HAPTER THREE
Lisa’s apartment was off of Market Street, and she felt a bit embarrassed as she and Ryder walked up the stairs to the top floor. Her apartment was small, just enough for her and without many amenities. Next to the sort of place she imagined the billionaire living, it paled in comparison. He stopped at the entrance of the door jam and cocked his head.
“Some of the things you read about us are totally fake,” he said, “like garlic. But… inviting us in, that’s actually one of them.”
She hesitated. “Come in,” she murmured, and like an invisible barrier had been brought down he stepped inside and gave her a smile. In the living room she sat down, and he opened his palms as if to invite more question. “How many of you are there?” she asked.
“Thousands, spread across the world—many of us choose places with colder climates, overcast weather, areas with longer nights and shorter days,” he said.
“And why were those men after me?”
Ryder looked at the references she had stacked on her small coffee table and did his best to explain the inner politics of the vampire nation—how they had just had a new magistracy, a change in leadership, but how he and others suspected that there was a group of assassins, trying to bring it down. “But this brotherhood, these raiders that are mentioned in those books,” he thumbed the tomes, “if they survived, they’re a threat to both vampire and human worlds. They would destroy the peace.”
“Meaning vampires would start attacking humans?”
“Maybe not right away,” Ryder said, “but it would… lead to anarchy. I was tasked with tracing these assassins down. Now, it seems, I’m not the only one with an interest in them. They came after you because you’d helped me… for that, Lisa… I’m terribly sorry.”
“They’re going to keep coming after me, aren’t they?” she said weakly.
Ryder didn’t respond, but the look on his face said enough. “Likely.”
“Then I can’t stay here!” she exclaimed, and began to pace, pulling at the frayed edge of her skirt again. Her ponytail had come undone and the long auburn hair trailed down her back. “Can… can I stay with you? I know how that sounds but… well, you’re a vampire too. You must have a safer place than here.”
“Safer, maybe, but…”
She could still smell the iron-rich breath of the ginger, Connor, breathing down her neck and wanted to vomit. “Please, Ryder,” she begged, “I… I don’t know what else to do. And like it or not, you did get me involved in this.” She didn’t mean to accuse him of anything, but it worked, and his face softened.
“All right, Lisa,” he said carefully, weighing each word, “until I figure out who sent those men… I suppose it would be better to have you where I can keep an eye on you. And, I have a feeling my answers are in those books. Unfortunately, I’ve been a lazy vampire. I can’t read Latin, and you can.”
“Actually, that one’s Greek,” she said matter-of-factly, but it came out as condescending.
Ryder stared at her for a second, and then laughed. “Trust me, Lisa, all of this, the vampire nation, assassin, these books… even you. It’s all Greek to me,” he replied. He helped her pick up the books and waited for her to pack a small bag as he checked his watch. He couldn’t understand who would be behind the attack on Lisa. But William might, he thought.
His stepbrother was a social butterfly, among humans and vampire alike. Another trait, Ryder assumed, he’d picked up after his Change. He had to hand it to him, the kid really knew how to live, if only because he’d faced death on unequal terms and come out on top. But how would he respond to having a human stay at the pagoda? Probably better than a full-blooded vampire. At least Will could empathize with her, in a way that he couldn’t, and he felt a bitter taste of regret singed the edges of his tongue.
By time they arrived at the Shinji residence, it was already well into the night and the moon had climbed the horizon, a pale ghostly orb shepherding them through the dark. Lisa tried to scale back her surprise at how magnificent the Edo-era style house structure was, but even as Ryder invited her into the main hallway with its stained and polished wood and elegant sliding paper doors with intricate sumie landscapes painted on them, she was aware of the fact her jaw was agape.
She felt tiny in the palace, and kept looking left and right as Ryder escorted her onto the verandah that overlooked the inner courtyard. She was surprised to see another man there. He was younger than Ryder, but not by much, and his wispy brown hair was damp against his forehead. In both hands he held a practice kendo sword—the Japanese word bokken peered from behind a shelf in her memory, and was making loud grunts as he exercised, bringing the blunt wooden instrument down in terrifying sweeping arcs. He was covered in sweat, and his chest muscle and ribcage were steeled with muscle, a virtual Adonis. Like Ryder, he was fit, but the way a warrior is fit—nothing vestigial, no wasted movement, perfectly balanced physique.
