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“Oh.”
No, when he’d told those guys to leave, there was no reason Terri shouldn’t have attempted to follow the order. He’d expected to have to go after her. Instead she had just stood there. Which meant … Well, it might well mean he couldn’t vamp her at all. He didn’t know, and frankly he didn’t want to try. It was a kind of violation he preferred not to inflict on innocent people.
However … He sighed and sat beside Chloe’s desk, drumming his fingers and looking at Garner. The young man seemed to shrink.
“I have to get in there by dawn,” he remarked.
Garner nodded violently, as if by emphasizing his agreement he could salvage something.
“And then there’s the job I’m not getting done.”
Garner gulped.
“And of course the matter of a needlessly terrified woman.”
Chloe spoke. “Like I said, he’s an idiot!”
Jude frowned at her. Not that he disagreed, it was just that such statements were pointless. That was one of the things he’d managed to learn in over two hundred years.
Although occasionally he indulged in them himself.
“Garner?”
“Yes, sir?”
Oh, now he was sir. “You give me a headache. I haven’t had a headache since I died, but you’ve man aged to give me a headache.”
“Sorry.”
Chloe glared at Garner. “Fish food,” she said.
“I thought she knew.”
Chloe folded her arms. “Blabbing confidential information just because you think someone knows makes you untrustworthy, you dweeb. And you want to work with us? Hah!”
“I’ll find a way to make it up, I swear.”
“Too little too late, you dummy.”
“Enough,” Jude said. “Grinding him under your heel isn’t going to fix this.”
“I’ll try to talk to her,” Garner said. “I think I can convince her I was making up a story.”
Chloe sniffed. “Oh, yeah, you’re so persuasive.”
“Well, she believed me before!”
“When you were telling her the truth.”
“Stop it,” Jude said again. “Just stop it. I’ll have to deal with this somehow, but I think a whole lot better when people aren’t arguing.”
The two of them fell silent at last. He gave an impatient huff of his own and started drumming his fingers again. “How long has she been in there?”
“Almost half an hour,” Chloe said. “I tried to talk her out.”
“Okay. Give her a little longer. At some point she’s going to start wearing down and then I’ll go in.”
“Maybe I should go in with you,” Chloe said.
“At this point I don’t think she’ll trust you too much, either. You’re such an inventive liar, remember?”
Chloe scowled at him.
He sat motionless, waiting for time to pass, ignoring Chloe and Garner who were tossing glares at each other like ping-pong balls.
Finally, he stood. He had to go in there, and as near as he could determine, there was only one way to handle it.
After swiping his key card, he punched in his code and listened to the dead bolts snap back. Then he walked into his office.
He faced a woman holding a sword in both hands. The hysteria had obviously passed to be replaced by determination and desperation. A lot easier to deal with.
She backed away from him until she could back up no farther. He left the door open, walked to the opposite side of the room and leaned back against the credenza, folding his arms.
“That’s a good sword,” he remarked. “I wore it on parade, even had to use it a few times at Waterloo.”
“Stay away from me.” Her voice trembled with intensity. And she still smelled so tempting.
“I have no intention of getting any closer. I just want to know one thing.”
“What?”
“Why you ran in here instead of running out of the building.”
She froze, biting her lip, then glared at him again. “I was frightened.”
“Well, I can understand that. The door’s open. Run any time you want. No one will stop you. Just, please, leave my sword behind. It’s one of my few keepsakes.”
But she stood there, anyway, legs braced, still waving the sword although her arms must be getting weary. “Is it true?” she demanded.
“Is what true?”
“That you’re a … a …” She apparently couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“I’m a vampire,” he said, keeping his voice calm, even pleasant. “Yes, it’s true.”
“And you kill people?”
“I haven’t killed anyone in a very long time who didn’t deserve it. I don’t kill just to feed.”
A disbelieving sound escaped her.
He shrugged. “I don’t need much, you know. A blood bank will take more from you than I will.”
Something in her face was changing. Her mouth opened a little. Was he seeing the dawn of curiosity? He hoped so.
“Mostly,” he said, “I buy blood. But I never dine without permission.”
With that her jaw did drop open, and with it the sword lowered. “You’re lying,” she whispered.
