Decatur the Vampire (9 page)

Decatur bent down and picked the bat up. “As I expected.”

“You expected what?” Marduk herself had expected nothing more than reading a couple of chapters of her book before going to bed. This was not entertainment she had planned on.

“You have no idea how to defend yourself.” Decatur twirled the bat like it was a baton. “You should have kneed me in the groin when I was close to you.”

“Okay, well, stand still and I’ll take another crack at it.” Decatur just smiled at her. Marduk had the crazy urge to smile back.
This is all so surreal.
A week ago she didn’t know him. Two days ago he came to her as a dream. Today, in the flesh, he kissed her and told her he was a vampire.
Then he broke into my house. I’m thinking he’s going to be a lot of work.
“Who the hell are you?”

“You know who I am. I’m the man of your dreams.”

His smile made her blush. Marduk accepted that this was the man who had taken her body and touched her heart but she wasn’t about to give in so easily again. As much as she wanted to believe he craved her body, Marduk knew there was more at stake.

Decatur couldn’t help smiling. Marduk was so damn cute and sexy standing there before him. He wondered if she was aware he could see the distinct outline of her nipples through the thin white cotton of her singlet. His cock tensed in anticipation as he thought about those plump thighs spread and wrapped around his waist once more. He wanted Marduk again. He wanted her to see the man who made love to her. It was time to lay his cards on the table and make her believe he was not crazy. “So you know I’m a vampire.” Decatur allowed his fangs to be exposed.

“Showing off is not attractive.”

He chuckled. That was not the response he expected. Decatur wanted to shock and awe Marduk, not make her look at him like he was an annoyance. “Not impressed with that?”

“Nope.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

In the blink of an eye Decatur propelled himself forward until he was almost touching her. He bared his teeth once more. Marduk stepped back in a rush. Decatur filled the space she left. “Am I scaring you now?”

“Maybe.” She took two more paces back and got tangled up in the curtains.

“Is it the teeth?” Some women loved them while other loathed them.

Marduk snorted and stepped forward pushing her hands against his chest. “Hello? You broke into my home—several times. Your teeth are the least of my concerns.”

“Really?” Now that wasn’t an answer he had expected to hear.

“Well, yeah.” She pushed him again.

Decatur allowed her to gain ground on him. Besides, having her hands on his body made him hot. “Are you going call the cops?” Not that they could do much. He could be gone within a second.

Marduk looked once more at his fangs. “Um, yes. No. I’m not sure—do you think I should?”

Asking the bad guy for his opinion was cute. “Nah, it won’t do much good.”

“Because you’ll have left before they would have come.”

“No, because if you were really worried about me you wouldn’t be standing and chatting to me. You’d be running away from me screaming.”

“I never run,” Marduk declared, giving him another shove.

“Fearless?” He liked that her hands remained on his chest.

“No, just really unfit.”

Decatur was laughing more with Marduk than he had in a long time. “We need to talk.” There was so much he needed to explain about what was happening to him. He wanted Marduk to understand and not fear him. And Decatur wanted to try to work out how she fitted in with Archimedes’ plans. If she was innocent and unaware of the evil of Archimedes, Marduk needed to be warned. More importantly there was so much he wanted to know about her.
And I want to be naked with her once more.

“Do you often break in to a woman’s home for a chat?”

“When it’s important.” Marduk looked down at her hands as if it only occurred to her that they were still on his chest.

“Be my guest and leave them there.” His eyes moved down to her breasts.

Marduk removed her hands and folded her arms over her breasts. “You didn’t think of knocking?”

“Would you have answered?” Not that he would have. Decatur liked the element of surprise.

“It would have given me a chance to change.”

“You look beautiful—clothed or naked.” As much as he hated Archimedes he was glad that the bastard had brought them together.

“You think?” Marduk was surprised.

“Oh yeah.” Decatur often thought human men were stupid. They only seemed to praise the thin and vacuous bodies that were a dime a dozen. True beauties like Marduk were often overlooked or not cherished as they should be. “You’re pretty fearless.”

