Chapter 12
Bold bastards, Liam
thought as he leaped onto the bench in the booth he’d been sitting
at and reached across the cannoli to shove Anthony under the table.
The bigger of the two, the one with the panther tattoo, was
temporarily taken-aback, midair, when Liam stepped onto the table,
fangs bared.
“I’m calling the police!” the bartender
yelled from where he had taken refuge on the floor behind the
bar.
“Mon dieu!” the
vampire exclaimed, coming to light on the back of Anthony’s bench
seat.
Fortunately, the old Italian had the
sense to stay under the table. From there, he couldn’t see
anything. With any luck, he had no idea he’d almost been bitten by
a vampire.
Liam half-smiled. He knew he knew these bastards! “Levi Rousseau,” he
muttered. The Rousseau brothers were a nasty nest of Cajun vampires
out of New Orleans. They dealt in drug trafficking, which was
probably why they were in Brooklyn. “Nice tattoo.”
Levi ran his hand over his neck.
“Merci beaucoup. It’s new.” He remained
perched two feet from Liam. “You know my brother,
Dan.”
Liam leaned right to meet the other
vampire’s gaze. “Didn’t recognize you, Dan, without your
cape.”
Dan didn’t smile. He had no sense of
humor. He and his brothers ran around New Orleans at night wearing
black capes and scaring the crap out of tourists on Bourbon Street
and feeding on the idiots passed out in the alleys. Still, they
weren’t vampires to mess around with; Liam wouldn’t trust one of
the Rousseau brothers any farther than he could throw
him.
Levi retracted his fangs and jumped
down off the back of the bench. In the distance, they could hear
the wail of a police siren. There was no sign of the bartender or
anyone from the kitchen.
Liam stepped onto the bench, then down
to the tiled floor. He was slower to retract his fangs. He’d need
to feed sometime in the next couple of days. The sept’s rule was no
feeding except on other willing vampires, or the wildlife they
cared for and protected on the game preserve in Clare Point. When
members of the sept were out of town, the rules were a little less
strict. Of course, neither Rousseau would be willing, but Liam wasn’t above bending the rules. He was
in a crappy mood tonight and had half a mind to pick a fight with
these jerks just so he could get a taste of their nasty-ass bayou
blood.
“So, what are you boys up to?” Liam
asked, glancing toward the street. The sound of the siren was
getting louder. If they were going to do this, it would have to be
elsewhere. Vampires, the good guys or the bad ones, didn’t like
tangling with human law enforcement. The cover-up afterward was
always complicated.
“You know, in town on business,” Levi
said. “You?”
Liam crossed his arms over his chest.
“The same.”
“We only came at you because we wanted
the scrawny one. He yours?” Levi pointed under the
table.
“Afraid so.”
“Up to sharing?”
Liam stared at him with a cool,
dangerous gaze. Vampires were very territorial, with land and
victims. “Afraid not.”
Levi put up both hands and took a step
back. “No offense intended.”
“None taken.” Liam glanced in the
direction of the street again. “We should probably take the back
door.”
“Probably.”
Liam drew his hand back grandly. “After
you, gentlemen.”
“Thank you.” Levi walked past Liam,
followed by his brother.
“You going to leave him here?” Levi
asked as they ducked behind a curtain leading to the rear of the
restaurant.
“I don’t need any trouble with cops,”
Liam muttered. He had the bookie’s number. If he had more questions
for Anthony about the Weasel, he could probably call him. With any
luck, Anthony hadn’t really seen anything but a pair of showboating
thugs in leather jackets.
They found the rear door and stepped
out into the chilly night air. The two brothers turned one way,
Liam the other. The cops were arriving out front.
“So, you in the States long?” Levi
asked, walking backward behind his brother as if he had all the
time in the world before Brooklyn’s finest crashed into the
alley.
Liam made the decision he wasn’t up for
a fight tonight. He could probably take these boys, but it would be
messy. Bloody. He had more important matters to attend to. “A few
weeks.”
“Maybe we’ll stop by Clare Point on our
way home, after we’ve got things squared away here. Let you buy me
a beer at The Hill.”
“You bet.” Liam turned away and jogged
down the alley, into the darkness.
Liam killed Tuesday reading newspaper
articles on mob activity in the area in the sixties, seventies, and
eighties on a computer at the public library. It beat the hell out
of the microfiche years. He learned enough about the Weasel to
guess that even in his old age, he might be a formidable enemy, not
physically, but strategically. There wasn’t much about Donato; he’d
apparently been smart enough to keep his name out of the paper for
all those years.
