Immortal (2 page)

Fin shifted his gaze to his niece, deciding that there wasn’t a chance in hell Mrs. Hill was going to let Hilly speak in her presence. She hadn’t in at least a century. “Kaleigh?”

“We didn’t steal the stupid gum.” She held both hands up, palms out.

“Liar! The gum was there on the counter when I looked down at the register to make change for your drinks. Then the gum was gone.”

“You can look if you want.” Kaleigh shrugged her slender, suntanned shoulders. “Rob, show Uncle Fin, I’m sorry,
Officer Kahill
, the bag.”

Rob, a pleasant, shy young man, reluctantly stepped forward and opened the white plastic bag. Fin peered into it: two cans of Coke, a Mountain Dew, and a water.

“Well, of course they wouldn’t put it in the bag!” Mrs. Hill’s cheeks began to puff again. “Check their persons. I’m pressing charges, I swear I am. Teenagers shouldn’t be allowed inside stores. It should be against the law! No one under eighteen inside stores.”

“Want to pat me down, Uncle Fin?” Kaleigh turned around and placed her hands on the counter, spreading her feet.

Pete ran over to the counter and copied her pose. “You should pat me down too, Officer Kahill,” he said, excitement in his voice. “Just like on
Cops
.”

Katy began to hum the theme song from the TV show. “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?” the teen sang dramatically under her breath. “Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”

Fin shot Katy a look that silenced her and then turned back to Kaleigh, obviously the ringleader. She always was. He waited.

“You can search us all if you want. Maybe you should search everyone in the store.” Kaleigh glanced over her shoulder at a young Asian man with a baby in a backpack. He pretended to read a suntan lotion bottle.

The young father glanced at the teens spread-eagled at the counter and then Fin in his uniform, and made a hasty dash for the door, leaving the lotion behind.

“Enough with the drama, Kaleigh,” Fin snapped. He’d had just about enough of the kids and this job. He was disappointed in his niece. It was hard to believe that this smug young woman had stood up in front of the entire General Council the previous week and made several well-thought-out suggestions on how the sept could aid recently reborn members adjust to American culture. One day she was an integral part of the governing body of the sept, the next day a would-be hooligan.

Fin glanced at his wrist watch. He was off at eleven. He wondered if he could make it another two and a half hours. “Get over here, Kaleigh,” he ordered, indicating the spot beside him.

Recognizing that he meant business, she hurried over.

Fin held out his hand for the gum.

“I don’t have it. We didn’t steal it,” Kaleigh insisted.

Fin looked at her sternly.

She exhaled. “Fine. We were just having a little fun. It’s there.” She pointed toward the ceiling.

Fin squinted. “Where?”

“On the green raft,” she said, as if he was an idiot.

His gaze settled on a green and white striped raft just to the left of the cash register and hanging a good eight feet over it.

Mr. and Mrs. Hill stared at the pink pack of gum resting on the edge of the raft. “Liars!” she accused. “I only looked away for a second.”

Fin lowered his gaze until he met Kaleigh’s. He waited again.

After a moment Kaleigh exhaled and reached up and tweaked her own nose.

She was trying to tell Fin something, but he had no idea what. “Kaleigh…”

“You know,” she said meaningfully. This time she wiggled her nose without the aid of her fingers. “Like on
Bewitched
.”

“We’ve been watching the reruns on Nick at Nite,” Katy explained to the boys. “I like the first Darrin better, but Kaleigh thinks the second one is way hotter.”

Fin looked at Katy and then back at Kaleigh. Then, what the teen was talking about finally dawned on him. The 1960s TV sitcom
Bewitched
. In the show, Samantha was a witch and wielded her magic with a twitch of her nose. “You’re not supposed to be using powers in public and you know it,” he chastised, lowering his voice.

A human male in swim trunks, rubber flip-flops, and white cream smeared on his nose walked up to the cash register. Everyone turned to look at him, fearing he had overheard them, but he was preoccupied, busy stacking cans of five-for-five-dollars potato chips on the counter. Mrs. Hill hustled over to check him out.

Fin turned back to Kaleigh again. “And since when are you telekinetic?” he whispered.

She shrugged. “Comes and goes, like most of my powers. I was practicing.” She looked up at the raft overhead. “It worked.” She smiled, then looked at Fin again and the smile faded. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s Mr. Hill you should be apologizing to.” He indicated the stout man, who was at that moment far more interested in a human female in a bikini at the cold drink case than he was in the
misplaced
pack of gum.

“Um, I’m really sorry, Mr. Hill,” Kaleigh said, tucking her hands behind her back, looking angelic. “It was rude of me to play that joke on you and Mrs. Hill. But I never intended to steal the gum. I swear it. I just wanted to see if I could do it. I’m supposed to be developing my powers—for the good of the sept, of course.”

