“Well, no,” she admitted.

  “You won’t find any poor Pendragons, nor will you find any without a thoroughly vetted pedigree,” Stefano sniffed. “You think they care about humans? They care about how humans can serve their interests. You are more than food, you’re toys to them.”

  “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “So is this about money?”

  “This is about the simple truth that no matter what is said or done, the Jaegers are the killers, and the Pendragons are the heroes. I’ll tell you something, sweetheart; those heroes are the ones that spin the tales. They’re the only family with a millennia-old public relations team, that’s for damn sure.”

  “I assume you mean Mina.”

  Stefano nodded. “She was personally selected by Lorcan for her unique abilities. She likes to influence storytellers, writers, religious and political leaders, but above all, she weaves her way

  into the media of every age—making certain that every generation knows exactly how great and wonderful certain vampires can be.”

  “You want me to believe that, um, King Arthur and the Round Table is a PR stunt?” Georgia asked.

  “King Arthur is a human legend that comes back over and over

  —”

  “Because it’s a universal theme!”

  “Because they want you to associate them with absolute good.”

  “So it’s all a plot,” Georgia laughed. “All those stories were really made up by vampires?”

  “Not all of them, no, but Mina is a master manipulator. She knows how to plant a seed of inspiration in just the right place, and like a weed it grows and grows. There are no limits to a prodded human imagination, and all she has to do from time to time is light the spark,” he grumbled.

  “Now I see where Ren gets his amazing ability to mix metaphors,” Georgia muttered. “So this is what bothers you? Geoff’s mom?”

  “It’s not just that. I can see the way you look at my family, and I can see the culmination of thousands of years of manipulation.

  Maybe we’re just too honest. We never try to claim that we’re human.”

  “So you don’t remember being alive at all?” Georgia asked.

  “That’s a ridiculous concept. I’m Stefano DeMarco of the Jaeger clan. That is all that matters.”

  “So tell me this, when a vampire is born, is it like some helpless thing? Is it like an infant?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know how to speak and walk around and hunt humans?”

  “There are certain echoes,” he said. He buried his head in his palm. “But it’s not like we are that same human at all.”

  Georgia sat back and watched the vampire as his face grew more and more red. She gave him a minute to recover before setting a hand gingerly on his shoulder. “You kinda agree with the Pendragons, don’t you?” she asked softly.

  “I asked the same questions you did when I was younger,” he confessed. “I defended the Pendragon clan to my family time and time again. I mean, I was supposed to be an ambassador to the progressive families, right? I thought, as I suspect you still do, that they were somehow better than us and Geoffrey was my friend.”

  “I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming,” Georgia said.

  “When I needed my friend, he just abandoned me without saying a word. He shut down and stopped talking to me, and to Minerva. We suddenly weren’t good enough for him to come to us, and let’s just say, I could see Mina’s influence in a few too many places.”

  “So you’re mad because he left you at a bad time. Did you ever try to talk to him?”

  “He was sick, I know that, but for decades he refused to see me. It was only last year when he decided to talk to me again, and he just acts as if nothing happened.”

  “Well, maybe you should talk to him,” she said, starting to rub his shoulder. “Just try it?”

  “There is a lot of history between us, Georgia,” Stefano sighed.

  “Well, you’re vampires. I think that goes with the territory.”

  Stefano eased farther back, forming an awkward bridge over the marble stairs. He stared at the skylight above and blew a wayward curl out of his eyes. Georgia watched how the softer lights played with his face; the mix of darker skin and awkwardly European features didn’t conjure up the stereotypical image of the angular, ghastly, exotic vampire. As he shimmied and adjusted into place, she couldn’t help but smile.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked, pointing to the huge window over the stairs.

  “These are the servants’ stairs. The original owner was very close to her humans and wanted to give them one area of refuge,”

  he said. “There was one older lady, Miss Darla, whose room was just off these stairs on the top floor. The entire ceiling in there was glass, with a little ladder that could get you to the roof. Eh, it was never really my problem. She always hated it when I came by.”

