I set the sandwich down. Ted had been an unnecessary chance. That was done now. At least he’d be safe. What sort of unnecessary chances caused the shadows in Alex’s eyes?
“How many people have you lost? Ones that you actually cared about?”
“More than I want to count.” He didn’t blink or look away, and I could see the pain down in his eyes.
“It must suck to be you,” I said. The double entendre was out before I realized I’d made one. The subconscious is a fascinating thing.
“Good one. Nice to see you still have your sense of humor.”
“I didn’t really mean it that way.” I put my hand on his arm and, for once, didn’t flinch away at the marblelike chill of his flesh.
“I know.” He put his hand over mine.
“How do you do it? How do you keep going? It hurts so much. I feel like there’s a rock on my chest the size of Montana and I can’t get it off.”
“The undead thing takes care of some of that, you know.”
I shot him a look. He might have been undead, but he wasn’t immortal. He could be killed permanently. If he wanted to, he could waltz out of the hospital on a beautiful summer morning and turn himself to dust in the rays of the early morning sun. “I’m pretty sure I know better. So how do you live with it?”
Without his eyes leaving mine, Alex lifted my hand off his arm and placed it back in my own lap. “You don’t know. The fact that I’m not really living in the first place does take care of some of it. Once you’ve settled for half of an existence, it’s almost a relief to feel something, even if it’s pain.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I could only imagine what he was talking about. Would I get to a place someday that my own survival was so without joy that I would welcome feeling like this?
“Don’t be. But remember this: you can’t feel this pain unless you’ve felt the joy also. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn to be careful. The grief isn’t worth it unless the love before it was truly grand. I’ve learned to be stingy with my emotions. Otherwise I think I would end it.”
I understood what he was saying. I recognized it, even. Hadn’t I been doing the same thing for the past few years? I avoided my family. I didn’t make new friends. And it still hadn’t kept me safe. I’d lost one of the only people I’d allowed myself to love. “Fate sucks,” I said.
He shook his head. “It’s not fate. There is no such thing. Don’t fool yourself. There’s no plan. Who would make a plan that looks like this? It’s all a random series of chance occurrences.”
I knew the argument to make, that the plan was too big and too complex for us to see. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “So what’s the point? Why even bother?”
He straightened up. “I thought you’d figured that out. The point is to somehow leave the room a slightly better place than it was before you walked in.”
I was having trouble believing that a vampire was telling me that, but then again, I’d always known that Alex wasn’t your run-of-the-mill vampire. I was going to comment on that, but my doorbell rang and broke the moment.
Alex started for the door, but I shook my head. “I’ll get it.” I had a feeling I knew who it was.
Sure enough, I could practically smell the cookies through the door. I peeked through the fish-eye lens anyway to make sure. I wasn’t in the mood to take any chances. I’d yet to see Henry Zhang or his gang of Chinese vampires to knock politely, but the past few days had been full of unpleasant firsts for me and I didn’t want any more of them.
It wasn’t Henry Zhang, though. Or
kiang shi
. Or mutilated tai chi masters. It was Ted. I suddenly felt immensely tired. I did not have the energy for this right now. I didn’t think I ever would, to be honest, but definitely not now.
I undid the locks and the security chain anyway and opened the door. “As I live and breathe,” I said. “If it isn’t Officer Ted Goodnight. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
20
“WHAT ARE YOU? AND WHAT WERE THOSE THINGS?”
He looked as if he hadn’t slept. His clothes were rumpled and his eyes were bloodshot.
I took a step back and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m what I’ve always been.”
Ted shook his head. “Don’t dodge behind semantics with me, Melina. Tell me what you are.”
Alex made a funny throat-clearing noise from the kitchen. I sighed. The two of these men in the same room wasn’t going to be a pretty thing. “Officer Goodnight, you’ve met Dr. Bledsoe.”
I turned on my heel, walked into the living room, curled up in the papasan chair and prepared to watch the two of them do battle over who had biggest swinging dick of them all.