Katy sniggered.

Mr. Hill was still watching the purple polka-dotted bikini. The woman leaned over to grab a drink out of the case, presenting her shapely bottom to Mr. Hill.

Fin cleared his throat. “Get the gum down, Kaleigh, and then get out of here.”

She nodded vigorously and glanced up at the gum.

The other teens and Fin looked up. Hilly continued to analyze the scenic view at the cold drink case.

Kaleigh scrunched up her pretty face in concentration.

The gum didn’t move.

Kaleigh exhaled loudly. “Come on, come on,” she whispered under her breath.

The pink king-sized pack of bubble gum stubbornly held its position.

“You got it up there,” Katy murmured. “Why can’t you get it down?”

“I don’t know.” It was practically a wail. “Stop looking at it. You’re making me nervous!”

Fin waited another moment and then, feeling sorry for the kid who was now obviously becoming embarrassed, he moved to her side. “You just move it or did you dematerialize it and then put it back together on the raft?”

“Dematerialized it,” she whispered, now close to tears.

“Nice,” he whispered. “That’s a lot harder to do.”

She looked up at him, sneaking a quick smile.

Fin smirked at her and then glanced up. All he had to do was see the gum in his mind on the raft, then on the shelf below the counter. It disappeared instantly from the raft, as if it was never there.

“There you go. Enjoy your chips,” Mrs. Hill told the customer who had no idea what was going on nearby.

Fin walked over to the register. “The gum has been returned to its place, Mrs. Hill. I’ll escort these young ladies and gentlemen out of your establishment. Have a good evening.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to arrest them?” she called after him as he ushered the kids under the air-conditioning vent and out the door. He was so intent on getting away from Mrs. Hill that he didn’t see the woman in front of him until he nearly collided with her.

“Excuse me,” Fin said, startled, reaching out to be sure he hadn’t knocked her off balance.

“Scusilo,”
she murmured, not sounding at all offended.

The teens bolted as Fin glanced up and saw the face of a dark-haired angel.

“N
o, lo scusa
,” Fin responded in Italian. It came out unconsciously; he had a thing for languages. He spoke thirteen fluently, including two dead languages. Then in English he said, “I’m sorry. I was keeping an eye on those kids.” His fingertips lingered on the HF’s arm a little longer than necessary.
Careful
, his subconscious reminded him. Human females were strictly off-limits to male vampires.

The glass door behind him closed, taking with it the last breath of cool air, and he was once again enveloped in the possibilities of the hot, humid night.

“No, I was the one not paying attention.” Her voice was light with amusement. Warm with sexual overtone.

He met her gaze. Human or not, she was an astonishing beauty. Late thirties, he guessed. Mediterranean olive skin. Pale pink lipstick on plump, sensuous lips. Big, dark eyes fringed in black lashes. He sensed he knew this woman, but how?

She was not an American. He could tell even though her English was impeccable. European women, in particular, had a certain air about their speech patterns. Americans sometimes took the tone for snooty. Fin had always seen it simply as a refinement in speech cultivated over thousands of years. Americans sometimes forgot just how young their culture was.

“Officer Kahill,” she said, smiling.

And for an instant, as she took him in, Fin knew what women suffered through every day of their lives; a feeling of being objectified, of being totally consumed. He enjoyed his moment of
suffering
immensely before offering his hand. “Fin Kahill.”

“Officer Kahill, a pleasure to meet you. Elena Ruffino.” Her handshake was firm, but feminine. He caught the faint scent of her cologne on the night breeze; it was pungent, almost feral. And utterly intoxicating.

“I’m not really a cop.” He withdrew his hand, touching the shiny new badge on his uniform, trying not to think about the hot, sweet blood that pulsed through her veins. Of course, the more he tried not to think about her blood, the harder it became. “Actually—” he stumbled. “Actually, I am, but—” He fell silent before he made a complete ass of himself. “Long story,” he finished, stepping back to open the door to the store for her. The wind chimes overhead this time sounded different, as if majestically proclaiming her arrival.

Other women on the boardwalk were dressed in casual beachwear; cut-off denim shorts, tank tops, flip-flops. Their faces were sunburned, their hair pulled in sloppy knots on top of their heads. Elena wore a pale yellow dress that skimmed sun-bronzed knees, and strappy sandals. She was a gleaming sand dollar on a beach of dirty, chipped ark, sea pen, and clam shells.

She walked past him, into the store, leaving a trail of her scent behind her.
“Grazie.”

