Skein of Sunlight

Devon Monk

Maddie’s hands shook as she angled the visor mirror and applied her lipstick. Even with the make-up, she felt naked. Why had she let Jan talk her into going out tonight?

Jan sat in the driver’s seat finishing off a cheeseburger. “You aren’t nervous are you?” she asked around a mouthful.

“No,” Maddie lied.

Jan stopped chewing to suck up the last of her diet cola and squinted at the quaint Victorian house just up the block from them. It was bathed in light from the street lamp, and practically glowed from the lantern beside the door.

“Might be the most dangerous looking yarn shop I’ve ever seen in all my days on the force,” she said.

Maddie laughed. “Stop it. This is hard.”

“No.” Jan wiped her mouth with a wadded up napkin. “Chemo was hard. And you got through that. This is fun, remember? A real night out. A little adventure.”

“I know, I know. It’s just . . . ” Maddie touched her hair; long enough now, it was styled short and spiky in what Jan called a “vixen cut”.

“Why you picked a yarn store is beyond me,” Jan muttered. “There’s a bar just a couple streets down. That’s where you’ll find adventure. Good beer, lots of hot young ’uns. We could go Cougar for the night. Lord knows it’s been a long time since you had a man in a meaningful way.”

Maddie cut her off before she could launch into the sex-fixes-everything speech. “Sounds great. You go check out the young ’uns. I’ll prowl for yarn.”

“You don’t want me to go with you?” Jan tried, but failed, to sound disappointed.

“Like you’d last five minutes in a yarn store. Plus, I want to touch, stroke, savour.”

“So do I,” Jan said.

“Yeah, but I want to fondle yarn. See you in a couple of hours.” She got out of the car and started up the street before Jan had any other bright ideas.

It didn’t take long to reach the shop, but Maddie’s heart rattled in her chest. She had a thing about yarn stores. She didn’t know why, but she had always wanted to own one. Every town she visited, she made sure she tracked down the yarn shop. She’d never found the perfect store – the one she’d be willing to offer her life savings for – until she’d set her eyes on this beauty.

She didn’t know who the owner was, but if she was there, and if the conversation turned that way, Maddie was going to ask if she’d be willing to sell.

Maddie pulled her shoulders back, opened the door, and stepped in.

The store was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked from the street, walls covered by wooden shelves that held skeins upon skeins of colour and fibre and texture. There was enough walking space to be comfortable, even with the two cosy love seats on either side of a small table that took up the centre of the room. At the far wall was a counter, a cash register, and no one behind either.

Maddie took a deep breath and smiled. She didn’t know what it was going to take, or how she was going to do it, but this was it. She belonged here. This store was going to be hers.

“Hello,” a soft baritone said from somewhere above her.

Maddie looked over to the left of the room where a staircase arched up. There, in the middle of the staircase, stood a man.

Tall, wide shoulders, lean. His black and grey hair was a little longer than was fashionable, his moustache and beard trimmed tight around his lips and shaved clean along his jaw. He smiled. Laugh lines curved at the edges of his eyes, hooked the corners of his lips, and set his age at somewhere around old-enough-to-have-tried-it-all and young-enough-to-do-it-again.

His wore a dark green sweater, rucked up at the elbows, his muscular forearms bare. No watch. No ring. Yes, she looked.

She also looked at the sweater. Handmade, cabled in a complicated Celtic knot up the arms where it wove like vines across his wide chest. Slacks for his long legs. But a pair of those deck shoes the skater kids liked to wear made her rethink his age again. Thirty? Fifty?

He waited, not moving, while Maddie took what she realized was a little too long to stare at him.

OK, a lot too long.

Forget the young ’uns. One look at this man had her wanting to stroke and savour a lot more than yarn.

“Come in,” he said. “You are welcome. Most welcome. Are you here for the class?” He said it slowly. She walked towards him, paying absolutely zero attention to where she was going, each word drawing her in, closer and closer, until she bumped her knee into the arm of the love seat.

A rush of blood heated her cheeks. That got an even wider smile out of him. He showed his teeth, straight, white, strong, the incisors pressing into the soft flesh of his bottom lip.

Sexy.

What was wrong with her? She never acted like this.

He strolled down the stairs, paying particular attention to his shoes.

