Not Another Vampire Book (43 page)

Kara
scanned the lobby for a phone and tried to sound positive.  “Well, first we’re
going to call an ambulance to take you to the hospital.  Can you stand up? 
Here let me help you.”

“I
am
fine
, Kara Lynn.”  He took hold of her proffered hand and tugged her
back down onto his lap.  “We must talk.”

“After
your CAT Scan.  I promise.  You know how interested you were in CAT Scans,
earlier?  Well, now you’ll get to see one from the inside.”  She gave him an
encouraging nod.

Damien
ignored it.  “I do not have my home to offer you, anymore.”  That apparently troubled
him for some reason.

Kara
squinted at him.  “I think you really did hit your head.  I hate your house. 
You
hate your house.  We can stay in my apartment, or you can create us
another
house, or we can move to Fiji…  Who cares, just so we’re together?”

“But,
I know nothing of life here.”  His voice got more insistent, his eyes worried. 
“Why would you want a mate who cannot navigate your world?”

“I
would
always
want you, Damien.”  She rested a hand on either one of his
cheeks.  “Now, trust me.  You have nothing to worry about, when it comes to
this reality.  You’re brilliant, handsome, super-powered, sneaky, and you can
make rubies with your mind.  Seriously.  You’re probably going to wind-up as
president.”

“So,
you will not be disappointed in me?”

“No,
silly.  Never.  I love you.”  Kara gave him a quick kiss.  “Listen, I know how
you feel.  I was terrified when I got dropped into 1892 and you know what
happened?”

“Yes. 
A sorcerer kidnapped you.”

“Besides
that.”

“Dragons
tried to kidnap you.”

“
Besides
that.”

“Zombies
tried to kidnap…”

“Oh
for God’s sake. 
You
happened, Vlad.  You helped me adapt and took care
of me and I’ll do the same thing for you.  We can help
each
other
. 
You teach me about magic powers and I’ll teach you how to program a DVR and
together we’ll be invincible.”  She grinned, feeling more and more confident
that this had all worked out perfectly.  “Maybe we’ll even take over the
world.”

He
made a considering face.  “I
have
always wanted to do that.”  He mused.

“See? 
This reality will be a cinch for you.”  She made her voice coaxing.  “
Plus
,
there are no Vampires here.”  He’d
love
that part.

Damien’s
expression lightened.  “Your people have wiped out the Vampires?”

“Yep. 
Well, except on TV, anyway.”

“TV?” 
He repeated.  “Is that an island?”

“No,
it’s sort of a…”  How did you describe television to a thousand year old
sorcerer?  “Never mind.  I show you when we get to the hospital.”  She bounded
to her feet and pulled him up beside her.  “The point is, you don’t have to
worry about fitting in here.  Just fix your shirt, be yourself, and you’ll do
great.”

His
hand brushed over her hair.  “Being myself, I really do tend towards
villainy.”  He warned, ruefully.

“I
know you do.  But, that’s okay.  Haven’t you notice?”  She winked.  “I always
vote for the bad guy.”

Slade and Melessa clasped hands and stared into the
setting sun, happy and content, but always knowing that the Wizard-Warlocks
might one day rise again…

Final
line- Eternal Passion at Sunset

“Karalynn,
are you sure this is a wise idea?”

“Absolutely,
it is.”  She knocked on the penthouse door.  “I want to tell Tanya St. Clair,
in
person
, that Donnelly Publishing will
not
be buying her book.”

Damien
made an ‘umm’ sound, feeling unsettled.  It seemed strange that a struggling
writer could live in such an upscale apartment building and that the doorman
had just sent them right up to her suite without even asking their names.  “Why
is Tanya apparently expecting us, though?”  He asked.  They certainly hadn’t
called ahead.

“Well,
you can ask her that.”  Kara promised.  “Right after I kill her.”

“Now,
cari
, the experience inside the book was not
so
bad.  You
admitted that yourself.  We found each other, after all.”

“Uh-huh. 
And you also got stabbed in the heart, so I’m still going to kill her.”

