Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (27 page)

“Nope, this is too much,” I reported, wincing.

“All right, stop, stop, stop.” He put his hands on my hips. “Move to ardha matsyendrasana. Is this better?” He didn't wait for my answer; his hands were on my body and he knew exactly how I felt. “Breathe. Twist on exhale. Lift your ribcage. Gently, love, gently.”

We moved together with his hands rubbing my muscles until I could do no more without hurting. He patted my knee to wordlessly release me from exercising. I went into rest pose and his feet touched my shoulders, softly pressing down. His fingers slid under my neck and pulled along under my ears in gentle waves. Once I was relaxed, he moved onto his own more strenuous routine. I didn't have to wonder if he was as hard as he looked. Harry's workout regimen kept him strong and flexible.

I spent the next ten minutes on my back watching him work out: proud warrior, tree pose, downward dog, sun salutations, he made it all look easy. When he started inversions and forearm stands, I grinned at him.

“Show-off.”

“If I wanted to blow my own horn, love, I would be doing this in the nude.”

“Thanks. I'll never get that image out of my head,” I grumbled, moving to the couch.

“At long last, I have you all to myself,” Harry said with a contented growl, sliding behind me on the couch. “Are you quite sure you are well enough for a feed? I would still be willing to wait a few more days.”

I stiffened, not wanting to confront his deception about Gary but not sure I could keep my tongue from betraying me. Lies lay in my gut like spoiled tuna salad. He tried to pull me closer and I tensed.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” he breathed. “I have upset you. What have I done wrong?”

“No, nothing.”

“Did we overdo the yoga?”

“No, I'm fine.” I forced myself to relax against him, the cool curve of his body familiar. “It's time for your feed.”

“You are uneasy, pet, restless. One should think it is the ideal time for us to unwind together.” His crisp and refined English tongue lilted with confusion as he continued his line of reasoning. “Everyone has left us. The special delivery has been taken away. You have charged the warden vine at the gate to warn us of any intrusion. Agent Chapel has left me one of his guns for self-defense.”

“He did what?”

“His Springfield XD tactical.”

Chapel's favorite sidearm. I guess my little Beretta mini wasn't manly enough for Harry.

“Soon enough, your agents will return. They've been splendid watchdogs.”

“I bet they have.” I didn't intend for it to come out sounding so bitter.

“We're perfectly safe,” he insisted.

I agreed. “Any time now the knot in my stomach will unclench.”

Harry wrestled something from behind a pillow. “What do you make of these fanciful things, my pet? I bought them for a future occasion but since you cannot find your others, I thought it best not to wait.”

A new pair of gloves appeared from behind a couch cushion, soft as a calf's ear, in a light tan color. They had tiny, cheerful green frogs embroidered around the cuff. I couldn't not brighten.

“Where in the world did you find these?”

He beamed, pleased at my reaction. “I think you'll find that if one spends enough money on Savile Row and Jermyn Street, one can find an accommodating tailor who will make anything. And I've been through generations of bespoke tailors and haberdashers.”

Knowing the extensive size of his wardrobe (his closet used to be a cold cellar and was three times as big as mine) I wondered how much money he'd spent on upscale clothing in four hundred years; stylish neckties from Hermes and white linen cravats in the style of Beau Brummell; cashmere scarves and seven-fold silk neckties, the “non plus ultra” of tie-making; hound's-tooth jackets, coats of herringbone and cheviot worsted wool; monk strap buckled shoes and welted Oxfords made by Foster & Son; Devonshire bowlers, pork-pie and top hats from Christies and Lock & Co Hatters. When his Oliver Brown Royal Ascot Tall topper was damaged, he mourned it for a week. He was currently waiting, not at all patiently, for a delivery of two dozen shirts from Turnbull & Asser custom-fitted on his last trip to England. I couldn't begin to imagine the cost. Even when he'd purchased the yoga pants he was wearing, he had ferreted out what company made the very best ones.

“Oh Harry, thank you. They're nifty, I love them.”

“You are most welcome, of course.”

He threw his arm along the back of the couch. I felt his pulse speed up to match mine, felt the slow evenness of his breath against the back of my head. He required neither a pulse nor breath; both were affectations to put humans at ease. They worked. If I ignored the coolness of him, I could almost pretend he was still a man, that he wasn't the elegant reanimated dead.

