Under a Blood Moon Read online

  Thinking about Jakob, my vampire, provided cool respite even inside the sweltering train car. It was 7:30, in another hour the sun would set and he’d be able to drive over to see me. Imagining him watching my performance on the evening news, tucked safely inside his dark living room, carried me to my own building, The Eclipse. With its large lobby, marble floors, and a white grand piano on top of a zebra patterned rug, the Eclipse was all too trendy and classy. I walked toward shining silver elevators, and waved my key card to get to the twelfth floor.

  I’d taken my apartment after a burst of insanity made me drive away from everything I ever owned. I realized now that I’d been in a fugue state, probably brought on by the stress of my husband’s death and accidental resurrection. All I knew then was that I needed an apartment that was available immediately. I’d gone through all the ‘witch friendly’ apartments, and even a few that didn’t sport the ‘We do not discriminate on the basis of religion, nationality, gender, or ability’ sticker on their ads when I found myself here.

  I opened my door remembering the first time I’d walked into my huge apartment. One wall was completely made of windows, facing it was a modern kitchen, and in front of that a long living room. To my left was a floating steel and wood staircase, reaching up to half floor loft bedroom. Beside the staircase, the area was set up as a dining room. The master bedroom and bath were upstairs, the gas fireplace, kitchen, and the terrace down. I’d bought everything from the dark green suede couches to the modern platform bed upstairs because really, I was buying an escape from my old life.

  I cracked a Dr Pepper on my way up the stairs. Other people had a beer after work, but my mother was from Texas. I’d been conditioned young to crave that inexplicable taste. I set it down to check my answering machine while I stripped out of my detective clothes. Dealing with the zombies had left me covered in sweat. Sitting in the air-conditioned squad room had dried it, but then the train brought more sweat. I was desperate for a shower. My friends’ recorded voices followed me around the room.

  “Mal-or-e! This is Phoebe, why, oh why didn’t you tell me you could do the eye thing? I mean seriously as your best friend and closest witch I think I should have been the first to know you could hold that much power, instead I found out with everyone else who watches the news at 5. Call me!” Phoebe was a spirit witch; she had been the first person who had recognized me for what I was. Leave it to her to ignore the zombies and the officer who was hurt to focus on my abilities.

  “Hey Mal, nice job coming out of the broom closet on prime time TV, next time call me for fashion advice first.” Anna, my very fashionable fire witch friend didn’t bother to leave her name. She was stunningly beautiful and slightly arrogant. I could tell my being on the news made her green with envy.

  There were four other messages from people I didn’t know who wanted to talk to me. I was halfway across the room when the machine fell silent. I started to walk over to erase everything when a raspy voice stopped me.

  “You take my zombies. I can forgive that. But you stay out of things that aren’t your business, or maybe next time, I take you.”

  My hands were shaky as I took the tape out of the machine. Danny had insisted I get an old-fashioned tape based machine, and I was grateful. I slipped the old tape, the evidence, into a holder. I’d take it into work tomorrow for everyone to listen to. I put a new tape in place and rushed into the shower. I wasn’t sure if there was enough hot water in the world.

  ****

  The beauty of a luxury apartment complex, even one you really don’t belong in, is that there is always more hot water. The boiler in the basement never gets turned off, so if you need to—if say a psycho with a bad accent leaves a message on your answering machine that makes you feel naked and afraid—you can sit on the floor of your super-deluxe, glass enclosed shower and let the three shower heads run until you’re ready to face the world again.

  I wasn’t ready until the steam was thick enough to hide the view of the bathroom. My skin was wrinkled and bright pink with the heat but my head wasn’t quite on straight. I wrapped my hair in a giant towel turban, an indulgence that never failed to make me smile. Mom had been fanatically frugal, only allowing one towel per week. I’m sure she was turning over in her grave at my nightly use of not one, but two towels. I put on a thick robe and opened the bathroom door. The plume of steam behind me couldn’t block out the scent of onions and garlic.

  “Jakob?” I called downstairs, hoping my voice wasn’t as shaky as it felt.

  “Is there someone else with a key to your apartment who comes in and cooks for you?” His voice was a rich bass, after nearly six hundred years he spoke without any German accent. People who met him probably couldn’t guess that it was his first language, the one he still spoke in his most intimate moments.

  “No,” I laughed. I practically danced down the stairs. His presence made everything else seem unimportant. We’d been together for months, and while it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, there had been some magic involved. We were closer after half a year than I had been after four years with my husband. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Veal Marsala over linguine.” He smiled and wrapped me up in his arms for a kiss before returning to the stove. Jakob had been extremely tall for his time, but now he was almost short, only 5’11”. His body was lean, like a swimmer or a gymnast. He’d never fit the Hollywood idea of masculinity, never compete with Brad Pitt or George Clooney, but he made my heart beat fast.

  After stealing a bite of sauce, all I could do was moan. Jakob was slightly obsessed with food, something about last being able to eat at a time when vegetables and fruits were a rare luxury. He watched cooking shows with an almost religious fervor and the things he could do with chocolate were positively obscene. Sadly, as a vampire, he could never take more than a tiny taste. When he finished his creations, they were all mine.