 Damien’s
mouth twitched.  He’d been in Karalynn’s world for seven full days and it was
clear that she acted exactly the same here as she had been back in 1892.  His
mate didn’t allow her surrounding to alter her actions in the slightest. 
Damien was trying his best to follow her example and not let life in the future
overwhelm him.  It was easier than he would have thought.

He
liked this world.

He
liked that they didn’t use horses for their carriages.  That made travel so
much faster, without the need for teleporting.  And he liked the shower.  And
making love to Kara
in
the shower.  He liked the new black suits he’d
created for himself.  He liked pizza and CNN and all the medical journals that he
could read.  He liked that it smelled a hell of a lot better here.

And,
of course, he
really
liked the absence of Vampires.

He
even liked Karalynn’s family.  Thankfully, her father and stepmother seemed to
approve of him.  Although, Kara left out quite a few details on how they met,
the news that Damien was a rich doctor seemed to win him lot of points.  Gemma
had already offered to plan a huge wedding reception for them.  Kara had just
rolled her eyes at the idea, but Damien was all for it.  He’d endeared himself
to Gemma forever by telling her to spend as much as possible on the arrangements. 
Gemma loved to whip out credit cards and Damien wasn’t known for his
understated tastes.  Together, they would create an event that could be seen
from space.

Everyone
would know that Kara was his.

Damien
couldn’t have been happier about that.

Yes,
he loved his new life in this world.  It was a strange and beautiful place,
regardless of the occasional snags he hit trying to fit in.  He was doing his
best to adapt to all the changes by just being himself.  His
best
self. 
Regardless of Kara’s assurances that she accepted him for who he was, Damien
really was
trying
not to be a villain.

Sort
of.

The
day before, he
had
turned all the traffic lights in the city red for
half an hour just to see what would happen.  And he’d flooded their neighbor’s
apartment with green Jell-o, because the man tried to flirt with Kara and it
annoyed him.  And he’d changed the stock readouts that ran along the bottom of
the television screen to say nothing but, ‘Damien is Your Master’ on every
station.  Twice.

But,
hell, little slip-ups like that were bound to happen.

The
important thing was, he hadn’t killed any humans and he’d only taken two people
prisoner, all week.  That kind of effort counted for something.

Karalynn
said she was very proud.

“Open
up
.”  Kara ordered, pounding on Tanya’s door.  “Listen, lady, you do not
want to see what I can do to this lock.”

Damien
winced at that threat.  Kara’s powers were coming along nicely.  Especially,
the destructive ones.  The woman loved to blow things apart.  “
Cari
,
remember how you said we should be calm about this meeting?”

“I
am being calm!”

“
I
can see that.  But, breaking into her apartment would probably not convince
anyone
else
of your tranquility, so…”  Damien trailed off as Tanya’s
door creaked open, revealing a young woman with dark hair and a sheepish
expression.

“Hi.” 
She said, weakly.  “Don’t be mad.”

Damien
gaped at her, speechless.

“I
know you.”  Kara blurted out.  “I recognize you from that painting in Damien’s
house.  You’re Amalie.”  She glanced up at Damien in astonishment.  “Is that
really your sister or are we dealing with shape shifters, again?”

Damien
couldn’t find the words to answer that.  It really was his sister.  He would
have known her anywhere.

She
was alive.

“I’m
really Amalie.”  Amalie shot Damien a cautious look.  “Tanya St. Clair’s my pen
name.  I just liked the way it sounded.”

“So,
wait… 
You
wrote
Eternal Passion at Sunset
?”  Kara clarified.

“Kinda. 
Yeah.”  Amalie stood there, alive and beautiful, wearing the same kind of
future clothes that filled Kara’s closet.  Dressed in denim trousers and an
oversized shirt that read ‘My other car is a broomstick,’ she had obviously
assimilated into this world without missing a beat.

She
was also obviously worried about her reunion with her big brother.  Biting her
bottom lip, she met his eyes.  “Come on, Damien, don’t be mad at me.  It was
the only way to get you outta there.”

He
stared at her, torn between the need to fall to his knees in sobbing relief and
the desire to start shouting at her.  His relationship with his sister always
ricocheted between those extremes.

