Seven
When Austin urinated on him, Corbin figured his night was complete.
“You need to keep a boy covered up at all times,” Sam said with a grin.
It would have been nice to know that ahead of time. Corbin sighed and wiped his arm by rolling it back and forth on the cloth Sam had laid on the changing pad.
“Dude, you’re not having any luck at all tonight,” Travis said, scratching the devil tattoo on his forearm.
“Maybe zat is because I am actually touching the baby,” Corbin told him, holding the clean diaper out in Travis’s direction. “Care to try?”
“No way, man, I’m just trying to, you know, sit back and take it all in. Observing. Learning from watching you.”
Either that or Travis was lily-livered. Austin kicked Corbin with his heel, regaining his attention. He undid the diaper the way Sam had shown him and, after a mere two tries, had it centered under the baby’s bottom. Rather proud of himself, he started to fold the front up and between the legs, when Austin took a roll to the left and flipped himself right onto his round belly and off the diaper. “What the… ?”
“That’s why you never leave a baby alone on the changing table,” Sam said sternly. “And why we did this on the floor. Babies roll. You can’t leave them alone for even two seconds.”
Clearly. Corbin gently hauled Austin back and laid him on his back again, realizing at the last second his head was going to smack on the floor, and shoving his palm under to cradle Austin’s skull until it rested on the pad.
“Good instincts,” Sam nodded.
Corbin had to admit, he was impressing even himself. This was foreign to him, but it really required just some basic training and common sense. He grabbed the diaper again.
Austin did a repeat roll onto his belly, bare bottom facing up. It struck Corbin then how completely amusing and bizarre human infants were, both in appearance and behavior. As he lifted Austin yet again, his plump warm flesh wiggling in Corbin’s grip as he struggled to get free, Corbin couldn’t help but smile.
“You’ll be still, yes?” he said, as he laid the baby back down, and drew his finger across the softness of Austin’s round cheek, wanting to touch that pure skin. He came too close to the baby’s mouth, and Austin turned his head and engulfed Corbin’s finger with his slippery lips. Drool crawled down Corbin’s skin, but the gnawing seemed to preoccupy Austin and he stopped moving around. With his own fat baby hands, he grabbed onto Corbin’s wrist and chewed his finger industriously.
Seizing the opportunity, Corbin got the diaper on one-handed, using his elbow to hold it in place and seal the tabs. The thing was on crooked and didn’t look pretty, but it was snug and should hold. Damnation, this business was exhausting. He was going to have to stop for a pint on the way home. But it was also… illuminating. He thought maybe he was starting to understand the devotion infants inspired in their parents. Austin was adorable and amusing and charming, and required so much care, it was no wonder parents were so vehement about their children. They had a great deal of time and emotion invested in them.
Corbin finished the job, extracted his slimy finger, and lifted Austin up. Some strange instinct compelled him to kiss the baby on the cheek, with lots of noise and eating motions, causing Austin to squeal in delight, a chuckle rising up from deep in his round belly.
If he didn’t think about that horrific video he’d witnessed when he’d walked into Brittany’s class, he actually felt a large sense of contentment. He could do this. Be a father. And a vampire. All at once.
Brittany felt ill. She had an aversion to needles, and when they’d gone straight from the birthing video to the tests and screening video, showing a giant needle going right into a woman’s belly for an amniocentesis, she had gone hot with spots in front of her eyes.
There was no way. No way. She would have to be knocked out first if a doctor wanted to do that to her. Her stomach was churning, face hot, skin clammy, and she had excused herself for a drink of water.
But once in the hallway, she decided she just wanted to leave. She would read the manual at home. These videos were not instructional for her, they were panic inducing.
Sneaking into the back of Corbin’s classroom, she was glad to see they weren’t in a lecture-style class. The men were all gathered on the floor, bent over—she assumed with the baby Corbin had mentioned—so it wouldn’t be a big deal to interrupt.
Moving forward, she noticed it was Corbin who was actually diapering the baby. His brow was furrowed and he was concentrating, completely hunched over as he tried to undo the tabs one-handed.
