A little energy rush charged through my body. "You talked to Devereux?"
As Alan started to answer, the doorbell rang. I went over and peered through the peephole to make sure the visitor was welcome company. It was more than welcome. It was food. Police-escorted food. I cracked the door, handed out enough money to cover the bill plus a generous tip, reached out to grab the bag, offered my thanks, and closed and relocked the door. I carried the large sack of Chinese food to the kitchen table.
"Do you want to wait on the rest of the story until you've eaten, or can you continue?" Alan asked.
The smell of the food was driving me mad, and I moved around the kitchen in a blur, gathering plates, cups, and utensils. "I can eat and talk at the same time. Wow. You ordered lots."
"Oh, did you want something, too?" He laughed.
"Very funny."
I opened a new bottle of wine and poured some into each of our glasses.
We sat at the table and dived into the feast. Neither of us gained any points for table manners during the meal. The food was glorious and we ate with silent enthusiasm for a few minutes. There's nothing like stress and hunger to bring us back to our primitive roots.
For some reason I suddenly thought about the fact that vampires don't eat food. I wouldn't ever be sitting at the table sharing a meal with Devereux. At least not any meal I could force myself to contemplate. Unless, of course, we've all gone mad or there are hallucinogens in the water supply, and none of this really happened.
I paused in the food shovelling process and drank several sips of wine. "You spoke to Devereux? What did you talk about?"
Alan had already cleaned up his first helping and reached for reinforcements.
"It was strange, actually. He was in the middle of telling me about his long-standing rivalry with Bryce and all of a sudden he stopped talking and closed his eyes. Then he said, 'She is gone; he has taken her.' I started to ask who was gone, and who is 'he,' but before I could get the words out, Devereux vanished."
I claimed seconds on the egg rolls. "You mean he left the room:
"No. He literally vanished. Vampires don't acknowledge the same limitations about time and space that we humans do. They can move through both with just a thought."
"I don't understand what you mean. Physical matter does have certain limitations. Flesh and blood bodies can't just disappear from one place and rearrange their molecules in another. We haven't caught up with Star Trek yet."
Alan polished off his second helping and went for the championship round, adding an impressive third layer to the sustenance already on its way down to his deceptively flat stomach.
"Devereux would say there are limitations if you believe there are. But, I've seen him vanish and reappear many times so I don't have any problem accepting that vampires can travel by thought, not only in this dimension but in all the others."
I pushed my plate away, finally satiated.
"Other dimensions? You know, every time we talk, yourstories get weirder and weirder. Are you going to tell me next that the vampires are really aliens, preparing to take over the earth? Or maybe they're controlling us with their minds, and we'll be herded into holding pens—walking blood receptacles—waiting for an impending undead feeding frenzy?'"
He chuckled. "No. I'm not going to tell you any of that, but you have to admit they'd be interesting hypotheses to pursue. I'll make a note of them. Shall I continue telling you about Devereux, or would you rather make fun of my proclivities?"
"Oh, by all means, please continue."
"Anyway, after he vanished I went back upstairs, and then outside, looking for you. Of course, you weren't there, but I found Devereux leaning against the building about a half block down from the entrance to the club. He was just standing there, with his eyes closed, and when I approached he said, 'The one who has her is not only evil, but he is also insane. His mind is splintered and he is more animal than vampire'."
Alan had altered his voice, imitating Devereux's accent and unique speech patterns.
"At that point I still didn't even know who he was talking about. He said, 'I am linked with her mind so I should be able to sense her, but he has done something to mask her energy signature. He has overwhelmed her mind with his and is keeping us from communicating with each other. I have met few others who were powerful enough to do that. She is in great danger. She must be found'."
I smiled at his clever Devereux impersonation and shook my head. "You actually remember what he said, word for word? That's quite the memory you have there, Special Agent Stevens."
"Yes, it does come in handy. I have the auditory equivalent of a photographic memory. Remember that in case you tell me something and then say you didn't."
I reached out and patted his arm. "Okay, I'll remember that. Then what happened?"
We headed back into the living room and re-established ourselves on the couch.
He cleared his throat and shrugged. "A whole lot of nothing. Devereux vanished again and I went back into the club to search for you. I was still thinking that you were in there somewhere. And, just so you know, I kept an eye out for Tom, too, but I never saw him. I ran into Devereux's personal assistant, a snarly vamp named Luna, and I asked if she'd seen you. She said she couldn't believe so many people were interested in one, ordinary human and Devereux was beside himself that you had been taken. That was the first time I realized it was you."
He reached over and stroked my leg. "I didn't want to believe you were missing—I'm stubborn that way—so I kept looking in the club and giving people your description and asking if they'd seen you. Finally, I went back to the cop shop to see if there'd been any reports. I knew they wouldn't put out a missing person report that soon, but I was rattling cages as much as I could. Turns out I didn't need to. A couple of hours later the chief showed up in person and ordered that you become top priority. All available units went out on the street, searching for you. And they alerted the media. IVe never seen anything like it before. I still don't know what happened to get the chief riled up."
"I was told Devereux called the chief."
"Devereux? What would Devereux have to do with the police chief. . .? Of course. I should've remembered. So much for my famous tape-recorder memory, eh? During one of our discussions Devereux told me he'd used his ability to control minds to create relationships with several powerful people in town. People who could smooth away any difficulties.
"It makes perfect sense now. He simply called the chief, suggested he rally the troops, and that's all it took. No one would question it. And the Chief would always think it was his own idea. Ingenious, really."
"Do you mean Devereux used mind control on the police chief?"
Yep. The chief and a few other highly placed cops." 'Doesn't it bother you that Devereux manipulated the police? What if he uses mind control on you?"
