Insatiable

Chapter Fifty-three

9:45 P.M. EST, Saturday, April 17

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

Alaric stared at the disaster area that had once been Meena Harper’s apartment.

The Dracul had been thorough, if not downright imaginative, in their destruction of it. There wasn’t a piece of furniture in 11B that hadn’t been smashed, slashed, or otherwise torn apart or ruined. The sofa cushions had been slit open with knives, the stuffing strewn about the place with colorful abandon. The exposed wooden sofa frame had been chopped to bits. Same with Meena’s easy chair and the rest of the upholstered furniture.

The coffee table lay smashed into pieces, as did all the lamps and every bit of dishware in the kitchen. The legs from the dining room table had been stuffed through the television screen. All of Meena’s books from the built-ins in the living room lay piled into the bathtub, where they’d been left to soak with the shower still running.

That had taken some true inspiration on the part of the Dracul. He couldn’t help wondering which one of them had thought that one up. Destroying the beloved books of a writer?

It could only have been Dimitri. The gesture bore all the signs of his old-school, Hun-style viciousness.

Meena’s bed had seen a particularly savage assault, having been attacked with what looked to have been a chain saw. On the wall above it, someone had spray-painted the word whore in black. The dragon symbol of the Dracul had likewise been spray-painted on walls throughout the apartment, wherever other various euphemisms for the word prostitute hadn’t been used instead, usually spelled incorrectly.

Alaric, stepping across the broken glass and shredded clothing from Meena’s closet, shook his head.

The Dracul would certainly never have to worry about being mistaken for Rhodes scholars.

There was not the slightest chance, of course, that they had left anything living in this apartment. Wherever Meena’s dog was, he was undoubtedly dead. Alaric didn’t even know why he was bothering to look.

Except that he wanted to see the corpse for himself. He felt that the sight would give him just that much more reason to hate the enemy and do to them the kinds of things he’d been fantasizing about doing to them since entering the apartment.

He was inspecting the contents of Meena’s appliances-he wouldn’t have put it past the Dracul to have broiled or, alternately, frozen the dog to death-when he heard a voice from the doorway to 11B, which he’d most definitely locked behind him.

“Yoo-hoo,” a woman called. “Knock-knock. Anybody there?”

Alaric, who was of course clutching Señor Sticky in his hand, fell into a defensive stance, ready to slice off the head of the female vampire who stood in Meena’s entranceway, blinking at him. She was a tall blonde wearing a fantastical outfit that included a pair of platform heels, some kind of sparkly gaucho pants, and a blouse that appeared to be made out of feathers.

If his eyes didn’t deceive him, it was Mary Lou Antonescu, the socialite.

And while she appeared startled by the sight of the sword, she wasn’t half as startled as he was. How had she gotten there? He hadn’t heard a key turn in the lock.

Was it possible she, like the prince, had the ability to turn to mist? Had she come in from beneath the door?

“Oh, hey there!” she cried in a friendly way. “You must be the Palatine guard who’s trying to catch the prince. You’re not going to whack my head off with that thing, are you?”

Alaric stared at her in horror. If she possessed the ability to turn to mist, she must be an extraordinarily powerful vampire.

And yet she looked as if she’d just come from a shopping trip to a suburban mall.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.

“Because this top is Gucci, and it cost a fortune,” she said. “It would be a shame to ruin it by turning me all to dust. Besides, we’re on Meena’s side. I saw the lights come on, and I figured it was you. I knew you’d just cut Emil’s head off and ask questions later. I didn’t think you’d be quite as quick to kill a lady. Are you here for the dog?”

Alaric couldn’t quite believe that he was actually standing in Meena Harper’s kitchen having a conversation with…well, with a vampire.

A vampire who was dressed to the nines in designer clothes, flinging her long-nailed hands around as she spoke like a starlet on a late-night talk show, promoting her latest Hollywood release.

Was this some kind of trick?