He was hungry, but he'd wait until I was ready, until I was comfortable. It was our routine. Harry did not like his feed to be rushed; he always said that anticipation was, in itself, a sensory delight to be savored, and would spend a good half hour just smelling my neck if I let him. Tonight I wished he'd just get it over with. I felt hurried by the anticipation of Batten or Chapel returning while we weren't quite finished. Feeding Harry wasn't exactly a clandestine affair, but I didn't want an audience. Being watched was an intrusion. Now that I thought about it, I didn't want Harry not to feed. I wanted Batten and Chapel not to come back.

I must have been having a serious hate-on for humanity because Harry misread my feelings and said low, “I'll hunt her down and break her if you want me to.”

I almost didn't hear it. He went very still, and I knew he was serious. “I shall scent her down like a bloodhound, and when I find her, I shall put my thumbs in her and tear her open like a bag of onions.”

What do you say to something like that? Thank you very much? It's not necessary this time, but I'll take a rain check?

“Not what you wanted to hear,” he said, more a comment than a question. While he pulled the fuzzy blanket off the back of the couch to lay it across my lap, he forgot to breathe, and the steady false beat of his heart faltered. “I do wish you would let me handle this.”

“You've got my back, I get it,” I acknowledged. I figured it was the safest thing to say. “But I don't want—”

“Slaughter and carnage. I can promise you, there wouldn't be anything left of her to get us into trouble.”

“Harry, I can't listen to this,” I warned him. “I'm not worried about getting myself into trouble. You can't risk it. Your hands must be a hundred percent clean. You don't think Batten's chomping at the bit to watch you fuck up? He'd be the first one in line with a stake.”

“No doubt,” Harry said with a chuckle.

“And it's not what I meant to feel, anyway. I just don't want anyone but us to be here right now.”

He ran his fingers through my hair fondly. “Why's that, love?”

Thinking of Chapel, I said, “Guess I just want you all to myself.”

There was little difference to Harry between “make people go away” and “make people go away forever”. As soon as it came, that underlying menace inherent in the revenant dissipated, and he was back to being just Harry, fake-breathing and fake-pulsing behind me. He might have dropped it for now, but I knew the idea was still squatting in his mind like a poisonous toad. The consummate predator, he'd fixated on his prey and would not likely forget it. And he didn't give two shits about the law, necessarily. Only the concern for the final destination of his soul, that lingering hope that he might redeem himself, kept him from stalking her right this minute, I imagined.

“Harry, it's time for your feed,” I reminded. So much stalling. Did he think I was still too weak, or was he more interested in his new… I stopped myself before even thinking the word bleeder.

“What do they call this haircut, again?” he murmured. “A fairy?”

“A pixie cut.” Our hairdresser, Clarice, had done the best she could, considering she'd made a house call to the hospital. God bless small town folk. I'd taken to avoiding the mirror in my room, and in a way I'd been robbed of my true reflection just like a revenant. How long had it been since Harry had been able to see his human face in the glass, to see what we saw when we looked at him? I wondered what it was he really did see; I knew it wasn't nothing. It was probably best that the candid reflection did not appear to the human eye in mirrors or film.

“No, go back go back,” he urged, pointing at the TV. I thumbed down on the remote and saw a scene I didn't recognize in an old black and white movie. “Dracula, Bela Lugosi, 1931. It just started.”

“Ok, ok. We'll watch it again,” I sighed, but in truth it had been years.

“Fancy some popcorn, my pet?” he offered.

I made a negative noise. “I'm too tired to eat.” Something I knew he was never too tired to do. As if reading my mind, he brushed his cool lips against my cheek, and a forelock of his hair teased my temple. He rested his chin on my shoulder from behind me. Hunger quivered through him but he said nothing about it.

“So?” I prodded.

“So what?”

“What do you think of the pixie haircut?”

“If I ever get my hands on the butcher that did it, I'll show her why they call them boning sheers.” I shivered and Harry chuckled, his mouth close to my ear. “Too much?”

“Boning shears. Uber-blech.”

“Since when are you squeamish?” he said with genuine astonishment.

“Since the surgeon told me they had to put staples in my gut wound and I got a vivid mental image of my insides closed up by little metal claws. I repeat: blech.”

“Whatever shall we do with all our CSI DVDs? And Bones. Oh, farewell to Dexter,” he teased. “Think I could get a fair price for them on EBay?”

