The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

Chapter 8

'It was just a kiss.'

'You said that three times already. Would you turn off that light?' Sarah plumped up a pillow behind her, and tucked the coverlet firmly over her legs before sitting back.

'A perfectly innocent kiss!'

'Honey, there was nothing innocent about that kiss,' she said with a knowing look.

I stomped over to the light she had left burning on the desk and turned it off, feeling awkward and unsure of myself. I don't know why I felt compelled to explain that the kiss Theo and I shared was not what it seemed, but there I was, wringing my hands as I tried to sort through my emotions and thoughts.

'I find him physically attractive even though he's got some issues,' I explained. 'There's nothing wrong with a healthy libido.'

'Nothing at all, especially when the recipient of your attentions is a gorgeous angel. I looked up nephilim while you were occupied with Theo. That's what a nephilim is, you know. Kind of a sub-angel, the result of a union between—'

'Oh, I know all about that,' I said, waving my hands around for a moment before I was aware of what I was doing. I am not at all the hand-waving sort of person. 'It's part of this tale he spun me. That's neither here nor there—what I want to know is what is going to come of a relationship with a lunatic!'

'I thought you said it was just your libido?'

'It is!' I shoved the chair aside just because I could. 'But you know me—I don't do casual sex, so if things progress beyond kissing, I'm going to end up in a relationship. With a madman!'

'Theo isn't a madman,' Sarah said calmly, picking up the book she'd brought to read on the vacation.

'Well, maybe not mad by the strictest definition of the word, but you have to admit that he's not normal.'

'Of course he isn't. He's immortal. Are you done trying to convince yourself that he's not handsome as sin, and twice as delicious?'

'I did not—oh, you're impossible!' I said loudly. 'And speaking of that, you sure changed your tune quick enough.'

'What do you mean?'

'Yesterday you were positively drooling over Theo.'

Sarah looked surprised for a moment. 'Don't be ridiculous—I'm happily married, which you know.'

'That didn't stop you from ogling Theo yesterday.' I refused to examine why it bothered me that she had ogled him. It couldn't possibly be important.

'Oh, that was before,' she said, returning to her book as she waved a dismissive hand toward me.

'Before what?'

'Before Theo explained he wasn't for me.'

I sat on the chair, staring at Sarah, confused by her calm acceptance of the short-lived lust she had felt for Theo. 'Aren't you the least bit disconcerted about the fact that Theo interested you? Should happily married women feel that sort of thing?'

'They should if the man in question is a nephilim.' She sighed at my puzzled look. 'I thought you knew about nephilims? Didn't Theo tell you that they have an effect on mortal women?'

'No, he didn't.' I frowned.

'Ah. Well, that's why I initially fell victim to his attractive self. He dismissed the effect once he realized I was being affected by it.'

I shoved myself out of the chair and stalked to the far side of the room. 'He didn't dismiss it for me!'

'That's because you weren't affected by him in the first place. That's interesting, actually. It could mean he's the real deal, at least so far as you and he are concerned,' she said, looking thoughtful.

That was a thought. I considered that for a moment, then decided it was yet another distraction I didn't need in my life. I wished Sarah good night, and left her to her book.

I slept poorly, waking up roughly every hour to find myself wrapped in vague remnants of nightmares. The unease caused by the nightmares hung over me all day, leaving me feeling itchy and nervous even though we spent a delightfully normal day touring a nearby castle, during which no ghosts, ghouls, specters, or phantoms of any sort manifested themselves.

'It was nice to have a day where the oddest thing we encountered was that woman who insisted on bringing her parrot on the castle tour,' I commented at dinner that night.

Sarah glanced toward the door of our private dining room, nodding. 'Although I could have done without you expounding at length about how much force would have to be supplied to rip someone's limb off while on the rack.'

'You are the one who insisted on seeing the torture chamber. I was simply answering a question of physics.'

Sarah gave me a look that spoke volumes, glancing once again over my shoulder at the door before eating a bite of garlic-roasted potato. I pushed a clump of limp broccoli to the side of my plate, and rearranged a bit of hollandaise sauce more attractively around a mound of poached salmon.

Sarah looked past me again.

'For Pete's sake, will you stop that! You're making me as nervous as a cat.'

'Aha!' Sarah waved her fork, bedecked with a piece of pork loin, at me. 'I knew it! And you said you weren't nervous earlier when I asked you when today's trial was going to be.'

'I wasn't nervous until you started looking over my shoulder every five seconds.' I set down my fork and stopped pretending to enjoy the meal. 'Oh, this is ridiculous. I'm letting myself get all worked up over nothing. Obviously whoever is Theo's cohort of the day has had a change of heart. So you can stop looking over my shoulder for him, because he's probably decided we're not worth what must be a sizeable outlay of money to pull off whatever scheme he's attempting.'

Sarah chewed the bit of pork. 'How you can sit there and deny that Theo is exactly what he says he is —'

'I deny it because it's perfectly clear he's a con man—'

'A man you think is sexy as hell—'

'Well of course I do! He is! But that doesn't excuse the fact that he's trying to pull some scheme—'

'Admit it, Portia.' Sarah speared another bit of potato. 'Part of the attraction he holds for you is his undeniable air of mystery, that dangerous sense of the unknown that sends shivers down your back every time he's near. No woman can turn away from that—it's a scientific fact that bad boys are completely irresistible! Give in to your inner woman and just admit he chimes your bells because of what he is.'

I pushed back from the table, tossing down my napkin. 'You're impossible when you're in that sort of a mood. You're sure you don't want me to go with you tonight?'

'No, you take the evening off. You wouldn't enjoy sitting in a graveyard with the clairaudients, anyway.'

I smiled instead of giving her a piece of my mind about the so-called skill of recording the voices of the dead, and mentioned that I'd amuse myself instead with a walk around the countryside.

'That's a great idea—your mind will be refreshed by the walk for the next trial.'

My smile turned wry. 'Whatever. Have fun in the graveyard.'

'Maybe we should call Theo,' Sarah mused to her dinner as I headed out of the room. 'Maybe he would know what's up with the trial…'

Once in my room, I stripped off the only other dress I'd brought with me on the trip, shaking my head at myself for dressing up just because I expected to see Theo sometime during the day. I pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, garb much more suitable for tramping around the countryside than the bright dress I'd put on that morning, wondering as I did if Theo liked red.

I hesitated as I pulled a pair of tennis shoes from the wardrobe, glancing down at the black silk-and-lace teddy I was wearing, my mind shying away from the reason I'd put it on that morning. 'Oh, for heaven's sake, it's just underwear, not a world crisis,' I told myself after an indecisive minute, turning around to grab my jeans. 'Just