But vampires weren’t smart enough to stoop to such tricks. Not even the Dracul. Tricks like dropping down on him from a secret air duct in the ceiling and eating half his face off, yes.

But a conversation?

This was a first.

“Yes,” he said finally. He didn’t lower the sword, however. “I came for the dog.”

“We’ve got him over at our place,” Mary Lou said. “He’s fine. Lucien asked us to come get him after we heard about that little altercation at Shenanigans. We weren’t sure it was you all, but better safe than sorry. We figured Meena might have some…well, unpleasant visitors, and Jack might not be safe over here.”

She looked around the apartment, shaking her head.

“Such a shame,” she said, tsk-tsking. “She had a sweet little place. And they just tore it all apart, didn’t they? We heard them doing it, of course. But there was nothing we could do. I mean, if we didn’t want to be next. We were going to leave town to get away from them-and you, of course-but then we decided to wait. I suppose we could have dumped the dog off at a kennel, but that just didn’t seem right somehow.”

Alaric, still keeping the sword aloft, narrowed his eyes at her. What was this?

“I know what’s going on here,” he said. “You’re a succubus, aren’t you? You’re going to try to seduce me, then suck out my soul. Well, it won’t work. I’ve dealt with your kind before. And I always win.”

Mary Lou, surprised, threw back her golden head and laughed. It was a happy sound in an otherwise dismal place.

“A succubus,” she said. “Oh, honey, that’s a good one. Wait ’til I tell Emil. I’ve been mistaken for a lot of things in my time, but never one of those! No, sweetie, I’m a vampire, just like the rest of them. Well, not just like the rest of them. I’m on your side, like I said.”

“Yes, well, that’s not possible,” Alaric said. He crept forward, Señor Sticky aimed at her throat. She, in turn, backed up until her spine was against the front door. “Humans and vampires don’t mix. Vampires kill humans. And so it’s my job to kill you. All of you. No matter how beautiful.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, looking pleased by the compliment. “Thank you. But not all vampires kill humans. I don’t. Why, I used to be a human once. But I gave it up. You know why?”

“No,” Alaric growled. “And I don’t care.”

“Love.” She raised her heavily made-up lashes to look at him. “I fell in love with a vampire. My husband, Emil. I’m not saying he’s perfect or anything. He’s not. No one is. But he loves me. He loves me so much that he was willing to give up killing humans just because I asked him to…and that was before the prince ever became the prince and issued his command that we all stop killing them. When Emil did that for me, I knew I’d found the love of my life. And I was willing to give up everything I loved-my family, pecan pie, sunshine, the chance to ever have babies-just to be with him.”

“That’s too bad,” Alaric said flatly. “If you’d just have contacted someone in my office instead, we could have helped you. It’s our job to keep women like you from falling prey to soul-sucking demons like him. But it’s too late now.”

“Well,” Mary Lou said, putting her fingers delicately on his sword blade to push it a few inches down and away from her neck, “it’s a good thing I didn’t. Because I’ve never regretted my decision. Emil’s my everything. If you think I’d rather have babies and pie than that, all I can say is I feel sorry for you. Because you have no idea what love is.”

Alaric considered her words carefully. Did he know what love was? His partner, Martin, had told him that he’d known he’d found his true love-the man with whom he shared the parenting of Simone-when the two of them discovered their mutual fondness for Belgian waffles and a certain German rock band from the nineties. Alaric had always found this a bit…odd.

It was true Alaric wasn’t that familiar with the sensation of loving or of being loved. Who had he ever had in his life to love or to be loved by?

But you couldn’t miss what you had never known, and so Alaric hadn’t been particularly bothered by this.

Until quite recently. He’d realized this when Meena Harper had insisted on following him through the rectory and then tied that ridiculous scarf of hers around his wrist.

It was then that he had found himself almost blurting out the truth. Not all of it, of course. But the part about his idea of how she should come and work for the Palatine.

