Touch of Evil Page 3

  Eve looked between the three men, took a deep breath and started to speak. Her voice never faltered as she told them of first love gone wrong.

  Chapter Two

  The sound of music drifted into the dressing room, almost as quiet as a memory. Brianne Murphy heard it from her seat in front of the massive makeup mirror, and thought it was an appropriate accompaniment to the way she was feeling. Sad and lonely.

  She looked up into the beveled glass of the mirror, and squinted against the brightness of the lights surrounding it. It seemed odd that she could stare into a face she had seen everyday of her life and not know the person looking back at her. She still looked the same as she had for the past twenty six years, but there was something in her vivid violet eyes—the color marking her heritage—that was missing. She was only just starting to learn that it was her innocence. That had been ripped away the day she’d realized that the man she loved was a liar.

  “You look lovely this evening.”

  She jumped at the sound of Sebastian’s voice, as smooth as warm brandy. “Thank you, Sebastian.” She met his gold eyes in the mirror before applying eyeliner. The smoky kohl pencil never wavered in its path, even as his cold hand came to rest on her shoulder.

  “The man sitting at the front table needs your special attention tonight, Brianne,” he told her, watching her in the glass. Their gazes met again briefly, and she gave the slightest of nods.

  “Have Leo put a bottle of our finest champagne in here,” Brie told him. “I’ll invite the gentleman back for a private concert after the show.”

  “Of course.” She didn’t move when he brushed his cool lips over the place where her shoulder and neck joined. She offered him a wide smile when he looked at her again. “Did you enjoy your visit with your sister?”

  “Yes, I did. Thank you for allowing it,” she replied, her voice demure and grateful. She looked away and picked up a tube of lipstick.

  “Anything for you, my dear.” Sebastian stroked a hand over the long, silky auburn locks that cascaded down her back. “I’ll see you later this evening then.”

  “All right.” Their gazes met a last time before he slipped out the door.

  As soon as the door was closed, the shudder of revulsion Brianne had been holding back wracked her slim frame. She clamped a hand over her lips to hold in a sob and managed to smear her perfectly painted mouth. Blinking back tears, she picked up a tissue to repair the damage. She could be no less than flawless when she walked on stage, or Sebastian would be angry.

  When she was satisfied with her appearance, she stood and walked over to the floor-length mirror in the corner of the room. She was the star and her room reflected that. Crystal hung above her head, illuminating the richly colored room. Jewel tones spilled over every surface, indulging Brie’s love for color. Thick pillows spilled over the chaise lounge, inviting a person to sink into their softness. The carpeting was soft and plush. The mirror and armoire were made of rich, dark wood, polished to a high gleam. The makeup table was the only modern furniture in the room, and it had been built to blend in with the other pieces.

  In front of the panel mirror, Brie turned to see herself from all sides. The dress, a deep burgundy, was a bit lower cut than she would have liked. But her likes weren’t what mattered. Her critical eye scanned over the image in the mirror, looking for anything that could be construed as a flaw. What she saw was a tall, statuesque woman, with lush curves and a slender waist. The dress clung to her like a second skin, skimming over her body to the floor in an imitation of a lover’s caress. Matching sandals peeked out from under the hem when she moved. A simple, gold bangle adorned one slender wrist and a gold chain with a diamond heart hung around her neck. Diamonds winked from the double piercing in her ears. All in all, she looked perfect.

  She only wished she felt perfect.

  “Ms. Murphy. Five minutes.”

  “I’m coming. Thank you.” With a sigh, and one final brush of her hand against the silk of her dress, Brianne turned and left the room, wondering if she would ever wake up from this nightmare.

  * * * *

  “I was four and a half years old when my father shipped out on a routine mission with a battleship full of seamen. He was only supposed to be gone three months. By the time I turned six, we knew the possibility of his coming home was slim. The Navy had no explanation of what had happened to the battleship. My mother nearly went insane with worry. I remember—when the Navy finally issued a statement, declaring the SS Nations Freedom and all of her occupants MIA, presumed dead—running out of the house, away from my mother’s crying. I couldn’t take it. My father had been my world before he left. Then, he just wasn’t there anymore.”

