wanted to scoop her into his arms and never let her go. “I owe you everything. Where can we talk?”
“My place isn’t far.”
“Invite me in,” he warned, “and you’ll never keep me out.” It’s that way with those of my blood.
“Is that a threat, Da...uh, Titus?”
“In a way. You might change your mind about me.” The terror of that thought choked him. Then he told himself he was not the first of his blood to face this kind of ordeal. There were rules for handling this particular interview.
She searched his face again, gnawing her lower lip. In a very quiet voice, she said, “Just tell me one thing. Did you murder that boy they buried in your place?”
His heart shuddered and he checked the corridor for microphones and cameras. In fact, he wasn’t even certain personal quarters were exempt from surveillance. Brink’s was known for thoroughness, and the laws here were ambiguous to say the least. But if the situation had deteriorated that far, he was lost already.
“Inea, I swear to you, I did not.”
“Then I won’t change my mind. Come on.”
She led the way to another group of lifts, then down into a residence complex. The doors here were closer together than the ones in Titus’s hall, and when she threw open her door, he saw how luxurious his quarters were.
Here, the floor was bare save for two scatter rugs, and the hall window was masked only by blinds. There was no kitchenette. The small desk took up most of the room, even with the bed folded away. One comfortable chair faced a tiny vidcom screen. A cartridge labeled Guggenheim Tour protruded from the recorder slot. But there were a few intensely personal touches. On one shelf, there was an arrangement of moon rocks around a small, artificial bonsai. At the bedside, a macramé hanging made from discarded packing was used to hold the vidcom remote control, a red handled hairbrush, and an array of framed photos.
Noticing his expression, she explained, “I don’t spend very much time here. The required exercise in the gym soaks up hours, and I eat at the refectory around the corner. Just down the hall, there’s a solarium with really comfortable reading chairs. The rest of the time, I’m at work.”
“Actually, you’ve got a lovely place. Invite me in?” The psychic potential that filled the boundaries of the room was at once enticing and an absolute barrier to Titus.
She tilted her head. “What’s the matter with you?”
Abbot would have thought nothing of Influencing the invitation from her. “Invite me in and I’ll explain.”
Exasperated, she burst out, “Will you get your butt in here, before I—”
Titus stepped smoothly across the threshold and closed the door, palming the lock. “Thank you,” he said, sincerely. The atmosphere sent ripples of pleasure through him.
Hands on hips, she shook her head at him in wonderment. “All right, you’re in. Now explain.”
He thrust aside the delight of just being here, and dropped into the desk chair. “Let me think how to say this.” But the first thing the guidelines required was to bring her under Influence so she’d never repeat any of it. I can’t!
“If you didn’t kill anyone, what are you afraid of telling me?”
“Inea, please believe me; you have to believe. I wouldn’t kill a human being. Ever. Can you accept that?”
“Why would I disbelieve it?” She perched on the edge of the easy chair. “Whoever was in your coffin....”
“Inea,” he interrupted. “I was in my coffin. I crashed the car. I was sitting right next to you. And I died.”
Clearly, she thought him insane. “Look, I don’t recall a thing from that night until I woke up in the hospital and they told me I had a concussion but could go home for your funeral. But now you’re alive. And you’re no Jesus Christ! Obviously, it wasn’t you in the car with....”
“I was in the car. I died. I’m a vampire.”
There was sympathy under her dismay now, the kind of sympathy reserved for the hopelessly deluded.
“Do you want me to prove it? Or would you prefer to nurse your doubt until the evidence mounts and you can’t deny it any more?”
“How could you possibly prove you’re a vampire? Turn into a bat and flutter about the room?”
He laughed. He hadn’t expected such a challenge, yet he should have. He had thought of himself as a vampire so long, that he had forgotten the myths surrounding his kind.
“What’s so funny?”
“The conservation laws! Basic biology! Shape change is impossible. And I mass nearly ninety kilos. Have you ever seen a bat that big? Inea, idiot-love, it couldn’t fly!”
“Idiot-love?!”
It was his oldest endearment for her. But she was a scientist now. “Inea, I didn’t mean...I’m sorry....”
“No...it was kind of a stupid thing to say. You really believe you’re a vampire? There’s a disease—”
“But victims of it don’t get it by rising from the dead. And that’s what happened to me.”
“So you walk at night and suck young maidens’ blood?”
Facetiously, he corrected her. “They don’t have to be so young, and maidenhood isn’t a requisite.”
She shifted tactics. “Listen, if it’s kinky sex you want, you’d better find yourself another—”
“Oh, shut up!” he snapped.
She folded into herself, shocked.
Contrite, he offered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I mean, I guess I’m just sensitive because—how I live—” Miserably, he finished, “Maybe I just haven’t made my own peace with it yet. They say it takes more than a century.”
“Century! God! You really believe it. But you look normal. A little pale, a bit underweight maybe, but normal.”
“I am normal. For me.”
“And you expect me to believe you’re a vampire? I can see you reflected in the vidcom screen.”
“Of course I reflect. I’m solid flesh and blood.” It would be easier just to Influence her to believe. But he couldn’t. He had to convince her completely and honestly, and get her free will promise of silence.
“The legends are wrong, but you’re a vampire? Darrell, what kind of a game is this? Are you into espionage?”
“My name is Titus Shiddehara. I had to change it because Darrell Raaj died—legally, anyway. So please call me Titus. It could be dangerous for me if you don’t.”
“But you really are the famous astrophysicist?