Marduk shook her head. “No, I think it’s more that I’m too scared to think straight.” She stopped and assessed him as if trying to decide what to do or say. “About what happened in the storeroom—and the other night—”

“The kissing? The touching? My cock in—”

“Yes, well, whatever.” Marduk’s words came out in a rush.

“That was unforgettable.” He smiled when she blushed. He hadn’t met a woman in centuries who still had the ability to do that.

“No, not that,” Marduk responded quickly.

“You say it as if it wasn’t important. Do you get made love to a lot by vampires?”

“This is not about kisses or stuff.”

“So it’s about fantastic sex?”

“You have a one-track mind.”

Decatur arched his eyebrow. “It was fantastic though. You have to agree with that.”

She ignored the question. “About this demon who’s manipulating you.”

“You remembered.” Decatur was pleased.

“Well, it’s not something you get told every day.” Marduk assessed him. “Is it about Vulcan, the other ‘Smith’ boy? Is he the demon?”

“One of them.” Marduk was smart. She had worked out who Vulcan was without being told. Decatur had to admire her. She was taking this in stride as few people would. “Does none of this strike you as odd?” How was that possible? Or were there so many television shows about supernatural beings—albeit completely wrong—that had inured people to the odd and the quirky? “You’re not the slightest bit shocked?”

“Maybe eighty-five percent of me is but I’m trying not to show it.”

Lord, she was sweet. “I have a lot to tell you.” Decatur walked over to the bed and picked up her robe. “You look lovely but I’m sure you would be more comfortable in this.” There would be plenty of time later to touch and taste his beloved.

Marduk didn’t know what to think. She went from fear to shock to thinking what a nice man to hand her a robe and then to
why doesn’t he want to see me half dressed
? She knew in a couple of hours from now she would either wake up and this would all be a dream or she would wonder at her sanity. But somewhere inside her she’d known from the moment she met Decatur he was different. Not a vampire of course but different.
Maybe I always knew who he was. Maybe I dreamed him into my life and made him a reality.

“I’m not a dream, darling.”

Darling.
No he wasn’t. Marduk clutched the robe to her. “Wanna explain to me what the hell is going on?” Marduk looked at the vampire leaning against the wall. There was no question that she wanted to hear more about him. This man had been thrust into her life and his story demanded attention.

She sat on the bed and listened as Decatur told her about the immortal world, the wars and Archimedes. It was as shocking as it was mesmerizing. That such a world existed Marduk didn’t doubt. She was not so fixed in her thinking that she refused to believe a world other than her own existed. When Decatur was finished speaking, they were both silent for a moment. What Marduk said next was important. She wasn’t sure why though. She just knew in her heart that her world had taken a dramatic turn and she had to move with it. That Decatur was a vampire initially was a surprise. Marduk would have lied if she said otherwise. Yet sitting and listening to him describe his life was like any other person. He had his highs and lows and now he was trapped and he hated it. Who couldn’t identify with that? The one thing that stuck in her mind was the fact the he had led such a lonely life. The price for immortality had to be that everyone you knew died but you went on, a little harder of heart every year. Where did it stop?

“What are you thinking?” Decatur’s voice was low and wary.

It occurred to Marduk that he was someone who had probably never fitted in anywhere in his long life and confiding in her had taken a lot from him. “I think it’s all kind of sad.”

Decatur looked surprised. “How so?”

“You’ve always been alone.” Marduk had friends and a strange dysfunctional family that at times drove her insane but she had always had someone to turn to. Who did Decatur turn to? Or did immortals not seek the same things in life that mortals did? The look in his dark, soulful eyes answered the question. He wanted more but he was afraid to ask.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.” The smile Decatur gave her was lopsided and self-conscious. “Anyway I’m a scary vampire. You’re not supposed to feel sorry for me.”

“You’re not so scary.” How could he be after what he had told her?

“No?”

“Nah, women at a ladies’ shoe sale are more terrifying that you.” Having your hands on the last pair of size nines in that instance could get you trampled.

Decatur shook his head. “You’re very strange, Marduk.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
Here I am sitting and chatting with a vampire in my bedroom. What next?

“Why did you—”

“Come to you as I did? Why do you think?”

