Blood in the Water (Blood Vice Book 3) Page 2

  Collins whipped his blue Toyota RAV4 around a questionable pickup truck with a burnt-out tail light, shooting the driver a stern look as we breezed past in the right lane. Mandy leaned across his lap and pressed her middle finger up against the driver’s side window.

  “Come on now,” Collins said, nudging her out of his personal space.

  Mandy huffed and flopped back in her seat, her mousy ponytail poking through the gap under the headrest. She stuck her opposite hand out her own window, twining her fingers through the air rather than giving the shitty drivers a piece of her mind. Her fingertips were stained orange from the bag of Cheetos she’d inhaled in the first half hour of our trip.

  “Sure is beautiful country,” Collins said for the fifth time, good-humored sarcasm seeping through his words. He winked at me in the rearview mirror.

  I rolled my eyes and pushed my earbuds in deeper before pressing play on my phone.

  “¿Quién es tu creador?” a feminine, Spanish voice asked.

  “Who is your sire?” a masculine, English voice echoed.

  I hit repeat and mouthed the words to myself as a headache formed along the base of my skull. I hadn’t expected to find Spanish lessons on the chip Roman had given me, but it made sense. That didn’t mean I was happy about it.

  There were only a few other files on the disk in addition to the crash language course—including several paintings and photographs of dear ol’ Pablo and his home back in Spain. I also found dated sets of notes regarding the training regime at the bat cave.

  It took a little reading before I understood why Roman would care how the course evolved after he’d passed it fifty years prior. Once he was turned, he would have to pass it again as a vampire. Bummer.

  Mandy twisted around in her seat and lifted both eyebrows at me as she shoved a Dorito into her mouth. “Find anything about wolfy training in there?” she shouted to be heard.

  I sighed and paused the Spanish lesson before popping out my earbuds. “Just that the program is called Canine Aptitude Training.” I shrugged.

  Mandy gave me a level glare. “Canine Aptitude Training? Abbreviated C-A-T? You can’t be serious.”

  Collins snickered, and Mandy’s evil eye shifted to him. “And what about this clown’s program? Did they get clever naming that one, too?”

  “No idea. I don’t see a name, though it seems pretty similar to the vamp program, as far as I can tell,” I said, scrolling through the files on my phone for another look. “It’s just a watered-down, mortal version. Roman passed it fifty years ago, but the notes he’s been keeping since are all about the vamp training.”

  “That was really cool of him to share,” Collins said, stealing another glance in the rearview mirror. His keen, green eyes had been watching me off-and-on throughout the trip.

  I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Yeah.” I didn’t voice out loud what I really thought of Roman’s help. How I was pretty sure he was just covering his own ass so I didn’t bring him down with me if my true lineage was discovered.

  Mandy’s brow pinched, and she gave me a warning frown. We hadn’t shared the full truth with the newest member of my blood harem. Collins didn’t know that my sire had been the exiled Baron of House Lilith. Or that Mandy had killed him—had eaten him—right after he’d killed me. Her revenge snack had been messy enough to result in the freak accident of my transformation, and now here we were.

  The Toyota slowed as we passed through Columbia, and Mandy’s expression softened. She gazed out toward the shopping mall where Serena worked part-time. She wouldn’t be there tonight. My late partner’s daughter spent her weekends in St. Louis, visiting her mother and Mandy.

  I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the girls’ blossoming romance. About keeping another bombshell secret from the Banks family. Serena couldn’t know that her father had been murdered by a vampire. She couldn’t know that I was a vampire, or that she was dating a werewolf. If one secret came to light, the others would soon follow. I was sure of it. And I couldn’t bear it.

  Serena had experienced enough life changes and heartache lately. We all had.

  * * * * *

  I’d never been through Kansas. I’d never been through much of anywhere, really. But everyone I knew who had gone through the Sunflower State complained of the flat, boring view. Farmland that stretched like an endless sea of nothing in all directions.

  I couldn’t tell for certain—not in the darkness that coated everything beyond the highway. I considered attempting to activate my blood vision, but I didn’t want to waste the gift or the energy on something so trivial.