“You’re back early. I thought for sure I was going to have to practice without y—” the other man stopped short as he got a glimpse of Lisa, and his posture relaxed. “Ah, visitors? You should have called, Ryder, brother… I would have put some clothes on. Or at least had some tea ready.” He smiled, stepping forward, the wide-brimmed cotton pants rustling against one another. “I’m William,” he said.
“Lisa. You’re… brothers?”
Will gave Ryder a look and laughed. “Close enough, I suppose.”
“A vampire too?”
“Is she from the council?” Will said as an aside to Ryder.
“No, but… long story. Some vampire thugs jumped her, tried to take some reference material. Which means we’re not alone. She’ll be helping us.” To Lisa he said, “William is a childhood friend. He was a human like you but… certain circumstances arose, and he was Changed. So, in a sense, yes, he is a vampire. Although of a different caliber.”
“Enough to kick your ass,” Will said with a snide grin and escorted them back in. “Well, welcome Lisa. Our home is your home. You must be tired, though. I can show you to the guest room—”
“If it’s all the same,” she said quickly, “I… I would like to keep working. I don’t think I would be able to sleep right now anyway, I feel like my heart is still beating too quickly. This feels like a dream. I think if I can at least… work on something, maybe I won’t freak out.”
William gave a subtle nod. “In that case, let me at least get you some tea.”
She watched him walk into the kitchen and followed Ryder to the middle of the room where he laid the books down and took out another pencil and paper.
“He likes tea, huh?” she enquired softy.
“Bit of a maniac about it, but I can hardly argue. He does make one fine pot of tea,” Ryder said gently, hoping it was a sign that she was starting to relax. Still, as her hands reached for the books, he saw them quiver again. She opened the pages and started to follow with her long pointed nail.
“This is really old Latin, so I don’t know if I’m saying it right but…” she stopped, and realized how close Ryder was to her all of the sudden. It wasn’t something she normally noticed, her proximity to other human beings. For her, she was always focused too much on something else, whatever was in front of her, which was usually a book. But with Ryder it was different. She suddenly noticed him. All of him. “Erm, right, uh… so anyway, it’s hard to follow where this group, your ancient vampire assassins, disappeared to—but when you left, I did some more research. There are similarities that pop up throughout history, in Medieval Europe, the Renaissance, even feudal Japan. Individuals, or small elite groups, used for selective killings… and blood seems to be a common denominator.”
William had returned with the tea, Early Grey this time in favor of the Cold Mountain Chinese tea he often favored whenever Ryder was around. “So they adapted through the centuries,” he said, pouring her a cup. “That makes sense. But to think, they were able to keep themselves so well hidden all this time.”
“Well, they’d be lousy assassins if they were easily identifiable, regardless of context, age, or target, the first rule of assassination is get rid of your assassin. They seem to have found a way around that. Utter secrecy,” Ryder suggested, “so we know—or suspect—they’ve been biding their time in the shadows of millennia. What we need is a more contemporary source. Will?”
“Yeah?”
Ryder crossed his arms; he hated having to explain himself. “Long shot, but you know the circles of vampires and humans better than I. Do you think any of them could help us track down the most recent incarnation of these assassins?”
The other man rubbed his chin, his brown hair fluttering. “Hm. Maybe. He’s an old guy at the place I buy some of my tea. He’s a bit of a historian—human and uh, not… human. He might know where the current branch of these mystery-boys might be operating, but…”
“Long shot,” Ryder agreed.
Lisa was still bent over, muttering to herself under her breath as she read the old pages. William gave Ryder a look, whom responded with a simple nod—the other man disappeared quietly. The trauma Lisa had suffered was enough to shock anyone, and they both could understand her need for distraction. Ryder took up a position beside her cross-legged, straightening his back and looking over her like a watchful gargoyle, resolute as stone. He would wait as long as she needed him to.
