"Breathe," she suggested.
The ragged intake of air did little to calm him but it did break the paralysis. He shoved his chair back from the table and started to stand.
Vicki closed her fingers around his wrist. "Stay."
He swallowed and sat down again.
His skin was so hot it nearly burned and she could feel his pulse beating against it like a small wild creature struggling to be free. The Hunger clawed at her and her own breathing became a little ragged.
"What's your name?"
"Ph... Phil."
She caught his gaze with hers and held it. "You saw something last night."
"Yes." Stretched almost to the breaking point, he began to tremble.
"Do you live around here?"
"Yes."
Vicki stood and pulled him to his feet, her tone half command half caress. "Take me there. We have to talk."
Phil stared at her. "Talk?"
She could barely hear the question over the call of his blood. "Well, talk first."
*
"It was a woman. Dressed all in black. Hair like a thousand strands of shadow, skin like snow, eyes like black ice. She chuckled, deep in her throat, when she saw me and licked her lips. They were painfully red. Then she vanished, so quickly that she left an image on the night."
"Did you see what she was doing?"
"No. But then, she didn't have to be doing anything to be terrifying. I've spent the last twenty-four hours feeling like I met my death."
Phil had turned out to be a bit of a poet. And a bit of an athlete. All in all, Vicki considered their time together well spent. Working carefully after he fell asleep, she took away his memory of her and muted the meeting in the alley. It was the least she could do for him.
Description sounds like someone escaped from a Hammer film: The Bride of Dracula Kills a Pimp.
She paused, key in the lock, and cocked her head. Celluci was home, she could feel his life and if she listened very hard, she could hear the regular rhythm of breathing that told her he was asleep. Hardly surprising as it was only three hours to dawn.
There was no reason to wake him as she had no intention of sharing what she'd discovered and no need to feed but, after a long, hot shower, she found herself standing at the door of his room. And then at the side of his bed.
Mike Celluci was thirty-seven. There were strands of grey in his hair and although sleep had smoothed out many of the lines, the deeper creases around his eyes remained. He would grow older. In time, he would die. What would she do then?
She lifted the sheet and tucked herself up close to his side. He sighed and without completely waking scooped her closer still.
"Hair's wet," he muttered.
Vicki twisted, reached up, and brushed the long curl back off his forehead. "I had a shower."
"Where'd you leave the towel?"
"In a sopping pile on the floor."
Celluci grunted inarticulately and surrendered to sleep again.
Vicki smiled and kissed his eyelids. "I love you too."