37

Alex misunderstood Kendra’s silence in the elevator, and took her hand.  “If they intended you harm, then my brethren would not have brought you here.”

His cold touch was about as reassuring as a bag of ice.  She smiled briefly.  “What about your sisters?  Have you no vampire women?”  Damn, there was that Elizabethan phraseology again.

“No.”  He looked away for an instant.  “Contrary to popular myth, no woman has yet been made a vampire.”  He sighed.  “At the crucial moment, the dying female brain chooses death rather than this life, even if, before the attempt, that same woman swore that her only wish was to live with and love forever the vampire who would be her maker.”  His voice faded to a whisper.

Kendra sensed the pain in his voice, but her rational mind seized the new information.  It cast his four centuries of presumed obsession with her in a different light.  He had loved her, a mortal from the future.  She had been a theory to him, a phantom who didn’t age.  In any relationship they started in a shared timeline, he would watch her age and die while time left him untouched.  Alexander was a romantic.  His hopes for their relationship must have dimmed the moment they met in her timeline, the very instant they should have bloomed.  Kendra studied his face for any sign of such torment.  Astoundingly, he seemed only glad to be with her.

The elevator doors opened quietly.  The two stepped into a large, elegant, and welcoming space.  It did not seem like the lobby of a hotel, but rather a splendid living room.  No, Kendra thought as she saw a drink trolley and a baby grand piano, it’s a salon.

Thomas slid onto the piano bench and started to play a quiet, bluesy jazz number.  Regis, in conversation nearby with a few others, stepped sideways to run his fingers through Thomas’ hair.  The young vampire leaned into the brief touch, and then played a complicated glissando that rose to a poignant note as Regis turned back to his conversation.  One of the vampires with whom he spoke murmured something and nodded toward Thomas.  The others smiled appreciatively.

Kendra realized that the softly-played piano was the loudest thing in the room.  The vampires practically whispered while in conversation.

As if to confirm her observation, a stately fellow, pale but almost certainly human, walked over to them and said quietly, “Mr. Sterling, Ms. Tanagawa,” he bowed his head in greeting.  “Will you require one room or two during your stay?”

Two, Kendra wanted to say, but she was acutely aware that her status as a guest more closely resembled that of a hostage.  Her brow crinkled in consternation as she considered both the question and her situation.  She recalled Alex’s passion when he leaned over her in his guest bed in Elizabethan Cambridge but he seemed far more solicitous in the present.  Would he help or press his advantage?

Alex seemed to take in her confusion, if not all the reasons for it, and replied, “Two rooms please, Cyril.”

“Very good, sir.  The whole of the fifth floor is at your disposal.  May I offer you each a beverage?”

“Two glasses of champagne please, Cyril.”

Cyril bowed his head again, and turned to go.

“A glass of water…” Kendra called after him too loudly, “for me,” she finished feebly, glancing at the many pairs of eyes that turned to stare at her.  Half of them seemed angry at the disruption, the other half amused.  Cheeks burning, she looked to Alex for help.

He smiled indulgently, and looped behind her ear the hair that had fallen forward to cover half her face.  The other vampires resumed their conversations.  “Our hearing is so acute, that we rarely speak with usual human volume.”

“Yes, I noticed it after we left the car.  I guess it will take me some time to adjust.”  There, that sounded modern.  Enough of this romantic drivel.  Alex will have to act like a modern guy.

“Are you hungry?”

Kendra’s stomach growled as soon as Alex asked.  “Yes, I guess so,” she laughed a little.  It sounded empty.

Cyril arrived with two glasses of champagne and one glass of water.  “The cook has a meal waiting for you, Ms. Tanagawa.”

“Excellent,” said Alex.  “May we use the staff dining room, Cyril?”

“Of course, sir,” Cyril said.

“We will be there in a moment.  First a toast.”  He handed Kendra her water and a flute of champagne, then raised his own.  “To an acquaintance rekindled.”

Relieved that he hadn’t said anything that might make her feel guilty for not loving him like he seemed to love her, Kendra clinked her glass gently to his, and sipped.  Alex, she saw when she lowered her glass, had downed his champagne and replaced the flute on Cyril’s round tray.  Cyril regarded her expectantly.  Kendra sighed, raised her glass once more to Alex, and then gulped it down.  She set her flute next to Alex’s on the tray.

“Very good, madam.”  Cyril beamed.  Was slugging champagne an all male thing or vampire tradition?  Was there a difference?  “Please follow me.”

He led them down a hallway, elegant but not as plushly carpeted as the salon, toward a set of full-length wooden swinging doors.  He held one side open for them.  Kendra saw part of a surprisingly small kitchen ahead.  Alex motioned for Kendra to walk through, then guided her to a small room to the left.  Two half-length swinging doors in the back wall led to the kitchen. 

Alexander had just seated her when a cook, reassuringly pink and human, bustled into the room with a tray of covered dishes and a small tureen.  He set this on a sideboard, then turned to drape Kendra’s napkin across her lap.  He brought the tureen to the table, and ladled some delicious smelling soup into the elegant Japanese soup bowl in front of her.

Eagerly, she picked up the matching ceramic spoon, red lacquer interior and dark exterior with ivory-tinted engraving, and looked at Alex, who had just been served a tall covered mug of the same pattern.  “Is this—” she didn’t know how to finish the question without insulting him, and just gestured toward her soup.

Alex grinned.  “Have no fear.  The cook is human, and if my nose does not deceive me, you have in front of you soup made with akamiso, scallions, tofu, and some Maitake mushrooms.

“Hatcho miso, sir,” called the cook at a normal human volume.

“Forgive me,” Alex called back, with similar volume.  “It has been too long since I was in Japan.”  He smiled at Kendra, and said more softly, “Perhaps it will please you to help me correct that lapse some day soon.”

Kendra had no idea what to say.  Alex sounded sappy again for one thing, and she hadn’t thought about travel other than through time-space for years.  She said nothing and looked at her soup.