  Eve paused in her story, taking a deep breath to stave off the tears burning behind her eyes. An image of her father from that day, all dressed up in his uniform, looking so handsome, floated through her brain. An ache formed in her heart, squeezing it tight. She had decided to start her story with how Brie had gotten to the United States, to lay the groundwork for what would eventually happen to her. She had assumed that memories of her parents from that time wouldn’t hurt anymore. She had been wrong.

  The men sat around her, the only sound from them being the occasional scratch of Cyrus’ pencil as he took notes and the sharp snap of Mark’s lighter as he lit a cigarette. Ash didn’t make a sound, his gaze steadily trained on her as she spoke. She didn’t return it, but something about the feel of his eyes on her strengthened her resolve.

  “After awhile the hurt lessened. My mother quit crying all the time, pulled herself together, and threw herself into raising me. She didn’t really date that much. I think a part of her was always hoping that he would come home. Then, I guess it was right after I turned twenty, he did.”

  Eve steadily spun the ring around her thumb and watched the way the light glinted off of it as she spoke. She didn’t want to delve into how she’d felt when her mother had called, tears of relief and joy clogging her throat. Eve had been nearly crippled with the happiness that flowed through her. All questions of where her father had been were pushed away as she’d rushed from her dorm to her mother’s house. It hadn’t seemed real, until she had walked inside to see him. He looked so different, yet almost the same as when he had waved goodbye to her on the pier so many years ago. It wasn’t until she had thrown her arms around him, her own tears flowing free, that Eve had seen her.

  The girl that she would be told was her sister, the girl whose otherworldly eyes seemed to see straight through her.

  “Did he say how he escaped from the island?”

  For the first time since she’d started the story, Eve looked over at Ash and was surprised at the amount of sympathy she saw in his eyes. She flashed him a tight smile before shaking her head. “No. I’d always assumed it was a bad experience. Brie was actually the one that told me what happened. Or, at least what she could remember. It seems that my little sister is some kind of royalty. Her mother is the next in line for the throne. And for some reason, she let my father and her daughter go. Brie doesn’t know why. At least, not that she would tell me. And my father would never talk about it. Now he’s dead, so I guess we’ll never know how he survived so long, or why she let them go.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but what does this have to do with the vampire your sister is with?” Mark asked, impatience written all over his face.

  Eve bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying anything that would get her booted out of the house.

  “You have to know where someone has been to know how they got to where they are,” she answered, her voice tight. She and Mark spent a couple of seconds staring each other down before Cyrus cleared his throat to break the moment.

  “Go on Eve.”

  She looked over at the old man and smiled, then took a deep breath before continuing.

  “Well, to make a long story short…” The look she shot Mark told him that the comment was for him. He merely arched a brow and waited for her to
continue. “About six months after my father and sister showed up, my father died for real. This time, he took my mother with him.” Eve would never forget the night that she’d gotten the call. Brie was in hysterics. The only words she could get out were ’They’re dead’. It left Brie in my care.”

  Eve didn’t tell them how she felt when she found herself alone, having to raise a fifteen-year old sister. The sister that she’d hated for no other reason than Brie had gotten the last fifteen years with their father, while Eve had had a mere four and a half. And most of that time she’d been too young to remember. Or the fact that her hatred had only been compounded when she’d realized that she would have to give up her dreams and college to raise Brie. She had kept that to herself. She had dealt with it and filed it away under “Eve’s less than stellar moments”. Brie was her world now. The sister she hadn’t wanted and the child she had thought she would never have so young. But, unlike the first time Eve had grieved her father’s loss, this time she had someone to share that grief with. That had made everything else seem petty.

