Les vampires de Manhattan

  She checked into the Lowell Hotel, a tiny, luxurious, you-had-to-be-in-the-know sort of place that Blue Bloods favored. New money and vulgar insecurity preferred to stay at the brand-name emporiums like the Four Seasons or the Mandarin, and while those colossal palaces had their name-dropping attractions, nothing beat the charm of a small, lovely, perfectly appointed, white-glove hotel. The rooms at the Lowell were just as expensive, but only the right sort of people stayed there, if you cared about that sort of thing, like Mimi did. Kingsley hovered in the background, and when he was satisfied that she could take care of herself and was able to secure a room, he left to get those smokes.

  When he’d jumped on the train, he had been eager to get her back, but on the ride back aboveground, he had changed his mind a little. Maybe he would let her see what life was like without him for a change, maybe he would let her miss him a little. He often had to come crawling back to her; maybe it wouldn’t hurt for her to feel the same pain he felt. He would watch out for her, and when it looked as if she was well and truly suffering for his presence, he would present himself—ta-da!—and they would reunite, and it would feel oh so good.

  The city had changed in the ten years since he’d left it, and he found himself walking around like a tourist, gawking at the hordes of people and being overwhelmed by the noise and commotion.

  Momentarily flummoxed by the new MetroCard vending machines and stunned by the fare hike, he took the train downtown to his old stomping grounds. There were so many fancy new buildings and beautiful, architect-designed hotels. The city felt more exciting, flashier, cleaner, shinier, but it was also somehow less than the city he loved. Maybe that was the truth about New Yorkers; one was full of nostalgia for the New York one had known. It was someone else’s city now, all these new, eager young people rushing around attached to their gadgets. He was glad to find there were still some places that hadn’t changed. That still catered to the likes of him. The Holiday. The Odeon. His old haunts. Awash with nostalgia, Kingsley decided that maybe he would touch base with his old crew; find out what was going on with the Coven; how the Regent, his old friend, was doing. Enjoy a little freedom for a change. After all, Mimi had no idea he was here yet, and he could do whatever he wanted. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little fun, before he reasoned with her that she’d made her point and the two went back to their real lives.

  But first, he wanted to make sure Mimi was settled. She had put some kind of cloaking spell on herself, and he had difficulty finding her again. But he soon figured out the antispell and shadowed her when she visited her bank, where the assholes at the desk told her that her identification had expired and therefore she wouldn’t be able to access any of her accounts. But he took care of that, and they’d had to call her right after, while he held a blade to their throats, to tell her that everything was quite all right and settled and she had her money back. When she went to look at apartments the next day, he cast a spell on the couple who was about to place a bid on the one she wanted so that she had no competition. It was so satisfying. He was like her guardian angel. If only she knew that he was in the background, making her life so much easier, maybe she would think twice about leaving him.

  As the days passed, Kingsley realized that he still hadn’t told Mimi he was in New York. He kept meaning to tell her he was here, too, that she wasn’t alone. Yet every day he remained in the shadows. He was starting to believe that she didn’t seem to miss him at all and that this was a huge mistake on his part. She seemed excited about being back in the city and had even found a job. She seemed happy, and he didn’t want to ruin it. Or maybe he had too much pride, and maybe he was still hurt that she had actually left.

  But one evening, a little before midnight, he decided he would finally do it. He would tell her what was in his heart.

  Mimi, I was wrong. You were right about our life in the underworld. I’m sorry. You are my home. Wherever you are is where I need to be.

  He stood on the corner across from her building. Mimi would still be up, and while it was late, it would be nice to surprise her. He could find a nice bottle of wine, some flowers from the deli. Remind her of how much fun they used to have and how they could be like that again. Or even better. He would tell her he was sorry, that he was a fool to let her go. Come back to me, he would plead. He walked down the sidewalk, meaning to buy a bouquet, when he noticed a group of girls staring at him, young girls, high school girls, and they were whispering to each other and giggling and then staring at him again. “Hello, ladies,” he said, smiling.

  “Hey,” one of them said boldly. She was blonde and looked a bit like Mimi had back when they first met, cool and confident, and she was looking at him the way Mimi used to, like he was hot and sexy and everything she wanted on a plate.

  Kingsley was ageless, could appear anywhere from seventeen to seventy, a special trick of his. When Mimi had met him, he had been working undercover at the high school, had passed as a high school junior. He saw that the girl in the street saw him that way, that she didn’t see him as an aging, stodgy farmer, but as a young boy, a dangerous, reckless boy, who was fun and full of life.

  Not the annoying husband who wouldn’t take out the trash or the long-suffering silent partner. But a kid. He could be a kid again. Seventeen. He had the rest of his life to be old, but why not be young again for a night.

  Maybe it was the famous seven-year itch, or maybe it was because he hadn’t been out of the underworld in so long, and breathing air again, standing in the moonlight now, made him feel a little dizzy. Maybe it was because she looked so much like his wife but without the anger and the disappointment.

  The girl flashed him a blinding, inviting smile.