  “You really don’t burn in the sun?” she asked.

  “Burn? No. Some of the older vampires practically combust with a second of sunlight, but most of us just break out terribly. I, on the other hand, can wear a little sunscreen and a hat and last for hours.

  It does get itchy after a while, though.”

  “So what makes you different?”

  “I’ve always been different, sweetheart, but it’s part of the Jaeger test, the test to make sure you’re really a pureblood and not some upstart. Every one of us when we die is put through a trial. We get dumped in the middle of nowhere at dawn and have to survive until sundown. Claudia kicked me out of a tower into the middle of a burned-out battlefield. There was no real cover for a kilometer in any direction, and all the remaining trees had lost their leaves. Back then we didn’t have all these wonderful creams and spray sunscreens. I had to claw my way out of there and get to shelter by midday. She had also dressed me up as an enemy soldier, so not only was I trying not to die from the sun, but there were bullets involved.”

  “Well, you seemed to get through it.”

  “That I did. Claudia is not fond of many humans, but she always had a soft spot for Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and his beliefs. I think he’s the one who said, ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,’

  or was that Conan the Barbarian?”

  Georgia started to giggle. “So, are you going to talk to Mr.

  Lambley?” she asked.

  “I really can’t get away from you, can I? You just always cycle back around—”

  “It’s part of my infuriating charm,” she teased.

  Stefano curled up to his feet and yanked Georgia up as well.

  “Come on and see what I’ve done with the place,” he said as he started up the stairs. “After all, that is why I brought you here.”

  He led her up to a freshly painted door at the very top of the stairs. Across the way, Georgia couldn’t help but notice a very different door—one still marked with claw marks from corner to corner and a jamb that had obviously been repaired.

  “Welcome to my humble home away from home,” he said as the door swung open to reveal a cavernous space with exposed brick and sleek leather furniture.

  “This looks like something out of the movies,” she said as she took a few tentative steps inside. “Normally I’d ask how you could afford something like this in Boston, but I’ve talked to Ren too much.”

  “The Matsuoka family has done rather well for us,” Stefano said.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he said as he pointed to the delightfully old-fashioned wooden bar in the corner. “Or if you prefer, there is a hot tub and a pool on the terrace.”

  “I didn’t bring a swimsuit, sorry.”

  “Well, that’s certainly not a problem in my book,” he said with a little snicker.

  Georgia just rolled her eyes and continued to survey the loft.

  One entire wall was filled with old posters with everything from Gone with the Wind to Star Wars. “You actually have a Revenge of the Jedi poster?” she asked as she made it to the end of the display.

  “Ren said it was super-rare. It was something he picked up last time he went home,” Stefano said as he walked over, drinks in hand.

  He then pointed to a rather tattered and faded black and white image of Humphrey Bogart mounted in a frame. “It’s a still from the Maltese Falcon,” he said. “I got him to sign it. That was one of the greatest nights of my unlife, but he will never remember it.”

  “Do I want to know what you did to Humphrey Bogart?” she asked warily.

  Stefano smiled slyly and handed her a lovely tea-colored beverage. “Oh, it was magic,” he purred. “We went back to his mansion, played some chess, and I won’t get into any of the particulars about what darling Lauren may have said or done to me

  . . .” He trailed off as Georgia crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised a brow. Finally he tipped his glass and gave a little wink.

  “I got the signature, spat in his whiskey sour, and he never so much as thought of me again,” the vampire confessed.

  Georgia eyed her drink suspiciously.

  “No! I wouldn’t do that to you, not that it would work anyway,” he reassured her.

  She started pacing back and forth among the memorabilia.

  “Wow, Steve McQueen, Cary Grant, Harrison Ford—” she said as she saw scribbled line after scribbled line.