  “That tastes amazing. You talk, I’ll eat.”

  I walked out of the kitchen, around the stairs and into the dining room. The moon had come up, filling my windows with silvery light. It was a pretty night, and he looked even better in it. The bright moonlight caught his light blond hair and made his blue eyes dance. Looking at him made me think about what the night would hold. For a minute, I wasn’t sure what I was hungrier for—him or dinner.

  “What should I talk about?”

  “Anything.” I thought about all the things that were going on with him. “What’s the latest with Ronnie and the baby?”

  “He sent over a new set of ultrasounds. Supposedly, they prove the baby is a girl, but I can’t tell. They’re going to name her Margaret.” Jakob smiled at the idea.

  “Did you ever imagine any of this when she asked you to adopt him?”

  “Never.” He paused for a second, remembering the woman he loved decades before I’d been born, or maybe thinking about the grandson she asked him to adopt. Jakob’s son, Ronnie, was ten years older than me, something neither of us was particularly comfortable with yet. When he spoke again, I knew he wanted to change the subject. “I saw something interesting on the news today.

  “Something interesting?” I asked, covering my meal liberally with cheese. “Did the president get caught with a siren? Stock markets take a tumble? War break out somewhere?”

  “No.” My wiseass nature earned me a stern look.

  I devoted all of my attention to my pasta. I twirled my fork inside the bowl of my spoon with the concentration of a master craftsman. Silence covered the table. I looked up at him, and our eyes locked. Should you ever find yourself in a staring contest with a vampire give up. They always win. I attribute it to the fact that they don’t need to breathe. It’s damn frustrating.

  “You saw me then?” I asked, looking away.

  “You and two zombies.” He paused for a second. “Although, that’s wrong, isn’t it? The remains of two zombies would be better, since I suspect you dealt with them.”

  “Guilty as charged. They were animated when I got t
here. By the time I left they were well and truly dead. I didn’t mean to put them down. My temper got the better of me. There was an officer down, and the EMTs refused to go around the zombies to help him. I guess they didn’t trust me.” I paused, remembering the scene.

  “Was the officer all right?”

  “He’s in the hospital with internal injuries. They think he’ll make it. The zombies didn’t attack him so much as shove him out of the way as they went about destroying things.” I stopped to savor the mix of garlic and wine. When Jakob had first cooked with garlic for me, I had rushed to his aid, only to find out that garlic burning vampires was a myth. I was still learning about his kind, and all other things supernatural. Unfortunately, he had a six-century head start on me. “Do you know anything that can make a zombie?”

  “Other than you?” he teased.

  “Yes, other than me. And a Bokor: we’ve already thought of the Voodoo angle.”

  “Nothing comes to mind. I’ll do my best to try to remember. Zombies are rare, though. They’re almost always raised by someone connected to them. From the news, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

  “No, these were mindless thugs, doing someone’s dirty work. There’s a group trying to extort protection money from businesses, the zombies are what happens when you don’t pay.”

  He scowled. Jakob worked in finance, and suddenly we were talking about money, his work.

  “Why waste the energy to extort money from someone when you could spend less energy to earn it legally? Whoever raised these two zombies could have made the same money raising zombies for Hollywood. Instead, they spent the same effort to make less money and risk not keeping it. That just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Unless money wasn’t the point,” I countered.

  “But if they’re asking for money, what else would the point be?”

  “I don’t know yet. I have to investigate. You know, do detective work and all that?” I taunted with a smile.

  “Detective work? Is that what the department’s expert on zombies does?”

  “I’m what?” I nearly choked. It was obvious he was quoting a newscast.

  “The new police expert on zombies, the most powerful death witch in the region, and an influential force in the SIU today.”

  “All three?” I gulped. I’d only been on the force for six months. I hadn’t even been to the academy, just the shorter training series for people with supernatural gifts. The ribbing I would get in the squad room was going to be bad.

  “Yes, and more, but I’ll spare you the comments on your youth and looks.”

  “Oh no,” I sank in my chair. It was one thing to be called out for what I was, most people thought death witches didn’t exist anymore, but to have them mention my looks and age was agony. There would be hell to pay tomorrow. “I can’t go back to work. They’ll never let me hear the end of this.”

  “There is an alternative.” He smiled, and I knew I was in trouble.

  “What’s that?” I asked with my own grin.

  “You could let me keep you as a mistress. Of course, I’d need to know that you can handle the job.”

  I got up from my chair and walked around the table toward him. I stopped beside him, close enough to smell his cologne, near enough that my robe brushed his suit.

  “And what would that entail?” I whispered in his ear.

  “Everything you hope it does,” he said softly, and then moved with those too-quick-to-see vampire reflexes to stand beside me. His hand slipped inside my robe to gently massage my breast. I felt my nipple harden in response to his chill touch. He kissed me, our tongues dancing together as our bodies pressed close. It was always like this with him, so good and so easy.

