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Scene #74
Catherine awoke in Jean-Claude's bed, in pain from the feeding.
That was nothing new. But the voices in the other room were
new. She covered her nakedness with a robe and crept to the
doorway. When she peeked out into the living room, both men
turned, drawn by her scent. She shrank back against the wall, and
the men turned to face each other again. Jean-Claude stood, a
gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, staring at the
stranger. Cat saw fear in Jean-Claude's eyes. She had never seen
him afraid. The stranger was tall, and very lean, and though
both men's fangs were out, they were different as night and day.
This new one was cool as water, dressed in gray, not the
inevitable black. He wore wool trousers of an elegant,
old-fashioned cut, with a silk shirt the color of fog, loose and
billowing. The color only emphasized the darkness of his hair even
more. His skin, like that of all his kind, was pale, but where
Jean-Claude had cut him across the chest, the blood oozed crimson
against the white marble of his flesh. "You know what she is,"
Jean-Claude was saying, in that ugly voice that put the lie to the
myth of the smooth-talking Frenchman. "It is why you are here.
You came for her." Jean-Claude had always been so masterful, so
arrogant and filled with cruelty. Now this one came, and made him
tremble. It felt good to watch her tormenter shake before the
handsome stranger, even though she knew nothing good could come of
it. 673 nights. Nearly two years of being locked in this
high-rise apartment, with the swirl of L.A. city life below, so far
away from her personal hell. She had been young when she came
here. She felt so old now. So resigned. Beyond all hope.
They were not looking her way, but she knew it would be useless to
run. She had learned that lesson, painfully. They were faster,
stronger, more ruthless than any mortal. And they could scent her
no matter where she hid. So she watched, with a silent acceptance
born of the years of fear, while the drama played out between
them. "She is my property. I found her," Jean-Claude said.
Found her. She shuddered. He had killed the one who possessed her
and brought her to his personal house of horrors. "I have enjoyed
her, and will not give her up now." His definition of enjoyment
was very different from her own. The new one just smiled, his
fangs making the smile a mockery. His eyes were black, like the
curls of hair that brushed his shoulders. His face was all angles,
the warm light from Jean-Claude's Tiffany lamps reflecting across
the planes of his face like blood on snow. Where the silk of his
shirt had torn was more pale flesh, hard as stone, smooth,
hairless, but rippling with muscle. Where Jean-Claude's knife had
cut him the wound still bled, an atrocity against the perfect white
skin. He was a hand taller than Jean-Claude, and though
wounded, seemed entirely unworried by Jean-Claude's gun and knife.
They might be mortal men chatting over a beer for all the interest
he showed. And that made her tormenter even angrier. "What
brings you here, Henri?" Even now Jean-Claude's snarl made her
stomach turn over with primitive fear. Henri. Ahn-ree,
Jean-Claude pronounced it. So this was another French one. But so
very unlike Jean-Claude. When the man finally spoke his voice was
soft, his tone controlled and cultured, with the faintest hint of a
European accent. "You know what brings me, old friend. You've
always been trouillard." "I'm not frightened of you, Henri."
Yet Jean-Claude's gaze flicked to her, and she crouched down even
lower, trying to disappear. The other one didn't even glance her
way. "If you give her to me you can survive another day, gamin
des rues." "Street urchin! Who are you to talk? We are no
different, you arrogant bastard." Henri laughed at him, a cold,
eerie sound, and at that final insult Jean-Claude lunged wildly,
firing the gun and swinging his knife at Henri, who sidestepped
smoothly, amused. But as Jean-Claude attacked, his shot going
wild, his knife arcing harmlessly through the air, Henri grabbed
the knife from mid-air, and twisted it quickly to cut Jean-Claude's
gun hand. Jean-Claude screamed, the gun clattering to the
ground. He was losing too much blood. He would have to feed soon.
She huddled lower, futilely trying to disappear into the floor.
The knife in the stranger's hand moved again, flicking out so
quickly that this time she didn't know where it had struck until
she saw the dampness seeping through the black satin arm of
Jean-Claude's robe. He held both arms down at his sides now,
useless against the stranger. "She is worthless," he muttered,
sullen and defeated. "Worthless?" the man said scornfully. "Do
not be an imbécile." She knew she was not worthless, no matter
how many times Jean-Claude had told her so. She was a sweet blood,
a rare freak of nature whose blood tasted like ambrosia to these
creatures. They could smell her from blocks away; everywhere she
went her scent left traces they could track; they would hunt her
down and feed from her without mercy. She had learned all this at
the age of seventeen, when she had come to L.A. from her family's
midwest farm. Los Angeles. City of Angels. What fool had named
this hellhole? She was lucky she had not been drained of blood
by a young one unable to control his passion, Jean-Claude had told
her gleefully. Her luck instead was to be a slave held captive and
fed on every night for the rest of her short, miserable life.
And her fate was to be passed from one monster to the next, with no
choice in the matter. And so it would happen again. She watched
while it was done.
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