"Behind the Glass Chapter 1" by Shelby K. Irons

The first twilight he appeared to me, I had been dozing between awake and asleep when I heard a succession of soft taps coming from the balcony French doors.

Rain. It was raining.

Tap, tap. Ta-ap, tap.

I listened for a moment. It did not sound like rain. The torrential summer storms in Phoenix were often violent and loud.

Tap ta-ap tap tap.

This sound was strangely unsettling.

I sat up sharply, puzzled and annoyed. The taps stopped.

Squinting in the dark, I frowned. Everything in my spacious studio apartment was familiar and still. Elegant, expensive. A vision of high, vaulted ceilings and silk-lined walls done in cream and gold. I'd lived in this huge rectangular room for only a few months, but had yet to unpack entirely. The faint outlines of unopened boxes greeted me from the shadows, cluttered in every corner. My refrigerator hummed softly in the utilitarian white-tiled kitchen across the room. Starshine from the window illuminated the various office supplies found on my antique oak desk.

I turned the alarm clock on my nightstand around to see what time it was. It blinked 1:23 at me impatiently.

With an exasperated groan, I raked my fingers violently through my shoulder-length blond hair. My mouth felt cotton dry and I licked away the sweat that beaded my upper-lip. To be honest, I felt like I'd been pummeled by a meat tenderizer and then hit by a Mack Truck. My body ached, my head swam and I was always thirsty. Though it was a relatively mild night for September, it was an Arizona evening and still warm. My AC unit was turned down to sixty-eight degrees and I was shaking with a hot fever.

Tears of frustration welled behind my eye lids. As Chief Financial Officer of Center Once, the prestigious marketing company my great grand-father had founded, I couldn't afford to be sick. According to my father, being sick was a lack of control of the mind over the body, the ultimate sign of failure.

Up until the day he died four months ago, T.W. Grayson had never missed a day of work at Center One, starting with his early days as an accountant and ending up as CEO of the family business. Naturally, it was expected that I'd follow in his footsteps. I pressed the heels of my palms to my forehead and tried to rub away the pounding in my brain. No pressure, right?

I felt like I'd been living with a headache since the day he had died. The man has been a financial wizard, adept at turning a floundering company into a thriving, money-making enterprise, but he was also a social recluse prone to bouts of manic depression. He had been obsessed with the study of ancient arcane knowledge, had crumbling books and priceless artifacts that filled the study of our family home. When he wasn't giving me lectures on the virtues of accounting, he was babbling about mythical creatures like vampires and werewolves, or witches and magic. His other secret passion had been the game of chess. My dreams as of late were peppered with troubling memories of our late nights playing on his black and white marble set.

"The Queen is the most powerful piece on the board. She can conquer anybody who stands in her way," he said cooly, his tone detached and superior sounding as always.

"But that's mean. Why is she evil, Daddy?"

"Not evil. Ruthless. Good and evil don't exist. There is only power and those who know how to use it. The Queen always knows how to use her power and she uses it to get what she wants."

"So, if I win this game, will you buy me a pony?"

His eyes were frightening as shadows gathered in the depths of his unusual violet eyes -- eyes that I inherited from him. His smile was strange, almost crazed. "My little Black Queen, how quickly you learn."

Black Queen. Never the White Queen. My hair was as pale as the ivory pieces on the board, but he called me the Black Queen from that day forward. The contrast amused him greatly.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. If my mother hadn't died when I was five, perhaps my father wouldn't have been so determined to wage a war on life, to be so bitter and calculated, even when it came to raising his own child. I swallowed down a ball of anger and clenched my teeth.

I looked at the clock again. 1:39. Damn.

Think of your client list for tomorrow. SLEEP!

I peered around one more time and shuffled under my sheets. Fluffing my pillows with a huff, I flopped back down into their comfort.

The tapping started once more.

Tap tap ta-ap tap tap.

