As he pulled out the coin, his glove came with it and Voss paused, suddenly paralyzed by a thought. A glove.
His glove.
Angelica had been holding his glove when he opened the carriage door for her.
Did she know that he was going to die?
“What are you doing here, Voss?” Rubey’s blue eyes peered through the small door panel. They weren’t kind nor welcoming in the least. In fact, he’d never seen them so cold.
“Won’t you let me in?” Voss wheedled, and allowed a bit of that enticing glow into his eyes. “I just want to talk with you, Rubey, darling.” The weight of the sunshine beat down on the hooded cloak he’d stolen from the front closet of the boardinghouse, and although it didn’t touch him directly, he could feel it like a heavy hand. “Perhaps a bit of tête-à-tête, too. I know how you like—”
“No,” she said, and made to slide the door panel closed.
“Wait, Rubey. Please,” he said, panic in his voice, jamming his hand into the slot. “I haven’t anywhere else to go, and I need to talk with someone. And the sun—”
“Dimitri was here. He and Giordan. Looking for you. Sure as the sun, they’re going to kill you when they find you.”
A little prickle skittered down his spine. “Angelica? Is she… Did they say anything about her?”
“So it is about Angelica.” The blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and the small panel remained half open. Then she shook her head. “No, Voss. The last time I let you sugar-talk me into something I shouldn’t have, you know what happened.”
“I am sorry about the maid,” Voss said, removing his hand so he could adjust the slipping cloak.
“You’re only saying that because you want me to change my mind.”
Voss paused, then smiled in chagrin. It was true. He hadn’t given the maid much thought. “I am sorry,” he said again, and this time, he did mean it—especially when he thought that it could have been Angelica there in bloody ribbons. “Please, Rubey. You know how it pains me to beg.”
That brought a laugh and a bit of reluctant sparkle to her eyes. “That’s not strictly true, Voss, darling. I seem to remember that time you took me to Paris and there was more than a bit of begging going on…on your end.”
But even that memory—as pleasant as it was—failed to bring a smile to his lips. “Rubey. As a friend, I ask you to let me in. You’re one of the wisest people I know. And I need to talk to a wise person.” And it wasn’t as if Dimitri was going to have a conversation with him that didn’t involve a stake or a sword.
The little slot slammed shut and for a moment Voss thought he’d overdone it, but then the door opened and Rubey was there, gesturing angrily. He stepped into the foyer of her private home, the same place that had been violated by the vampires only yesterday.
Or was it the day before? Lucifer’s burning soul, he’d lost track of the time since he and Angelica had been at Black Maude’s.
“If they come back, I’m not going to lie,” Rubey was saying as she slammed the door shut and locked it. Three locks and a heavy slab of wood across it. “I’ll tell them you were here, and gladly, Voss.”
He noticed fresh marks on her shoulder. “I see that you’ve been entertaining Cale.”
Rubey tossed him a sidewise look. “Giordan and I have an understanding, and don’t try to pretend that it’s of any concern to you. If it ever was—of which I have immeasurable doubt—that was ten years ago when we first met.”
Voss felt the edges of his eyes crinkle in a smile. He didn’t need to make any other reply. She was right and they both knew it.
“As you’re risking your life being here, I rather suppose we ought to get on with whatever you needed to speak to me about,” Rubey said.
“Did Corvindale say anything about Angelica?” he asked, surprising himself, for that was not what he’d intended to say. His only concern was whether the chit had somehow died. “You never did tell me.”
“No, he merely commanded me to tell him where you were.”
“Perhaps Cale said something further during your…er… pillow talk?”
Rubey gave him a slow smile. “Now, Voss, you know that there’s very little time—or energy—for mere talk when I am thus engaged.” Then the smile went away and that shrewdness came back in her eyes. “You are concerned for her, aren’t you? Isn’t that odd for you, Voss? Or is it merely because you know that if she’s dead, Dimitri and Chas will be even more intent on sending you to join your friend Brickbank in hell? I wonder what it’s like down there, being with Lucifer all the time. Don’t you, Voss? At least—”
“Enough,” Voss said, uncertain why her taunting annoyed him so. He showed a bit of fang to let her know he was damned serious.
