Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

worry about. “He is a gangster.”
    “I know this sounds incredibly lame, but I’ve known gangsters before. Sure, they were just two-cent hoods, but they didn’t see themselves that way. With King, it’s different. There’s something about him. It’s not...natural.” She paused in thought then shook her head. “Or maybe I have vampires on the brain.”
    Simon let go of her hand, and his fingers curled into fists. The niggling suspicion he’d been harboring was finally given voice. “You don’t think King is...”
    “No,” she said too quickly. “Not really. I don’t know. I guess I’m a little shaken, not stirred. Addled my brain. I’m not even sure what I saw. Maybe I didn’t see anything.”
    “You’ve never been addled in your life,” he said, pushing himself up off the bed. “Did you see any signs of transformation? Changes in his face?”
    “I couldn’t really see his face. He was turned away from me. I just don’t know.”
    Simon did his best to slam the door on the voice that screamed “Harbinger!”, but the door wouldn’t close. Losing her was more than untenable, it was absolutely unthinkable. If this man were the creature they’d been searching for...
    A thousand thoughts swirled in Simon’s mind. If King was a vampire, how could he destroy him? Lead bullets wouldn’t harm a vampire. Silver, perhaps, but only a few species. Nosferatu were never sighted out of Romania and not capable of taking on human guise. Uboir had been seen outside of Bulgaria, but weren’t susceptible to silver poisoning. If only he could call his colleagues at Oxford.
    “Simon?”
    Her voice pulled him from his thoughts. She looked so small, it nearly broke his heart. In that moment, his needs seemed so unimportant next to hers. She needed comfort, not a lecture on the occult. He held his hand out to her and she stood and stepped into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.”
    Ockham’s razor dictated that the simplest explanation was the best. Then again, he’d never been a believer in accepting the obvious. Except, of course, when it was standing in his arms.
    He took a deep breath and wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist, pulling her securely into his embrace. He was not going to obsess about what was possible when a surety was standing right in front of him. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt.”
    “That’s something, coming from a man who doesn’t believe in miracles.”
    He slipped a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “I didn’t, and yet, here you are.”
    She blushed delightfully, and Simon brushed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. “Next thing you know, I’ll be composing sonnets. And, as we both know, in that way madness lies.”
    She laughed and the sound lifted the edges of the shroud that had fallen over the room. He leaned in and kissed her, gently at first, but with a growing fervor.
    However, the shadow had been cast, and even in her kiss, he couldn’t quash the feeling that the thing he’d been searching for had found him.
    * * *
    An hour later, Elizabeth rolled onto her side, and her arm fell across the empty bed. She could still smell his scent, but where his strong, warm chest should have been was only the cool smoothness of sheets long-abandoned. The unexpected change forced her awake. Still groggy, she looked around the room and found him sitting in his chair by the window. Even in the dim light of predawn, she could see him watching her.
    “Simon?”
    He didn’t respond, but she saw his shoulders rise and fall with the intake of a deep breath.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked.
    He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
    “Simon.” She started to get out of bed, but he leaned back in his chair, lifting his elbows from his knees and curling his long fingers tightly around his thighs. She could feel him retreating, almost see the emotional shield he wielded in defense. With a deep breath of her own, she settled herself against the headboard. “Nightmares again?”
    “Go back to sleep,” he said, but the strain in his voice betrayed him.
    “Did you try—”
    “Visualizing your wildflowers wasn’t quite up to the task,” he said with a touch of sarcasm, reminding her of her advice to him from what seemed a lifetime ago. “Go back to sleep, Elizabeth.”
    There was something so despairing, so anguished in the way he said her name. She came instantly awake. “You want to talk