A jolt of fear balled up in my throat. The feeling of fear was a foreign emotion to me, one that I did not experience often, which made this particular instance even worse. I was paralyzed, scared to breathe. I wished my comfortable mattress would somehow suck me inside it's depths and hide me for awhile.

"Stop acting like a baby," I chided myself.

This was ridiculous. I was completely safe in my own home! I inhaled hesitantly and rolled on my right side, looking to the balcony French doors. The gauzy, gossamer curtains I had lovingly hung when I had first moved in whispered against the glass gently. It was a moonless night, but even in the dark, there didn't seem to be a disturbance to the naked eye.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Maybe it was a lost cat scratching on the glass. I listened for a mew and heard nothing. The taps remained soft but steady. Of course it wasn't a cat. I lived three stories up. An animal couldn't stay that consistent. Or jump that high.

Was someone throwing rocks up on my balcony? I lived in a relatively obscure apartment building with aloof and boring neighbors. Who would bother to do something so mundane?

Tap, ta-ap ta-ap tap.

"Damned street kids!"

Grumbling, I rolled out of bed and stormed over to the French doors. "Look, this can be considered harassment and I'm going to call the poli--"

My hand curled around the doorknob when a man's face came into view out of nothingness behind the translucent curtains.

"OH MY GOD!" I screamed and staggered backwards rather ungracefully. Caught off balance, I managed to land in a heap of limbs and silken pajamas on the floor.

CALL THE COPS! My mind screamed instantly. GET OFF THE FLOOR! FIND THE PHONE! GO! MOVE!

Wildly, I scooted across the carpet until my back hit the side of the bed. Using one hand to fumble for the phone resting on the nightstand, and the other to shove the mass of my hair off my face, I was compelled to look back to the balcony doors to see if the intruder wasn't just a figment of my fertile imagination.

My eyes lifted hesitantly. Yep, he's real.

I froze with my hand held suspended in mid-air.

A man stood there, behind the glass, smoldering with sin and temptation. His beauty was radiant and elusive at the same time. I squinted to focus better in the dark. I couldn't see his features clearly, yet I had a picture of him swimming behind my vision when I closed my eyes.

Classically handsome with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose, his face was pale but aristocratic with a lean, hungry look that made me shiver. His eyes, electric as sapphires, stirred with many surfaces, many lights, internal reflections repeated over and over into infinity. They wavered with ancient depths I couldn't decipher.

A peculiar aura of starsheen seemed to hover around his body, delicate and discreet, but definitely there. With the extra light, I noticed his clothing was simple, a plain black tee shirt and dark jeans. Added with the boyish tousle of chestnut hair that swept over his brow just a little bit too long, it gave him an air of debonair dishevelment reserved for those old black and white movie heroes that made women want to fall at their feet in a swoon.

Hell, if I wasn't already on the floor, I'd swoon too.

He was calling to me with his eyes. There was a bond, a silent communiqué between us. Even against my will, I couldn't deny that there was an attraction. Heart, mind, body, and soul. All consuming. I wanted him. I needed to be close to him. I felt alive for the first time, wired from the inside.

I blinked and exhaled the breath I hadn't realized I'd held inside.

Whoa...time out. Heart, mind, body, and soul?

Where the hell did that come from? I was starting to sound like one of the romance novels I liked to read in the bath! Well, I'd be damned if I'd swoon for anyone, let alone this intruder! Besides, the man on the balcony wasn't singing a serenade or bearing gifts. He scared me.

I crossed myself shakily and mumbled a quick prayer. When I looked up to him again, he hadn't moved at all. He stared back at me intently, a lucid smile curled on his lips like he could see right into my body. My lips parted faintly and I went hot and cold inside. For the first time since my fumbling teenage years, I blushed, the heat of it creeping up my cheeks into my hair until I felt like the roots were burning up.

He's a robber, or killer, a rapist, or a really persistent IRS agent; I tried to remind myself wildly. Yeah, but he's so...perfect... another little voice in my mind teased.

