Caught in Darkness (8 page)

“Seth,” she heard herself saying
when her story was done. He blinked, focusing his gaze, and she continued, “Are
you going to tell me I was hallucinating? Or that I read too much?”

It was clear from the subtle change
in his expression that he knew exactly what she was asking. But he was quiet
for a long minute before he slowly shook his head and replied, “I could, but
I’d be lying.”

Veronica’s eyes widened. Normal
people did not have fangs. But she wasn’t sure what that meant. And as she
tried searching his face for answers something finally dawned on her. Though
the light behind them was entirely different, Seth technically had the exact
same eyes as Richards. Richards’s eyes were dark and angry, but they were also
literally black. She had been right in his face and she hadn’t been able to
find a distinction between his irises and his pupils. And now, she realized,
she couldn’t find one in Seth’s eyes, either. What does that mean?

“I don’t understand,” Veronica
declared softly, holding his gaze.

Seth looked away and released a heavy
breath, clearly debating something in his mind. But it was only a moment before
he returned his gaze to hers and said, “I can explain it, but I can’t guarantee
you’ll like the explanation.”

Veronica nodded faintly. “That’s
okay. I’ve always preferred honesty, anyway.”

The air was thick with impatience
as they sat in silence for another beat before Seth quietly said, “Richards is
a vampire.”

Disbelieving shock was slowly
overtaking her body, and Veronica asked, “And…you?”

“Vampire.”

Chapter Five

Vampire.
He
said it so easily that Veronica almost thought she’d misheard him. But his
expression never wavered—he didn’t even blink—and no matter how many times she
ran his words back through her mind ‘vampire’ didn’t turn into anything else. If
he was joking he deserved an Oscar. The problem was
,
she was quickly coming to believe that he was not joking. Only, vampires could
not be real. Because if vampires were real—if she had to accept that vampires
walked among them—then she would be forced to wonder what else was real, too. Did
all of those other old monster-movie creatures exist?
And
what about aliens?

Okay, Veronica, take a deep breath
and slow down. Just because Dracula could—possibly—have been a
documentary-in-hiding does not mean everything else is real. She hoped. If
everything was real she wasn’t so sure she could handle that. There was a
chance (though, at this moment, it looked a little slim) that she could learn
to accept that vampires existed.
If she took it one step at a
time.
Seth, for example, was very real and still disturbingly appealing
given what she’d just learned about him. He had never once made her
uncomfortable—or even been rude. In fact, some strangely-well-adjusted inner
voice offered, this could explain his manners.

She was speaking (slowly and
awkwardly, as if she were still learning the language) before she even realized
it, asking, “What about those brothers, the Wilsons?”

Seth inclined his head.
“Vampires.
The only one involved in this who isn’t a
vampire, to my knowledge, is you.”

So much for
asking about the faceless ‘Robert’ and ‘Tiffany.’
On the other hand, at
least that answered her question. And that likely explained his insistence on
leaving the police out of things. She somehow doubted that the local law
enforcement was equipped for blood-sucking immortals.

Veronica blinked, finally focusing,
and blurted, “Wait—you drink coffee!”

His lips twitched ever-so-slightly,
most likely amused at her admittedly-sad argument, and explained, “As a
supplement.”

“Oh.” Well that made too much
sense. But now that she had found some way to talk about it without thinking
about it Veronica realized she was uncovering a lot of questions. And though
she doubted she should ask all of them—at least at once—she figured there was
definitely one that needed to be clarified. “This isn’t one of those ‘now that
I’ve told you I have to kill you’ situations, is it?”

The almost grin turned into a full
grin and Seth shook his head. “No, it’s not. Ordinary people find out about us
all the time.”

“That’s good,” Veronica replied,
relaxing again. “I would definitely have had to re-evaluate my opinion of you
if you had said yes.”

“I could understand that,” Seth
assured her, the grin holding for a beat before fading.

