"Well," I said, reminding myself that she was my oldest and dearest friend, and if she wouldn't be understanding and supportive in my time of need, no one would, "that wasn't exactly the truth."
Her eyes widened and she stopped trying to shove me toward the stairs. "Oh my God! You don't mean… Joy, why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't know quite how," I said miserably, playing with the buttons on my coat. "It's not quite something I want everyone to know."
"I'll say! Geez, this puts a whole new light on things, huh? When are you due?"
"Due?"
"The baby. When's it due? And what are you going to say to Bradley?"
I smacked her on her arm. "I'm not pregnant, you boob!"
"Oh." She looked a bit disappointed. "If it's not a baby that made you feel faint, what was it?"
I took a peek down the stairs to make sure no one was hovering just out of sight. "I'm having, for lack of a better word, visions."
"Visions?"
"Yeah. You ever had them?"
"You mean visions of the Virgin Mary, that kind of vision?"
"No, not that. My visions are about… a man."
"Ooooh, now that sounds like my kind of vision! Is he naked? Are you? Are you touching each other? Does he have a really big package?"
"Will you drag your mind from the gutter for a moment while I'm explaining to you how I'm going stark, raving mad? Do you think you could do me the common courtesy of being WORRIED about the fact that I'm having visions?"
"Why?" she asked, her head tipped in question.
"Why?" I gawked at her in disbelief. "Why? WHY? You ask why?"
"One why, not four."
I grabbed her ear and peered in it. She tried to squirm away. "What are you doing?"
I released her earlobe. "Looking to see if I can see through to the other side. Did you not hear me? I'm seeing visions! Visions! Strange, unexplained phenomena whereby I'm possessed by the emotions and feelings and sights of someone else. In this case, I'm feeling things from someone who's…"
I couldn't bring myself to say it.
"Someone who's what?"
"A vampire," I mumbled, wishing now I hadn't brought the subject up. It was far better to go quietly insane on my own than to suffer the embarrassment of admitting I was being used by a creature whose existence I had long and vociferously denied.
"What? I couldn't hear you."
"A vampire," I said a bit more loudly, peeking at her from under lowered lashes.
She blinked at me. Twice. "OK."
I made scrunched-up lips at her. "OK? Is that it? I tell you—that's me we're talking about, the skeptical one—that I'm having visions coming from a real, honest-to-goodness, card-carrying vampire, and all you can say is OK? You're not going to laugh or make fun of me or tell me I must be imagining it?"
"Idiot!" she said fondly, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me toward the stairs. "It's because I know you that I know you must be going through hell experiencing something that's way beyond your control. Come on, Christian's waited long enough. Let's go see if we can't find the Dark One who's giving you all the trouble."
"Wait a minute! You're not even going to question whether or not I'm really having visions? I thought I was going insane before I decided to believe in them! The least you can do is appreciate how hard this is for me!"
"Oh, I know it's hard for you. I know you must be wigging out at it, and squirming with embarrassment because now you have to admit that I was right about vampires all along, but I'll save my gloating for later."
"How grateful I am for your tender mercies. That aside, how do you know that the one who is affecting me will be at the fair?" I asked, following her down the stairs, more than a little befuddled by her quick acceptance of something that still gave me the willies to think about.
"Has to be," she called back over her shoulder. "He's marked you. That's the first step in the Joining, and everyone knows they can't Join with you unless they're physically close."
I looked down at my hands as we descended the second flight of stairs. "I'm not marked."
"That's what the visions are—his mark. If they're like what's described in the books, you're experiencing things that he sees and feels, basically all his strong emotions. Dark Ones can only do that with their true soul mate, so if he's projecting to you, that must mean he's marking you as his."
Instantly I thought of Raphael.
"How many visions have you had?" she asked as we rounded the landing.
"Hmm?" I pulled my mind from the thoughts it was pursuing. "Well, the one at Miranda's was due to the gin, I'm sure, so that leaves me a couple last night in the bar, and one just before we had dinner."
She paused and turned around to face me. "You had one before dinner? When?"
"When I was standing in the hall with Christian."
"Christian?" She thought for a minute, then shook her head. "Nope, can't be; we've seen him eat and drink. Hey!"
Her eyes met mine. A chill rippled down my back. I swallowed. "Raphael."
She nodded.
"The last vision happened when Christian was kissing my hand. Raphael was standing in the doorway, watching us."
"Cool!" she breathed.
"It is not," I snapped, pushing her to get her going. She stood where she was.
"When the first visions in the bar came, where was Raphael?"
The sensation of blood flowing down my throat, subduing the hunger howling inside me flashed into mind. "He was. uh… feeding."
Her eyes widened until I thought they'd pop out. "Oh, that is so cool! He shared his feeding with you? Wow! What did it feel like? What did he do? Could you see everything?"
I closed my eyes for a minute and took a couple of deep breaths to rid myself of the remembered images. "Yes, and I'd really like not to remember it, if you don't mind."
"OK." She thought for a moment. "So you had a vision before Raphael came into the bar? Just before?"
I nodded.
"Well, then, there's your answer!" She started back down the stairs.
"Wait a minute!" I hurried after her. Christian was waiting for us at the door. "Roxy, wait up—what do you mean, there's my answer? What answer?"
"Sorry, Joy's having a bit of vampire trouble," she told Christian in a confidential tone that made me want to die right there on the spot.
Not surprisingly, he looked astonished by the news. "Is she indeed?"
"Do you have to tell everyone?" I hissed, pinching her arm, flashing a reassuring smile at Christian. He just looked at me with a faintly puzzled frown between his brows, no doubt trying to calculate how much trouble it would be to bundle me away to the local loony bin.
"That's OK, Christian believes in vampires. Remember the 'more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio'? Joy's having visions," she added. "She's been marked by a Moravian. I was just explaining to her that it must be Raphael, since he refused to eat in front of us."
"Wait a minute," I said, remembering something she'd said that morning. "You said just this morning that he couldn't be one because he had a beer at the bar."
"Ah," she said cannily, throwing open the door and charging out into the night. "But did you actually see him drink the beer? Let's shake a leg, people. I want to examine Raphael up close. Imagine sitting next to him and not even knowing what he was!"
I grabbed Christian by the hand and hauled him with me as I ran after Roxy. "But what did you mean when you said something was the answer to my visions?"
She stopped just beyond the stretch of graveled area that served as the hotel's parking lot. "Think about it. You have visions seeing Raphael approaching the bar—"