“I…” Quinn began. The look on his face was desperate. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s not true, is it? It can’t be true.”
“It’s true,” I said and put an arm around Quinn. “That’s why we’re together. Show him your fangs, honey. Yup, we’re vampires. Both of us. Vampire lovers, together for all eternity.”
I kissed Quinn fully on the lips, then turned to smile widely at Peter, fangs and all. I watched Peter’s expression turn from confusion to rage as he stared at his old hunting buddy. He grabbed his steak knife, his one good eye full of fury. “That bitch did this to you. That bitch made you an evil bloodsucker.”
Amy stood up and stomped her foot. “I won’t let you talk about my best friend like that.”
“I’ll talk about her any way I damn well want to,” Peter snarled. “Quinn, I am sorry, I truly am. If you were me, I know you’d want me to do the same thing and end your life. Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
Quinn was still in shock by what I’d said. I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty. In one sentence I’d basically screwed his life up beyond repair. But I only did what I had to do. Anything to take attention off myself. Unfortunately, it seemed like it was going to work in reverse. Peter’s attention was now fully on me, his rage multiplied by the thought I’d ruined his friend in such a monstrous way.
“Please don’t tell my father,” Quinn finally said, his voice weak. “I beg you.”
Peter raised an eyebrow at that and clutched the knife tighter. “I will only tell him that you died with honor at the hands of one of these evil creatures. It would be better for everyone that he never knows the truth. Now let’s go.”
He rose to his feet. He was taller than I remembered, must have been at least six foot five.
He was a tall, imposing man, built like a Mack truck, easily able to crush me with his bare hands as any good pest-control career man could do.
He took a step toward us, and his legs crumpled beneath him. He fell in a heap to the floor, regaining the stares of the restaurant patrons. A waiter narrowly missed stepping on him as he went by with a tray full of drinks for a nearby gawking table.
“What the hell?” Peter tried to brace himself against the table, attempting to get up but failing. “What the hell have you done to me?”
Amy let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank God. I didn’t think the pills were going to work. But I figured twenty of them should probably do something.”
Quinn leaped to his feet, and I grabbed his arm to stop him from getting too close to Peter. “You poisoned him?”
“Don’t worry, they’re only muscle relaxants,” I told him. “But, come to think of it, twenty is quite a lot.” I leaned over toward Peter, who tried to lift the steak knife at me, but it fell uselessly out of his hand. “If you don’t feel very good in ten minutes, I’d ask one of the waiters to call an ambulance, okay? Oh, and thanks for dinner; you’re a sweetheart.”
“Sorry, pooky.” Amy bent down to kiss his cheek. “But I can’t have you trying to kill my friends. It’s just not nice. I think we should probably see other people.”
I grabbed the arm of a passing waiter. “Our friend has had a little too much to drink and he’s saying silly stuff. Just ignore him. He’ll be okay in a minute, I’m sure, but he probably shouldn’t drive.”
“Would he like some coffee?” the waiter offered helpfully.
I nodded. “What a good idea. Yeah, lots of coffee.”
“We’ll take care of him for you,” the waiter said.
“Bye, Peter.” I patted the top of his head. “Thanks again for dinner. It was great meeting you.”
Quinn stood by us in stunned silence. I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. “Come on,” I said.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
We made it to street level and out into the cold night air before I finally let out the breath I was holding. I suppose I’d almost expected Peter to come after us, even if it meant that he’d have to drag his highly relaxed body behind him like a walrus or a mermaid. Outside the CN Tower, Amy fumbled through her purse to light a cigar, then inhaled deeply on it, resulting in an immediate fit of coughing.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.
“I don’t. This is Peter’s. But it seemed like a good time to start.”
Quinn hadn’t said a word all the way down in the elevator, but I was not going to feel guilty. I wasn’t. Okay, maybe just a little bit.
“Quinn.” I approached him. He’d sat down heavily on a snow-covered bench. “Are you going to be okay?”
He stared off into space. I waved my hand in front of his face. “Anyone in there? Look, I only did what I had to do to get out of there in one piece. He would have found out, anyhow. They all would have, eventually.”
“You’re right.”
“See? I knew it.”
He looked at me with angry, narrowed eyes. “They would have found out. But they would have found out from me. Not from you making it into a big joke.”
I felt anger rising up inside me. “Do you see me laughing? It’s not a joke to me. And you know what else isn’t all that damn funny? You going out last night and killing more vampires, as if none of this means anything to you. That doesn’t make you a hero, Quinn; that makes you a murderer. You’re not exactly gaining my confidence when I hear about stuff like that.”
He shook his head, then suddenly sprang to his feet and was in my face. “I didn’t ask for this, in case you didn’t notice. Every moment of my life now is torture knowing that I’m the same thing that killed my mother.”
“You have to stop dwelling on that.”
“I’ll dwell on it if I damn well want to,” he said through clenched teeth. “I did what I had to do.”
“Yeah, killing vampires. That sounds like something you had to do. Couldn’t you have taken the night off? Would that have been too much to ask?”
“I tried to.” He slumped back down to the bench.
I glanced over at Amy. She was keeping her distance, puffing away on the cigar and pretending that she wasn’t listening. Wise girl.
“What do you mean, you ‘tried to’? Tried not to kill anything for a few hours?”
He sighed and it was a deep, shaky sound. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I needed the blood of a full-strength vampire. I heard you all talking the other night. I understood the rules. When the pain came again, I didn’t know what to do. It was excruciating. I wanted to let it happen. I wanted to let it kill me, but self-preservation kicked in. I wasn’t going back to Thierry. There was no way. But, damn it all to hell, I knew if I wanted to live, then I needed blood. So, I…” His voice trailed off, as if too disgusted with himself to finish the sentence.
“So you went along on the raid to find a vampire who was willing to help you,” I finished for him.
He sighed. “It didn’t actually matter to me if they were willing or not. When Peter and the others were done, there was plenty of blood to be had. I hid until they’d left and did what I had to do.”
I felt the color drain from my face. “After they’d been killed.”
“One of them wasn’t dead yet. But, yeah.” Quinn’s face was tense in the moonlight. “The older the vampire, the less there is left. The young ones stay solid after death; the old ones disintegrate.”
Right, Thierry had mentioned that to me before. So, what Quinn was trying to tell me was that he went along on the raid, not to participate in killing vampires, but to feed from them. Like a macabre McDonald’s drive-thru. I looked at him, expecting to feel revulsion, but instead I felt sorry for him. He’d been all alone in this. He didn’t have any other options. I’d been all alone, too, but at least I’d found Thierry. What would I have done in Quinn’s place?