The Stalker
He was stalking her. She could see him in the big convex mirror positioned up in the corner of the cosmetics aisle. Tall, slender, ripped black skinnies and Docs, old-as-shit AC/DC sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. What little she could see of his face – chin, sharp line of his jaw, tip of his nose – gleamed pale white under the tube lights. The bill of a ballcap shaded his eyes. He kept tilting his head just so, stealing surreptitious glances, and edging closer to her with deliberate side-steps. Feigning casual, but she could see right through the act.
Annabel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Under the chemical tang of floor polish and the beauty products on the shelf in front of her, she detected the earthy scents of sweat, and man, and wilderness. He’d brought the night in on his skin, the deeper musk of fur, and blood, and want.
She let her breath out slowly, and opened her eyes again to the technicolor display of nail polish that went from floor to ceiling in front of her. Careful, keeping her movements slow and thoughtful, she selected a shade of blue called Summer Daydreams and added it to her basket. Turned her back to the stalker and made her way slowly to the register.
She heard him take a breath through his mouth; the faint squeak of his boot soles on the tile.
Her heartrate accelerated.
It never ceased to amaze her how crowded any given Walgreens was on a Friday night, and tonight was no exception. Only one register was open, and the line wrapped around the magazine rack and halfway into the candy aisle. Anna settled in, very aware of her stalker lurking back by the Snickers display, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders slumped as he tried to look shorter, less threatening. If he wanted to blend in, he should have worn baggier pants, she thought; there was no hiding those legs, the way the long muscles in his thighs clenched and relaxed as he shifted his weight. He pretended to study the bagged candy in front of him, but she could smell intent coming off him in waves.
She was only going to get one chance to run, and when it came, she would have to take it.
Until then, she settled in, and pretended not to notice him.
At the head of the line, a nervous-looking young couple tried to slip a box of condoms in amongst magazines and cereal boxes, the boy darting a glance over his shoulder, lip caught between his teeth like he was afraid the gray-headed woman behind him would reprimand his loose behavior. Anna smiled to herself; they were so impossibly young, so worried about stupid things, like what strangers thought.
Another mirror, this one angled above the cashier’s head, afforded her glimpses of her stalker as the line shuffled forward. As harried dads buying cough syrup for sick kids and third shifters picking up sodas and candy bars on their way to work moved up one-at-a-time, her stalker worked the endcaps of the aisles, feigning interest in two-for-one shampoo and cheap flip-flops.
He was actually terrible at this.
“Find everything alright?” the cashier asked when Anna slid her nail polish, and birthday candles onto the counter. One of those required questions that didn’t want to be answered.
“Yes, thank you.”
The woman nodded, ran the nail polish over the scanner, and flicked an absent glance up over Anna’s shoulder–
Then she paused, face going blank. She’d seen the stalker, then. He was lurking, at this point, tall and skinny and grungy and so obvious, how pathetic.
“Honey,” the woman said, because this was Georgia, and strangers were kind, “do you have anyone waiting in the car for you. Your mom or dad?”
Anna decided not to point out that a question like that – and her answer – were guaranteed to pique any good stalker’s interest. Nope, just little old me, all alone: might as well turn to the guy and invite him to chase her home.
Instead, she smiled. “No, ma’am, but don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
The woman pursed her lips, worried, as she took Anna’s cash and fished her change out of the drawer, all without taking her eyes off the stalker. She whispered, “Let me call somebody. There’s a deputy who gets dinner at the Waffle House next door this time every night. He can come escort you.”
“Oh no, ma’am, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine. Really.” She scooped up her bag and gave the woman a wave. “But thank you so much for being sweet!”
“Wait,” the cashier said as Anna headed for the door. And then, loud, sharp, “Sir!” Under her breath, “Oh hell.”
The automatic doors slid open on a sticky-hot night that smelled like fryer oil from Waffle House. Heat lightning danced from cloud to cloud overhead, soft flickers, no thunder. It might rain or it might not. The night pulsed with humidity, and life, and green growing things, even beneath the hot-tar-exhaust-food smells of human business.
Anna started across the parking lot at a brisk, but unhurried walk. Counting her steps. Ten out, she heard his boots behind her on the pavement. Fifteen out, she heard him take a deep, rough breath. Twenty out, she reached the opposite curb, and she gripped her bag tight, and took off at a dead run, plunging down a hill and into the woods. He made a sound that might have been a laugh, and might have been a growl, and followed.
