Winter's Touch (Immortal Touch Series) (8 page)

I’ll tear you into such small pieces your own mother won’t recognize you.

You want to watch, don’t you?

Across his radial artery, like so
...

“Oh, God!”
Eva’s legs threatened to buckle, and she grabbed the edge of a nearby table for support. “Oh my
God.
You...that was no dream. You really killed that boy!”

“I killed many.” He looked
indifferent, bored by such inane triviality.

“And you made me watch!” She felt sick.

“Nothing of the sort.
You’re
the one who stowed away in my car.”

“I was just a child!”

“Yes. And now you aren’t. Must we argue semantics? The fact is, you
wanted
to watch. I told you, Eva, that curiosity would kill the cat.”

Kill the cat.
Mon petite chaton...

“You’re going to kill me
too, then.” She was too much in shock to be very afraid yet. The influx of information he’d provided was too ghastly to process. Her violated mind fought to reject it.

“We’ll see.” The corners of his mouth
curved slightly.

“You
...you said you killed many. Then...my nightmares. Were they
all
real?”

He paused to consider this. “I believe you had some sort of
tenuous psychic connection with me. Possibly brought about by the contact of my blood with your skin. I can’t confirm that, of course. The answer, however, is yes. They were real enough.”

“How could you do it?”

He looked surprised. “You want details?”

“That’s not what I meant! How could you
do
it? How could you look those people in the eye and then
murder
them like that?”

“How do you squash
an insect? It’s all relative, my dear. Those people meant nothing to me. Why should I empathize with them?”

“Because it’s
inhuman
!”

“Which is precisely what I am now. You should know that.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to live like a monster! There must be other ways!”

His eyes flickered with interest. “And so perhaps there are. We’ll soon find out.”

A dawning realization spread through her. After all, he hadn’t brought her all this way just to kill her. That was far too impractical. No, he was planning something else. And whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

“I
never believed you would hurt me,” she admitted, her voice low.

“Yes. Isn’t that the most ludicrous thing?” He smiled broadly. “When I was the very one you should have avoided. Just think, if you hadn’t wandered into my house that day, we might never have become friends.”

“
Friends?
” He was insane. Fresh from the institution, delusional, straightjacket-wearing insane. “You’re raving mad!”

He leaned
in close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “Yes, I am, quite. You’ll soon realize just how mad I am.”

She could still hear him laughing as she ran, racing down the stairs
in a desperate bid to escape this asylum of horror. Attempting to wrench the front door open, but of course it was locked tight with a keyed deadbolt. Frantically scanning the room for a way out she caught sight of Lainie, watching her out of the corner of her eye as she knitted serenely in a rocking chair.

“Please, you have to help me,”
Eva begged, falling at the woman’s feet. “He’s crazy!”

Lainie patted the girl’s head soothingly. “
Come now. It isn’t as bad as all that.”

“
He’s a killer!
”

“Wheesht. He’s j
ust havin’ a bit o’ fun. Don’t pay him any mind.” She resumed her knitting.

My God, she’s as
crazy as he is! I have to get out of here! I’ll break a window and run for freedom...run until I find someone who can help me...

But even as
the idea played through her mind, she realized it wasn’t a possibility. For one thing, her legs would no longer hold her up.

And for another, Julian was directly behind her now.

He reached down and gently picked her up as if she weighed no more than an infant. “Really, Eva,” he said as he carried her back upstairs, “For someone your age, your behavior is most assuredly childish. Is this what I’m going to have to put up with? I think you should stay in your room for a while and think about how abominably you’ve conducted yourself.”

She said nothing as he dropped her onto the fluffy white bed. It wouldn’t be long before she’d lose her mind as well. Somehow,
that seemed a comforting thought.

“Get some rest, then we’ll have a nice evening together later.” He reached over to turn off her bedside lamp.
Heading for the door, he paused to add nonchalantly, “Although I can’t promise it won’t be your last.”

CHAPTER FIVE

To Soothe the Savage Beast

The next
six hours were the longest of her life, and yet they were gone in an instant.

She spent them alternately reliving
consequential moments from her past and dreading the night that loomed before her, holding in its ruthless hands the brutal threat of a future cut all too short. Was her destiny to follow in the fading footprints of the many casualties before her? It was useless to reassure herself with the logic that he could have already killed her easily, though she tried anyway for the sake of sanity. Because surely,
surely
he hadn’t brought her all this way just to end her life. What sense did that make?

What sense did any of this make?

She searched the room from top to bottom, but the only conceivable weapon to be found was a pair of scissors from a sewing basket inexplicably left in a dresser drawer. These she held close with a grim determination. He wouldn’t kill her without acquiring some battle scars of his own.

The remainder of the
afternoon she spent in forlorn rumination, pacing the room like a caged tiger.

Thinking of her mother, who must be beside herself with worry.

And her father, who she might have forgiven but never did.

The myriad of
people who had touched her life, leaving behind their small but unmistakable mark. Friends, relatives, acquaintances. Would she ever see any of them again? How long would they grieve before she became nothing more than a distant memory to them?

