Lathe had him up against the wall, again, his groin next to Cory's. “Do you really want me to try harder?” he demanded and grabbed Cory's chin. He forced his head up, and try as Cory might to look away, Lathe dragged it out of him. “Do you know the things I could make you do?"
And Cory knew he was supposed to look into Lathe's eyes and see the hell waiting for him. Instead he pressed his bad hand against the window. He winced, but not because of Lathe. “Yes,” he hissed. The pain lancing up and down his arm wouldn't let him form any other word. Lathe let him go, and Cory broke contact from the glass. He felt the cold sweat on his body, and he took a moment to rest with his hands on his knees.
"Luke—was that his name?—was a stroke of genius. He seems the type that rabbits pretty far down into his safe den. Where did you find him?"
"Around,” Cory said. Lathe took a step forward, and Cory knew Lathe could draw that story from him if he had to. He lifted his hand, giving up, but asking for a second to find his ability to breathe first.
Lathe touched his forehead, allowing it. He put his head down, gathering up his thoughts. “He hadn't completely rabbited,” he said, when he could. “He had his small group of feeders downtown. I just looked for the throat marks. When I found them, I staked them out until he found me. Then it was a simple matter of getting myself chosen."
"Ingenious,” Lathe allowed. “I wouldn't have thought it possible."
"Thanks,” Cory said bitterly. “The best marks are the marks who think they can't be taken. Luke didn't think he could be. We were together almost a year before he even told me what he was, and then it took another year for him to turn me."
"I suppose it was your bad luck. I could think of a dozen different vampires who would have been thrilled to turn a grade-A piece of ass like yourself."
"I know,” Cory said, his lips twisting back in a hard smile. You arrogant fuck, he thought, then quashed the thoughts before they fully formed. It had taken Luke that long to show him there were more kinds of relationships out there than tricks and marks, and like the dumbest of all rubes, Cory himself had fallen for it. He'd been happy with Luke, even hidden away from the rest of the world. He saw that now. He'd been at a pub with Luke downtown the night they'd stepped out onto the street and he smelled the fire.
And he'd known Lathe was back. Waiting for the first cold, so that Brutus could form, but in the city and looking for him. He remembered how helpless he'd felt, how he'd almost collapsed against the hood of the car over how stupid it was, how much he'd wanted to believe that his pretend life with Luke was the real reason he was there. But of course he couldn't. And didn't. They'd had their first fight that night, over something he knew Luke would be completely defensive about, and that was the beginning of the end.
It had all been so perfectly planned on his part until he saw Luke by the water.
Lathe smiled, lifting his chin. “And now tell me, my little bird, did you think that just being turned would save you? Give you an edge over me that you thought you needed?"
Cory didn't answer that. Lathe wasn't quite finished. “Did you know being turned would make you predisposed to obey a stronger vampire? That it would be in your blood now?"
I counted on it. Cory dug his nails into his burn. It didn't hurt as much as pushing it against the window, but it still cut through the fog forming in his brain. He'd seen Lathe break down humans by going into their brains and scooping out everything individual, like carving a pumpkin into a jack o’ lantern. They'd been grinning corpses for Lathe to play with, and Cory couldn't let that happen to him. He looked down.
"Don't. Look at me.” Cory had to, as much as Lathe's smile sickened him. “Kneel."
Despite himself, Cory sank to his knees. He placed his palms against his inner thighs, and the memory of Luke marking them brought him even more to himself. He did belong to a stronger vampire, but it wasn't Lathe. He looked up, as coyly as he could. “Now what?” he asked.
"Now, we wait,” Lathe said. “Good night, my little bird. Don't let the bad dreams disturb you, too much."
Cory wanted to jump to his feet, but there was no way he could, not until Lathe allowed it. “The window's wide open!” he called.
"Then you'd better find something to block it with, shouldn't you?” Lathe called back, and with that, he released Cory. The door slammed shut, cutting him off from the landing, and although he didn't hear the lock turn, Cory knew that it wouldn't budge. Still, he tried it, and there wasn't even a quarter inch of give to it. It could have been a part of the wall with a doorknob sticking out of it for no apparent reason.
It took him the rest of the night to move the bookcase in front of the window, and even then he had to cram the smaller of the books on it between the bookcase and the wall. When morning came, he expected the escaping rays to cut into him like a paper shredder. The bookcase had a corona like an eclipse, but the room itself stayed in perpetual twilight.
* * * *
The garage door was open. Luke remained behind the wheel in the driveway for much longer than he should have. The rays of the sun were coming; he felt them tighten the skin on