I smirked at the inner dialogue in my head and fought for a logical train of thought.

Why hadn't I called 911 yet? My fingers hovered over the receiver, yet I couldn't seem to bring myself to pick it up. Still high from my adrenaline rush, my chest heaved as I forced oxygen back into my lungs. My heart pounded heavy as a stone as it fed blood back into my frozen brain. And why hadn't he attempted to break in? Was he here to rape me or steal my plants?

My musings were seemingly lost on the intruder. He merely stood there, leaning against the doorjamb with one leg crossed casually over the other. Like he was waiting for an invitation to come inside for a cup of tea!

His non-chalant act made the butterflies die in my stomach. I saw non-chalant in the boardroom everyday, but seeing it from him made me blazing angry. How dare he interrupt my sleep just to admire the expensive view of the city from my balcony! Well he sure wasn't getting any tea from me, no matter how nice those black jeans molded to his thighs.

Recovering from my statuesque freeze, I lunged for the telephone on the nightstand beside the bed. The police would think I was crazy babbling about a man on my balcony, but calling them would make me feel safer. My fingers brushed over the receiver just as the phone was jerked violently backwards by an unseen force. I paled and shrank back. It crashed with a noisy jingle against the wall. I could hear the dial tone for a moment before the line went suddenly dead.

He quirked an innocent brow when I looked back to him again in appalled shock.

"Okay...this is the part where the girl dies," I murmured under my breath thinking that this was a scene right out of a B movie. I heard his husky chuckle from outside in response.

I needed to take action. I needed to scream or find a weapon. I wanted to get up and run across the room to the front door.

Instead, I felt my hand drop heavily to my side as I stood transfixed, watching him warily. My mind was screaming instructions to my body, but I couldn't move. I wasn't even blinking.

I watched as he raised a finger, deliberately slow, to his lips and bit down on the fleshy pad. Blood surged forth in a steady stream and he moved his hand away. His mouth was stained from the sanguine liquid and he leaned forward to kiss the French door, leaving a red smear on the glass. I flinched slightly feeling a sudden brush of heat across my lips. I could taste the metallic lushness of his kiss. I stared at the blood dripping down the window and swallowed numbly in shock.

Holy Saints! He was bleeding on my door!

He stepped back to observe his work and to watch my face with a dry smirk, his tongue snaking out to lick the droplets from his mouth. I licked my own dry lips unconsciously and took a step forward. His finger was still bleeding but not as profusely now, and he held it up for me to observe. I stared at him blankly, intrigued by his show.

He grinned.

Using his finger as the quill and his blood as the ink, he gently wrote the words "Let me in" beneath his bloody mark. The crimson droplets slid down the window like dark wine.

"Like hell I'm letting you in," I said shakily, not sounding sure at all.

A little muscle ticked in his jaw and he peered at me beneath his long lashes, almost saying, "Please?"

My lips trembled as I resisted the urge to fling open the door and kiss the condescending look off his beautiful face. Instead, I found myself moving forward. Curiously, the fear and shock from minutes before had disappeared. A few soft steps across the cream carpet and I was standing in front of the glass doors. In a daze, I brushed aside the floating curtains to look at him directly.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

** "Al tãu milã," he replied.

I blinked, caught off guard. I hadn't expected a foreign language to fall from his lips. We were in the center of the uncultured desert! Then again, I hadn't expected to have a sexy psycho perched on balcony either. But I'd never heard that accent before. It sounded like a cross between Italian and Russian. Husky and rich, Slavic maybe? I smirked. Besides English, I only spoke finishing-school French. Well, it was worth a shot.

** "Excusez-moi ? Parlez en anglais svp," I said.

** "Je suis à vous mon aimeé," he grinned.

"I am your love?" I repeated. "I think not."

"But I am. Yours."

"Your mother named you that? How unfortunate."

"Not unfortunate. Destined."

"Then I suppose you are a 'Yours' to every woman you frighten in the middle of the night."

