In the Dark Page 3

  Dead. Gone. Lifeless. Not coming back.

  “I’m going to leave now,” he said, and I realized he’d said it before. “I’m going back to the club to look around. Don’t leave. Understand?”

  I gasped and started breathing. Hard. Sebastian watched me, patiently, almost curiously.

  “He might be all right?” I choked out. “He might still be alive, right? Just maybe?”

  Sebastian’s eyes flashed – briefly – then darkened. “I will admit a possibility. I do not know whose heart you found, or if you saw correctly.”

  “I saw a heart!” I snapped. “I know what I saw, and I saw someone’s heart lying in a puddle of blood!”

  He nodded gently. “Unless Kent killed one vampire and then was subdued by a second, he is most likely dead. You said the blood and heart were a vampire’s, and that Kent was taken by a woman. If there is a second vampire, or if you did not see correctly, Kent may still be alive.”

  The logic of that made too much sense. Sebastian waited for me to say something else, popping the door open when I didn’t. Watching me like he expected me to bolt, he got out, shut the door, and left.

  I thought about bolting, except that I felt too stunned to move. And what would I do if I did leave? Call the police? And tell them what? If anyone listened to me at all, I’d get locked away for sure. Go home? I’d just sit in my house, wondering what happened, and never find out. I had nowhere to go, no one to call, no one to tell about this except the boy who’d just left.

  I hunkered down in the seat and hugged myself, shivering and gulping back heavy breaths.

  CLUB

  Sebastian left the girl – Ian – with the Vector and walked back to the Half-Moon. If Kent were dead, he knew he wouldn’t find the killer there. The evidence, however, should still be fresh and mostly untouched. He felt a surge of excitement as he approached the club; it had been decades since he had last pitted himself against a dangerous opponent. Used his skills as a trained hunter. He found, now, that he’d missed it.

  Human police officers had arrived, as expected. It would be near impossible to get inside and examine this puddle Ian had described. No matter. In all probability any blood or organs had turned to dust by now. Sebastian had not thought it prudent to say as much to the girl, but her father must still have been alive for her to find his heart. A few minutes of survival would not change the end result, however.

  Sebastian joined the crowd of mortals that had gathered and craned his neck. Several squad cars had blocked the street in front of the club as well as an ambulance, though Sebastian didn’t see any wounded being loaded onto it. That implied reports of injuries but no injuries found. A vampire normally decomposed immediately upon death – that would account for both those circumstances.

  On a hunch, he slipped away to the alley behind the club. No one noticed his presence in the crowd, no one noticed him leave. At the mouth of the alley he paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, then made his way to the back door of the club. The kitchen and delivery door – where the staff threw out refuse.

  Aha.

  Thrown to one side of a large green dumpster, loosely concealed by a plastic bag, he found it. As he’d thought. The killer had no interest in hauling the victim away, nor did the killer mind if the police discovered a dead vampire behind the club. This was a body, however, where Sebastian had expected a pile of dust. Had he found Kent, then, another vampire, or a mortal? All possibilities certainly existed. Wherever vampires lurked, one tended to find bodies.

  Sebastian knelt beside the body and lifted the bag. White-blond hair tumbled down from the head. Crimson pooled and spilled from a gaping hole in the chest. The blood obscured sight of internal organs, bone, muscle. Vampires held so much blood. Sebastian had met Ian’s father only once before. Even so, he recognized Kent. He did not know why –

  Steel gray eyes flicked toward Sebastian, cloudy, but aware.

  Alive. Interesting.

  “Ian . . .” Kent managed, sputtering. Fresh blood leaked from the hole in his chest. More dripped from his mouth. Perhaps not so aware – his eyes did not move again, or focus. “Find Ian . . .” he barely whispered, then lost his breath in one gasp.

  Unexpectedly, the sight flung Sebastian to another time, another place.

  He heard himself draw in a single breath of his own, echoing, a thunderous sound.

  In less than a second he came back to the alley, that other time lost. Kent had already started to lose form, turning to dust.

