That brings a small smile to his face. He gets to his feet, comes over to the couch and peers down at me. “I’m counting on it,” he says steadily.
Then he turns and walks off to a bar cart in the corner. “Want a drink?” he asks, taking the top off a crystal decanter with a satisfying pop. “And I don’t mean blood. You’ll get that later.”
I’m getting emotional—and physical—whiplash from our interactions. I take in another deep breath, then decide a stiff drink is probably what I need. Stiff something, that’s for sure. “Okay.”
He glances at me over his shoulder, as if he heard that last thought, and then pours the drinks, coming over with two crystal highball glasses in his hands. “Here,” he says, handing me one. He brings his glass to mine, tapping it against the rim with a musical chime. “And here’s to new beginnings.”
I stare up at him, immediately locked in his gaze, his pupils growing larger, blacker, until they’re all I see. He raises his glass to his lips, never breaking eye contact, and I do the same, swallowing down the delicious burn of Scotch.
Then he sits back down in the armchair, one leg crossed, ankle on the knee, taking an elegant pose. He reminds me of a big cat, and I think back to the claw marks on the stairs, wondering what happened there. But I have so many questions for him at this point, that will have to wait.
“You’re still wearing the necklace,” he says appreciatively.
I automatically press my fingers against the ruby, a habit now. “I’ve been too afraid to take it off.”
His forehead creases. “Really? And why is that?”
“My parents said it’s bewitched.”
“And they were fine with you wearing it?”
“They said,” I pause, licking my lips, “that it was for my own good.”
“They’re right,” he says after a moment, taking a sip of his drink.
“What is it? A way to track me?”
He scoffs. “I can track you without that, moonshine.”
I stare at him to go on.
“It lets you know when I’m near,” he explains. He has another sip of his drink.
“A warning?”
He gives me a cold look. “Sure. If you like to think of it that way.”
I decide to switch the subject. “So, what happened to me the other night? What is the…Black Sunshine?”
He observes me for a moment before he relaxes slightly. “Some call it the Veil, but it depends on who you are and where you go. It’s a world between worlds.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that there are more dimensions to this world than what we exist on,” he says with added patience. “And by we, I mean humanity. The Black Sunshine is used primarily by vampires, but sometimes you’ll find people in there too, those with special abilities. Not quite witchcraft, but something else.”
“So normal people can’t go there?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Normal people might, but it’s getting into the Veils that poses the problem. You have to create your own door and not many people can do that. You also have to be careful as to where you’re going.” He notes the puzzled expression on my face. “Think of it like…back in the day, when you paid with your credit card, they’d put it in an imprinter and make several copies on carbon. Think of the top layer as this world, the next as Black Sunshine, and the rest as the layers under that.”
“So, there’s another layer underneath the one I was in?”
He nods.
“Can we go there?”
“Yes,” he says cautiously. “But you don’t want to.”
“Why not?”