It had been a long time since she’d last run like this: full-out, lungs pumping, reaching with arms, and legs, and every finely-honed sense. Tree limbs slapping at her shoulders and hips, old dead leaves crushed underfoot with little puffs of mold and decay and an autumn long since passed. She’d worn her good Nikes, and they grabbed deep in the soft earth, her feet weightless as she leapt rotted logs, and buried stones and dodged across a dry creek bed that still smelled of brackish water. She felt strong, and alive; felt connected to the world and her body in a way she didn’t always, when she was pretending.
Anna was fast.
Her stalker was faster.
It was those damn long legs of his.
She smelled him – dark, and woodsy, a faint trace of steel – and heard him – the even sawing of his breath as his lungs worked, crunch of leaves underfoot – as he closed in on her. “Aw, damn it,” she muttered, and then he pounced.
He caught her around the waist with one arm and launched them both into a forward tuck and roll, his other hand coming up to cup the back the back of her head and tuck her in tight against his chest. The world spun, and she heard the thump of his shoulders taking the brunt of the fall. She landed with her back to his chest, breathless but unharmed, staring up through the tangled pine branches as scudding storm clouds swept in to veil the stars.
His chest heaved beneath her back. His arm held tight around her waist. And for one moment, the night alive with the sounds of their breathing and their competing heartbeats, she allowed herself a delicious shiver of fear. A moment to remember what it had been like before.
Then he shifted under her, laying her down on the pine needles and springing up to brace above her, propped with his hands on either side of her head. He’d lost his hood and his hat in the tumble, and even in the dark she could see him clearly: the deep-set blue eyes, the sharp lines of jaw and nose, the gleam of his teeth as he grinned. Delighted and easy, happier than he ever seemed to be anymore. She’d French braided his hair back at the apartment, tucked the tails up and tied them together with a bit of black ribbon; little wisps had come loose under his hat, silky black flyaways that stood up like a halo around the crown of his head.
“Good evening, Lady le Strange,” he said, the words formal, his voice dark and velvety. His accent was still English-royalty crisp, like he’d just flown over from London. No amount of time in the States could dull it, and for that she was supremely grateful. (He’d confessed to her once that he hoped she never lost her Old South drawl, so she supposed they were even on that score.)
“Baron Strange,” she returned, biting back a chuckle, her own smile wide enough to make her face hurt.
He put on a fierce mock scowl, a smile trying to crack through. “Do you always laugh when you’re accosted by strange men in the woods?”
“Do you always make such horrible puns that involve your own name?”
“Maybe.” He leaned in low, breath ghosting across her lips, close enough to taste the vital heat of his mouth without actually touching. He lingered there a moment, his lashes dark fans against his cheeks, his nose nudging up against hers. Then he ducked his head and fastened his mouth to her throat, that tender pale place just beneath the hinge of her jaw. He pressed in with his teeth, just enough for her to feel the too-sharp points of his canines, but not a true bite.
Anna smoothed her hands down the back of his head, the two orderly plaits woven tight against his scalp, the sleek, heavy softness of his gorgeous hair all bound up tight. Her heart gave an unsteady bump and she arched up, leaning into his mouth, into the weight of his chest above hers. “Baby.”
“Hmm, not baby,” he murmured against her skin. “A scary strange man in the forest, remember?”
“Oh, right, right.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing aloud. “Ooh, scary strange man, whatever will you do to me?” she asked, drawl coming out extra-thick. Scarlett O’Hara dramatic.
He snorted and pulled back, expression stern, but eyes dancing as he looked down at her again. “You’re terrible.”
“Yes, but I’d really like you to kiss me.”
His gaze softened. His voice did too. “That can be arranged.” No teasing this time; he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, easy and sweet, full of all the softness he sometimes didn’t know how to express with words.
She loved when he was sweet like this, careful and gentle, like she was made of spun glass. Or, rather, like he didn’t trust himself; or maybe didn’t trust that she wanted him, that she craved him like sunshine and chocolate and red wine. But it hurt her a little, too, when he was careful, because it reminded her of what he’d been like before, in those first early days when they realized that the inescapable thing growing between them wasn’t violence, but lust. Deep, true, animal lust that had nothing to do with his stuffy, buttoned-up British denial of the wolf that lived beneath his skin.
So even if she loved sweet, she loved real more. Wanted him to be the real him; to be wild with her.
She skimmed her hands down his neck, his back, settled them over his ass. She hooked her legs around his hips and pulled him down into the cradle of hers, grinding against him, the bulge already forming behind the fly of his jeans.
He gasped, and the kiss turned sloppy. His hips kicked against hers. He made a ragged sound against her mouth, half-moan, half-growl, a deep rumble in his chest that vibrated through bone and skin; she felt it at the base of her throat.
