Page 44 of Marked By Moonlight
I yanked my gaze away and gulped. Shit. A vampire. On the train. With me. What were the chances?
Slim — unless, of course, I happened to be involved in something sketchy. Say, something set up by my godfather.
I did my best to keep my heart from hammering, which would only excite the vampire.
My mind spun. Surely Gordon wouldn’t do anything to endanger me. Maybe the vampire was some kind of undercover protection?
I dismissed the idea immediately. Sandalwood was definitely not one of the good guys.
Okay, okay —good guys, I’d learned, was relative. For me, it meant supernaturals who weren’t inclined to kill me. Guys I’d gotten to know, like Marius, Bene, Roux, and H—
I halted the thought and crossed Henrik off that list forever.
“Tickets, please,” the conductor said.
Everyone had shown theirs at the station turnstile, so he must have been checking Premier Class for freeloaders with standard class tickets.
Sandalwood held up his phone agreeably enough, but I was tempted to ask the conductor,Could you check for fangs along with his ticket? I think he’s a vampire.
But what would the poor man do? Die defending me?
I clutched my phone, tempted to call Gordon. But I couldn’t exactly voice my suspicions, not with the vampire so close, along with so many other passengers.
I could picture it now — dozens of heads turning as I waited for Gordon’s reply toJust checking if you happened to send a vampire to tail me to London. No? Never mind, then.
Sandalwood held up a newspaper, but his eyes didn’t sweep across lines of print. They focused on one point while he observed his surroundings with his peripheral vision.
Scratch that — not his surroundings. He observedme.
I gazed studiously out the window. Could I text Roux or Bene?
Being followed by a vampire. Dark hair, dark eyes. Appears about fifty years old, but who the hell knows. Any chance you know the guy?
Then it hit me. Weeks ago, I’d been stalked in the château gardens. Roux, Bene, Henrik, and Marius had chased away the intruder without getting a firm ID, but their prime suspect was a vampire named Szabo.
I swallowed hard. Was this Szabo? Was he stalking me?
I considered snapping a covert picture and sending it to Roux, but Szabo — if that really was him — would definitely catch me at that. Also, would a vampire even appear in a photograph? I wasn’t sure.
The lady opposite me dropped her bookmark, and Szabo leaned over to retrieve it.
“Oh,merci,” she gushed.
He bent into a slight bow, and that clinched it. With manners that were at least a century out of date, the guy was definitely a vampire. Not a good-guy vampire or even a tolerable, not-too-horrible vampire. I could sense it.
I turned my phone on just as the train shot into a tunnel. My ears popped, and I turned it off again. Zero reception, and there was no way anyone a phone call away could help me now.
The train blasted back into the open, and sunlight bathed Sandalwood’s side of the train. He winced, further backing my conclusion. The older a vampire got, the better he — or she — could tolerate direct sunlight, though they preferred to avoid it.
I gritted my teeth, thinking desperately for some means of getting away from him. Pronto.
Shadow-walking came to mind, but I scratched the thought immediately. It worked best at a distance, where folks couldn’t make out the details. Also, I had no confidence in my ability to maintain an illusion in a moving train. My illusionary double would probably start drifting across space, and the rapid changes in light and shadow would be impossible to keep up with.
So I went back to basics with the oldest trick in any woman’s book: fleeing to the toilet.
I stood, grabbed my bag as casually as possible, and walked toward the toilet. It was occupied, giving me the excuse to walk to the end of the next compartment.
I glanced at the reflection in the compartment door and, shit. Sandalwood — Szabo? — was following me.
