Crimson City Part 7

Dain got out of the car and started walking toward her and Fleur had the sudden urge to laugh. This pretty-boy human was always doing his best to conceal his chiseled good looks under a five-o'clock shadow and some grubby body armor. The effect, of course, only made him that much more appealing.

She remembered his effect on her from their first meeting, and reminded herself not to let him get the better of her this time. Male-female attraction was the oldest trap in the book. And to say she had a bit of a weakness for human males was apparently an understatement. She could still remember the excitement she'd felt when he'd simply taken her face between his hands and...

Fleur ran her tongue over her teeth, noting the slight drop in her fangs. If she was planning to file them again, she ought to do it soon. Of course, things had changed. Ever since the a.s.sa.s.sinations, there hadn't been so much talk about pa.s.sing for human anymore. Not like there used to be. Now it was as if among her people there was some sort of collective interest in a.s.serting their right not to be human. And when word of tonight's killings got out, that sentiment would probably be felt even more strongly.

Dain hopped the curb. "Sorry I'm late," he said, looking over her shoulder down the alley. "I got caught up in a situation of our own."

"Oh?"

"How many dead vamps you got here?"

"One. Three total."

"Well, I can match you. We've got a cl.u.s.ter of human stiffs over on the Westside."

Fleur's mouth dropped open.

"Yeah," Dain said. "We're about to have a serious problem."

"You don't think we're responsible, do you?"

He shrugged. "We're still collecting evidence."

"So are we. But our evidence is mixed."

"What do you mean, mixed?"

"It's like a giant forensics soup. All species, it seems. It's some kind of a setup. It's just not clear who's setting what up. It could be you, of course." She stared at him, hard.

Dain exhaled loudly. "Us," he said. Then: "I can't really think straight. Show me what you've got back there and then I've gotta eat something. You hungry?" He gave her an odd look.

Fleur blinked and followed him as he pa.s.sed under the police tape and headed into the alley. "You can look at a dead body and then go eat a meal?"

Dain raised an eyebrow. "I've seen it all, sweetheart. Haven't you?"

She cleared her throat. "Of course."

He studied her, his lips turned up in an infuriating little smirk. "Yeah, of course you have."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fleur muttered under her breath.

Dain squatted down next to the slain vampire's remains. "Three of them, you say?"

Fleur nodded, s.h.i.+vering a little. Dain took off his jacket and, without a word, hung it around her shoulders before going on with his business.

She didn't understand him at all. And she should have been p.i.s.sed off by his arrogance, the way he sort of took over when they were together, the way he showed no hesitation or uncertainty around her. She was more p.i.s.sed that she rather liked it.

Dain pointed to the corpse's neck. "That's the claw mark?" He shook his head and looked more closely. "We're already losing it. You got pictures?"

"Of everything."

He sat back up on his knees and looked at her. "Okay. I gotta eat. I'll show you living like a prince.'"

Fleur had to laugh. She doubted they were going to a caviar bar. They headed back to his transport. It was no small feat trying to find a place to put her feet amongst all the food wrappers and newspapers, but she wasn't about to let him see her squirm.

He drove them down Ventura Boulevard and turned into the parking lot of a diner. Fleur wondered if this was really his scene or if he was trying to make her uncomfortable. Well, she wasn't uncomfortable. She got out the car and followed him inside.

The place looked as though it had once been a "cla.s.sic" diner with a 1950s theme, but the current owners apparently weren't sticklers for keeping up appearances. A waitress approached, the incessant popping and smacking of her gum drawing even more attention to the two daggerlike piercings stuck through her lower lip. Almost like fangs, Fleur thought.

The frilly ap.r.o.n the waitress wore over her decidedly unfrilly street clothes were her single nod to the diner's erstwhile theme. After sweeping a grubby towel over the formica tabletop, she c.o.c.ked her hip and waited for them to order.

Fleur looked down at the menu and didn't recognize anything. "What's good here?"

"I always get a burger," Dain said. He was watching her so closely it was beginning to make her itch.

She ordered what he ordered, smiled and said, "Sounds good." The waitress used a fingertip to punch the order into her tablet and disappeared.

Fleur had never tried a "burger" in her life. The cuisine presented at the dinner parties and a.s.semblies in Dumont Towers consisted of complicated dishes with sauces and foreign names. She'd like to see Dain Reston navigate her world the way she was being forced to navigate his.

She could tell he was processing her every move. Yes, Dain Reston was a real pro. There was no question he was extremely good at what he did, which was collecting information people didn't want to give. And trying to imagine what he was seeing when he looked at her made Fleur very nervous. Unfortunately, he was probably beginning to pick up on that. He could probably tell she was someone who hadn't been on the city radar at all, suddenly in the spotlight in a leaders.h.i.+p position with minimal training, nervously trying to hide her inexperience...

Well, she wasn't going to admit to it. "You're staring at me. What is it?" she asked.

"Why do you vampires eat food if it's blood you can't do without? The blood is what sustains you, so why those big banquets, those big a.s.sembly meals we always hear about?"

Fleur shrugged and took a sip of water. "Because we like the feeling."

"Because it makes you feel human," he prompted.

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You mortals think we eat because we want to be like you. The truth is because of the taste. We taste things differently than you. It's very beautiful. We enjoy a ban-quet probably more than any human could. You swallow your food without a second thought. We're much more sensual. We enjoy the beauty of the colors and the textures... the way foods look presented on a table. We enjoy... it's hard to explain. We enjoy how it makes us feel."

"You said that. What exactly do you feel?"

She couldn't find the right words.

