Eternal Kiss of Darkness

The window to the limousine rolled down when they approached, a handsome man with long brown hair and a closely cropped beard on the other side of it.

"Mencheres," the stranger said. "If anyone other than you had me fly halfway around the world just to keep me waiting while you were obviously lingering in bed, I'd have my driver run them over. Twice."

"Long flight?" Mencheres asked in reply, opening the door to let Kira in. She minded the edge of her toga as she sat down in the opposite seat from the brunet stranger, whose gaze flicked over her in a measuring way.

"Very long," he answered. "I was stopped twice at the airport for 'random' security checks, too. Just because I have long dark hair and a beard, I'm constantly mistaken for a potential terrorist. I suppose it's worse when you fly commercial. They must attempt a cavity search every time."

Mencheres's mouth curled as he climbed into the limo. "Those private body-search rooms do provide an easy opportunity to feed." Then he sat next to Kira, placing his hand on her shoulder. "This is Kira Graceling. Kira, Vlad Tepesh."

"Quite an honor," Vlad drawled, holding out a hand crisscrossed with what looked like old scars.

Her brow furrowed even as she shook the hand offered to her. That name sounded familiar. Where had she heard it before . . . ?

"Oh!" Kira exclaimed. Her eyes widened. "You're not the real Dracula, are you?"

"Does no one think to warn people before they meet me?" Vlad muttered, shooting an irritable look at Mencheres. "Though I suspect what made that detail slip your mind was the same thing that also made you late."

"You're being discourteous," Mencheres said in a reproving tone even as Kira shifted in her seat. It was true that showing up late wearing nothing but sheets wouldn't require much imagination to figure out what had kept them.

"It's fine, Mencheres. Though if you'd told me I was about to meet such a legendary vampire, I would have grabbed the nicer silk drapery to wear instead," she replied, meeting Vlad's coppery green gaze with an arched brow.

Vlad flashed her an instant's worth of a smile. "I can see why he likes you. Although, to listen to Radje, Mencheres doesn't just like you. He's fall en so in love that he's slaughtering vampires over you, defying the Guardian's attempts to bring him in, and generally acting even more crazed than he was at the beginning of his relationship with Patra, may she burn in peace."

Kira cast a glance at Mencheres. This was a discomfiting topic for more than one reason - and was no one sensitive about throwing up Mencheres's dead wife in front of him?

"You know I would not have been as foolish as to let myself get caught on tape at a place I later went back to and supposedly torched," Mencheres said. Please, his tone implied with heavy irony.

Vlad's lip curled. "No, you're very careful about video. Heard all the cameras at Disneyland were blown out yesterday after a reported Muslim extremist knocked out the lights, then detonated a small bomb before escaping."

"Muslim extremist?" Kira repeated, her jaw dropping. Of all the racial-profiling bullshit . . .

"No one was hurt," Vlad went on. "Though the families who were shaken up did get a refund of their admission tickets."

"Bones was followed by Enforcers," Mencheres said, shrugging. "It was an unfortunate incident."

Vlad grunted in a way that made Kira think he and Bones weren't close, but that was hardly her concern. A wave of lethargy crested over her. Dawn must be getting closer.

She'd wanted to call Tina before she fell asleep, but now there wasn't time. It wouldn't reassure her poor sister that she was okay if Kira passed out in midsentence while talking with her.

"We'll need a safe place to stay for the next few days," Mencheres said. "Obviously, all of my residences would be the first place the Guardians looked for me, my people's homes and hotels being the next. But you're not of my line, and your people would fear your wrath more than the Guardians', if any of them revealed you were assisting me."

"I already have a place picked out for you." Vlad's gaze turned knowing. "But you must want more than that from me, to have me come all the way out here. Secret accommodations can be arranged over the phone."

"I will set up a safe, neutral place to meet with Veritas," Mencheres replied. "One that we can easily escape from if she's not inclined to come alone. I want you there as witness to what's said between us."

Vlad's eyes seemed to get a shade greener. "Veritas? Why, out of all the Law Guardians, would you assume she'd be the most sympathetic to your cause? I know you share the same sire, but Veritas almost had Cat killed for interfering in a duel just last fall.

"

"I've known her for most of my life," Mencheres replied.

Vlad grunted. "You could say the same about Radjedef."

"Who is the vampire who sired you, Mencheres?" Kira asked. "Will I ever meet him or her?"

"Not this side of the grave," Vlad muttered.

Mencheres gave Vlad a mildly reproving glance before turning to her. "Tenoch was my sire. He was an extremely powerful, respected vampire, and he died almost six hundred years ago."

"How did he die?" Kira asked before remembering that natural causes wasn't a possibility. "Oh, ah, never mind," she stammered.

"Tenoch died from the same thing that kills most extremely old, very powerful vampires," Vlad said. "Suicide."

"That has never been proved," Mencheres shot back in a hard tone.

"Tenoch had even more power than you do, yet I'm supposed to believe he was brought down by merely a quartet of Master vampires?" Vlad asked in an equally inflexible tone. "Those who don't know the details might believe that fable, but you and I know it was only four vampires against him, not fifty as reported. Tenoch set himself up. If he'd truly wanted to live, he could have killed them. Yet Tenoch was tired. He'd lost his most treasured anchors to this world, and the majority of his people didn't need him. He wanted to die. He only made it look like murder so his people didn't suffer guilt over it." Mencheres's face was back in that impassive mask again, the walls around him closing up like a force field.

"I'm sorry I asked, let's just drop the subject," Kira said, thinking it was cruel of Vlad to press the issue. If Vlad was right in his description of the circumstances, then it did sound like Tenoch had committed suicide. Some depressed humans did similar things, like pointing an unloaded gun at police in a form of suicide known as Death by Cop.