Let The Darkness Lead You Home 3 страница

"Good," Gerard says, voice still low. "It's a long drive."

Frank breaks then, turning toward the pile of cases, moving to carry them up to the car, but Gerard's hand on his shoulder stills him. "The boys will get those," he says. "You just have one last thing to do."

Before they'd go see his grandparents, Frank's mom always said, Potty, Frankie, it's a long drive. He knows that's not what Gerard means, but he can't think—

"Here," is the only warning he gets before Gerard's unwinding a pale silk scarf from around his wrist and wrapping it over Frank's eyes. His eyes.

Frank feels his lips pursing, ready to ask what Gerard is doing, but there's no air in his lungs to make a sound. He tells his hands to move, take the blindfold off, but they only twitch uselessly at his side. Frank has seen things no human brain should have to process, but he's never been so scared as he is right now, having his vision taken away.

"Alright," Gerard says, his voice steady, normal, like he's just handed Frank some tool he'd asked for. "Now we're ready."

Latching onto the words, Gerard's tone, Frank manages to drag air past the cotton filling his throat— it's a blindfold, not a gag, Frankie. You can breathe —and move enough to grab for Gerard pressed close behind him. He gets a handful of stiff brocade, the waistcoat Gerard's still wearing, and he clings to it, not at all mindful of the expensive cloth. He concentrates on the feeling of Gerard's hand as it traces from Frank's shoulder down to the twist of fingers and fabric, giving him a hand to hold instead. That unlocks Frank's legs, but his heart's still rabbit fast in his chest as Gerard starts them walking forward.

Darkness is not the problem, Frank reminds himself. He spends plenty of time in the dark, and can navigate his lab by memory, proprioception, touch. And Gerard hasn't let him go. Is still holding his hand, has an arm around Frank's shoulders. Frank breathes, brings his lab to mind. The stainless steel table they must be passing on his right, the bank of monitors to the left, the servers in their cooling towers against the far wall. The door in front of them, seven steps away, now six, five—

But somewhere Frank miscalculated, and he stumbles at the threshold where the tiles in his lab butt up against the thick carpet in the hall beyond, and his heart drops before swooping up to choke him. The noise Gerard makes huffs in Frank's ear, and that shouldn't be his best clue that he's still standing, but it is. And then Gerard's letting go, making Frank whimper as his only solid point of reference is removed, but there's no time to protest further before Frank's lifted off the ground completely, one whipcord arm beneath his knees, another across his back. Somehow Frank's flailing arms find their way around Gerard's neck without causing any damage. Frank can't say he's never imagined similar scenarios, but there was more sex in them, and less of the sensation of drowning under a waterfall.

He concentrates on breathing. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, blood swirling around his alveoli in its capillaries, gas exchange happening without him even thinking about it. He wonders if one day it will be possible to make alts sensitive enough to see that happening. Would seeing that make a vampire hesitate, fascinated? Or would it just make him hungrier? Make him sink his teeth in faster, suck harder, swallow more greedily. Frank breathes again, smells ink and cigarettes and the scent that's just Gerard which Frank can best describe as wintery, though that's not even close, not really. He feels his heart rate slow. He wonders if Gerard is still watching it.

"Why—" he starts, trusting his lips to work now, but before he can finish his question, Gerard stops walking, says, "The four cases by the door in Frank's lab, and be careful with them." Clearly he's not talking to Frank. Two figures brush past Frank's feet, heading back the way Gerard came, and Gerard hitches him higher in his grip and starts moving again, gait choppier this time. Frank realizes they're climbing. Twenty-one stairs. Odd number. Red, black, green and gold carpet, more worn in the center than at the edges. Two and a half inches of dark wood either side of the runner, hairline gap between the step and the baseboards where the house has settled over the years, starting about half-way up. But Frank can't remember if it's the ninth step or the tenth, or maybe the eleventh. He should be able to remember.

"Why—" he says again. Why the blindfold, why is Gerard carrying him, why is this more frightening than watching Gerard hunt and kill?

"Gerent Ulrich," Gerard says, as though he knows what Frank means. As though that explains everything. They're at the top of the stairs now, ten more feet to the front door, past Gerard's office on the left and the front parlor on the right.

