When Sunni woke up on Wednesday morning, after tossing and turning for hours and then finally sleeping a bit once dawn broke, she sat up in bed and scanned the room for evidence that the previous night wasn’t a dream. Everything looked exactly as it had when she went to bed, from the glass of water on her nightstand to the trail of clothes she’d dropped on the floor. The key to her desk drawer was in the nightstand, right where it always was. She jumped out of bed and went over to her desk. The journal was in the locked drawer, buried under three years’ worth of tax forms and credit card statements. She put her head down on her arms and breathed slowly and evenly, trying to think rationally.
Richard and Jacob were vampires. Just that statement was enough to send her back to the Ashwood Institute. And yet she didn’t feel crazy when she contemplated it. The myth of vampires had been around as long as human civilization. Why shouldn’t the myth be based in fact? If it was true, it actually made her feel less crazy, because the cognitive dissonance she’d been feeling all her life was based on something real.
She straightened up and looked at her desk. What else had she learned? Both of them were old, old enough that the sun didn’t bother them anymore. They drank human blood. Did they kill people? Richard hadn’t answered that one. Was Richard dangerous to her? The jury was still out on that one as well. But if he was, was he also dangerous to Isabel? She grabbed her cell phone and hit one of her speed dial numbers.
“LaForge residence.” It was Earl, the house manager.
“Hi, Earl, it’s Sunni. Can I speak to Isabel?”
“She’s still asleep. She came in quite late last night. Can I give her a message?”
Sunni heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s nothing urgent. Just tell her to call me later. ”
She padded into the kitchen and made coffee, then settled on the couch in the living room with her laptop and a steaming cup. After pondering the spelling for a moment, she Googled dampire. “Do you mean dhampir?” the helpful engineers at Goggle suggested, and Sunni clicked on the word. A Wikipedia entry came up first, followed by a site called Monsterpedia. She surfed over to the Wikipedia Web site and read the entry.
A dhampir in Balkan folklore and in vampire fiction is the offspring of a vampire and a human. Dhampirs are powerful creatures, equipped with a vampire’s powers but none of the weaknesses. A dhampir is believed to be unusually adept at killing vampires.
“Great,” Sunni muttered. “Now I’m a fictional character. Maybe they’ll make a movie about me.”
She sipped her coffee, staring out the window at the concrete expanse of the Moscone Convention Center, thinking about Rose and their short time together. If Rose knew what Sunni’s father was, she never told Sunni about it. But how could she? Would Sunni, at age seven or eight, have understood what her mother was trying to tell her? Of course not, it would only have made Sunni feel crazier than she already did. It must have been a horrible burden for her mother to bear. Maybe it was what drove her to use drugs.
Sunni shook her head roughly and slapped her laptop closed. What was she doing, thinking about Richard’s statements as if they were facts? It was madness to even consider it. And yet it was the only thing that had ever made sense in all the years she’d been trying to figure it out.
She took her coffee over to the window and looked across the street. There was an office building directly across from her, with workers racing around like hamsters on a wheel, oblivious to spectators. On each side of that was a new condo building. If Jacob had been telling her the truth, he lived in one of those two buildings. She ran to her bedroom and dressed in the simplest outfit she could find: jeans and a T-shirt, with a fleece jacket on top. For once she eschewed high heels in favor of sneakers, so she had to roll her pants up at the ankles. Then she pulled the Brazil Room coaster out of her purse and dialed the number scrawled on it.
Jacob’s living room gave the impression that someone had just moved in, or was in the process of moving out. The creamy white walls bore no decoration. A black leather sofa stood at a right angle to the window that overlooked Sunni’s building. There was no TV, no table or chairs in the dining alcove. The tile counters in the galley kitchen were empty and gleaming. There was a coffee table in front of the sofa, piled high with thick, serious-looking hardcover books. Sunni moved so that she could read some of the titles. They were all history: The subjects included the American presidents, slavery, colonialism, and the monarchy in England.
“Are you writing a thesis?” Sunni asked.
“Just trying to figure some things out,” he answered. “Please sit down. Would you like a drink?”
Sunni sat on the sofa. “I’d love some coffee.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t drink coffee. I could run downstairs to the café …”
“No, don’t worry. What do you have?”
“Whiskey. ”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Never mind.” Sunni eyed him, towering over her, all six feet several inches of him. His body seemed to thrum with tension. “Why don’t you sit down as well? You’re making me nervous.”
There was nowhere else to sit but the couch. He dropped down next to her, letting his long legs slide under the coffee table. Sunni tried not to let herself be distracted by his scent, by the ropy muscles in his arms, by his gleaming jaw. Especially not by his eyes, which in this light were blue-gray, lighter by several shades than the last time she’d been close to him.
“Richard Lazarus came to see me last night,” she began.
He jumped off the couch as if he’d been stung. “That’s impossible,” he shouted.
She held up both hands. “Calm down, Jacob. He was very pleasant, I assure you.”
Jacob paced over to the window and looked down. “He was in your apartment?”
“Yes. He just appeared in my bedroom. I have no idea how he got in.”
Jacob clutched his forehead. “God help me.” In an instant he crossed the room, grabbed Sunni’s hand and turned her to face him. His eyes transformed, glowing from within as if he’d turned a light on inside his head. The blue irises seemed to pulsate and expand. “Hear me now, and obey. You will follow me now. You will not question my orders.”
For a moment Sunni felt as if the world had shrunk to nothing but Jacob’s voice and eyes. She felt compelled to do exactly as he said. But then she blinked hard, and like waking up from a dream, she was released from whatever spell he’d been trying to work on her.
“Like hell I will,” she said. “What are you trying to do to me anyway? Do you think you can hypnotize people?”
“I can hypnotize people, although we don’t call it that. We call it glamouring,” Jacob said, “But it doesn’t appear to work on you.” He shook off his exasperation. “But really, Sunni, if Richard has been in your apartment, there’s not a moment to lose. We must leave San Francisco right away.” He tugged on her hand, impelling her toward the front door.
Sunni pulled back, hard, so that Jacob had to face her. Her head barely reached his chin, but she lifted her face and glared at him. “No! I’m not going anywhere. I came here to get some answers.” She stopped. The feel of his hand in hers was melting her resolve. “Or maybe to hear your side of the story.”
“My side of the story?” His eyebrows drew together and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “What did he tell you about me?”
“He told me that you have been watching me, but not in a good way. Not in the way I thought. And he told me some things about myself. ”
Jacob ran a hand up his forehead and through his hair, leaving the dark curls even messier than before. His eyes drifted down to her lips, and his expression softened. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She looked away, unnerved by his display of compassion. “As all right as someone can be who’s just been informed that they’re a half vampire, and a hot commodity on the vampire weapons market.”
“Just a minute.” Jacob disappeared into the kitchen. In a moment he was back with two glasses of whiskey. He handed her one and gestured that she should sit down.
She sat back and took a sip, letting the liquid burn a trail down her throat. After a few sips she did feel a little calmer. Maybe drinking in the morning wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Richard said that you’re part of a secret vampire organization that’s been watching me because I’m, um, dangerous. He said that your organization killed my mother. “ She thought about adding that Richard had said that he had saved her, and tried to save her mother, but at the last moment decided to withhold the information. She still wasn’t sure who to trust.
“Bastard.” The whiskey sloshed as he slammed the glass onto the coffee table.
“Aren’t you going to tell me that you didn’t kill my mother?”
He turned to her, his eyes blazing. “Would it do any good? Would you believe me? ”
“I don’t know who to believe yet. But I know you and Richard hate each other.”
“That’s very astute of you.”
“Why don’t you tell me why?”