He disappeared into a kind of meditation, even with his eyes open. It was a Zen practice his grandfather had taught him, so long ago, and it helped to pass the time. The candles in the corner shrunk down to their wicks as Lisa pored over the books, occasionally offering a detail or fact to which Ryder replied with a compliant hmm. Outside the moon had reached over the pavilion, on its long journey east to west.
Ryder felt pressure against his chest and looked down. Lisa’s head settled against it, her red-streaked hair pooling against the crook of her collarbone. Her lips were parted, just enough, like a door left ajar, asking to be peered into. She had fallen asleep against him, and her breathing was slow, delicate as spider webs. Her shirt was still open at the top button, and Ryder’s mouth tightened when he saw her breasts pressing against her bra, the fine pale arc between them reaching down toward her navel. He gulped.
He had never really been much of a romantic. Most women, and especially the females of his kind, were often cold and calculating, often as not looking for a weakness. Not warm, like this. He reached out and closed the books softly, and then reached under her legs again. Her skin was velvet, like holding a kitten, and she almost seemed to purr as he lifted her up with ease, his hands braced under her knees and his other hand cradling her against his chest.
He walked past the tatami to the room that William had arranged hours earlier. It was simple, the sparse and austere philosophy of wabi-sabi, a Japanese aesthetic that was diametrically opposed to the bigger more Westernized opulence that hallmarked other great houses. As Ryder set her down on the futon, she made a groaning sound and he smiled and braced himself on one knee to stand back up.
But as he made to leave, one thin wrist reached out to catch the edge of his T-shirt. He turned and, in the dark, his nocturnal eyes gleamed like a cat’s as he made out Lisa’s face. Her eyes were barely open, and there was a tremulous look on her face, mixed with too many emotions and all of them smeared into a single overwhelming chaos. But if what she felt was indistinct, blurred like a watercolor painting, what she wanted was evident. Not to be alone.
“Please don’t leave,” she said, her voice limp as a broken limb.
“I’ll just be outside the room, I promise… I’m not going anywhere.”
“No,” she said, and tugged again, “I don’t want to be alone. Not tonight. I can’t explain it… even with my stupid wonky brain that can’t forget anything, right now, I don’t have the ability to describe it. Just that I’m afraid… I’m not used to that. And somehow, being around you…”
“I’m a vampire,” he reminded her, but it was a hollow fact.
“I know, and maybe I’m supposed to fear you… do you want me to be afraid of you?”
Ryder sat back down on his knees. “No. No of course not.”
“When I’m around you I feel safe. Even if it’s just an… illusion…”
He reached out awkwardly and wrapped his arms around her, his toned biceps standing out against the tight fabric of his black T-shirt, and she felt his body press into her like the cool underside of a raven’s wing. Something dark and impenetrable, but secure. Lisa closed her eyes and let out a sigh as he loosened his grip again, his face inches from hers.
“You’re safe here,” he said, “I promise.”
She nodded and leaned back down, pulling him by the shirt toward her. Face-to-face they laid in the dark, eyeing each other with the silent appraisal of two lovers who didn’t yet know they were lovers. He truly was handsome, in a wistful sort of way that made you feel as if he knew everything, and yet was ever patient enough to hear you out, no matter how banal or inconsequential a topic you brought up. A listener.
Lisa reached out, more out of curiosity, and rubbed a finger along his jawline. He kept his eyes on her, pinioned like twin stars, with the rest of the universe swiveling around them. In her stomach a tingling ball of energy grew and pushed against her, and she suddenly wanted very much to kiss those precarious lips.
Ryder cocked his head as she moved toward him, and his hand settled on the hip of her skirt. Her knee brushed over the top of his thigh, and she pressed her mouth against his. It was electric, another dream that seemed so real in passing but could just as easily be lost when she awoke, her mouth burned for him and she kissed him again, raising a hand to cup his cheek.
I’m kissing a vampire, she thought. It was too surreal. And yet, completely real, in a manner that evoked the most contrary of desires in her.