  Kingsley thought of how he had seen Mimi earlier that day, coming back from shopping. She didn’t miss him. She didn’t even think about him. She was out and about, happy to be back in New York, and she didn’t care that she had broken his fucking heart.

  “What’s your name?” the girl asked, blowing a smoke ring.

  “Damien Lane,” he said without thinking. He was seventeen years old. It was a name he’d used in the past, and it came to mind as easily as if he were a bachelor again. “What’s yours?”

  “Darcy. Come on, Damien, let’s have a good time.”

  And before Kingsley could think too much about it, he heard a voice, his own, answer. “Sure, why not?”

  21 TATTLETALES

  IVY FINALLY APPEARED, blowing through the lobby doors. “Finn!” she cried, enveloping her in a hug. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t hear the phone and I wasn’t near my computer. I was working, you know. I was lost in a daze of creation.”

  “Sounds serious,” Finn said with a wry smile. “It’s good to see you, Ivy.”

  “You, too!” Ivy said, pressing the button on the service elevator. The elevator took them to the top floor, to a large, messy studio filled with canvases that reached up to the ceiling. All of them were red, scarlet, or brown.

  “This is the one I thought you would be interested in. I call it Femme Fatale,” Ivy said, noticing Finn looking at them. “I’m fascinated by blood… women’s blood… It’s so deep and wounded, but it’s also the source of our strength.”

  “Amazing,” Finn said, studying them closely.

  “Oh, and that’s Jake, my roommate. Jake, say hi to my friend Finn. She used to be my friend in college, but she’s very fancy these days.”

  “Hi, Jake.”

  Jake waved from his corner, where he had hooked up his camera to a computer and appeared to be Photoshopping his face onto a naked penis.

  “Jake’s work is a reaction to mine. Male rage,” Ivy whispered. “Isn’t it great?”

  “Mmmm.”

  She swept clothes and shoes off a lumpy couch and motioned Finn to sit. Ivy looked the same as when they were in school, her curly hair as wild as ever, and she was dressed in a paint-splattered muumuu. She unscrewed the top of a jug of wine and poured a thin red liquid into two paper cups and handed one to Finn.
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  Finn accepted it and tried not to care that she had just placed her expensive handbag on a dirty, paint-splattered floor. It was amazing how one got used to living well, to drinking only the finest vintages, to sleeping on the softest sheets, to staying in only the nicest hotels. Finn’s aversion to roughing it was the source of endless amusement to Oliver, yet Ivy was still drinking the same cheap swill they had drunk in college.

  “Go on, drink! Go on! You’ll love it! You have to try it!”

  Finn took a tentative sip. It certainly tasted different. “It’s interesting, what’s in it?”

  “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.” Ivy winked. “Anyway, how are you? You look wonderful. You were always gorgeous, but now you’re so… elegant!” she said enthusiastically.

  One of the things Finn had liked about Ivy was that she had no filter and was very enthusiastic, unlike people who hid behind ironic facades. It was one of the things that made Ivy so good at winning you over to her point of view. You ultimately had to believe in her as much as she believed in herself.

  “You’re so kind to say that. Of course, I’m just the girlfriend of a rich man now,” Finn said, finding that the wine was going to her head a little.

  “Mmm… but what a man. Remember when he came looking for you in Chicago?” Ivy asked, cradling her cup and licking her lips. “Is it my imagination or is he even hotter now than he was when we were in college? I saw him on TV the other day with the mayor, and he looked delicious. So unfair how men age better than women.”

  Finn smiled to think that Ivy still remembered how she and Oliver had met, when he had suddenly appeared on campus with Schuyler, the half sister she had never known even existed, the two of them intent on discovering something about her father’s past. Oliver had made her laugh, and it didn’t hurt that he was so cute. She had been attracted to him immediately. Even the fact that he used to be in love with Schuyler didn’t bother her that much when he confessed it. “Don’t think I transferred my love for her to my love for you,” he’d told her once when they were first dating. “My love for you is new and pure. It has nothing to do with Schuyler.” She told him she understood and had never felt jealous of his puppy dog crush on her sister.

  But had she chosen to love Oliver? Or had she loved him from the first time she had seen him? Wasn’t it Yeats who had said, “Wine comes in at the mouth, and love comes in at the eye”? Love was like that—instant, a fire that burned, a pool you drowned in. She had looked at him, and she had known. She pitied those who had never experienced a love like theirs. It was a miracle, a gift, when love happened upon you like that. It was so easy.

  There really was no choice. Not when you felt like that.

  Oliver had still been mortal when she first met him, but when she saw him again years later in New York, he was no longer. They dated for a few months until he told her they couldn’t go on until he told her his secret, and that if she truly loved him, then she would have to make a choice whether to know him completely or not at all.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I’ve changed,” he said. But she didn’t understand what the transformation had meant until he’d shown her his fangs. He explained that the Sacred Kiss would bind her to him forever. Pretty big news to drop on your girlfriend at a rooftop party at the Standard Hotel. They were sitting in a corner booth, looking over the city skyline, and in the dim light, he looked ageless and beautiful, and she felt the hairs stand on her arm.

