Old Sins, Long Shadow Read online

  “Not really,” she replied with a small shrug. “I think maybe I scared him.”

  “You did what?” Marc broke off practicing his ballestras in the mirror to gape at her. “You scared him, are you kidding me? Why, what’d you do, let him see you without your makeup?”

  Julie’s cheeks flamed. She glared at her twin. He was making her feel about ten years old. She found herself fighting an all-too-childish urge to stick her tongue out at him. “Thanks, Marc. That is sooo funny.”

  “Marcus! Do not be so rude to your sister,” Damian scolded, his expression softening again as he turned back to her. “What happened, niña?”

  “How was that rude?” Marc protested. “She’s being ridiculous. What is this guy, some kind of world-class wimp? What’s he scared of her for?”

  Damian’s eyebrows rose. “Why should he not be afraid? A little caution would be a sign of great intelligence on his part. He is only human, after all, and your sister can be a very fierce little vampiress. Isn’t that so, mi niña linda?”

  Only human. Tears pricked Julie’s eyes.

  “Don’t you miss it at all?” Brennan had demanded. As he glanced up from the omelet he’d been picking apart with his fork, he didn’t even seem to notice she had been speaking. Which only confirmed her suspicion that he hadn’t been listening, that he hadn’t heard a single word she’d said.

  “Miss what?” she replied, mystified, and more than a little annoyed, by the sudden change of topic.

  Brennan waved a hand. “All of it. Food. Sunlight. Living a normal life. Being human.”

  Julie stared at him, caught off guard by the question, unable to answer honestly—unable to answer at all, thanks to the orders Conrad had drummed into both the twins’ heads; the order that they keep their past a dead secret. How could she miss what she’d never had?

  “No.” Sighing heavily, Brennan returned to his massacre of the eggs she’d so painstakingly prepared. “No, I can see you don’t.”

  “Fierce?” Marc laughed. “Oh, yeah, she’s real fierce. You know why she doesn’t go out to any of the clubs anymore, don’t you? It’s ’cause she’s afraid some vampire might ask her to dance. That’s how fierce she is. You gotta get over it, Jules. All those years you spent bugging me about how I should embrace my true nature, now here you are afraid to do the same, spending all your time playing house with some human just ’cause he’s easy and you think you can control him.”

  “¡Ya basta!” Damian jabbed with his foil in Marc’s direction, causing him to jump back, out of range. “That’s enough from you! Go, now! Go…flunge.”

  “Excuse me?” Marc stared at him in disbelief.

  Damian sniffed. “Your fleches need work. Go practice them.”

  Julie couldn’t help smiling. A flunge, a move that combined a fleche and a lunge, was more properly known as a flying lunge. Given Damian’s typically flawless manners, this was probably the closest he’d ever come to telling Marc to fuck off.

  Feeling immeasurably better, she snuggled against the older vampire’s side. “I love you, Uncle D.”

  “I know.” Damian wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “I love you too.”

  Marc returned to the practice area, shaking his head and chuckling softly, “Flunges. What next?”

  Damian sighed. “Forget your brother, chica. Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, I think we kind of…” Broke up. No. She couldn’t say it. Saying it would make it too real and she wasn’t ready for that yet. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I had a nightmare.”

  “A nightmare?” Damian stared at her, his expression alarmed. “It’s not like you to be troubled by such things.”

  It is now, Julie thought, watching her brother as she said, “I was dreaming about—you know. That night? In the caves?” She’d been dreaming of the night they’d helped rescue Conrad. It was the first time she’d watched anybody die, the first time she’d ever had to help dispose of a body—if dispose was the right word to use for the simple act of dropping a match—and she sincerely hoped it would be the last.

  She’d always heard vampires were more flammable than humans, but it was one thing to know this and another thing altogether to watch one of her kind go so easily up in flames. Violent death was not the kind of thing she was used to having to deal with and, vampire or not, she just couldn’t seem to get over it.