She watched his expression return
to the obviously-normal neutral and found
herself
frowning. He was unnaturally gorgeous (and perhaps it was time to find a new
description) no matter his expression, but when he was grinning or smiling
something happened and he became possibly twice as attractive. To her mind,
therefore, he needed to do it more often.

“It’s all right if you have
questions,” Seth offered, clearly misinterpreting her latest silence (for which
she was grateful). “We only ask that you not tell others without solid reason.”

Veronica blinked at him, taking a
full thirty seconds to understand his request. And then she wanted to smack
herself on the forehead. “Oh, don’t worry about that! I’m really not a
blabbermouth anyway.” She paused, pulling her lip between her teeth for a
moment before hesitantly admitting, “I do have questions, though. I want to be
nosy and ask how, well, old you really are—because you certainly don’t look a
day over thirty—and I want to know if any of those other ‘creature myths’ are
true and…. Well, I want to know.”

He offered her a small, real smile
and supplied, “I was
Turned
at twenty-eight, back in
1787, but I suppose a couple hundred hard years will age even the immortal a
little.”

Releasing a slightly-embarrassed
laugh, Veronica said, “I’m sorry, that was rude of me. It’s just all so much…I
never even considered that vampires could be real.”

Shaking his head, Seth replied,
“Don’t worry about it. I know it’s a lot, and I won’t be able to explain
everything in one sitting, but hopefully I can fill you in on the basics.”

“That would be nice,” Veronica
agreed.

“Vampires aren’t the only
‘supernatural beings’ in existence,” Seth began calmly, “they came into this
world alongside the werewolves, sometime before recorded history. Legend has it
they originated from the same family. Aside from werewolves there are two types
of humans who qualify as something more than ordinary as well.”

“Supernatural
humans?”
Veronica repeated
,
one slim golden
brow lifted curiously. To her way of thinking that was an incredibly oxymoronic
phrase.

“If you will, yes,” Seth replied
with a slight nod. “Witches—humans with self-taught magical ancestry who are
therefore born with special abilities—and what we’ve come to call Slayers. Both
are mortal, but both have abilities beyond ordinary humans.”

Veronica nodded slowly, attempting
to process what he was saying. Werewolves almost made sense, given that
vampires were apparently real and vampires and werewolves were always
associated with each other. And witches seemed fairly self-explanatory, given
the assumption that magic had, at least once, been real. But he had been
entirely vague on the last one, so she repeated, “Slayers?”

Seth’s frown returned, though only
faintly, as though the word brought an unfortunate taste to his mouth.
“Humans with the ‘sixth sense’ to find any nearby vampire or
werewolf.
We call them Slayers because that is what they do—they hunt
and exterminate supernatural beings for a living. Most claim they do it for the
greater good of the naïve human population, and most exterminate any vampire or
werewolf indiscriminately.”

Veronica was quiet for a second at
that. She supposed, in a twisted way, it made sense that there would be people
like that.
‘Survival of the fittest’ and all.
But…wait.
“Most?” she repeated curiously.

“There has been the occasional
Slayer who recognizes that, like any other person, we have our good and our
bad,” Seth explained. “But those Slayers are rare.”

“Ah.” The more he explained the
more she found herself feeling as if it all just made sense.
Which,
of course, did not make sense.
And, while she really wanted to know more
about everything he was telling her, she supposed she really ought to get back
on track to what was relevant. “So,” she began, “if I want to keep Richards
away from me should I hang a crucifix on my door and start wearing garlic
necklaces?”

The grin returned, accompanied by a
low, short-lived chuckle, and Seth replied, “I think most people will avoid you
if you start wearing garlic jewelry.” His expression faded back to neutral and
he shook his head before continuing, “But, no, those things won’t really make a
difference. I’d say your pepper spray is good to keep on hand, if you can catch
him unawares, but the best way to keep him away from you is me.”

“You?”

“Very few things can hurt or stall
a vampire,” Seth explained, “and they’re almost entirely physical. Without the
right tools you couldn’t win a fight against him.”

