Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

its approach and hovered inches from her face, trembling.
    “King,” she said again, more strongly than before. If the man was in control of the demon, she had to reach him.
    He closed his eyes and lowered his head. The demon visage faded. When he opened his eyes, he was a man again, but the cool restraint she’d seen before was gone. He pushed out a quick breath and took a step back. He looked nearly as shocked as she was by his lack of control, but he recovered quickly.
    Elizabeth licked her dry lips and tried to speak, but her voice came out in a croak. “You’re a vampire.”
    “Not just that,” he said, fully in control again. Whatever battle had waged inside him was over. “If that’s all I were, you’d be dead right now.”
    Her head was spinning. How could this be happening? It was one thing to read texts, to read two hundred year old accounts, but to be standing face to face with... She could barely bring herself to think it. Even having considered the possibility, facing the truth was shocking. Vampires were real. Real and staring at her.
    “How?” she asked. That was too simple a question, but the best she could do.
    King seemed pleased at the question. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” he said and then shook his head, ever the gracious host. “Would you like to sit? Your legs look about to give way. It is quite a shock.”
    He was right about that. Her knees hadn’t stopped wobbling. “Standing’s fine, thanks.”
    “As you wish,” he said and then walked to the center table. He ran his finger over one of the small figures. “Eight years ago, when Carter discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb, I knew I had to have a part of the treasure. From one King to another. It began merely as avarice, to have something so unique. To own it. But once the artifacts began arriving, it grew into something much more.” He looked around the room proudly. “Much more.”
    “I’d recently inherited my father’s business,” he said without an ounce of sarcasm. “He was killed by rivals, and I assumed the mantle of command but had no desire to die an early death. They’re quite common in my line of business. I’d read of the ancient Egyptian’s beliefs in eternal life, and set out to discover their secrets. How to cheat death.”
    Elizabeth’s knees had stopped wobbling, but she didn’t dare move. King walked smoothly around the room as he told her his story. It was so shockingly antithetical to the demon she’d seen, the pleasant timbre of his voice, the graceful movements.
    “My brother, it seems, had different ideas. He’d always been jealous of me. Jealous of the favor our father showed me,” he said and shrugged indifferently. “His jealousy devoured him, until he tried to kill me. Technically he succeeded, but his plans, like everything else in his life, didn’t quite work out. He aligned himself with a group of vampires.”
    “You mean there are lots of you?”
    He smiled indulgently. “Not anymore. But I digress. My brother’s first mistake was to trust them. They’re stupid creatures, guided only by lust and hunger. They exist only to feed. No better than drug addicts.” As if sensing her unspoken question, he continued. “I am, as I said, not just a vampire. The demon doesn’t control me, I control it.”
    She knew that was only partially true. When he’d let the demon out, his control had faltered. For those brief, infinitely long moments, he’d been nothing more than a beast, wanting only the kill.
    “But these creatures were like animals, no discipline, no thought. Pathetic,” he said and gave a mirthless laugh. “This group, although rather inept, had managed to function as a small gang. Buoyed by meager successes, a series of artless murders and minor robberies, they’d garnered a bit of a reputation in the underworld. My brother offered them a chance for a bigger score, to climb the food chain, as it were.”
    Even in her fright, Elizabeth found herself listening with rapt attention. A gang of vampires loose on the streets of New York City. The underworld run by, well, the underworld.
    “The ambush was ill-conceived and poorly executed,” King continued. “My brother wanted to strike me down here, in this very room. His version of irony, I suppose. But I’d gotten wind of his plan and was prepared. Prepared in ways they couldn’t imagine. Of course, they were supposed to kill me, but they betrayed my brother, to no one’s surprise but his own. Why