Siren Nights (Series Part 1) (The Lure) (5 page)

Wake up now, I told myself. My limbs were
leaden and unresponsive and his hand was between my legs, searching for
something. He would find it soon.

Wake up!

With a strangled cry, I jerked awake in an
unfamiliar room.

I wasn’t in a bed, but was propped up in an
armchair. Panic gripped me. Where was I?

I looked around for that man, head swinging
forward and back, mind racing. There was no one else there. The room was empty.

Then I remembered. I was twenty-four, not
thirteen.

I was at Jason’s house, in his room.

I had been captured by a vampire.

***

It was a shame that I had encountered an
urban vampire instead of one of the classy, nobility types, I thought numbly as
I poked through Jason’s poorly maintained apartment. The apartment smelled
musty and unused.  As if it were someone’s second residence that had been set
up and promptly forgotten. The only piece of livable furniture in the room was
the spacious, faded red armchair I had fallen asleep in.

No coffin either, not that I had expected
one. So did vampires just not sleep at all?

The rest of the room seemed normal enough.
There was a closet with dark clothing, a lamp fixture on the ceiling, a small
bookshelf with DVDs, but no TV to play them on. A wooden desk was covered with
dust and my empty purse next to a power strip; mostly unidentifiable black
adapters filled half of the sockets.

The sole exception was a full length mirror
propped behind the armchair. The border was wrought in cast iron and despite
not being affixed to anything, the mirror was impossible to move. And overlaid
atop it, worked into the mirror’s frame was a thick iron grid, almost like a
cage, made of bars the width of my fingers.

As to exits, there were two doors and a
shut window behind black curtains, which I had opened to let in light. “Please
step away from there,” Claire ordered in a commanding voice that called out to
me, the one time I had examined the window in detail. Surprised and a little
frightened, I had done as I was told.

One of the doors led to a personal bathroom
with a stand-up shower. The other, which I had been led through earlier by an
apologetic Jason, was jammed shut.

All in all, there wasn’t much to do but
peruse Jason’s DVD collection... and think, for once. It wasn’t very pleasant
with my memories. The nightmare was still fresh in my mind, keeping me wired
up.

With effort, I settled back into the
armchair and drew my knees in and decided to drown the recollection with
thoughts of the present.

I was all alone in a vampire’s house and I
had tried to kill him. Why did I do that?

“Before you romanticize vampires, remember
that each and every one of them is a serial killer,” Tony had told me the night
we had first met. “The younger ones have killed dozens of people and the older
ones have body counts beyond any human killer, beyond any single human
atrocity. Over many centuries, they have killed thousands of people like
cattle.”

It seemed impossible that Jason had killed
that many people, I thought, but maybe he was one of the younger ones.

“They see us as prey,” Tara helpfully
added, “Helpless victims that they can devour at their leisure. We’re
different, though.”

Hunters, they told me, stood against the
monsters of the night and protected the people. They had been given
supernatural gifts to rival that of the vampires, such as inhuman strength and
deadly accuracy. Their families were dedicated to tracking down and eradicating
vampires.

I hadn’t questioned that story then. I had,
after all, nearly been killed by two vampires only five minutes before and they
had saved me. Questioning them seemed ungrateful.

But now I was starting to wonder, and the
more I wondered, the guiltier I felt. Who were hunters, really, and why did
they have the powers they did? Why did no one else know anything about vampires
or hunters? And why were vampires drawn to me? They had never explained, simply
mentioning that they tended to target the vulnerable and innocent. But while I
wasn’t very strong, I was far from innocent.

When I was attacked, I wanted to tell
someone else... anyone else, but especially the authorities. Tara warned me
against it, telling me that no cop would believe me and it would only put me in
greater danger.

That didn’t make any sense at all, I
thought. Why were vampires some great secret? They burned in the daylight and
their bodies were as cold as the grave itself... it didn’t seem like it would
be easy to hide.

I couldn’t ask them now, I thought sourly,
with a glance at my phone... the only part of the spy rig Claire had given back
to me. It had battery remaining, but no signal and Claire had informed me that
it wouldn’t be able to call out until after they had left. “Feel free to call
your friends then,” she said without looking at me.

My friends, I supposed. Well, there wasn’t
a whole lot I could do now. I finally began to relax. I wondered what my
roommates and coworkers were doing.

Somewhere or another, I drifted off, not to
sleep, but sort of a pleasant blankness.

***

A rapping on the door interrupted my
thoughts. This time, I remembered where I was.

“Um...” I said, unsure if I was supposed to
invite someone in if it was really their house.

Screw it, I thought. Now wasn’t the time to
be obsessed with etiquette. “Come in.”

The door opened and Jason entered the room,
wearing a black tee-shirt and blue jeans. “Just checking up to see how you were
doing,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said reflexively, gazing at
the floor.

My stomach growled and I blushed as the lie
became apparent.

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, why don’t you
come out for a bit anyway? Claire will fix you something.”

I nodded and rose from the chair.

I exited the room with Jason and walked
down the hallway leading to the dining room. On the right was an open door,
leading to a room lined with bookshelves from top to bottom. When I had
entered, the shelves had all been crammed with books. Now half the books were
in boxes. A small mahogany table, precisely square and trimmed in gold, sat at
the center of the room beneath a beaten-up cardboard box filled with books.

We moved past the door and back into the
dining room. The table had three placemats, but only two plates and two
glasses. Jason showed me to one of the chairs, the old armchair that had been
sitting in the living room earlier. It didn’t match the table very well.

“Hold on a sec!” Claire’s voice came from
the kitchen. “Lunch is almost ready.”

Lunch? I must have slept longer than I
thought.