"The funny thing is that you aren't frightened of me," he said, gently swiping a finger down a trail of blood off the window. He licked it off casually like chocolate sauce. "Hesitant, yes. Fascinated and confused, but not frightened."

"And you are an arrogant prick."

"I can feel your heart-beating. You know I'm right."

"I know you're crazy," I smirked.

"I can be."

"And what else can you be? Gone perhaps?"

He laughed and placed his hands on either side of the door frame, leaning in close, lips inches from the glass. "I can't leave because you want me to stay. Tell me I'm wrong."

His startling blue eyes clashed with mine and it took all my will power to look away. I couldn't say the words. I crossed my arms over my chest nervously and tried to stand still. "Who are you?" I asked again, looking down at my feet.

"I already told you who I am to you."

"What are you to the rest of the world?"

"Pleasure," he paused. "Or Death."

A muffled little sound fell from my lips and my hand flew to my mouth. My brain kicked into frantic gear as I analyzed his words. Death? Pleasure? Oh great, so he was a killer. He might have well just said, "I'd like to murder you in a horrible way!"

Yet that didn't make sense, I argued silently. He hadn't made a "threatening" move against me. In all honesty, he'd only interrupted my insomniatic musings, somehow managed to throw my phone across the room from outside and bleed on my door.

I paused. Okay, all of those were definitely unexplainable. I felt like the answer was right on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't form the idea in my mind to match it. Okay class, let's review here. Logically, I sifted through the facts.

He likes blood. Refined accent. Enigmatic. He's tall, dark, and compelling. Sleek like a jungle cat and sexier beyond all reason. He brings death and pleasure to the doors of unsuspecting women. What does that make him?

"Do you have fangs?" I blurted out loudly, unable to control my wild thoughts.

"Are you asking me if I have elongated canine teeth?" he demurred with an amused tone.

I tipped my chin up defiantly and nodded.

"Yes. I do."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"Yes?" I squeaked.

"Is there an echo around here?"

I blinked. Fangs? I trembled. My logic suddenly scared me more than he did. It was impossible! Things like this didnt happen in the real world!

Death. Blood. Silence. Sex. Predator. Pleasure. More sex.

Stop thinking about sex!

I chided myself. He has fangs!

He had answered honestly, I was sure of it. It was the only explanation that made sense. "Let me in," he had written in blood. A sliver of childhood vampire lore flashed through my mind and I inhaled sharply.

A vampire could not enter household without being invited inside! That's why he was just standing there looking dark and foreboding. He was waiting for an invitation!

