They Come by Night (21 page)

I
SKIPPED breakfast. I couldn’t bear the reproachful look I was sure Mina would give me if I ate and didn’t feed her.

“Okay, pup, we’re going for a ride.”

We got to the vet’s a little before eight, and although she’d been excited to get in the car, now she was reluctant to get out. I was bigger than her, though, so I picked her up and carried her into the square building.

The receptionist looked up with a smile. “Good morning. And who’s this pretty little lady?”

“This is Mina Small. She’s here for….” I put her down on the counter and covered her ears, which was silly, but I didn’t want her to know what was going to happen. “She’s getting spayed,” I whispered.

“Today? Are you sure? I didn’t think….” She looked at the appointment book in front of her. “Oh, I guess Dr. Ingram must have set this up after I left. We haven’t seen her before, have we?”

The receptionist was being nice to me, so I didn’t ask, “Who, Dr. Ingram?” “No, but she’s had her shots.” I held up the tags.

“What does this one say?”

“Excuse me?” I’d never paid much attention to them.

“This has something engraved in a foreign language.”

“Oh. I have no idea! I just thought they were both about her shots.”

“The silver one is, but the gold one… I haven’t seen one like that before.”

“Well, she was given to me as a gift. I’ll have to ask what it means.”

She became all business again. “Now, she hasn’t had anything to eat or drink, has she?”

“No.”

“Good.” She reached under the counter and must have pressed a buzzer that sounded in the back, because a tech in plain blue scrubs came out. “This is Mina, and Mina’s daddy.”

“Hello, Mina.” He unbuckled her collar and picked her up. “Hi, Mina’s dad. We’ll take good care of her.”

“Okay.” I dropped a kiss to the top of my puppy’s head. “Be a good girl, Min.”

The yip she answered me with didn’t sound happy, and she stared at me until the door closed between us. Geez, could it feel any more like I was betraying her?

But it had to be done.

“She’ll be fine, Mr. Small.”

“Call me Ty. Mr. Small is my dad.”

“Ty.” The receptionist smiled at me. “Now, she should be ready to go home this afternoon, but sometimes we need to keep our patients overnight, so we’ll give you a call as soon as the operation is over.”

“Great. I’ll be at class until about three today.”

“I’ll call you after four, then.”

“Oh, and the woman said you’d give me a note for my professor.”

“What woman?”

“The one who called last night to tell me about this appointment? She didn’t give me her name.”

“Oh. That’s….” She shook her head. “I’ve never had a request like this before. Just give me a second and I’ll write it up for you.”

I
COULD have skipped the note. Professor Johnson gave me a distracted look and nodded toward my seat.

Conic sections were on the whiteboard. I took out a pencil and notebook and began copying them down.

T
HE REST of the day was spent like that, playing catch-up. I’d forgotten my lunch as well as the lactase enzyme, so I had to skip the macaroni and cheese the cafeteria was serving and wound up having the stuffed peppers—so not my favorite. The essay I’d worked on so hard wasn’t exactly what Professor James had in mind, although he seemed intrigued. And then I walked into my sociology class.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Please find a seat. I’m Dr. von Bulwer, and I’ll be covering this class today. Ms. Carteret, who normally teaches Intro to Sociology, was called away for the day. However, she will return in time for next week’s class.”

And just like the day before, Dr. von Bulwer seemed to have his gaze on me every time I looked up.

I
WAS just coming in the door when the phone rang. Knowing it was probably the vet’s, I picked it up.

“Mr. Small, this is Dr. Ingram’s office.” Talk about timing.

“Hi.” I recognized the voice as the woman from last night. I’d been hoping the nice receptionist from this morning would be calling. “How’s Mina?”

“She’s fine, but Dr. Ingram would like to keep her overnight to make sure her stitches don’t start oozing.”

“Can I come see her?”

“No. She’s still a little woozy from the anesthesia. It will be better if you wait until tomorrow.”

“Okay. What do I need to have for her?”

“Oh, we’ll tell you all about that when you come get her.”

“O—”

“Good-bye.”

The witch hung up on me again.

I
WAS reworking the essay for English when a loud knock on the front door made me jump.