“I
mean, this was all an accident.  Right from the beginning.  When the Vampires
attacked our homeland, I tried a spell to hide from them and I somehow ended up
here.”  Amalie backed up into her apartment, flinging her hand out in an all-encompassing
wave.  “I couldn’t get back.  Totally not my fault.”

Damien
slowly moved forward, following her retreat.

Amalie’s
nose wrinkled, the way it always did when she got caught red-handed at
something.  “If anything, you should be
thanking
me.  It’s way better
here.  I spent
decades
figuring out how to get you into this dimension,
too.  I needed to be a thousand years old before I was strong enough, though.  Meanwhile,
all the time, I knew you were getting more and more crazy back home.  I could
see it all happening in my mind.  I
always
know when you’re unhappy.” 
She frowned.  “Do you think I could just leave you there, all alone?”

Damien
kept stalking her across the room.

“And
then I tracked down your
cari
.”  This time Amalie pointed at Karalynn. 
“And I knew that she’d destroy you.  The old,
grouchy
you in
that
world, anyway.  I knew she’d allow you to be a
new
Damien.  Free. 
Happy.”  She punctuated the words by pounding her fist into her palm.  Amalie
always talked with her hands.  “And that’s something
else
you should
thank me for. 
Her
.  Finding that girl took a lot of work and magic
locator spells.  I even had to go to a friggin’
pilates class.
 But, I
knew she could rescue you, so I endured it.”

Damien
didn’t know what pilates were, but Amalie made it sounded like she’d been subjected
to the rack.

Kara
still looked mystified.  “So, you wrote
Eternal Passion at Sunset
just to
bring Damien and me together?  Questions of how in the hell that could
possibly
work aside… Why did you make him the
bad guy?!
”

“Well,
what girl wants to date the dull-ass hero?”  Amalie rolled her eyes.  “I mean,
boooor-ring.  You had to want to
help
Damien, so I knew it would work
better if the book was pro-Vampire.”  Her retreat was halted when she hit the
far wall, but that didn’t stop her from glowering up at him.  “And besides I
didn’t invent that world or the characters.  They’re all real.  I just…
directed them a little bit.”

His
eyes narrowed.

“Well,
you were
totally
acting like a villain, Damien.  I didn’t need to take a
lot of creative license.  Really, I was getting kinda frustrated with your
brooding.  You should thank me for not giving you peg leg and hooks for hands.”
 She sighed dramatically when he just watched her.  “Gods, you always have such
a lousy sense of humor.  I knew what I was doing the whole time, alright?  It
was all perfectly safe.  If I had a teeny bit of fun tossing in a raven or a
couple of atmospheric cobwebs, you brought it all on yourself.”

“You
got him stabbed!”  Kara shouted.

“I
had
to do that, so he could finally let go of the past.”  Amalie fixed
Damien with an exasperated look.  “Geez, are you going to hold a grudge about
that?
”

Damien
stopped directly in front of her, leaning down so he was level with her gaze. 
“Amalie?”  He said, darkly.

She
winced at bit at his tone, all her blustering defenses falling away.  “Yeah?”

He
reached out and gently touched the side of her face, unable to believe that she
was really real.  “Thank you.”  He pulled her into his arms and squeezed her
tight.  “Thank you for being alive.  Thank you for authoring that horrible
book.  And thank you for finding Kara Lynn for me.”  He looked over at his wife. 
His
cari
.  His heart and soul and life.  “You’re right.  She saved me.”

Kara
still looked miffed over this whole experience, but her mouth did curve upward
at his words.  “I think we saved each other, Vlad.”

“No,
I saved you
both
, with my incredible talents.”  Amalie corrected,
modestly.

“Right. 
Well, just don’t ever write anything else,
Tanya
.”  Kara implored.  “Ever.
Speaking for the literary world,
Eternal Passion at Sunset
was more than
enough.”

Damien
snorted.  “Agreed.”  He fixed his sister with a meaningful look, wanting to
clear this up before he got down to the business of alternately hugging and
shouting at her for the next century.  “No more Tanya St. Clair.  No more
spells to ‘help’ me.  And, especially, no more romance novels.  Understand?”

A
slow, impish smile spread across Amalie’s face.  “But, see, I already have this
great idea for a sequel…”