  Apparently, neither could Marc. She watched as he fumbled his footwork then turned toward Damian, a scowl on his face. “Hey! Are we ever gonna finish this? ’Cause, if not, I’m out of here. I’ve got places to be.”

  Damian glanced reprovingly at him, but after one look at his face the fire died out in his eyes. “You too?” he murmured sadly, shaking his head at them both. “Ah, niños, have I not already talked to you about this? You have no reason to reproach yourselves. You did what you had to do that evening. We all did. And, did it not all work out just as we’d hoped? We survived. We’re all fine now. It’s over—let it go.”

  Fine? Julie sighed. Sure we are. There were times when Damian’s black-and-white, myopic view of the world was more than a little frightening. How—and for whom—had things worked out? Vincent, the vampire who’d abducted Conrad and held him captive, was dead. Conrad had still not recovered. She was having nightmares. Marc, for all his big-bad-vampire posturing, for all that he refused to even discuss what had happened that night, could no more “let it go” than she could.

  Not even Damian had walked away from the evening unscathed. Sure, he pretended the scarves and high collars he’d taken to wearing ever since were just the latest in a long line of fashionable affectations, but Julie knew better. She’d seen the marks on his throat, the souvenirs left by Conrad’s teeth.

  There was very little capable of damaging vampire flesh, but the bite of the Lamia Invitus, never properly healed. Damian would carry those scars forever. For someone as vain as her uncle, how could something like that ever be fine?

  “Well, children?” Damian pressed, gazing sternly at them both. “Have I made myself clear?”

  “Sure.” Marc sounded no more convinced by Damian’s argument than Julie was. “Crystal. Now, are we gonna fence or not?”

  “Un momento.” Damian looked at Julie again. “If that’s all this is about, chica, if one…bad dream…is all that’s troubling you, then I think you should not be so hasty to make changes. Leaving is not always the best answer. Why not stay where you are? Give him a chance to grow used to you.”

  “I can’t,” Julie insisted. “I just…can’t.” Things had gone too far for that. They’d both said too much. She couldn’t go back.

  “Ah.” Damian nodded. “I see. So, there’s something else you’re not telling me. What?”

  Julie sighed. “Well, for one thing, he started asking questions.”

  “What kinds of questions?”

  “Why are you even asking me that?” Julie frowned in exasperation. “You know the kind of questions I’m talking about. The kind I don’t have any answers to.”

  “Humor me. Give me an example.”

  Julie’s frayed temper suddenly snapped. “Like, do I miss being human, all right? Like, if I had the chance to do it over again, would I? He thinks I chose this, Damian. He thinks I was given some kind of choice in the matter. He doesn’t understand—and I can’t make him understand—and now…it’s all screwed up.”

  Damian nodded, his expression somber. “And what is it you’ve been telling him when he asks you these questions?”

  “What do you think I’ve been telling him? Nothing! That’s what. Nothing at all. And it sucks.”

  “She’s right,” Marc agreed, angrily lashing the air with his foil. “It sucks big-time. How do you have a conversation with someone when you can’t even talk about the simplest things? Like, where we grew up or how we met Conrad, how long we’ve been vampires. And why the hell not, huh? It made sense when we were kids. Don’t tell people you’re not human. That was reasonable e
nough. Who would’ve believed us anyway? But now… Either they’re vampires themselves, or they’re someone who works for us and already knows what we are. And we’re still supposed to keep everything a secret? What the hell for?”

  Julie sighed. “There is no reason for it. I mean, who cares? It can’t be that important, right?”

  “Exactly. It’s bullshit. Instead of getting to know anyone we’re still lying and stonewalling and shutting everybody out. I thought it was bad before but, in some ways, this is even worse.”

  Damian looked pained. “I know,” he murmured, almost crooning the words, his voice soft and soothing, the same tone he’d used when they’d come to him with their childhood woes. “I know it’s been a big adjustment for you both. I understand that. But, there is a reason for the secrecy and it is important—very much so. It is all much more important than you could possibly imagine. You just have to trust me on this.”