Marduk looked in his eyes and wanted to believe the love she saw there. But was that real love or was she just caught up in the drama of the moment?
Is it that I want him to love me as I love him?
She stiffened as she said the words in her mind.
Holy crap, I love him. When did that happen? And how rational is that?

“What?” Decatur looked intrigued.

“Can you read minds?”

“No, only faces.”

Lucky break for me.
Marduk knew it was time to change the subject before she said something stupid. “So, ah, the vampire thing…” Was it tacky to ask specifics?

“Yeah, what do you would to know?”

Everything and anything about you.
Marduk remembered the hot, sucking feeling of his mouth against her neck. She just thought it was hot and kinky. “Do you drink blood or is that just Hollywood hype?”

“Yes, I do, and to answer the next question I see in your eyes, I do it when I have sex. But you know that. You felt it with me.”

“Do you have sex a lot?” Marduk did not want to be one of many.

“Not anymore. Not since I met you.”

Good answer.
“So, do I turn into a vampire now?” She eyed him with suspicion and intrigue.
I do it when I have sex. I’d like to see that.

“No. Vampires are born and not made.” He came to sit on the bed beside her. “And I know you’re thinking, ‘How often has he had sex before me?’”

Yes.
“That’s none of my business.”
Am I that obvious?
Although they were not touching, Marduk could feel the heat from his body seeping into hers.

“Isn’t it?”

The look he gave her rattled her to the core. It was hot and heavy and it told one thing. Decatur wanted her. “Um, so, ah, the blood thing. Do you do it because blood sustains you?” That’s what happened in the movies.

“Yes, I need blood to survive.”

“Huh,” Marduk murmured once more.
The things you learn.

“Ask anything you want, darling. I will tell you whatever you want to know.” His tone was one of teasing challenge.

Marduk licked her lips. The thing she really wanted to know was did he want to have sex with her again. How did he feel about her? And was he only with her because someone called Archimedes had forced them together?
And will you leave when all this madness is over?
But she asked none of those questions. “So what’s your weakness?” That was a safer topic and more to the point. After all Decatur was in her life because of this Archimedes person. She had a stake in what happened. “What’s he got on you?” Marduk could see the reluctance in his eyes. “Come on you can tell me. Who am I going to tell? Who’d believe I sat and chatted to a vampire in my pjs?”

Decatur countered back. “What’s your weakness?”

“I can’t stand heights, I hate baked beans and I love anything full of empty calories but it makes me pile on the pounds.”

“Oh yeah?” His eyes traveled over the curves that the robe could not hide. “I’ve seen you naked. You’re luscious.”

Marduk crossed her arms over her chest once more and blushed. Decatur laughed at her self-conscious actions. “You have a nice laugh.”

“I don’t use it often.”

Marduk could see there was not a lot to make merry of in his life. “So…”

Decatur held his hand up to stop her. “Sweetheart, I’m not going to tell you what my weakness is. I can’t.”

Bummer.
“You don’t trust me?” But then, why should he? They barely knew each other.

“It’s not that,” Decatur replied as he moved closer to her on the bed. “I have no idea what Archimedes plans to do with you.”

“Me?” Marduk was boring in the extreme. She couldn’t even imagine a demon glancing at her, let alone plotting something with her in mind.

“Why do you think I was at Danby?”

Okay, there was that and Marduk wasn’t big on coincidences. “I thought at one stage you were there to cull staff. And Vulcan?”

Decatur snorted in derision. “He’s a pain in the ass demon with his own agenda. And no, I have no idea what it is but it has to be something big. Vulcan rarely makes an appearance in anyone’s life without meaning to.”

“I found him strangely charming.” This, to Marduk, wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Charm always made her suspicious. Decatur was different. He had a reckless sex appeal that was awfully interesting.

“I’ll bet. He’s quite the ladies’ man.”

If she didn’t know better, Marduk would have sworn she heard a note of jealousy in Decatur’s voice. Not that he had reason to be. It was more than likely just the usual male pissing contest over who was more of a man, er, immortal “So what about the other three? Do you know their weaknesses?”