  “Things went on all right after that. We moved into an apartment over on Oak Street. I worked two jobs and Brie went to school. She loves it here. The colors, the sounds, the men.” Eve gave a short laugh. For a girl that had grown up on an island stuck in the time of Roman Mythology, she had adapted quickly to the outside world. She grew up only knowing men as slaves, willing servants to her every whim with a breath of a note. She had no problem, however, accepting them as equals.

  Eve had rarely heard her sister sing, and Brie never used her talents against men. Until Sebastian. “I guess it was about a year ago. She and her friends were going to that new club that opened on the Wharf. The Den.” She looked between the three men and could tell that they knew exactly where she was talking about. “She came home gushing over this man she met. How he was so handsome and smart. And his eyes. She went on and on about how his eyes were gold. She told me she was meeting him the next night. That became the next night as well and so on. It got so they were seeing each other every night. Then one night she came home crying. Well, I was ready to go hunt this guy down and cut off his parts for hurting my sister.”

  Ash bit back a laugh. He had a feeling she could very easily carry out that threat. He found he was growing to like Eve. She was tough and smart; and not too hard on the eyes, either.

  Shaking that last, almost disturbing thought off, he focused on what she was saying.

  “When I managed to calm her down, she told me that it wasn’t what he did, it’s what he was. Apparently, that was the first time she had found out he was a vampire.” It had been hard for Eve to accept that creatures of myth were real. But having a sister that was one … needless to say, she’d adjusted quickly. The fact that she said Sebastian was a vampire didn’t have Eve worried for her sister's sanity; it had her worried for her safety.

  “I freaked. I was so afraid that this guy would hurt her.”

  “Vampires are Sirens’ natural enemies,” Cyrus interjected, his words a statement, not a question. Eve nodded in agreement.

  “Yes. Because vampire’s are immune to their songs. Brie was really upset about it. She didn’t know how they would work out. I tried to convince her that they wouldn’t and she should dump him. But, somehow, Sebastian convinced her that he was a good vampire.” Eve rolled her eyes and gave a little laugh. “Who ever heard of one of those?”

  A tense look passed between the men and Cyrus saw the guarded look that fell over Ash’s face with her comment. He glanced over at Eve and saw that she missed it, since she was too busy studying her hands. By the time she looked up again, Ash’s face held only mild interest.

  “So, she obviously continued seeing him?” Cyrus asked.

  Eve nodded and gave another short laugh. “Oh, yeah. See, I forgot what my mother had told me. She said the only way she survived some of the boys I brought home when I was a teen was to keep her opinion to herself and let me find out on my own if they were jerks. So I tried my hardest to keep them apart. And she tried just as hard to stay with him. Since she was twenty-four, I had no real control over her. The only thing that made me feel even the slightest bit better was knowing vampires can’t have children, so pregnancy wasn’t a risk.”

  Tears burned behind her eyes as the memory of that last, horrific argument rolled through her mind. The things they had said, the resentments that had been simmering just under the surface finally exploding. Then the slamming of the door as Brie walked out, determined to make her relationship work. Eve quickly blinked the tears back, reminding herself that this was neither the time nor place to break down. After she was sure these men would help her, she would go home and indulge in a pint of double chocolate ice cream and a good cry. With that promise to herself, she steeled herself for the rest of the tale.

  “We got into this terrible fight, and she left. I didn’t hear from her again for almost three months. When I did, I realized that something was wrong. She wanted to see me. Of course, I said I would. A car was sent for me that night. When I pulled up in front of Sebastian’s house, I was speechless. He owns an estate outside of town. It’s massive! Wrought iron gates, thick trees surrounding the place; I’ll tell you, it gave me the creeps to see the moon shining through the canopy onto the house. The only light around it was that which came through the windows, and that was dim because of the special coating on them to keep the sun out. It was all dark stone with a tower and arching doorways. I didn’t know whether to run away or die from envy. Anyway, I was led into a room, barely able to get a glimpse of the rest of the house. What I saw was a lot of dark wood, marble floors and tons of flowers. And this staircase. I hadn’t seen anything like it since I saw Gone With the Wind.”