She
was huddled on the bed just after dusk when she heard the soft
click
of the lock on her door, and it was all she could do not to throw herself through the bay window in a fit of hysteria.

Which was impossible anyway, of course.
The callous bars saw to that.

He locked the door behind him and w
ithout speaking, the fiend approached her. He smiled, eyes sparkling like stars in the night sky. A beautiful angel with a heart forged of solid stone.

She
drew her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them while hiding the makeshift weapon behind a fold of the terrycloth robe. This was to be the end then, was it? He’d slaughter her in the same way he’d butchered so many others. And feel no remorse whatsoever.

Her
family would be heartbroken.

T
he hand that clenched the scissors trembled violently.

Julian sat on the edge of the bed,
dropping a small first aid kit on the comforter beside her. He faced her, the perfectly chiseled features assuming a combination of annoyance and amusement. “And just what do you intend to do with those?”

He knew of her concealed weapon, just as he
knew everything else about her. And his tone implied that he was most unconcerned about the prospect of being stabbed in the throat with a pair of dull scissors.

She glared at him hatefully.

“Well, go on then. What are you waiting for?” He grabbed her hand, impatiently guiding the point to his chest while her expression changed to one of utter shock. “They aren’t very sharp so you’ll have to use a lot of force. Better use both hands. Hurry up now - I don’t intend to wait around all night.”

She could only
stare at him, wondering in dismay if she possessed the fortitude to commit such a violent act, even to save her own life. Plunging a blade into living flesh was by no means the same as slicing a melon. Not the same thing at all. Her eyes fell on the steel scissors in her hand. Could she really use them to impale a person, crazy or otherwise? The answer had still not come to her when he settled the matter altogether.

“It’s a waste of time, you know.”

“What?” Distracted from her thoughts, she returned her gaze to his.

“I can
not be killed.” He opened the first aid kit, and she wondered fearfully what it was for. The contents seemed innocuous enough. Gauze, alcohol wipes, adhesive bandages, antibiotic ointment.

“That’s not possible,” she said, though it was useless to try to reason with a maniac. He would believe what he wanted to believe.

“But it is.” He reached for the hand that held the scissors in a death grip, effortlessly prying her fingers loose and retrieving the would-be weapon. To her horror, he opened them and raked one of the blades across his forearm, pressing hard enough to leave a deep cut that immediately wept blood.

“Jesus, what are you
doing?
” Eva scrambled backwards, almost banging her head against the pine headboard in her haste.

He
took one of the gauze pads from the first aid kit and staunched the bleeding with calm detachment. “Watch.”

“Watch
what?
You’re...you’re
crazy!
”

“
For heaven’s sake, Eva,
look.
” He removed the gauze and showed her the wound. Or at least, what should have been a wound. Remaining was only an insubstantial scar that gradually faded away in front of her eyes. Then, nothing. His arm was left completely unscathed.

“How
...” Words failed her. And what were words to him anyway? Language was an invention of man, and there was nothing remotely human about the blond devil. What she’d seen...it just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible unless...

He really was a vampire.

This wasn’t happening. It simply
could not
be happening. Things like this existed only in the imaginations of Hollywood movie directors, not in the suburbs of Nebraska and remote vacation cabins in Oregon. People didn’t rise from the grave to live forever by feeding on the blood of the living. That was just a fairy tale, a fable told by firelight on dark and stormy nights for the purpose of idle entertainment. It was a scientific impossibility. It simply
could not be
.

And yet, somehow it was.

This thing before her wasn’t a man gone insane. He wasn’t a serial killer either, not by definition alone. He was, instead, something far less definable and infinitely more frightening.

“What are you?” She didn’t realize
until she heard them that she’d spoken the words out loud.

He took a lock of her auburn hair and rubbed it between his fingers, studying the texture with interest.
“I am a demon who once walked as a man.” The explanation, though simple, seemed to say it all.

First and foremost, there was one burning question that required an immediate answer. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Eva, it is my intention to do everything I can to keep you very much alive.”

She stared at him numbly. “For what purpose?”

“What do you suppose? My goodness, you never used to be this dim-witted. I don’t plan on hurting you. Not much, anyway.”

Not much?
He was doing very little to reassure her.

“All I want is a bit of
your blood. That’s not so terrible, is it?”

She pulled the robe
tightly around her neck. “What are you going to do?”

He ignored her, instead surveying the white bed sheets and comforter critically. “Really, what was Lainie thinking when she bought these? They’re going to be ruined in no time.
We’ll have to be careful we don’t make a mess of your bed.”

“
What are you going to do?
” Eva repeated, panicky.

“Sh
h. Look at me.”

“No
!” She knew better than to fall for that again.

He sighed. “Why did I expect that you would cooperate? Let me make this clear for you. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. Tell me, which do you prefer?”

She reluctantly turned to him then, careful to keep her line of sight just south of his piercing gaze.

“That’s better.” He took her wrist and straightened her arm, pushing
up the sleeve of the oversized robe. It didn’t want to stay. “Take your arm out for me, please.”