How could he be real? Vampire legends were made-up myths generated by medieval peasants and over-imaginative writers! They didn't have a place in reality! "Umm...Why...w-why," I stammered, trying to find the right words."Why did you write those...uh...<I>particular</I> words on my door in blood?" <P>"Why are you asking a question you already know the answer to?" he replied. <P>My throat felt painfully dry and I had to swallow several times before choking, "Vampire. You're a v-vampire?" <P>He smiled and canted his head to the side boyishly. His eyes glittered like polished stars, twin diamonds in the firmament of heaven. <P>My breath caught in my chest tightly. I was cold inside. But fascinated. A million and one thoughts stormed through my shocked brain. <P>I shook my head, exclaiming, "You're a vampire! A vampire! You aren't real. You aren't really here. I'm talking to air. Vampires are myths! This is the modern world! I bet you there isn't a bat a thousand miles from this smog-ridden city!" I realized I was babbling, but couldn't stop. "So you have over-elongated canine teeth. That's some kind of medical condition. My father had long canine teeth that made him look scary but he wasn't a vampire!" <P>"How do you know?" he asked calmly. <P>"Because he wasn't! He was my father! He liked garlic!" I retorted lamely. <P>His eyes sparked in the moonlight and I could tell he was containing a laugh.. <P>"And anyway, what are you doing on my balcony? I was sleeping!" <P>"No you weren't." <P>"Oh that's right, you would know Mr. Voyeur," I snapped back feeling my blood pressure rise. He just gave me another odd smile. <P>"Stop grinning at me like the damned village idiot!" I said savagely, "I don't believe in you! Of all the balconies in the whole entire world, I was lucky enough to get the Mr. Vampire Psycho perched upon mine." <P>"Open the door, Aurora." His accent made my name sound like a purr. <I>Awr-orr-ahh</I> <P>For some reason I wasn't alarmed by the fact that he knew my name. It made me dizzy with lonliness and desire. I couldn't shake off the pleasure of my name on his lips. "I should be sleeping right now," I choked, finding my voice. "I h-have a huge presentation tomorrow and I am not sleeping right now because I am having nocturnal arguments with a figment of my imagination. Maybe its time I saw a therapist. This can't be good. I'm talking to myself…" <P>"<I>Destul</I>!" he commanded in his strange language and I froze. "Enough," he said again with a weary tone. Looking disappointed, he stepped away from the door and sighed, "I should not have revealed myself to you this way. Given your present condition, I should have known you would excitable. I apologize for upsetting you." <P>Black dots began to dance in my vision and I reached out to lean against the door. I was trembling violently. <P>"W-w-what-t?" I stammered unable form my thoughts into a coherent statement other than that single word. But an answer didn't come. Instead, words, his voice, began to drift out of the shadows in my room like a seductive chant, "Rest now." <P>I swayed forward hit by a blast of exhaustion, but held myself up ignoring the sleep urge, "No, we damn well won't! Get the hell off my balcony…and…no, I'm not t-tired…just go away…" <P>"I can't go away." <P>"Why not? It's pretty easy. Just jump." <P>"I can't," he said again. <P>"Yes, you can! Just throw your leg over the railing--" <P>"Your nervous sarcasm will not change the situation <I>amora</I>, so perhaps you should refrain from saying silly things you will regret later," he interrupted me suddenly. <P>I snorted automatically, startled by his firm tone of authority, "I am not your love in French or Romanian! And you should refrain from bossing me around or I might get really pissed off and wipe that smug look off your face with a splash of holy wat-errr....mmmmm......" <P>The end of my sentence was lost in a huge yawn. Damn. I was exhausted. In fact, I felt almost drugged. <P>By him. By his magic. <P>I thought of Shakespeare. Hamlet. <I>For in that sleep of death...</I> <P>Heavy eyed, I shot him a suspicious look. He didn't even have the good grace to look guilty, as he knew he was the source of my drowsiness. <P><I>Stupid, psycho, vampire powers.