[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

living dead, yippee.
I can take silence as good as the next guy, better than most women and a lot of men. Now, I needed to
fill the silence. Talk just for the noise. A waste of energy, but I needed it.
"Are you in there, Jean-Claude?"
His neck turned, bringing his head with it. His eyes glittered, reflecting the neon signs like dark glass.
Shit.
"You can play human, Jean-Claude, better than almost any vampire I've ever met. What's all this
supernatural crap?"
"Crap?" he said, voice soft.
"Yeah, why are you going all spooky on me?"
"Spooky?" he asked, and the sound filled the car. As if the word meant something else entirely.
"Stop that," I said.
"Stop what?"
"Answering every question with a question."
He blinked once. "So sorry,ma petite , but I can feel the street."
"Feel the street? What does that mean?"
He settled back against the upholstery, leaning his head and neck into the seat. His hand clasped over his
stomach. "There is a great deal of life here."
"Life?" He had me doing it now.
"Yes," he said, "I can feel them running back and forth. Little creatures, desperately seeking love, pain,
acceptance, greed. A lot of greed here, too, but mostly pain and love."
"You don't come to a prostitute for love. You come for sex."
He rolled his head so his dark eyes stared at me. "Many people confuse the two."
I stared at the road. The hairs at the back of my neck were standing at attention. "You haven't fed yet
tonight, have you?"
Page 150
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"You are the vampire expert. Can you not tell?" His voice had dropped to almost a whisper. Hoarse and
thick.
"You know I can never tell with you."
"A compliment to my powers, I'm sure."
"I did not bring you down here to hunt," I said. My voice sounded firm, a tad loud. My heart was loud
inside my head.
"Would you forbid me to hunt tonight?" he asked.
I thought about that one for a minute or two. We were going to have to turn around and make another
pass to find a parking space. Would I forbid him to hunt tonight? Yes. He knew the answer. This was a
trick question. Trouble was I couldn't see the trick.
"I would ask that you not hunt here tonight," I said.
"Give me a reason, Anita."
He had called me Anita without me prompting him. He was definitely after something. "Because I
brought you down here. You wouldn't have hunted here, if it hadn't been for me."
"You feel guilt for whomever I might feed on tonight?"
"It is illegal to take unwilling human victims," I said.
"So it is."
"The penalty for doing so is death," I said.
"By your hand."
"If you do it in this state, yes."
"They are just whores, pimps, cheating men. What do they matter to you, Anita?"
I don't think he had ever called me Anita twice in a row. It was a bad sign. A car pulled away not a
block from The Grey Cat Club. What luck. I slid my Nova into the slot. Parallel parking is not my best
thing, but luckily the car that pulled away was twice the size of my car. There was plenty of room to
maneuver, back and forth from the curb.
When the car was lurched nearly onto the curb but safely out of traffic, I cut the engine. Jean-Claude lay
back in his seat, staring at me. "I asked you a question,ma petite , what do these people mean to you?"
I undid my seat belt and turned to look at him. Some trick of light and shadow had put most of his body
in darkness. A band of nearly gold light lay across his face. His high cheekbones were very prominent
against his pale skin. The tips of his fangs showed between his lips. His eyes gleamed like blue neon. I
looked away and stared at the steering wheel while I talked.
Page 151
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"I have no personal stake in these people, Jean-Claude, but they are people. Good, bad, or indifferent,
they are alive, and no one has the right to just arbitrarily snuff them out."
"So it is the sanctity of life you cling to?"
I nodded. "That and the fact that every human being is special. Every death is a loss of something
precious and irreplaceable." I looked at him as I finished the last.
"You have killed before, Anita. You have destroyed that which is irreplaceable."
"I'm irreplaceable, too," I said. "No one has the right to kill me, either."
He sat up in one liquid motion, and reality seemed to collect around him. I could almost feel the
movement of time in the car, like a sonic boom for the inside of my head, instead of my ear.
Jean-Claude sat there looking entirely human. His pale skin had a certain flush to it. His curling black
hair, carefully combed and styled, was rich and touchable. His eyes were just midnight-blue, nothing
exceptional but the color. He was human again, in the blink of an eye.
"Jesus," I whispered.
"What is wrong,ma petite ?"
I shook my head. If I asked how he did it, he'd just smile.
"Why all the questions, Jean-Claude? Why the worry about my view of life?"
"You are my human servant." He raised a hand to stop the automatic objection. "I have begun the
process of making you my human servant, and I would like to understand you better."
"Can't you just . . . scent my emotions like you can the people on the street?"
"No,ma petite . I can feel your desire but little else. I gave that up when I made you my marked
servant."
"You can't read me?"
" No."
That was really nice to know. Jean-Claude didn't have to tell me. So why did he? He never gave
anything away for free. There were strings attached that I couldn't even see. I shook my head. "You are
just to back me up tonight. Don't do anything to anybody unless I say so, okay?"
"Do anything?"
"Don't hurt anyone unless they try to hurt us."
He nodded, face very solemn. Why did I suspect that he was laughing at me in some dark corner of his
mind? Giving orders to the Master of the City. I guess it was funny.
The noise level on the sidewalk was intense. Music blared out of every other building. Never the same
Page 152
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
song, but always loud. The flashing signs proclaimed, "Girls, Girls, Girls. Topless." A pink-edged sign
read, "Talk to the Naked Woman of Your Dreams." Eeek.
A tall, thin black woman came up to us. She was wearing purple shorts so short that they looked like a
thong bikini. Black fishnet panty hose covered her legs and buttocks. Provocative.
She stopped somewhere between the two of us. Her eyes flicked from one to the other. "Which one of
ya does it, and which one of ya watches?"
Jean-Claude and I exchanged glances. He was smiling ever so slightly. "Sorry, we were looking for
Wanda," I said.
"A lot of names down here," she said. "I can do anything this Wanda can do, and do it better." She
stepped very close to Jean-Claude, almost touching. He took her hand in his and lifted it gently to his lips.
His eyes watched me as he did it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]