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"More than a feeling…"

"Power of Love" - Huey Louis and the News

"Shit!" Gaelen leaped out of the bed.

"What's the matter? It's just Grace."

"What's the matter?" She gave me a dirty look, rummaging around in the closet at the end of the room and finally throwing on a terry-cloth bathrobe. "The matter is that it's none of Grace's business who I fuck, and he knows you're in here!"

"I could hide in the bathroom," I said, feeling hurt in spite of myself. I was proud to be with her, proud she had accepted me… but I guessed she didn't feel the same.

"No, you stay right there. I'll talk to him." She slammed the bedroom door on her way out. Before long, I heard the outer door open.

"What the fuck do you want, Grace? My shift doesn't start for another hour."

I could imagine Grace trying to peer into the apartment. "I'm just looking for Evan. His friend Dex says he hasn't been back to their place. After the way you two behaved last night, I thought he might be here with you. Look, I'm sorry if I bothered you. If you should see Evan, tell him I've got a job offer for him."

"I'll do that… if I see him. Now, can I get back to bed? God knows I need my beauty sleep."

"Sure, Gaelen. Oh, sorry about the power outage last night. It seems like all the fuses in the building blew at the same time. Hell of a thing."

"What power outage?" I could hear the click of a light switch. "Seems fine to me."

"It's been fixed, and I had them put in bigger breakers while they were at it, just in case. I was lucky to get someone out so quickly; this building wasn't the only one with electrical problems. I heard they had brownouts all over in this part of the city-thirteen of them-talk about your unlucky numbers. Funny, that kind of thing usually happens in the summer, when everybody's using their air conditioners."

"Well thanks, but I didn't notice. See you later, Grace." And the door was closed and locked.

I heard her in the bathroom, and then the bedroom door opened. She walked in, but busied herself in the closet and didn't look at me.

"Gaelen," I said softly. "Are you sorry about last night?"

She sighed and came to sit next to me on the bed. I didn't move, and finally she leaned back into my arms. "No, I'm not sorry. It's just been so damn long since I've been with anybody. I've gotten used to being alone. I've been a loner for years, and that's the way people think of me. Once Grace finds out that we really were together, he's going to ask questions, and I'm just not ready for that." She turned and hid her face against my shoulder.

"Gaelen, I'm proud to be with you, and I don't mind if other people know about it. I'd shout it from the rooftops, if I thought any of these damned New Yorkers would care."

She snorted. "I know you don't mind people knowing, baby. But that's because you're so young. You don't know what a pain other people's opinions can be. At your age, you still think anything is possible."

I was a bit stung by her assumptions, but figured she'd just had some bad experiences. "You can't be that much older than me, Gaelen." I pushed her back a little and regarded her face intently, surprised to see the hint of a tear in the corner of one eye.

"You'd be surprised," she said, rolled away from me, and sat up again. "You better go see Grace. He says he has a job offer for you."

I'd heard him say that, of course, but hadn't paid much attention. "What do you want me to tell him about where I was last night?"

She continued to look away from me and then turned back. "Tell him the truth, I guess, if he asks. But if I hear you've been bragging about being with me…."

"I would never gossip about you. I don't have to mention you at all. It's just…." I reached out to grasp her hand, and she let me. "I was hoping we could get together again tonight."

She gave me a look.

"I don't mean just come back here and have sex. I'd like to take you out - dinner and dancing, if you want."

She didn't say anything, looking down.

"Please. It's been so wonderful, being with you. I just don't want it to end."

Slowly, she nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to see you again too, though I can't believe I'm saying that." She turned her eyes on me. "I thought maybe this would only be a one-night stand, but being with you was… amazing. I know I'm nothing special - no, don't deny it; I know what I look like. I admit I don't know what you see in me, but if you want to get together again, I won't say no."

I quit holding my breath. "That's wonderful. I'll meet you tonight, after ten, right? You needn't dress up, unless you want to. I know some great places in this town where the dress code is very… relaxed." I was already making a list in my head.

She smiled, and my heart leapt. "You are a major asshole, you know that?"

