"Be calm, chérie." His fingers cupped her cheek.
Alex jerked away from his hand. She knew him, all right. Michael Cyprien, the sick son of a bitch who had torn out her throat. With his teeth.
"You. You get away from me." She jerked away, banging into a chair and nearly falling again. She began shaking, so hard that her teeth chattered. "Wh-wh-what did you do? How did you make me forget all that?"
"It was something that we did together." He watched her, his eyes bright in his grave, perfect face. The face she had made for him. "My people should not have brought you back like this. I am sorry."
"You're sorry?" Adrenaline and rage pumped into her veins. "After what you did? After what… you…" She touched the side of her throat. The skin was smooth and unbroken. "I remember you doing it. Biting me." But there was no wound, no scarring. Nothing.
"I did." He took a couple of steps toward her.
"Where?" She couldn't stop prodding her neck or backing away from him. "You didn't stitch me up. I can't feel anything, not even scar tissue. How did you make me think that?" A horrendous thought occurred to her. "Did you use drugs on me?"
"You were wounded, and I… helped you. My kind, we have ways to heal. It's just that no one…" He seemed to realize he was scaring the daylights out of her, and stood still. "Alexandra, I will not hurt you."
"Like the last time?" If she hadn't been so terrified, she would have slapped his mouth off. "You're a monster."
"I am." He didn't seem too worried about it. "Still, I am not so different from your other patients." He circled around her. "You operate on abnormal structures of the body, to improve function and approximate a normal appearance. In repairing the damage to my face, you restored my identity."
She couldn't look away from his eyes. They were bright blue now, but she remembered how they had dilated into those terrible, twin pits of amber hell.
Don't look at him.
"What are you on?" she demanded, fixing her gaze on a point past his head. "Did you give it to me?"
"No, I—it is too complicated to explain." He shook his head. "You must make a choice now, chérie. You can come back to New Orleans with me now, and I will provide for you. Or you can stay here and live your life as it was, but you must never speak of this to anyone."
He'd kidnapped her, imprisoned her, drugged her, made her believe he could heal spontaneously and that she had operated on him, on top of the delusion that he had torn out her throat, and he wanted her to make all that doctor-patient privileged? "Get the fuck out of my house."
He raised an elegant hand. "We must settle this first. I owe you everything. Had it not been for your skills, I would not be able to function normally."
He was still trying to sell her this bullshit. What kind of drugs is he on? Is he on them now? Did he come here to finish it? She couldn't keep her hand away from her neck. "Your normal function being, what? Kidnapping and drugging women? Keeping them prisoner?"
"No, but I must bring them to me, so I can feed."
Feed? She instantly flashed on Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who had murdered and then consumed portions of his victims' bodies. Mother of God, he was like Dahmer, and she had helped him.
She could hardly make her lips shape the revolting word. "You're a cannibal?"
"Non. I only take blood from them."
"You drank my blood?" Of course he had. With his incredible ability to heal, he'd probably read Anne Rice and watched Buffy and deluded himself into thinking he wasn't human. Some cities even had nightclubs for crackpots like him. "You think you're a vampire, don't you?"
"Vrykolakas. It is almost the same." He shrugged, but his gaze never left her face. "We are called the Darkyn."
Alex was back on-familiar ground now. As a resident, she had done a rotation in a psychiatric hospital. There she had first observed various types of psychosis. Although Cyprien had kidnapped her, attacked her, and drugged her to believe all sorts of crazy things, she was in control now.
Cyprien, on the other hand, was a very, very sick man.
"Michael." Using a calm, reasonable tone took every ounce of nerve she had left. "I think you and I should go for a ride. There's a very good friend of mine I'd like you to meet. He's a terrific guy, and he can help you so that you won't have to bear this by yourself anymore."
"I am not mad, Alexandra." He studied her for a moment. "Without my features and my sight, I could not function. You gave me back my purpose. I was—I am—in your debt, and I have repaid you poorly."
She'd given him the ability to hunt women again, which despite all her clinical objectivity was really going to make her puke, any second now.
"No problem, I'll bill you." She had to get him over to the hospital, where he could be locked up in a nice, safe psychiatric ward until the police could be called. "Or you could pay me back by coming and meeting my friend. He works at the same hospital that I do." The grin on her face felt stretched and ghastly. "You'll really like him."