“There he is,” she whispered against the corner of his mouth. “I don’t want a stranger. I want my husband.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes blazed in the dark, their pretty blue color now electric, glowing, their brilliance pulsing in time to his heart, where it throbbed against her breasts. The sound that moved up his throat wasn’t anything a human could make.
She whined in response, tipped her head back on the pine needles and showed him her throat. She would have loved the hot gust of his breath across her skin anyway, but she needed it, too, the way it made her hot all over, left her wet and desperate. People had no idea, no idea how at all, how much more intense and amazing it was when it wasn’t just a boyfriend, or a husband, but your mate. They had rings, and certificates, and fucking noble titles to make it official, but none of those came close to touching what it meant to be mates.
In a world that had tried to convince wolves that they were supposed to be alone, no less.
He sat up on his knees and growled again – lower, hungrier. His hands, long-fingered and white and beautiful, moved deftly down the front of her body. Pushing up her shirt, tugging down her jeans and shoes all in one go.
It was a warm night, but the air was warmer than her overheated skin and she lifted into the caress of the breeze, wishing it was his hands instead. There were nights for taking it slow, dragging it out for hours, but tonight wasn’t one of them. Her heart felt like it had relocated down between her legs, her pulse strongest there, where she wanted him most.
“Baby, come on.”
“Don’t rush me.” But he was breathless, the tendons standing out in his neck. He tugged his hoodie over his head and spread it out on the ground, which gave her a chance to admire the way his shoulders looked in his gray tank top. “Here.” He lifted her hips – she whined at the contact, needing more, needing all their skin to touch – and repositioned her onto the sweatshirt.
“Such a gentleman,” she said, groaning, laughing. “Baby, I don’t care. Come on.”
“See if I try to make you comfortable again,” he griped, but a smile teased at the corners of his mouth.
“I could be more comfortable.” She hooked her legs around his narrow hips and dragged him in close, hissing a little at the friction of his jeans against her damp sex.
He hissed too, hands finding her waist and clamping down hard, hips bucking forward in an involuntary little movement.
They stayed like that a moment, panting, not wanting it to end too soon.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She sat up and climbed into his lap, both of them working to open his jeans and bring his cock out. He steadied himself with one hand, the other on her waist, and she sank down slow, slow, relishing the stretch, the moment when she was full and her lungs and heart stopped working, like her body had to take a second to acknowledge that he was inside her, where he belonged.
“Oh,” he said, a wounded gasp against her cheek. He kissed her there, sucked a little love bite along her jaw. “Darling.”
“I know.” She threaded her fingers into the weave of his braids, wrecking them, her elbows braced on his shoulders for leverage. She lifted up a fraction, just a little, and sank down again. Not wanting to pull off too far, wanting to be joined completely.
Their bare stomachs were pressed together, her aching nipples crushed against his chest. Skin was so important, the heat and scent and vital life in it.
He nuzzled at her ear and murmured a wordless question, a little inquiring animal huff.
She answered in kind, the sound pressed to his temple.
He gathered her close and laid her down on the sweatshirt, pulling her legs even tighter around his hips. Kissed her mouth, wet and hungry, and withdrew almost all the way, slid back in on a strong, sure thrust that lifted her back off the forest floor.
He fucked her with the sureness of long habit, but it was always sweet, always slick, and wicked, and perfect, as essential as breathing. She clamped down on his shoulder with her teeth, gripped his ass with both hands, growled at him.
He growled back, his thrusts frenetic, his breath hot against her throat. Just like animals, clawing and straining and whimpering, leaving dark crescents in one another’s flesh.
She bit down hard when she came, the copper tang of blood seeping through his shirt. He returned the favor, his shout muffled against the side of her throat.
He soothed the mark with his tongue, after, as they came down from the peak. Their hearts thundering together, his cock softening inside her. They could go again, if they wanted, but not here, in the woods. For now it was just nice to bask a little, breathe in the sex and sweat smell of each other. Be content in the knowledge of each other, their bond.
Finally, groaning a little, he slid off and stretched out beside her, hand making idle patterns across the flat of her stomach.
She turned her head to smile at him and found him smiling back, his expression soft and a little spacey. She loved him like this, after sex, when he looked most vulnerable.
“Happy birthday, baby,” Annabel said, reaching to trace his smile with a fingertip.
Fulk bit playfully at the end of her finger. “How does it feel to be married to an old man?”
“Same as it always has.” Her heart throbbed, warm and heavy and wonderful. “Amazing.”
