from going farther, just for the moment. So unlike me—I was a woman who always wanted straight answers, no matter how painful, and I knew that answers lay beyond those heavy doors, beneath the steady, almost musical chant that emanated from behind them. I had never been the type to hesitate—what the hell was wrong with me?
I pushed open the doors and froze.
It looked like some strange sort of temple, though clearly not for any religion I was familiar with. There was no cross, no ark to hold the Torah. Only the cluster of people in the center of the cavernous room lit by a strange, unearthly glow.
My eyes focused on Sarah, sitting in a chair that seemed like a cross between a throne and a La-Z-Boy. Sarah’s calm blue eyes had been closed in a look of meditation, but they opened and turned to mine, almost as if she’d heard my clumsy entrance above the soft chanting.
She smiled gently that serene, sweet smile that seemed to bestow a blessing on everyone around her, and the others must have realized that I was there, for the chanting stopped abruptly and the men moved back.
He knelt beside Sarah. I knew who he was immediately, even in the candlelight. I knew the sun-shot hair, the rough grace. His head was bent over Sarah’s outstretched wrist, but I must have made some kind of noise, and he lifted his face to stare at me.
I could see the blood at his mouth, the elongated fangs, the pulsing veins at Sarah’s slender wrist, and I know I let out the most girly shriek of horror.
And then I ran, letting the heavy doors slam shut behind me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I MADE IT AS FAR AS THE GRASS IN front of the house before I went sprawling face- first. I hit the rough sand on my knees and elbows, sliding, and ended up at the very edge of the water, breathless, my arms over my head as if I were ducking from a hurricane. It was impossible. Flat-out impossible.
Someone must have drugged me. That was the only reasonable explanation for what I thought I’d just seen, for the craziness that shot such holes in my memory. But if I was still drugged, who and what could I trust? I rolled onto my back, still gasping for breath as I stared up at the house. Parts of it stuck out at strange angles, like a bureau with the drawers pulled out at varying degrees. The sun was setting behind me, reflecting off the windows, rendering them golden and opaque. Someone inside was looking down at me. If the house even existed, if the ocean existed, if I existed.
It was the oddest feeling: I couldn’t trust anything, my eyes, my ears—even the rich salty smell of the ocean could be part of some bizarre hallucination that had started God knows when. I stared up at the darkening sky, trying to pull in what few things I remembered. I could still feel the man’s hands on me as he’d tried to throw me into some deep, bottomless hole. So, serial killer, right? But he’d pulled me back. Serial killer with a conscience?
But maybe he hadn’t pulled me back after all. Maybe this was what death was like—a long, strange, trippy hallucination with vampires and men with wings —Men with wings? Where had that come from? I briefly considered sitting up, then decided against it. I was just fine where I was. Sprawled on the rocky beach, I kept a lower profile. I could just stay this way, listening to the soft hush of the ocean, until the drugs wore off or I woke up or whatever.
Or discovered I was in hell, or heaven, or somewhere in between. Sitting up meant I’d have to do something, and right then I just didn’t have the energy.
The setting sun was blotted out for a moment, and I looked up to see the man standing over me. Raziel, had they called him? Strange name, just another part of the nightmare that had started with his hands on me.
“How long are you going to lie there?” He had such a beautiful voice, the kind that could lure angels to their doom; yet the words were calm and emotionless. “It’s cold and the tide’s coming in, plus there’s a nasty riptide that could pull you out to sea before anyone realized what had happened. You may as well get up—running isn’t going to change things.”
The sunset was gilding him, a nimbus of color around his tall body. I made myself relax. Not a vampire, then. I knew the rules—they couldn’t be in the sun.
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud. Not until he answered me.
“You’re an expert on vampires now, are you?” he said.
I considered not rising, but lying sprawled in front of him definitely put me at a disadvantage, so I sat up, ignoring the shriek of my stiff muscles. I glared at him. “No, I’m not. I don’t believe in them, and if you and your friends are into that kind of scene, then you can count me out. I want to go home.”
He was looking at me with detached interest. “‘Kind of scene’?” he echoed.
