Authors: Amanda Ashley
Ramsey closed and locked the door, then followed her into the room. He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, watching while she filled the coffeemaker with water.
"Twelve deaths in a week is a lot," Ramsey remarked. "Even for a fiend like Kristov."
"Is it? I wouldn't know."
"I would."
Marisa went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. She had been alone in her apartment with Grigori for the last two nights. Alone with a man who was really a monster in spite of his handsome facade.
She practically jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang.
"Are you expecting Chiavari?" Ramsey asked.
"No."
"Wait here. I'll get it."
"All right." She clasped her hands to still their trembling, her whole body tensing with trepidation as she heard Grigori's voice.
And then he was there, looming over her. As always, his presence seemed to fill the room. It took all the courage she possessed to meet his eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice sharp. "Has Ramsey been filling your head with more nonsense?"
"I don't know. Has he?"
"Do you think I'm responsible for the killings in the city?"
"Are you?" She stared up at him. What was she doing, saying?
Ramsey sat in the chair across from her, but his nearness offered little comfort. She lifted a hand to her chest, felt the solid shape of the cross beneath her sweater. If Grigori attacked her, did she have enough faith to believe the cross would protect her?
"Would you believe me if I said I was innocent?"
"I don't know."
Grigori looked at Ramsey. "Do you think I'm involved in these killings?"
Ramsey nodded. "Damn right. Alexi doesn't need that much blood to survive, not after all these years."
"Alexi doesn't kill because he needs to," Grigori retorted. "He kills because he enjoys it."
Ramsey snorted softly. "And you don't?"
Grigori glanced at Marisa. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with interest and revulsion. "I haven't killed anyone in this city. I never hunt where I live."
"Yeah, right," Ramsey muttered.
"It's true, whether you believe it or not." His words were for Ramsey, but he was watching Marisa. For reasons he didn't care to examine too closely, it was important that she believe him.
Marisa shifted in her seat. Grigori's probing gaze made her decidedly uncomfortable. "I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Edward, would you like some?"
"Yes, thank you."
Grigori watched Marisa and Ramsey walk into the kitchen. He felt a twinge of jealousy that they could share something as ordinary as a cup of coffee. For the first time in a long while, he was keenly aware that he was no longer a mortal man.
Keeping his face impassive, he went to stand in the kitchen doorway. Ramsey and Marisa were sitting at the table. Ramsey held a cup to his lips; Marisa was staring out the window, the cup in her hand untouched.
"Do you have any idea where Alexi goes to ground?" Ramsey asked.
"No."
"Well, I've looked in all the places I can think of. He's not in any of them."
Marisa drew her gaze from the window. "What kind of places?"
"Old graveyards. Deserted buildings and houses. Empty lots." Edward shrugged. "I've started checking the local hotels, but that takes time."
"I've sensed his presence on more than one occasion," Grigori remarked. "But he always eludes me. I think he's playing with us. Sometimes I can almost hear him laughing."
"He'll be laughing out of the other side of his face when I drive my stake into his heart." For all his soft-spoken words, there was no mistaking the hatred in Ramsey's eyes, or the fervor in his tone.
"He may not be resting in the city at all," Grigori mused, thinking aloud. "Perhaps he's just hunting here, in which case we're wasting our time looking for his lair."
Ramsey nodded. "That's always a possibility. Still, I don't think we should start looking into the surrounding areas until we're certain he's not holed up here somewhere."
"He knows we're looking for him," Grigori remarked, thinking out loud. "He may be changing his resting place every day, or every week, and if that's the case, we might never find him."
"I'll find him."
Grigori shook his head. "I think the only way we'll catch him is if he lets us."
Ramsey's hand reached up to curl around his crucifix. "I will see him dead," he vowed. "One way or another. I swear it. Tell me, Chiavari, where do
you
spend the daylight hours?"
"Do I look like a fool, Ramsey?"
"Not at all, but if I knew more about you, perhaps it would make it easier to find Alexi."
"All you need know is that I never hunt in the same city where I take my rest."
"Fastidious of you."
"Quite."
