Sean looked dismayed. "Oh, Rue, it was so long ago. And I'm not much of a crowd pleaser."
"That's not true," she said, adding silently, You please me. "Think about it? My professor would be thrilled. She's a nut about everything Irish."
"Oh, and where's she from?"
"Oklahoma."
"A far way from Ireland."
"You want another drink?"
"No." He looked down at the bottle, seemed surprised he'd drained it. "I must be going, so you can get a little sleep. Do you have classes tomorrow?"
"No, it's Saturday. I get to sleep in."
"Me, too."
Sean had actually made a little joke, aad Rue laughed.
"So do you sleep in a regular bed?" she asked. "Or a coffin, or what?"
" In my own apartment I have a regular bed, since the room's light-tight. I have a couple of places in the city where I can stay, if my apartment's too far away when it gets close to dawn. Like hostels for vampires. There are coffins to sleep in, at those places. More convenient."
Rue and Sean stood. She took the empty bottle from him and leaned backward to put it by her sink. Suddenly the silence became significant, and her pulse speeded up.
"Now I'll kiss you good-night," Sean said deliberately. In one step he was directly in front of her, his hand behind her head, his spread fingers holding her in exactly the right position. Then his mouth was on Rue's, and after a moment, during which Rue held very still, his tongue touched the seam of her lips. She parted them.
There was the oddity of Sean's mouth being cool; and the oddity of kissing Sean, period. She was finally sure that Sean's interest in her was that of a man for a woman. For a cool man, he gave a passionate kiss.
"Sean," she whispered, pulling back a little.
"What?" His voice was equally as quiet.
"We shouldn't… "
"Layla."
His use of her real name intoxicated her, and when he kissed her again, she felt only excitement. She felt more comfortable with the vampire than she'd felt with any man. But the jolt she felt, low down, when his tongue touched hers, was not what she'd call comfortable. She slid her arms around his neck and abandoned herself to the kiss. When Rue felt his body pressing against her, she knew he found their contact equally exciting.
His mouth traveled down her neck. He licked the spot where he usually bit her. Her body flexed against his, involuntarily.
"Layla," he said, against her ear, "who did you see that frightened you so much?"
It was like a bucket of cold water tossed in her face. Everything in her shut down. She shoved him away from her violently. "You did this to satisfy your curiosity? You thought if you softened me up, I'd answer all your questions?"
"Oh, of course," he said, and his voice was cold with anger. "This is my interrogation technique."
She lowered her face into her hands just to gain a second of privacy.
She was half inclined to take him literally. He was acting as if she was the unreasonable one, as if all the details of her short life should belong to him.
There was a knock on the door.
Their eyes met, hers wide with surprise, his questioning. She shook her head. She wasn't expecting anyone.
Rue went to the door slowly and looked through the peephole. Sean was right behind her, moving as silently as only vampires could move, when she unlocked the door and swung it open.
Thompson stood there, and Hallie. Between the two, awkwardly, they supported Hallie's partner, David. David was bleeding profusely from his left thigh. His khakis were soaked with blood. The vampire's large dark eyes were open, but fluttering.
Thompson's gaze was fixed on Rue; when he realized that Sean was standing behind her, he was visibly startled.
"Oh, come in, bring him in!" Rue exclaimed, shocked. "What happened?" She spared a second to be glad none of her neighbors seemed to be up. She shut the door before any of them roused.
Hallie was sobbing. Her tears had smeared her heavy eye makeup. "It was because of me," she sobbed. "Thompson and Karl came in the bar. David was already there, he'd been having words with this jerk… " While she was trying to tell Rue, she was helping David over to Rue's bed. Thompson was not being quite as much assistance as he should have been.
Sean whipped a towel from the rack in the bathroom and spread it on Rue's bed before the two eased the wounded David down. Hallie knelt and swung David's legs up, and David moaned.
"It was the Fellowship," Thompson said as Hallie unbuckled David's belt and began to pull his sodden slacks down.
The Fellowship of the Sun was to vampires as the Klanwas to African Americans. The Fellowship purported to be a civic organization, but it functioned more like a church, a church that taught its adherents the religion of violence.
"The other night I turned down this guy in the bar," Hallie said. "He just gave me the creeps. Then he found out I worked for Black Moon, and that I performed with David, you know, for the show, and he was waiting for me tonight… "
"Take it easy," Rue said soothingly. "You're gonna hyperventilate, Hallie. Listen, you go wash your face, and you get a bottle of TrueBlood for David, because he needs some blood. He's gonna heal."
Snuffling, Hallie ducked into the bathroom.
"He decided to get Hallie tonight, and David intervened?" Sean asked Thompson quietly. Rue listened with one ear while she stanched the bleeding by applying pressure with a clean kitchen towel. It rapidly reddened. She was not as calm as she'd sounded. In fact, her hands were shaking.
"David likes her, and she's his partner," Thompson said, as if David's intervention required an excuse. "Karl had left earlier, and David and I came out just in time to catch the show. The bastard had his arm wrapped around Hallie's neck. But he dropped her and went for David real fast, with a knife."
"Out on the street, or in the bar?"
"Behind the bar, in the alley."
"Where's the body?"
Rue stiffened. Her hands slipped for a moment, and the bleeding began again. She pressed harder.
"I took him over the rooftops and deposited him in an alley three blocks away. David didn't bite him. He just hit him—once."
Rue knew no one was thinking of calling the police. And she was all too aware that justice wasn't likely to be attainable.
"He'll heal faste rif he has real blood, right?" she said over her shoulder. She hesitated. "Shall I give him some?" She tried to keep her voice even. She had hardly exchanged ten words with David, who was very brawny and very tall. He had long, rippling black hair and a gold hoop in one ear. She knew, through Megan and Julie, that David was often booked to strip at bridal showers, as well as performing with Hallie in private clubs. In her other life, Rue would have walked a block to avoid David. Now she was pulling up the sleeve of her sweater to bare her wrist.
"No," said Sean very definitely. He pulled the sleeve right back down, and she stared at him, her mouth compressed with irritation. She might have felt a smidgen of relief, but Sean had no right to dictate to her.
Hallie had emerged from the bathroom, looking much fresher. "Let Sean give blood, Rue," she said, reading Rue's face correctly. "It won't make him weak, like it would you. If Sean won't, I will."
David, who'd been following the conversation at least a little, said, "No, Hallie. I have bitten you already three times this week." David had a heavy accent, perhaps Israeli.
Without further ado, Sean knelt by the bed and held his wrist in front of David. David took Sean's arm in both his hands and bit. A slight flexing of Sean's lips was the only sign that he'd felt the fangs. They all watched as David's mouth moved against Sean's wrist.
"Sean, what a dark horse you are, me boyo, visiting the lady here after hours." Thompson's attempt at an Irish accent was regrettable. His eyes lit on the empty TrueBlood bottle by the sink. "And her all ready for your arrival."