He looked adorable, his hair falling forward into his eyes, his shirt pulling out of his pants. Despite her precarious stomach, she found herself smiling, and reaching into her purse for her cell phone. She was going to snap a picture of him.
Then he lifted the baby up in the air and Brittany nearly puddled onto the floor. He was playing with the baby. Kissing his cheek.
Everything in her inflated and swelled, and she felt breathless, entranced. A little bit in love. In love? Yes, insane as it was. In love, or something close there to it. With the man who was the father of her child.
Maybe this could actually work. This thing between them, and mutual parenting.
She felt a huge sense of relief and gratitude that Corbin Atelier was the kind of man who could see the charm in a baby. Holding her camera out, she snapped a picture.
Corbin saw the flash and glanced over, his smile disappearing, replaced by embarrassment. “Brittany.”
She laughed. “Busted. I caught you on camera so you can’t deny it.” Clicking “Review,” she waved it toward him. “You like babies and I have proof.”
“Brittany, don’t.” Corbin started to stand up, the baby against his chest.
“Too late.” Amused, she glanced back at the screen, hoping the shot had turned out.
What she saw made the blood drain from her face. Oh, God, she’d forgotten. She’d just forgotten.
In the picture, Austin dangled in the air, smiling and laughing. But nothing was holding him. Corbin wasn’t there.
She glanced over at him, horrified. He was a vampire.
No, she supposed she hadn’t forgotten, but she had been swept up in the normalcy of what they’d been doing… preparing for a baby.
But he was a vampire.
And quite possibly, so was her child.
Brittany fought the panic, but all the blood rushed to her face, and she dropped her phone.
“Brittany,” Corbin said, moving toward her, passing the baby to another man.
Eyes blurred by tears, she dragged herself back from the edge of a faint and said, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I just feel a little sick.”
And she whirled around and ran out of the room.
“Fancy meeting you here, Columbia.” Donatelli stood in front of Rockefeller Center and pulled on a pair of camel-colored leather gloves. “I was under the impression you were wearing an ankle bracelet back in Vegas.”
“Maybe I’ve been released for good behavior,” Ringo said, leaning over the railing and checking out the ice rink. A hefty teenage girl shrieked as she slipped and sat hard on her ass.
“Maybe. Or maybe you got your pretty little girlfriend to pick the key off your guard.”
“Maybe.” It wasn’t like it was a secret. Everyone back in Vegas had to have known he left with Kelsey, and he was sure the guard would have come clean about what had happened, though he might not have mentioned to the powers that be where Kelsey’s other hand had been when she lifted the key. Ringo lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
“Your better half is quite resourceful. Though it’s not as if it’s difficult to get around these little inconveniences. Carrick runs a loose ship.” Donatelli lifted the leg of his black pants. Ringo saw the metal cuff that had matched his own. “I’m sure I could dispense with my own punishment, but I am biding my time. I don’t have any reason to leave Manhattan at the moment, nor do I want to raise ire. That is why I am not entirely pleased by you seeking me out.”
Donatelli was still an asshole. Ringo blew smoke in his face and made a show of looking around. Nothing but tourists lingering and office workers rushing home from work in the dark. “I don’t see anyone trailing you. No one gives a shit what you’re doing, as long as your ankle jewelry stays on and you stay put. So just fucking relax.”
Lifting a paper coffee cup from a four-cup carrying container on the ground, Donatelli drank through the hole in the lid. Ringo could smell it, knew it was blood. His stomach burned with hunger. He had skipped feeding last night in his hurry to find a motel and get to bed. Now he regretted it.
“I’m relaxed.”
The bastard did look completely content.
He took another sip. “Would you care for a drink? Smith ended up heading home early with a date, and he never touched his blend.” Donatelli bent over and lifted another of the coffee cups and held it out to him.
Ringo shook his head rapidly. He knew what was in Smith’s blood drink. It would be tainted with heroin, because Smith was an addict, like Ringo had been. And Donatelli knew it.