Frank isn't sure if Gerard will put him down now that they've navigated the worst of the obstacles, but he keeps Frank in his arms, murmurs thank you to someone—Mikey, probably, since the words are tinged with more affection than he uses with the others—and Frank feels a gust of fresh air against his cheeks.

Suddenly aware of how much of his body must be protruding either side of Gerard's narrow frame, Frank hopes Mikey's opened both the double doors that give onto the wide stone steps, because Gerard hasn't slowed. There's no crack against his skull, no sharp pain in his ankle bone, just the sensation of descent followed by the crunch of gravel. More murmuring, not Gerard this time, and then the sickening lurch of pitching forward.

Except he doesn't fall. Gerard's arms support him until he's settled into the clutch of oiled leather that means they're taking the GTO.

Frank's surprised. Ulrich is an old vampire—possibly an Ancient—and Frank has heard enough talk to know the other gerents fear him, so he figured they'd be taking the limos and doing the whole proper royal entourage thing. But the GTO means just the two of them, Gerard driving himself. A gerent shuttling a human passenger. Only it isn't like that. Could never be like that, but especially with Frank blindfolded. Gerard is doing Gerent Ulrich the honor due a more senior gerent of delivering a package to him personally. Frank is just a package.

Frank's services. Gerard would never give him— He would have said. Wouldn't have seemed— Gerard is ambitious and Frank is valuable and he's not a pet to be passed on. And they would have— Gerard would have asked him to pack more of his things.

"Gerard?" Frank asks, wishing he could hide the panicked note in his voice better. But the only answer is the thunk-click at his elbow. "Gerard?" Frank asks again, and he was wrong before. The first time was merely plaintive. Frank's right hand flies to the door, scrabbling for the handle, and his left reaches out for the gear stick, the dash, the wheel, desperately seeking to sharpen the picture in his memory, give him something reassuring.

His hand finds Gerard's wrist, and Gerard says, "Frank." His tone is stern, clipped, should not be the reassurance Frank's looking for, but it is.

"Gerard," he says again, a whisper this time. He wills his fingers to uncurl. One breath, another, oxygen feeding his brain, his muscles, and his hands starts to give, releasing Gerard's arm so he can put the keys in the ignition with a soft jingle, turn them with a click-click- roar.

More air hits Frank's lungs, thick with the smell of exhaust, and then Gerard's hands are on him again, his near thigh, his far shoulder, but that's not his hand, it's his forearm, his hand moving next to Frank's head, and oh. The seatbelt. Which Frank hadn't even thought to put on, decades of habit and muscle memory short-circuited by being blind. "Buckle up, Frankie," Gerard says in his ear while his hands slot the latch into the buckle. "I'm in the mood to drive. "

Vamps can move fast under their own steam, faster than anything that ever rolled off Detroit's production lines, faster even than the hovers. But Gerard still gets a thrill from going pedal to the metal on the open road. Sometimes he comes down to Frank's lab after, hair wind-wild, a glow in his eyes that Frank's used to seeing paired with the blood-flush of feeding, saying, Imagine it. Just imagine it. Sand as far as the eye can see. No cars, no vamps, no people, no nothing. Just space. And sunlight. All that desert. And Frank knows Gerard was driving through trees and factories under the barely visible smudge of stars, because he was watching through Gerard's eyes as he did it, but he can imagine the great deserts out west in Gerent Greta's zone, the hills and basins, the baking heat that Gerard will never again feel on his skin. He's hoped that Gerard might take him out like that some time, not just on utilitarian journeys designed to get from point A to point B and back. Now he's just hoping this isn't his only chance, because if he can't see the joy on Gerard's face, there isn't much point.

The car starts rolling, the engine not quite drowning out the sound of the tires on the driveway, then both sounds are overtaken by the scream of guitars as Gerard turns on the stereo.

Frank feels buffeted by the noise at first—it breaks down the shell he was building to ground himself—but then the music itself becomes a cocoon, gives edges to the world he's traveling through, keeps a rough and ragged time.

