Eliza Ford: Cause of Death: Unnatural

He nodded. "Yeah, sure. That's fine." He started down the steps. "Take some drugs," he said.

"What?"

"For your headache."

And he was gone.

She knew he was there the second she turned the key in the lock.

Her apartment wasn't empty. She knew it, and he knew she knew it too. She didn't bother turning on the lights. There was an orange glow coming through the window from the street light outside her building. She heard Robert's car drive away and a siren in the distance. She heard a breath, and felt the air move softly, slipping under a piece of paper on her hall table and wafting it to the floor.

A shadow slinked from the corner of her kitchen into the dark space at the end of the hall.

The human in Em sensed his hunger and his violence and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The vampire in Em sensed his hunger too, and sneered at his weakness.

Em let out a long slow breath and pushed it against the roof of her mouth so it felt like a growl. The shadow in the hall coalesced into a black cat shape and hissed at her.

Em rolled her eyes and smothered a laugh. Always up for sparring, that one, even when he was on her father's business. Whatever that was this time.

"Okay, enough's enough," sighed Em. "Come on out."

The cat crouched down low, then pounced directly at Em. In midair the cat seemed to fall apart into black smoke and swirl for a moment. The mass of smoke grew larger and solidified into the shape of a man standing taller than Em and so close to her there was barely an eyelash between them.

He had black hair, dark eyes, a pale face and a long black coat that swept the floor. There was just the right amount of muscle in those shoulders to fill out the coat. Underneath there was a black silk shirt unbuttoned at the collar. On his face there was a scar that ran down his cheek to his jaw, but aside from that his complexion was smooth. Beautiful. A little clichéd perhaps, thought Em, but stylish. He always chose this form, at first anyway. He knew she liked it.

He stared at her, his eyes inches from hers.

Em blew a piece of hair out of her face and directly into his eyes. He stepped back with a satisfying fit of blinking.

Em allowed herself a smile and turned back to locking the door behind her.

Jarek was here. Her father was lord of the clan, but Jarek was his commander in chief. And Em's one time lover. Powerful, ruthless, lethal and irresistible.

Em's smile slid a little as she wondered why he was here.

Em walked down the hall to the kitchen but stopped as Jarek stood to block her way. Again they were nose to nose. Em froze. She felt Jarek breathe in. She saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a long, slow smile. He tilted his head to gaze down at her body. The dress she'd worn to the burlesque club was short, revealing. He raised a hand and with the backs of his fingers brushed away the collar of her coat revealing more of her throat. The hand moved again and a finger, cold as ice, trailed its way down her chest to the neckline of her dress. His smile grew broader.

Em let go of her hold on her body's matter and mass. She spun into smoke as quickly has he had, and walked directly through him. It was like swimming in fog. Jarek's dark energy had none of the human touches hers had. He was cold to the core.

She pulled her frame back together on the other side, and walked into her kitchen. She switched on a light.

Jarek snarled and spun around.

"What are you doing here, lover"? she asked.

Jarek's form flickered a little, as if he was having trouble holding it in. A few wisps of black smoke curled around his hair - for a moment his eyes blacked out.

Em grinned. "Temper," she said. "What did you expect? Two hundred years of silence and then you break into my apartment."

Jarek watched her for a moment, then followed her into the kitchen. He prowled around it restlessly, poking at the fruit bowl, fingering the knives in their wooden block, frowning at the toaster. Em pulled some painkillers from the cupboard over the microwave and popped a handful through their foil wraps.

Jarek exploded with impatience.

"What are you doing here, Em?" he said. "What is all this... this...? Do you like this human stuff? What are you doing hanging around people? Why are you doing this?"

A dart of his dark energy shot out of his mind and flew at hers. It was a surprise attack, designed to cut through her defences and open up her thoughts to him. But Em knew Jarek of old. She shrugged off his thrust as simply as if she was brushing away a leaf that had fallen on her shoulder. She'd always been a match for Jarek, no matter what he did. It was something she didn't even need to think about. While others were powerless in the face of Jarek's mastery of dark energy, Em was like a mirror. It infuriated him, and excited him.

Em snorted. "Is this what you came here for? This old argument? Jarek, we've been over this a thousand times. I like it here. I like humans."

She waited. She knew this wasn't why he was here. She guessed it would have something to do with Alina. Her father had probably learned Alina was here and sent Jarek to bring her home. If that was the case, both her father and Jarek would want to know why Em hadn't told them his runaway wife was hiding out in her city. They'd want to know if Em was sheltering Alina.

To tell the truth, she hadn't known Alina was in the city. These headaches had masked her usual ability to feel out the dark energies around her. The pounding in her head had been going on for week or so now, maybe even three. Had Alina been down at the harborside all that time? What else had Em missed in that time?

One thing she did know, she certainly wasn't going to explain that little weakness to the second most powerful vampire in existence.

Jarek seemed to relax a little. He'd smiled when she'd thrown back his attack at him. "Just like old times," he'd said, and he'd reached over to the fruit bowl to select a plum.

"It's a nice town you have here," he said casually, all the silent challenges of the last few minutes seemingly forgotten. "Love the view. The locals look friendly." He gave her a pointed look and arched an eyebrow in the direction Robert's car had taken.

Em swirled her glass of water and downed her painkillers. Funny, her head wasn't as bad now.

"So what do you do here, Emilia?"

"I have a job," she said bluntly.

Jarek gave a short bark of laughter. "A job?" he said incredulously. "You are working for a human? For money?" His lips curled into a sneer. "Oh, that is too much, even for you. The Lady Emilia, slaving for a mortal in one of their crowded stinking cities, living alone in an empty apartment, and..." he laughed as a look of realization crossed his face, "... and screwing the boss!"

He crossed the space between them and took the glass out of her hand. "What would daddy say?"

"What do you want, Jarek?" Em said angrily.

Jarek's face turned expressionless, like a blind covering a window. Em had seen that look before, thousands of times, usually when Jarek was at his most vicious. She braced herself for whatever was coming.

"Alina is here," he said, plainly, and then he purred, "and you knew."

Em ignored the threat in his voice and the promise of violence in his eyes. She smiled and leaned in to kiss the scar on his cheek. He stiffened and his head tilted away from her ever so slightly. Good, thought Em.

"Of course I knew," she said injecting what she hoped was just the right amount of scorn into her tone. "She's opened a club down by the harbor, though you probably know that. And she's been terribly naughty. She's made herself a whole host of vampires - her own little entourage."

"And she's been killing, outside of cull protocols," said Jarek.

"Well, yes of course she has," said Em. "Who doesn't?" She shrugged. "You'd like her little club, Jarek. Some of her followers are just your style."