What had he been thinking? He had almost revealed something that up until that moment he had been trying to play close to his chest.

He still had the scarf tied around his wrist, even though it wasn’t particularly comfortable. What man wore a scarf around his wrist? What had she even been thinking putting it there?

But she had said it was for luck. And then she had kissed him.

So he didn’t dare remove it.

He had a sinking feeling that he really was a fool, just as Holtzman had accused him of being.

He looked the vampire in the eye. She said he had no idea what love was?

“What you’re confusing for love,” he concluded aloud, “is the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in your brain, stimulated by the mammalian hormone oxytocin.”

“I think we should just agree to disagree,” Mary Lou Antonescu said. “Do you want the damned dog or not?”

Sighing, Alaric pulled the sword away and sheathed it. “I want the dog,” he said. “If this is a trick, I will kill you and your husband both. And I won’t make it quick.”

It wasn’t a trick. She had the dog locked up in a bathroom of her apartment, which was five times the size of Meena’s and had been neither vandalized nor ransacked by the Dracul. Alaric found himself approving of both the tasteful and expensive décor and the timidity of the husband, Emil Antonescu, who seemed to be expecting Alaric to strike him down at any moment.

“For heaven’s sake, Mary Lou,” he exclaimed when his wife opened the front door to let the two of them in. “Where have you been? Didn’t I warn you not to leave the-”

That’s when he saw Alaric and dropped the brandy snifter he’d been holding. It fell with a crash to the parquet, glass and brandy going everywhere. Emil went as pale as…well, a vampire.

“Is th-that,” the husband stammered, “th-the-”

“Oh, don’t worry, hon,” Mary Lou said. “The Dracul seem to have all gone. And this is just the Palatine guard, here to pick up Meena’s dog. He promised not to hurt us. Well, he didn’t promise, exactly. But I’m sure he won’t. He seems all right, for a Palatine guard. Oh, look at the mess you’ve made, Emil. Who do you expect to clean that up? You know it’s the maid’s day off. Do you want a drink?” This last was directed at Alaric. “I never did get your name. What is it?”

Alaric was looking at a painting of a pretty young girl they had hanging in their foyer. The signature at the bottom said Renoir.

“Alaric Wulf,” he said, studying the painting. “And I don’t drink. I’m just here for the dog. I like this painting very much.”

“Isn’t that nice?” Mary Lou said about the painting. “Emil picked that up for a song from the artist when he was just an unknown. Emil has quite an eye. Are you sure you don’t want anything? Not even a soda or something?”

“Nothing for me,” Alaric said. Like he was going to accept a drink from a vampire. What if they put poison in it? “Just the dog, please.”

“Of course. I’ll be right back.”

Mary Lou drifted away, leaving Alaric alone with the husband, who was standing on the far side of the spreading brandy stain on the highly polished wood floor, staring wide-eyed at him.

“I would kill you right now,” Alaric said casually to Emil Antonescu, “but I promised Meena Harper I would bring her dog back in a timely fashion.”

“I would kill you right now,” Emil Antonescu said, hatred causing his eyes to flare red, “but my prince forbade me from it.”

“Did he now?” Alaric heard this with interest. “I wonder why.”

Emil shrugged. “Your people,” Emil said, “have done nothing but harass my people for decades, causing us misery and heartache.”

“Well, I believe your people started it,” Alaric pointed out, “by dining on the blood of innocents.”

“We no longer drink to kill,” Emil said. “We’re forbidden from it. Now we dine only on willing donors or blood purchased from blood banks. Why can’t you leave us alone?”

Alaric’s sword hand itched. It was incredibly difficult for him to be standing this close to a vampire and not kill it. “Perhaps,” he said, “because there’s no such thing as a willing donor, only human beings who are too weak willed to stand up to your freakish mind games. And your people are the ones who keep attacking mine.”

“In self-defense,” Emil hissed. “In self-defense only.”