After a while, Gerard starts singing snatches of songs, a word or two, a line, and every time he does it feels like a touch, a reminder of the space Gerard's occupying in the bubble Frank's made for himself, bordered by the plastic and metal of the door on one side, the carpet of the center console rough against his knuckles as he runs his fingertips along the seat edge on the other. The bubble expands to take in the rest of the car, the road they're driving on that Frank can't see any of. His fingers race over the same surfaces again, redrawing lines, and Frank keeps breathing. He never realized the illusion of control that having use of all his senses gave him until one was taken away.

They drive for hours, Frank tuning out then sharply in again, wondering if Gerard is watching him, if he's even remembered Frank's here, or if he's lost in his own bubble of road and speed and sound, or whatever thoughts live inside his head. He's not using his alts, Frank knows, because they talked for hours one night about how Gerard can see clearly with them even at running speeds, but can't see at all while he's driving. He wanted Frank's theories on physics and neurology, asked questions for hours even though Frank didn't really have any answers. So if he is watching Frank now, it's only the nervous twitching of Frank's fingers, whatever he can see of Frank's pulse through the fall of hair over Frank's neck. He can't see into Frank's heart.

The last segment of their journey is marked by twists and turns and the rumble of roads so bad no car more than eighty years old—not even one as fastidiously maintained as Gerard's—has the shocks to handle them without nearly jarring a guy's teeth out of his head. Weirdly, it makes Frank feel better than the smooth ride of the highway. His hands settle in his lap, and he barely twitches when Gerard turns down the music and says, "We're almost there."

But then the car rolls to a stop, and Gerard doesn't turn off the engine. There's a change in the air that means the window's gone down, and the sound of voices, harsh and demanding but unintelligible to Frank, punctuated by Gerard's calm assent and the occasional "no". Without warning, the door next to Frank is ripped open, and strange hands wrap around his head. He wants to scream, lash out, but he just stills, a stone statue hoping against hope that the air in his lungs will last until the hands are done with his face.

"He's been blindfolded since before we left the house," Gerard says, definitely a gerent, but one aware he's speaking to the underlings of a man who outranks him. His words do cause the fingers on Frank's face to gentle and stop poking him, moving instead to test the knot at the back of his head. "And I took the route proscribed." With that, the hands move away and start pulling at Frank's seatbelt as though to make sure it's not just there for show.

"We'll need the vid," a gruff voice by Frank's head says, and Frank feels Gerard lean sideways, hears movement on the dash in front of him, and realizes there's been a camera trained on him the whole journey. One of the ones he designed to hide on Gerard's desk and let Mikey sit in on meetings, probably. Ulrich, or his captain, or any number of his security team will be able to see every time Frank flinched or gasped or bit his lip. Every time he turned his head toward Gerard out of habit like there was anything for him to see except the creamy darkness of a silk and bamboo blend.

A rough hand shoves Frank toward the center of the car, and the door slams again. More voices, only the word, "Go," standing out, and that accompanied by the slap of a hand wearing rings on the roof of the car. Frank wonders if the vamp will get to keep his rings if the paint is scratched. Or his hand if there's a dent. That depends on how important he is to Gerent Ulrich probably.

It's another ten minutes, maybe even twenty, before they stop a second time, and it should be enough for Frank to relax again, but he can still feel the strange vampire's hands on him, can't stop thinking about all those voices—four or five vamps at least— and whatever passes for a guard's tower in this zone, all of them inside, watching Frank's terror on an endless loop. He shies away when hands fumble at his hip to undo his seatbelt, even though he can feel his door is still closed, and at least part of his brain knows it's Gerard.

"We just need to get inside," Gerard says, voice low and liquid like he wants to calm Frank, but with a ribbon of tension under it that just ratchets Frank's nerves higher. "Do you want to walk? I'll lead you. There's three steps up to the door like at home. Or I can carry you again."

Frank refuses to be carried into the house of another gerent. He's not sure his legs will hold him, but he's not giving them a choice. "I'll walk," he says, little more than a dry croak.

Despite the cracked words, Gerard hears him, pats his thigh, murmurs, "Stay there for a minute," and pushes his own door open. While he walks around the car, Frank wiggles his toes, squeezes the tendons at the top of his knees, gives his legs a silent pep talk, so by the time Gerard's opening Frank's door and reaching in to help him out, he stays on his feet with no more support than Gerard's hand cool and heavy at the small of his back.