Released from his gaze, she found her voice again. And her brain. “Class?” she asked.

“Mmm,” he agreed. “Knitting. No need to have brought supplies.”

He crossed the room, moving like a cat. He paused beside the love seat and rested one hip against it, his arms crossed over his wide chest. He was so close, she could smell his cologne. Something with enough rum and spice to remind her of the Jamaican vacation she’d taken just out of college. The one time in her life she had really felt free and alive. Every day she had let the sun drink her down, and every night she had let the darkness, and the passion of a man feed her soul.

In all these years, she had never once thought of that man, that pleasure. She couldn’t even remember his name. How could she have forgotten that? And how could the scent of this man’s cologne bring those memories back to her?

He looked into her eyes, smiling, enjoying his effect on her. “We have everything you could possibly desire here.”

He means knitting, she told herself. He means yarn. Still, the opportunity was too good to pass up.“Everything?” she asked. “I have an insatiable appetite for fine fibres.”

A small frown narrowed his eyes, and he studied her face.

“Have we met?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m sure we haven’t. I would remember you.”

His response was cut off by the sound of the door opening behind her. A group of people, chatting, laughing, paused in the doorway.

The man in front of her gazed over her shoulder. He still smiled, but his demeanour shifted to the look of someone tolerating a pack of puppies wrestling over a toy.

“Dobry vecher, Saint Archer,” a younger man’s voice called out.

“Saint?” Maddie said.

“Good evening, Luka,” the man in front of her said. “Come in, all of you. Welcome.” To Maddie, “Please. Call me Archer. And your name?”

“Maddie,” she said. “Madeline Summers.”

Archer raised one eyebrow as if he hadn’t heard her correctly, but Maddie had to move out of the way for the newcomers filing into the shop.

Luka, thin, young, beautiful, had that teen heart-throb smoulder going, marred only by his polo shirt uniform with the emblem of the local movie theatre over his heart and sleeve. He smiled at her, looked at Archer as if they were sharing a secret, then away.

Father and son?

No, Luka was an angel boy – light-haired, dark-eyed, while Archer was dark-haired, blue-eyed. Plus, Luka had delicate features, while Archer’s wide shoulders and nose (which looked like it had been broken at least once) spoke of a different heritage.

Next to Luka was a girl who probably still went to high school. Her black hair shifted with stripes of pink and red like pulled taffy. Cute. Another, slightly heavier girl wore a gorgeous knitted beret and matching scarf. She held up a hand in wordless greeting as they tromped off across the room, heading towards the stairs.

“My apologies,” Archer said. “For the children. They can be rambunctious.”

“Are they yours?” she asked.

“Oh, no.” He chuckled. “Students. They come here to knit.”

“There’s a class tonight? Now? I only came to look—”

“And why not stay?” he asked. “For the time we have. Tonight.”

That was familiar. A voice she had heard in her dreams.

“I haven’t put my hands on balls for years. Of yarn,” she corrected, “on a ball of yarn for years. I just came to touch them, not to do, you know.” She made a fake knitting motion with her fingers, which only came off looking obscene.

God, she hated it when she went into idiot mode.

He took a step forwards, and she was struck by how tall he was.

“What is there to lose?” he asked softly. “Some things, our bodies never forget.”

This time, Maddie managed to look away from his smouldering gaze. “Like knitting?”

“That too.”

She grinned and looked up at him. “So how long is the class?”

“An hour. Sometimes people linger. Will you?”

“Stay for the class?” she asked.

“Linger.”

She couldn’t think of any place she’d rather be. Certainly not hanging out in the bar while she watched Jan find boys half her age to buy her drinks. It was quiet here, except for the students upstairs laughing and arguing over a movie they’d just seen. It was comfortable here. And she liked the look in Archer’s eyes as he pulled out all his manly charms to lure her into his knitting lair.

“I’ll give it a try.”

“Excellent.” He looked happy, and something more – relieved. “Let me gather a few things. I’ll follow you upstairs in a moment.”

Maddie walked around the love seats and over to the stairs. Just as she reached the first step, the door opened again and two more women, women closer to her age, no, she realized with a wince, younger, maybe even still in their twenties, walked into the store. They greeted Archer warmly. Maddie bit her bottom lip, wondering if he was going to lay the charm on thick with them too, if maybe him flirting with her was just an act he used to lure in the female clientele.