  Letting out that single breath, Sebastian watched. “I have,” he told the corpse before it vanished entirely.

  Impressive. Only one other vampire he knew had survived losing his heart, and that had been for much less time than Kent had apparently hung on. Sebastian stood, scattering the dust with a flick of the plastic bag.

  The sound of footsteps warned him of the arrival of the police. He slipped out of the alley in silence before they could discover him there.

  IAN

  I stayed in the action-hero car the whole time Sebastian left me alone. Thinking of Kent smiling, or dancing, or singing, or anything. Turning it over.

  Dead.

  Kent was my family, my dearest friend, my everything. Well, I still saw my real family. I would drop in unannounced for a night occasionally, then vanish again. My mother, my father, my sister . . . I cared about them, but they couldn’t replace Kent. He’d changed me, cared for me, taught me, loved me.

  “Ian.”

  Sebastian got in the car, started it, and pulled into traffic. A light, hopeful feeling rose in my chest. Maybe Sebastian would tell me Kent was okay.

  “I’m sorry, Ian. Kent is gone.” Sebastian didn’t look at me.

  The airy feeling stayed a moment. Giving me hope, filling me with the urge to yell, you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And then it deflated. I already knew. Something deep inside me had already begun mourning.

  “Oh . . .” My chest tightened. I wanted to go home. “Do . . . do the police have him?”

  Sebastian gave me a strange look, face blank, eyes curious. Like he didn’t know why I would ask that.

  “No. The police do no have him.”

  “Then where’s . . .” I didn’t want to finish that sentence. I didn’t even want to think the last words.

  “Vampires return to the earth upon their deaths.” He didn’t look at me. “Kent is gone.”

  My jaw worked a couple of times, like I wanted to talk, except I didn’t. Return to the earth. He meant we decomposed instantly. Kent had mentioned something like that in passing. Dust. Gone. I couldn’t pinpoint why, but learning that there was no . . . body . . . somehow that piece of information upset me even more.

  “I’m going to take you to my home,” Sebastian said. “I am not certain yours will be safe.”

  I wasn’t certain my home was safe either, and I didn’t care. My eyes burned and red tears blurred my vision. Kent was gone. My handsome, funny, talented best friend was gone.

  “He told me to . . . he wanted you to know he loved you.”

  Those words felt like a punch in the throat. I glanced at Sebastian. He watched the road, not looking at me or giving me any clue how he felt. Kent loved me. While in pain, dying, his last thought had been of me. I started to cry.

  I love you, too, Kent. But I can’t have anyone tell you that. I hope you know.

  Sebastian drove, silent, as if I didn’t exist. In a way, I felt like I didn’t. I didn’t notice where he had headed until he stopped.

  We’d pulled into a ritzy neighborhood; tall buildings, expensive cars. He pulled his expensive car into an underground garage, and I heard the door roll shut behind us. He parked in a spot that probably had his name on it and got out. I followed woodenly, not bothering to look around. Sebastian activated the car alarm and led me to an elevator labeled “Penthouse Only.” He hit the call button and the doors slid open. The elevator had better décor than my house. Mirrors, wood paneling, thick red carpet. I sniffed and felt outclassed.


  Sebastian got a key out of his pocket to put in a keyhole beside the buttons. The kid had his own private elevator. I shifted and stared at the LCD numbers above the door, watching them go higher and higher. The elevator opened silently into a plush room. The room had the same rich décor as the elevator, mostly wood, marble and shades of red. For a second I thought the doors had opened into an incredibly elaborate hallway – then realized they’d opened on an entryway that led into his living room. His place took up the entire floor.

  The – apartment? – had class, which struck me as odd for someone so young. Heavy oak chairs upholstered in velvet, an oriental rug on the polished hardwood floor, gilt-framed mirrors, art pieces by Renoir and Matisse. Wide picture windows looked out over the skyline to the mountains and Puget Sound. Through a set of sliding glass doors I could see a balcony so large it held a pool. It reminded me of photos of old gentlemens’ smoking rooms. The only thing I could call modern in the whole place was a small TV. Not a flat-screen and covered in dust.