“Gimme some time. I'll get over it,” I said, shifting until I was contentedly surrounded by the width of him, crooked up into a nook in his arms.

His chin sank questioningly to my neck and I put my hand on the back of his, our go-ahead signal. He barely whispered, “Only if you are certain, my Own?”

I patted his hand there, where his knuckles rose in soft, gentle peaks, traced the delicate lines of his strong wrist. I heard the slightest wet snick as his fangs extended.

When he pierced my skin, there was no Hollywood movie prop sound, no Foley-artist-puncturing-watermelon-with-spike noise. There was no sound now at all, nor pain. Harry slid gradually in, worked his way tenderly, sensitive of his pressure like a gentleman making love to his new bride. When that first flood of warm blood hit Harry's tongue, he sighed and I sank further into his embrace. His arms trembled and tightened, not out of fear that I'd try to leave but in unutterable ecstasy. He drank deep, and I felt him becoming rapidly dizzy from the heady, exhilarating torrent of hot life into his veins.

“The Bond's not entirely kaput,” I said softly. “I can still feel your hunger.”

But I hadn't guessed how famished he still was. Sure, he'd lied about the blood in the freezer, but even still, he'd had almost nothing for nearly a week now, except a covert feed from Chapel and a sip or two from Shield. And clearly that wasn't enough.

“O-negative my ass,” I said, grabbing the remote from my lap. I turned up the volume. “There wasn't any blood in the boathouse. You're busted, mister.”

Harry's response was a low moan against my skin. I felt the eager suckling and wondered how he'd managed to fool me. I'd felt his suspicious warmth, but how I had missed the signs of deprivation? I eyeballed him over my shoulder. The shadows under his eyes were quickly fading; I hadn't seen them before now. Close up, I could see beige smudges on his flesh.

“Are you wearing my make up?” I asked, incredulous.

“I did not wish to worry you, love,” he murmured, coming up for a breath before sinking in for another long drink. This new breath was real and necessary, not an affectation. As my blood flushed
through the veins supplying his lungs, they renewed with vigor and energy, responding to autonomic nervous impulses. For the remainder of his feed, Harry's lungs would, like a newborn's, rattle with fresh life. Oxygen would be rushed back through the gastrosanguinem, producing massive excretions of telomerase and a heady dose of dizzying euphoria.

“Did they know you were starving?” I asked, meaning Batten and mostly Chapel.

Harry chuckled with his mouth muffled by throat flesh, and I knew he found the term starving ridiculous.

“No, of course they didn't,” I answered myself. “Batten in particular wouldn't give it a second thought.” I considered asking flat-out about Chapel then let it go. Maybe it was a one-time thing and I should stop being… was I jealous?

Harry's body temperature warmed where our bodies touched. I patted his hand affectionately. The flesh there had flushed pink. For the next few hours, he'd pass well for human, with the exception of that nameless otherness that marked the undead as exceptional. Finally, I felt his erection stiffen against my lower back. Not anything to be flattered about, just a natural reaction to such a deep feed. It had taken me literally years to get over the hardening manhood after every big feed. Now it was just a sign that he was nearly full. If a revenant could ever be truly full. Highly debatable.

He pulled out as gently as he had entered me. Like a cat cleaning its kitten, he lovingly licked the wound in quick, flickering lashes and then lingered for a while, amusing himself with the tiny pricks. His chilly tongue had flushed hot with life. I closed my eyes while, onscreen, Dracula shied away from Van Helsing's exposed cross.

“Our guests have returned,” he said against the skin at the nape of my neck. “Will my fresh marks upon you bother them much?”

Thinking of Chapel, I murmured, “Frankly, my dear Harry, I don't give a rat's ass.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I was hoping a night in my own bed would bring deep and blissful sleep, but I was foiled again.

Watching Batten pace and Chapel write on his portable white board late into the night had given me a form of exhaustion I didn't have words for, one that did not induce sleep. My brain was trying to tell me something, like I had a nugget of truth buried in the mudslide that was my mental state. Skimming through all the notebooks in my office and bedroom only revealed a sub-clinical compulsion to make notes that meant nothing to anyone but me, sometimes not even to me. What did “that's the promise” mean? I had scrawled it, possibly while under a heavy drug haze, in the hospital.