She moved her leg further over his thigh, and felt his hands move down across her pleated skirt and grip the underside of her leg, pressing upward against the ridge of her buttocks. She gave a little gasp into his mouth, which had met hers in a private accord—both of them moved their lips faster, and she felt his tongue ache between her teeth, pressing against her tongue. She wrestled back, tasting the sweet movement of his saliva as it passed between them. Her stomach hardened and she pushed her hips harder against his pant leg.
Ryder’s hand squeezed her thigh and pushed her skirt up higher, baring her leg. His fingers moved higher, fumbling against the fabric of her panties and over top and she gasped as his fingers balanced on the cleft of her buttocks. She squirmed against him harder, rubbing herself with sheer abandon against his muscular leg and he lifted it into her, evoking another unbearable crutch of moans. Lisa was still incapable of understanding what was happening to her, it was as if all the desires she had repressed or directed into her studies, to keep from ever feeling them, were rushing out of her now. She moaned and turned her head to one side, unfastening her bra under her shirt and fiddling with the buttons on her blouse as Ryder moved down, tracking her neck and shoulders with his fiery kisses.
Her hand moved down as well, clawing at his own T-shirt until he ripped it off. The small black hairs of his chest curled over her fingers as she turned on her back and opened her legs, letting him slide in against her. He hardly seemed to be made of muscle at all, but stone, something unflinching and cool to the touch.
“I’ve never…” she started to say and blushed.
There was no expression of surprise or pity on Ryder’s face. He merely pulled back, balancing over her with both arms planted beside her head, and smiled. “It’s okay,” he murmured.
He pulled off the last button on her blouse and pushed her bra up over her breasts. The blue fabric rustled with the efforts of his fingers, and Lisa looked down with a trembling breath at both of her small, pointed nipples. There was almost no areola around them, and they lifted upward with his touch, stiffening. She tilted her head back in a little gasp of pleasure, and smiled, admiring Ryder’s careful attention to every nerve ending as he fondled them and then, slowly, dipped his lips to encircle them in a kiss.
“That feels so good,” she murmured, pushing her hands behind her head. Her naked stomach lifted to his touch and quivered again as if a stone had been thrown into the milky white pond of her.
“You feel good,” he replied, and kissed her neck again as he leaned against her. His thigh rubbed harder against her panties, and he lifted one hand under the bare edge of her skirt where it pleated at the side, let his fingers tickle up under her buttocks, aching toward her inner thighs which felt alive with their own private fire, and she cooed. “You really are beautiful, Lisa,” he said.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said honestly, and then realized it had come out as almost arrogant, “I mean, what I mean is… no one ever… ever told me that.”
“A crime,” he gave a funny look of reprisal.
His hand was already moving down, stroking the spaces between both breasts, which tightened with their many goosebumps, and balancing across her navel. It stopped at the top of her skirt, and he delicately traced the rim of white flesh there and looked up, almost as if asking for permission to go further. Lisa’s mouth was open, unable to look away, and her breath had become a slow anticipatory calm. She gave a little nod and bit her lower lip.
In the dark, the vampire’s eyes glowed like those of predators she had seen in National Geographic specials on television. His fingers unzipped the skirt and it fell away, leaving only her panties, which were the same color as the blue bra that was still done up across her clavicle. Lisa reached down to cup both of them as he moved a finger under the delicate lace and pulled them down over her ankles.
Lisa had no idea what to expect, the idea of being completely naked and vulnerable in front of a man like this. She supposed in any other situation she wouldn’t have liked it. It was too personal, too risky to give yourself to another person. She couldn’t explain to herself by Ryder was any different. They had barely met the day before, and yet….
“Be gentle,” she murmured, sitting up and closing her legs as she helped him unbuckle his pants. Even in the dark, the thin mane of hair between her legs bespoke of the pink folded lips of her labia. She’d always thought of that fleshy part of her being somehow smaller than other women’s she’d sometimes seen in the locker rooms. Their labia were large, full-bodied, like someone pouting sideways. Hers had always been thin, as if pursed, and she reached down unconsciously to touch herself and found her vulva glistening and wet with a warm fluid that smelled vaguely of honey.