Oh, he was a charmer all right. Kissing them both on the cheek and holding their hands just a little too long while complimenting them.

Great, Maddie thought. He’d been playing her – that was all. She’d been suckered in by a guy who flirted with every woman who walked through the door. And she’d actually believed him. She must have looked like an idiot. How could she have been so stupid?

Or maybe she was just that desperate not to be alone, even for only one night.

She almost turned around and left, but she had come here looking for the owner of the shop, and she wasn’t going to leave without her name.

The room upstairs was filled with skeins of yarn and cosy couches. It also had a small kitchen nook where a pot of coffee and tea was set out. The teens were clumped together on a couch too small for the three of them. To her surprise, they were already knitting. Even the angel boy Luka had needles in his hands and was quickly working his way through a lace-patterned shawl in blood red fingering weight.

When Maddie was young, there wasn’t a boy in a fifty-mile radius who would lay a finger on knitting needles, much less knit in front of his girlfriends. Although with the way the girls, especially the one with the multi-coloured hair, looked at him, Luka had a good thing going.

He caught Maddie looking at him and grinned, showing a row of straight teeth, his canines just a little too long, his eyes just a little too old in that young face. A chill ran up her spine. She rubbed her arms and walked away from the couches to a row of shelves with skeins of bamboo and silk yarn.

She got in a fondle or two, savouring textures and colours, feeding her senses through fingertips and eyes. Why had she stopped knitting? Probably the same reason she had stopped taking hikes, going to concerts, eating at fine restaurants. Somewhere in her battle to make her body her own again, she had lost touch with living in it.

No more of that. Her new life started tonight. With the owner’s name.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs punctuated the teen chatter, and soon the two other women were in the room, taking their places in cushioned armchairs, and setting their knitting bags – more like stylish purses than grandmotherly baskets – by their feet.

She wondered which of them was the teacher.

Then Archer climbed the stairs. She could feel him, every step he took, like an extra heartbeat in her chest, a pulse in her veins. She could feel him drawing near even though she kept her back stubbornly towards the stairs and her fingers plunged deep in the silky softness of a pliant skein of cashmere. She held on to that skein of yarn like it was her only anchor to her own resolve.

And it was. Jan was right. It had been a long time since she had been with a man. Much, much too long.

Archer paused at the top of the stairs. She could feel him looking at her, watching her, a warm pressure against her skin that made every nerve in her body remind her she was alive.

Was it getting hot in here?

“I think this is everyone,” he said. “Maddie, are you ready to join us?”

This was it, her chance to make a break.

She turned away from the shelf. No eye contact this time, that man had some kind of power in his gaze. She stared very solidly at the middle of his forehead.

“I can’t. I . . . I have a date.”

Even though she stubbornly stared at his forehead, she could see the rise of his cheeks as he smiled.

“Ah. I see. I’m sorry you won’t be able to stay.”

Maddie nodded, gaze on the forehead and forehead only. So far, so good.

Archer, apparently, had not gotten the memo that she was avoiding eye contact. He strolled over to her, his shoes quiet on the plush rugs scattered across the floor.

Without trying to, Maddie’s eyes slipped, shifted, and her gaze met his. Her lips parted, and all she could think of was him kissing her, touching her.

“I hope you will reconsider my offer,” he said.

Then the powerful gaze and the mind-numbing draw were gone. He looked like a man, a very handsome man, but just a man. A little concerned, maybe a little uncomfortable. Vulnerable.

He pressed the handle of a small paper bag into her hands. “A token. If you ever wish to stop in again.”

“No, no. I don’t think—”

He stepped back, quickly and smoothly out of her reach, so she’d have to follow him around the couches to give him back the bag.

That was when she noticed everyone in the room was silent, knitting. They were all smiling. Enjoying this. None of them looked at her, but she could tell they all thought this little exchange was funny. Fine. She’d come back tomorrow and get her answer. Let them have their laugh.

“Thank you,” she said, pouring on the sugar, and not meaning a word of it. “It’s been lovely meeting you all.”