Like before, Gerard reaches across his own body to hold Frank's hand while he keeps an arm around Frank's waist, only this time he keeps up a running commentary, saying, "Twelve feet to the stairs, now eight… three, two, now the next step is up, a little higher than our front stairs, good, and again, one more," and Frank hopes there's no welcoming committee watching them, though he knows there must be. With luck, from a distance, it doesn't look too much like Gerard's coddling him.

"Sire," a woman's voice says from Gerard's far side when they've taken six steps from the top of the stairs. "Gerent Ulrich is in his parlor. I'll show you in."

"Captain Bebe," Gerard answers. "Thank you."

They pause, and Frank hears the thunk of a heavy latch giving way and the creak of a hinge left just rusty enough for atmosphere, then three more steps and he's standing on a carpet even plusher than Gerard and Mikey's. The door shuts again and Frank thinks, now, now he'll take the blindfold off, but Gerard just tugs him along, seven, eight, nine steps, a right turn, and then, finally then, he lifts his hands to Frank's face, pushes the blindfold up and away.

Frank's lashes are gummy, and he can't see at first, but before he can raise his hands to rub his eyes, Gerard is there, his thumbs wiping gently at the stickiness, so the only thing Frank can see when his vision clears is the shock of Gerard's blood-red hair against his bone-pale skin.

"You look hungry," comes a voice, breaking through the sound of Frank's heartbeat. And it must be Gerent Ulrich's, but Frank can't move from under Gerard's fingertips, can't look away from his eyes. "Let me get you someone to drink."

Gerard at least should be turning away now, to nod at Gerent Ulrich, let him play host, but his gaze keeps roving over Frank's features, his fingertips grazing Frank's ears, the line of his jaw, and he says, "Frank hasn't eaten in hours. He needs food. Nothing with milk. Soup would be welcome, some bread."

"I see," the voice from over Gerard's shoulder says. Frank's sure he detects amusement there. Gerard's palms slide down to Frank's throat as Ulrich says more quietly, "See what the pets are having for dinner, and bring some for the tech. He can eat in here with us." Gerard finally lets Frank go, steps aside, turns so they're both facing the gerent. Frank bows as he's been taught, and Gerard inclines his head as is fitting.

"I'll assume you're not squeamish, tech," Ulrich continues as though his guests didn't spend several minutes ignoring him. "I've seen your movies."

"They're my movies," Gerard corrects, guiding Frank toward a small sofa and sitting down next to him. "But no, he's not squeamish."

Frank isn't sure if Gerard is speaking for him because he wants Frank to stay silent or if he thinks Frank can't speak, but in case it's the former, he doesn't add to the conversation. Not that Gerard is wrong. Frank was still a teenager when he went to live in the Way's compound, and has made hundreds of snuff vids in the years since, seen hundreds more kills than that on the live feeds. He was thirteen the last time a kill made him vomit. Vampires are what they are and they do what they need to do to survive. In a different world, a different life, Frank wouldn't be forced to view half his fellow humans like gazelles in a lion's hunting grounds, but this is the life he's been given, and the human psyche is nothing if not adaptable.

But Gerard hasn't ever fed with Frank right there in the room. Frank's never had to listen.

The man who comes in with a tray has a pet's marker around his wrist. He's tall and slim, though not as tall as the gerent. Somewhere, Frank thinks, between Mikey and Captain Gabe, who tops Frank's five-and-a-half feet by at least ten inches. The pet kneels at Ulrich's feet and waits for a hand on the back of his head before he sets the meal on the low table in front of Frank. When it's settled to his satisfaction, he crawls back and sits on the floor at the gerent's side. Never having dined with vampires before, Frank isn't sure what the etiquette is with regards to waiting.

"Please," Gerard says, two fingers light on Frank's elbow. "Start."

Frank lifts the lid to find a dark stew studded with potato and carrots, served with hand-cut biscuits. He does most of his own cooking, but rarely bothers getting this fancy. His mouth floods in anticipation of the first bite, but still he hesitates, not wanting to upset Gerent Ulrich or make Gerard look bad. Gerard prods his elbow again, less gently this time, and Ulrich says, "My pets assure me the cook is excellent. Please do start. Bebe will be back shortly with something for your master."

