I hesitated, then took it. His hand squished ever so slightly, and it took a lot not to jerk back. I forced myself to shake his hand, to smile, to let go, and not to rub my hand on my skirt.
Dominic shook my hand as well. His was cool and dry. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Blake. I will contact you tomorrow and we will discuss things."
"I'll be expecting your call, Mr. Dumare."
"Call me, Dominic, please."
I nodded. "Dominic. We can discuss it, but I hate to take your money when I'm not sure that I can help you."
"May I call you Anita?" he asked.
I hesitated and shrugged. "Why not."
"Don't worry about money," Sabin said, "I have plenty of that for all the good it has done me."
"How is the woman you love taking the change in your appearance?" Jean-Claude asked.
Sabin looked at him. It was not a friendly look. "She finds it repulsive, as do I. She feels immense guilt. She has not left me, nor is she with me."
"You'd lived for close to seven hundred years," I said. "Why screw things up for a woman?"
Sabin turned to me, a line of ooze creeping down his face like a black tear. "Are you asking me if it was worth it, Ms. Blake?"
I swallowed and shook my head. "It's none of my business. I'm sorry I asked."
He drew the hood over his face. He turned back to me, black, a cup of shadows where his face should have been. "She was going to leave me, Ms. Blake. I thought that I would sacrifice anything to keep her by my side, in my bed. I was wrong." He turned that blackness to Jean-Claude. "We will see you tomorrow night, Jean-Claude."
"I look forward to it."
Neither vampire offered to shake hands. Sabin glided for the door, the robe trailing behind him, empty. I wondered how much of his lower body was left and decided I didn't want to know.
Dominic shook my hand again. "Thank you, Anita. You have given us hope." He held my hand and stared into my face as if he could read something there. "And do think about my offer to teach you. There are very few of us who are true necromancers."
I took back my hand. "I'll think about it. Now I really do have to go."
He smiled, held the door for Sabin, and out they went. Jean-Claude and I stood a moment in silence. I broke it first. "Can you trust them?"
Jean-Claude sat on the edge of my desk, smiling. "Of course not."
"Then why did you agree to let them come?"
"The council has declared that no master vampires in the United States may quarrel until that nasty law that is floating around Washington is dead. One undead war, and the anti-vampire lobby would push through the law and make us illegal again."
I shook my head. "I don't think Brewster's Law has a snowball's chance. Vampires are legal in the United States. Whether I agree with it or not, I don't think that's going to change."
"How can you be so sure?"
"It's sort of hard to say a group of beings is alive and has rights, then change your mind and say killing them on sight is okay again. The ACLU would have a field day."
He smiled. "Perhaps. Regardless, the council has forced a truce on all of us until the law is decided one way or another."
"So you can let Sabin in your territory, because if he misbehaves, the council will hunt him down and kill him."
Jean-Claude nodded.
"But you'd still be dead," I said.
He spread his hands, graceful, empty. "Nothing's perfect."
I laughed. "I guess not."
"Now, aren't you going to be late for your date with Monsieur Zeeman?"
"You're being awfully civilized about this," I said.
"Tomorrow night you will be with me, ma petite. I would be a poor . . . sport to begrudge Richard his night."
"You're usually a poor sport."
"Now, ma petite,that is hardly fair. Richard is not dead, is he?"
"Only because you know that if you kill him, I'll kill you." I held a hand up before he could say it. "I'd try to kill you, and you'd try to kill me, etc." This was an old argument.
"So, Richard lives, you date us both, and I am being patient. More patient than I have ever been with anyone."
I studied his face. He was one of those men who was beautiful rather than handsome, but the face was masculine; you wouldn't mistake him for female, even with the long hair. In fact, there was something terribly masculine about Jean-Claude, no matter how much lace he wore.
He could be mine: lock, stock, and fangs. I just wasn't sure I wanted him. "I've got to go," I said.
He pushed away from my desk. He was suddenly standing close enough to touch. "Then go, ma petite."
I could feel his body inches from mine like a shimmering energy. I had to swallow before I could speak. "It's my office. You have to leave."
He touched my arms lightly, a brush of fingertips. "Enjoy your evening, ma petite." His fingers wrapped around my arms, just below the shoulders. He didn't lean over me or draw me that last inch closer. He simply held my arms, and stared down at me.
I met his dark, dark blue eyes. There had been a time not so long ago that I couldn't have met his gaze without falling into it and being lost. Now I could meet his eyes, but in some ways, I was just as lost. I raised up on tiptoe, putting my face close to his.
"I should have killed you a long time ago."
"You have had your chances, ma petite. You keep saving me."
"My mistake," I said.
He laughed, and the sound slid down my body like fur against naked skin. I shuddered in his arms.
"Stop that," I said.
He kissed me lightly, a brush of lips, so I couldn't feel the fangs. "You would miss me if I were gone, ma petite. Admit it."
I drew away from him. His hands slid down my arms, over my hands, until I drew my fingertips across his hands. "I've got to go."
"So you said."
"Just get out, Jean-Claude, no more games."
His face sobered instantly as if a hand had wiped it clean. "No more games, ma petite. Go to your other lover." It was his turn to raise a hand and say, "I know you are not truly lovers. I know you are resisting both of us. Brave, ma petite." A flash of something, maybe anger, crossed his face and was gone like a ripple lost in dark water.
"Tomorrow night you will be with me and it will be Richard's turn to sit at home and wonder." He shook his head. "Even for you I would not have done what Sabin has done. Even for your love, there are things I would not do." He stared at me suddenly fierce, anger flaring through his eyes, his face. "But what I do is enough."
"Don't go all self-righteous on me," I said. "If you hadn't interfered, Richard and I would be engaged, maybe more, by now."
"And what? You would be living behind a white picket fence with two point whatever children. I think you lie to yourself more than to me, Anita."
It was always a bad sign when he used my real name. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, ma petite, that you are as likely to thrive in domestic bliss as I am." With that, he glided to the door and left. He closed the door quietly but firmly behind him.
Domestic bliss? Who me? My life was a cross between a preternatural soap opera and an action adventure movie. Sort of As the Casket Turnsmeets Rambo.White picket fences didn't fit. Jean-Claude was right about that.
I had the entire weekend off. It was the first time in months. I'd been looking forward to this evening all week. But truthfully, it wasn't Jean-Claude's nearly perfect face that was haunting me. I kept flashing on Sabin's face. Eternal life, eternal pain, eternal ugliness. Nice afterlife.