Overbite (5 page)

At the very least, she’d argued—particularly with Alaric Wulf, who disliked her mentioning the dream so much, he almost always left the room in a rage whenever she brought it up—it meant that whatever his father might have done, Lucien Antonescu had had a mother who’d loved him, and taught him right from wrong . . . at least until she’d killed herself by throwing herself into the river that ran beneath Poenari Castle . . . the river that came to be known, forever after, as the Princess River.

Maybe it was this painful memory of his mother that caused Lucien to swing suddenly in her direction, seize her by both shoulders, and bring her roughly toward him.

There was no sign of weakness in him now. Whatever it was Meena had said to upset him, it seemed to have rid him of that, at least.

“What?” she cried, her heart jackhammering. “What is it?”

He didn’t say a word. He just looked down at her, his dark-eyed gaze seeming to rake her with a need she couldn’t understand. For a moment, she could see in the lamplight that there was a muscle or a nerve twitching in his cheekbone, just above his jaw. It was almost as if he was trying to keep something contained, and not quite mastering it. She stared at that muscle fearfully, watching it jump, asking herself what it was he so badly wanted to do or say that he couldn’t quite seem to bring himself to. She wondered if she needed to run for her cell phone, which she’d left in the next room. . .

But before she had a chance, he’d lowered his mouth to hers.

And then nothing else seemed to matter. All that mattered was the roughness of his slight five o’clock shadow as it grazed her and the way his arms slid around her, cradling her as gently as if he were afraid she might break if he held her as tightly as he wished to . . .

. . . then the growing urgency with which he deepened the kiss, the fierceness with which he grasped her to his long-dead heart when he realized she wasn’t going to crumble beneath his touch.

She lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck, even as he was crushing her against him, making her feel things just with his lips and tongue that she hadn’t felt since . . . well, since the last time he’d held her in his arms this way.

It couldn’t last, of course.

Because a second later he broke the kiss—literally tore his face from hers just as certain parts of herself had started to turn to liquid—and let go of her, so suddenly that her eyelids fluttered open and she actually had to put a hand out to catch herself from falling back against the mattress without his arms to support her anymore. Because, suddenly, he’d disappeared.

She was so taken aback by the abrupt end to their kiss, she wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing, and drag his mouth back down to hers again.

But then she saw that he’d flung himself a few feet away, and was in a darkened corner of her room, just looking at her from the shadows, his eyes no longer deep pools of ebony, but twin spots of red . . .

The same red his eyes had always turned when he was at his angriest.

Or hungriest.

Oh God.

She stared back at him. It had never occurred to her to ask what he was living on these days.

Now, as she looked into those bloodred eyes, it was all she could think about.

“The Palatine have frozen all your financial assets,” she said quietly.

“The ones they could trace back to the name I used to use,” he replied, his voice like liquid smoke, drifting from the shadows and curling around her in burning tendrils.

“Still,” Meena said, shivering. She felt as if she were sitting in a cool, dense fog. “It must be difficult to find human blood to purchase on such restricted resources.” She gripped her duvet, white-knuckled, as she waited for his reply.

“Are you worried I’m not eating enough, Meena?” She heard a hint of mockery in his tone. “Or worried I’m resorting to murder for my meals? Let me put your mind at rest on both counts.” She heard a rustle of cloth. He was reaching into his coat pocket. “Here.” He tossed something onto the bed. She reached instinctively to catch it.

It was the impromptu stake he’d given her, and that she’d used to kill David.

“You have my permission to kill me if I ever try to bite you again,” he said. “Against your will, anyway. I should hope there’s still enough man in me to keep me from ever hurting you. But should an occasion ever arise to prove otherwise . . . well, you’ve more than amply proved this evening that you know what to do with one of those.”

Meena stared down at the chair leg. She had to swallow before she felt able to speak.

“Lucien,” she said. “I told you six months ago: I don’t ever want to hurt you. I’ll always do everything in my power to try to help you . . . even help you despite yourself. That’s why I told you about the dream. I think I can prove—”

He stepped from the shadows then. His eyes had gone back to their normal color, but a million different emotions played upon his face.