  The waning, gibbous moon rose behind us slowly, painting blue shadows over the nothingness I strained to see. It’d been full just a few nights ago, when Mandy had shifted and chased the neighbor’s cat through the backyard. I didn’t have the heart to ask if she’d caught it.

  A cluster of city lights brightened our trip here and there, and then the blinking beacons atop a span of commercial windmills snagged my attention. They looked alien and mysterious, and like a warning of what lay ahead.

  I spent the remainder of the drive attempting to learn Spanish—the slapdash Dracula version, anyway.

  “Soy un vampire.”

  “I am a vampire.”

  “Necesito sangre.”

  “I need blood.”

  “¿A qué hora es la salida del sol?”

  “What time is sunrise?”

  By the time we took the exit for Salina, I was ready to chuck my phone out the window. I’d barely passed English in school. There was no way I would master Spanish well enough to convince anyone that Pablo had deemed me scion material.

  We passed an IHOP and a few hotels, and soon we were swallowed up in blue-tinged darkness again. Collins turned the Toyota down a gravel road. We passed a mailbox with no numbers, and continued on for several miles without seeing so much as a driveway.

  “You’re sure Roman gave you the right directions?” Collins asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “We don’t have to leave Kansas, do we, Toto?”

  Mandy turned around in her seat and pinched her nose. Her eyes watered as she rasped her next breath. “Roadkill. That’s definitely skunk.”

  “That’s what you get for leaving your window down.” I smirked and crinkled my own nose as the smell reached me, drifting in along with gravel dust. Collins gave Mandy a pointed look.

  “Well, I can’t roll it up now,” she balked. “The smell will be trapped in here with us.”

  “What’s that?” I pressed my face up against my window, taking in the outline of a farmhouse as it came into view. It was a two-story with a wide front porch. Yellow light spilled from every window. As the Toyota rolled closer, I heard faint piano music playing. “This is it.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Collins’ brow creased as he gave the farmhouse a skeptical frown.

  “It’s three in the morning, and the place is lit up like the Fourth of July,” I said. “You do the math.”

  Mandy gave him a grave nod. “I can smell it—another vampire, not more roadkill,” she clarified. She sniffed deeper. “A few humans, too.”

  Another mailbox marked the driveway leading up to the farmhouse, and this one was painted with two curly, blue Cs. As we turned off, musical laughter joined the piano, filtering through a screen door off the side of the house. The stoop was covered by a tiny awning, and from it hung a sign that matched the lettering on the mailbox.

  The Cottage Crypt was spelled out this time, though the sign was poorly lit and hardly visible from the road. There hadn’t been a listing for it online, and there was nothing but farmland for miles around. If someone wasn’t actively looking for this place, they’d never find it.

  Collins followed the driveway back to a small parking area in front of a detached garage. A vintage, slightly rusty Chevy Bel Air and a nicer—yet equally vintage—Rolls Royce filled most of the space, leaving just enough room for the Toyota. Gravel faded into weeds beyond the glow of
a security light fixed to the peak of the garage roof.

  I waited for Collins to kill the engine, and then climbed out to stretch my legs and take another look around. A clothesline draped with sheets and towels cut through the backyard, but before that was a small garden and sitting area. It was lit up like the house, displaying an arched bench trellis with night-blooming flowers and a bubbling fountain.

  “Cozy,” Mandy said, taking in the very normal scene with me while Collins locked up the car.

  “Let’s make sure they have room for us before we unpack our luggage,” he said, fingering his hair and smoothing the seatbelt creases in his shirt. The snug material hugged his chest, showing off the faint lines of his muscled pecs.

  The piano music stopped, and hushed voices trickled out to us as we climbed the few steps under the sign. Through the screen door, I noticed a faded sofa beneath busy, floral wallpaper. A lamp on a side table illuminated a stack of magazines and a rotary telephone on the wall.

  Before I could press the button for the doorbell, the screen door flew open, and an ancient, shriveled woman peered up at me. Her white hair was coiled in a bun so tight that it stretched her papery skin back in an alarming facelift, made all the more eerie by her eager grin and wide, glossy eyes.

