"I'm… uh… your cousin Melissande hired me."
He took two steps forward until he was a hairbreadth away from me. "Melissande isn't my cousin, and do not make me repeat myself again."
As he spoke, fangs flashed white in his mouth. Out of the blue a thought struck me, one so startling that my brain processed it without giving overdue thought to just how precarious a position I was in. "You know, I always assumed that vampires' fangs retracted or something when they weren't using them. Kind of like a cobra's fangs—present and accounted for when you want to use them, and out of the way when you don't."
They do, in most Dark Ones. Christian's voice had an almost ethereal quality, such a physical presence that I felt it in my head as well as heard it.
"But not you?" I looked at the pattern of red that wrapped around his torso. Like the one on the book, it was almost so faded I couldn't see it, seeming to shimmer in and out of my vision, like a half-glimpsed shadow seen out of the corner of my eye. I knew what it was the minute I saw it, though. Some things are just too horrible to ever forget, no matter how hard you try. "Does it have something to do with the curse that binds you?"
Christian stared at me for a moment, and I knew I'd gone too far. Just because Melissande had assured me that this vampire wouldn't hurt me didn't mean he couldn't if he was peeved enough. What did you say?
"Nothing," I said, moving to the side. "It's not important. You know, Melissande is just outside. Why don't we call her, and she can clear up this whole mess—"
"You heard me," he accused, grabbing my arm in a grip that was borderline painful.
"Ow," I said. His grip loosened a smidgen. "Yeah, I heard you. I'm standing right here."
You heard what I said about Dark Ones.
"Well, duh! I'm not deaf. I understand you're miffed about finding me here, but I promised Melissande—"
It is not possible. You are not Moravian. You are not a telepath. And yet you hear me. He pulled me up close to his body, the heat from his chest burning my arm. You can see the curse?
"Yeah, I can see it, but not clearly. If I look straight at it, it disappears. I have to kind of peek at it from the corner of my eye to see the patt… oh, my God. Your mouth didn't move just then. I was watching." The skin along my back and arms crawled as a horrible realization dawned upon me. "What's going on? Why can I hear you talk without your mouth moving? You're not like some sort of vampire ventriloquist, are you?"
He shook his head. "This is not happening."
"I know how you feel," I said on a sigh. "I've had that feeling all evening, ever since the imp episode, but I've given up trying to make sense of it and am now going with the flow. Look, Christian—"
He frowned, his warm, strong fingers flexing into the soft pudge of my arm. "Why do you call me that? I am not Christian Dante."
I went still, very still, bunny-rabbit-spotted-by-a-dangerous-predator still. I didn't even chance breathing. "You're not?"
"No."
"But you're a vamp."
An annoyed look passed across his face. "Dark One. I am a Dark One."
"Whatever. What are you doing here if you're not Christian, the guy who owns the place?"
"The same might be asked of you. More, since I would like to know why you have the ability to hear my thoughts, and how it is you can see the curse that binds me."
"Yeah, but I asked first. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
He eyed me for another minute, then released my arm and spun around to look around the library. "Melissande hired you. You are here, obviously seeking the same as I. You can hear my thoughts. You can see my curse." He stopped and pointed to a sea-green vase on a bookshelf. "What do you see there?"
"A vase?" He stalked toward me until I scurried in the opposite direction, which just happened to be toward the vase. "It's a green vase. Pretty. Looks like it's valuable."
"Look closer," he commanded, his eyes turning to an indigo color. I looked away, curious as to how he did the eye thing, but figured now was probably not the best time to question him about vampiric skills and abilities. Glancing at the vase again, idly I wondered if it was possible to knock out a vampire by cracking him on the head with a vase.
"It would take much more than a vase to render me unconscious. Do not even think of trying. Now look at it again and tell me what you see."
I bit back the words of surprise that he knew what I was thinking and toyed with the thought of refusing him outright, but the few steps he took toward me, menace all but pouring off him, had me changing my mind. I hurried to do as he commanded. "It's just a vase. About twelve inches high, with a gold rim and faint pattern etched into the sides."
"Describe the pattern," he demanded, his gaze boring into mine.
"Fish," I said desperately, just wanting to get the hell out of there, away from the frightening—and bossy—fanged mystery vampire. "It has fish on it. Looks Greek or something."
He half turned away, disappointment flashing across his face. A brief stab of guilt flared within me, as if I had let him down somehow. What on earth was I thinking? He was a vampire! Bad news no matter how you looked at it. It didn't matter that somehow, what I had said had not been what he'd hoped to hear. Except… somehow, it did matter. Sympathy rose within me as I caught another glimpse of the red curse binding him. I supposed even a vampire has a right to be crotchety if he's bound by a demon lord's curse.
I glanced back at the vase, keeping one eye on the vamp in case he should try to grab me and make me a late-night dinner. I might feel sorry for him, but I wasn't completely stupid. "The fish are swimming in a couple of schools. The waves they are swimming on are curvy, turning back upon themselves. Kind of like the pattern I saw on the book—" I clamped my mouth shut, horrified with both what I said, and what it meant.
The vampire spun around, pinning me back against the wall with the force of his gaze. "You can see the ward?"
"Uh… maybe."
"Melissande," he murmured as he glanced down at himself to where the curse flickered red. "She found a Charmer. I didn't think she'd find one who has the power to help."
"Well, she hasn't. That is," I said quickly when his blue-eyed gaze was back to goring me, "I would be more than happy to help, but I can't. Charm, that is. I never could. My Charming skills are stunted, you see. But I did promise to help her find her nephew by poking around Christian's library, and that's what I'm doing here. Now that I've spilled my info, it's your turn."
"Damian," he said, his eyes doing the indigo thing again. I was just about to throw caution to the wind and ask him how he did it, when he moved. I didn't even see it coming—one minute I was standing near a bookcase, the next I was slammed back against the wall, pinned by two arms of steel attached to one very large vampire. "You will relay everything to me, from the beginning. What did Melissande tell you?"
"I should warn you, I'm an expert on vampires. I've seen every episode made of Buffy, Angel, and Forever Knight, so don't think a little fang-flashing is going to scare me," I started to say, but an up-close look at those sharp white incisors sent my bravado flying out the window, leaving me babbling like a brook. Power and desperation rolled off him, swamping me with the knowledge that this man would kill to find out what he wanted to know. Had I any state secrets to hand over, I would have gladly given them. "She hired me to charm a curse, but I don't do that sort of thing, so she promised me a breastplate if I would break in here and find some notes her brother had found that told where Damian was, only I didn't know it was breaking in, because she said the castle belonged to a cousin vamp who evidently wouldn't mind, although he went and left the door warded so she couldn't enter the castle, and come to think of it, since you're a vamp too, shouldn't you be, you know, locked out? Ward-wise?"