He grinned. "I have a healthy respect for his abilities. He's the most powerful vampire I've ever run across. It might be worth it to let him take over my mind for a little while, just to see how that feels. And you have to admit, it got the job done. The cops found you."
"Actually, I found the cops. But I'll have to thank Devereux the next time I see him."
And why does thinking about seeing him feel good and bad and the same time?
"Okay, stop stalling. Tell me what happened last night."
I rearranged myself on the cushions. "I'm not stalling. There really isn't much to tell. I went outside to wait for Tom—or you—and I walked down the block and rested against the building. I suddenly had an overwhelming bad
feeling—instant terror—and heard a grotesque voice calling me. I couldn't tell if the voice was coming from outside of me or inside my mind. It was like fingernails on the blackboard from hell times a thousand. The voice kept telling me to come to it. I remember thinking I just needed to stay where I was and everything would be fine. That I could just ignore it. That's the last thing I recall until I woke up this morning in the cemetery."
I told him everything about the mausoleum, the coffin I'd awakened in, the dead bodies and my encounter with the police. He sat silently while I spoke, shaking his head.
"I've had some horrible experiences since I joined the FBI, but none of them come close to being worse than what you just told me. Now I'm really sorry I was such an a**hole when you came home."
"Apology accepted. We were all stressed out. I'm glad it's over. Well, except for the media fallout. I guess I can't avoid it any longer. Go ahead and tell me. How bad is it? What did they say about me on TV?"
"Pretty much what you'd expect. They played up all the occult aspects and continually referred to you as the Vampire Psychologist, with accompanying snickers. I think you're going to have to make a statement when you feel up to it. I don't think they're going to go away until you talk to them. I imagine this isn't the direction you envisioned your career moving?'"
Suddenly there was a popping sound, a slight breeze and Devereux materialized in the middle of my living room.
Chapter Fifteen
"Kismet?"
What the hell? How'd he get here? And holy shit. Wouldja look at him?
Instead of his usual tight leather, Devereux was decked out in a luscious charcoal gray suit and a magnificent turquoise silk shirt. The color of the silk made his eyes appear even more spectacularly kaleidoscopic than usual. His hair shone like liquid moonlight. He could’ve stepped right out of the pages of a European high fashion men's magazine.
Since I had no idea what he actually did with his time, I couldn't even imagine where he'd been, spiffed up like that. I felt a brief twinge of jealousy at the thought of him dressing up for a woman. Maybe his assistant, Luna, or one of the other perfect female specimens he had working for him at The Crypt.
But then, who was I to be jealous when I'd spent part of the afternoon taking a shower and playing "show me yours and I'll show you mine" with a fixated, well-endowed FBI agent?
Devereux glided over to me, swung me up off the ground with his arms around my waist, and thoroughly kissed me. And then kissed me again.
I was stunned, but apparently willing, because I'd thrown my arms around his neck at some point and kissed him back. Interesting to discover this entire new set of instinctual behaviors I seemed to have acquired regarding Devereux.
Pulling back slightly, he slid his lips close to my ear and whispered, "I have never felt so helpless as when I could not find you. There would have been no end to my vengeance had you been harmed."
My own, personal avenging angel He looks like a god but talks like a character from a historical romance novel I can sure pick 'em.
"Are you well? Did the dark one harm you?"
"Uh . . ."
There it is again. That brain-melt thing that happens to me whenever I'm within ten feet of Devereux. But, talk about bad timing
Alan leaped up from the couch, his face a mixture of confusion and outrage. "Hey! Devereux! What's going on here? What are you doing?"
Despite that fact that it was difficult to appear threatening while wearing short, pink sweatpants and a decidedly feminist T-shirt, Alan managed to gather up sufficient testosterone to get his point across.
But Devereux wasn't interested in butting heads with anyone. He lifted me up into his arms, glanced over at Alan and whispered gently in that amazing voice, "You are tired, my friend. Lie down on the couch and sleep now."
Damned if Alan didn't do just that.
He arranged himself into a fetal position, made a few soft, snorting sounds and drifted off, smiling.
Wow. That's impressive. And disturbing. Shouldn't I be putting up some kind of fuss? And should I worry about getting used to being carried around like this?
Devereux turned his attention back to me. "You must come with me now."
There was a swoosh of air, a sound reminiscent of the crackle of electricity, and we were suddenly standing in the middle of Devereux's private room, underneath The Crypt.
He released me and I stood, head spinning, stomach churning, trying to make sense of something that was impossible to make sense of. Whatever had just happened definitely messed with my equilibrium. I wasn't sure if my legs were up to their usual task of keeping me upright.
"Please. Come and sit. You do not look well." Devereux fetched a small chair, pushed it gently against the back of my knees, and I sat. I scanned the room, recognizing all the paintings on the walls, the art supplies and the strange stash of bottles on the table.
As I perched there, trying to reclaim my balance, I got more and more annoyed. The journey through Devereux's invisible transporter—or whatever it was he'd used to get me from where I had been to where I was—had definitely rained on the good feelings that kissing him had inspired in me, and I was royally torqued. Not to mention extremely tired of finding myself in locations chosen for me by some male or another without my consent. Something in my brain snapped.
No. That's it! No more manipulating me and jerking me around.
I vaulted up from the chair—the fury of a woman pissed—shaking with rage, and got right in Devereux's face. All the anger that had been stuffed during the previous hours burst out like a five-alarm fire as I yelled at him.
"I don't want to sit. I don't want to be here. You had no right to bring me here. I didn't tell you to bring me here. I'm tired. I want to be in my own house, in my own bed, away from all your bullshit!" I punched his stomach with my fist, and then, outrageously shocked at myself, retreated a couple of steps. Definitely a case of temporary insanity.