Chapter 5
No Pete don’t for godsake don’t leave me here—
Layla thrashed, body and mind spinning on a dark wine-colored flood of vertigo. For an endless, sickmaking moment she was certain whatever had grabbed Ben and Steve had also killed her, but there was bright yellow light in her eyes and the faint squeak underneath her was a huge, soft…
A bed.
King-sized, in fact, with a cabbage-rose coverlet plus tonally matching pillow shams, the entire shebang set smack-dab in a big, pleasant room which whispered hotel, but a nice one, so mind your manners.
The air was still and dead, blessedly cool in a way that meant someone had paid their HVAC bills recently, and her head gave an amazing flare of pain before subsiding into a dull pounding ache.
All of which was beside the point. She scrambled, impelled by an overpowering, instinctive desire to get away, and ended up half-crouching in a mound of decorative bedding, her back pressed against the headboard.
Something rattled overhead—a framed print, its lower edge digging into her shoulders.
The back of her head brushed the glass, her hair falling into her eyes.
Pinkish carpet, washed-out candy cane wallpaper, floor-length drapes pulled tight over what had to be a huge window, maybe even a tiny balcony.
Two nightstands, both with clunky pink ceramic lamps turned up to full.
A flatscreen television bolted to the wall over a dresser trying too hard to impersonate rosewood.
A door, slightly ajar, showing the dark cave of a bathroom, reflected light gleaming dimly on a suggestion of white industrial tile.
And a vampire.
“What.” The word was a mere husk of itself, falling into humming silence. Her voice shook, her throat so dry it could give the Sahara lessons. “The fuck.”
The biter stood at the bedside, looking mildly at her.
His eyes were very dark, his mouth relaxed, and even though his hair was a tumble of black curls each looked perfectly planned, falling in precisely decreed disarray.
Straight-backed, hands loose at his sides, wide shoulders at strict angles, chin absolutely level; he looked like a military statue, in fact, since the posture could only be defined as at attention.
Same black wool sweater with vertical ribbing and well-worn leather patches at the elbows, same indeterminate-dark Carhartts—they were definitely brand-name, broken in by hard use—and she was pretty sure he was probably wearing the same boots as in the file photo.
Next to all that, she was a goddamn mess. Her T-shirt was awry and her hair entirely rumpled; her own steel-toed tacticals crushed the pillows and counterpane, and she felt a brief flash of guilt at wearing shoes on a bed.
Which was entirely nuts since she had only seconds left to live, if that. Because there was the red-stripe-skull-and-crossbones vampire, and he was looking right at her.
Fuzzy dark flowers dilated at the edges of her vision. Her heart buzzed, pounding like she’d slammed the world’s biggest energy drink; the nice cool air had turned to glass and her lungs couldn’t drag any in to fuel her starving brain.
The vampire stirred, the fingers of his right hand twitching. Layla shrieked and tried to push herself through the wall, her legs stiffening uselessly.
A puff of cool air caressed her cheek. The mattress gave a sharp groan because he’d leapt onto the bed, his boots sinking in hard, and his hands clamped around her bare upper arms. Fever-warm skin, callused but oddly gentle—he didn’t squeeze, simply held her motionless.
“Be calm,” he said, quiet but with absolute authority. “Or I will use the quietus again and make you. Breathe, little Leila.”
Ohshit he knows my NAME ohgod how… And he was mispronouncing it, too, adding an extra syllable as if he could taste every vowel.
Her lungs decided to work again, since it was either that or pass out, and she sucked gratefully at air that was not full of mildew.
Someone vacuumed this room near-daily, wiped the surfaces down, changed the linens—there was a breath of commercial detergent simmering up from the bed, though the comforter no doubt held smeared traces of a thousand travelers.
A faint haze of outdoors night and summer heat surrounded the biter, both soothing and terrifying at once. He smelled like a clean adult male after a heavy workout, and it wasn’t right, it just was not right for a vampire to smell like a person.
“Good,” he continued, encouragingly, and that was awful as well. He had a nice, deep voice, almost restful. “Be tranquil, little Leila. You are safe.”
That is a goddamn lie. The dark blots threatened to come back, growing over her field of vision; she forced them desperately away, hoping only for one more breath, then another.
“H-h-how…” To top it all off, she was stuttering. Fucking useless question, Lay. Come on, do something. Punch him. Use all that self-defense the guys were laughing about teaching you.