  “Welcome,” she squealed. Her voice was high-pitched, and I was almost surprised when she didn’t follow up her greeting with a wicked witch cackle. “You must be the crowd Roman called about. Jenny, is it?”

  “Jenna.” I frowned as I took her outstretched hand. It felt like a cold bundle of sticks, the knuckles knobby and fingers stiff, but there was strength in her shake. “These are my—friends. Max and Mandy.”

  Mandy stood stock-still beside me, nostrils flaring. Vampire. Without my blood vision, I couldn’t see it. But Mandy’s nose didn’t lie. Collins seemed to pick up on it, too, though he offered up a timid smile, ever the gentleman. The old lady winked at him before her eyes darted back to me.

  “No need to be shy around here, Jen. We know what’s what,” she said. “I’m Delilah. Why don’t you come on in and meet my friends.” She hobbled back a few steps and held the screen door open, beckoning us inside.

  The stuffy sitting room opened into a larger space with hardwood floors and a gaudy, crystal chandelier. Several small tables were pushed up against one wall. A fainting couch and upright piano filled the opposite side of the room. There was more busy wallpaper in here, but the swirly gold design was less offensive than the floral menagerie we’d just passed through.

  A woman in a sequined flapper dress appeared as we entered the room. She looked like a younger version of Lydia, the woman I’d drank from at the vampire club Bleeders. My heart raced at the memory, and I silently reminded myself that I’d already eaten tonight—half a cup of Collins’ lukewarm A-positive before we embarked on our trip.

  “Cal’s making up a fresh bed now, Dee,” the woman said.

  Delilah nodded, but I cut her off before she could introduce the newcomer.

  “We’re going to need three beds, actually.” I blushed.

  “Very well.” She waved a hand at the other woman. “Go help Cal set up the other two rooms, Stella.”

  The flapper hurried off, her heels clacking on the staircase that stretched upward behind the fainting couch and piano. I watched her go—maybe a little too intently—until Delilah cleared her throat.

  “I share my harem, but it costs extra.” She smirked and straightened her navy cardigan. “Angus serves breakfast at four. Richens the blood for a little nightcap before we nocturnals retire for the day,” she added, taking note of Collins’ raised eyebrow. An amused glint slipped into her expression, as if she had suddenly realized just how green a lot we were.

  “Wonderful,” Collins said, clapping his hands together. “I’ll just go grab our luggage then?” He shot me a questioning look, and I nodded my approval.

  “I’ll help.” Mandy turned on her heels and followed him back through the sitting room, leaving me alone with Delilah.

  The old vampire clucked her tongue as she watched them go. She gave me a pitying smile. “I struggled with the intimacy at first, too, dear. My generation was especially squeamish about such relations. But, if this old bat can learn to fly, so can you.” She patted my shoulder, ignoring my flaming face, and turned toward an arched entrance at the back of the foyer. “I’ll go let Angus know he’ll have two extra mouths to feed. Stella will be down in a moment to show you to your rooms.”

  I managed to croak out a weak, “Thank you,” before she slipped out of sight. The sudden silence sent my insecurities echoing through my head.

  Was intimacy really so necessary when it came to feeding? Was I missing out on some vital part of being a proper vampire? The transition from bagged blood to freshly drawn had been such a monumental leap for me as it was.

  I only fed fang-to-flesh from Vin, and even that had been difficult at first, but I’d grown comfortable with it over the past few weeks. We were dating, so the intimacy didn’t seem like such an awkward notion. How the hell was that supposed to work with an entire harem? Especially with a harem that had no interest in being intimate with me either?

  My thoughts drifted to Roman, pausing on the memory of his silky blood as it coated my tongue. My head cradled in the bend of his arm, shoulder blades pressed to the tops of his thighs. I shivered and hugged myself.

  Stella returned to the foyer at the same time Collins and Mandy dragged our luggage in from the car. Collins carried my duffle bag over one arm and tugged his large suitcase on wheels behind him. An overstuffed backpack lay against Mandy’s shoulders, and tote bags dangled from both of her elbows, one full of garage-sale paperbacks and magazines, the other full of junk food.