  “You will love me with every molecule, every fiber of your being. Even your blood will love me. I know what it is to be a vampire’s familiar. I know the kind of love the blood bond creates. Do you want this? Do you want me?” he asked.

  She had put down her drink and laughed. But when she saw he was serious, she got worried. “You’re not joking?”

  “No. I wish I was,” he said sadly. “I understand. I won’t bother you again.”

  But she had run after him and took him back to her apartment.

  “Do it. Bite me,” she had told him. “Make me yours forever.” She had pulled her hair aside and offered up her neck, and she had heard the hitch in his breath, and when she put her hand on his chest, he was warm, so warm, and when he kissed her skin, his lips were soft. Then she felt his fangs, tiny needle pinpricks, and his body was over hers, and she knew instinctively what else he wanted to do, how he wanted to take her. So she had told him to wait a minute, and she took off her clothing until she was naked, and she had lain beneath him, waiting, and he was undressed so fast, it made her laugh a little. “Better,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

  Then he had taken her, body, blood, and soul, and she couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t love him.

  “What’s he like in bed? I bet he’s amazing,” Ivy said, as if she had read her mind, and poured Finn another cup.

  Finn blushed. “Well, he is good at everything,” she had to admit with a naughty smile, accepting the cup. Ivy was right—whatever was in this was good.

  “I’ll bet,” Ivy said with a droll smile. They giggled together, college girls once more.

  Yet as sensitive a lover as Oliver was, as gentle as he was out of bed, as closely as they were bonded, what Finn could not admit to Ivy, and had difficulty even admitting to herself, was that Oliver didn’t understand her. He loved her, but he worshipped her, too; he adored her in a way that made her feel just the slightest bit uncomfortable. She was a dream to him, a prize, a possession. She knew he didn’t mean to feel that way. Maybe it was her fault, maybe she’d been too willing to go wherever he led, maybe they were too young when they’d met, even though they were well within the age of consent. The Code of the Vampires suggested that human familiars be at least eighteen years of age.

  “So am I in?” Ivy asked, then launched into a spiel about how the raw red pieces would be perfect for the collection and how this would be a huge boost to her career, and she would be in debt to Finn forever.

  Finn savored her desperation, her groveling. She liked this feeling, of being someone people listened to, of being treated like someone who mattered, someone who could change another person’s life with a word.

  “Yes, you’re in,” she said benevolently. That was why she had come all the way to Fort Greene that day, to change Ivy’s life. She had no idea she was also changing her own.

  It became a little habit. Since she first visited Ivy’s studio, whenever she had a free afternoon, Finn would visit Ivy in her studio, ostensibly to look over the paintings that were to be part of the exhibit. But after taking a cursory glance at the canvases, they would talk, reminisce, and drink the potent red wine that Ivy poured from a jug, a drink that was fortified with something Ivy jokingly called “Vitamin P.”

  “Vitamins for painting?” Finn had asked once.

  “Something like that,” Ivy said mysteriously.

  Finn enjoyed the company. She had forgotten what it was like to have friends of her own, someone who wasn’t associated with the Coven. She realized that everyone she knew, everyone she interacted with, was part of Oliver’s world, the vampire world, and that somehow, she had lost track of her own friends, her own life, along the way of being part of his.

  Even furniture needed friends, as it turned out. At least that was what Finn told herself as she found herself coming and going to Fort Greene.

  “Lunch?” Oliver asked, passing her office that morning. “I have a free hour for once.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Busy? Meeting artists?”

  “Mmm.” He had looked disappointed, and she improvised. “This show isn’t going to run itself, Oliver.”

  “Be careful. Some of those neighborhoods they live in are dangerous.”

  “Sweetie,” she scolded. “I’m a grown woman. Please don’t talk to me as if I were a child.”

  “You always take Jerry?” Jerry was her driver and bodyguard. And nanny, she sometimes thought.

  “Of course.”

  O
liver stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and looked ruffled. “You’re sure you don’t want Sam to send you a detail?”

  She balked. “Venator bodyguards? They’ll hate it. No, Jerry is more than enough for me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m fine. I never go anywhere I’m not wanted.” She smiled.

  “So who were you going to visit today, Ivy again? You’ve seen her a lot lately.”

  “So? She’s a friend of mine.” Oliver looked a bit taken aback by her tone, so she sought to calm him. “I’m sorry I’m so defensive, darling, it’s just fun to see her, that’s all. And you know I’m depending on her for the exhibition.”

  “Of course, of course. I don’t want to be in your way.”

  She relented as quickly as he did. He was always the first priority, and she bent like a reed to the wind.

  “No—it’s all right, let me call her and tell her I’ll see her later this week. Where did you want to go?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. Shall we go to the Four Seasons?”

  “Perfect.”

  The next day Finn was sitting on Ivy’s couch, thinking she should have visited yesterday as she had planned. Or maybe she shouldn’t have suggested the Four Seasons’ Grill Room, because Oliver spent the entire time talking to table-hoppers when they stopped by to kiss the ring. They all ignored Finn, but that was to be expected. She was there to be ignored; how else could a great man function? She told Ivy about how tired she was of being the “wife” sometimes, and Ivy stopped, making a dramatic hand gesture.