"It makes you feel rich," Dain half-sneered, leaning forward; she wondered what she'd said to offend him. "It makes you feel powerful. You put a giant bowl of caviar next to an endless supply of expensive champagne, and it makes you feel rich and powerful. Okay, you say you don't eat and drink to feel human-admit that you do it to feel better than human."

Fleur flushed. He'd somehow trapped her. In the most literal sense, he was right. And yet it meant more even than that; there just wasn't any way she could explain how the sheer beauty of luscious silk-upholstered furnis.h.i.+ngs and cream-laden sauces and glittering parties and all of the rest were almost as important to vampires as the very lifeblood they siphoned from the bloodbanks upstairs in the Towers. They craved luxury and needed it. Without it, they simply did not feel alive. Or at least that was how she'd always felt.

"Why are you acting like this?" she asked in a low voice.

The waitress interrupted them with the hamburgers, plunking their plates on the table. She gave both Dain and Fleur a curious look before going on to her other customers. In turn, Fleur gave Dain a pointed look and took a huge bite out of the burger. "I feel so superior to you right now," she said sarcastically, her mouth full. "Just like a prince."

Dain loosened up and laughed, digging into his own meal. A guy in a booth on the other side of the room waved at him, and he acknowledged the salute. Fleur swallowed another bite and turned more serious.

"You know someone's going to get a picture of us together," she said.

"Yeah? Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Humans and vamps working together to keep the peace in Crimson City, yadda, yadda, yadda... Isn't that what you wanted?" Dain gave a dry laugh.

Fleur put down her hamburger. "You think this is funny? I seriously doubt that's how the papers would play it. With all those deaths? I don't know about you, but I'm trying to prevent all-out war here!"

Dain put down his hamburger and leaned close. "I don't think it's funny, but sometimes you just gotta laugh. How the h.e.l.l else can anyone stay sane in this place? Look, you want to help? Maybe you need to get control of your people before you start making calls on what's happening-or what should be happening-out here in the real world. That's how you can save lives."

She flushed. "Well, thanks for telling me who you really think is responsible."

"You know as well as I do that rogue vampires have been causing problems out here for a while. What's going on with them?" "May I remind you that we call them rogue for a reason? Because they aren't 'our people' anymore." Humans had a hard time understanding the differ-ence. Fleur supposed it was because those who really knew the difference between rogue and primary vampires were either no longer human or never had been. "Look, give me a break. We've just had a major leaders.h.i.+p change. It's a difficult ti-"

"It's a difficult time for all of us," Dain snapped. He and Fleur stared at each other for a moment and then something in his face changed; he seemed to remember they'd had a rapport. He smoothed his hair back from his forehead and shook his head. "Sorry. I, uh, don't know why I'm being such an a.s.s."

Fleur c.o.c.ked her head. "Maybe a cl.u.s.ter of dead humans isn't so par for the course after all. Maybe it bothers you."

Dain pushed his plate away. "You've read up on me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then you know."

Fleur put down her food and wiped her fingers on her napkin. She wasn't sure what he was talking about.

"You know about my wife. Serena." She almost choked. His wife? They must be separated ..: unless, of course, she was dead. He leaned forward across the table. "You killed her." For a second she thought he actually meant her. He said it in a familiar way. A familiar tone. You killed me. That's what Hayden had said after she'd made him vampire. Except he'd added rather bizarrely thatshe'd killed him in a way that was worse than death. She'd killed his soul.

"That shocks you," Dain said dryly. "I wonder how that can be."

"It m-must have been a rogue," Fleur stammered. "I've never heard anything about it. I mean, granted, I've not been privy... oh, Dain." Her eyes blurred with unexpected tears that she managed to hold back.

Still, the emotion coursing through her was powerful. "I'm so sorry. I'm so... sorry."

Dain leaned away very suddenly, as far back into his chair as he could go. "I'm sorry too."

There was an awkward silence between them. Fleur was tempted to touch his hand, tempted to offer

some sort of comfort. Instead, she said softly, "I know what it's like."

He c.o.c.ked his head. "You know what it's like," he echoed sarcastically.

She ignored his tone. "I lost the one I loved as well."

His lips parted in surprise and he stared at her, and Fleur wondered if he was thinking the same thing she

was: This strange connection between them had something more to it than just a physical attraction.

He broke eye contact first, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. "Can we change the subject?

Why don't we... just go back to the way we were? I don't really feel like talking about this anymore."

Back to the way we were. Fleur would love to go back even farther. This man seemed so vulnerable, so stripped to the bone. He wanted things back where they could be controlled, where he and she could spar verbally and put their emotions and baggage on the back burner.

She nodded and took another bite of burger. She was aware that Dain was still staring at her. "Verytasty in a bourgeois sort of way," she said, indicating the food and keeping her tone as light as she could. He cracked a smile and relaxed a little. "Glad you like it. That there's human food." Fleur laughed. "I'll have to get our chefs the recipe. Anyway..."

"So, what's next?" Dain asked.

"There was a lot of werewolf evidence at that scene. Whether it was planted or whether there's some legitimate basis for it being there, I don't know. I think it's time we found out about the third leg of this triangle."

Dain nodded. "Good call. I'll talk to them. Cyd has some contacts."

"I'll go with you."

"You want to meet with the dogs?" he asked, clearly surprised.

"Of course. I may have a natural aversion to their kind, but our jobs are to find out the truth and react

accordingly. Aren't they?"

Dain blinked. What was he thinking? "Yeah, absolutely," he said. "But are you sure you know what

you're getting into?"

"I wouldn't ask otherwise."

"It's just... never mind." He seemed to decide this wasn't an argument he wanted to have. "You wanna

talk to the dogs, you can talk to the dogs. I'll have Cyd set it up for us."

"Thank you." Fleur pushed her plate away. Dain swiped his smartcard through the table reader and they