Ryder stepped out of his shorts as well and she gasped when she saw how thick his member was. Fully erect, it seemed to linger over her, its rigid base angling upward perversely. Curious, she reached out and touched it, fondling it between her hands, and began to stroke it up and down until she saw the bulbous head pull back from its foreskin. She felt another desire come alive between her legs, and had to touch herself again, her own fingers lingering across her soaking clitoral hood, to relieve it.
“I’ll be gentle,” he reassured her again, leaning her on her back. The strawberry blonde hair pooled under her head on the pillow, a crown of blood.
Lisa let him open her knees and felt his thighs pressing hers apart. She looked down at him and saw him grip his own member as he guided it toward the dark divot between her legs, and gasped aloud, half in pain and half in ecstasy, as he moved inside her.
“Unnngh, god! Oh, Ryder… I….” she breathed, and covered her mouth to keep from screaming out in alarm. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced, a paradox of sensation. She reached down and placed her hand across her sex, felt Ryder’s penis throbbing between her splayed fingers as he lifted into her.
She butted her hips upward, and could feel him distending against her walls, growing inside her. He let out a gasp himself, and his breath was hot next to her ear. Lisa lifted her legs up, wrapping them around his lower waist, and her hands clutched at his neck as he continued to thrust against her, spreading her vagina wide with his manhood. Another sensation coursed through her, this one wet and hot and she heard the slapping of their groins intensify. His pubic hair tickled against her own, and she ground her hips into him, trying to allow as much of him into her as she could. It hurt, but it was a good hurt—one which told her she was alive, one which expressed itself as what she had been lacking all her life.
“Harder, do it harder,” she said.
Ryder pulled her upward onto his lap and she kept her legs around him, scooting down onto his cock. He put his hands under buttocks, supporting her as the two of them began to move faster, pivoting against one another. Both were sweaty, drenched in their own furious drive toward a climax, and she gasped and reached behind, bracing one hand on his knees as she bobbed on his lap. Her buttocks crushed against the fabric underneath, and she looked down between them where her small breasts jiggled slightly with each movement.
“I… I feel something,” she gasped, gritting her teeth, her eyes closed.
“You’re about to come,” he said, as if offering an explanation.
“Unhh, yes, harder… make me come,” she begged, squatting above him.
Ryder pulled into her harder, cupping her breasts with one hand while his other pinched at her waist, his thumb leaning inward into her inner thighs. Her light colored pubic hair was soaked, damp with both of their pre-cum, and the slapping sound increased until it became a rapid noise in both their ears, complemented only by Lisa’s deep moans of passion.
“Ryder, I can’t, unnh,” Lisa exclaimed, and thrust her chest out.
Her small breasts seemed to reach upward, trying to strive for some heavenly embrace as her orgasm fluctuated through her body like the northern lights, dancing inside her. She stiffened and Ryder clutched at her with a final resounding grunt. Suddenly her orgasm intensified and she screamed again, leaning her head into his neck. Something hot gushed against her insides like white light and her hips strained, pushing and squishing into him even as his own seed squirted out of her, forcing its way down her vulva and his own still-rigid member.
Lisa cupped her mouth again and fell forward onto Ryder’s chest, her legs still pushing her groin in reflexive movements against his penis until she had exhausted herself. She lay on top of him, gasping, her head buried into his chest. She felt as if she were completely outside of herself, floating, unhinged by whatever physical presence had once defined her.
She opened her eyes and saw Ryder looking at her again, still that barely sad but gentle composure on his lips, like he knew a secret that he couldn’t tell her. “Are you okay?” he asked at last.
“I’ve never… done that,” she said, but was grinning, “I didn’t know it felt so good.”
“You were a natural,” he replied.
Lisa swallowed and leaned her head back onto him. “I don’t know about that, but… my friends always told me I was very good at learning things quickly. A good student, heh. But still…”
He stroked the top of her head. “Maybe now you can get some sleep,” he said wryly, and she nodded and closed her eyes again. She could hear the slow intake of air, the way he breathed, like a comforting rhythm; the sound of huge massive wings beating the air in a wakeful endurance, looking over her. She sighed and let sleep slide over her like a blanket.
The only thing she could think before she fell asleep was odd it was that she couldn’t hear his heartbeat. Everything about him was a reflection of her. Even that.