Blood Red

“Sweet God in Heaven, man, will you just listen to me?” Jonas pleaded.

“I have an entire vial of holy water,” Mark informed him quietly. “And if you make one wrong move, I will destroy you.”

He spoke quietly, because there were people all around them. From inside, he could hear the band playing and a waitress shouting something to the bartender.

As he and Jonas stood there glaring at each other, a woman flashed a smile and asked them to move aside just a smidge—she wanted to get into the club.

Mark caught the younger man’s arm and pulled him out to the street.

“I am not the one you’re looking for!” Jonas said earnestly.

“Where the hell is Lauren?”

“Lauren?” Jonas demanded with a frown. “Deanna’s the one in the hospital Would you just listen to me for a minute? I’m not evil.”

Evil? Maybe not, Mark thought, but he was certainly a vampire.

Mark drew out the vial of holy water. The other man stared straight at him without flinching. “Hit me if you have to, but I’m telling you the truth. I want to help you. I…I care about Deanna. I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s…she’s…” A flicker of fury lit his eyes. “She’s too fine to become the plaything of a vicious bastard like… him.”

“No one here knows you,” Mark told him curtly. “The cops here know that vampires exist—some of them, anyway. But no one knows you.”

Jonas lifted his hand and pulled a chain out from beneath his T-shirt.

He was wearing a cross.

“Could I wear this if I were associated with that monster, Stephan?” he demanded.

Mark arched a brow.

“Look, I am new to the area,” Jonas went on. “I’ve been in New York City for a long time. No one there notices anyone else, there are blood banks up the kazoo…I came here to work the music scene. That’s all. Not to hurt anyone.” He offered a rueful smile. “Hell, there are enough rats around, you know?”

“Make sure you stay out of my way,” Mark warned him.

“I can help you. I want to help you. Look, I haven’t been…what I am now for very long, and I’m not very powerful, but I’d give my…existence to help Deanna. I’ll do anything. Anything.”

“Just stay out of my way,” Mark repeated.

He started walking away, his anxiety for Lauren rising to the surface again. He wasn’t going to kill Jonas— though letting him live might be a serious mistake. But he didn’t have the time right now to figure out the best way to handle the situiation. He had to find Lauren.

“How the hell can I prove myself to you?” Jonas called after him.

Mark kept going without answering.

He moved with long strides, eager to quit Bourbon Street. It felt as if he were screaming on the inside.

He had to find her.

Now.

The figure at the end of the alley continued to stand there, staring.

She stood dead still and stared back.

She was almost out of holy water, and she was trying desperately to remember everything that Mark had said. This was Stephan, she was certain. Mark had said he was very strong. She could hit him with what remained of the holy water, and undoubtedly she would hurt him, but would it be enough? It might only serve to enrage him and make him all the more certain that the time to sink his teeth into her throat was now….

“I am not Katya!” she shouted.

“You are the one I will have,” he said softly in return.

It seemed as if the entire world had gone still. As if time itself had stopped. She was alone in the alley with him, wrapped in darkness and shadows.

“No,” she said softly. “You don’t know what it is to really have anyone. You will never have me. And in your brutality and your cruelty, you will find your own destruction.”

He started walking toward her.

How far would her water pistol shoot?

“Put down that weapon. And take off your cross. Because I will have you. I will have you in the way I want to have you, and that’s all that will matter. When I tire of you, well…maybe you’ll be lucky and that won’t happen.”

She took a step backwards.

He seemed closer than he had been.

As if he had floated.

But now he was walking casually toward her, as if they were old acquaintances, just chatting after a chance meeting on the street.