  He gazed at them almost pleadingly, but Marc looked doubtful and unconvinced and Julie knew her own expression probably mirrored her brother’s. Why was it so important? She and Marc had always known Conrad and Damian were keeping secrets from them, but what were they covering up? What weren’t they telling them?

  Damian sighed. “I’ll talk to Conrad again. I’ll see if he’ll let me tell you…something, just enough to make all this secrecy seem less odious. Will that do?”

  “No,” Marc answered. “But it’s a start.” He gestured at Damian’s foil. “Now are you gonna use that thing or not? ’Cause I have a feeling tonight’s the night I finally beat you.”

  “Do you really?” Damian smiled as he got to his feet. The light of battle was back in his eyes. “Then I shall be especially sorry to disappoint you. I love you, chico, but you are far too old for me to let you win.”

  Julie watched as Damian once again crossed the room. The two of them were so similar in build and coloring they could have actually been blood relatives. They were both tall and slim with dark hair and eyes—just like her own.

  Within a minute, the air was filled again with shouts and clashing swords. Her own workout forgotten, she sat and watched them, remembering the rest of her conversation with Brennan—all the things she still hadn’t told Damian.

  “Well, if it bothers you so much,” she said, near the end of their argument, “then maybe we should take a break. I have plenty of other options when it comes to feeding, you know. This has just been…convenient. As for everything else, there’s plenty of other people I could hang out with too. The mansion’s full of vampires—my kind. People just like me. In fact, from what I’ve seen of things, it looks like the whole city’s full of us.”

  “Yeah,” Brennan replied darkly, looking just as unhappy at the prospect of losing her as she’d hoped he would. “I’ve noticed that too.”

  “So,” she continued, spitefully, “maybe I’ll just move back into the mansion until you figure out what you want.”

  Brennan nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  Julie felt her heart drop to her toes. He thought she was right? She’d been lying through her friggin’ teeth! She never would have said any of it if she’d known he was going to agree. But, now the words were out and it was too late to take them back. She’d had no choice, at that point, but to turn and leave and not look back.

  If only she weren’t still so hungry…

  “They’re very good, aren’t they?” Armand’s voice startled Julie out of her funk.

  She looked up to find the other vampire leaning casually against the weight bar. “What’d you say?” she asked, trying hard to look like nothing was wrong, like she wasn’t being eaten up inside by regret and confusion and hunger; or as though the only thought repeating endlessly in her head was anything other than, why doesn’t he want me anymore?

  Luckily, Armand didn’t appear to have noticed her distress. His hazel eyes were locked on Marc and Damian, following their every move. “I said ‘they’re good’. Don’t you agree?”

  “Well, Damian is. Marc and I still have a long way to go to catch up.” Not that they ever would. Unlike humans, vampires grew stronger and faster with age. Damian had a five-hundred-year head start on them and, as for Conrad, he’d been wielding swords for at least twice as long as that. They were always going to be better and stronger. They were always going to be able to protect her. That should help. That should be making her feel a whole lot better than it was.

  “You fence as well?” Armand studied her face, his eyes narrowing speculatively. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Well, I generally prefer epee to either foil or saber,” Julie replied, happy to latch onto such a neutral topic. “But Conrad insisted we at least learn the basics of all three. Why, I don’t know. It’s not like he or Damian ever actually follow any of the rules themselves.”

  “Oh?” Armand smiled at her encouragingly.

  Julie shrugged. “I guess it makes sense. When they learned to fight, swordplay was some dead-serious stuff. Damian always said following the rules back then was just as likely to get you killed as not following the rules. I think they both still see it that way. They go easy on us ’cause we’re learning, but when they get into it with each other, the gloves definitely come off.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I see. And what is it about epee that appeals to you?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s partly because there’s no right-of-way, so whoever makes first contact wins the point. Also, your opponent’s entire body is a target so it’s a lot easier to score and harder for him to anticipate where you’re going to strike next. I guess, as the only girl in the household, I figured I needed any advantage I could get.”

