He nodded. I stood up again, and he scrambled to his feet and ran out of the park.
The Red Devil had his arms crossed. "Hmm."
I turned to glare at him. "Hmm what?"
"I'm surprised that, given your reputation, you didn't end his life."
"Maybe I'm feeling generous tonight."
"Or maybe it's true that your reputation is only rumors and speculation."
"Or that." I blinked. "How are my eyes?"
He studied me for a moment. "Back to normal."
"Thanks for the help, by the way," I said dryly. "I thought you were supposed to be some vampire-hero guy."
"Didn't look like you needed any help." He surveyed the park. "The woman who was here before, she cursed you to be a nightwalker, is that true?"
I nodded and felt my throat tighten. "I have two days to convince her to end the curse or apparently I'm stuck like this."
"And would that be so bad?"
I looked at him, at the thin line of his face and eyes visible through the scarf. His gaze seemed to burn right into me. I wondered, not for the first time, what he looked like under that get-up. "Yeah, it's bad. I kind of like going out in the day. It's a habit of mine."
"There are ways around such inconveniences. But you've gained so much by this transition. Your strength is equal to that of a centuries-old vampire. Your mind control, if practiced, could be extremely useful."
"Can nightwalkers turn into bats?" I asked.
"I don't believe so."
"In that case, I just want to be normal."
He laughed at that and I looked at him sharply.
"Normal?" he said. "Why would you want to be normal? You have the world at your fingertips. You've been given a true gift, Sarah, and you wish to give it away so easily?"
"A gift? Curses aren't gifts."
"It depends how you look at it."
"No, I'm looking at it from the only vantage point I have. I was just getting used to being a regular run-of-the-mill vampire, and I'd convinced myself I wasn't a monster, and now I am one. I don't want to be this way."
And that was it in a nutshell. Even if I had to get rid of the thrall, I didn't want to be this way. It felt wrong on every level.
"This has to do with Thierry de Bennicoeur and his view of nightwalkers?" he asked.
I clenched my jaw so hard that it hurt. "You know, Thierry thinks you're an impostor up to no good. I shouldn't even be talking to you or he'll be pissed."
"I saved your life."
That deflated me a little bit but not much. "You did. And thank you for that. But I'm not accustomed to trusting easily lately, and when I do make that mistake it usually gets me a stake through my chest. I am learning, though. I don't know anything about you. I don't know who you are under that stupid scarf. Maybe if you show me I might be a little friendlier."
His eyes narrowed. "Sorry, I can't do that. At least, not yet."
"Then I think this conversation is over."
He studied me. His black scarf was turning white from the blowing snow. "Let me ask you this, Sarah… before this curse, is it true that you had consumed the blood of two master vampires?"
"Maybe." I eyed him cautiously. "What difference does it make?"
"Perhaps none." His gaze was steady on me. "And there have only been the two? Thierry and Nicolai? No others?"
"You're a master vampire, aren't you? I've heard you've been around ever since the
Crusades. History wasn't one of my better subjects, but I think that makes you even older than Thierry. Maybe I'll bite you. Three is my lucky number."
"An interesting suggestion." His eyes crinkled at the sides to show he was smiling, which, since I hadn't really been kidding, was a little odd. "When the witch contacts you again, will you allow her to break the curse?"
"In a heartbeat."
The amusement left his eyes. "That is a mistake. Know this, Sarah. That when the nightwalkers roamed the earth they were misguided in their actions, but they weren't stupid. They longed for the sun and for control of their darker natures. Near the end, they had objects created to help them achieve that goal. Some of those objects remain to this day, but to the uneducated observer are unremarkable and undetectable."
"What kind of objects?"
"Typically it was jewelry. Rings, bracelets, and necklaces that the nightwalker would wear to enable them to appear as a day walker. As long as the object touched their skin they were, as you say, normal." He paused and I felt his gaze heavy on me. "If my information serves, and I believe that it does, you have already come in contact with such an object in the very recent past. This would confirm for me how you seem to be blessed with great luck and coincidence."
I blinked at him. "Seriously? What was it?"
He shook his head. "What do you care? After all, you will have the witch break your curse at her earliest convenience."
"Yeah, but I'm all for having a Plan B."
"Sarah!" Thierry called out from across the street.
Oh, crap.
I clutched the Red Devil's long leather coat before he could walk away. "You have to tell me what the object is."
I was close enough to him now to sense something I didn't expect at all. In fact, it was the last thing I would have expected. Past his cologne, which I recognized as Acqua di Gio, I smelled something else. Something unmistakable.
My eyes widened as I moved my searching nose up his neck and immediate hunger curled in my stomach. "You're human!"
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are! The Red Devil isn't supposed to be human. He's a vampire."