Vampire$

She moved closer to him as he told it. Not clinging. Just the warmth. He heard her weep toward the end. Felt it. He got up to get another drink for himself. Maybe he sat down a little closer when he returned.

When he had finished, it was so very quiet. Just the three of them left and just the two of them awake and alone and the night out there haunting. There was a large television in the room with its cabinet doors open and a remote control beside his hand and it was so very quiet — he reached down and flipped it on.

Some movie channel. Some silly comedy. Slapstick and pratfalls and nothing even remotely serious and ten minutes into it the main character did something inane like jamming his hand in a drawer or something…

And they laughed.

Not loud. Not hard. But enough.

He turned and looked at her for the first time and she was lovely and smiling back.

Then he hid again in the screen.

They laughed some more. Not because it was funny. Maybe because it wasn’t funny. It was stupid and mindless and so… easy. So silly and safe. And they laughed. And they drew closer and closer and when the film finally ended Felix had his arm around her shoulder and he turned to her and realized he stank and needed a bath.

She was already getting up.

“I’ve got to have a shower,” she told him, rather shyly. He grinned. “Me, too.”

“Oh!” she replied. “Do you want to go first?”

“No. I can use the other.”

“But Cat’s asleep.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ll wait.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

“Really?”

And he looked at her and they laughed again.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Take your time,” he called after her.

And meant it. Because he was scared again.

He stayed scared the whole time he listened to the water running and his heart beating because he knew…

He knew…

He knew he wasn’t going to be able to do this.

He didn’t know why. Not yet. Not clearly yet. He only knew it was so. And unfair.

“Okay!” she called out cheerily. “Your turn!”

He sipped the rest of his drink dry in one sip and stood up and puffed on his smoke and put that out. Then he walked into the bedroom.

Utterly, impossibly beautiful. Toweling her hair in the dim bedroom, the light from the bathroom soft from behind her and across her bare shoulders wrapped up snug and clean in a huge white towel and he didn’t blame her for this. From first sight it had been the two of them, rich and strong and needing each other. What she was doing was not wrong. Simply more painful.

He got past her somehow and into the bright bathroom lights. He even managed to close the door behind him without slamming it shut. He got his clothes off and into the huge sunken shower that smelled like her and drenched himself but none of it would go away.

Why can’t I have her? Why do I feel like I can’t?

Why do I feel like I can’t yet?

What the hell more do I have to do?

Sure, they’re still out there and, yeah, they’re still biting people. But that’s not my fault! Christ! I’ve fought and fought and everybody else is dead. They killed everybody else. Am I supposed to feel unworthy because they haven’t gotten to me yet? What kinda samurai bullshit is going on here? Is it a disease or something? The Jack Crow Samurai Bullshit Syndrome?

It’s not fair!

I don’t want to kick any more ass. I’m scared, dammit! It’s unfair to feel like I’m supposed to.

To feel like I must.

I don’t want to have that goddamned torch passed on to me. That torch kills people. It kills everyone.

“I don’t believe this shit!” he shouted out loud into the cascading water.

But it was true.

But maybe it was only true… now. Maybe it was just part of the grief and the like. Yeah! That was it! I’m just rundown and tired and my comrades are gone and I feel like I’m taking advantage of them now but…

But that will pass.

Right?

Right?

He waited over an hour to come out. To sneak out, on tiptoe, bathroom lights already out before he opened the door.

She was asleep. At least she was lying still on the shadowy bed and that was good enough for him. He sneaked past her into the living room and found an extra cover in a closet there and wrapped up in it on the couch and turned off the light — all without making a peep.

Tomorrow this will pass.

Right.

Sometime in the night the sound of someone sobbing woke him up. He rose up on the couch and started to go to her but it stopped. Was that Davette?

Was that me?

Is this ever going to end?

The next morning she was sweet and friendly and gracious as if nothing had happened and he knew damn well he had hurt her feelings but…

But he didn’t want to think about that now.

Cat came to a little later and he was shaken and ashen gray once more but he was back.

They talked about nothing while they ordered and waited for breakfast and then it came and they sat down together and ate it and it was somewhere in the middle of that meal that Cat had looked up at Felix and thanked him.

And Felix shrugged.

A few minutes later Cat spoke again: “So. What’s the next move?” he asked Felix.

And Davette had looked to him as well, as if it was the most natural thing in the world — for him to decide.

He almost punched Cat again.

He wanted to say, Don’t start looking to me, now, goddammit! I ain’t carrying anything on.

But he did not say this. He was calm. He played the game and gave them what they wanted. He told them they would stay here, in the suite, until tomorrow afternoon, when they would go to the bishop’s office, as planned, and pick up the documents and tickets for the nonstop to Rome that left the next day.

Calm. Reasonable. Leader-sounding, if that’s what they really, really, fucking wanted.

But, he added silently, don’t think this changes anything. This doesn’t change shit.

We are out of the vampire business.

So they stayed in the suite. All that day and all that night. Room service food and movie channels and alcohol. When it got late, Cat went to crash in his bedroom. A few minutes later Davette went to the other.

Felix took his drink and went to the window and looked out over north Dallas.

Odd to be able to do that. When he had been growing up, there was nothing this far north. No shopping malls, no freeways, no high-rise luxury hotels. But now he could almost see his house. He could almost see hers.

That started him remembering, for some reason. He had loved that time. The money, the lovely homes and