Deep Desire: The Deep Series, Book 1 (15 page)

Chapter Sixteen

A loud knock on the door of Deana’s bungalow shook Adin awake. He was jumping at shadows, he noted with disgust. He gingerly swung his legs over the side of the couch. Still sore, damn it. He pulled himself up to standing, annoyed that he had to wear his formerly dislocated arm in a sling. Deana came sleepily from the hallway but deferred to him immediately when he held up his hand. Two in the morning was no time for civilized humans to visit.

“Didn’t you go to bed yet?” she whispered as they approached the door warily. Leave it to Deana to nag him when they were being woken in the middle of the night by—Adin looked through the peephole—a stranger. He backed away, allowing her to look.

“Anyone you recognize?”

“No,” she said, drawing her robe more closely about her.

He’d already known the answer. He could hear the warning buzz inside his head that vampires used when they chose to make their presence known. What had Donte called that? Using beaters to flush out prey? He studied Deana carefully to see if she could hear it and decided that no, she probably didn’t. He didn’t have time to think about that because the pounding started up again.

Adin stood indecisively, waiting. He knew their visitor couldn’t come in unless invited, but he was reluctant to expose Deana to the frightening new reality he himself still felt unprepared to face.

“Go back to your bedroom, Deana. I’ll take care of this. I think I know what it’s about.” Adin knew full well that whoever was on the other side of that door could hear him.

That loud knock blasted through the silence again.

A voice came from the other side of the door. “Open up, puny earthling.”

Adin looked through the peephole and found a man with an engaging smile and clear blue eyes that sparkled
.
Not very foreboding. Probably a trick.

“I come in peace. Take me to your leader. Klaatu-Barada-Nicto, Adin. I’m here because Boaz asked me to deliver a package. That’s all.”

The voice was a full-bodied tenor that spoke to Adin of Ireland.

“Why should I believe that?” He motioned for Deana, who was still staring at him, clearly questioning his behavior, to go to her room.

I’ll tell you later. Go!
he mouthed.

She left, scooting down the hall until he heard the click of her door as she closed it.

Adin took a deep breath and opened the front door.

“Ah, that’s better,” said the man, who was, in Adin’s experience, the most out-of-character vampire he’d met so far. No black, no leather, not Goth, neither dark nor frightening. Adin’s own comment about pissing off leprechauns was coming back to haunt him. He wondered if Boaz appreciated, and therefore brought about, this particular irony.

The man at Deana’s door was small in stature, about Adin’s own size but was much thinner, and he had the reddest hair Adin had ever seen. He had on a pair of well-worn, faded jeans and a bright green T-shirt. Over that he wore a battered denim jacket.

“Yes?” Adin stood his ground.

“Not going to invite me in?” The ginger-haired man folded his arms across his chest.

“Nope.”

“I see.” There went that charm again.

“You said you had a package from Boaz?” Adin tensed. The fact that these creatures both attracted and frightened him was something he was still working out.

“You have nothing to fear from me, Adin.”

“Nevertheless.” Adin groped for the right thing to say. He gave up. “You really aren’t what I’ve come to expect.”

“Yes, well. Some of us—” he tilted his head so his red hair flopped over one eye, “—some of us are a little more Tolkien than Stoker, if you take my meaning.”

Adin shouldn’t have been surprised by that.

“At any rate, I’m going to invite you to walk with me, as it’s a lovely late-summer night and I have much to tell you.”

“Can’t you just give me the thing and be done with it?”

“I’m sorry, Adin. I have a story to tell. I was ordered to give you an enormous dose of my personal charm with it, and I can’t deliver that in good conscience without carrying you away with me in the moonlight. Taking you dancing on the misty green grass of whatever you have that resembles a park around here. You know. Like the fair folk.”

“Is there not
one
among you capable of simply saying, ‘Let’s go out for coffee’?” Adin snapped.

He laughed until security lights snapped on down Deana’s whole block. “When you live forever you learn to find your fun where you can.”

“
Crap.
Wait here.”

Adin found his shoes next to the couch and slipped them on. He saw Deana peeking from behind her door and gave her a smile he thought probably looked as sketchy as it felt. “Go back to bed. It’s just a friend. A prank.” He walked to the door, hesitating for a minute, and then set one foot outside.

