The Vampire's Seduction (4 page)

And the deal comes with an introduction to Savannah society. After a while they usually go off into the sunset for parts known only to them and William, who has contacts in the vampire communities all over the country. Every once in a while he gets in a Eurotrash bloodsucker, but for the most part, they’re real high class. And get this. They even bring their own dirt with them.

I don’t know what’s so special about settling their coffins on that damn European dirt. Give me good old red Georgia clay any day of the week. But there’s something about that old dirt that must have some kind of power. William won’t tell me what it is. I have a sneaking feeling that William doesn’t tell me a lot of things. Damn him.

Oh, yeah, too late. He’s already damned.

He tries to treat me like his personal field hand. In the last couple of weeks, he’s had me helping him prepare for this big party he’s throwing for his latest imported vamp. Planning parties is women’s work if you ask me, but at least he doesn’t ask me to park cars at his shindigs anymore. Not since I threatened to whup his ass. I may have sworn fealty to him 150 years ago (give or take), but I’m through being his lackey. Thankfully, he just laughs at me when I call him out. I guess I’m lucky he’s in a good mood most days. He’s old, real old—although you’d never know it to look at him—and in the vampire world that means power. He could squash me like a bug and I know it, but a man has to take a stand once in a while, you know? He treats me with more respect than he used to, but I’m still at his beck and call, and it surely grates at my soul. Or it would if I had a soul.

William puts on the dog like nobody else, and all of Savannah society will be at his so-called retro charity ball. We’re building a new wing on the hospital and a state-of-the-art blood bank. That takes money. Better to suck their money than their blood, as William always says. There’ll be the most sumptuous banquet these blue bloods ever saw. And the most expensive liquor will be flowing like water down the Savannah River. There’s only one problem.

William’s warehouseman had informed me that the guest of honor had up and vanished.

I took the last turn on two wheels and parked under a live oak behind the wrought-iron gate of a respectable-looking antebellum mansion. I say “respectable,” but looks can be deceiving. Even though his black Jag wasn’t there, I knew that
he
was. Unless William blocks me, I can smell him out wherever he is, like a bloodhound. I don’t know if he has the ability to block me out because he’s the vamp who made me or what. Like I say, William doesn’t fill me in on a lot, but it doesn’t work that way for me with other vamps. I jumped out of the convertible and caught sight of motion on the back veranda. Two of the house girls swung languorously on a porch swing, the chains creaking like the shackles of the ghost slaves you can hear some nights out in the swamps.

“I just love the way you get out of that ’Vette, Jackie,” cooed a baby-faced prostitute with fine blond hair. “Why don’t you take me for a ride sometime?”

“I’ll take you for a ride all right, darlin’, but not just now.” I thought her name was Sally, but I wasn’t sure. I winked at her and the other one, who was thumbing through an issue of
People
magazine and trying to look as demure as a high-priced whore can.

I walked in without knocking. I’m not what you’d call a regular, but I must admit, I’ve partaken of these ladies’ wares from time to time. William comes for blood and sex. I just come for the sex, since I don’t have much of a taste for the kind of suffering you inflict when you bite into live human flesh. Even if the victim is willing. Since I’m a mechanic, I’m happy to negotiate services taken out in trade, especially if they’re
really
good services. Not that I
have
to pay for sex, you understand. Last time I saw my reflection, 140 years ago now, I remember a shock of thick black hair and eyes the color of blue gas flame. Black Irish they used to call looks like mine, a product of the Frenchies (probably smugglers and pirates) mixing with Irish blood. I’m not saying I’m good-lookin’, but I usually don’t scare off many women—unless I decide to flash my fangs.

In fact, I have a rep as a womanizer and a heartbreaker. How can I help it? Running an all-night mechanic shop and a wrecker service means a never-ending supply of damsels in distress. Sometimes they can be really,
really
grateful. Not that I’d ever take unfair advantage. Being a vampire means always having to say good-bye.