She walked down the stairs without stomping, and stormed across the floor. All she had wanted was some time to browse, and maybe a chance to buy the store. Was that too much to ask?

She yanked the door open, and nearly ran into the woman standing there.

“May I come in?” The woman was beautiful. Even when Maddie was young and in great shape, she had never been that pretty.

The woman’s long, straight hair was so blonde it was silver in the lamplight. Her kitten-wide eyes were green and lined with thick lashes. Her lips were full and perfect, brushed with red lipstick. When she smiled, Maddie realized she could not look away.

“Please,” the woman asked. “May I come in? There’s a class tonight.”

“Oh,” Maddie said, catching her breath. “Right. Come on in. They’re all upstairs.”

A wicked light sparked in the woman’s eyes, and was gone before Maddie could blink. “Thank you,” the woman purred.

Maddie moved out of the way and the woman stepped over the threshold and into the yarn shop. She moved like a dancer, smooth and silent, her face tipped upwards towards the stairs as if following a string. She licked her lips and smiled.

She must really love knitting.

Maddie walked out. As she turned to shut the door, she noticed the woman’s bag. Black, bulky, it looked more like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag than a knitting bag. And as the woman climbed the stairs, she opened it and pulled out a pair of metal needles, each as thick as a tent stake, filed to a razor’s edge.

One thing Maddie could say for Jan was that she was a cop, through and through. Even though she was off-duty and had probably had more than one beer, her smile faded as soon as Maddie stormed into the bar and plunked down on the stool next to her.

“Gin and tonic,” she told the bartender. He nodded. But instead of getting on with the drink mixing, he leaned forwards and flirted with the little jailbait downing shots of tequila in front of him.

Men.

“Did you get a look at his driver’s licence?” Jan asked.

“What?”

“The guy who pissed you off. It will make it easier for me when I pull his files and find out if there’s anything worth throwing him in jail for.”

Maddie put both elbows on the bar and rubbed at her temples. “That obvious?”

Jan shrugged. “You almost burned a hole in the back of the bartender’s head. Want to tell me about it?”

“No. There was a man at the yarn store, he said there was a class and invited me to stay, and I thought, I thought . . . ” She took a deep breath and crossed her arms on the bar, looking over at Jan. “I thought he was coming on to me. Flirting, you know? So I flirted back. But he was just playing me to fill out the ranks of the knitting class. Some other women came in, younger than me, prettier, and he tossed me to the side. I felt like such an idiot.”

“Glad you decided not to tell me about it. Did you get this cad’s name?”

“Stop making fun of me.”

Jan grinned. “Stop making it so easy. I can’t believe you’re upset because someone flirted with you and you liked it.”

The bartender finally sauntered over, placed her drink down without even looking at her, and walked away.

“Fine,” Maddie said. “I liked the flirting. But did he have to crush my fantasy?” She smiled ruefully.

Jan raised her eyebrows in question.

“You know, that we’d fall in love at first sight. His favourite pastime would be doing dishes and going grocery shopping. I’d find out I was the long lost heiress to a fortune and we’d run away to someplace warm and sandy and make passionate love . . . ” Maddie lifted her glass. “ To reality. What a bitch.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jan said, raising her own glass. “ To Fantasy Crusher what’s-his-name.”

“Saint Archer,” Maddie provided.

Jan’s mood changed. She frowned. Took a drink of her beer.

“You know him, don’t you?” Maddie asked.

“Yes.”

“Is he a criminal?”

“No comment.”

“Interesting. Witness protection programme?”

“OK, we’re going to change subjects now,” Jan informed her in her no-bullshit cop voice.

“Come on. You know something about him. Something bad, right?” Maddie took another drink, the warmth spreading out in her stomach and echoing back through her muscles. “It would cheer me up,” she said. “Indecent exposure? Tax evasion? He runs a pornographic flower shop in his basement?”

“Not that I know of,” Jan said. “Just the yarn store.”

“What?” Maddie said. “I thought he worked there.” OK, the truth? One look at him and she had stopped thinking.

“So he owns the store?” Maddie asked.

“Yup”

“So . . . he’s gay?”

Jan laughed so hard she snorted. “It’s not on record, if that’s what you’re asking. Still. You know better than to assume things about people.” She lifted her glass and muttered into it, “No one in this city is what they seem to be.”