Frank eats.

The food is, as promised, amazing, thick and savory, but not so rich that it aggravates a stomach twisted with adrenalin. The table is an awkward height, and once his belly realizes it's getting food it's hard not to get down on the floor and just put his face in his plate. He does his best to eat with the manners his mother taught him, though, to look like a competent tech. Someone a vampire should trust to put alts on his optic nerves. He's finished half his stew when the captain returns with a woman about Frank's age and a man a few years younger. From the blank stares and the scars on their necks, arms, and thighs, Frank gleans they're feeders, not prey.

"Wasn't sure how hungry you are," Ulrich says, gesturing the three into the room. "Or if you have a preference."

Frank does his best to keep his eyes on the meal in front of him, leave Gerard to his. Gerard discourages feeders in their zone, preferring prey to get a chance to live their own lives before they're hunted, says that gives all of them an equal chance of survival. Frank has wondered if it's also because kill vids have a much higher price than feeding vids, but Gerard's distaste for the thralled snacks presented to him is clear to Frank. It isn't written on his face, and Frank's sure from the relaxed pose Ulrich maintains that he believes Gerard's pleased smile, but from where he's sitting, Frank can see the muscles tense at the back of Gerard's neck, feel the twitch of the fingers he has resting next to Frank's thigh. And he knows all Gerard's smiles. He'll eat because he needs to, and because it's polite, but he won't be changing his policy any time soon.

Carefully, Frank breaks his biscuit, dips a piece in the gravy, lifts it to his mouth with a hand cupped underneath to avoid drips. As he chews, he focuses on the large chunk of carrot cut on a diagonal floating in the center of his bowl. But his peripheral vision is good, and he can't help seeing Gerard shift slightly, Bebe step forward with the man in front of her, held out for Gerard to take. Frank can't help but be thrown when Gerard doesn't stand, but stays next to him and lets the boy kneel between his feet. In his surprise he turns. Not enough to be staring, but enough to see clearly when Gerard takes the boy's arm and lifts it to his lips. Enough to see Gerard's fangs descend and his mouth go wide, sink into the tender skin just below the boy's elbow.

The boy whimpers, writhes, but he doesn't try to pull away. The woman at Bebe's side makes a soft sound. Jealousy, sympathy, random coincidence, Frank can't tell. But his eyes only flick to her for a moment before they're back on the tableau less than two feet from his own unscarred elbow. He can smell the blood, even over the herbs in his stew. And Gerard isn't slurping exactly, but there's a wet sound that isn't in any of the sound-effects files they use for vids, and he can hear Gerard swallowing. His cheeks are covered by his hair, but his lips are deep red, and the hands holding the boy's limb are flushing the palest rose.

"That's probably—" Bebe starts, then, "If you'd like more, sire, this one is at full capacity."

Frank feels Gerard startle before he sees it, all his muscles tensing before he drops the boy like a silver chain. "I— Sorry." The boy's still bleeding. Not the sluggish trickle Frank's used to seeing on the corpses bled almost dry, but a thick red flow, wide as Gerard's mouth, spreading a little as it heads toward his fingers. As quick as he jumped away, Gerard grabs him again, retracting his fangs before he starts to lap at the wound.

Every hair on Frank's arms, his thighs, the back of his neck, stands on end as he watches Gerard's tongue, watches the blood slow its flow, the ragged gashes start to close. He knew, somewhere in his mind, that this must be possible, because feeders exist, and he knows Mikey drinks from Pete, but seeing it is— Seeing it— He—

A sound from across the room breaks through Frank's craze, makes him drop his spoon onto the tray with a clatter. Before Gerard can look up and catch him staring, Frank shifts his attention to whatever made the sound. He finds Gerent Ulrich watching him, his face a picture of smug amusement while his pet's head bobs in his lap. Which, Frank shouldn't be watching that, either.

"You have a bedroom, Sire," Bebe says, the honorific somehow sounding both more and less respectful when she's addressing Ulrich instead of Gerard. "And dawn is approaching. Shall I show our guests to their rooms?"

"Room. The Willow Suite, I think." He makes no move to stop his pet.