"I never meant to call you to rapture. My need was too great, and we were left alone. I was only able to stop before I killed you because…" He trailed off as if not sure about that part.
Rapture? Cyprien was nuttier than a pecan tree in full bloom. "You stopped this time—that's the important part. I'll swear to that." Oops, maybe not a good idea to mention testifying at his trial.
He gave her a decidedly annoyed look. "You must never tell anyone about this. Because you survived, your life is in danger. No one has survived direct exposure to our blood, not in six hundred years. By some miracle you have not been cursed like us. I wish I could shout it to the world, but no one can ever know this about you."
Oh, God, was she the only one who had gotten away? It was too much for her; she had to get him out of her house and bolt the door and call every police officer in the city. She would need them to surround the house if she was ever going to feel safe again.
Get out the words. Sound sincere. "Yes, of course. I won't tell anyone."
He nodded. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Are you going back to your home in New Orleans now?" Should she try to get his address? If he was crazy enough to believe she'd keep quiet, that she was some sort of bizarre accomplice in this, maybe he would give it to her. If not, Grace had likely kept the letterhead. Either way.
"No, I will stay here until I am sure you are well." Michael Cyprien took a card from his pocket and dropped it on the table beside the briefcase. "I can be reached at this number. Au revoir."
She didn't breathe until the door closed behind him. Then she ran for the phone and bumped into the coffee table on the way. The briefcase bounced to the floor, where the weight of it caused the simple snap locks to pop open. She didn't have to count the stacks of money that fell out to know how much there was.
Four million dollars, in cash.
The limousine that had transported Michael Cyprien from the airport to Alexandra Keller's house whisked him from there to a private estate on Lake Michigan. The driver, a quiet, uniformed German who handled the car as deftly as he had once wielded his sword for a forgotten emperor, said little to distract him.
Go back. Go back and get her. She is yours.
Michael resisted the urge to do just that. The doctor was not dead or in any danger of dying from exposure to his blood. Nor was she enraptured any longer, if she had ever been at all. The only thing preventing her memory from returning had been a lingering trace of Phillipe's compulsion and Michael's expunging, which he had easily dispersed. She was safe, whole, and human. Somehow in the last week, she had shrugged off madness, catatonia, and death.
Alone. By herself.
The sights and sounds of Chicago blurred past the windows as he considered his options. What Alexandra Keller had done was beyond his experience. Her existence defied both human medical science and Darkyn lore, and the consequences on either side promised to be brutal. Particularly for those who still believed the Darkyn were cursed for eternity.
What is she to us ? To me?
Michael didn't realize the car had stopped until the driver opened his door. He looked out at the stark lines of the contemporary structure, which looked more like a sprawling research laboratory than a home, and climbed out.
Valentin Jaus, the suzerain of the Chicago jardin, waited outside the entrance to his home. The short, slim man wore casual, modern clothes that did nothing to camouflage his military bearing. Flanking him were four large, blank-faced bodyguards, all of whom Michael knew would be superbly trained and disciplined. Their master expected nothing less than perfection from his men, and drilled them until they were precision death machines. The five men waited in silence until Michael approached.
"Seigneur Cyprien." Jaus clicked his heels together and bowed his head, as only an Austrian could do without looking ridiculous.
Michael breathed in the faint scent of camellias. "I am not yet seigneur, but I thank you, Suzerain Jaus." Before this, he had never personally visited the Chicago jardin. "Forgive the haste of my arrival."
"You are always welcome here." Jaus gestured to the entrance door, flanked by two more guards.
Michael admired the interior of the estate house, which was spare and furnished in a clean, minimal style. The steel and black colors Jaus preferred reminded him of the industries that had first drawn the Darkyn to come here to Chicago. Where there were factories, there were people—enough to keep the Darkyn safe, nourished, and anonymous. The English Kyn had moved west, while the French had gone south, but the Austrians and Germans had stayed and flourished. Next to New Orleans, Chicago was one of the oldest, and most prosperous, of their American outposts.
They had experienced their share of troubles, too. The old suzerain, a German named Sheltzer, had been picked up for questioning during the early days of World War II. Anyone with a German name or accent had been fair game, but Sheltzer's odd behavior had attracted the attention of the jail-house chaplain, a rather talkative Catholic priest. Before the jardin could arrange for their suzerain's release, the Brethren took him and tortured Sheltzer to death.
