Мэг Кэбот – Insatiable (страница 16)
“I think we should get you to a hospital,” she heard herself say.
“Not at all,” the man said, putting an arm around her shaking shoulders. His grip seemed to say,
“I didn’t,” Meena said. Her mind was awhirl, she knew. But whose wouldn’t be after such an event? How could he be so calm? Bats, Meena remembered, sometimes carried rabies. “Did any of them bite you? You should go to the ER right away. They can stop rabies if they catch it early enough.”
“None of them bit me,” he said in an amused tone of voice. He had taken the leash from her and was now walking both her and Jack Bauer—though unlike Meena, Jack Bauer wasn’t in the least bit unsteady on his feet and was fighting against his lead, wearing an expression not unlike the one Kiefer Sutherland wore when terrorists kidnapped the president on his show, like he was going to attack anyone and everyone who got in front of him. “But I’ll go to the hospital and get myself checked out as soon as I’ve gotten you home safely.”
“It’s important,” Meena said as they crossed the street. She was babbling. She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help it.
What was she talking about?
The man hesitated. “Is this a friend of yours?” he asked.
Cringing with embarrassment, Meena said, “Well, I mean, Cheryl is. She plays Victoria Worthington Stone on
“I understand,” he said, gently leading her past the grocery store where Jon had said the chicken delivery hadn’t been made. There was a delivery truck outside the store now, though, the motor running noisily.
“So you’re a writer.”
“Dialogue writer.” Meena felt the need to correct him. “I’ve never written a scene like
She couldn’t get it out of her head: the sound of all those wings flapping. And the smell of them—so foul, the way she’d always imagined death would smell, had she ever smelled death, which, thankfully, she hadn’t. She’d known so many people for whom death had come so near, some of whom it had even touched, because she hadn’t been able to save them. …
But death had never, ever come that close to her.
And the shrieking … that sound they’d made as they’d come tearing down from the sky, and then as their bodies had thudded into his …
And those eyes. Those red eyes.
Surely she’d only imagined those.
Meena had now come as near, personally, to death—to hell on earth—as she ever wanted to.
And she didn’t understand how she’d escaped it. She didn’t understand it at all.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling to a stop in front of him and lifting her chin to look him in the face. She didn’t care about the tears anymore, or the way she must have looked and sounded. She had to know. She
He was so handsome, so … nice. How could she ever have thought anything about him, except that he was what he was? A tall, wonderful stranger who’d saved her life?
“D-don’t get me wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m eternally grateful. What you did … that was so incredible. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. But …
“They were only a few little bats,” he said with a smile.
Only a few little bats.
But … no. It had been more … much more than that. She was sure of it.
As sure as she could be of anything so late at night, after something so traumatic.
“You’re home now,” he said, and nodded toward the automatic brass doors a few feet away. “I’m sorry for what happened. I’m afraid it was my fault. But you should be quite safe for the night.”
Meena’s gaze focused, and she realized that, indeed, they’d arrived at 910 Park Avenue. The familiar green awning stretched over their heads. Through the glass of the doors, she could see Pradip, still dozing at the reception desk with his face on his textbook.
“But …” She looked back up at her rescuer, confused. “I didn’t tell you where I live. I never even told you my na—”
Jack Bauer whined, tugging on his leash, anxious to get away from the man who had saved their lives.
“Of course you did. It was wonderful to meet you, Meena,” the man said, letting go of her shoulders. “But it would be better for you if you forgot all about this and went inside now.”
Jack Bauer pulled her toward the doors, which opened automatically with a quiet whooshing sound. Pradip, behind the desk, stirred and began to raise his head. Meena’s feet, as if of their own accord, began to move toward 910 Park Avenue.
But at the threshold, she turned to look back.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said to the tall stranger, who stood waiting with his hands in his coat pockets, as if to be certain she made it safely inside before he went on his way.
“It’s Lucien,” he said.
“Lucien,” she repeated, so she would remember it. Not that it was likely she’d forget anything about this night. “Well. Thank you so much, Lucien.”
“Good night, Meena,” he said.
And then Jack Bauer pulled her the rest of the way inside, and the automatic doors closed with a gentle whoosh behind her.
When she turned to see if she could catch one last glimpse of him, he was gone. She wasn’t entirely certain he had ever been there at all.
Except for the fact that, when she got safely inside her apartment again, she saw that the knees of her pajamas were dirty from where she’d scraped them diving for the sidewalk.
Proof that what had happened hadn’t been a dream—or a nightmare—after all.
Chapter Seventeen
It wasn’t to be borne. They’d attacked him, and in the open, where anyone could have seen. Someone
… in the unlikely event she were to remember it at all, which she wouldn’t.
But that wasn’t the point.
Someone was going to have to pay.
The question was, who?
Lucien stood in front of the cathedral, staring up at the spires. He had circled back after delivering the girl safely to her home. He hadn’t missed the irony of
St. George’s. The irony of
And now the cathedral stood empty while undergoing renovation. What better time for the children of Dracul—or “dragon,” in his native Romanian—to desecrate it?
And what better time than now for the Dracul to convey their message to the only full-blooded son of the prince of darkness that they would no longer abide by his rule?
Sighing, Lucien climbed the steps where, just moments before, he’d fended off the attack from his own kind. They must have put out word of his arrival mere seconds after he’d set foot on American soil in order to have rallied so many to the cause of destroying him.
It was a bit disappointing to discover that he was so violently disliked among his own brethren.
On the other hand, he’d never asked to be liked. Only to be obeyed.
Glancing up and down the street to make sure he was alone—no more pretty, pajamaed dog walkers—he lifted away a section of the blue scaffolding that surrounded the cathedral, then slipped behind it. The church, badly in need of repair—and even more in need of cleaning—rose up before him, some of its ornate stained glass windows broken, even where they were covered in metal wire.
Not that this would keep him out, nor any like him.
They were all gone now, of course. How long they must have waited, knowing he would pass by eventually, going to or from Emil’s. He could only imagine the bickering. Especially among the females. The Dracul women had always been venom tongued.