Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down (27 page)

So Bridget was around in San Francisco again. 
Cool beans
.  At least it was unlikely I’d run into her any time soon if she was intent on picking up the threads of her old life.  I’d come a long way since our third floor walk-up, and I didn’t have any intention of walking back down memory lane any time soon. 

O
n the advice of the council, I sent a peace offering to Bakareh.  An exquisite snow globe with Peter Pan’s pirate ship inside, since he seemed to embrace the boy who refused to grow up on his visit to Disneyland.  I sent along a note, expressing how sorry I was that his visit had ended on such a sour note, and that I hoped he’d found his return trip enjoyable.  A week later I received a large package with my note ripped into pieces, the slow globe smashed to bits.  So much for repairing diplomatic channels. 

I settled into a new routine over the next couple of weeks, one that left me far more absorbed in work than I would’ve liked.  I’d been hoping things would settle down after the new year, but that wasn’t the case at all.  It seemed like every vamp in the territory had some kind of petition for my eyes only, and with the influx of new vampires to the north, there was more business to deal with, in general.  What I really needed was to appoint a Magistrate for the northern part of the lands.  We’d never had a need for one before, but it was obvious that the new population was thriving. 

Unfortunately, on the nights that I freed up my schedule, Bishop’s duties kept him out in the field.  Carter didn’t mind that at all, monopolizing my time with his new scheme to put a fireman’s pole from the demolished office in my basement to his growing tunnel below.  I accused him of living out his Bruce Wayne fantasies at the expense of my basement, and he’d given me a bashful shrug.  How could I argue with that?

I was glad to have some time to help with the wedding plans for both Maggie and Hanna, who’d become fast friends, bonding over bridal magazines.  It was easier than I’d thought it would be merging those two worlds together.  Carter and Mason got along famously, like two frat boys in search of their next prank, and it wasn’t unusual to find Hanna at the house having dinner with Maggie, Tucker, and Lee when I woke for the night. 

I didn’t mention Gunnar’s slip up in telling me about Maggie and Tucker’s search for a new house, and she didn’t bring it up either.  For all I knew they’d changed their minds; Maggie seemed to be enjoying the bonding time with my sister and me, and Tucker stuck by Lee’s side whenever he could.  I certainly preferred having them around all the time, it made the house feel more like a home. 

As much as I enjoyed the hours we spent together, I missed spending more time with Bishop though.  It felt like there was always something pulling us apart.  We kept talking about taking time off, eager to repeat those first few days of bliss, but something always seemed to come up.  I have to say though, what short time we did share together was full of passion. 

In fact, I think it made it hotter that we couldn’t find more than an hour or two together at a time.  Absence did make the heart grow fonder, and the rest of me as well.  When Bishop came to see me at the office, we shut the blinds and gave in to a little midnight delight more often than not, and that wasn’t a bad way to date – for a while – but I wanted more. 

I started to think more about moving in together.  That way, we’d at least see each other at the start and end of every night.  It was crazy, but I hadn’t even gotten around to inviting him into my house yet.  We were either meeting somewhere already out, or at his place because there was more privacy.  But I couldn’t expect Carter and the rest of the family to ever warm to him as long as we kept ourselves apart.  Maybe it was time for the next step?

There was a lot on my calendar for the night, but I asked Gunnar to take a detour on the way to the office.  Jakob’s building had pretty much become the permanent HQ for the Order in his absence, and I hoped I’d find Bishop in his office, instead of out on the streets.  I probably could’ve called first, but I was afraid I’d chicken out if he asked why I wanted to talk to him. 

The front desk let me right in, being the Elder had its perks, and nobody stopped me on the way up to Bishop’s office.  I found him sitting at his desk, bent over a large, leather bound ledger, a pucker of concentration marring his brow as his pen moved across the paper. 

“They do have these newfangled things called computers, you know.”

Bishop looked up, his startle quickly morphing into a smile.  “Hey, this is a nice surprise.  What brings you here?  Not another practical joke by our poisoner, I hope.” 