  “It’s easy to be a vampire in Hollywood,” Stefano said. “They see so many people and keep such weird hours that it’s simple enough to slip in, get a signature, and never be given a second thought, even if you don’t have superpowers. I like to go there from time to time just for a few nights.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got a million stories,” she said, still taking in the scene. She finally settled on one of the sofas in front of a very large television and a dizzying array of technology tucked into recycled wooden crates. A bucket full of remotes and controllers was tucked into the coffee table in front of her. “I never thought of a vampire playing video games,” she said as she pulled one out.

  “Ren is the gamer usually,” Stefano confessed. “But I sometimes like something to do on a bright sunny day.”

  “It really shouldn’t surprise me after seeing what Mr. Lambley did with my phone,” she muttered.

  “I get angry at the new ones. The stupid motion sensors won’t work with one of my kind,” he complained. “It’s like all these hands-free faucets and the damn door at the corner store!”

  “I never thought about that,” she said as he settled down next to her. “You can’t even get into the supermarket?”

  “The old one had a pressure pad, but the new one downtown uses an optic sensor. I always end up having to dart in after someone,” he said. “I somehow think that this is humanity’s way of getting back at us.”

  “It does only seem fair,” Georgia said. “You eat us. We make it so you can’t get into a mall on a slow day.”

  “Totally unfair,” he laughed as he started leaning a wee bit closer.

  Georgia responded by hopping back to her feet and prancing over to the section of the loft dedicated to the stereo and a vast collection of vinyl, CDs, and an entire shelf of cassette tapes labeled with all sorts of mix volumes . “Wow,” she said as she pulled out one called Songs to Suck By ( that do not suck). “I have got to know,” she said as she tossed it on the couch next to him.

  “I like the physical process of recording a tape,” he said. “I know it’s easier to use a computer, but there was just something special

  about sitting there and pressing stop and start and listening to the songs as you stitched them together.”

  “I want to know what songs you like to listen to when you bite some girl’s neck. Call it morbid curiosity.”

  He just smiled and took the tape to a shiny silver tape deck.

  “First off,” he said as he popped it in the machine and fiddled with some dials, “who ever said I feed like that?”

  He beckoned her toward him with a gentle flick of the wrist as the speakers crackled and popped to life. She approached him cautiously, looking to the side as she tried to figure out just what golden oldie was about to start. “Aerosmith?” she asked as a guitar started low and slow.

  “Very good,” he said, pulling her close. “Local boys.”

  She pulled back.

  “Trust me,” he said, raising her hand to his lips. “You’re in my home. I invited you in, and you’re under my care. You’re a guest, not a meal.”

  “You like to eat with classic rock in the background?”

  “A little electric guitar is good for the digestion,” he said as he pulled her in again. This time she dared to rest her head on his chest as he swayed back and forth. “See? I know what you see in the movies, but we don’t plunge our fangs into pretty young things’

  necks,” he said as he slid his hand slowly down her bare arm.

  She listened to the music blending into the distinctive rushing sound of the blood swirling through his chest. As his cold fingers swept down to her wrist, she shuddered.

  “It’s so much easier,” he said softly as he once more lifted her hand up to his lips. This time he turned her hand, and she could suddenly feel the very tips of his teeth dragging their way agonizingly slowly across the papery-thin skin separating her veins from his hungry fangs.

  “Dream on,” she snapped as she yanked her arm back. “Sorry, but that doesn’t turn me on at all.”

  “Oh really?” he said as he looked at her flushed cheeks and shallow breathing. He swooped back in again.

  “Really,” she said, pushing him right back. “There is nothing sexy about being a Big Mac.”

  “That is not what you are to me, I swear!”

  Georgia took a deep breath and collected herself. “Look, I am not one of those girls who swooned over Dracula—”

  “Well. I can’t blame you, he’s a lowlife Transylvanian piece of trash. You saw him,” Stefano interrupted.

