Stakes & Stilettos - Michelle Rowen [69]
His eyes narrowed. “Sorry, I can’t do that. At least, not yet.”
“Then I think this conversation is over.”
He studied me. His black scarf was turning white from the blowing snow. “Let me ask you this, Sarah… before this curse, is it true that you had consumed the blood of two master vampires?”
“Maybe.” I eyed him cautiously. “What difference does it make?”
“Perhaps none.” His gaze was steady on me. “And there have only been the two? Thierry and Nicolai? No others?”
“You’re a master vampire, aren’t you? I’ve heard you’ve been around ever since the Crusades. History wasn’t one of my better subjects, but I think that makes you even older than Thierry. Maybe I’ll bite you. Three is my lucky number.”
“An interesting suggestion.” His eyes crinkled at the sides to show he was smiling, which, since I hadn’t really been kidding, was a little odd. “When the witch contacts you again, will you allow her to break the curse?”
“In a heartbeat.”
The amusement left his eyes. “That is a mistake. Know this, Sarah. That when the nightwalkers roamed the earth they were misguided in their actions, but they weren’t stupid. They longed for the sun and for control of their darker natures. Near the end, they had objects created to help them achieve that goal. Some of those objects remain to this day, but to the uneducated observer are unremarkable and undetectable.”
“What kind of objects?”
“Typically it was jewelry. Rings, bracelets, and necklaces that the nightwalker would wear to enable them to appear as a daywalker. As long as the object touched their skin they were, as you say, normal.” He paused and I felt his gaze heavy on me. “If my information serves, and I believe that it does, you have already come in contact with such an object in the very recent past. This would confirm for me how you seem to be blessed with great luck and coincidence.”
I blinked at him. “Seriously? What was it?”
He shook his head. “What do you care? After all, you will have the witch break your curse at her earliest convenience.”
“Yeah, but I’m all for having a Plan B.”
“Sarah!” Thierry called out from across the street.
Oh, crap.
I clutched the Red Devil’s long leather coat before he could walk away. “You have to tell me what the object is.”
I was close enough to him now to sense something I didn’t expect at all. In fact, it was the last thing I would have expected. Past his cologne, which I recognized as Acqua di Gio, I smelled something else. Something unmistakable.
My eyes widened as I moved my searching nose up his neck and immediate hunger curled in my stomach. “You’re human!”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are! The Red Devil isn’t supposed to be human. He’s a vampire.”
“You’re wrong.” He pulled away from me and his eyes narrowed.
“Who the hell are you?” I reached for his scarf but he pushed my hand away roughly.
“Don’t touch me,” he growled. Then he turned and walked briskly out of the park.
“Sarah, are you all right?” Thierry’s words were harsh and filled with concern as he reached my side. He watched the Red Devil disappear into the shadows.
“I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t. Not even close.
I frowned so hard it hurt. What the hell was going on?
Interlude
San Diego, California, 1903
Where is your wife?”
Thierry looked up from the Red Devil’s journal where he’d been keeping notes on the assignment he’d just completed. His friend Nicolai’s wife, Elizabeth, regarded him from the doorway of the small inn they currently called home.
“Veronique has returned to Paris,” Thierry said.
“And Nicolai is in New York. My goodness. All this time on our hands and however shall we occupy ourselves?” She smiled at him and ran her hand suggestively down her side.
Elizabeth was a beautiful woman. Blond hair, red lips, a peaches-and-cream complexion. As a human she’d been an actress whose talent and fame were rivaled only by that