“Now there you go,” said the man, taking his arm and leading him out into the night. “Let’s walk, and I’ll tell you why I came, starting with my name, which is Sean.”

Adin closed and locked the door behind him, still wary of whatever this appealing creature had planned. “Sean,” Adin repeated. “Got it.”

“Boaz asked me to give you this.” He pulled a tiny, battered, brown parcel out of the pocket of his jacket. “And to tell you that Santos has experienced an evolution of sorts, although perhaps not the transformation you’d hoped for. Boaz’s exact words.”

“How do you know Boaz?”

“Boaz is an extremely useful man to know. To answer your question, I know him through Donte.”

Adin felt a faint pulse of something he worried was jealousy. “Through Donte?”

“Yes,” Sean said. “I must say you have certainly mucked up things there.”

“I beg your pardon?” Adin stopped walking. He noticed that the back of Sean’s jacket said,
kiss me, i’m irish
.

“Well, Donte particularly doesn’t like complications. So getting yourself kidnapped by Santos—”

“Hello. Not exactly my idea.”

“Of course it wasn’t. But then, humans can make things so spectacularly difficult for us.” Sean gave a long and wheezy Irish sigh that lingered in the air as a cloud of vapor. Adin knew it wasn’t that cold
. Kind of a neat trick.
“At any rate, Donte has the manuscript. All’s well that ends well.”

“Yes.” Adin bit his tongue to keep from reminding this perky little man that he’d very nearly been
eaten
. Adin looked down at the parcel and saw that some of the tape had been pulled off and restuck. “Will I like the contents of that, do you think?”

Sean blushed becomingly, even though it was hard to tell in the light of the mercury vapor lamps. Adin smiled to himself. Redheads just seemed to blush out loud. “I was a tiny bit curious; it’s a failing of mine.”

Adin fumbled with the wrapping, and his flash drive slid out into his palm. “Thank
fuck
,” he said. “I am so glad to have this back.”

“Boaz said to tell you that Santos was very touched by your determination to show him a different side of the situation. He was most grateful for the insight into how his father felt about him, and also into the reasons behind Donte’s actions.”

“Where is Boaz?” asked Adin. “Why didn’t he come himself?”

“Boaz is currently in Morocco with Santos. He sends his regrets.”

“I see,” Adin said. “I wonder to whom I should send mine.”

He stopped walking and dropped onto a bus bench with an ad on it for one of the local churches.
ask yourself why!
Adin thought it was rather fitting. His shoulder, in its sling, ached.

“Do you have many?” asked Sean, dropping onto the bench beside him. “Regrets?”

“No. Besides losing
Notturno
? No.”

“That was inevitable. It never really belonged to you.”

“I know.”

“There’s something else.” He handed Adin a small, brown cardboard package, inside which was a wooden box. It looked very old and had at one time been gaily painted with carnival colors. Adin’s hands trembled slightly as he slid off the string that held it together. When he lifted the lid and looked at the contents, his heart squeezed so painfully within his chest that he gasped.

“That’s a really fine piece, isn’t it?” Sean lifted the contents of the tiny box into his hands as if it were a living thing. “It was painted by Richard Cosway, and anyone will tell you he was one of the most notable miniaturists of the eighteenth century. This particular painting has never been seen by any modern collector. Donte wanted you to have this in return for the manuscript. Its value as a collector’s piece is far greater.”

Adin took the tiny treasure from Sean and opened it, revealing a tiny musical mechanism inside what he’d originally suspected—a snuff box.

He sighed, listening. “It’s exquisite.”

“It’s Chopin, of course. One of the Nocturnes. Donte thought you’d appreciate the significance.”

Words failed Adin. He closed the lid to study the miniature. Donte was rendered in his customary black, a snowy white fall of lace at his throat. He’d been painted in profile, his high cheekbone and hooded eye mysterious and beautiful. He wore no wig. His dark hair may have been long and caught back, but it looked very much as he wore it today, slightly longer in the front maybe. Adin felt tears sting his eyes and was angry for it.

Sean gazed at the portrait. “Donte is a very beautiful man.”

“He is that. Not bad for—what is he here—two hundred years old?”