“No, nothing like that.  We’re at a complete standstill with that investigation, though I think Carter isn’t quite ready to let it go yet.  He keeps insisting that
somebody
had to have seen something.  I don’t think he’ll be happy until he’s interrogated every person in a five block radius from where her body was found.”

“Is Carter waiting for you downstairs?” he asked, coming around his desk to give me a hug, and I shook my head. 

“Gunnar is.”

“Good.” 

“I
can
drive, you know.”

“I know, but I like having that extra protection around you when I can’t be there.”

I bit back my instinct to insist that I didn’t need it.  If it made him feel better, I’d let myself be driven around for a while, I was used to it.  “At least Gunnar’s happy to have something to do.  He’s been as giddy as a school girl ever since our prankster first struck.” 

He and Carter had dubbed it Operation Loki, in honor of the trickster Norse god.  I’d laughed along with them at first, until it occurred to me that there probably was a real Loki out there somewhere, and I was distantly related to him.  Something told me that if we ever went up against the real Loki, he probably wouldn’t look at all like Hiddleston, and there wouldn’t be anything swoonworthy about it. 

“Still no sign of Amunet, or the rest of Bakareh’s staff?”

“Nope.  It’s like they walked out and didn’t stop.  For all we know, they kept going right into the bay.”  I sure hoped not, I liked Amunet. 

“Has the council been giving you any more guff?”

I made a sour face.  “They’re still not happy about the way I booted Bakareh out of here, and it doesn’t help that he sent back my apology in itty bitty pieces.”

“I can understand that,” he allowed.  “It probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but I get how Bakareh can work your last nerve.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m the right person for this job,” I sighed, giving voice to a doubt that’d plagued me ever since I took the job of Elder.  “I’m twenty-two years old, of
course
I don’t always do the wisest thing I should.”

“It’ll come to you in time,” he said with easy confidence that I wish I felt. 

“I guess so.  How long did it take for you to gain some perspective?”

Bishop inhaled swiftly, but evidently thought better of what he’d been about to say.  “You have to remember the kind of life I led when I was first turned.”

“Never mind,” I decided, not wanting to think about him and Carys if I could help it.  I had more important things to agitate my nerves.  “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something.  But promise me you won’t freak out about it, okay?  Because I know we said we’d take things slow, but then you said those things in Italian, and we didn’t really talk about it after that, so I know we haven’t actually defined what it is that’s going on with us.  And if it’s too soon, that’s totally fine...”  Sweet zombie Jesus, I could not stop babbling! 
Shut up, Anja.  Shut up!
  I drew in a shaky breath, trying to get a hold of myself.  “So yeah, um, I thought maybe we should talk.”

Bishop did a pretty good job of hiding his amusement, but I could still see it around his eyes.  “How can I say no to that?”

In for a penny, in for a pound.
  “Okay, so I think that things have been pretty good over the past couple of weeks.  Between us, I mean.  Would you agree?”

“Yes, I’d have to say that I do,” he replied with a sober nod.

So far, so good
.  I’d intended to work my way up to our living situation, pointing out that so far we’d both seemed more able to adjust to the relationship so far, and that we spent more time apart than we did together, and how my place was actually more convenient for his commute to the office.  I thought maybe if I gave him a few talking points to chew over, the suggestion wouldn’t seem so out of the blue, but all that came out was, “I think we should move in together.”

“Move in together?” he blinked, too stunned for me to tell if it was a good blink of surprise, or a
sweet Mary, how am I going to get out of this
blink.

“Well... yes.  I mean, I know we...”

Corazon burst in, her entire stance telling me something was wrong before she even opened her mouth.  “Mason just came in, he’s pretty banged up, and he’s asking for you.”

Bishop shed the deer in the headlights expression in an instant.  “What happened?  Was he attacked?”

She shook her head.  “Some kind of car accident.  You’d better come too, Your Grace.”

“Me?”  Before I could ask why, all of a sudden, I knew.  “Hanna...”

I don’t remember getting down to the med bay, I just remember standing in the hallway looking in, as they hooked her up to an IV.  Hanna looked wrong.  Her legs were purple and swollen, one foot at an impossibly wrong angle, the skin completely gone from one thigh entirely in an angry road rash.  Her bright hair was matted and stuck to the side of her head with blood, and there were a myriad of cuts all over her face, bits of glass still embedded deep in the wounds. 