Alaric took a step toward him…and kept on stepping until they were standing only inches apart.

“It wasn’t self-defense when a pack of Dracul attacked my partner and me in a warehouse outside of Berlin and nearly killed him,” he snarled, glaring down at the smaller man.

“It’s a shame it was only nearly,” Emil snarled back, giving him a chest bump.

Alaric drew his sword. It came singing from its scabbard, the blade shining in the glow from the crystal chandelier hanging from the foyer’s high, arched ceiling…

“Here we are,” Mary Lou sang. She came back dragging a highly reluctant Jack Bauer behind her on a leash. The dog fought her every step of the way, growling and struggling against the leash, his claws skidding on the polished floor.

The men parted at once, going back to their separate squares of parquet.

When Jack Bauer saw Alaric, however, he stopped fighting and bounded over to him excitedly.

Alaric stooped down and lifted the dog, who appeared to be unharmed and in perfect health.

“He looks good,” he said, unable to keep the surprise from his tone.

“Of course he looks good.” Emil glared at him. “We aren’t savages. We wouldn’t hurt a little dog.”

Alaric raised an eyebrow in the vampire’s direction. But Mary Lou had already given her husband a little smack across the chest.

“Oh, Emil!” she cried. “Alaric, don’t mind him. He’s just in a bad mood because you all finding out where we live means we have to move again. You know, because now you’re going to try to kill us and all. And it’s my fault, because I’m the one who sent that-”

“Mary Lou.” Emil Antonescu locked an arm around his wife’s slim waist, then dragged her to his side. “Please. Just stop talking. For once.”

That’s when Mary Lou’s gaze fell to the sword in Alaric’s hand. “Well,” she said, her smile fading. “What was going on here with you two boys while I was gone?”

“Nothing,” Emil said. “Nothing was going on. Mr. Wulf was just leaving. Weren’t you, Mr. Wulf?”

Alaric just stood there, holding Meena Harper’s squirming dog. For the first time in his career, he wasn’t certain what to do.

He was sworn to kill all demons, no matter what their form.

And sometimes those forms could be very deceiving indeed. That’s what the dark side did: worked to play tricks on the human mind, to rouse compassion and sympathy to keep a man from doing what he’d been trained to do-plow a stake through the heart of whatever evil creature was before him.

But for once, Alaric wasn’t certain what stood before him truly was evil.

Maybe all that chattering Meena Harper had been doing, about redemption and rehabilitation and how Lucien Antonescu wasn’t like the other vampires, was getting to him.

But he actually believed these two vampires were just a couple of pathetic losers-with very good taste in home furnishings and art-who deserved to have to spend all of eternity with each other.

Could he actually feel sorry for them?

And the truth was…they had saved Jack Bauer from being blown up in the microwave by the Dracul.

And Meena Harper liked them.

Good God. What was happening to him?

“If you tell anyone about this,” he said, pointing Señor Sticky at their necks, causing them both to stagger back a few steps, “I’ll find you, wherever you are, and force one of you to choke on the dust of the other.”

Mary Lou looked queasy. “Good heavens,” she said. “We won’t tell.”

Alaric turned and ran from the apartment. He didn’t bother with the elevator. He took the stairs, two at a time, down all eleven flights, giving Jack Bauer quite a jogging in his arms. It wasn’t until he reached the bottom that he paused to think about what he’d just done:

Let two vampires go free.

He was going to regret this. It was going to come back to haunt him.

On the other hand…

He could always hunt them down and kill them later. How hard would it be, considering the woman’s obvious taste for designer clothes?

He sheathed his sword and put Jack Bauer down on his four paws. Then he hit the exit door and walked out into the lobby.

His cell phone buzzed. He reached down to answer it.

“Alaric Wulf,” he said.

“Alaric?” Jon Harper’s anxious voice was on the other end of the line. “Where are you? Are you still at the building? Because we have a problem. A big problem.”