Liam called Anthony that afternoon. The
old man had been so drunk the night before that he barely
remembered the incident at the bar with the Rousseaus, only the
police driving him home. He promised to look into where the Weasel
was living these days, and Liam said he’d get back to him. Before
Liam hung up, he wagered a hundred dollars on the next Eagles game,
in Fia’s honor.
Back in Clare Point on Wednesday, he
went for a long walk on the beach and stepped into his apartment at
dinnertime. He could smell marinara all the way up the staircase.
The Prince of Dogs barked wildly as Liam unlocked the door and
walked in.
“It’s okay, boy,” he said, soothing the
dog.
Corrato looked up from his dinner
plate. A pristine white napkin was tucked into the collar of his
shirt. “About time you got back,” he muttered and returned to his
plate of linguine. “I got enough to worry about without having to
worry if you’re all right. There’s killers out there. You ought to
know that better than any of us,” he chastised
gruffly.
Liam glanced questioningly at Mai. She
just shrugged, suggesting she didn’t have any idea what he was
talking about either.
“Hungry?” Mai asked. She got up from
the dinette table and pulled a Noritake plate from the cupboard. In
the time Liam had been gone, an Italian espresso machine and a
stainless-steel KitchenAid toaster had been added to his
countertop. And an olive wood cutting board. Between the new
appliances, the dishes, the cloth napkins, and the smell of tomato
sauce, the place almost seemed homey.
“If you have enough.
Sure.”
“Prince is almost out of dog food,”
Corrato announced. He looked straight at Liam, fork poised over his
plate. “I have to go get dog food. And I need clothes. I need my
brown corduroy shirt. This apartment is drafty.”
“Babbo,” Mai
admonished softly, “Liam’s been kind enough to welcome us into his
home. You shouldn’t speak to him that way.” She slid a plate of
pasta in front of Liam.
“It’s okay. I . . . had to go out of
town, Corrato,” Liam explained, almost feeling guilty he had left
them. It had never occurred to him that Corrato might be afraid. Or
worried about him. “But I’m back now. We can go to your place
tomorrow and find your brown shirt and we’ll get Prince some dog
food.”
Mai smiled down at Liam. Thank you, she mouthed, handing him a fork, a knife, and
a neatly folded napkin. She slipped back into her
chair.
Liam expected her to ask him where he’d
been. She didn’t. Instead, she sliced a piece of baguette and
handed it to him.
Liam took a bite of pasta, coated in
marinara. It was heavenly. “Can I ask you a question, Corrato?
About your brother?”
“You can ask.”
The old man continued to eat, but he would no longer make eye
contact with Liam.
“What kind of work did Donato
do?”
“I don’t know. This and
that.”
Liam eyed Mai across the table. “Was he
involved in anything illegal?”
The old man harrumphed. “Think I’d tell
you if he was?”
“Babbo!”
Liam smiled. “He worked for Salvador
Machhione, didn’t he? He worked for the Weasel?”
Corrato slurped noisily.
“Babbo, did
Uncle Donato work for a man named Machhione?”
“What four-letter word beginning with D
means ‘to pound’?” Corrato asked.
Mai cut her eyes at Liam, with concern,
then back at her father. “Babbo, can you
answer Liam’s question? Do you know anything about the Weasel?” She
said it as if it was a ridiculous name. Which, of course, it
was.
“It’s okay. Your father doesn’t want to
talk about it now. Maybe later.” Liam took another bite.
“Drub. The four-letter word meaning ‘to
pound’ is drub.”
They finished the meal, mostly in
silence, but the whole time, Liam could feel Corrato watching him.
Something told him that the old man wasn’t as confused or
disjointed as he wanted people to think. The term crazy like a fox came to mind. Corrato knew his brother
had worked for the Weasel, all right. What Liam wanted to know was
if Corrato knew anything about missing pink diamonds.
That night, Mai came to him in his
dreams. Liam was in the dungeon, leaving the children behind,
moving deeper into the shadows, when she appeared before
him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he told her,
half-awake, but still half-asleep. “It’s not safe.”
She pressed her lips to his, tearing
him from that terrible place, back to the present and the warmth of
his bed.
“Right now, this is the only place I
feel safe,” she whispered against his mouth, slipping naked beneath
his blanket.
Liam opened his eyes to gaze into hers.