~*~
Fulk le Strange, the first Baron Strange of Blackmere, lived in a converted attic space at the top of a sprawling Victorian house in Nowheresville, Georgia with his baroness, Annabel. The storm had rolled in on their walk back from Walgreens and lightning strobed beyond the high dormer windows. The lights flickered, a branch dancing on a power line somewhere. If they lost power, they wouldn’t need to light the candles scattered along the plate rail at the top of the wainscoting – they could see just fine in the dark without them. But it was a lovely aesthetic.
Speaking of candles…
Anna pressed three into the center of the chocolate birthday cake she’d baked earlier, grinning ear-to-ear as she struck a match and lit them.
“Darling, I neither want nor need a birthday cake,” Fulk protested. “It’s bloody ridiculous.”
“Birthdays are not ridiculous,” she said, giving him a stern but loving look. God, he loved the sound of her voice, still, after all this time. He loved her little pixie face, soft in the glow of the candles, the dark spill of hair down her back. The glimmer of his mother’s diamonds in her ears. “Especially not landmark birthdays.”
“But, darling…”
“Hush and blow out your candles.” She slid the cake plate across the table toward him.
The candles were blue, number-shaped. A seven, a five, and a zero.
She said, “Happy seven-hundred-and-fifty, handsome.”
He smiled, despite himself, and blew them out in a single breath.
~*~
Their city probably wasn’t actually a city: one red light, an intersection bisected by train tracks, and flanked on both sides by locally-owned businesses. A tattoo parlor, a tavern, several clothes boutiques. A vape shop, a bait shop, and an authentic butcher shop. A Mexican restaurant with a patio strung with lights where they had fajitas and Coronas every Friday. Anna liked to thumb through old vinyls in the secondhand store, and shop for antiques in the close-walled, pleasant-smelling shop next door to it.
Their attic overlooked a sleepy neighborhood full of single-story cottages that had once been built to house the mill workers – a mill long-since shut down. Lawns were weedy and cars were junky, and it was perfect.
When they first moved in, they earned some curious looks – well, Fulk did. Anna was sweet, and Southern, and adorable, and she fit right in. But Fulk, with his long black hair and his aristocratic features, and his British accent got a bit of curious attention. Eventually, though, the locals had decided he wasn’t all that exciting and they left him alone.
Around the city proper was a ring of chain businesses, fast food places and the Walgreens they’d gone to tonight, where the employees drove in from Carrollton or Douglasville, and didn’t know him. Like that poor cashier who’d thought he was a sex predator trying to abduct a college girl.
The real abduction had been a long time ago. And not entirely true, he didn’t guess.
The truth had been more sinister, actually.
But Anna had never been a victim.
She snuggled up beside him on the sofa and he turned his face to nose into her hair, scent her. She still smelled like sex and pine needles and a thunderstorm.
“Want to take a bath?” he asked. The clawfoot tub was just big enough for the two of them.
“Mm. Yeah. After this episode.” His girl loved her Seinfeld reruns.
Rain fell against the roof and the windowpanes, sealing them in together in their den of antiques and crumbling books and the nail polish bottles lined up in the dormer ledges. It was all so ordinary and human; the only monsters were them, just the way he liked it.
~*~
When they were pink, pruney, and clean, Fulk sat down cross-legged on the floor and Anna perched on the bed behind him, her slim legs bracketing his shoulders. She combed his wet hair, the gentle pull drugging him into a wakeful sort of sleep. She braided it, but not seriously, loose, undoing it as soon as she was finished and starting over.
Relaxed, he breathed deep and easy; slowly, her scent changed. From content and warm to something warmer, spicy. He smiled to himself when Anna brushed his hair back behind her shoulder and leaned forward to press a butterfly kiss against the bite mark she’d left earlier, the brief flash of tenderness a jolt that moved straight down his spine and settled in his hips.
Her lips skimmed inward, to the base of his throat, opened and tasted him there, her tongue wet and hot.
A growl built in his chest, a low, turned-on rumble.
“Fulk,” she whispered, helpless, needy.
He got up on his knees and turned around, stayed within the V of her open legs. She was wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, eyes glowing amber. He pushed the shirt up and buried his face between her thighs.
~*~
“Was it an okay birthday?” she asked, later, when they were stretched out on top of the covers. The thunder had moved on, but the rain lingered, a light patter overhead.
Fulk snuffled into her hair and held her closer, needing the skin-to-skin contact. “It was a wonderful birthday.”
“Not like summer in Paris,” she lamented.
“Better.” He’d never needed Paris, or any of the world’s cities they’d lived in. He only needed her.
She hummed, sleepy and content, and snugged her face into his shoulder; her lashes tickled.
They dozed for a while, sated for now.
And then his phone rang.
“Fuck,” he muttered, burrowing deeper into her hair, resenting the shit out of whoever was calling.