“You know what I want from you, Meena,” he said, in a rasping voice. “As soon as you’re ready to give it—and admit that’s what you want, as well—come find me. You won’t have to look far. I’ll be close. I always have been.”

Then he opened the bedroom door and walked out. A second later, she heard the apartment door slam.

Chapter Six

A
laric Wulf was not having a good day. Technically, he wasn’t having a good week.

This streak of misfortune had started when his supervisor, Abraham Holtzman, called him into his office, saying he had something he wished to discuss in private.

“I already know,” Alaric announced the minute he arrived.

“You do?” Holtzman looked up from his computer screen, surprised. “How?”

Alaric shrugged. “You’re kidding, right? She told me. She’s been telling anyone who’ll listen. You should hear her in the commissary at lunch
. ‘What if there is good in Lucien Antonescu, and in all demons? And our job isn’t to destroy them, but to restore the good in them?’
”

He felt like his imitation of Meena Harper was dead-on. Sometimes he found himself mimicking her when he was alone. Not on purpose, which was faintly disheartening. He couldn’t seem to get her voice out of his head.

“Oh.” Holtzman lowered his scraggly gray eyebrows.
“That.”

“Yes, that,” Alaric said, annoyed. “What else? I certainly hope you put a freeze on that request she made to the Secret Archives.”

Now Holtzman’s eyebrows went up. “I did no such thing,” he said, looking offended. “If any of my staff members wants to request material the Vatican Library might have on file—even material from the Secret Archives—that might in any way help us in our efforts to better understand our enemies, why on earth would I stand in their way?”

“You must be joking.” Alaric could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You don’t believe this dream she’s been having has any sort of merit, do you?”

“I don’t know that it doesn’t,” Holtzman said. “And I don’t see why you feel it doesn’t. In any case, Meena Harper is not why I asked you in here today.”

Alaric’s frown deepened. “Are you saying you actually believe that there’s a chance that Lucien Antonescu—the anointed one, listed in the
Palatine Guide to Otherworldly Creatures
as he who performs the devil’s work on earth—may have a
choice
in whether or not he commits good or evil?”

“I’m saying,” Holtzman said, “I like to keep myself open to all possibilities.” When Alaric openly balked at this, Holtzman lifted a hand and said, “I understand that certain prejudices exist about Antonescu, and rightly so. Sometimes old memories die hard, and the fact that so many of us, including yourself, are still recovering from injuries sustained fighting him and the Dracul last spring certainly hasn’t exactly fostered a spirit of goodwill toward Meena’s theory. I, however, am willing to give it a chance . . . if she can prove it, which is a big if. Now, if I may get to the reason I asked you to step in here this evening, which, as I said, has nothing to do with Meena Harper . . . I know you aren’t going to like this, but there’s no getting around it. I’m sure you’re aware of the Church’s efforts to . . .”

Alaric instantly switched off his attention and turned to stare out of one of Holtzman’s office—formerly a principal’s office—windows facing Mulberry Street. The moment he heard the words
church
and
efforts to,
he knew that whatever was being discussed was going to bore him. It might possibly have something to do with his being in trouble for killing something in too public or violent a manner.

But that, too, was boring.

He reflected, instead, on Meena Harper, and her theory.

“Saint Thomas said it,” she insisted almost daily in the commissary. “Not me. He believed there is no positive source of evil, or even evil beings, but rather an absence of good in some beings.”

“Which,” Alaric had pointed out, “is why we are employed, and will continue to be so for many years to come.”

This always provoked a great deal of laughter from his fellow guards.

But then Meena would come in with some quote from Saint Thomas like, “ ‘Fire could not exist without the corruption of what it consumes; the lion must slay the ass in order to live. And if there were no wrongdoing, there would be no sphere for patience and justice.’ True,” she’d go on, “without evil we’d be out of a job. But maybe our job is to provide better fireproofing and protection for the asses, rather than kill all the lions.”

None of this made Alaric feel any better about this book Meena had requested from the Vatican Secret Archives, which she swore—if it was the book from her dream, and what were the chances of that?—was going to prove her theory correct. The still-healing scars that he and many of his fellow guards bore from their battle last spring with Lucien Antonescu and his clan was all the proof Alaric needed of just how wrong she was . . .

