Magic & Memory (14 page)

“Are we safe now?” Lu asked. “Do you think they gave up?”

Bryn opened a small cabinet set into one wall, pulling out a bottle of whiskey as he shrugged. “Maybe the bastards finally ran out of energy.” He took a swig of alcohol directly from the bottle.

“Should you really be drinking at a time like this?” Lu asked him.

“I couldn’t possibly think of a better time.” Bryn winked at her and took another long drink.

“And what if we need you later and you’re passed out drunk?”

“There’s not enough alcohol in all of San Francisco to accomplish that, love,” he told her, and sauntered from the room with the bottle.

“Great,” she sighed. Then she turned to Joey and said, “Shouldn’t we be doing something right now? Like, I don’t know, running for our lives?”

“The bad guys are out there. We’re safer in here. And there’s that whole pesky me-burning-in-sunlight thing to consider,” Joey said.

“There has to be
something
we can do!”

“Whatever’s happening right now is sort of a ‘war of the warlocks’ thing, it’s all about magic,” Joey told her. “The only thing we can do is trust Bryn to handle it.”

“But he’s not handling it! He’s getting drunk.”

“Have some faith, Lu. Bryn always knows exactly what he’s doing. We just have to be patient while he gets the situation under control.”

Lu sighed dramatically, but resigned herself to waiting it out.

Alastair shifted slightly and Lu let go of his hand, watching him for a few moments. He was sound asleep. After a while she got up and crossed the room to the liquor cabinet. “See, there ya go,” Joey said. “Suddenly you see the advantages of getting stinking drunk.”

“Hardly. I’m still hungry,” she said as she slid the cabinet open further and revealed a mini fridge. She rummaged around in it, finally producing a carton of strawberry yogurt and a plastic spoon, and went and sat by the fireplace, which immediately sprang to life. 

“Oh, that’s way better,” Joey said, nodding toward the yogurt. “Huge improvement over the great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts.”

“Good lord,” Lu said with a grin, glad for Joey’s distraction, “You’re like the annoying little brother I never wanted.”

“Annoying
big
brother,” he corrected. He was lining up a selection of wooden stakes on the floor according to size.

“No,
little
. You said you were turned at fifteen. And I’m seventeen.”

“Ah,” Joey said, his eyes sparkling, “but that was six years ago. Next week I turn twenty-one. So I’m a
man
, baby.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Or you
would
have
turned twenty-one if it wasn’t for that whole unfortunate getting killed and turned into a vampire thing.”

“My death, my math,” he said. “I’m almost twenty-one. Deal with it, kid.” He winked at her and she rolled her eyes.

“If you say so.” She stirred the yogurt, watching Joey arrange and inspect the weapons. After a while she said, “Can I ask you something?”

He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “Yeah, anything.”

“Does it hurt you when Alastair drinks from you?” She was remembering how vulnerable he’d seemed afterwards.

Joey shifted his gaze to his hands, and paused before saying, “No, it doesn’t really hurt.”

“But it does something to you, doesn’t it?” Lu asked gently.

Joey’s voice was quiet when he answered. “Alastair isn’t doing this on purpose. But, well, when a vampire feeds on one he’s created, it’s a show of domination, an assertion of power.” He fidgeted a bit. “It’s meant to be a form of punishment, and that’s what it feels like to me when he drinks.”

“Like you’re being punished? But you keep offering your blood to him.”

Joey nodded, finally meeting her eyes. “Of course I do, because he needs it. It makes no difference that it leaves me feeling like I’ve just been smacked around. And besides,” Joey glanced over at Alastair’s sleeping form, “I know there’s no malice behind it, he’s not trying to hurt me. He has no idea that I end up feeling humiliated.” He looked back down at his hands.

“I think you need to stop feeding him, Joey.”

“It’s not really like I have a choice. We can’t just order take-out or something. What are my alternatives?”

“Well, I suppose if something else happens and he needs it, maybe I could….” she didn’t finish the sentence, remembering with a vivid blush the lust that had washed over her when she’d been bitten. As embarrassing as it was, she had to ask: “Joey, when a vampire feeds from a human, is there, um, is there usually something sexual about it?”

Joey looked embarrassed too, but he answered her honestly. “Yeah, there can be.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m just trying to understand what happened when Alastair bit me.”

“It’s good you asked, you should really know this.” He sat back and crossed his legs, and began distractedly picking at the frayed cuff of his jeans, again not meeting her eyes. Then he said, “Vampires use sex like a lure. It’s how they draw their victims to them. A human may feel attraction or desire when they come in contact with a vampire -- that’s the lure in action. It’s a chemical reaction, an aphrodisiac,” Joey said. “And the act of biting causes an additional powerful release of an aphrodisiac, which distracts the victim and puts them at ease. A vampire can choose to dial it way back, but there’s always at least a little undercurrent of sex during a deliberate feeding.”

“A ‘deliberate’ feeding? As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to ingesting someone’s blood without biting them. Like, if you cut yourself and I licked it, neither of us would get that…that rush of desire.” He looked mortified, but then he continued, “Biting is key to triggering a sexual response, it’s like a one-two punch in conjunction with the lure.”

 “Ok, I get it. And I appreciate you explaining it to me.” She was as embarrassed as he was, but she admitted, “I was wondering if there was something wrong with me, because I actually liked it when Alastair bit me.”

“That’s a perfectly normal response.” Joey glanced up at her. “And you know Alastair wasn’t manipulating you on purpose, right? He doesn’t remember anything about being a vampire, including all the nuances of feeding.”

“I know. He was more shocked than I was after he bit me.” After a pause she asked, “Is it the same when a vampire bites another vampire?”