Annabel made a sound of agreement.
The call rang out to voicemail and then was silent. Thankfully.
And then it started ringing again.
Fulk was out of bed and across the room in three strides, snatching the hateful device up off the table. “What?” he snarled, when he answered, letting the wolf bleed heavily into his voice. An honest to God snarl.
Whoever was on the other end gasped. A throat cleared. “Um,” a female voice said. “I’m, um, trying to get in touch with Baron Strange. Have…have I reached him?”
Fuck. Fuck. He was Frank Stephens these days, legally; that was the name on their utility bills and magazines. No one alive right now knew him by his real name, much less his title. Save Anna…and certain members of the immortal community – none of whom he kept in contact with.
Panic seized him as he stood naked in his own kitchen; he half-expected search lights to beam through the windows.
“Fuck,” he said aloud, and heard Anna get out of bed.
“I’m sorry,” the woman on the line said. She sounded frightened. “I thought–”
“Who wants to know?”
“What – oh! Oh, yes, well. Um.” She cleared her throat again. He swore he could smell her terror through the cell connection. “My name’s Jennifer, Lord Blackmere, and I’m the personal assistant to Dr. Talbot with the Institute of–”
“I know what the Institute is.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” She tittered nervously. “Of course you do. I’m not sure if you’ve met Dr. Talbot before…” She paused, waiting for him to confirm, and then pressed on when he didn’t respond. “Right, well, he’s been made the head of field operations and he’s had great success at the New York base.”
Fulk had heard about New York; he guessed the term “success” was relative.
“He’s just acquired two incredibly sensitive artifacts,” she continued, “and he’d like to move them to a more secure location. He wants to set up an entire new base, actually. And he was wondering…”
Anna pressed up behind him, her skin warm and comforting. She slid her arms around his waist, smoothed her palms up and down his stomach.
“…if he could talk to you about your house.”
“What about my house?” he snapped, gaze swinging wildly from window to window. Shit, he was going to have to fight off an entire black-booted squadron without any pants on, wasn’t he? Not necessarily a challenge, but an embarrassment, for sure.
The woman gulped. “I’m sorry, is it not still abandoned? Dr. Talbot said you weren’t living there.”
Oh. That house.
“The manor?”
“Yes.” She sounded relieved. “Blackmere Manor. Is it available?”
“I don’t live there, if that’s what you mean.”
“Right. Great.”
“Why would Dr. Talbot want to use my manor as a base?”
“Um,” she hedged. “These acquisitions require…a particular kind of storage.”
His heart thumped hard. Anna covered it with her hand. A slow horror began to dawn. “Where did the good doctor get these acquisitions?”
In a timid voice, she said, “Romania.”
The bottom fell out of his stomach. Seven-hundred-and-fifty years on this earth, and he’d thought there was nothing left to surprise him. This did, though. This frightened him.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed. “Don’t tell me you bloody idiots–”
“Yes, Lord Blackmere,” the woman said, tone suddenly stronger. Bold, even. “We did. We have them – both brothers.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. A shudder moved through him…and then a wave of grim resignation. It had been so peaceful for so long, he really shouldn’t have expected it to last any longer. “Take the house,” he bit out. “Tell the doctor I’ll be there in three days.” He stabbed the screen with his thumb to disconnect the call as she was thanking him.
He let his hand drop to his side, brought the other up to cover the back of Anna’s with it. Stood there with his teeth gritted, hating the world.
Well, not all of it. It had given him his Annabel, after all.
She pressed her soft cheek to his spine and said, “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can fuck off to Australia or somewhere. Live in the outback.”
He tightened his hand over hers. His sweet, sweet girl. “No, we can’t. But thanks for pretending, baby.”
“Always.”
~*~
Dr. Edwin Talbot stood on the wide top step of the manor house, watching the driveway where it emerged from the trees, bubbling with childish excitement. It was an effort not to pinch himself; he couldn’t believe this was finally happening. After decades of research, lobbying, brown-nosing; after countless sleepless nights and a ruined marriage, he had his position at the Institute. He had the brothers, waiting for him inside Blackmere Manor. And right now he was waiting to meet the oldest living wolf in existence.
He might faint with elation.
He cast another glance over his shoulder at the Gothic masterpiece of a home, its narrow, mullioned windows, its dangerous eaves, its rain-streaked stone façade. The stone gargoyles on the roof seemed to move if you squinted, their lips peeled back in constant snarls, wings spread threateningly. Tucked away deep in the woods outside of Richmond, the house couldn’t have looked more out of place in Virginia if it had tried, seemingly snatched off the cover of a novel, plucked from a dark and stormy English countryside.