Ramsey finished his coffee, and stood up. "I'm going home. I've had a long day. Miss Richards, thank you for the coffee." He went to the sink and rinsed out his cup, then placed it on the counter.
"Quite fastidious," Grigori murmured.
Ramsey glared at him. "Shouldn't you be out hunting our fanged friend?"
"All in good time. Weren't you leaving?"
"All in good time." Ramsey inclined his head in Marisa's direction. "Good night, Miss Richards."
"Good night, Edward. Thank you for coming by."
A thick silence fell over the kitchen after Ramsey's departure. Needing something to do, Marisa placed Edward's cup in the dishwasher, then poured herself a cup of coffee she didn't want.
"What if you can't find Alexi?"
"I'll find him."
"And in the meantime, he'll keep killing."
Grigori nodded, waiting for her to go on, to ask the questions he read in her eyes.
"You told Edward you don't hunt where you live."
He nodded again.
"But " She lifted a hand to her throat. "But you do… hunt?"
"I do what I must to survive, Marisa. Would it make you feel better if I denied it, denied what I am?"
"Probably." She regarded him a moment. "You don't look like a vampire."
"Indeed? Have you known many of us?"
She placed her cup in the sink, and then folded her arms over her chest. "Of course not."
"How should I look?"
"I don't know." She shook her head as an image of Frank Langella's Dracula formed in her mind: tall and dark and undeniably sexy in a white linen shirt and long, flowing cape. "Maybe you do look like a… a vampire, after all."
He smiled, as if he knew her thoughts, and then, as a howl screamed through the night, he froze.
"What was that?" Marisa exclaimed. "It sounded like a wolf."
He looked at her indulgently. "There are no wolves in the city, Marisa."
"It's him, isn't it? Alexi?"
Grigori nodded. "He's calling me."
"You're not going?"
"Would you rather I met him in here?"
"Heavens, no!"
"You'll be safe enough. Just remember, he can't come in unless you invite him."
"That's not much comfort."
"It's the best I can offer you."
His dark eyes moved over her, deep, fathomless eyes that held secrets she didn't want to know. Awareness hummed between them, its heat licking against her skin, warm and rough, like a cat's tongue. And then, abruptly, he was gone.
Marisa blinked, startled by the sudden emptiness she felt inside, by the realization that he had not left the house by the door, but had simply vanished from her sight.
Maybe he really was a magician.
Grigori paused when he reached the sidewalk. He had been quite serious when he'd suggested that Alexi was playing games with them. No doubt the ancient vampyre found their helplessness amusing. And they were helpless against him, Grigori thought bleakly. Unless Alexi let his guard down, they had little chance of catching him. Kristov possessed the knowledge of untold centuries, the strength of a thousand years.
Grigori raked a hand through his hair. Maybe he was only kidding himself in thinking that he could keep Marisa safe. There was little he could do to protect her that she couldn't do herself. If she was careful to remain locked within her own house at night, Alexi could not reach her. But what kind of life was that, being imprisoned from dusk till dawn?
He laughed softly. What kind of life indeed, he mused. It was the life he lived, save that he was compelled to shun the light of day, to hide away in darkness when the sun was high in the sky.
The howl of a wolf interrupted his thoughts, and he spun around, his gaze probing the drifting shadows of the night.
"Still protecting the lady fair?"
Alexi's voice sounded behind him. Grigori whirled around, the fine hairs rising along the back of his neck, his hands curling into tight fists.
"Why don't you fight me, Alexi? Let us end it here and now."
"You don't think you could best me?" Alexi replied with unbridled amusement.
"Try me."
"Oh, I will, I will, have no doubt of that. But not now. I find your puny efforts to destroy me most amusing." Alexi crossed his arms over his chest and regarded Grigori through ancient gray eyes. "Tell Ramsey he need not change his sleeping place from night to night. All the locked doors and all the garlic and crosses in the world will not save him. In the end, he will be mine."
Grigori nodded. Ramsey had not stayed in the same hotel or motel since they'd arrived in the city, foolishly believing that Alexi would not be able to find him.
Alexi laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "Tell him he is easy to follow. The stink of garlic trails behind him like the smoke from a funeral pyre."
