Chapter 31. William
william
Two weeks after meeting Henry, William is finally summoned by the mysterious Anne.
“Hurry,” says Nate as the three of them exit the subway. “If you’re even a minute late, she won’t be there when you arrive.” Unlike William and Cisco, who are in jeans and a coat, Nate wears a crisp business suit. He runs his fingers through his ponytail, smoothing any flyaway strands.
“What is the story with you and Anne?” asks William, who spied Nate applying product to his long hair this morning.
“Story?” Cisco guffaws. “More like a sentence!” He expertly dodges Nate’s elbow.
“Anne isn’t into vampires this century,” says Nate as they climb the stairs and stride down the bustling sidewalk. “But if there’s one thing we have, it’s time. I can wait.”
After a couple of weeks of playing nonstop Call of Duty, Nate has started to ease up around William.
He still has not revealed more information about Anne or Lenny or the rest of their kind, yet with every passing day, William gets the sense that whatever Nate’s doubts are, they are slowly ebbing away.
“She might change her mind when she sees you today,” says William, and though Nate does not respond, William notices the way his shoulders roll back, making him look taller.
As different as they may be, William feels a strange determination to win Nate’s trust. Maybe because what he wants more than anything right now is to finally feel like he belongs somewhere.
When he was first turned, William hated being a vampire and had to be sent away to the Old World to acclimate to his new form. Now that he has a second chance, he wants to do things right.
When they reach the next block, William registers the pumpkins and turkeys featured in many of the display windows along the street, and it strikes him that it is Thanksgiving week. That means she must be in the same city right now.
“What day is it?” he asks.
“I know it’s weird to meet for business on a Sunday,” says Nate, reading the wrong intent behind William’s question. “But the whole point is to be discreet.”
William nods, but he is thinking of Lorena, and whether she is back at school yet.
He wonders what excuse she came up with for his disappearance, and whether she has kept his secret or broken his trust. He is so distracted that he does not notice when they arrive at the tallest building he has ever seen.
They step into a sleek lobby with creamy marble floors and golden light fixtures, then they approach a security desk where they hand over their identification to a receptionist.
“Only Mr. Pride has been granted access to meet with Ms. McIntyre. The rest of you may take a seat down here and wait.”
“What are you talking about?” snaps Nate. “All three of us are here to see her.”
“Ms. McIntyre’s explicit instructions are to only allow Mr. Pride through.”
A guard peels away from the wall and makes his way over, like he senses Nate might be trouble. Yet Nate does not even glance at him. His eyes begin to glow as he holds the receptionist’s gaze and commands, “You will let—”
The guard sticks his hand out to Nate, and the vampire plucks a note from between the man’s fingers. William looks over to see a handwritten message in impeccable lettering:
Defy me, and I will clean out your bank account.
Nate lets out a deep growl. He sounds like a wounded animal. “Fuck that. If she won’t play by the rules, we won’t, either. Let’s go,” he says to William. “We’ll come back when she starts acting right.”
William follows Nate and Cisco outdoors, but he does not move away from the building. “Why is she doing this?” he asks Nate.
“To fuck with me. She knows Lenny won’t like it, but if she insists, I’ll have to report it. She’s being”—he seems to be casting around for the right word—“insubordinate.”
“Who is Lenny?” William presses. “Why will he not like this?”
Yet Nate just shakes his head. “Let’s go.”
He and Cisco make it to nearly the end of the block before they realize William is not following. They stop and wait for him, yet William does not budge.
“This is my meeting,” he says in a low voice that nonetheless reaches their ears. “I must attend.”
“I’ll reschedule it,” says Nate, speaking just as softly from the far end of the street. William can see Cisco’s head swiveling between them like he is at a tennis match.
It occurs to William that they may be under orders to guard him at all times, which would make him their prisoner. Now is his chance to find out.
“Come on,” says Nate, waving him over. “Trust me.”
William almost laughs. “You ask for that which you refuse to give.”
Then he darts inside the building and waits to see if they follow. He inhales deeply to gauge their location, yet their ancient scents have vanished.
They are gone.