Cold air had seeped in under the blanket when she climbed into his
bed, but her body was warm and yielding.
He wrapped his arm around her hip and
pulled her close. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he whispered
with more emotion in his voice than he would have
liked.
There was a silly half-smile on her
face. “I had to wait until he was asleep.”
“Who? Your dad or the
dog?”
She giggled, snuggling closer.
“Both.”
He bit down lightly on her earlobe. “If
you hadn’t come . . .”
“What?” she whispered. “What would you
have done? You would have come into the bedroom for me, would you?
You wouldn’t dare.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted honestly.
“I just know that I missed you while I was gone. I thought about
you.”
“Shhhh,” she soothed, pressing her
finger to his lips. “Let’s not do this. You and I both know this is
only . . . temporary. Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not . . . make
it uncomfortable.”
For a moment they were quiet and still,
left alone with their private thoughts. With Mai wrapped in his
arms against his chest, he could feel her heart beating, feel her
rhythmic pulse. Despite what some believed, vampires had a heart,
but it was somehow different from a human heart. Not so vital, not
so . . . alive.
Wanting to feel as alive as Mai, Liam
rolled over and pushed her into the mattress, covering her body
with his. He took her mouth hard, thrusting his tongue, squeezing
her breasts. Their movements were quick and purposeful. There was
very little foreplay; she seemed to want that even less than he did
tonight. At once, she was parting her legs, lifting her hips up to
meet his.
As he pushed into her, his lips found
the pulse of her throat and, for a second, he had to cease his
rhythmic thrusts.
“What is it?” she panted, digging her
nails into the flesh of his back. “Did you hear
something?”
Her pulse beat so hard beneath Liam’s
lips that he felt that familiar vibration in his fangs. He groaned
aloud, tensing every muscle in his body, fighting the urge that
came from so deep inside him that for an instant, he feared he
could not stop himself.
He would have her blood. He had to have
it. It was the way of the world. Of his world.
“Liam?” Mai whispered. Her voice was so
soft, so gentle.
She didn’t deserve this.
She drew her hand over his bare
buttocks. “Are you okay?”
He took a deep breath. He had the blood
of more men on his hands than he could count. He would never be
okay. Never, ever again.
But he was stronger than this. Stronger
than God’s curse, at least at this moment. So he fought the urge
and after a few beats of his heart, he felt his fangs retract. He
kissed her gently on the neck and pushed into her
again.
She sighed. She moaned. And in seconds,
they were moving together as one. Nothing mattered but the pleasure
they shared in the darkness. She came and then she came again
before Liam allowed his own release.
Afterward, she lay on her back beside
him, breathing hard. “That was too good. I don’t deserve
you.”
He smiled in the darkness. His heart
was still pounding. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back
of his hand. “You deserve far better.”
She rolled onto her side to look into
his eyes. “I don’t buy it, you know. The whole tough-guy thing. I’m
not afraid of you. Of whatever it is you’re not telling
me.”
He felt as if he was drowning in the
depths of her dark eyes. She had captivated him. Captivated his
heart. How had that happened? How had he let it happen? “What makes
you think there’s something about me I’m not telling
you?”
“I just know.”
“You know, you should be afraid of me,”
he breathed, reaching up to stroke her cheek. “Of men like me who
will break your heart.” He could still smell the scent of her on
his hand.
She smiled at him again. “You can only
break my heart if I give it to you and I have no intention of doing
that.” She was quiet for a second. “You went to find him, didn’t
you? The Weasel.”
He didn’t answer.
“My father might know something. It’s
hard to tell with him anymore. But I don’t know if he’ll tell you.
He certainly won’t tell me. He won’t even discuss Uncle Donato with
me anymore. He just starts in with his crazy crossword puzzle
stuff.”
“I think you’re safe for now. Let’s
just give him a few days. We’ll get him the clothes he wants from
home. Maybe take him for a walk in town tomorrow. There’s a costume
parade and party this weekend. I thought maybe you’d like to join
in on the festivities.” Liam had no idea what made him say such a
thing. He didn’t do parades and costume parties, and certainly not
in any way that involved a date.
Maybe the thought of seeing her in a
naughty-nurse costume had made him bold.
“A costume party?” Her face lit up. “I
love costume parties!” She lay down beside him again, pulling the
blanket over both of them. “I wonder what I should be. What are you
going to be?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, staring at
the ceiling. “I usually go as a vampire.”