William’s romances are a mite more complicated. I didn’t want to think about the things William did inside the mansion. I had my suspicions he let ’em think he was one of those kinky goths, the type who likes to pretend he’s a real vampire by playing blood games. Not my scene, but if that’s the way William gets his fang freak on, its none of my business. I did ask him once why he never shipped in female vamps, but he just gave me that ask-me-no-questions-and-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies look and changed the subject.

Maybe, I thought, there
aren’t
any female vampires—a mightily depressing notion.

As I entered the parlor, I found a few of the girls chatting up some flushed and panting businessmen, probably out-of-town conventioneers from some of the big hotels farther down Bay Street. Other patrons had the relaxed look of regulars, right at home at the mahogany bar as they negotiated for services over drinks. The furnishings and fixtures conveyed the appropriate image—money and privilege. A brothel dressed up in the expensive respectability of a gentleman’s club.

A nicely dressed young woman turned away from the tooled leather appointment book she was thumbing through and rose from the antique writing desk just past the foyer. “Jack, how nice to see you again. You don’t get by here nearly enough these days. What kind of party are you interested in this evening?”

I shook her proffered hand. Her slender fingers felt as smooth and soft as a rosebud in my huge, callused paw. Her perfume assaulted my keen vampire senses in a not entirely unpleasant way. It was a shame I was there on urgent business. “I’m not here to party tonight, darlin’. I have to see William. It’s urgent.”

Ashley rolled her eyes upward as if she could see through the ceiling into the boudoirs in the floors above. “I’m afraid you might be interrupting him at an inopportune moment.”

“Let me worry about that.” I started up the stairs and met William on the first landing, a pristine white shirt in his hand as he mopped blood from his chin, neck, and chest with a monogrammed linen handkerchief. He’d picked up my vibe, so to speak, as I had followed his.

“What is it?”

“It’s the ship. Your cargo has disappeared.”

A flicker of annoyance rippled across his smooth features. “The antiques were stolen from the harbor?”

“No. Your latest Euro—I mean,
shipment,
has vanished into thin air along with the entire crew. The
Alabaster
was floating loose up the river near Lazarus Point. Some of your boys found it and tugged it in. It’s a ghost ship, William.” I lowered my voice before continuing. “The coffin’s empty. And no human bodies. You’d better come see this.”

He brushed by me, but not before I saw the murderous look on his face. If a mortal was behind this, he’d soon be nothing more than a dry husk. But I didn’t believe this was the work of a human.

I followed him to the car, matching his long strides as he buttoned his shirt. “A human, or even several, couldn’t have done this, could they? Taken out a whole crew and an old, powerful vamp?” I asked.

“No,” William said as he vaulted into the passenger seat.

“It must have been the import vamp himself. But why would he eat the crew and skip the welcoming party?”

William stared straight ahead with a look like he could spit nails. “I have no idea.”

William was plenty mad, but that was okay as long as he wasn’t mad at me. He was at his best and sharpest when he was mad. “We’ve got a rogue vamp on our hands, don’t we?” The words sent a chill up my spine as soon as I’d said them.

“Stop asking questions and drive.”

William

It was one thing to be robbed, quite another to be rudely interrupted in the middle of an interesting evening. Eleanor and I had just been getting to the truly exciting part of our kill-or-be-killed game, and I would’ve thought Algernon Rampsley—the missing cargo—owned better manners. Ah, but vampires, like humans I suppose, grow selfish over the years.

I myself am more prone to anger than selfishness. I have to work to control the frequent bursts of rage that can nearly blind me. A migraine of the soul, my old human friend Tilly called it. She refused to believe me incurable, however, and over the eighty-five years of our acquaintance had tried out several remedies. Lately she’d charmed me into watching a taped television speech by a so-called Doctor Phillip. He’d lectured on anger management.

I tried to recall how Doctor Phillip proposed I manage my anger. It would have been counterproductive to take it out on Jack or the men who worked for me.
Missing cargo.
I’d find out the true culprit soon enough. If it turned out to be Algernon himself, then he was destined to feel my displeasure. My little import/export business had become more urgent in the last five years, and we needed to do it better and faster. Instead of the devil being in the details, hell waited for each of us in the wings.