“Why would I lie? I just told you I’m a vampire. And you don’t have anything to fear from me. If you did, I’d have fed on you last night. Because let me tell you, Terri, you smell that good to me.”
The sword tip touched the floor, but she still looked ready to bolt. More important, he could see questions starting to swirl behind her eyes. Maybe they could get through this. If not, oh, well. No one would believe she’d met a real vampire, and if she grew too insistent, she might even get herself committed. He hoped she didn’t go that route.
“Why …” Her whisper broke.
“Why what?”
She shook her head, still staring at him.
“You ought to sit,” he suggested gently. “You’ve had a shock. I’ll just stay over here and you can take that chair right by the door.”
But she still didn’t move. She just kept staring at him, and he could almost see mental furniture being rearranged behind her eyes.
“You’re a ruthless killer,” she finally said.
“Only when I have to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What kind of excuse is that?”
“Would you kill to save your own life? Isn’t that what you were thinking about doing with that sword? Isn’t that what happened last night with Sam?”
She gasped, and a spark of something flared in her eyes. “Did you kill him?”
“Sam? No. I’ll admit I would have liked to, but no. I warned him away. I threatened him. But I didn’t even hit him.”
A shudder passed through her. Dragging the sword, she eased her way to the chair and sat. He managed to suppress a wince at the way she treated that beautiful piece of steel.
“I can’t believe this,” she muttered.
“It would be nice if that were true,” he agreed. “Unfortunately, you already believe it or you wouldn’t have reacted the way you did. So here we are. You know my secret. You can leave. Or you can stay.”
Her head shot up. “Why would I want to stay?”
“Apparently, you didn’t want to leave. I don’t know why. Maybe you don’t, either. And maybe you’d stay because you have more questions. It’s entirely up to you.”
Her eyes narrowed dubiously. “You’re just saying that. You can’t let me go now that I know.”
He couldn’t quite suppress a smile, recognizing that she was still having trouble coping with the fact that he was a vampire, and equally so with the notion that he intended her no harm. People often got repetitious as they struggled to accept a truth that violated their notions of reality. “Just who is going to believe you? A hundred years ago you might have been able to assemble a mob to come get me, but these days …” He shrugged.
“So nothing can hurt you?”
“Plenty can.”
“Like what?”
He shook his head slowly and this time he did smile. “We’re not intimate enough to share those secrets.”
She leaned forward, putting weight on the sword point and finally he couldn’t keep silent. “Don’t lean on it that way. Please. You’ll damage it.”
At once she straightened. “Why is it so important to you?”
“Because I carried it through an entire war. It saved me from serious trouble a time or two.”
“How is that possible? You’re immortal!”
“No one is immortal. I’ll even die of old age. Eventually. If I survive long enough. Unlike you, I can die more than once.”
“This is too much.” She shook her head several times, as if she wanted to deny what she was thinking, or what he was saying.
He remained still and silent. His primary concern was to get her past this shock. Then she could leave, try to pick up her life, and one of these days she’d probably even convince herself she had imagined all of this because it simply wouldn’t fit in her world.
Eventually, she spoke again. “If I struck you with this sword, what would happen?”
“You’d hurt me. You’d cut through flesh and maybe bone, depending on how hard you swing.”
“And then?”
“And then I’d heal, the way I’ve been healing for nearly two hundred years, and by tomorrow night you wouldn’t even be able to tell you’d done it.”
She lowered the sword then, laying it on the rug. The eyes she raised to him looked pained. “I can’t protect myself from you, can I?”
“Yes, you can. You can walk out. At any time.”
“But why?” she asked plaintively. “Why would you let me go?”
Damn the movies, damn the myths and damn Bram Stoker. He invariably had an uphill battle against those deeply ingrained stories, on the rare occasions he acknowledged the truth of his mere existence.
“Because—” and this time his voice held a note of steel, mainly because her scent was getting to him again, and self-control, long nurtured, was fraying a bit “—I have absolutely no desire to harm you in any way.”
“But that’s what vampires do!”
“Not this one.” He turned his head toward the door and barked, “Chloe. Garner. Get in here.”
The two appeared instantly as if they had been listening.
He glowered at them. “Are you undead?”
“Cripes,” said Garner. “Do I look like it?”
