Other than his tendency toward keeping everything in his life a secret, that is.
I mean, this was major.
The thing about Thierry that made it hard to believe was that although he was wonderful and sexy and I was crazy about him, he’d never struck me as a vigilante type. At all. He preferred to avoid situations of conflict. In fact, he’d always insisted that it was safer to stay hidden than risk meeting the wrong end of a wooden stake. Everyone who knew him, or knew of him, was aware that this was his preferred method of dealing with intense situations. However, he would fight if he had to, and I knew that he could kick some major ass. I’d seen him throw a man right across a room in a fight. Actually, that man had been Quinn, but that was another story.
But this?
This was unbelievable. And yet, down deep, I felt there was a part of me that had always known the truth.
Okay, that was a big fat lie. I had absolutely no damn idea.
I launched my web browser and searched the term “red devil,” which brought up links to rock bands and vacuum cleaners. Not very helpful, obviously. I added “vampire” and
“vigilante” to the equation. That brought up a few obscure references. Nothing solid. I searched for a whole hour until I found one small sketch of him. It wasn’t a good one and it may have been done by someone who never even saw him in the flesh. But the mask was right and the mouth was similar. It wasn’t proof, but it was something.
There wasn’t much information on him at all, actually, and what I did find only confirmed what I already knew. He saved vampires from hunters and he’d disappeared completely a hundred years ago—coincidentally around the same time Thierry began a century of staying out of the vampire social scene.
Until he met me, that is.
Veronique was interested in the Red Devil. She wanted to have an affair with him and had said as much to me. I knew that he’d saved her life a long time ago so they’d obviously met face to face. She’d given me zero indication that she had any idea it was Thierry. How the hell couldn’t she know who he was? I mean, she’d known Thierry for six centuries, hadn’t she? I’d known him for only three months and I recognized him immediately.
Well, almost immediately. Close enough.
The next morning, after tossing and turning all night in bed, I called Veronique’s room at the Windsor Arms hotel and she agreed to meet me for coffee.
“Good morning, my dear,” she began when we met at ten o’clock. “Am I to assume that you are now curse-free and wanted to celebrate with a close friend?”
She, of course, meant herself. I truly wish I had even a fraction of her self-esteem.
I pulled out the thousand dollars that remained of what she’d given me and explained to her what happened with the teenaged wizard and the eradication that didn’t happen.
“I’ll pay the rest back as soon as I can.” I pushed the money across the table toward her.
“I’m sure I’ll be able to save that much in the next… um… well, I’ll write you an IOU in the meantime.”
She frowned. “So you’re not cured.”
“Afraid not.”
“That is terrible news.”
“Tell me about it.” I sighed. “If you happen to speak with anyone from the Ring, could you let them know that I’m working on it and for them to pretty please not kill me just yet.”
“I will certainly do that.”
She continued to look disturbed by my news, and that made me very nervous. Veronique never looked this disturbed.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked tentatively.
“Would you consider having this eradication in the future? Even if it meant losing your memories of being a vampire?”
I clenched the mug of coffee in front of me. “I don’t know.”
“Are there any other ways to get rid of this curse?”
Other than handing over the Red Devil, aka Thierry, on a silver platter and possibly playing evil tonsil hockey with Gideon?
“I’m still researching some options.” I touched my ugly necklace. “But at least I have the gold chain. I don’t plan on removing it even if it turns my neck green.”
Her eyes lowered to my throat. “Yes, you do have a Carastrand.”
I blinked. “A what?”
She leaned back in her chair and nodded at my chain. “A Carastrand.”
“I didn’t know what it was called before. And Thierry didn’t tell me.”
“Thierry doesn’t know everything,” she said simply. “I remember clearly when the nightwalkers existed in great numbers. Mostly in London and Paris. This was in the nineteenth century. They looked so very human. In fact, some of them never developed vampire fangs at all, instead needing to tear at their victim’s throat in a horrifically violent manner.” She shuddered.
I touched my chain. “I researched it but I couldn’t find any information on it. I figured it was a secret cure.”
“A Carastrand dampens dark magic and dark natures. That is its purpose. The name is from the Spanish for face, ‘cara,’ which is to mean it is for appearance only. Its strength dissipates quickly, as it takes a great deal of energy to keep nightwalkers in control of their hungers. Unfortunately it’s only a temporary solution.”
This info came like a sucker punch to my gut. “Temporary?”
“That’s right.”
“Thierry didn’t know this,” I said. “Or he didn’t mention it.”
“Like I said, my husband doesn’t know everything, my dear.” She reached across the table to touch my hand. “I feel that you still have some time. You’ve only had the curse for a couple of weeks, yes? The strand should sustain you for a while longer. But you must take care that it isn’t broken. I witnessed a nightwalker once who wished to control himself, so he wore a strand as you do now. In a fight it was torn from his throat, the clasp broken, and even when repaired it did not work its magic again.”
“What happened to the guy who lost his strand?”
“What happened to all the nightwalkers,” Veronique said gravely. “He was eliminated to ensure the safety of others.”
I shivered. “So even though he wanted to be good, he couldn’t.”
She shook her head. “However, he was a nightwalker from the beginning. Your tendencies come from an artificial source of magic. Perhaps they can be controlled.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Does it help?”
My stomach churned. “Not so much.”
“So you see that you cannot simply discount this potential eradication out of hand, even though the side effects are undesirable.”