  It dawned on me to wonder how old Sebastian was. As old as smoking rooms? Or older? He looked around eighteen – but Kent had looked about twenty.

  “You’re welcome to stay until this is resolved. I doubt anyone will find us here.” He swung his long coat off and hung it up beside a rack of decorative knives.

  I stood where I was, silent, arms crossed.

  Sebastian glanced at me, an odd mix of curious and wise. His movements and expressions seemed older – older than what, I didn’t know, because every time I looked at him I saw a teenager.

  “You may sit,” he said, as if I might just be shy.

  I stood. I wanted to cry, or be held, or sit down, or scream, but I couldn’t decide which one and they all seemed like too much effort. Sebastian waited for me to move, then let me stand while he went over to a rack on the wall.

  He didn’t walk, really, so much as float. Not pretentiously, though, like an actor or someone trying to impress. Sebastian didn’t seem to do it on purpose.

  The way he moved set my alarms off, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. I shifted uneasily. I’d trusted him because of his fangs – what did that prove? He drank blood too? Reeeal good reasoning there, Ian.

  While I stood, Sebastian took off a sword I hadn’t noticed before. Probably due to the long coat. He handled the large edged weapon with perfect ease, hanging it reverently on the rack he’d gone to. The nervous feeling crawled up the back of my neck.

  “Who are you?” I asked, even though it was dumb. He could tell me anything he wanted.

  “Sebastian Cain.” He settled into a chair. The way he moved reminded me of Gypsy.

  Gypsy!

  “My cat!” I said out loud.

  He cocked his head at me. “Your what?”

  “My cat, Gypsy. She’s still at home. Will she be all right? I mean, no one would try to hurt a cat, right? But she’s all alone, and you said the house might not be safe . . . I really should go get her.”

  He gave me a funny look. Like he was trying to imagine the inside of my head.

  “My cat!” I said again.

  He resettled in his chair. “Your cat, I am sure, will survive one day without you. And no, I don’t think anyone would try to hurt it.”

  “Her,” I said. “Are you sure? Really?”

  His lip twitched when I corrected him, blue eyes blazing with humor more than his face showed. Actually, his face didn’t move much at all. “I am certain she will be fine. She is only a pet, after all, and perhaps important to you, but not to anyone else.”

  I bristled. Maybe some people treated their pets like objects, but Gypsy meant as much to me as Kent. But I couldn’t think of a reply to give to Sebastian, and in this case, it wouldn’t hurt if she seemed unimportant.

  “I guess if you’re sure.”

  “I am.” He gestured to a chair. “Sit. You are the only witness I have to this crime and I must question you.”

  “What are you, a vamp-cop?”

  He smiled with his eyes again, which made me uncomfortable. His whole face stayed rock still – except for those eyes.

  “No. I am willing to look into this for you, if you would like. I find it interesting, and I believe I can offer more skills than you have.” He gestured to the chair across from him. “Please.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes again. I’d nearly forgotten why I came here. Now I remembered.

  “Ian?” Sebastian prompted when I just stood and cried.

  I dropped into the chair, arms wrapped so tight around myself that my shoulders ached. I cried. I wailed until my lungs and throat burned, crying so hard my eyes got sore. My mind ran in little circles, only adding to the pain – Kent’s gone, Kent’s gone . . .

  It didn’t go on forever. I cried and cried and thought maybe I wouldn’t ever stop, but of course I did. It took maybe an hour. Not exactly forever.

  Sebastian sat across from me through all of it, fingers steepled, waiting. I stayed curled up in the chair, arms wrapped around my knees. We sat like that, watching each other.

  “So,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”

  I rubbed my blood-reddened eyes. Where to start? With what I knew about Kent? With what had happened tonight? Who I saw?

  A shudder ran through me. I almost started crying again.

  “Why would anyone do this?” Even as I said it, I knew I sounded ridiculous. Only the killer knew that.

  Sebastian shrugged. “Did he have any enemies that you knew of? Did he ever talk of living somewhere else, perhaps under another name, or anything he did before he knew you?”