Joey shook his head. “Nope. Vampires, and all supernaturals for that matter, are immune to the lure and the bite reaction, just like we’re immune to being compelled.”

Lu went back to stirring the yogurt, which she still gripped in one hand. After a minute she said, “The fact that I’m attracted to Alastair, that has nothing to do with the vampire lure. I’m just attracted to him.” It wasn’t a question, but she still looked to Joey for an answer.

He grinned at that. “I think the fact that you’re attracted to Alastair is
human
chemistry at work, not
vampire
chemistry. I mean, who wouldn’t be attracted to a guy that beautiful?” Lu looked at Joey questioningly and started to say something but he interrupted, holding his hand up. “And no. I’m not attracted to him, so go ahead and skip that question.”

She said gently, “Even if you were, it’s none of my business.”

“Nah. I’m not into guys,” Joey said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. My boat just doesn’t happen to float in that particular pond.” The grin still played around his lips.

“I suppose that a guy as good-looking as Alastair…well, I must be part of a very long line of girls that have fallen for him over the years.” Lu stared at the yogurt.

“I’m sure that every girl that lays eyes on Alastair finds him attractive. But you’re the first girl he’s been involved with since I’ve known him.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah. Alastair doesn’t exactly date. He’s like a soldier, focused on his mission. He’s too busy doing his job, hunting vampires, to think about anything else.”

She wondered what it would mean for her once Alastair regained his memories, how she would fit into his life once he remembered who he was.

But she didn’t have long to ponder this, as suddenly the house shook like a toy in the jaws of a giant dog. Furniture toppled and windows shattered as Lu was launched forward, her head coming down hard on the coffee table.

And blackness crashed in around her.

Lu came awake to find herself moving quickly down a long staircase. Backwards. Her eyes couldn’t focus as she bounced and swayed, making her even dizzier than she already was, so she pressed them shut. She realized that for the second time in two days, she was being held in a fireman’s carry, draped over someone’s shoulder.

Her head ached like it had been split in two, and she mumbled, “I really
hate
being carried.”

          The person holding her was yelling something to someone ahead of him. After a moment she realized she was being carried by Joey. She mumbled, “Put me down,” but he kept running, and she grasped two big fistfuls of the back of his t-shirt in a futile effort to steady herself.

          Joey leapt down a flight of stairs right behind Alastair as he called instructions. “Straight back through the kitchen, last door on the right.” They sprinted across the first floor of the mansion, dodging a big patch of sunlight where one of the drapes was askew.

          They descended yet another staircase. At the bottom of it Alastair tugged open a heavy door, and they stepped into a large room. Immediately an unseen light source came on, bathing the space in a warm golden glow.

The air was still and cool down here, the stone walls lined with racks and racks of glass bottles. “We’re hiding out in a wine cellar?” Alastair asked as he dropped the weapons bag he’d been carrying onto the floor.

          “I can think of no better place,” said Bryn as he sauntered casually down the stairs and pulled the thick door shut behind him.

          A big wooden table and chairs filled the center of the room, and Joey set Lu down gingerly on the edge of the table. He put his face close to hers and looked in her eyes, asking, “Do you think you have a concussion?”

          She closed her eyes and lay back onto the table, trying to make the room stop spinning. “How the hell would I know?”

          “She’s fine,” Joey announced. “She’s still a smartass, so she can’t be hurt too badly.”

          “For future reference, I really hate being carried,” Lu complained. She rested a hand against her chest, then pulled it back abruptly and blinked at it. A huge splatter of yogurt covered the front of her shirt, and now her fingers as well. She sighed and wiped her hand on her pants.

          “Yeah. But I figured it was a better alternative than leaving you upstairs so the house could fall on you,” Joey said.

          Bryn was perusing the bottles, and finally he selected one and brought it to the table. He dusted it off with the hem of his shirt and untwisted a little wire cage around the cork. Then he fished around in the duffle bag that Alastair had dropped on the floor, eventually producing a long sword. Joey sighed dramatically -- he’d seen this many times before. In one graceful motion Bryn sliced at the bottle, knocking out the cork.

“Like you couldn’t have just used magic and made the cork disappear,” Joey told him.

          “Sure, but where’s the fun in that?” Bryn asked with a smile. He produced a glass from a low cabinet behind him and asked, “Anyone else? I hate to drink alone.”

          “No you don’t,” Joey said.

          “You’re right, I don’t.” Bryn grinned and wrapped both hands around the bottle, which frosted over at his touch. He poured himself a now chilled sparkling glass of champagne before settling onto one of the rustic wooden chairs. Then he took a sip and murmured, “God that’s good.” He glanced at Alastair and said, “I’d been saving this for a special occasion.”

          “So why are you drinking it now?”

          Bryn shrugged and said casually, “It may be my last chance to enjoy it, since we might be buried alive down here.”

          “That is
super
comforting,” Lu mumbled, draping an arm across her closed eyes. She felt a hand on her leg and let her arm drop onto the table as she looked up at Alastair.

          “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, his dark indigo eyes holding her gaze. She sat up and studied him closely. There was firm resolve in his expression, a confidence that she hadn’t seen before.

          She gently touched his cheek and told him, “Thanks. And by the way, I’m not going to let anything happen to you, either.” They smiled shyly at each other, a moment passing between them. Across the room, Joey rolled his eyes. Then Lu asked Alastair, “How do you feel?”

          He rested his hands lightly on her legs. “I was about to ask you that question, since you’re the one that got knocked unconscious.”

          “I’m fine, all that did was give me a headache. That mind probe thing you and Bryn were doing was far more dangerous. You looked completely exhausted when it was over.”

          “I was. But, well, feeding seems to be remarkably restorative.” Alastair looked embarrassed, breaking eye contact as he bowed his head.