“But he has a record?”

Jan just gave her a look and took another drink of beer. She emptied half the glass, thunked it on the counter and refused to answer.

Maddie took another drink and thought it over. Maybe it didn’t matter, but she had to ask anyway. “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“Would I let you go anywhere, alone, if I thought you were in danger?” Jan downed the last of her beer. “I’m going to the bathroom. Get me another beer, will you?” She was no longer smiling.

“Sure,” Maddie said. And she didn’t even point out that Jan had not answered her question.

Jan got her smile back when Tony Brown strolled into the bar. Tony worked for the city and he and Jan had the kind of history that led to him buying Jan another couple of beers, and them getting a table.

Maddie moped her way through another gin, then decided to call it a night. She handed her card to the bartender and her elbow brushed the little bag Archer had given her. She’d been so angry walking to the bar that she hadn’t even looked in it.

She opened the bag and angled to see inside.

Two skeins of yarn caught light like summer fire, and a slick set of needles glinted dark beside them.

Maddie couldn’t help herself. She gasped like she’d just found a kitten and pulled the yarn out of the bag. The fibre was exquisitely soft, with enough loft it promised warmth and shape and drape. Cashmere and silk. With a beautiful set of knitting needles.

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was her sense of pride, or maybe it was watching Jan and Tony inch closer and closer together at the table.

Yeah, probably that last thing.

But whatever it was, Maddie knew she wanted to keep that skein of yarn near her forever, to hold it and fondle it and savour the possibilities of what it could become with a little time, a little hope and a lot of patience.

And she knew, just as quickly, that she had to return it.

This wasn’t a token. This was a gift with strings attached. Well, just one long string, but still. That was attached. To a man whose name took her best friend’s smile away.

Maddie settled her bill and told Jan she was headed home and was going to catch a cab.

Jan told her she shouldn’t go home alone and even started to put on her coat, much to Tony’s polite but obvious disappointment, until Maddie finally convinced her that she was plenty old enough to get home on her own. And then she made Tony promise to call a cab for both of them when the night wound down.

But instead of going home, Maddie marched back to the yarn shop.

The lantern outside the door was still on, and a light from one of the upper windows glowed brightly. The front window was dark, though. Maddie wasn’t sure if the shop was open. Archer said people lingered, and it had only been maybe two hours since she left.

She walked up to the door and tried it. The door opened, so she stepped in.

The lamp at the back of the room near the counter was on. But other than the faint light tumbling down the staircase, it was dark.

Something felt wrong about the room. Maddie thought about dropping the bag on the counter for Archer to find in the morning, but the door was unlocked, which meant they weren’t closed for the night. Someone still had to be here.

A shuffling sound, like something being dragged across the floor on the upper floor, made Maddie’s heart pound. OK, maybe she should just go back outside, get a cab, and get the hell home.

Forget about leaving the yarn on the counter. Maddie hurried to the love seats and placed the bag on the table between them. That would have to be good enough.

The click of the door closing behind her made every nerve in Maddie’s body scream.

She turned, hoping, and dreading it would be Archer.

“Hello, pet,” a woman’s voice cooed.

It was not Archer. It was the beautiful woman who Maddie had let into the shop. She held two very bloody knitting needles in her hand.

“I just came back to return the yarn,” Maddie said, trying to think faster than her heart was beating.

“Aren’t you sweet?” The woman tipped her head to one side, her ear nearly touching her shoulder. She inhaled. “Had a hard time of it the last few years, haven’t you?” She straightened and clutched the knitting needles tighter. “Cancer. How sad. How alone.”

She glided forwards. “Leyola can cure your pain,” she singsonged. “Leyola knows just what you crave.”

Maddie was caught in her gaze. Even though it was dark in the room, it was as if a single light shone on the woman, illuminated her, made her incandescent, beautiful.

Something in the back of Maddie’s mind was screaming – her reason, she thought – but she couldn’t care less. She wanted to do anything the woman told her to do, wanted Leyola to take her pain away.

The woman was close now. Close enough that Maddie could see her more clearly. Her beautiful face had gone feral, eyes black without even a speck of white or colour, jaw elongated, fangs dripping with blood.