  My instant response was “No.” Kent didn’t talk much about his past. I didn’t say that. Instead I focused on thinking back, what Kent had told me about himself. I choked on a sudden memory, gulping at a lump too hard to swallow.

  “So what are you doing in Seattle?” Kent asked, leaning forward over his cup of coffee. He kept his voice low to keep from interrupting the poet on stage now. His manners impressed me.

  “Going to school,” I said, turning my own mug between my hands. “And getting over a broken heart.” I added it reluctantly. Couldn’t help but reach up to touch my new and still-tender nose ring. My declaration to myself that I had become someone else.

  He aimed a finger at me. “I thought so. Let me guess – high school sweetheart didn’t know what he had? Took off on you for another girl, am I right?”

  A bitter smile touched my lips. “Close. She couldn’t take being called a dyke and left me for a boy.”

  “Oh, girl.” He frowned gently.“Oh, that’s rough. Hey, I’m sorry for bringing up a sore subject.”

  I waved him off, tears coming to my eyes. It had been almost a year, I hadn’t thought I’d cry.

  He laughed a bitter laugh of his own. “My first boyfriend didn’t understand why I didn’t want him chasing girls on the side,” he said, distracting me from my own tears. “I mean, I understood at first, honeymoon period and all, but there comes a point where you don’t take their shit anymore, you know?” He laughed again, his own eyes glistening faintly. “So, did your ice-princess have a name?”

  That had been the night I met him, at a poetry reading at Crawl Café. I’d been in Seattle for a month, and Kent was my first friend here. I’d told him all about Delana. When I’d asked him about his boyfriend, he put it off and said it happened a long time ago, encouraging me to talk instead. At the time, I didn’t know how long ago he meant.

  “Sometimes,” I answered Sebastian, wiping my eyes. “He always listened better than he talked. He mostly talked about funny things, or stuff I could relate to. I don’t think he could have pissed anyone off.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Old?” The change of subject threw me. “How old are you?”

  He smiled – a real smile, on his lips this time – and didn’t answer.

  “Twenty-three.” I shifted to sit on my hands.

  “How long have you been a vampire?”

  “�
�Bout four years,” I said. “Roughly.”

  “And Kent related his entire life to you in those four years. How old was he?”

  I didn’t answer. I got the point.

  “He was sad, sometimes,” I said, mostly to myself. Like that face in my studio earlier tonight. That happened a lot with him.

  “Why?” Sebastian asked it as I thought it.

  I didn’t have an answer for either of us. “He never wanted to talk about it. Said he’d just seen a lot and sometimes it got to him to be so old.”

  Humor flashed in Sebastian’s eyes a moment and was gone.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I know how he felt.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he probably had troubles he did not wish to share with you.”

  “So you think he kept secrets from me.” I bit my lip. I thought so too. Just not like this.

  Sebastian’s face didn’t change. “I think you cannot tell me who this might be.”

  My heart sank. “So you can’t help me?”

  “I can. You’re still a witness. You can still point me in the right direction.” He sat back a bit, away from me. I didn’t notice I had tensed up until he moved away from me and I relaxed.

  “So you want a description?”

  “That would be an appropriate beginning, yes.”

  “I saw a woman,” I said. “Right before I found the puddle. She had silver eyes, and long blond hair. My height, I think, kinda skinny.” The picture in my head made me shiver. I could still see her – and that poisonous grin.

  “That doesn’t give me much. You saw her, though?”

  I nodded.

  “How well did you see her? Would you recognize her if you saw her again?”

  “I’d know her in a heartbeat.”

  Sebastian did that smiling-without-smiling thing again, where his eyes just glinted.

  “That might be a problem, as we have no heartbeats,” he told me, voice flat. I thought he meant it as a joke. I didn’t laugh.

  “Thank you,” he said, and stood.

  “That’s it?”

  His eyebrows flicked up in a kind of nod. “As I said, it would be safest for you to remain here for the time being. Whoever killed Kent may come after you. Perhaps not, but I would not take that chance.”