My meditation on anger came to a skidding stop as Jack cut off a slower car before maneuvering around Johnson Square at a pace that made the Spanish moss in the live oaks sway. I momentarily longed for my Jag. I’ve never been fond of loud, roaring contraptions. In my opinion, the invention of the automobile was a grave mistake. Give me a sound, warmblooded Thoroughbred any day. But Jack loves his machines.

“If I were mortal, I’d be in fear for my life,” I said.

Jack grinned with a flash of fangs. “What can I say? I love to wake up these old farts sleeping on top of their piles of money.” He downshifted as he ran the red light on Bay Street. I decided to leave off. In the unlikely event he attracted the sleepy local police, that would be his problem. And the sooner we arrived dockside, the sooner I could get out of his vehicle.

Four of the night crew were waiting as we roared through the opening gate of Brampton-Thorne Marina, named circa 1902 in honor of one of my putative ancestors. I must admit that being my own ancestor is a unique way to view history. The term “grandfathered in” has its rewards as well. One of them being prime,
private
riverfront property bought and paid for in the 1700s and beyond the control of the current state authorities. As long as they have no cause to believe anything illegal is afoot, they completely ignore my small, exclusive shipyard. After all, it has been owned by one of the oldest, wealthiest families in the city—that family would be
me
—for more than two hundred years. Longer than any of them has been alive.

I’ve accumulated five houses, two plantations, and several aliases since my arrival in the Savannah area. Moving from one home to the next every forty or fifty years, changing names and affiliations, altering my appearance with the help of a series of housekeepers when warranted. It has gotten easier over the years, due to the increased population and decreased interest in social structure. As always, anyone with sufficient money is welcomed into the inner circles without too many questions.

The nature of my shipping business would be cause for a great deal of alarm if the facts were widely known. I was not eager to face that eventuality.

A cloud of dust, mixed with a muddy whiff of brackish river water, surrounded Jack’s beast of a car as we came to a halt. In human legend vampires only smell blood—tracking the living for food. But our sense of smell, enhanced like so many other formerly human traits, is heightened beyond their imagining. Not only can we inhale actual odors, but we smell other things as well, like emotions and histories. The Savannah River has moved along these banks since before the English arrived, before even the Indians—and the smells have changed accordingly. But the original odor of ancient mud, brackish water, and millions of water creatures living and dead remains.

“This way, sir,” said my foreman of fifteen years, Tarney Graham. He turned toward the dock. Jack clapped one of the other men, Richardson, I believe, on the back and followed.

The
Alabaster,
an eighty-foot top-of-the-line sailing yacht, stood securely tied to the outer dock. The hatches were thrown open but there were no lights on in the cabin. It looked as though the vessel had been abandoned in a hurry. I wondered why Tarney and the crew hadn’t brought it into one of the private slips as usual.

Tarney handed me an industrial-size flashlight. “If you don’t mind, sir . . .” He motioned for me to go first. He was afraid; I could smell it and see it in his eyes. He’d done his job by bringing the ghost ship home. Now it was up to me.

“Jack? With me,” I said. One of the others gave over a light and stood back as we moved across the gangplank onto the ship.

As soon as my foot touched the deck I understood why the men were afraid. The boat had an unnatural feel, a sizzling presence I recognized. For a moment, even I was loath to take another step.

“What the hell is this?” Jack mumbled. He had to feel some part of what I was feeling, but he wouldn’t know the source. For his own good, I wasn’t eager to enlighten him.

There was blood on the forward deck near an open hatch, and there was more near the wheel. But that was nothing compared to the seared fiberglass and blackened ashes of what could only be a vampire lying amidst the anchor chains on the stern platform. The remains of a stake, which had been driven through so hard that part of it had survived the fire, stood embedded in the smooth, scorched surface of the deck. I leaned over and yanked it free.

“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” Jack said under his breath. He’d started life as the son of an Irish Catholic, after all, and had seen a great deal of human bloodshed before he became a vampire. But seeing the remains of one nearly impossible to kill must have been a cruel surprise. Most immortals tended to forget about their peculiar vulnerability. I, on the other hand, played games with mine.