"We don't—" Gerard says, looking from Ulrich to Frank, his eyes wide. He still has blood on his chin, drying now and starting to crack. The boy he fed from is curled up small against the arm of the sofa, idly rubbing his newest scar with one thumb. The blood Gerard didn't clean from his arm is only dried at the edges. Where it's thickest at the center, it still glistens in the lamplight. Frank should be concentrating on the conversation Gerard and Ulrich are having about rooms, because it's obviously distressing Gerard, but there's a lot of blood, and he can't stop looking at it.

"He's not a pet!" Gerard punctuates his exclamation by grabbing Frank's arms and waving his wrists, unadorned with a pet's bands, in Ulrich's direction. "He has no duty to sleep at the foot of my bed like—"

"Or in it?" Ulrich drawls.

"I don't mind where I sleep," Frank interrupts, because once Gerard starts shouting, things tend to deteriorate. They need to keep Ulrich's good will. And the fee he'll pay for the alts isn't exactly unwelcome, either.

"Frank," Gerard says, turning toward him, fingers slipping from Frank's forearms down to his hands. "You're the best cybertech in the country. You don't have to let him treat you like you're less than that."

"Now now, Gerard, you're going to hurt his delicate human feelings." Ulrich's pet has stopped blowing him, but is still between his thighs, chin propped on Ulrich's stomach while Ulrich strokes his hair. The position is useful for covering what Ulrich's gaping trousers are not, but it still makes Frank's skin itch. Particularly where Gerard is touching him.

"I'm not— What?" Gerard's saying.

"If a pretty boy like that offers to share your bed, the polite thing to do is let him."

Frank desperately wants Ulrich to stop talking. Now if Frank does offer to share Gerard's bed, Gerard will believe that he's only doing it to stay on their host's good side. "No hurt feelings," he says in a rush. "If a suite is what you have to offer us, we'll take it gladly. My gerent needs his sleep, of course, and I want to be well rested for your procedure tonight."

"But—" Gerard says.

Squeezing Gerard's fingers, Frank stands. "Thank you." He nods to the gerent and turns to the captain, gaze carefully slipping past the feeder still on the floor and the second one who's moved to a chair in the corner. "You said you'd show us to our room?"

"I like you," Ulrich says from his chair. "I like him, Gerard. If you're ever looking for a new home for him…"

Gerard moves too fast for Frank to see. One moment he's between Frank and Bebe, the next he's standing practically on top of Ulrich's pet, hands on the arms of Ulrich's chair, leaning right in his face. "He is not for sale," Gerard growls. "He has a home. He has a home. And tell your men, next time one of them touches him without asking first, I will rip off his hands."

For the flash of a second, Frank's sure Ulrich is going to tear Gerard's head from his body, but he only laughs. "Oh, I'm sure you will," he says.

Ulrich is still chuckling as Bebe leads Gerard and Frank from the room.

The Willow Suite is not randomly named. Or is perhaps not randomly decorated. Either way, it's fucking impressive. And crazy. The tree is directly opposite the door, and it takes Frank a moment to realize it's actually a bed. The trunk is an elaborately carved headboard, and the branches, which reach to and descend from the ceiling, form a canopy that nearly hides the mattress. The cot at the bed's foot is a fallen log, oak Frank thinks, the coverlet a thatch of moss. His grandmother had a shelf of paper-and-ink books in her living room. The bed looks almost exactly like the illustration of Alice before the rabbit hole. Minus Alice.

"The washroom is on the right, Ryan's bringing your bags, and there's a bell here if you need anything else." Bebe gestures perfunctorily around as she speaks, then steps back, placing herself between them and escape.

"We need a room for Frank," Gerard insists.

"There is nothing in the room he could use to harm you while you sleep, sire, and I would be happy to search his luggage personally."

Frank's skin goes cold like when he was watching Gerard lick closed the feeder's wound, only this time there's no frisson of want underneath it. "I wouldn't—"

Gerard spins toward her, jaw set. "I do not fear for my safety. Frank is— That is not the issue."

With every word heavy with controlled anger, it's impossible for Frank to tell if Gerard laid more stress on 'my' or on 'safety'. Should Frank be afraid? Or is there something else Gerard is scared of?

Дата добавления: 2015-09-29