"Why? Because I like being with you?"

"Yeah, and because dancing with you made me feel like Cinderella at the ball, though I guess she didn't take the prince home with her, afterwards."

I winced a little at the "prince" line. Star was the only prince I knew of. "Well, glass slippers are optional for tonight. I'll have the carriage brought around about ten fifteen, okay?" I got up and stretched, and she took advantage of it by pinching my ass and giggling when I yelped.

"I like it when you giggle," I said.

She fixed me with a severe glance. "I do not giggle," she said, giggling.

One more kiss, and she pushed me away and went back into the bathroom. I got dressed and went in search of Grace.

But the first person I ran into in the hall was Dex. "Hey, Evan, you okay? I didn't know what to think last night when you didn't show up."

"I'm fine, Dex. I should have let you know where I was, but things got kind of crazy. I hope you got along okay without me."

He grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I did all right. Grace and I got to talking, and we ended up spending the night together."

"No shit? How'd that go?" He turned his face away, blushing a little. I grabbed his chin and made him look at me. "What?"

"Well, we flipped a coin to see who would bottom." He blushed a little more.

"And you lost?"

He shook his head, his ponytail bouncing from one shoulder to the other. "No, man, I think I might have won!"

I laughed.

"We took turns after the first time."

"Sounds good." I looked around to see if anyone else was in earshot, then asked, "You bite him?" I knew Dex wasn't biting me, and he had to get nourishment from someone.

Dex shrugged. "Mr. D. doesn't like us to do that unless we ask."

"And…?"

"Grace was cool with it. Didn't seem to mind at all… except I don't think he believed I was going to until I actually did, if you know what I mean."

I nodded. "Yeah, kinda stretches the credulity." I remembered when I'd first learned vampires were real. We started down the stairs together.

"You talked to Grace yet, Evan?"

"No, I was just going to look for him."

"Good. He's got a deal for you. You know Richie, the cook?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's in the hospital - emergency appendix. His girlfriend called this morning, said he was going to be fine, but the ambulance had a hell of a time getting to their place because of the power going out. It fucked up all the traffic lights too."

I put a hand on his arm, and we stopped halfway down the stairs. "What happened to the lights?"

"Nobody knows for sure. The city says maybe some rats gnawed through their cables or something, except they haven't had time to do any fixing and everything is back to normal now. Grace and I left the lights on in his room, and we saw them fade in and out a bunch of times until finally, some time early this morning, the fuses blew."

My mind was racing. "Umm… do you know when it happened the first time?"

"Yeah, I guess. The news guys said it started around eleven last night and quit around ten this morning."

Shit.

"Do you know if it caused any major problems, like in hospitals or with traffic accidents or anything?"

"Nah. The hospitals all had backup power, and anyway the brownouts only lasted a minute or so each. There were a couple of fender-bender car crashes, but there always are. I don't think you can blame the power thing."

I nodded. Thank goodness for that, anyway. And there was still a slim chance that I hadn't caused the problem, even if the times Dex reported were awfully close to the times Gaelen and I had been making love. What the hell?

We finally made it to the bottom of the first stairway, and I saw Grace starting up the flight below. "Evan!" he called. "Where the fuck have you been?"

Dex grabbed my arm. "You go talk to him. He's pissed at me because I can't help out. You know I would, but I promised Jorje I'd play at his place this afternoon. I'm gonna go back up and get ready. See you later?"

"Sure, Dex. But I'll be leaving again at ten."

He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. "Hot date?" He grinned.

I smiled back. "Yeah, the hottest."

Dex slapped me on the shoulder and ran up the stairs while I continued down to where Grace was waiting, now tapping his foot. His sandy hair, usually combed neatly, was greasy and held back with a rolled up bandana. A once-white apron, currently stained with various food splotches, was tied around his waist.

"If you're done arranging your social calendar, maybe you could give me a minute of your time?"

"Sure, Grace. Dex told me that Richie is in the hospital. I guess the apron means you've been filling in as cook?"

"Damn right I have, and I need help! I got better things to do than frying burgers; this place won't manage itself. Didn't you tell me you used to be a cook?"