The inside had been dusty and in need of a good airing out, cobwebs spun between the high-backed dining room chairs, but it was the most decadent, dark, romantic thing Dr. Talbot had ever seen. And the basements. Three levels of them: stone, and steel, and impenetrable. Exactly what he needed for his research and…containment cells.
He heard the rumble of an engine and whipped back around.
A dusty black ’69 Cadillac DeVille cruised up around the circular drive and came to a stop in front of the dry fountain. Under the layer of road dust, the car was flawless, not a single dent or nick. Lovingly cared for, obviously. It had probably only ever had one owner, after all.
The passenger door opened, and Dr. Talbot’s breath caught in his chest as he watched the baroness step out into the gray daylight. He’d seen photos of her, scratched and sepia-toned, but the photos had failed to make her seem alive, somehow. She stood looking up at the house, one hand on the car door, and she seemed like an ordinary girl: very pretty, dark hair curled at the ends, dressed in cutoffs and a man’s flannel shirt, scuffed black boots, a jangle of silver bracelets at her wrist. She looked young, barely out of high school. She looked like her skin would be warm if he touched it – like a person, and no longer just a legend they gossiped about.
The driver door opened, and a tall, slender man unfolded from behind the wheel. His shiny black hair fell to the middle of his back, pulled back along the crown to reveal his high forehead and cruelly beautiful bone structure. Aristocratic. A prince stepped straight from a painting. He wore a black shirt under a red leather motorcycle jacket. Polarized sunglasses with blue lenses. He walked around the car to his wife and revealed black jeans and combat boots. A bored rock star on a country vacation. Magnificent.
He took his wife’s hand and pulled her arm through his, shutting the car door with a negligent movement of his hips. Together, they ascended the stairs toward him. Lord and Lady Blackmere.
Dr. Talbot bowed deeply, his heart jumping in his chest. “My lord. My lady. Welcome.” He beamed at them.
The baroness smiled, cute and friendly. “Hi there. You must be Dr. Talbot.”
“Yes, I am. How lovely to meet you.”
The baron gave him a flat look, eyes hidden behind his shades. “Where are they?”
“Ah. Well.” He hadn’t been expecting niceties, exactly, but was still thrown by the baron’s cold disinterest. “In subbasements one and two respectively.”
The baron snorted. “And you think you have them contained properly?”
“Oh, yes, quite. The younger one is retrained, I assure you. And his older brother, well – that’s the reason I’m so glad you’re here. We’d like to wake him up.”
The baron snorted again, this one sounding more like a growl. “Why the fuck would you want to wake him up? Isn’t one bad enough?”
This was what Dr. Talbot had feared. He took a deep breath. “Bad is exactly my worry. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of my work” – he got a grimace in response – “but long story short, I’m trying to extract the medicinal properties from their blood. The younger brother is…volatile. To say the least. But I believe the older brother might be of great help to my project.”
“Hmm.” The baron nodded. Then he reached up and pulled his sunglasses off, hooked them in the V of his shirt collar. His eyes were bright blue. “You think he’ll help you.”
“Yes.”
“And you think whatever help he might – might – provide will outweigh the consequences of waking him up?”
“If the stories are to be believed–”
“Stories?” he barked. He stepped in close, leaning down into Dr. Talbot’s face, eyes flashing. Crazily, Dr. Talbot noted that he had two thin braids, one behind each ear, studded with tiny blue flowers. “How old are you, fifty? You’re a child, Dr. Talbot, an idiot kid with a hard-on for monster stories. What you brought back from Romania aren’t stories. They’re living, breathing animals, more dangerous and violent than you can even begin to comprehend. You have the scourge of the Ottoman Empire in your basement, and you want me to wake him up?”
“Well. Yes.”
“You’re fucking stupid.”
“Now, baby,” the baroness said. “Don’t be rude.”
Dr. Talbot smiled at them. “Forgive me, my lord, but before you pass judgement, there’s something you ought to see.”
~*~
The house looked just the way he remembered it on the inside. Dark, decadent, overdone. Someone had polished the floors, and furniture, and the massive chandelier that hung above the foyer. But now, unlike then, the place was teeming with modern people: Institute employees and researchers with pocket protectors and laminated ID cards on lanyards.
“Fulk, it’s as beautiful as I remember,” Anna said at his side. She walked with her fingertips resting on his arm, smiling as she looked at their surroundings.
Fulk wanted to smile for her sake, but couldn’t make himself.
Talbot led them to the room that had once been styled as a study – and which looked the same – and went straight for the soaring, seven-foot fireplace. The grate had been removed, and the old false back had been replaced with a heavy steel door that required keycard access. The hallway beyond was the same, though, old gray stone that led to a tight, spiraling staircase.