I never had visitors. Who the heck was on my front porch?

The knocking became more impatient. I had a doorbell—it played the first notes of the overture from
Phantom of the Opera
. Why hadn’t my visitor rung it?

Oh, geez, not someone peddling religion! We’d gotten holy rollers at home a few times, and nothing stopped them from trying to convert us—not Dad telling them we were Catholic and related to the pope, not me piping up we were card-carrying Wiccans—that only made them try all the harder. The only way Dad had gotten rid of them was by slamming the door in their faces.

“We need a big dog, Ty,” he’d told me when I was about eight. “One with a really big bark!”

We’d gone to the local animal shelter and picked out the puppy with the biggest paws. Dad had high hopes for that dog.

“This pup is going to be a big boy, Ty. What do you think we should name him?”

“How about Andre the Giant?” Dad was a big wrestling fan, and I’d often watched his World Wrestling Federation VHS tapes with him.

The Giant lived up to his name, not only having huge paws, but a deep, thunderous bark that scared the shit out of anyone who came to the door.

It was too bad Mina was still at the vet’s, although I was afraid the only thing her bark would cause to happen would be for my caller to fall on the floor laughing.

I sighed and went to the front of the house to see who was there.

A glance through the peephole revealed nothing. The sun had gone down a few hours ago, and there was no moon.

I flipped on the switch for the porch light, and in spite of me knowing someone
had
to be there, I jumped when it revealed a man standing there. I knew, although I didn’t know how I knew—maybe it was a sabor thing: he was a vampyr. And he was gorgeous.

My dick began to harden. It remembered as well as I did how good it had felt when Adam had fed from me. He had licked the birthmark that covered my carotid artery. Some element in his saliva had an anesthetic quality to it, and there had been no pain when his fangs had slid into my throat, just pleasure such as I’d never expected to feel, and an overpowering orgasm that led to me blacking out.

At least I had with Adam, and I saw no reason why that shouldn’t happen again with the vampyr who stood waiting on the other side of my door.

Remembering the care my first vampyr had taken with me, I had no qualms in opening the door.

“Hi!” I smiled at him. “I’m Tyrell Small.”

“I know who you are.” He was a couple of inches shorter than me, which made him about five foot seven or eight.

I continued smiling at him. For the longest time I couldn’t grow an inch over four feet, and to now be able to look most men in the eye was a pleasure I wasn’t sure I’d ever outgrow. And to look down on one….

“You should have been mine.”

“Excuse me?” I’d started to extend my hand to him, but that brought me up short.

“I should have been your first. I am Juan de Vivar.” In spite of the fact he was shorter, he peered down his nose at me, and his lips curled, revealing his fangs.

I swallowed and involuntarily stepped back. Adam had at least waited until I was comfortable with him before he’d let me see his fangs.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

“Uh….” My smile had vanished around the time he’d told me he should have been my first, and suddenly Juan de Vivar didn’t look so gorgeous anymore.

“Are you as dense as your uncle?” he snapped.

“What?”

“I can’t enter unless you invite me in.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.” I opened my mouth automatically to grant him entrance, but the invitation caught in my throat. Instead, I found myself asking, “What did you mean about my uncle?”

“He thought he could escape his destiny.” De Vivar sneered, and that really killed his looks.

“Geez, what is it with everyone and this destiny shtick? What happened to free will?”

“You’re not only as dense as your uncle, you’re as foolish!” His scowl deepened. He had a serious case of red eye going on there, and I backed away another step. It wasn’t that I was suddenly scared, precisely. It was just that….

Okay, I was scared. But you didn’t show fear in front of a wild animal, so I wasn’t going to show fear to this bozo.

I hoped.

“All my people know what a fool he was, to throw away what he had for the ephemeral dream of love.”

“And what did he have? A vampyr sinking his fangs into him a few times a year? Big fucking whoop. Why shouldn’t he give that up for someone who loved him?”

“You dare argue with me?” The vampyr’s teeth ground together. “Vampyrs do not fall in love with sabors!”

“Well, why not?” I was kind of surprised his fangs didn’t snap off, and then I found myself wondering:
Do vampyrs have a dental plan? Do they have dentists who do root canals?
“We’ve got to fall in love with you.”