Feeling slightly defeated, Veronica
slumped against the arm of the couch (which was behind her) and sighed. “I’m
going to feel guilty about taking up your time just to watch my back.”

“Then we’re in luck,” Seth replied,
his eyes grinning at her. “I’m in town specifically to track down and detain a
group of traitors in the local Family—traitors that, as fate would have it, you
managed to identify. So if you happen to lead me to Richards or the Wilsons
then you’re actually helping me.”

“Seriously?”
Veronica asked before she could stop herself. And then, to make it worse, she
grinned and teased, “Do I get a cut of your pay for the work?”

He chuckled and returned, “I did
pay for your lunch.”

She released a breath, not really
having the energy to continue the teasing, and in the moment of silence that
passed another thought occurred to her. “If you’re looking for Richards…should
you be going back out? He might still be at my house.”

The humor fled from Seth’s face at
her words, reality clearly returning to him as well. She could see the
hesitance in his eyes as he said, “Probably. But I would have to leave you
alone—are you all right with that?”

It was her turn to hesitate at his
words. Obviously he was right, and she would feel horrendously guilty for
making him lose out on the possibility of capturing one of his targets for her
sake, but could she deal with being alone in the meantime? It was a good
question. Suck it up, Veronica. This is bigger than you. She could handle it,
even if it wasn’t her first choice, so she nodded. “I can handle it. Go, get
him and end all this.”

Seth nodded, accepting her words,
and pushed to his feet. “You can stay here. You’ll be safe. And I’ll be back as
soon as I can.”

“Okay,” she replied with a nod of
her own. She watched him start toward the door, walking past her in the
process, and had to curl her hands into fists just to keep from reaching out
for him anyway. Only she wasn’t about to stop him—she wanted to kiss him. She
didn’t care what he was or that it might be very strange to kiss a man with
fangs, she still wanted to kiss him. The urge had struck her earlier, and been
rather difficult to ignore for a long minute, but after he’d come running to
her rescue and opened up to her like he had she found herself more attracted to
him than ever.

But she resisted, fists staying
firmly in her lap, and watched as he reached the door, only barely remembering
to give him her address. He nodded and stepped through, telling her to keep the
door locked until his return. Not that she needed to be told.

The faint roar of the Corvette
backing out of the drive resonated in her ears until she couldn’t hear it at
all. And then she was alone, left to think about everything that had happened
and everything she’d just learned.

She cringed at the sight of her
reflection in the bathroom mirror. After sitting on the couch for a while,
replaying their conversation over and over again in her mind, Veronica had decided
it was time to do a damage check. It hadn’t taken her too long to find a
bathroom, and in the meanwhile she’d allowed herself to note with a strange
type of amusement that he’d rented a place (or did he own it?) with a rather
small kitchen. Not that she supposed he needed one. And now she was wishing she
could do something about her bruises.

There was a nasty, and rather
obvious, set of fingermark bruises on her neck from where Richards had choked
her. She was going to need a scarf and makeup to hide those, because there was
no arguing that they might be something other than what they were. Beneath
that, on the left side of her collar, was another odd-shaped bruise, though
this one was less formed at the moment. Fortunately, it would probably be
coverable with just about any shirt. There were also a few bruises forming on
her left upper arm, but those would be easier to hide also—she’d just have to
wear sleeves.

At the least the bruises explained
the pain. The shoulder/collar area of her chest had been throbbing since the
adrenaline had faded, which made sense in conjunction to that bruise. Do
vampires use pain medication? It would be awfully hard to take anything if she
didn’t have access to it.

Releasing a heavy sigh, Veronica
stepped back from the counter and left the bathroom, being sure to turn off the
light as she moved. Yeah, she had some nasty bruises—and they’d only be worse
when she woke up in the morning—but it could have been so much worse. As
horrible as it sounded, she was well aware that she’d been lucky. And if I’m
really lucky Seth will find Richards and I won’t have to worry about going
through that ever again. But that was probably too much to hope for.