  I felt him lift me back onto the tabletop, his arms tightening as they took my weight, his mouth never breaking our kiss. I curled toward him, awkward on the glass. He kept one hand behind my back while his other fingers worked furiously at the knot of my belt. He finally stopped kissing me long enough to look down at the frustrating cloth. I laughed and whispered, “You could tear it.”

  “And rush perfection?” The knot finally slipped loose beneath his fingers. My robe fell open, leaving me naked in front of him. He stepped back to look at me. I saw him shake his head a little. “No, you’re worth the wait.”

  His hand rested on my knee for a second while I sat grinning at him. He was too far away from me, but when I reached out to him, he stepped to the side, dropping in front of me, his face between my legs. He kissed gently up my thighs, his hands sliding around to cup my backside. He moved me forward, my body moving easily across the table, and kissed me delicately between my thighs. I leaned my head back and moaned as he continued. My body squirmed against him, everything but the pleasure of his kisses forgotten.

  As his tongue dipped inside me, tremors of pleasure began to overtake me. He stopped and teased me, slowing his pace until I begged him to start again, then rubbing with rough haste. My breath began to come in gasps, as everything shrank to the core of my being. I closed my eyes to block out everything but the sweet sensation. He entered me and I gasped, my body convulsing around him. I wrapped my arms around him and drew him into me with my legs, desperate for more of him. My world exploded as he pounded into me. A second later, I felt him join me.

  We spent a few minutes sitting there. I was trying to get air into my lungs. I breathed like I hadn’t gotten a deep breath for years. When things came back into focus I realized my dinner plate was only inches from my head. Then something more important caught my eye.

  “When did you get naked?” I asked.

  “A few minutes ago, you were busy at the time, or I would have pointed it out.” He grinned at me.

  “How did you get undressed without me noticing?”

  “You’re not the only magical one in this relationship, remember?” He kissed my breast softly, above my nipple.

  “Right, of course, vampire magic, how could I forget? Then I won’t feel the least bit guilty telling you to carry me upstairs.”

  “As you shouldn’t.” He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing at all. When we were cuddled in bed, his hand stroked up and down my back.

  “Does it bother you that I can’t give you children?” Jakob asked.

  “Not in the least.” I leaned back into his touch. Vampires were sterile and couldn’t carry disease. It meant no condoms, which I preferred, but past that I’d never thought about it. “Does it bother you?”

  “A little,” he admitted. “Before Ronnie I had seven of my own and grandchildren, too. I liked having a house full of people. Family seemed much more important then.”

  “It was. You needed those kids to help you work the mill, to survive. But now…After Dad died, Mom and I got along fine. Even when she got sick, we could get by with help from neighbors.”

  “But neighbors aren’t family, if you had had brothers and sisters to share the burden of your mother’s illness, things would have been easier.”

  “Maybe or maybe they would’ve made things worse. Maybe they would’ve got cancer too, and that would’ve been one more person for me to lose.” I leaned against him and felt his cool skin on mine. He took on the temperature of the room, but it didn’t bother me. Jakob wouldn’t waste away or die in a car accident. That was much more important than warm skin or babies I didn’t want. “You’re all I want, and you’re all I need. I’ll let you know if that changes, but I doubt it ever will.”

  Jakob pulled me into a tight hug. I closed my eyes to enjoy the strength in his arms and the security of his touch. Our bodies melted into each other like spoons. When my eyes fell on the answering machine tape from earlier, my fear and that ugly feeling of vulnerability came back to me.

  “What’s wrong?” Jakob asked.

  “Would you mind too much if I stayed at your place a little this week?”

  “Never. I would love to have you in my home. I could you pick you up after work so you’d have the car to get back into the city.” His arm tightene
d around me, pulling me closer. He nibble on my ear, and then whispered, “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  I took a deep breath. Jakob had made it clear he wasn’t willing to risk losing me. Telling him what happened might mean he’d go off hunting my mystery caller. I didn’t want that, but we had promised early on not to have any lies in our relationship. This was one of the first times that I regretted that promise.

  “I got a message on my answering machine tonight. Probably some psycho who saw me on the news, but it could be related to the case. It has me spooked.” I tried to keep my voice light. It wouldn’t matter. Having a boyfriend who could hear your heart rate meant he was always tipped to the truth.

  “What spooks the department’s prominent death witch? After all you could tell anyone who threatened you to die, and they would.” His voice was gentle, but I knew there was more going on inside him.

  “Not if we’re dealing with another death witch or something else.”

  “Something that makes zombies?” he asked. He stroked my hair, trying to comfort me.

  “Exactly.” I pressed my back against his chest, feeling him solid behind me. It was more reassuring than anything he did with his hands. “I know I’m supposed to be an expert, and I know I’m supposed to be a rare supernatural bad ass, but really I’ve only been doing this for a few months. What if there’s someone out there better than me, someone who wants to hurt me?”

  “We won’t let that happen, my love.” He held me tightly. “Between my friends and your friends, we could raise an army if we needed it.” He let the thought sink in for a minute, let me realize how right he was. I had friends who could start a fire with a thought, witches who could summon a tornado in a sealed room. I wasn’t helpless, and even if there was someone who could beat me, they couldn’t beat me, him, and all of our friends. I relaxed against him.