“No, thanks,” Ringo said, heart pounding. He wanted a drink. Desperately. He wanted to sink and swim into the blood, to let it careen through his body with the force of a roller coaster, setting off prickles of pleasure everywhere, emptying his mind and soaking him in a false artificial bliss. “I came because I wanted to offer you a piece of information for a price.”
“In regards to what?” Donatelli still held the cup, and swirled the liquid in it around and around.
Sweat formed on Ringo’s forehead. This had been a mistake. Greed had driven him to take a chance, and he was suddenly afraid he’d just dicked himself over. He hadn’t realized how gnawing the temptation would still be, how hard it would be to stare down Donatelli and not be reminded of their past, where Ringo had been the consumer and Donatelli the provider. Clenching his fists in the pockets of his jacket, Ringo said, “In regards to vampire procreation.”
Donatelli looked mildly surprised. “You have my attention, since that is not your area of expertise.”
“But it is Atelier’s, who was in charge of my treatment for drug abuse.”
“How intriguing. I’ll bite. How much?”
“A hundred grand.”
Donatelli snorted and turned toward the skating rink. “That’s ridiculous. And why is that woman wearing those purple pants? That is a crime against cotton.”
Ringo had been prepared for that reaction. “What if I told you that Atelier is going to become a father?”
“I would say congratulations, especially since I was starting to suspect he doesn’t even have a prick. He’s not known for socializing.”
“What if I told you the mother is half-vampire.”
That got a reaction. Donatelli shot him a startled look. “I’d say that is very interesting, but worth only five grand, tops.”
“Throw in twenty more and I’ll tell you who she is.”
“I don’t need you for that. I can just have someone observe who Atelier is visiting these days.”
“Except my sources tell me that Atelier isn’t seeing anyone these days. No one knows about the child. No one knows about the mother. No one but him. Her. And me.” Ringo swallowed hard. He could smell the blood, thick and warm and laced with that extra tangy mix of alcohol and drugs. His hands were starting to shake.
“When is this bundle of joy due?”
Ringo shrugged. “I’ve said enough.” He stuck his foot on the bottom of the railing, needing the support. Vampires weren’t supposed to feel cold, but Ringo felt the sensation of ice water careening through his veins. He wanted that blood. “I’ll be in town tonight, then I’m leaving tomorrow. Call my cell phone if you’d like to discuss it further.”
Donatelli didn’t reach for the card Ringo gave him, so he tucked it into the pocket of the Italian’s expensive overcoat.
“You realize you have tipped your hand, don’t you?” Donatelli asked him.
Ringo pushed back. “Just the first card. I’ve got four more facedown.”
Not to mention he had lifted Donatelli’s wallet out of his pocket. Ringo and Kelsey’s hotel bill would be compliments of Donatelli that night. Time to move to the Ritz.
“Ever confident. Ever foolish.” Donatelli smiled at him. “Stick to murder for hire. You’re better at that than vampire politics.”
But Ringo just smiled back. “See you around, Donatelli.” He waved and cut across the sidewalk, heading toward Forty-second Street and away from the coffee cup that was calling him.
Kelsey waited until Ringo had left, lifting his hand for a cab. She had been watching from the clothing storefront across the street, hidden among shoppers behind a table of turtleneck sweaters.
Donatelli was still staring at the ice rink, but she didn’t want to risk him walking away, so she moved quickly. He sensed her coming behind him and turned. A smile crossed his face.
“Ah, Miss Kelsey, how good to see you again. I should have known you were hanging about. Where there is Ringo, there is Kelsey.”
Her fear and revulsion fought to gain supremacy, but Kelsey stopped two feet in front of him and screwed up her courage. This man may have ordered her drained of all her blood and left for dead a few months back, but he couldn’t hurt her, not here, not with hundreds of people moving around them.
“Leave my husband alone.”
His eyebrow rose. “Husband? What a surprise. Congratulations, my dear. You are now attached for eternity to a drug-addicted killer. Should I send you a silver soup tureen? Linens, perhaps. Either way, may you have more success with your marriage than I had with mine.”
Kelsey put her hands inside the pouch pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. “I’m serious. Leave Ringo alone.”