The first, main basement had been transformed into a lab. Banks of computer monitors, row-upon-row of steel tables topped with microscopes, centrifuges, beakers, hot plates, scales, and rack after rack of vials. Big walk-in refrigerators and cold storage bins. Biohazard labels everywhere. Techs in white lab coats and goggles worked with utter absorption, not looking up as they passed.
Talbot took them into a dark room with a projector screen set up, waved for them to sit.
Fulk chose to lean against the back wall.
Undeterred, the doctor got a film set up and clicked Play, the footage flickering across the screen.
“This is a cross-section of a pancreatic tumor, looked at under a microscope,” he said, which explained the amorphous blob. The clear, pointed end of a pipette entered the shot. Crimson liquid was piped onto the slide, a small puddle right beside the tumor. “This,” Dr. Talbot said, voice shaking with excitement, “is four milliliters of Prince Valerian’s blood.”
Valerian. A bone-deep flare of panic lit up Fulk’s body like a switchboard. He ignored it. “You drew his blood?”
“Oh yes, he was actually quite cooperative.”
“Fucking idiot.”
“Fulk,” Annabel warned.
But the doctor didn’t seem to mind the name calling at all. “Watch,” he said, pointing up at the screen.
Fulk watched, and as he did, the blood slid over the tumor…and began to fizz like soda bubbles. And the tumor shrank. Noticeably.
Dr. Talbot turned to face him, the projector glinting off his glasses and his teeth as he smiled. “My lord, this is just one of many examples of the blood’s curative properties.”
“So it cures cancer. There’s a lot of shit vampire blood can do. Drain the fucker dry and go about your business.”
Talbot winced. “Well. It’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid.”
Fulk stared at him.
“What we’ve found so far is incredible, undoubtedly the medical discovery of the century – possibly of all time. But we’re in the early days of experimenting. Extensive testing is required to determine just how this blood interacts with human cells. We need to understand possible side effects. We’re still years away from synthesizing it into any sort of clinical drug that could be made available for widespread use. There are things like patents and funding to consider.”
“Of course,” Fulk said, deadpan.
Anna was sitting on a table, legs swinging, and shot him a raised-brow look.
“Thus far,” Dr. Talbot continued, “we’ve been testing with biopsies and tissue samples, yielding remarkable results, as you can see. But finding live test subjects who are willing to be injected is another matter entirely.
“The US military has generously provided us with a list of willing participants.” He made a sad face. “Veterans wounded in combat. They’ll try anything, no matter how dangerous and experimental.”
“And the government’s funding you,” Fulk said. “Wonderful. Then what the hell do you need me for?” He was already leaning back toward the door.
Talbot said, “I was just getting to that. Prince Valerian, as I’m sure you know, has a bit of a reputation.”
“For being a homicidal maniac?”
The doctor winced again. “And for his psychic abilities. I mentioned side effects? There’s some concern as to those abilities presenting themselves in any test patients. Not to mention his lack of consent presents a bit of an ethical dilemma.”
“I thought he didn’t put up a fight?”
“Yes, but…well, he is a prisoner.”
“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” Fulk muttered.
“We have every reason to believe, however, that Prince Vlad will be amenable to our research and will help willingly. He might even provide insight into the process.”
“Every reason to believe?”
“He preserved the Western world once, my lord. I don’t see why he won’t be willing to do it again.”
“But you can’t wake him up.”
“To be fair, we haven’t tried. I wanted to do it the proper way first. Though.” And here his expression changed, some of his star-struck wonder replaced by a sternness he hadn’t shown thus far. “We will wake him up. With or without your help. And if you don’t help. Well. I’m afraid I must warn you that the government funders of this project won’t take kindly to your lack of cooperation.”
“Ah.” His stomach clenched so tight he thought he might be sick. “So it’s like that, is it?”
Dr. Talbot nodded, face grave. “I’m sorry, but yes.”
Fulk wanted to be angry. He wanted to smash the projector and hook his strong fingers into the doctor’s throat, rip out his voice box in a shower of blood and grim satisfaction. He wanted to howl. A deeply sick part of him wanted to go down to subbasement level two and throw the locks on Valerian’s cage; who would notice two wolves slipping out the gate when the antichrist was ripping through the place?
But a part of him had always known this day would come. He’d been cut loose from the immortal world since 1865, since he turned Anna and fled with her across the Atlantic.
They had been one-hundred-and-fifty-two blissful years, but he’d always known he would be asked to do his job again.
He cast a look to his Anna, his heart, and she stared back at him with her jaw kicked up to a stubborn level. We can run, her look said.