Jason took his place at the placemat with
no plate and no fork, only a spoon.

A few minutes later, Claire emerged
carrying a large metal pot. “Hope you like pasta,” she said, setting it down at
the center of a table with a relieved sigh. She looked up and smiled cheerily
at me, but the smile seemed forced.

I looked at her. Her green tee-shirt was
splattered with tomato sauce. It didn’t seem like she was used to cooking.

“What about me?” asked Jason teasingly.

Claire’s eyes flicked to me and back so
quickly I might have imagined it. “Yours is still settling in the kitchen. You
can wait until our guest is served.”

She lifted the lid and scooped some
spaghetti onto my plate. “Uh, thanks,” I mumbled.

“You’re welcome,” she informed me. “You
want anything to drink? We have Coke, Pepsi, diet, milk, chocolate milk,
unsweetened ice tea, sweetened ice tea with lemon...”

“Just water is fine,” I said.

“Water then. Be right back.”

Jason and I stared at the table until she
returned. Neither of us said a word.

Claire returned with the water and shortly
departed again. She came back with a large bowl, filled with a dark red liquid
and set it down in front of Jason.

I looked at the bowl. It was too dark for
me to easily pretend it was tomato soup, especially with a plate filled with an
actual tomato sauce next to it.

A thought floated into my mind, unbidden.
Did it come from anyone I knew? My pulse quickened.

“That’s from the hospital, by the way,”
Claire said, seeing my worried look. “Jason doesn’t hunt.”

Jason sighed. “Isn’t there a better way of
putting that? Like ‘I respect the sanctity of life’ or something like that?”

“If you want to use poetic language, you
can explain,” Claire said. “I prefer efficiency, at least when talking about
this stuff. Anyway Anna, please, feel free.”

She grabbed a bottle of parmesan cheese and
shook it onto her pasta. I followed suit, burying the dish in pale yellow
powder. Tomato sauce or not, I felt a little queasy eating something covered in
red chunks of meat while someone sipped human blood right next to me.

On the other hand, I was hungry.

I took a bite, then another and another.
And unfortunate connotations or not, it tasted good. The sauce had definitely
come from a can, but the pasta hadn’t been overcooked and I had covered it in
enough cheese that it was hard to tell. My stomach settled. I finished my plate
quickly and Claire loaded me up with another.

The meal continued in silence until Claire
put her fork down. “In any event, we’ve been remiss in introducing ourselves,”
she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m Claire and this is Jason. These aren’t the
names we were born with, but we’ve been using them for a long time and they fit
us. ‘Evans’ is a new name, though. You’ll forgive us if we don’t give you our
real ones.”

I nodded. “And I’m Anna Holland.” That
really was my real name, but it felt rude to point it out.

“As I’m sure you’re aware of,” said Claire,
“my brother has vampirism and I do not.”

She set down her fork. “I do, however,
practice sorcery. That was how I detected your... device.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t really
know what you mean by... sorcery and vampirism? Is that how to put it?”

Claire nodded. “Yes. Vampirism is a
condition, it might be best to call it a ‘blood condition’ and ‘vampire’ is an
individual who has it. Humans can have vampirism, but so can other animals.”

“I... see.” That didn’t really explain
anything at all.

Jason sighed. “If you won’t ask, I will,
Claire. Anna,” he said, turning to me and looking into my eyes. “Are you a
hunter?”

His expression was calm, but the intensity
of his gaze scared me nonetheless. “No,” I said, quickly putting my face down.
“That is... I’m not the same as Tony and Tara.”

“Are those the hunters you were with?”
Claire asked gently.

“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to speak.
“They... wanted me to get you alone.”

Claire nodded, “A decoy then.  A sacrifice
so they can kill the vampire.” She raised an eyebrow and took on an incredulous
tone. “I’m impressed you agreed, I suppose.”

My head snapped up. “They saved my life,” I
said defensively, voice rising despite myself. “I didn’t know anything about
any of this before coming here to this city, and I’ve nearly been killed every
other week since then, and half the time it wasn’t even on purpose!”

I bit my lip before saying anything more.
My arms shook and I clenched them to my sides.

Claire’s face softened. “You’re right to be
afraid,” she said, looking a little guilty. “Not all vampires are like my
brother. In fact, most aren’t.”

“I just wanted... to do something.” I said,
quietly. “And to live.”

“I understand,” Claire sighed. “Sorry.
We’ve had to live our lives in the shadows, too.”

“Why do hunters hunt you, though?” I asked,
“Jason, maybe, but why you?”

“Why me, indeed?” Claire murmured, leaning
back in her chair and staring off into space. “In some ways, they want to kill
me even more than Jason. But as to why... it’s complicated.”

“If you don’t feel comfortable, it’s
okay...” I started saying hesitantly.

“No, you have the right to know,” she said,
drawing herself up. She looked into my eyes, her expression sad but determined.
“You’ve been dragged into this whole mess, risked your life many times and now
you’re stuck here until we can get out of town. You at least deserve to know
what started it all.

She took a deep breath. “It started about
three thousand years ago... when humans first wrested fire, and then magic,
from the gods. They became the first sorcerers and ruled the great kingdoms of
the world.”

“Magic was a great power back then, far greater
than it is now. It could summon great floods, destroy a city with a word and
even breathe life back into the dead.”

Claire laughed bitterly. “It was too great,
in fact. Three times, conflict between sorcerers threatened to destroy the
world, to unmake it utterly or to alter it in such a way that it wouldn’t be
recognizable as our ‘Earth.’ In between these great conflicts, they warred
amongst each other with mighty armies of both the dead and living, devastating
everything in their path.”