"Rachel," Cormel asked solicitously as the roll-up door noisily raised. "Would you prefer a restaurant? I hadn't considered that my home had bad memories for you. I've made changes," he coaxed. "It's not the same."
Ivy was looking at me like I was a wimp, and I glanced at his eyes, almost black in the dim light. "Just memories," I said.
"Good ones mixed with the bad, I hope?" he said as we drove into the cold, dry, and dark loading dock. I felt a faint tingle at my scar as the darkness took us. Affronted, I stared at him until the tingle vanished. Was he making a play for me? If he bound me, I'd do anything he wanted, thinking it was my idea. And when the vampire pulled the roll-up door shut to make the darkness absolute but for the headlamps, I realized how vulnerable I was. Shit.
"Let's get inside, and you can see what I've done with the place," Cormel said pleasantly, and as my pulse quickened, the doors to the Hummer started opening.
I slid across the long seat to the door with my bag in my hand, and as everyone milled around to make their slow way up the cement steps to the back door, I pretended to adjust my coat before I got out. This might be the last time I could have a private word with Jenks until we got home. "What's my aura look like, Jenks?" I asked, and got a pixy-size sigh in return.
"It's thin, but no holes. I think the emotion the kids stirred up in you helped boost it."
"It comes from emotion?" I murmured, deciding at the last moment to leave my bag in the Hummer as I took the hand of the vamp holding the door and made the careful slide to the cement pad.
"Where did you think it came from?" he said, laughing, from my scarf. "Fairy farts?"
I sighed, shaking my head at Ivy's inquiring look. I didn't like being out with my aura so thin, but he said it was better, and I trusted that no one was going to bite me. I was clearly ill, and that was a turnoff in the vamp world, instilling an almost overboard, lavishing sense of caring in the undead and still living alike. Maybe that was what I was seeing.
One by one, the security vamps jostled for position until they were both ahead and behind us. I obediently headed for the stairway, seeing the tires of Ivy's cycle peeking out from under a tarp. She'd parked it here for the winter after I'd nearly hit it trying to get into our carport. The snowplows had blocked me out, and I had to gun it to get through the chunky, man-made drift.
My pulse raced from the exertion, and I followed Cormel into the kitchen. At least, I was telling myself, it was from the exertion and not anticipation. I wasn't looking forward to seeing Kisten everywhere.
The warmth of the kitchen surprised me, and I looked up from the white tiles as we entered. Most of the ovens had been taken out and a great deal of the counter space. A large, comfortable table now took up the corner beside the stairway that led to the underground apartments. The new amber light hanging over it and the cotton throw rug beneath it made the spot a pleasant place to relax and eat among company, warm from the heat of the ovens and the possibility of conversation.
I breathed deep to find that it didn't smell like a restaurant anymore with its many spices and the lingering scents of unfamiliar vampires. There was just Rynn Cormel's increasingly familiar scent and the lingering aroma of half a dozen or so living vamps, Ivy's among them.
I realized my boots were the only ones making any noise, and I nervously adjusted my collar until Jenks took to the air.
"We could eat here, but I think we will be more comfortable at the fireplace," Cormel said, watching the pixy with a polite but wary expression. "Jeff, find out why Mai hasn't started the appetizers, would you please?"
My concern eased when Ivy took off her coat, and leaving it at the table, strode directly through the old double doors. Jenks went with her and, curious, I followed. All my hesitancy vanished at the sight of the large room that had once entertained Cincy's finest partiers with gourmet pizza and mixed drinks.
The shiny bar remained, taking up one wall, the low ceiling making the dark oak look even darker. All the illuminating lights over the bar were off, and the lit fireplace pulled the eye. The little high tables had been replaced with comfortable furniture, coffee tables, and the occasional sideboard for appetizers, flower arrangements, or possible discarded wineglasses.
Cormel tossed his coat to a chair, reminding me of my dad coming home and settling in. He all but collapsed into one of the self-indulgent chairs by the fire and gestured for us to join him. His pale skin and dark, silvering hair gave him the look of a comfortable businessman home from work. Yeah, right.