Mason’s face was similarly scarred, but already healing, thanks to his vampire physiology.  He paced outside the room, his boots leaving bloody track marks on the floor.  Hanna’s blood, from the smell of it. 

Coming out of my stupor, I realized what needed to be done.  “I need to give her some of my blood, it’s stronger than whatever’s in that IV.”  I was halfway to the door before Mason stopped me, his face twisted with anguish.

“You can’t.  She’s already lost too much blood and had way too much of mine.  If we’re not careful, she could turn.”

That was what she looked like after receiving his healing blood?  How messed up had she been at the crash site?  If all they were going to give her was bagged human blood, she didn’t stand a chance.  “Why did you bring her here then?  She needs a hospital.” 

“I couldn’t, not after what her body’s been through, they’d ask way too many questions.”

“So my sister has to die to keep this stupid secret?  How is that fair?” I demanded, unwilling to pay that steep a price to uphold the primary vampire law.  There had to be another way to get her the care she needed.  Her bones needed to be set, she was probably bleeding internally and that head wound scared me.  I didn’t know the “kid” who oversaw her care, but I had to think he wasn’t as qualified as a trauma surgeon.  “Why can’t we take her to the hospital and wipe their memories after they treat her?  Don’t you have an entire division set aside to clean up messes like this?”

Bishop shook his head, his eyes grave.  “Bringing in the cleaners would be a mistake, Anja.  Hanna’s life won’t be a priority to them.”

“But they work for you.  You could make them...”

“They uphold the law first and foremost.  All we can do is wait, keep her alive until it’s safe to give her more blood, and that will still heal her faster than they can do in any hospital.”

“Unless she dies.” 

“I won’t let her,” Mason declared, his head hanging in his hands.  “I don’t care about the law or my oath, I won’t let her die.  Do you hear me?”  His head came up, and I saw sheer panic behind his eyes.

Bishop saw it too, and he laid a calming hand on Mason’s shoulder.  “I hear you, buddy.  Nobody’s gonna let her die.”

For once I was right there with him.  I’d always sworn up and down that Hanna should live out her life as a human, but when faced with the option of her dying, I switched tunes in a heartbeat.  She looked so fragile lying there, not like my sister at all.  In that moment I knew I’d do anything to keep her in my life, even if it meant turning her myself.  I couldn’t think about that at the moment though, and I forced my eyes away from the window and turned to Mason.

“How did this even happen?  Corazon said something about a car crash?”

“Yeah, we were driving along the coast on Highway One.  Out of nowhere, this big truck came up from a side road going way too fast, and pulled out right in front of us, too fucking close to avoid.  I hit the brakes, but I clipped the back of his bumper, and he started fishtailing and spun out.  I tried to swerve...”  His hands clenched, as though they were holding the steering wheel.  “But I lost control on the gravel and we went right through the guard rail and over the side of the cliff.  My Jeep rolled, I’m not sure how many times, but it was bad.  We ended up on an outcropping of rocks down by the water.”

Mason took in a sharp breath, his eyes distant as if reliving the accident again.  “Hanna was in bad shape.  She...” He swallowed, his face contorting with distress.  “She would’ve died if I hadn’t been there to give her my blood.  I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t turn right then and there, it was that close.”

I nodded, my eyes shiny when his filled with tears.  “You did the right thing,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion. 

“Did I?  I should’ve been able to avoid that crash altogether, but I wasn’t fast enough.  You’d think being a vampire would be good for something, but I was too fucking slow.”

“Hey, you
were
good for something, you kept her alive,” I pointed out, wrapping my arms around his massive shoulders in a hug, and he pulled me to him with a cry of anguish. 

“I’m so sorry, Anja.  I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t...”

“Shh, she’ll be alright,” I soothed him as best I could.  She had to be.  I met Bishop’s gaze across the hall, his face somber, and even a little scared.  As if maybe he was thinking about the possibility of losing Hanna or maybe something more.