“Siente benvenuto.”
Fin watched her enter, musing how out of place she looked in the artificial fluorescent light with the colored rafts and buckets hanging over her head. What was an Italian woman of her caliber doing in Clare Point? Despite her fashionable clothing and the hip designer bag on her shoulder, she didn’t even seem of this century. He let the door close and walked out from under the store’s blue and white striped awning, forcibly pushing the thought of her out of his mind. He gazed south, then north.

As in nearby and far more popular Rehoboth Beach, wooden benches lined the boardwalk, ocean side. With the setting of the sun, the street lamps had automatically come on and now glowed high overhead, casting circles of white light on the worn floorboards. He could still smell the cotton candy, the roasted peanuts, and the suntan lotion, but also the more timeless scents of the darkness and the incoming tide and the elements they carried, both good and evil.

Two benches north, he spotted his gang of gum-dematerializing juvenile delinquents talking to one of the town’s oldest occupants. Victor Simpson was a retired fishing boat captain who had a face like a wizened apple and a disposition to match it. Victor was one of the few members of the sept who had not been cursed by God, but by a Kahill. He had once been human, a nineteenth century ship’s captain, but had been turned into a vampire by one of their own. An unfortunate incident and one strictly prohibited. So, despite his disagreeable nature, everyone in town had a soft spot in their hearts for Victor.

Fin walked up to the teens surrounding the old man. “These kids bothering you?” he joked.

“Sure as hell are,” Victor grumbled, scratching his scruffy chin. The man had no sense of humor. “I was scared for my life.”

“We just asked you if you had change for a dollar,” Katy scoffed. “Sheesh, old man.”

“Go on with you.” Victor shooed the teens and they scattered like seagulls.

“Later, Uncle Fin.” Kaleigh waved as she walked away. “Thanks!”

“Go home,” Fin called after them, trying to sound threatening. “All of you. And I better not see you again tonight or your parents will be picking you up at the station.”

“We’re going to the arcade. We’ll be in by curfew. I swear,” the girl promised.

Fin rested his hands on the wide belt of his uniform pants. He watched the kids go, his thoughts drifting back to the Italian woman.
Elena
. He liked the taste of her name on his tongue. He made himself return his attention to Victor. “They weren’t really bothering you, were they?”

Despite the heat, the elderly man wore navy blue work trousers and heavy leather shoes. His only concession to the temperature was a dingy once-white sleeveless ribbed T-shirt. The kids called it a wife-beater. Not particularly attractive on a wizened senior citizen who had spent too many years in the sun.

“’Course they were botherin’ me,” Victor grouched. “Been botherin’ me since they were born again!”

Fin nodded, looking up and down the boardwalk. Like many of the town’s citizens, Victor often came in the evenings to catch a breath of fresh air and watch “the moving picture show,” as he liked to call it. He did not frequent the gift shops, play arcade games, or ride the now antique merry-go-round. He did not buy paper cups of fresh lemonade or plates of hot, sweet funnel cakes. He came to watch the human tourists and maybe to remember fondly what his life had once been.

“So you really let them hoodwink you into this, eh?” Lifting his chin, Victor indicated the uniform. He spread his spindly arms over the rear of the wooden slatted bench and leaned back.

Fin didn’t know what to say. What was done was done. Fortunately, Victor didn’t need a partner in conversation, just an audience for another one of his diatribes.

“Good-for-nothin’ brother of yours. Doesn’t deserve this much attention. ’E’s got the whole town turned upside down tryin’ to accommodate ’im.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it when I ’eard you let Mary Kay con you into moving out of the B and B and into that crappy rental with him, just so’s you could keep ’im out of trouble.”

“My mother didn’t
con
me into anything,” Fin protested. But both of them knew Victor was right. Mary Kay Kahill was definitely a con artist and Fin had most definitely fallen for her scam. Well, not so much fallen as surrendered. It was hard for him to tell his mother no, especially when it involved Regan. She didn’t deserve the worry her youngest son, by six minutes, often caused. “Mom needed the extra rooms. Business at the B and B is crazy. They’re booked solid all summer.”

“Lie to yourself if ye like, but don’t lie to me, mate.” Victor pointed to the five-and-dime. “Who’s the dame with the long gams?”

Fin glanced over his shoulder in the hope of catching another glimpse of Elena, but she hadn’t yet left the store. Then he realized Victor must have seen them talking. Despite his deteriorating hearing and sight, he didn’t miss much.

Fin looked down at the old man and shrugged. “I don’t know. Tourist.”

Squinting, Victor stared hard at the store across the busy boardwalk. “Somethin’ not right there. I didn’t like ’er looks.”