</I> Or I assumed that's what they were. <P>"You sure do know how to put a girl to sleep. Is your company always this riveting?" I slurred. <P>"Only if my subject remains interesting." <P>"Bastard," I mumbled feeling a lovely languidness cover me like a shroud. <P>"You have a dirty mouth, woman." <P>"Screw you." <P>"Not tonight, **<I>amora</I>, but soon," he drawled cooly. <P>My mouth moved but I couldn't find the words. In truth, my emotions were confused. As a social recluse, his words shocked my prudish sense of modesty. As any red-blooded female would be, I admired his arrogance for making such a bold statement. It was exciting and romantic all at once. At the same time, I resented his confidence, his absolute belief that I was a forgone conclusion. <P>I finally spluttered, "How d-dare you assume that--" <P>"I never assume," he smiled, pleased to see me flustered. "Now I want you to sleep. Your bed is waiting for you. Walk over to it." <P>It wasn't a request. It was a command disguised in the smoky magic of his voice. Oh no, I wasn't going to let him control me with seduction! <P>I shivered, giving him a face crossed between a pout and a sneer. I would not be his Renfield, submitting to his will whenever he pleased! "My damned bed can just wait all night for all I care! I'll sleep standing if I have to! And I'll stand here forever until you turn around and take a flying leap off my balcony!" <P>"Oh, really?" he asked. <P>"Yes rea..." I began but stopped, horrified to find that I was walking backwards towards my bed. In my mind, I screamed orders at my legs to stop, but they marched along of their own accord. I had no control at all when my body turned around rigidly to face my inviting sleigh bed. Before I knew it, I had sunk down into the fluffy warmth of my mattress and was curled up amongst the pillows again. <P>"Checkmate," he said softly. <P>"What did you say?" I asked, suddenly jolted into the memory of the night my father died. That had been his dying word, whispered with his last breath. <P>"You heard me." <P>"We aren't playing chess," I said, my voice quivering. <P>"Life is a game," he replied. <P>"I hate games." <P>"No, you hate to lose." <P>"Are you implying that I've lost?" <P>"The fortunate thing about playing games is that there is always a next time," he said with a devilish smile. "And I can't wait to...play with you again." <P>I hated the tone of triumph in his voice, like he had just conquered the world. It was the sound of absolute confidence, of masculine dominance concealed in a neutral, almost pleasant drawl. It made me feel weak and out of control. It reminded me of my father. Unexpected tears welled in my eyes. <P>"We are not playing a game! This is not chess!" I hissed. "You are not real!" <P>"If you don't play, how do you grow?" he asked. <P>"I don't grow, damn you!" I snapped. "I'm a shallow rich bitch who has a very important presentation tomorrow and I need to sleep RIGHT NOW!" <P>"As you wish." <P>My sheets, tangled still from my earlier sleeplessness, abruptly straightened themselves out of several rumples. Before I could blink, they were tucked up over my shoulders, as if they had a life of their own. My pillows wiggled under my head, fluffing and then sinking down to the level I normally slept best at. <P>"Good-night," he said crisply. <P>I rolled onto my side and curled my hands up under my chin. Despite my tantrum, I was hesitant to see him leave. "Bye," I sulked. <P>"Goodbye's are non-existent. There are only beginnings and more beginnings, <I>amora</I>. " <P>I shrugged, watching his form blur through my sleepy eyes, "How do you know me?" <P>"My father and your father were aquainted once. I've known of you for a long time." <P>"Why did you come to me now then? Daddy died months ago." <P>"Circumstances have changed," he answered. <P>I yawned and wiggled my toes beneath the covers to warm the cool sheets, "Like?" <P>It took him several drawn out moments to respond and when he did it was on a painful murmur, "Just... aftermath." <P>"I don't understand." <P>"You will." <P>He sounded so sad and wounded, I thought better of prying into the vampire's private thoughts furthur. Glancing over at my alarm clock, I read the flashing red numbers. <P>3:47 AM. Crap! <P>"When I wake up, this horrible episode of <I>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</I> will be over right?" <P>"When you wake up, I'll be gone, yes." <P>"For good?" <P>"For now." <P>"I won't let you in," I yawned, curling my hands up beneath my chin. <P>"Okay," he said. <P>"What?" <P>"Don't let anyone in who looks like me." <P>Confused, I lifted a sleepy brow. "But I thought--" <P><P>"Never mind," he interrupted. "Buna noaptea, Aurora." His voice hovered through the air with a surprising touch of tenderness. <P>"What does that mean?" I mumbled. <P>"It means 'Goodnight' in Romanian," he answered from far away. <P>"Oh..." I said. <I>Romanian, huh?</I> <P>"Dream of sweet things and rest, <I>milã</I>," he said. <P>"I'll dream about shoving you off my balcony then," I smirked. <P>I heard his laughter as a final warmth crept through my body on dainty paws. My lashes fluttered once, twice, and dropped. I couldn't open them again. <P>I embraced the silence of sleep begrudgingly, my last conscious thought making me smile. <P><I>Damn. He won. Bastard.</I>

Romanian: Al tãu milã means "To you, darling."

French: Excusez-moi ? Parlez en anglais svp means "Excuse me? In English please."

French: Je suis à vous mon aimeé means "I am your love."

Romanian: Amora means "Love" as in an endearment.