“Yes, and why haven’t you?” His complexion was swarthy, but the fury in it now made it even darker. “I should have known your line would prove difficult!”

“Y’know what? Insulting my family isn’t going to get you into my house and your fangs into my throat. Adam said I didn’t have to accept you…” Maybe not in so many words, but I didn’t like this Juan de Vivar, and I’d be damned if I let him sink his fangs into me. “…and I’m not going to.”

“He said
what
? You can’t!”

“Oh, no? Watch me!”

He howled and reached for me, and I slammed the door in his face and threw the bolt. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my erection had long since deflated. I backed away from the door.

The vampyr couldn’t enter—I’d refused him permission—but I looked around for a weapon. I didn’t have any sacred silver, but I did have a bulb of garlic in the fridge, so I ran to get it. Somehow holding it helped steady my nerves.

I wasn’t going to cower in a corner, though. I went back and held my breath, waiting to see what would happen.

It was kind of anticlimactic. There was a polite tapping on the door.

“Go away!” I yelled.

“Tyrell, open the door, please.” It wasn’t Juan de Vivar’s voice.

I tiptoed back—although why I tiptoed I had no clue. It wasn’t as if it was a surprise I was in the house—and peered through the peephole. The vampyr who stood there was as gorgeous as de Vivar had struck me at first, and even taller than Adam.

“You needn’t be afraid.” How did he know I was close enough to hear him? “I’ve sent him away.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Alexandru Mondragon.”

“Uh… okay. What do you want?”

“Open the door. I wish to speak with you.”

Cautiously I opened the door and looked around. De Vivar was gone. Or at least he wasn’t in sight.

“Okay, I’ve opened the door. But I’m not inviting you in.”

He gave me a thoughtful look and then smiled. It was a very charming smile, and he was very handsome, but I felt no tug of desire toward him. Was that because I wasn’t ready to feed a vampyr—it had only been about four weeks since Adam was here—or because he didn’t need to feed?

“First I wish to express my regret to you for de Vivar’s behavior. He forgets this is the twenty-first century and things are different than when he was a young man.”

“When was that?”
About a thousand years ago?
I thought snidely.

“Are you asking how old he is? He wasn’t young when he manned the redoubts at Balaclava when the Light Brigade charged it. You do the math.”

I swallowed. That battle had been fought in 1854, a hundred and sixty years ago.

I wasn’t a big history buff, but after Dad had told me how the relationship between sabors and vampyrs came about—even though he had it wrong—I’d done some research. I’d been intrigued to learn one theory was the Black Plague had first been brought to Europe by Genoese trading ships returning from Balaclava.

“May I come in?”

“I have a headache,” I informed him. I wasn’t expecting him to laugh, but he did.

“No, I promise you, I won’t touch you.”

“All right, but just remember… I’ve got garlic!” I held up my hand with the bulb in my fist.

“I think you’ve been watching too many vampyr movies.” He continued to chuckle, waiting patiently, and this time I felt a tug of something.

“Enter freely, but just remember I reserve the right to boot you out at my own discretion.”

“As you will.” He stepped across my threshold, and I closed the door behind him and led him into the living room. He looked around. “Where is your
Ȋnger Păzitor
?”

“Mina? She’s at the vet’s.”

His gaze locked on mine, the expression in his eyes cold and sharp. “Why?”

“She had to get spayed.”

“And you just happened to choose today to do that?”

“No, I was actually going to wait until Thursday to call Dr. Ingram. I have no classes on Thursday and Friday,” I explained.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Her office called yesterday. They said they had an opening this morning and it would be a good idea to bring her in. Why?”

“This wouldn’t have happened if your
Ȋnger Păzitor
had been here.”

I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. “Have you seen her? What, she’d have licked him into submission?”

He wasn’t amused, and my laugh petered out. “It was highly fortuitous for Juan de Vivar that she wasn’t here when he came to call on you. It was highly fortuitous for
you
that I happened to be in the neighborhood when he did. Let this be a lesson to you—she is never to be away from you overnight ever again.” Flames seemed to burn in his eyes. “Have I made myself clear?”