"So, if you have not come to fight me, what do you want?"
"Why, just to say hello to an old friend."
Slowly, like a snake uncoiling, rage rose up within Grigori. "Friend! You dare call me friend after what you did!"
Alexi waved his hand in an elegant gesture of dismissal. "Don't tell me you're still angry because of the woman."
"She was my wife." Grigori bit off each word.
"How can you still be angry? You must admit, but for me, you would be nothing but a moldering corpse." He laughed softly. "I should think you would thank me. Because of your hatred, you have a gift thousands of mortals would kill for, yet you despise me for it."
"Thank you? You think I should thank you? You killed my children! My wife "
"She is not dead."
"What?" Grigori froze, everything else forgotten. "What did you say?"
Alexi shrugged. "She is not dead." He smiled, a slow smile of such evil that it sent a shiver down Grigori's spine.
"Did you bring her over?"
Alexi shook his head, his expression one of boredom.
Grigori stared at the vampyre in horror. "You left her as she was all these years?"
"I have need of her from time to time."
"Where is she?"
"Where you cannot find her."
"Damn you, Kristov, where is she?"
"She is mine now, Grigori, as she was always meant to be."
"What are you saying? She was my wife. You never knew her until I made you welcome in my home."
"I loved her! I offered her the world, eternal youth, and she refused me. Me! I would have taken her away from that hovel, given her anything she desired! Made her a queen." Rage glittered in his eyes. "And she refused! Refused to leave you or those brats. Well, she doesn't refuse me anymore."
With a cry of rage, Grigori lunged forward, his hands turning to claws as he reached for Alexi's throat.
But his fingers closed on empty air. Alexi was gone.
Grigori swore under his breath. Antoinette wasn't dead. He stared blindly into the distance. All these years, he had thought her dead, grieved for her, mourned her, hated Alexi for destroying the woman he had loved, and she wasn't dead.
In the back of his mind, he heard Kristov's parting words:
She is mine now…
as she was always meant to be.
As if returning from a dark abyss, he gradually became aware of the world around him… the sound of a car passing by, the roar of a jet, the light rain that was beginning to fall.
Feeling numb, he slowly climbed the stairs to Marisa's apartment. A wave of his hand opened the door. He stood inside the entryway, his gaze sweeping the living room, seeing it all in a glance. Seeing nothing but Antoinette as he had seen her last… her face as pale as death, her eyes empty and vacant of life, the bright drops of blood that dripped down her neck like crimson tears.
"Grigori? Grigori!"
He looked at Marisa, not seeing her, and then he shook his head as if to clear it.
"What's wrong?" Marisa stared up at him, thinking she had never seen such anguish in anyone's eyes in her whole life. He looked as if he had just escaped from hell, as if he had seen into the heart of the devil himself. "Are you all right?"
He gazed down at her. "Of course."
"Of course," she repeated, her tone skeptical. "What happened out there?"
"Nothing. We… talked."
"It must have been some conversation. You look like you've just seen a ghost." She stilled the tide of hysterical laughter that bubbled in her throat. Vampires. Ghosts. What next? The Loch Ness Monster? Little green men from Mars?
"It's late," Grigori remarked. "Why don't you go to bed?"
"It's not late, and I don't want to go to bed."
With a nod, he brushed past her. For a moment, he stood at the window, staring out, and then he began to pace the floor. His footsteps seemed to beat a tattoo to the words pounding in his mind:
She's not dead, not dead, not dead
Marisa sat on the arm of the sofa, watching him, wondering what Alexi had said or done to cause Grigori such distress. She watched him pace, his movements fluid, as graceful as a dancer's. His feet hardly seemed to touch the floor. Nothing stirred at his passing, almost as if he wasn't there.
Vampire.
The word whispered down the corridors of her mind.
Sitting there, she felt herself grow tense, felt the heavy silence press in on her. Once, she heard him groan, a heart-wrenching sound that was almost a growl.
And still he paced. She imagined that she could see his footsteps wearing a path in the carpet. His anger radiated from him like heat from a campfire.