Ted’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know you guys made house calls.”
Alex leaned one hip against the counter. “I think there might be several things you don’t know, Officer Goodnight. Are you here as a cop or a friend?” Alex moved into the living room and sat down on the couch. It was as near to me as he could get. I looked at him and shook my head.
Ted looked over at me. Pain shadowed the confusion and anger I’d seen there before. “What exactly is going on here?”
“Alex is my . . .” What the hell was Alex to me? My friend? Not exactly. He’d never make it onto the guest list for Latkepalooza, my mother’s annual Chanukah party. My coworker? True enough, but that didn’t exactly explain why he was here at my house in the middle of the night. My favorite vampire? Having seen the look on Ted’s face after the
kiang shi
and their handlers took off, I wasn’t sure how well that was going to go over.
“Her advisor,” Alex filled in for me.
“Advisor on what?” Ted followed us into the living room. He didn’t sit down. You would have thought that would leave Alex at a disadvantage. Ted was a big man; having to look up at him from a seated position would be difficult. But somehow, Alex slouched back and made it seem as though he preferred it that way.
“Whatever she needs advising on.” Alex smiled. I checked him for fang, but there didn’t seem to be any showing. Whatever game he was playing, I didn’t get it.
Ted didn’t seem to get it either, but he did seem upset. He’d clenched his hands in fists at his side despite the relaxed position he was standing in. As a fighter myself, I appreciated the stance. He looked loose at first glance, but then I saw the fists, the clenched jaw and the way he balanced on the balls of his feet. He’d shifted. He could go in any direction. He was ready for a threat. He just had no real idea of what he was getting himself into, and I thought it was best to keep it that way.
My heart did a little tattoo, though. Damn, he was good. Too bad being in any way associated with me might get him killed. “Maybe you could advise her to tell me the truth. I’d like to know what’s going on before anyone else gets hurt, especially her. What is she?” His gaze narrowed in on Alex. “What are you? I don’t for a second buy that you’re a regular ER doc anymore.”
“Excuse me, I’m right here,” I said, not completely appreciating being spoken about in the third person. “And I can take pretty good care of myself, thank you very much.”
Ted swung his gaze back toward me, and the look of concern on his face hurt me almost as much as my cracked rib. “I saw that. That’s one of the things I’m hoping you’ll explain to me.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, and I couldn’t hold his gaze any longer. I looked down at my toes instead. My pedicure was completely ruined.
“Why don’t you tell me your questions and we’ll see what we can do for you,” Alex broke in.
Ted sat down then, across from Alex. Great. I was going to be ping-ponging back and forth between the two of them as though I were watching a tennis match. “How about we start with what those things were at the karate studio?”
“Good starting point.” Alex nodded. “Those, my friend, were
kiang shi
or Chinese vampires.”
“Alex!” I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. What the hell was he doing?
Ted’s eyes narrowed. “Very funny.” Once again, he turned back to me. “Melina?”
Now what? Lie? Tell him they weren’t
kiang shi
? It wouldn’t be the first lie I’d told someone about something they’d seen. People don’t really want to believe in the supernatural. Oh, they may want to read a book about vampires or go see a movie about zombies, but they don’t want them to really exist. The world is dangerous enough all on its own without adding in other dimensions. Most people know that at some level. It’s what makes those fantasies fun. They can’t possibly be real.
“I think you should trust him,” Alex said quietly.
Trust. That was an interesting concept. Did I trust Ted? He sat there on my couch, muscled forearms braced on powerful thighs. I could smell his vanilla and cinnamon scent from where I sat. If I had conjured up a hero for myself from whole cloth, I’m not sure I could have done a better job. I didn’t know if I’d ever wanted to trust someone more. “Me trusting him isn’t really the problem, is it?”
Alex’s eyebrows arched. “Interesting point. How about you, Ted? Are you willing to trust Melina?”