Fin frowned, checking his watch. The crowd was beginning to thin. Parents were taking their cranky children back to the hotels, rentals, and B and Bs to be bathed and tucked in after a long day in the sand and sun. His shift was over at eleven, half an hour after all the shops closed. Just a little more than two hours to go; surely he could survive another two hours. Two hours and eleven weeks. Only eleven weeks until Labor Day.

Fin glanced at Victor, who was still watching the store front. “You don’t like anyone’s looks, Vic. Except maybe Mary McCathal’s…from what I hear.”

The rumor around town was that Victor was keeping company with Mary, the previous postmaster’s widow. Bobby had been the first victim of the beheadings two summers before. Because his head had been severed and separated from his body, he could never be reborn. His wife, not permitted to remarry by sept law, would remain a widow for all of eternity.

Victor’s eyes, so pale blue with age and the salt of the sea that they were gray, darted in Fin’s direction. “People in this damned town talk too much,” he groused. “Haven’t they got anything better to do than stick their noses in my business?”

Fin grinned. “That mean you and Mary are—”

“Means keep your nose out of my damned business, boy!” He looked up at Fin. “’Aven’t you got something better to do? Catch some criminals? Make these streets safer for tax-payin’ people like me?”

“Have a good evening, Victor.” Fin turned to go and as he did so, he heard the wind chimes over the door of the five-and-dime. He couldn’t help himself. He looked. Sure enough, Elena Ruffino sashayed out the door with those long tan legs and that gloriously slender neck of hers.

Fin walked up the boardwalk so he wasn’t standing directly in front of Victor and waited for her. He was the fly drawn to the Venus flytrap. Steel shavings drawn to a magnet. He simply couldn’t help himself.

“Officer Kahill.” She smiled.

“Miss Ruffino.”

“Please. It’s Elena.” She stopped, a plastic bag from Hilly’s hanging from her manicured fingertips.

He met her dark-eyed gaze. In her heels, she was close to six foot tall. He liked tall women. Of course, he liked short women, too. Skinny women. Fat women. But right now, tall women were his favorite, this one in particular. “Would you like to have a drink with me after I get off work tonight, Elena?” His invitation was purely impulsive.

And her smile in response to his whim was as gratifying as any Fin had had the pleasure of experiencing in his sixteen-hundred-odd years. She made him hot just looking at him. He was just relieved he was past the point in his life where he got a boner every time a pretty woman looked at him.

She gazed at him through killer black lashes. “I’m flattered, Officer Kahill, but how do I put this delicately?” She maintained eye contact with him. “Don’t you think you’d prefer to ask out a woman
closer to you in age?”

He chuckled. Women insinuated the same thing all the time, but he liked the idea that Elena was willing to actually come out and say it. “It’s Fin, and I was cursed by good genes with a baby face. I’m thirty.”

Fia said his youthful appearance was one of his best attributes when investigating for the sept. Still appearing to be in their late teens or early twenties, he and Regan traveled all over the world pretending to be American college students and, thanks to their appearance, played the part quite convincingly.

“And you can’t be a day over thirty,” he said, guessing she was closer to forty, but unable to resist paying her the compliment.

Fortunately, she had a sense of humor and she laughed. “Well, you do know how to flatter a woman like a man who’s learned some life lessons.”

“Is that a yes?”

“And a flirt as well,” she teased. “Actually, I can’t tonight, but maybe tomorrow night. I’ll give you my number.” She offered her hand. “Do you have your cell?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He pulled it from his pocket. “You here long?”

She punched keys on his cell phone, not looking up. “A few weeks. I’m on holiday with my sister and her family.”

“So you’re single?”

She handed him back his phone. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before you asked me out?” Again, the smile.

Sexual energy sizzled between them. She definitely liked him.

“Call me,” she said.

Fin dropped his phone into his pocket, watching the way her hips and shapely buttocks swayed as she strolled away. “You bet.”

So maybe this job isn’t going to be so bad after all…

It was close to midnight by the time Fin clocked out at the station, grabbed a bag of ice from the mini-mart, because his icemaker wasn’t working, and walked in the front door of his rental house. He was greeted by the sound of cartoons on the TV. Regan was lying on the couch in the same position he’d been when Fin had been preparing to leave for work. The only changes he could see were that his brother was now wearing shorts and a T-shirt and there was a box of open cereal and a bowl of milk and a spoon on the floor beside the couch.

“Hey, Krupke.”

Fin frowned. “That’s not funny. It wasn’t funny this afternoon and it’s still not funny tonight.”

“But you like Krupke.”

“I like the musical
West Side Story
. I like Natalie Wood. I don’t like Krupke and I don’t like being called that.”