There was no blood on his mouth now. Maybe I’d imagined it. My brain still didn’t seem be holding two thoughts together. “I’m not a complete idiot,” I said in a cranky voice. “I know there’s an entire subculture of people who like to pretend they’re vampires. They file their teeth to points, they hang out in Goth clubs, they drink blood, they dress in Edwardian clothes . . .” My voice trailed off. Black jeans and a worn black denim shirt didn’t equal Edwardian finery and we both knew it, though I was willing to bet he’d look pretty damned gorgeous in a white puffy shirt. Considering that he looked pretty damned gorgeous already.
“I don’t see a Goth club anywhere,” he said. “No one around here would pretend to be a vampire.”
“So what was that I walked in on a few minutes ago?”
“Allie?” Sarah came up behind him before he could answer, almost as tall, with another of the men just behind her. “What’s wrong?”
“You know what’s wrong,” I said, feeling cranky despite the fact that I liked Sarah. “I saw him.”
“Saw him what?”
I looked at her narrow wrists: blue-veined, delicate, and unmarred. I pulled my knees up close to my body, hugging them. “Who
“Come back to the house, Sarah,” the other man said impatiently. “This is Raziel’s mess—it’s up to him to deal with it.” There was an oddly proprietary tone to his voice.
“In a moment,” Sarah said, kneeling next to me and putting her hand on my arm. “I don’t want you to be afraid, child. No one is going to hurt you.”
I wasn’t as sure as she was, either about Raziel or about the other man. He was as tall as Raziel, with jet-black hair, cold blue eyes, and a merciless expression on his face. “I want to go home,” I said again, feeling like a fretful, stubborn child.
The other man swore. “Raziel, do something about this. That, or let me clean up the mess you’ve made.”
“Give her a minute, Azazel,” Sarah said over her shoulder. “She’s shocked and frightened, and no wonder, with the two of you stomping around, being mysterious. If Raziel won’t give her some simple answers, then I will.”
“Woman,” Azazel said in an icy voice, “I want you upstairs in bed.”
“Husband,” Sarah replied sweetly, “I’ll be there when I’m damned well ready.”
Well, that was definitely weird. Azazel had to be in his early to mid-thirties; Sarah was likely in her fifties and probably older. It was hardly surprising—
Sarah was a beautiful woman—but most of the men I knew liked nubile young chicklets. At the ripe old age of thirty, I’d already been dumped once for someone younger and more pliant.
“She’s going to come inside,” Raziel said, making it clear there were no options. That’s what he thought. My eyes narrowed, looking up at him.
“And just where is she going?” the other man demanded.
“My rooms,” Raziel said. “I don’t see that we have any other choice.”
“She’s certainly not coming with us,” Azazel snapped.
Sarah rose, a graceful, fluid motion that made me desperately envious. If I got back home, I was definitely going to start going to yoga.
“Go with Raziel, child,” she said. “He’s not going to hurt you. In fact, he’s been looking out for you. When he wasn’t dying of fire poisoning,” she added with a mischievous glance at him. “Go with him, and he’ll answer any questions you have.”
“The hell I will,” Raziel said. “I’ll take her to my rooms and leave her there until I figure out—”
“You’ll do what Sarah says,” Azazel said, his soft voice chilling.
Raziel shot the other man a disgruntled look. And then he crossed the sand to me, holding out his hand.
I stared at it, not moving. Now was not the time to notice that he had strong, beautiful hands. Or that everything about him was beautiful, almost supernaturally so. I didn’t like pretty men, damn it. Though God knows I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen anyone quite as gorgeous as he was.
“Don’t make me carry you,” he said in a warning voice.
Azazel and Sarah were already heading into the house, his arm around her waist. For a moment I considered scrambling to my feet and running after them; but reasonable or not, Azazel terrified me even more than this inexplicable man.
I needed to get up, not loll there like a Victorian heroine. The only problem was that my knees felt like spaghetti. I’m as tough as the next woman, tougher maybe, but I’d been through a hell of a lot in the last . . . whatever. There was a limit to how much I could handle. I tried to rise, but he ended up putting his hands on my arms and hauling me up anyway. He released me quickly enough, and started back toward the odd house, clearly expecting me to follow like a dutiful third-world bride.
The hell with that. I looked around me for some kind of escape and came up with a flat zero, unless I wanted to pull a Virginia Woolf and walk into the sea. There was no place else for me to go. The tide was coming in, and beyond the house all was misty darkness and forest. Besides, I was finally going to get some answers to my questions, wasn’t I?
I just managed to catch up with him. His long legs ate up the distance,