  “Wait,” Georgia said as the realization crept over his face. “Oh, that’s where I heard Tepes before. Somehow I thought a guy known as Vlad the Impaler would be more mean-looking, but that is beside the point. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve never been into the whole romantic, vampire . . . thing. I know what you are. You’re a collection of super-duper bacteria wearing a human suit, and that’s not what I’m into. I’m not ever going to be any more than your friend, no matter how cute your particular human suit happens to be.”

  “So you think I’m cute?” he asked with a devilish grin.

  “You have an accent sometimes. Is English not your first language?” she asked. “I am not going to lead you on. I’m just not into you that way.”

  “You think I’m a monster then?” he asked, his eyes growing darker by the second.

  “I think you’re a vampire.”

  “I see.”

  She watched him slump back to the couch and gnaw on his lip.

  As his face grew more and more pensive and his eyes more and more glazed, she finally took a seat a respectable distance from him.

  “You are very confusing, Mr. DeMarco,” she sighed. “You’re not human, so why are you even interested in one if I’m not on the menu? The truth, please.”

  “The truth?” he asked.

  “Should be a pretty straightforward concept,” she sighed.

  “You know the truth, don’t you?” he said. “You just see through everything, and it’s ridiculously frustrating!”

  “Well, it doesn’t really help if I just tell you what I already think I know, does it?” she asked as she once more hopped to her feet. He quickly followed suit.

  “Fine!” he snapped. “The truth is—the truth is—”

  Georgia started for the door. In the blink of an eye, the superhumanly fast Stefano stepped in front of her.

  “That’s creepy,” she said as she jumped back.

  “The truth goes back to the same stupid argument that started this all—the one from the party.”

  Georgia waited for him to continue.

  “When a vampire is born, the human dies, and we are supposed to have no more in common with them than a human would have with a—with a—with a cartoon character! We might look alike and sound alike, but that’s all just an illusion. That’s the conservative view, and that’s what I’ve been taught ever since I was created. The progressive families, they see things completely differently. They do think that we’re an infection, a disease that attacks humans and transforms them into different creatures, and that your kind and my kind are inexorably connected until the end of time.”

  “You mean Geoffrey and his family.”

  “A few families, yes. The Pendragons are just the most powerful of them. This is kind of a big fight. It’s our version of the Cold War.

  Quite honestly, if both our families weren’t at war with the Lungs, I think we’d be killing each other. It got so close a century ago that the Jaeger had to . . . Well, Geoffrey and I were supposed to be friends, to show that we could get along. It’s complicated, but believe me, my family hoped that Minerva and I could win over just one of those bastards to our cause, but wouldn’t you know it . . .”

  He slumped against the jamb, letting his now-unkempt hair flop over one eye. He looked up with hangdog puppy eyes. “Come with me,” he said. “Please?”

  Georgia nodded and let him lead her back down to the blue room, where they found Mr. Lambley cheerfully slurping the remains of a frothy pink and brown shake while Ren was unpacking board games from one of the cupboards. “Oh Stefano!” the ginger-haired vampire cried. “We were just about to break out the Parcheesi!”

  “Geoffrey, I was furious at you,” Stefano spat out. “I couldn’t understand why you just vanished for years and got worse and

  worse no matter how much Minerva or I wanted to help you. I sent you the invitation to the Solstice Ball in the hopes of humiliating you, because I was humiliated when you didn’t show up for the Jaeger one in 1990. I heard from Ren that you had this human who seemed to be fixing you up and bringing you out of your shell, and I was furious that some little girl could make you better when you had turned your back on your own kind.”

  Geoffrey put down his glass and stared dumbfounded as Stefano continued, “Oh, and then I saw you and I saw her and I saw how much better you looked, and I was determined even then to get back at you and steal her away. After all, how special could one human be? What could possibly be better about her? I wooed her and danced with her and tried to impress her, and in the end . . . in the end . . . Damn it all to hell!”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39