Holy shit. She was a vampire.

OK, maybe it was a little late in the game for her to put two and two together, but vampires weren’t real. Sure, she’d heard of kids who liked to pretend they were vampires – it was popular in the high schools – but this chick wasn’t a kid. And from the bloody knitting needles and fangs, she sure as hell wasn’t playing around.

“You will give yourself to me.” Leyola opened her mouth and bent towards Maddie’s neck.

And even though every nerve in her body ached for this, for her touch, for her mouth, Maddie took a step backwards.

“No.” It came out low, strong, born of years of anger against a disease that had nearly destroyed her. Maddie focused her mind, calmed her thoughts and put all her will behind it. “My body is my own,” she said.

The woman jerked back as if she had been slapped. “That,” she said, “will be your end.”

She lunged.

Maddie got her hands up, banking on her coat to keep Leyola’s teeth from tearing into her skin. But Leyola slammed into her, knocking her backwards. Maddie stumbled, trying to catch her balance and landed hard on the couch.

She needed a weapon. Now. Maddie scrambled back on the couch, her heels kicking into the soft cushions. The bag was just behind her, and in it were the needles.

Leyola strolled over to her, fingernails tapping against the needles in her hand. “You may deny death,” she purred, “but you will not deny me.”

Maddie yelled. She stretched to reach the bag.

A roar filled the room. Maddie rolled off the couch, caught up the bag and pulled the needles out.

She crouched, and thrust the needles upwards.

But Leyola was not there.

Maddie blinked, trying to make sense of the scene before her.

Someone was fighting with the woman. A man. Archer.

His shirt was off revealing the hard, defined muscles of his chest and stomach. The low light from the lamp painted him gold – a warrior from some ancient time. He and Leyola circled each other, speaking a language that made Maddie wish she’d taken Russian in college.

Maddie caught a glimpse of a tattoo spread across the back of Archer’s shoulder – an angel in flight – and a trail of blood pouring over his ribs.

Leyola had circled so that her back was now towards Maddie. Archer said something to her, a warning. A command.

But Leyola only laughed and threw herself, needles and fangs, at Archer.

Everything suddenly seemed to happen very, very slowly.

Leyola, in mid-air, contorted like a gymnast, her feet hitting the ground as lightly as a cat, then pushed, not towards Archer, but towards Maddie.

Archer launched, a growl escaping his lips, his arms, hands, body, straining to reach Leyola.

Maddie still crouched, set herself, feet strong beneath her, shoulder forwards, knitting needles in her hand, ready for the impact.

Inhale.

Leyola bore down on her.

Archer plucked Leyola out of the air. Rolled her over his hip. Pinned her to the floor. He shoved his knee in her back and held both her wrists in his hands.

Exhale.

Time snapped back into real speed again.

“Maddie,” Archer said, his voice a little husky. When she didn’t respond, he glanced over his shoulder at her.

His hair hung wild around his face, and his eyes burned electric blue. Leyola beneath him squirmed and cursed. Archer’s muscles flexed, but he kept her pinned.

Maddie found she was breathing hard, caught by his gaze and fully aware of how much she liked the primal hunger in his eyes, his anger, and his fear for her.

But it was his mouth that fascinated her most. His lips were parted, revealing fangs that grazed his bottom lip, pressing against the soft curve there, almost puncturing. Maddie wondered what it would feel like to kiss those lips, to feel the scrape of his mouth against hers. To open herself to his tastes, his textures.

“Maddie,” he said again, his voice a soft growl that she could feel roll beneath her skin. “Are you hurt?”

Right. This was not the time to fantasize.

She did a quick inventory: no cuts, maybe a bruise on the back of her legs where she’d gone over the arm of the couch, but she was no stranger to bruises.

“I’m fine.”

He smiled softly, a strange mix with the wild edge in his eyes. “Would you help me then?”

“You?” She glanced at the vampire pinned beneath him. What could she do that he hadn’t done already? “Of course.” She stepped out from between the couches. “What do you need?”

“Behind the counter, there is a drawer. A corner drawer.”

Maddie crossed the room, let herself behind the counter, and opened the little triangular drawer. A strange assortment of things were gathered there: medallions, knives, bullets, paperclips and a small leather-bound book.