Ted flung himself back on the couch. “Have I been doing anything but trusting her since the second I’ve met her? I know she lied to me about why she was near that gang fight in the first place. I know she lied to me about why she was asking about grow houses. If I hadn’t been able to verify her name and address through the police databases, I wouldn’t be sure she wasn’t lying to me about her name. And here I am, sitting on her couch in the middle of the night playing patty-cake with you who lies to me about what he’s doing here. Right now, I don’t trust anybody.” He rubbed his hands across his face. “I don’t even trust myself. For all I know, I’m turning into my old man and starting to see things.”
“Your father was a psychic?” Alex asked, clearly interested.
“No. A schizophrenic. One that didn’t always stick to his medication regime exactly how it was prescribed. It was all fun and games until his voices would tell him to get naked at the mall or trim the shrubs at the public park into animal shapes. Then things would get interesting.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
A clearer picture of my hero was starting to form. “Where was your mom?”
“She took off when I was seven.” He shrugged. “When she married him, she thought she could handle it. She thought true love would find a way. What can I say? She was young.”
“And she left you there to deal with your mentally ill dad?” Now I was leaning forward.
Ted held up his hands to stop me. “Can we have the Ted Goodnight therapy session some other day? Right now, I’m more interested in figuring out what exactly went down at that karate studio and how the hell it connects with gang fights and grow houses and figuring out what and who you are, Melina.”
We.
He wanted to know what we were dealing with. I didn’t think I could allow that. I didn’t think I could let there be a we. I looked over at Alex, who smiled back at me complacently. Maybe he was being more clever than I’d realized. Maybe the best thing to do was to tell Ted the truth. Let him think we were crazy like his father. Or messing with him. Or whatever. I didn’t care. I just needed him out of harm’s way.
Damn it all to hell, this caring about other people really sucked.
“They were Chinese vampires. They were discovered during renovation work at the Bok Kai Temple in Old Sacramento. One of the priests there told his brother about them. The brother’s whatever the Chinese version of mobbed up is. Alex here thinks he’s using them to distract the Norteños and the Black Dragons long enough to take over the marijuana trade in Sacramento using the stuff they’re making in a bunch of grow houses in Elk Grove.”
Ted stared at me. “And will the Chinese vampires be joined by legions of Korean werewolves who have been cooking meth in trailer parks in Truckee?”
“No. The werewolves are refusing to get involved. Trust me, I’ve tried to talk them into helping. They’ll have nothing to do with it.” I sat back in my chair and folded my legs up.
Ted shook his head. “You two are a piece of work, you know that?” He stood up and slung his jacket over his shoulder. “When you’re ready to let me in on your little secret, let me know. I’ll still be here, Melina. No matter what. When you’re ready to accept my help, I’m just a phone call away.”
He walked to the door of the apartment.
Alex got there before him.
“What the hell?” Ted looked back to where Alex had been sitting, clearly trying to figure out how he’d gotten to the door so fast. I’d seen him go, a kind of blur of motion sweeping past me. It wasn’t the easiest thing to get used to, but a person eventually accepted that vampires were crazy fast.
“I think you should stay a little longer.” Alex stared full into Ted’s face.
Ted stared right back. Then he slugged him. It was a reasonably nice upper right to the jaw, and he didn’t pull it either. Ted must have been pretty steamed because if Alex hadn’t been a vampire, I’m pretty sure he’d have a broken jaw now. As it was, Alex barely flinched.
“I said, I think you should stay a little longer.” Alex smiled. This time, he showed a little fang.
I so didn’t have the time or the inclination to deal with this, but I had a bad feeling that if I didn’t, one or both of these men were going to end up needing medical attention. I got up and stood between them at the door. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked Alex.
“Taking his side, are you? He punched me pretty hard you know.” Alex rubbed at his jaw.
“You provoked it. On purpose.” I felt like a schoolteacher with two naughty boys in a schoolyard fight. I turned to Ted, who was shaking out his hand. “Do you need ice for that?”