  “This way,” Stella said, opening a pale, slender arm toward the staircase.

  I followed first, breathing in the fruity, cotton-candy scented perfume that trailed behind her. Her hips swayed as she climbed the stairs, sashaying the fringe running along the hem of her sparkly dress. Red pulsed at the edges of my sight, sending a stabbing thrill of panic through my chest. I began to wonder just how much extra Delilah charged for sharing her favorite snacks.

  “All of our rooms are outfitted with interior, day-sealing shutters,” Stella said as we entered the upstairs hallway. “The two on the left, the starling suite and the raven suite, share a bath, and the one on the right, the owl suite, has its own bath with a clawfoot tub. The household sleeps in alternating shifts, so someone is always available should a member of your harem need anything at all.”

  Mandy made a soft snort behind me. She didn’t care for the word harem. I didn’t blame her. Being an unwilling sex slave in a vampire brothel was enough to make one uptight about terminology.

  Stella turned to me and folded her hands together under her breasts. She had lovely, bright eyes. Liquid and soft, like Judy Garland’s. “Do you have any questions?”

  I sucked at my bottom lip a moment. “Two Blood Vice agents, Roman and Vanessa, stayed here a few months ago. Do you remember them?”

  She blinked stiffly as if she had expected a question about fresh towels or pillow mints. “Yes, of course I remember them. Delilah’s daughter and her pledged scion have stayed here many times.”

  Daughter? My mind reeled with the new information, but Stella went on before I could fully process it.

  “They always stay in the owl suite. Is there anything…else I can do for you?” she asked, her tone slightly more suggestive. Collins made a noise this time.

  “I think we’re good. Thank you,” I said, dismissing her.

  She bowed her head politely and slipped past us, her perfume filling my lungs once more as she sauntered back toward the mouth of the stairs. Again, I thought of Lydia and the cozy, dark booth at Bleeders where she’s opened her wrist for me.

  “Breakfast is in an hour,” Stella said over her shoulder. “Your harem is welcome to join us for the meal.” The invitation was directed at me. All conversation at the Cottage Cryp
t had been so far, I realized. Mandy and Collins were being treated as if they were my underlings, here only to do my bidding.

  Collins waited until we were alone in the hallway before dropping my bag to the floor. “What a tart.” He put his hands on his hips and sniffed.

  “Is there anything…else I can do for you?” Mandy mimicked in an exaggerated, sultry voice. Her skew-neck tee shirt left one shoulder bare, and she rolled it in a mocking flirt.

  Even though I knew their jabs weren’t meant for me, I felt humiliation sour my stomach. Was it really so awful for someone to crave the same exchange I longed for? My face must have given me away, because they both stared at me, surprise widening their eyes with the beginnings of remorse. Before either of them could say another word, I snatched my bag up from where Collins had dropped it.

  “I’ll take the owl suite,” I said, opening the bedroom door. “We’ll catch up at sunset. Enjoy breakfast.”

  I stepped inside and closed the door, letting the darkness cloak me until I heard Mandy and Collins shuffled into the opposite rooms. Once my calm returned, I clicked on the bedroom light and took a look around. Only then did Stella’s words settle in my mind.

  They always stay in the owl suite.

  Roman and Vanessa had shared this room. Last spring. My eyes roved over the tarnished brass bedframe, the denim quilt laid across the mattress, the faded wallpaper printed with blue and gray feathers, the antique vanity in the corner.

  He’d said Vanessa wasn’t his girlfriend, but perhaps she had been, not so terribly long ago. Maybe he’d been reluctant to recommend the bed and breakfast for that very reason. Maybe this room—this entire place—was a big mistake.

  My heart trembled pathetically. I had no right to feel betrayed by Roman, yet I was wounded just the same. And I couldn’t seem to move from my spot in front of the bedroom door. I couldn’t bring myself to invade the space and stir up whatever memories might be lying in wait. I wondered if it was too late to trade rooms with Mandy or Collins.