  Her voice was slightly awed as she described the place. She shook it off and flashed a sheepish grin, ducking her head slightly. Ash found the gesture charming.

  “So, I was led into the parlor, or the living room, or whatever. All I could do was stare openmouthed in the middle of it. A huge, marble fireplace dominated the wall. A high back couch covered in red silk sat directly in front of it. The chairs on either side of the couch were the same way. Potted plants, flowers in gold vases. I was afraid to touch anything. There I was, standing like a tourist in a museum, when Brie walks in the room, followed by some guy.

  “The first thing that struck me was how thin she looked. She’s always been slender, but generous, if you know what I mean. She seemed almost gaunt to me. She was wearing some expensive suit; the kind I drool over in Vogue then go buy the knock off at K-mart. I didn’t have much time to admire it, though. As soon as she saw me, she wraps me in a hug. I thought that the reason she was squeezing me so tightly was because she missed me. But, after a minute, I realized that I felt something else coming off of her: a sort of desperation. She was clinging to me like I was her lifeline. I clung back.

  “When she pulled away, I looked at her. I mean, really looked at her. There were shadows under her eyes that makeup couldn’t cover. And her eyes themselves looked … haunted.” Anger and guilt coated Eve’s words, making it clear that she blamed herself for her sister’s plight. When she looked at the men, she couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Their faces were masks of stoic attentiveness, none of their inner thoughts given away. It was a little unnerving.

  “We sat down to eat some lunch, and I asked her how she was doing. She spent the entire afternoon trying to convince me that she was fine. Told me how they had just gotten back from Europe and what not. The man that had come in with her stayed in the room. He just stood there, not doing anything. He was far enough away not to seem intrusive, but close enough to hear what was being said. That gave me the impression that Brie was being monitored to make sure she didn’t say anything she shouldn’t. I was ready to drag her out of there by her hair and dare Mr. Short, Dark and Silent to try to do something about it. Then she drops this next surprise on me. Apparently, my little sister is the headlining act at The Emerald Room on Saturday night
s.” She waited a beat for this to sink in.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Mark asked, lighting another cigarette. Eve barely managed not to roll her eyes again.

  “Sirens. Singing. Not good things to go together. Their songs are used for making men slaves. Even if they are just singing to sing, like Brie would do to the radio, their voices make men … do things. It depends on what they are singing and on what the men are willing to do. I freaked. Asked her what the hell she was doing, she knew what would happen if she did that. She said it was fine. She knew how to control her voice and that nothing would happen. Not wanting to lose contact with her again, I let it drop. Wished her luck even. It wasn’t until after I left that I realized what she was doing.”

  “And what was that?” Mark shifted in his seat, realizing that they had finally reached the crux of the story.

  “She wanted me to help her. She didn’t want to sing. Looking back on our lunch afterwards, I really thought about how she looked. She was tense, her mouth set like she was resigned. So, I went to The Emerald Room to see what was going on. When she got on stage, she was so beautiful. And her voice…

  I don’t know what she did, or how she did it, but nothing happened when she sang. And she sounded so wonderful. I was so proud of her. Then, towards the end of the show, I noticed she was flirting with this guy in the front. And this guy was about your age,” she said, turning to Cyrus, then added on, “No offense.” He shrugged his lack of insult.

  Eve continued, “I was surprised, to say the least. I mean, she was supposedly in love with Sebastian, why was she flirting with a man old enough to be her grandfather? After the show, I sat there for a minute, trying to figure it out. Then I noticed that gramps was heading into the back. Well, I’ve always been told that I was too curious for my own good. I slipped outside and walked into the alley, looking for an open window or something. I can’t tell you how pissed I was when I found one, but was too short to get up to it. Not to mention that it was closed.