They were strong, and they could live forever, but they weren’t invincible. And if anything happened to her…
Fulk looked back at the doctor. “You understand that I won’t be able to control him. That’s not how a Familiar works.”
“I’m not asking for control, my lord. Just the chance to make the world a healthier place.”
~*~
“You don’t have to do this,” Anna whispered into the sensitive skin just below his ear. She stood on her tiptoes, body pressed flush to his. She smelled metallic with fear, though her face was soft and carefully guarded when she pulled back to look at him.
Fulk knew his smile was sad. “Yes I do, darling.” He kissed her mouth, shutting his eyes a moment, letting the memory of her taste seep into him. In case this went south. In case…
“My lord?”
It was that annoying woman Jennifer from the phone before, standing with a lab coat and clipboard, nervously shuffling her feet on the flagstone floor.
Fulk sighed and rested his forehead against Anna’s. “Wait over there. Please?”
“Okay.”
Only when she was back against the wall, in the shadows, did he turn to Jennifer.
The woman looked properly frightened. “We’re ready,” she said, almost whispering.
The coffin was old. Old. Well-made, but crude: weathered boards fitted together with nails and craftsmanship. The sort of thing that, if dug up by random graverobbers, would have seemed like nothing more than a simple farmer’s final resting place.
The stone sarcophagus lay off to the side in pieces; it had been too bulky and heavy even for the new service elevator to handle, and they’d had to jackhammer it to bits in order to get the coffin down here, in subbasement one, set up on two sawhorses beneath an array of operating room chandeliers.
The coffin was dusty, rotting in places, coated in a thick layer of dust. By contrast, the figure that lay against its moldy satin liner seemed fresh from a bath. He was tall and broad, a true hero for the ages, with heavy shoulders and arms, a tapered waist and muscled legs, his power visible even through the tattered clothes that had left him almost bare. His skin was pale, but smooth, poreless. Shiny dark hair framed his face, long enough to reach his shoulders. He had a harsh, masculine face, Eastern European features, sharp cheekbones. He was a little too thin, from hibernation, but that would change once he was awake…and fed.
For now, he reclined in peaceful slumber, hands folded over his chest.
Fulk felt invisible ants crawling up the back of his neck. It was hardwired into his wolf soul to bow his head and submit, no matter how much he’d always hated that.
“Do you have the book?” Dr. Talbot asked, brightly, unaware that Fulk wrestled with every ounce of his better judgement.
“What?”
“The wolf book. Do you still have it?”
Fulk shook his head, baring his teeth a little. “I sold that eighty years ago. To a Frenchman headed for Moscow.”
“Shame.”
“We don’t need the book for that – it’s only if you’re trying to turn a wolf.”
Dr. Talbot beamed. “That’s helpful to know. Whatever else you need, then, it’s yours. We are very well-stocked.”
And they were. Beyond the ring of light surrounding the coffin were two teams of medical techs with an assortment of wheeled carts. Gauze, swabs, covered dishes of food. A defibrillator.
“You’re going to need some blood,” Fulk said, and watched the techs shrink back. “He’ll be hungry. And disoriented.”
Someone cursed quietly.
Dr. Talbot nodded. “Jennifer, four pints, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I need a knife. A sharp one.”
A sheet-white boy tech approached him cautiously and offered a scalpel.
Fulk took it from him and paced slowly around the coffin, moving to stand behind the sleeping figure’s head. If he was the sort of person who was easily impressed, who cared about celebrities, he would have been shaking with delight, here in the presence of a true son of Rome. Vampire royalty – figuratively and literally speaking.
But as it was, he was merely shaking with nerves, sick dread heavy like a stone in his belly.
He sought Anna’s gaze one more time, the love and softness in her eyes. Her jaw was set, ready for any sort of resultant violence, but her eyes were gentle for him.
God, he loved her.
He hoped…
He took a deep breath. “Be ready,” he said, grimly. And then began the chant. The words themselves weren’t important, not on the grand scale of things, but they were part of the ritual. The Latin felt thick and unwieldy on his tongue – not that the mortals would notice – so long had it been since he’d used it. But the farther he went, the less he tripped. He smelled his own fear; he smelled something ancient wafting up out of the coffin, old stone and melted tallow candles, and blood, blood, blood…
He lifted his left hand and brought the scalpel down across the palm in a quick slash, blood welling up along his lifeline.
In English, voice resonating with the deep wolf-growl building in his chest, he said, “Thus I command you to wake, Vladimir.”
He tipped his hand and poured his wolf blood onto the sleeping monster’s face.
Vlad’s eyes opened.
To be continued…