But the fingers caging her upper arms were iron; even if he didn’t squeeze, she was miserably aware of the sheer strength humming through his hands.
He balanced lightly in front of her, with absolute control, and now she knew how a mouse felt when a tiger placed a paw lightly upon its back, not pressing—but ready to, if she moved.
If she so much as breathed wrong.
He lowered his chin slightly, peering at her face. The slight motion was also somehow too controlled to be precisely human, and a fresh wave of terror nailed her in place.
“I can explain.” The words were evenly spaced, slightly stilted. “Would you like that?”
She couldn’t quite place the accent, or maybe he’d just acquired his English from a textbook. How did vampires learn new languages, anyway? Did they attend night classes?
Oh, God. She was going to die as she’d lived, wondering about random, inconsequential bullshit. Layla held very still, wondering if she should pray.
What a time to wish I were Catholic, like Shawn and Mike and…
That was another horrible thought. “P-please d-d-don’t kill me,” she stammered. It was embarrassing, but she had just that instant found out that all things considered, she’d rather be deeply mortified than outright dead. “Please.”
“You are very safe, little Leila.” A flicker of eyelids—he couldn’t even blink like a normal person, for Godsake. “That is your name, is it not?”
Fucking hell, how do you know that? How had he found… had he followed her and Pete? Or Ben and Steve, considering they’d emptied entire clips at him and his henchmen?
Where was all his goon-squad backup now? Her own crew, well, she could guess.
Ben gone between one syllable and the next. Steve-o, just vanishing out of his chair. The tensor lamp rocking crazily, shadows dancing… “Are… m-my friends, they’re…”
“The one who ran before you—Pete?” He waited, patiently, until Layla managed a tiny flicker of a nod. “He left you to your fate.”
Now she remembered the door on that particular escape route was rigged to block itself with a pile of falling crap, cutting off pursuit. Pete probably hadn’t even realized she was behind him, too worried with bugging out.
Oh, God. “The… the others?” You’re being so stupid. What do you think happened?
“Gone,” he said, softly. Almost kindly. “You need not concern yourself with them.”
Which brought her brain-train to a crashing halt, because it was a statement full of implications, as dear old Suze would say, Suzy who had died one rainy spring evening up at Pleasant Point, her convertible’s top ripped open like a soda can and her throat, her poor neck…
Layla stared at the vampire, who studied her closely in return.
Did he look at smooshed bugs on a windshield the same way?
The terror was so huge it wrapped around its own axle and became bleakly, morbidly hilarious.
What kind of bloodsucking monster put a girl in a hotel room and… what the hell did he want?
“Le-i-la.” Drawing out her name as if it had three syllables instead of two, though there was no hint of the usual male mockery. “An old name, beautiful. It means Night, always a blessing, and eyes like stars. You are no doubt much beloved; are your parents alive? Your clan, your familia? Tell me.”
What the hell? God alone knew where Layla’s wild-child mother was at the moment, and she’d never known her father.
Meemaw Catherine was safely in the ground, sure, but she didn’t feel like explaining her fucked-up family history to a biter.
There was no point, and besides, that was private information.
“Are you going to k-kill me?” What a ridiculous question. Still, she had to know. The words will it hurt trembled at the very tip of her tongue; she snapped her teeth shut, keeping them trapped.
“Have I not said you are safe?” The faintest hint of irritation crossed the biter’s beaky face, his eyebrows drawing a few millimeters closer to each other, and now Layla was utterly certain she was going to pass out and wake up dead, no matter how ridiculous the notion sounded.
“You will live long, little Leila; I will make certain of it.”
That was another statement full of implications, but her head—hell, her entire body—was so overloaded she didn’t have the capacity to untangle a single one. Instead, since holding still wasn’t working, it chose the only other option on the table.
Get away.
Or at least, she tried to, pitching herself aside with every bit of strength she could muster.
Her left hand struck his chest, and it was like slapping a concrete wall.
The vampire’s grip on her shifted a fraction; a strange blip like a CD skipping in an old player, and his head blurred forward, snake-quick.
Somehow her back met yielding fabric instead of being propped against the headboard and wall. A brush of hot breath on her sweating neck, then a piercing almost-pain accompanied by spreading numbness.
The vampire’s fangs closed on her throat.