“Yes. He will remain attractive forever—in that way only the entirely unobtainable seem to be.” Sean put a gentle hand on Adin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Adin smiled the barest of smiles. “It’s funny how when you are about to be eaten your priorities change. Donte is someone I care for very much. I’m not sorry that he has the manuscript back. I have the flash drive. Unless Boaz is yanking my chain—”

Sean laughed. “He said you’d be suspicious. It’s there, Adin. The whole file is there. He simply copied it for Santos and sent me on my way.”

“Then my life, such as it is, will be going on as normal.”

“No, it won’t, Adin. Boaz was most adamant that I remind you of that. I’m sorry.” He pressed another of the light devices like the one Donte had given him into Adin’s hand. “Your innocence is gone. Probably some of your pride. Don’t lie to yourself. It will only make things worse.”

“I’m not deluded, Sean. I’m just tired. Still recovering. I’m sure you know I was attacked.”

“Yes.” Sean tilted his head again, peering anxiously through that thick fringe of rust-colored hair. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “You know, I envy Donte.”

“Why?”

“You love him, don’t you?” Sean watched him speculatively. “Don’t bother to deny it. It’s obvious. There are many men and women who love the undead in general, and Donte in particular. Like rock stars, we have groupies who follow us, begging for the privilege of being our food.”

Adin got up and turned away. He headed for Deana’s house and the safety of what was left of his family. “I know all this. Thank you for the warning.”

“You misunderstand.” Sean followed him. “I drove here from New York to find you. And I can tell you, the world is full of people who are like so much insect splatter on my windshield from the trip. If I look closely, I can see that each of the bugs came from its own species, each was a different individual, each met its demise when the wind carried it into my car, and yet every one left behind a remarkably similar pattern of relatively analogous goo.”

“Good to know.” Adin quickened his pace. “I hope you’re finished trying to cheer me up.”

“I haven’t even begun.” Sean caught Adin’s good arm in his and pulled him to a stop. “Everything I’ve heard about you, everything I’ve seen, everything Boaz told me, makes me think you’re different.”

“Different how? Do I get more Michelin stars in the
Vampire’s Good Eats Guide to Bainbridge Island
? When in town you must have the Adin Tredeger. Bland but with an edgy finish, slightly bitter but delicious, as Donte and Hannibal Lecter would say, with a nice red wine.”

“You—”

“Listen to me!” Adin couldn’t help raising his voice. “I’m tired, hurt and angry. I’ve had a professional disappointment and a profound shock with regard to the world I thought I knew. Not to mention my very first broken heart.”

“I’m so sorry.” Sean gave Adin’s hand a kind rub with his thumb.

“It’s just—” Adin looked at the miniature of Donte. “Donte is little more than a highly evolved predator. He can’t love. He isn’t human. That’s gone forever.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Yes,” Adin replied. “He did.”

“Well then it must be true, yeah? Everything he says is always true.” Sean smiled.

Adin refused to respond to that.

Together they walked silently back to Deana’s house. When they reached the door, Sean leaned over and kissed Adin warmly on the lips, shocking and embarrassing him.

“What was that for?” Adin asked.

“I like you. I’d like you to think about getting in touch with me sometime.” He backed down the steps. “When Donte’s glamour fades.”

Adin didn’t bother telling him that Donte’s glamour had never really been all that successful where he was concerned.

“Call me!” Sean flicked him a jaunty wave as he got into a convertible parked at the curb.

“How?” Adin thought he might actually want to do that someday.

And how sick is that?

“Call my name into the wind!”

Adin muttered, “You’ve got to be
fucking
kidding me!”

“I am.” Sean started up the engine. “My number is written on the bottom of the box I gave you!”

Adin turned the cardboard box over. Sure enough, there was a phone number written there next to a tiny little smiley face with fangs. Sean roared off.

As Adin used his keys to enter Deana’s small house he was smiling. He toed off his shoes and fell back onto the couch.

Immediately, he took out his tiny treasure and looked at it.

Donte.

Adin wasn’t likely to find much rest before morning, but he listened quietly to see if his sister was still up or if she’d gone back to sleep. He thought perhaps that, as she had done when she was a child, she’d gotten out of bed and come to the door in a state that was not quite awake, and when she’d gone back to bed, she’d just sunk in and slept. They’d had some of the most fascinating conversations of their childhood when Deana was in that state—somewhere between sleeping and waking.