“Do you see the twine?” he asked.

Leyola spat obscenities.

Maddie picked up the ball of twine so small she could close her hand around it to hide it. “Yes,” she said.

“Bring that to me, please.”

Maddie walked over to him. Her adrenaline was starting to wear off and her knees felt a little like cooked noodles. Still, she held out the yarn.

“Unwind a length of it.”

She did so. The twine was strange. It clung to itself and gave off the scent of green grass and something else she could not place. It was also cold, as if she’d just pulled it out of the freezer. She had no idea what it was made out of.

Once she began unrolling it, the entire thing seemed to release, flowing free from itself, and falling into a pile of string in her hand.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It is something very good at holding vampires until the police arrive.” Archer shifted his grip, so both of Leyola’s wrists were in one hand. He took the end of the string and tied her wrists together with the kind of unconscious ease that said he’d done this before.

Leyola moaned and squirmed harder, aiming a kick at Archer that did not connect.

“Enough,” he said. “Your game tires me.”

Archer leaned a little more weight on his knee in her back. He put his free hand on the back of her head and bent his face down, his eyes closed.

He looked like he was praying. Maybe he was. After a moment of silence, he cupped Leyola’s head and thunked it into the floor.

She relaxed and was still.

Archer took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. When he stood he didn’t look at Maddie, but instead walked over to the wall and flipped on the lights.

Only one bank of the lights in the ceiling caught, but Maddie’s eyes had gotten so used to the darkness she had to blink a couple of times to handle the glare. When she could really see again, she looked at Archer.

Still shirtless, it was no trick of shadow – he really did have the body of a god. A thick line of black liquid, blood, she could only assume, ran across his ribs, already dry.

In this light, his skin was pale, unfreckled, no chest hair, though there were several thin scars across his chest, one intriguingly low scar at his hip bone, and one scar near his collarbone that looked like a perfect pink circle the size of a coin.

The man had seen his share of violence.

And survived it.

Once her gaze lifted to his face again, she noted he was smiling at her.

And she was blushing.

“I feel there is some explaining in order,” he began.

“I only came in to return the yarn,” Maddie said. “I didn’t know . . . I don’t know . . . I shouldn’t have even come here. Vampires? It’s a joke, right? Knitting vampire dinner mystery theatre.” She didn’t believe that, not at all. But the reality was suddenly too much to handle.

Then Archer was in front of her, having somehow crossed the distance in an amazingly short amount of time.

“Maddie,” he soothed, “I meant I should explain this to you. If you want me to.”

He placed his hand gently on her arm. When she did not pull away, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

“I don’t know if I want to know,” she finally said.

“Then let’s start with an easier decision. Would you like some tea?”

Maddie closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of him. One moment he looked like he could tear the building apart with his bare hands, and the next, he was holding her like she was made of fragile glass.

She nodded. “Tea would be nice.”

He quietly led her away from the fanged, unconscious vampire chick tied up on the floor, into the adjoining room. Another couch and chair sat snug in the corner.

He left her there on the couch with the promise to bring her mint tea.

Maddie thought about leaving, about walking out of this mess, but she had some questions she needed answered. Questions about her half-remembered time in Jamaica, and the long nights he spent with her there.

The police showed up before Maddie’s tea had time to steep.

No sirens, no flashing lights, just a knock at the door that made Maddie jump.

Archer, who had been sitting in the chair next to her, explaining that people in the city weren’t always what they appeared to be, and how everyone needed a safe place in a storm – even vampires, maybe especially vampires, and how he had spent many years taking vampires in like Luka or taking them out like Leyola – stopped talking and gave her a reassuring look.

“I called the police,” he said.

Archer had changed into a new sweater before bringing her tea, this one black, wool, and worked in a lattice-stitch pattern. She would have found the seaming fascinating on any other man, but Archer had a way of out-wowing even a sweater that beautiful.

“You called the cops?” she asked.

“I did.”

“But you’re a . . . isn’t she a . . . ”

“Vampire?” he said evenly. “Yes she is. As am I. Although, we do have our differences.” He flashed a smile, showing just the edge of his teeth. “For one thing, I don’t break into other people’s places of business and try to kill them.” He stood. Then added as an afterthought, “Well, not for many years.”