. . . as was the feeling he and so many of them had in their guts since the fire that had ripped through and destroyed St. George’s Cathedral, the site of that battle.

It was a belief every guard—but especially one who had put in as many years as Alaric had on the force—shared, honed from sheer experience:

True evil did indeed exist, and it was out there, waiting.

Like the quiet just before a storm, they could feel it. It had the hairs on the back of all their necks standing up. Maybe they couldn’t see the clouds rolling in, and maybe they couldn’t hear the thunder . . .

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t something on its way.

Maybe that something wasn’t Lucien Antonescu. Meena swore up and down that he hadn’t been in contact with her in months.

And there was no reason not to believe her. While they’d had plenty of reports of other paranormal phenomena—succubi, werewolves, and more ghosts than he could count—there’d been no reports from anywhere in the tristate area of attacks by members of Antonescu’s clan, the Dracul. In fact, there’d been no reports of any attacks at all that could be attributed to vampires.

This was frustrating, because the entire reason the Manhattan unit had been created was to root out and destroy the prince of darkness. If they killed him, it was theorized, the demonic beings over which he ruled would be weakened. Demoralized and disorganized without their leader, they’d be that much easier to slay.

Alaric wasn’t certain how much credence he put into this theory. But he did know Antonescu
had
to be close by. Because what kind of man—even a half man, half beast like that bloodsucking son of all that was evil, Antonescu—would simply fade into the night with a girl like Meena around? Every time Alaric glanced at her,
he
felt an almost magnetic pull in her direction.

And he hadn’t risked half a millennium of anonymity to be with her, the way Antonescu had.

It didn’t make sense to believe that the vampire would give up now, even if she’d rejected him. He was only biding his time, Alaric knew. Biding it a little too well, unfortunately.

Because everything between Alaric and Meena had gone wrong as well. Not as spectacularly wrong as it had between her and the vampire because, well, for one thing, he wasn’t a vampire. And for another, he and Meena had never actually gone out.

But he’d at least considered them friends. Now he wasn’t sure they were even that anymore.

It seemed to have started not long after he’d been released from the hospital for the wound he’d sustained protecting her from what undoubtedly would have been certain death at St. George’s Cathedral, when he’d asked Meena if she’d like to have dinner with him.

When she’d looked up at him with those big dark eyes and asked, “Where would you like to eat?” he’d replied, “Well, my apartment, of course. I’ll cook for you.” His culinary skills were excellent.

And why should they go to a stuck-up Manhattan restaurant where some customer was bound to do something to annoy him—such as talk too loudly on a cell phone, Alaric’s number one pet peeve—causing him to have to get into a fight, when he could make something just as good in his own apartment, where no one would annoy him?

She’d instantly looked wary. He had no idea why.

“Do you really think that’s such a good idea?” she’d asked.

“Why would that be a problem?” he’d inquired, genuinely confused.

“Maybe we should just keep it professional,” she’d said, giving him what he supposed she considered a “professional” pat on the shoulder.

That had been weeks and weeks ago, and she was still treating him like he had the plague and leprosy combined. He couldn’t understand it. What had he done that was so wrong? He’d asked Carolina de Silva, a fellow guard with whom Meena had become friendly, and she’d only smiled and told him he should have gone for the restaurant after all.

This information only made him more confused.

Now she wouldn’t shut up about her damned dream.

Why did
he
get “Maybe we should just keep it professional” when that soulless creature of the night got to be in her dreams?

“Wulf!”
Holtzman barked the name. It echoed throughout the high-ceilinged room. The new headquarters for the Manhattan unit of the Palatine Guard had, just six months earlier, been a Catholic elementary school.

A cataclysmic decline in enrollment—no one who could afford to live in such a trendy neighborhood of Manhattan had children . . . or if they did, they were certainly not choosing to send them to Catholic school—and the building’s general state of disrepair had caused the Church to shut down St. Bernadette’s, with zero protest from the community, at exactly the same time as the Palatine had put in their request for a similar-size space in New York City.

