Blood Tint ~ Part 20

{Start with Part 1}

Blood Tint ~ Part 20

Together Daci and I made our way home above the urban canopy. I was barefoot, shirtless, having fled from our rooms in sleep. Though we took nearly the same path, my lines and jumps looked – and felt – heavier, more earthbound than hers. Watching her flit between buildings, it was easy to understand the ‘vampires can fly’ legends. As I traversed the rooflines I thought back over the last few nights.

Monday, three nights earlier, I’d brought Daci to Neave’s to see the finished painting of us. She’d looked at it intently for a few minutes, taking in the details of the abstract portraits, then closed her eyes and inhaled the picture as well. I smiled, because I had done the same thing.

A moment later, Daci offered Neave to buy it, at a price that made her blink.

“I… I was going to give it to you! To the two of you,” Neave stammered.

“Nonsense, darling,” Daci replied. “You’ll hold it for your show, but put one of those pretty red stickers next to it. I daresay, you need to get your work ‘out there,’ sooner rather than later, because you don’t want us buying up your entire oeuvre. And we might just, if word gets out. Alak and I are not the only ones who walk the galleries, you know. Though you might make a pretty penny, the art will disappear and not see the light of day again, quite literally.”

Of course, Daci was right. Neave’s art could have a definite appeal among vampires. I admit I hadn’t given much thought to this possibility. What vampire wouldn’t want art that smelled as good as it looked. My head was not, I knew, entirely clear when thinking about Neave. I could have – possibly should have – thought of this myself. But Daci had always been more connected to the ‘community’ than I. Even though the terms were old and archaic now, the Turned were both more rare and less trusted, even now, than the Stricken.

Neave passed from surprise, to consideration and understanding quite quickly, and accepted. She was savvy enough to know a sale from an invisible patron would very likely increase the success of her show.

All that lay in the weeks ahead. Then and there, after she said yes, and let it sink in, she giggled like a girl half her age. Then she grabbed Daci in a hug and twirled her completely around. Daci was almost surprised by it, I think, but returned Neave’s kiss with one, hungrier, of her own. The ensuing revelry pulled me in quickly and enthusiastically. Mindful of work the next day, we took care to exhaust Neave in short order, and left her in sleep before too late.

That night Daci and I made a couple discreet phone calls, to put a bug in the ear of one or two ‘people’ we knew. Influence is best, and most powerful, when it is subtle. Success in the art world is a complex intermarriage of talent and who sees you. Neave had one half of the equation. We could try to help with the other.

On Tuesday, Daci and I made an appointment and visited with Catherine at the Library. It was always good to see Miss Black. Few people knew the ins and outs of the city and our community within it as she did. Thus, naturally, part of the price of any stay was information – gossip, if you will.

Catherine’s office was deep in the interior of the library, protected from the light of day by a fortress of stacks; books from current to what passed for ancient, without a speck of dust to be seen. The space itself was almost like entering an Edwardian drawing room without a fireplace; the entire place was bound in leather, brass, and books.

“And what gives us the pleasure of your company in our fair city this year?” she’d asked. Or purred, rather. Catherine was the most feline person I’d ever met. She didn’t walk; she stalked. And her eyes looked through you.

“A girl,” I said.

{Continued in Part 21}