He walked out of the side room and back into the main shop. Maddie got up and brushed her fingers through her hair, smoothing it, while she walked to the doorway so she could see what was going on.

Two police officers, one man, one woman, neither in uniform, walked through the front door, which Archer closed behind them. Archer motioned towards the still unconscious Leyola.

“She came in earlier this evening. I did not invite her. I was holding class upstairs.”

“Who saw her?’ the man asked.

“Luka and I. There were four women in class. Luka has taken all of them home, and made sure they have only pleasant memories of a class that was cancelled early. They were not harmed.”

The woman cop nodded. “Do you know what she wanted?”

“Other than to kill me?” He said it like it happened every day. He shrugged, a roll of his wide shoulders that belied his injury. “I have not found anything missing. And I do not believe she was seeking my counsel. Nor asylum. She and I have . . . crossed paths before.”

“So revenge?” the woman cop asked.

Archer crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged again. “When was she released?” he asked.

“About a month ago,” the man answered. “We’ll drag her back in. See if we can straighten her out. If not, will you press charges?”

“Yes.”

The woman pulled something out of her coat pocket. Maddie couldn’t see what it was, but she heard the telltale rip of duct tape being unrolled. The policewoman knelt, tipped Leyola’s head to one side, made sure her hair was out of the way, then duct-taped her mouth shut.

“OK, we’ll give you a call tomorrow night,” the man said.

Archer walked to the door and opened it while the police officers got hold of the woman’s upper arms and made a smooth, coordinated effort, carrying her out the door.

Archer left the door open and, within moments, another figure drifted at the edge of the doorway.

“Come in, Luka,” Archer invited.

The teen heart-throb stepped in, glanced in Maddie’s direction, his nostrils flared.

Archer put his hand on his shoulder. “She came back to return the yarn.”

Luka licked his lips, swallowed. “Do you want me to take her home too?”

“No. I think I’ll call her a cab.” Archer raised his voice slightly. “Unless you have a friend you’d like me to call for you?”

Maddie sighed. He had known she was eavesdropping the whole time. “You could have told me you knew I was listening,” she said as she walked out into the room with the two men. Correction: the two vampires.

“Hello, Luka,” she said.

Luka gave her a half-bow. “I have other . . . commitments. If you’ll both excuse me?”

Archer nodded and Luka turned and stepped silently back outside, into the night.

“So,” Maddie said, “are you going to make sure I remember all this as a pleasant evening? Just like that summer in Jamaica?”

Archer smiled. “Ah, you catch on quickly.” He strolled over to the love seats. “I could. If you asked me, I could leave your mind free of the memories of vampires. Give you back your easy world. Again.”

He bent, retrieved the yarn that had spilled from the bag and found the needles Maddie had abandoned on the couch cushion. He sat on the couch.

Instead of looking at her, he gazed at the yarn in his hands, turning the luxurious hanks of sunlight between his wide fingers.

Maddie crossed the floor. “How many years have you been doing this?” she asked. “Taking in vampires, taking out vampires?”

He shook his head. “Many.”

She sat on the couch next to him. When she could find her voice, she asked, “Why did you make me forget?”

He did not look up. Did not look away from the yarn that glowed like fire between his palms.

“Archer?” Maddie put her hand on his arm.

He lifted his head and met her gaze. “You asked me to. You were young. A full life awaited you. Sunlight awaited you.” He lifted the yarn ever so slightly. “Not the night.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. Too many emotions rolled through her. Loss. Regret. Hope.

“What if I don’t want to forget any more?”

“Once a memory is taken, it cannot be returned,” he said softly.

Maddie nodded. She knew that. “Is there ever a chance to make new memories?”

Archer stared at her, silent for so long, Maddie started blushing again.

“I know I’m older,” she stammered. “I mean I’m not a college girl any more, not quite as thin as I was, as pretty as I was, but I love knitting, and yarn—”

And then Archer was bending over her, pulling her close, his lips hot, needful, his teeth scraping the edge of her mouth, inviting her to open for him, promising her pleasure, promising her more.

Maddie moaned. She touched him, stroked him, and savoured the textures and tastes of him, until her body and soul came alive, and she knew she would never forget this, never forget him again.