Jack Bauer immediately darted forward and began eagerly to lick up the spilled liquid from the bag, completely oblivious to the fact that there was an armed man threatening his mistress a few feet away.
But Lucien Antonescu, Meena thought cynically, he’d barked at all night. Great guard dog she’d selected. Just great.
Alaric lowered the sword when he saw who it was that had come in.
“Jonathan Harper,” he said, his broad shoulders losing some of their tension. “Age thirty-two. Former systems analyst for Webber and Stern. Unemployed for the past seven months. Arrested once for public intoxication and indecent exposure for urinating against a parking meter in Miami Beach, Florida, while visiting his parents four years ago.”
Meena’s jaw draw dropped. “Jonathan!” she cried.
She’d always thought it was strange Jon had kept having to go back to Miami “for business.” He’d said he’d been thinking about investing his share of the inheritance from Great-Aunt Wilhelmina in a vacation condo near their parents’ in Boca, which was weird in and of itself.
But then nothing had ever come of it.
“Shit,” Jon said again in a different tone, quickly closing, then locking, the front door behind him, as if he was afraid the Antonescus might overhear. “It was four o’clock in the morning! Outside of a Subway. That was closed. No one was around! I really had to go.”
Meena shook her head. “Still…”
“And I paid all that money to those lawyers to get my record expunged,” Jon said mournfully.
“Lawyers,” Alaric said, shrugging. He turned back to Meena. She didn’t like the glint in his ice-blue eyes. “We need to talk,” he said, and pulled her, not very gently, over to the sage green couch. “Sit down,” he said, and pushed her down onto the cushions with a single large, commanding paw.
Meena, her anger having reached a boiling point, popped right back up to her bare feet.
“No,” she said. She didn’t have to put up with his manhandling. “I will not sit down. I still don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. I’m calling the police. Jon.” She turned toward her brother. “Please call the police. This man forced his way in here against my will, and then he-”
“Sit down,” Alaric said again, and shoved her back onto the couch, this time by spreading his mammoth fingers across her face and pushing down.
Meena, completely stunned by this barbaric treatment, just sat there, staring at the kitchen pass-through in astonishment. Who even did that?
“What exactly is going on here?” Jon asked, looking down at the destroyed bouquet of roses and the broken pieces of Meena’s BlackBerry scattered across the floor. Jack Bauer, in the middle of it all, was still licking up liquid from the overturned Chinese food cartons. When he glanced up at Alaric, his tail wagged happily in greeting. Her dog. Her own dog!
“Your sister did that,” Alaric Wulf said to Jon about the mess. “She’s being very uncooperative.”
Meena made a noise that was half whimper, half protest. What? She was the one who was being uncooperative?
“Meena Harper,” Alaric went on in a completely deadpan voice, ignoring her, “is in grave danger. Lucien Antonescu is a soulless monster. It is imperative that I find and destroy him and that you do exactly what I say if you want her to live.”
Jon stared at the man with the sword standing in the middle of Meena’s living room. Then he looked down at Meena, who mimed dialing a cell phone. Then she mouthed, Call the police.
“Uh,” Jon said to Alaric. “Sure. Right.”
“Meena Harper,” Alaric said, even though he wasn’t looking in her direction. “I see what you’re doing. If you don’t stop, I will have no problem handcuffing you to something. In fact, I will enjoy it.”
Meena, furious, said, “Lucien isn’t a monster! Okay, he might have tricked me and said he wasn’t married, but I assure you, no one is in any danger from-”
“He isn’t married,” Alaric said. “He has never been married. No one knows why. Some say it is because he witnessed his own mother’s suicide and never got over it. Others say it is because he has never met his soul mate. I have the feeling that might have changed recently.” He threw Meena a piercing glance, then went on. “That’s why it is vital for your survival that you tell me where he is. Also, you need to stop talking, because I find your voice very annoying.”
“Uh”-Jon raised his hand-“sorry. I know I came in late, but no one’s answered my question. What the hell is going on here?”
“It is simple, really,” Alaric Wulf said. “Lucien Antonescu is the prince of darkness.”
Jon nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We know. He’s got a castle and stuff.”
“No,” Alaric said again, shaking his head. “The prince of darkness.”
Jon glanced at Meena, then back at Alaric, then back at Meena again. “The prince of…did he say what I think he said?”
Meena rolled her eyes. “Sorry to be annoying,” she said, as sweetly as possible, to Alaric. “But Lucien’s not the devil.”
“I did not say he was the devil,” Alaric said. He shrugged out of his trench coat, then brushed it carefully with his hand before going to hang it neatly on one of the decorative hooks by the door. Then he unbuckled his sword and leaned that, too, by the door. Then, after stepping over the scattered roses and pieces of BlackBerry, not to mention the Chinese food containers, leaned down to pat an appreciative Jack Bauer on the head, before saying, “He is the dark prince. The all-powerful one. The leader of the creatures of the night.”
Meena and Jon exchanged glances. Then Meena said, again trying to keep her tone devoid of waspishness-since he apparently found her voice so annoying-“I’m confused then. I thought the prince of darkness was the devil.”
“The devil is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind,” Alaric said. He crossed the room and sat in the armchair Meena had spent an hour or so not writing in, after first giving it a disparaging glance-he didn’t seem to much appreciate Meena’s taste in home furnishings. “The prince of darkness is the anointed one, who performs the devil’s work on this, the mortal side of hell.”
“Wait,” Meena said, blinking. “Are you saying…”
“Yes,” Alaric said. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”
Jon looked blank. “I don’t understand. Is he the devil or not?”
“Lucien Antonescu,” Alaric said, “is a vampire. Not just any vampire, but ruler of all the vampires.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
8:00 P.M. EST, Friday, April 16
910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B
New York, New York
Alaric Wulf was staring at her. His eyes really were very blue. Alarmingly blue. If he’d been anybody else-if Meena had met him anywhere else-she’d have said, “What a nice-looking man.”
But since he’d attacked her in her own apartment with a sword and was now accusing her boyfriend of being a vampire, she was just going to have to say it was a shame such good looks were wasted on someone so…whatever he was.
“Brother Jon,” he said. His gaze was so intense, it seemed to pierce her to the couch, much in the way his body weight had pierced her to the floor. “Get your sister something to drink now. Something sugary. She doesn’t know it yet. But she’s going to need it in a few minutes.”
“Uh,” Jon said, “okay.” And he got up to go to the kitchen.
“Excuse me,” Meena said. What was wrong with this guy? “But I can actually get my own drinks.”
“No,” Alaric said. “You stay where you are. You are not to be trusted.”
Meena held up both palms in protest. “What?” she said. She couldn’t help bursting out laughing, even though it was all so…sad. “Why? Because I date an alleged vampire?”
“He is not alleged,” Alaric said. “And, yes. You are his minion now.”