WILLIAM FOLLOWS the receptionist’s instructions and walks down to the third set of elevators. When the doors close, the PENTHOUSE button lights up on its own.
At the top of the tower, he finds himself in the entryway of a very private and upscale restaurant. He cannot see any food or tables from here, yet he can smell a medley of dishes. A series of artfully draped curtains conceals diners from view.
After removing his long coat and folding it over his arm, he approaches a hostess. “I am meeting Anne McIntyre.”
She looks him up and down before declaring, “We have a dress code. A dinner jacket is required. Follow me, please.”
He does as she says, and they slip past a set of silky silver curtains and enter a spacious dressing area lined with dark blazers with golden crests that make him think of his Huntington uniform.
The woman hands him a gray jacket, and he pulls it over his black cotton sweater.
It is only as William follows her back out that he realizes he could have simply compelled the hostess to let him through.
Strange, how the thought did not even occur to him.
“You’re a little early, but you can wait at the bar,” says the hostess, taking him through sapphire curtains that glimmer like the sea.
She leads him to a stool at a wide marble counter, and when the bartender asks for his drink, he orders an old-fashioned just because he hears another customer say it, and the name suits him.
Vampires can get drunk, but rather than a couple of glasses, it takes a few bottles. The drink set before him has the look of a corrosive agent, and when William takes a gulp, it tastes like one, too.
He has just finished draining the glass when he inhales an ancient scent. He gets to his feet and faces the blue curtains as they part, and in his peripheral vision, he sees everyone else at the bar turning in the same direction.
Anne wears a slinky purple dress that works quite well with the place’s aesthetic. Her long blond hair cascades down her hourglass figure in waves, and a diamond the size of a baby’s fist hangs from her neck. She carries no coat or purse, but a cell phone is clasped in her fingers.
“Hello, William,” she says. “I’m Anne. This way.”
He trails her and the hostess down a few passages, until they reach a set of bloodred curtains at the end of the hall.
The hostess holds one side open for them, and William follows Anne into a private dining area with a table set for two, overlooking Central Park and the city’s illuminated skyline.
“We will not be eating, just drinking,” Anne informs the hostess. “We will start with the 2019 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grand Cru, and in thirty minutes, follow it up with the 2012 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. We will serve ourselves and require no further interruptions.”
Just the way Anne moves and speaks and commands what she wants makes William feel clumsy and unrefined and centuries younger.
“Yes, ma’am,” says the hostess, and a second woman enters so quickly with the first bottle that it feels like they were anticipating Anne’s exact order.
She serves Anne first, and after smelling and tasting the drink, the vampire nods. Then the woman fills both glasses.
Once they are alone, Anne takes a long sip of her wine, and William does the same. This drink is more pleasant than the old-fashioned, its fruity headiness almost warming him. When she sets down her glass, she nudges the phone across the tabletop toward him.
“I have registered an email address for you and opened your bank account. I set you up as the recipient of a family trust, and a hundred thousand dollars will be deposited into your account every month. If you need more, ask, but don’t flash your money around because it’s better to avoid attention.
I will handle your taxes and all your financial dealings, so you don’t have to worry about that. ”
She touches the phone’s screen, and it lights up with an image of a sunset. “It’s unlocked, but you can set a passcode. This button is your wallet, which you can use to pay for things. I also saved my phone number. Any questions?”
She picks up her wineglass again and sits back as she sips, like the business portion of the evening is over.
“A few, actually,” says William, sitting up and setting his glass aside. “Why are you doing this for me?”
“For you?” She shakes her head. “I do this for everyone. I finance our entire species.”
“But—how?” he asks in awe.
She frowns with displeasure. “Are you asking because I’m a woman?”
“No—I am asking how could any one of us support all of us?”
The hint of a smile plays on her lips. “I have always loved games and numbers, so I’ve been investing in the stock market for over a century. By now, I have quietly accumulated enough wealth to support this entire country.”
She refills her own glass while he stares at her in speechless admiration. “Now tell me something about you,” she says, bringing the wine to her lips. “You look like you were turned quite young.”
“Nineteen,” he says, and her brow rises in surprise.
“Why so soon?”
“I never knew,” he says.
“Why did you go into death-sleep?”