Abraham Holtzman had been pleased . . . until he’d stepped inside and seen its dismal state, and the tiny desks still littering its hallways. It had taken weeks to clear them all out. The fountain in the courtyard—of Saint Bernadette kneeling before the Virgin Mary at Lourdes—still didn’t work. Apparently, it had been dry for almost a hundred years.

“What?”
Alaric blurted, startled from his private thoughts.

“I was
saying,
” Holtzman snapped, “since I’m aware of your previous, er,
dealings
with Father Henrique Mauricio from the archdiocese of São Sebastio do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, that I thought I ought to mention to you privately,
before
you heard it from anyone else, that the Vatican has been very impressed with him, and the way he handled himself during the outbreaks of the Lamir in the favelas, and he’s being transferred to America . . .”

Alaric sank backward into the seat closest to Holtzman’s desk. Unfortunately, it turned out to be some kind of secretarial chair dating from World War II. It squeaked in what sounded like terror and protest as Alaric’s muscular weight hit it. Apparently it was used to the significantly softer backsides of nuns.

“Tell me you’re joking.” Alaric tried to keep his tone neutral and failed.

“Honestly, Alaric, I’ve never understood what your problem is with the man. He’s had, after all, close to a hundred kills. And considering his age—he’s just a bit younger than you, barely thirty-three or -four, I believe—and profession—he’s a priest, after all,
not
a Vatican-trained demon hunter—that’s thoroughly impressive.”

Alaric stared at his boss. “Is it?” he asked impassively.

“Yes,” Holtzman cried. “It is! You know the Lamir are the most mysterious vampire clan in the entire world. We know very little about them because they’re relatively new, and they come from the heart of the Amazon. Really, Alaric, I know he may not be your favorite person in the world—I’ll never understand what happened between the two of you during that exorcism in Vidigal a few years back—but can’t you give Father Henrique a second chance?”

“No,” Alaric said, leaning precariously back in the office chair. As he did so, he casually lifted some files that were lying on top of a still-unpacked box near his boss’s desk. The files were marked
Missing Persons
. “I don’t think I can, actually.”

“Well,” Holtzman said drily, “you’d better try. There’s a gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tomorrow night for the opening of the new exhibit of Vatican treasures, and all the high-ups from the archdiocese are expected to attend, which means we’ll be pulling security. Since he’s been appointed the new pastor at St. George’s Cathedral, Father Henrique will be a guest of honor, so I don’t want you—”

Alaric was so startled he would have fallen out of the chair if he hadn’t dropped his feet with a crash to the wood floor in order to regain his balance. The stack of files toppled over.

“What?”
he cried.
“Padre Caliente
?
Here?”

“I’ve asked you before,” Holtzman said exasperatedly, “not to call him that. He is a man of the cloth who has taken a lifelong vow of chastity. It’s both inappropriate and disrespectful to refer to him as Padre Caliente. Which isn’t even Portuguese, by the way. I asked Carolina, who you might recall is from São Paulo. So it only shows your ignorance. And pick those up.”

“We don’t need him here,” Alaric said. “What’s he coming
here
for?”

“If you’d listened to a word I’d said, you’d have heard that Father Henrique hasn’t been assigned to work
here,
for our unit. He’s the new pastor at St. George’s, now that the reconstruction is nearing completion—”

“Right,” Alaric said sarcastically. “You honestly think I’m that stupid?” He was doing a poor job of restacking the files. “Hasn’t this city got any of its own priests? What’s wrong with the old priest from St. George’s?”

“Considering he had a massive coronary after he heard his parish was nearly burned to the ground by the prince of darkness, and died, quite a lot.” Holtzman regarded Alaric impatiently. “You were in the hospital at the time, so I suppose it’s only natural you might not have heard, but
must
you be so insensitive? Is it the leg that’s bothering you so much? My understanding is that you came through your physical therapy with flying colors and are as good as new. It’s the sessions with your Palatine-assigned psychiatrist that you haven’t quite completed, because you keep walking out of them—”

Alaric straightened up and glared at him. “Fiske is giving me a discharge due to my not passing my psych eval?”