“You aren’t taking into account he contacted me . I was minding my own business, doing a little preholiday shopping and sampling the delights of the city, when he called me.”
Despising the way he talked, the arrogance, the way his finger rolled around and around the rim of the coffee cup in his hand, Kelsey tensed. She knew what was in his cup, as well as the one on the ground. She knew this man was responsible for Ringo’s addiction. “You don’t really believe him, do you? He’s trying to bilk you because we’re broke and we’re on the run.”
Ringo thought he could shut her out of his thoughts, but Kelsey could catch random bits and pieces, enough to know that he had come to Donatelli to sell information. She also knew that he loved her, even if he didn’t realize that’s what it was, and she loved him in return. Unfortunately, his sense of right and wrong wasn’t exactly well developed and he made bad choices. A lot of them. But she could fix this one.
Donatelli sipped his drink. “You know, I find that a fascinating strategy on your part. You’re willing to risk his anger in order to protect him from me. I’m flattered that you are that frightened of what I can do to him. But I don’t think he is making this story up… he couldn’t have created it on his own, or understood the importance of it. Sorry, Kelsey, you can’t make me go away. I am interested in negotiating a sale with your husband.”
People thought she was stupid, a brunette airhead, and sometimes she was. Mostly she was just strange, and she knew that. But both perceptions led people to continually underestimate her.
“I’m thirsty,” she said in a random, whiny voice. She bent down and pulled one of the cups out of the cardboard carrier at Donatelli’s feet.
“Be my guest,” he said dryly. “But one of those three cups has a little extra something added to it. I don’t think I remember which one.”
Having being a drug user herself in the late sixties, Kelsey had no intention of ever going that route again and wanted to ensure Ringo didn’t relapse either. She would be forever grateful to Mr. Carrick for getting her the help she had needed when she’d hit rock bottom, and didn’t intend to see her husband slide backward. But she wasn’t going to drink any of Donatelli’s blood cups anyway.
She just shrugged and stood back up. “I’ll sniff it.” Prying the lid off, she delicately lifted it to her nose. “You do know that when Ringo gets desperate, he is capable of almost anything.”
“Aren’t we all.” Donatelli had dark eyes, and they narrowed, as he clearly tried to guess what game she was playing.
“Not everyone. Like, I don’t know, Gwenna, for instance. She’s not capable of evil, is she?”
That got the reaction she was hoping for. “What the fuck does Gwenna have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know.” Kelsey blinked. “But she’s in Vegas again.”
Donatelli opened his mouth then snapped it shut. He gave a deliberate shrug. “Why do I care if my ex-wife is visiting her brother?”
“I don’t know. But I thought it was weird that she was hanging out with the French guy that no one likes. The one who helped Ringo. She seems so quiet. But I guess they make a good couple.”
Kelsey was lying through her teeth. She doubted Gwenna even knew Atelier, but her objective was simply to get Donatelli back to Vegas, so by default she could get Ringo back to Vegas, back where there were other vampires to run interference. Back where she could keep her husband away from the drug blood.
“A couple? That’s ridiculous.”
But he looked unconvinced and angry, grip tightening on his coffee cup. Kelsey just gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe they’re not a couple. I guess they could just be having sex.”
Donatelli’s eyes flared with hatred, the cup in his hand collapsing, blood spilling all over his really pretty light brown coat. Kelsey jumped back, a red splash landing on her arm.
“Damn it,” he said, dropping the crushed cup right as a woman to their left started screaming.
Kelsey turned, saw her pointing at them, at all the blood on Donatelli’s chest, while she shrieked in terror. There was movement, people coming toward them. Reacting instinctively, Kelsey backed up, right into Donatelli, intending to run. But before she even realized he was doing it, he had his arms around her.
Then she was up and over the railing, free-falling down onto the ice rink. She heard the shouts, saw scrambling movement as skaters dashed out of the way.
When she landed, on her shoulder and back, with a crunch of nausea-inducing pain, she looked up at the railing.
Donatelli was gone.
And she hoped like hell he was headed back to Vegas.
That was worth breaking half the bones in her body.