Heather Graham - Kiss Of Darkness

“Look, I’m fine. I just—”

“Then, because it would be good for you, you’re going to see a nutritionist and start on an exercise program.” Before he could start complaining, she added, “Jake, I know you’re extremely intelligent and can slide right through all your schoolwork, and that part of the reason you don’t care if you make it to class is that you’re way ahead of most of the work going on. That may mean you need to skip ahead, or start adding some university classes onto your schedule. We have a long way to go to get to the root of your unhappiness.”

“I’m not unhappy.”

“You’re not?”

He flushed again, looking down. “I just don’t belong.”

“Then we’ll find out where you do belong. And where you want to go.”

“Games,” he said.

“What?”

“I’d like to design computer games. I think I could do it. I think I’d be good at it.”

“I’ll bet you would be,” she assured him. “Next week, same time. And I’ll give your parents a call to—”

“I thought you couldn’t repeat anything I said here,” he demanded angrily.

“I’m not going to repeat anything. I just want them to get you set up with the right professionals. Now, if you want to say anything else, if you think we haven’t covered anything, we still have a few minutes,” she told him.

She was startled when he stood and took a step that brought him right in front of her chair. His eyes were alight; he was tense, excited. “I heard you were there,” he told her. “In Transylvania. I read about it in the paper. I heard you blew the whistle on the vampires, that you were the one who called the police.”

Oh, God, this again!

But she didn’t intend to be secretive and feed into his fantasies. She stared at him levelly.

“I met some students over there. One of them left me a note, and I passed it on to the police,” she said.

She was startled again when he set his hands on the arms of the chair. Leaned down and looked deeply into her eyes. “Aren’t you afraid? Afraid the vampires will come after you—for revenge?”

She stared straight back into his eyes and let out a weary sigh. “From what I heard, Jake, someone freaked out way before the police got there, and the party was already over. Am I afraid the vampires will come after me? No. Feel free to stay if you have something important to discuss, Jake, but if you’re just trying to turn the tables here, forget it. Okay?” Her voice was calm and steady. Bored. He had expected to get a rise out of her, but she knew better than to let him.

He shrugged, pushing away from the chair. “Sure sounded like a hell of a party,” he murmured.

“Yeah, great party. A girl is still in the hospital,” Jessica said, making a mental note to drop by the hospital over the weekend. She had left Romania soon after the students’ parents had arrived, but she knew from the newspaper that Mary had been brought home to a New Orleans hospital. The papers had turned the event into a decadent costume party and little more, but anything that mentioned vampires intrigued the public, and even the national papers had picked up the story.

When Jake was gone, she walked to the front desk. Since they were expecting a lodger, she’d sent Stacey home early. Now she pulled out her appointment book, curious to see what her schedule was for the following Monday. When she opened the book, she sat back thoughtfully.

Jeremy had made an appointment for himself.

Bryan MacAllistair felt he’d arrived at the perfect time in New Orleans—not just the season, but the time of day, as well—when he first stood in front of the old Montresse place.

The dead heat of the day was gone, and night was just coming on. It came softly, perhaps deceptively, to this area of the French Quarter, just beyond reach of the neon lights, the blare of the music and the laughter of inebriated tourists. Here, only the faint sounds of a distant waltz could be heard, or perhaps they were only imagined as shadows fell over leafy trees. The Montresse house stood back beyond a brick wall and iron gate, gently cradled by the darkness. The night was kind, he thought. There was no aura of decay about the place. The grounds were slightly overgrown, and looked as if the paint were threatening to peel but hadn’t quite reached the point where it was willing to abandon the splendor of the facade.

He stared at the house for a while. Then he found the hinge on the wrought-iron gate and entered, following the stone path from the sidewalk to the porch. Montresse House was old, built when there was still space to be had in the French Quarter. There was a graceful lawn, dotted with flowers and trees that dripped lazily with moss. The porch was more reminiscent of an old plantation house rather than a city dwelling.

As he walked, he was aware that, above him, from a window on the second floor, a curtain had been pulled back.

His arrival was being watched.

With a shrug, he stepped up on the porch and reached for the heavy door knocker, but before he could touch it, the door swung open.

The woman standing there appeared to be in her early twenties. She had a pretty face and a cheerful smile.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he returned.

“You’re the professor the travel agency booked?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s me. Bryan MacAllistair.”

“Cool. Come on in.”

He stepped inside, and the woman shut the door behind him.

“I’m Stacey LeCroix, Ms. Fraser’s assistant. Welcome.”

“Thanks. This place sounded like heaven,” he said. “It’s a beautiful house. Is Ms. Fraser from New Orleans? Has she owned the house forever?”

“Oh, no, Jessica’s from…actually, I’m not sure where she’s from originally, but she was practicing in Jacksonville before she came here. She’d been here for a few years before I started working for her. I know about the house, though—a friend had been keeping an eye open for her and called her when it came up on the market. But, you’re absolutely right. It’s beautiful. Come on. I’ll show you around.”

A sweeping staircase was the central focus of the foyer, and he could well imagine being swept back through the decades to a time when cotton was king and Southern belles had whisked along the hallways in elegant ballgowns. There were broad double doors to both the right and left, closed now.

“The ladies’ parlor was to your left and the men’s smoking room to the right. Of course, we prohibit smoking in the house, though your room has access to the wraparound balcony, just in case.”

“A cigar here and there,” he told her, shrugging. Her expression clearly displayed what she thought of cigar smoke, but he refused to back down. “However, I prefer my cigars with good brandy, right time, right place,” he told her reassuringly.

“Humph,” she murmured. “Well, in the morning, the doors to the right are open and it’s a lovely dining room. The original dining room is Ms. Fraser’s office. The bedrooms are upstairs. If you lose your key or have any maintenance problems, there’s a groundskeeper’s cottage just to the rear of the main house—you can reach it through the yard. Ms. Fraser and I both work but Gareth Miller, our handyman, is just about always around.”

“No problem,” Bryan said.

She set one foot on the first step of the stairway, and turned, an uncertain look on her face. “You’re a professor, right?” she asked. He had the feeling that she was uncertain, and irritated with herself because of it.

“Yes, just as the booking agency promised.”

She nodded, still frowning. “Of course. Um…sorry. Follow me.”

Up the stairs and to the left, she opened the first door on the right side of the hallway. “I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable,” she assured him. “The bath was added soon after the turn of the last century. Deco fixtures,” she said proudly. “We do charge a bit more than most, but…”