

It was only seven. The club wouldn’t be up and running until at least nine, and I watched a few employees run along the dance floor with mops, racing each other. Their laughter echoed in the cavernous space, and a little bit of the strain faded from between my shoulder blades.

It did me good observing them. A lot of my employees were people whom life didn
’t give a second chance. I walked into at least four of my employees as they tried to call up the courage to jump off the Macomb Bridge outside of Centennial. I wouldn’t say I was all-mighty nor powerful, but I’m a smooth talker.

Most of them were junkies trying to quit, but couldn
’t do it. Seeing no end to the pain, they tried to end it themselves. After I dissuaded them, I paid the cost for rehab, and when they got out, I gave them the option of working for me.

Most of them did.

Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have done that.

Jamison changed me. And now he was gone.

When he decided to come out of hiding, we were definitely going to have a heart-to-heart talk. No escaping, no keeping back words that should’ve been said.

“
So, what’s with that goofy look on your face, Boss? You look like a cat that got the cream.”

Eileen, one of the bartenders for
the night, handed me a Perrier from one of the coolers, and I leaned against the counter, feeling a bit foolish.

“
Nothing. Just thinking about things, that’s all,” I said, instantly wiping off the smile I didn’t even know was there. Damn. One night with Jamison, and I was already losing control of my body. That sucked eggs.

She stared down at her chain bracelet, and it took me a while to realize she wanted to say something, but was either too scared or too guilty. Neither of them boded well.

“Eileen? Something up?”

The blonde bit her lip until a tiny drop of blood appeared. I hadn
’t fed since Jamison, and the fact the blood didn’t faze me alarmed me quite a lot. Usually, I had to feed at least every other day in order to keep from salivating over every living thing I saw. But I felt…fine. More than fine, actually.