She sobered and gestured to a chair. “Very well, then. Here I am, the wisest woman you know, at your disposal for whatever it is that’s on your conscience.” Then she laughed. “Oh, dear. Did I truly say that? When have you—or any of you—ever had a conscience?”
Voss felt his eyes warm with a deeper glow and he didn’t bother to retract his incisors. And then, suddenly, his annoyance faded. It was replaced by something he didn’t recognize, some odd, empty emotion.
“Voss, I am expecting Giordan again shortly. Perhaps you’d like to conduct this conversation now, before he arrives?”
“You’re going to die,” he said. Her eyes widened, and he continued, “Someday. You and everyone you know…except us.”
Rubey nodded, eyeing him as if he were a mouse. Voss happened to know that, while she had less than a fondness for rodents, she wasn’t particularly frightened of them. Which was probably just about how she felt about him. “Everyone dies,” she said in an eerie echo of Angelica. “Except the Draculia. And even then…well, that fierce Chas Woodmore has seen to the demise of more than a few of your brethren.”
Voss didn’t say anything for a moment. He’d battled his way in here because he needed to talk to someone, and it wasn’t possible to talk to Angelica without abducting her again.… But he didn’t quite understand what he wanted from Rubey.
But he knew he wanted—needed—something. Direction. Wisdom. Hope?
What was happening to him?
Somehow, she seemed to sense what was on his mind. “You Dracule, you prize your immortality and live for centuries, but I’ve never understood why. I think I should find it lonely and monotonous after a time.” She leaned forward in her chair, affording him a generous view down her bodice, corset and shift. But even that delightful sight didn’t distract him because she was speaking thoughts he’d always tried to ignore. “Giordan offered to make me Dracule. He suggested that if he did, I could be Rubey’s proprietress forever. I told him I didn’t want to do anything forever.”
“Not even live?”
But what happens when you die?
She shook her head. “It’s unnatural, living forever. Nothing lives forever. Nothing, Voss. Only the demon who made you this way, made you unnatural. Look at how you must live—by feeding on other living beings. I have often wondered why he would do such a thing, but I’ve come to believe it’s because it ties you more tightly to him. You take from your own race. You must. What sort of creature is he that makes you take life from your brethren to live? It’s interesting, and frightening. Like copulating, the very act can be intimate and pleasurable… or it can be a violation. Which way do you think the demon wants it to be? Which way does he make it easier for you?”
He needed a drink. Voss stood and went to the cabinet, helping himself to a finger of brandy. Yet…he didn’t tell her to cease speaking.
“I’ve only known you for a decade, Voss, but I can see the emptiness in your life. Nothing changes, does it? The only relationships you have are with other Dracule, and none of you truly trust the others. Instead of envying you, I pity you. All of you. Each of you has nothing but sameness, emptiness, every day. You’ve nothing to strive for, nothing to look toward. Your lives—even Giordan’s—are filled with debauchery and pleasure and nothing else.”
“And Prinny’s life, and Byron, and Brummell—none of them are denying themselves pleasure. But they’ll grow too old or too poor or they’ll die and their days will be over. Ours— mine—goes for eternity. It will never change. I’ll never be too old to fuck—”
“Ah, yes, the monotony of it all. But it’s the very nature of your existence—the need, the drive for pleasure. Do you never get tired of indulgences? Pleasure? And not even the hair on your head turning gray or falling out?” Rubey shrugged. “You remain the same, for eternity—unless you land on a stake. Or a sword separates your head from your shoulders. And then what happens? What has your devil promised you then?”
Voss’s mouth went dry. His body turned empty and cold because she had said what he couldn’t put out of his mind. The thought had tortured him since yesterday. All he could do was nod.
It didn’t matter. The deed was done, the covenant made. This was his life.
Forever, as long as he didn’t get himself staked or beheaded. Or burned in the sun.
Rubey wasn’t finished with her litany of questions. Ones he didn’t want to hear, and yet, ones he could no longer ignore. “Do you ever wonder why he chose you? Why the offer was made to you? What did the demon see in you, Voss, all those decades ago, that made him think you would be worthy?”
He gulped the whiskey, closing his eyes as scenes from his past whirled behind his lids, prodded his memory. He’d heard people describe it: how their life passed before their eyes during a near-death experience. He understood that experience.
And what he saw there, the summary of his hundred forty-eight years, was starkly clear. It was all about him. It always had been, since he was a child.