"Well, yeah," I said. "Sure, I'd be happy to help you out, Grace."

He sighed, sagging visibly and wiping sweat off his forehead with a greasy forearm. "Thank God. I don't suppose this would seem like such a crisis if I'd gotten any sleep last night."

I followed him into the kitchen where Etta, one of the waitresses, was pinning an order to the carousel. "You're three burgers down, Grace," she announced.

He grimaced. "And that's your fault too," he said, as I washed my hands and threw on a hairnet and apron.

"What, the burgers?" The lunch rush was just starting, and it was going to get a lot worse.

"No, my lack of sleep." He threw his dirty apron into the bin and leaned wearily against the wall next to the grill. I grabbed some meat patties and fixings and set to work. I had the setup scoped out already: worked in one kitchen, you can work in 'em all.

"How do you figure?"

"Well, if you'd been around last night I wouldn't have got mixed up with the baby vampire."

I coughed. "Grace, maybe you shouldn't say that so loud."

"Who's gonna care, or believe me, for that matter? Where did you find that boy? With the way he fucks, who cares if he drinks a little blood?"

I laughed. "Not much seems to bother you, Grace."

"Ah, what's the point of worrying." He untied the bandana and used it to scrub at his hands. "The world's a weird place, and I seem to attract the weirdest parts of it." He grinned and moved close enough to elbow me in the ribs. "I told you I knew more aliens than just you," he whispered. "How'd it go with Gaelen, last night? You were with her, weren't you?"

I blinked. The man never ceased to amaze me. "Grace," I said, arranging lettuce and tomato on three plates and noticing that Etta had hung up two more orders, "are you sure you aren't a little strange yourself? Maybe you read minds or something?"

"Nope, not me. Normal as apple pie," he said. "My grandmother, now… she was a real witch!" He laughed, twisted the bandana, and snapped my backside. "Keep your secrets if you want. I'm off to the showers. Claude will take over at eight. Have fun."

I put the finished burgers on the counter and hit the little bell, then went back and started on the cold sandwich orders. I had plenty to think about and was glad to have my hands busy.

It seemed only logical that I had caused the power fluctuations in the city last night. My body normally kept a rather large reserve of energy, but every time I came, that reserve had been siphoned directly into Gaelen. I wasn't doing it intentionally, so the demand must be coming from her side.

That much power, delivered at one time to an ordinary person, might be harmful, if not fatal. Why had it seemed so normal, even enjoyable, at the time? She didn't seem to be triggering the events consciously either. Was that why I had been so strongly attracted to her? Did her body sense in mine a way to fill its needs for power? If so, what was it planning to do with all of the energy, enough to power several city blocks for several minutes?

Gaelen didn't look or feel any different. Her cells had absorbed the rushes of power like a thirsty man sucks dry an oasis. She kept mentioning how old she was, even though she looked no more than thirty to me. Did she keep her youthful appearance by taking energy from others? If so, how many average men would be needed to replace one like me?

I shook my head and added french fries to a barbecue beef plate. I just couldn't see Gaelen as another sort of creature like Dex. Didn't a succubus feed off energy during sex? No, she seemed hesitant to go with me and as amazed as I was at what happened between us.

Well, whatever was going on, we needed to talk about it. One thing was certain, if we made love again I'd have to consciously take the replacement energy I needed from some acceptable source, not just reach out blindly for whatever was handy. But what source could supply me with that kind of power - as much as your average bolt of lightning?

I knew of a couple of nuclear reactors nearby, and they were supposed to be capable of generating large amounts of energy. I reached out for one of them and discovered what I had suspected: one, they were nowhere near as efficient an energy source as a sun, two, they wasted more power than they sent out to be used, and three, they weren't nearly as stable as their proponents wanted us to believe.

Still, I could draw off some of that wasted energy and even save the power plant something in cooling costs. I established a tentative connection to the place, just in case I needed it. There was no guarantee that Gaelen and I would end up in bed together again tonight, though I sincerely hoped we would. Whoever or whatever she was, I wanted more of her.