  “Fascinating.” The shuttered expression in Armand’s eyes was unsettling. He seemed too intense, too intrigued. “Please, go on.”

  Julie winced with guilt. She’d probably already said enough. She was certain Damian would think so. “That’s it really,” she replied, struggling to sound casual. “What about you?”

  “Do I fence?” Armand waved a hand dismissively. “Not really. Conrad did try once to teach me but…it was not particularly successful.”

  “Really?” Julie sized him up. She would have thought Armand’s training as a ballet dancer would have made it easy for him to pick up the moves and memorize the choreography fencing demanded. With his lithe, compact body and natural grace he should have been a natural. “How come?”

  Armand shrugged. “Je ne sais pas. Perhaps because he did not go easy on me although I, too, was just learning.” His eyes sparkled with sudden mischief. “Myself, I prefer to think it’s because I am, by nature, more of a lover than a fighter, yes?”

  “Ohh,” Julie groaned, briefly covering her face with her hands. “That was awful! I hope you haven’t been waiting too long to use that line?”

  Dimples appeared as Armand smiled. “I have been, actually. For at least several decades, I think.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, unable to keep from returning the smile. “Because, trust me, it was sooo not worth waiting for.”

  “Quel dommage,” Armand sighed with mock dejection. “That’s too bad. I guess I’ll just have to keep trying. N’est-ce pas?”

  Marc’s shout of dismay drew their attention back across the room. It was obvious Damian had won.

  “Ahh, poor chico,” Damian crooned. “My regrets. It seems as though today is not your day, after all. But, someday, it will be. Sí?”

  “Sure,” Marc replied as the two men traded hugs. “Someday soon.”

  Do they really believe that could ever happen, Julie wondered. Would they really want it to? She certainly didn’t. Conrad and Damian were the rocks upon which Marc’s and her whole life had been founded. This past summer they’d come too close to losing Conrad and her world had been shaken. She couldn’t stand the thought of anything else changing, not for a good long while.

  “Well, I’m off,” Marc announced as he replaced his foil in the large basket where the practice foils were kep
t. As he and Damian converged on Julie, Armand excused himself and moved away. Crossing to the ballet bar that lined one of the room’s long mirrored walls, he began to stretch.

  Julie sighed as she watched Armand retreat. He was one of the few vampires she’d met in the past three months who made her nervous in a good way. He was cheerful and charming and young—at least compared to most. She knew he was far older than the thirty years he appeared to be, and a good deal older than her as well, but he was still practically a baby next to the others. Maybe that was why she felt so comfortable around him…if comfortable was even the right word to use.

  “Hey, Jules, I’m going to Akeldama,” Marc said, naming one of the clubs where he’d apparently become a regular. “You wanna come along? A little dancing, a little snackage—you might have fun.”

  She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m good.” She probably should take her brother up on his offer—especially if she wanted to eat anything other than bagged blood tonight. But Marc had not been completely off base with his earlier remark. It was fear that kept her from frequenting the city’s many vampire-run nightclubs. She felt out of her depth there. A lifetime as a predator—one of a very few big fish in a series of placid little pools—had done nothing to prepare her for this new life, which felt a lot like being tossed into a wave tank with a whole school of ginormous fish, all splashing around with their teeth snapping dangerously so that you couldn’t help but fear for your fins.

  Virtually all of the vampires she’d encountered since moving to San Francisco were both bigger and badder than she was ever likely to grow. So why wouldn’t she prefer to spend the bulk of her time with someone like Brennan? Someone she could feel comfortable with. Someone gentle, undemanding, manageable. Someone human.

  “Are you sure, chica?” Damian asked. “It might be just what you need to take your mind off your troubles with Brennan.”

  “No,” she repeated, cheeks flaming with the thought that Armand was probably taking in every word. How much had he already guessed? How long before he put two and two together and came up with the correct answer? She had hoped to keep word of their break-up from spreading too quickly. She supposed that was a lost cause.