AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Speaking of feeding . . . I looked around for Vanzir, but he was no place in sight. Neither was Delilah, nor Tril ian. “Where is everybody?”
“Nerissa headed out to rent an apartment until the condo sale goes through—she said to tel you she’l cal later. Delilah and Tril ian are back at the hospital with Camil e. Smoky and Roz aren’t home yet. Shamas is at work. Vanzir took off with some vague excuse. Does he seem different to you, Menol y? I wonder if the soul binder ritual is stil working.” Iris frowned.
I wasn’t sure how to deal with the question. What the hel was I going to tel her? But now that Vanzir’s powers were gone, it occurred to me the others would have to know. Next time we went into battle, someone might expect him to be able to feed on the creatures we were facing, and that was no longer possible.
Crap, and that meant Smoky, Tril ian, and Morio would find out, and that meant . . . Vanzir might as wel slit his wrists unless somehow Camil e could keep the three of them in check. Tril ian she could probably deal with—he was polyamorous by nature, too. And possibly Morio. But Smoky . . .
I real y didn’t want to think about what Smoky was likely to do.
“I’d better tel you something, but, Iris, this is a touchy situation. And hel —it wil have to wait. I’ve got to meet Chase at Wade’s. I’m late as it is. Cal down to the bar for me, would you? I’m not sure I’l make it in tonight, either. Ask Chrysandra how Derrick is doing, please. And Erin—tel her I’l see her soon.”
I grabbed a bottle of blood from the fridge and drank it without warming it. Normal y, the taste would have been pretty bad, but Morio had charmed this bottle into a strawberry shake flavor and it went down easy. Blessing his poor, wounded heart, I tossed the bottle in the sink and raced out the door to my Jag.
As I leaped down the steps, I landed on a patch of ice beneath the layer of fresh snow and went skidding, landing on my chin. I managed to hit a rock, which caused a gash, but it began to heal by the time I was on my feet and in the car.
I rol ed my eyes as I felt the scab on my chin. Here I was, jian-tu, spy and acrobat extraordinaire, but once again my half-human heritage had knocked me off my feet and into a snowbank.
Speaking of snow—how the hel was Seattle getting so much snow? The city could go for years without it, but the past couple of winters had been overactive in the white-flake department. Of course, last year’s deluge had been the result of Loki moving into the area when Dredge came to town. But this year . . . maybe it was El Niño or La Niña or whatever child of the storm was bearing down on us now.
Wet from the fal , I slammed the door on my Jag shut and took off down the driveway. In the growing dusk, I saw two of the elven guards that Queen Asteria had assigned to our land and felt a surge of relief. I’d worry myself sick if Iris and Maggie didn’t have any other protection. Shade might be there, but extra hands never hurt.
Chase was impatiently waiting in his car outside Wade’s apartment. A couple of landlords in the city had gotten wise and realized how much money they could make by providing security apartments to rent to vampires. The landlords were Supe Community members, mostly Fae and vampire themselves, but there were now two dedicated apartment complexes where vamps could be guaranteed an apartment with at least two windowless rooms and a security system down on the front door to keep vampire hunters at bay.
As I pul ed in, I noticed a smal group of picketers marching in a circle on the sidewalk in front of the Shrouded Grove Suites. I hurried over to Chase’s vehicle.
“What the fuck do they want?”
“The heart of every vampire in there. Now that I see this, I’m not sure how safe it is for you to go in there with me. I can yel and wave my gun around, but somebody there may have a stake and decide that it’s better off used on you.” He looked concerned, and for Chase to be worried about a group of humans was—in itself—worrisome.
“I can take them on, you know that.”
“Al it takes is one misplaced stake. We saw that with Morio.” He turned to me, his expression somber. “Seriously, Menol y. I’m not sure what to do anymore. Thanks to Gambit’s paranoia, every religious freak—and I mean freak, not good upstanding people who live and let live—is running around trying to play Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And this latest mess with the vamp serial kil er is just making it worse. It’s up to me to keep law and order in the city, and I’m not doing a very good job of it.”
I patted him on the shoulder, not used to comforting people. “Johnson, you’re doing a damned fine job. You can’t keep everything under your control. I’m rejoining the VA, and we’l hammer out some way to help. But to do that, we need Wade. So I need you to help me prove Wade didn’t do this.”
“I hope it won’t be too hard,” he said, chewing on his lip.
Smacking him lightly with two fingers, I said, “Stop that. You’l give yourself a canker sore. Now come on. I’m sure Wade can come up with some alibi. His mother hangs around his neck like a leech. She’s bound to have been with him on at least one of the nights when the victims were murdered. By the way, no more bodies so far?”
With a grim shake of the head, he pushed forward to break through the line. “No. Okay, watch your back and I do mean that. Literal y.”
As we approached the chanting mob, I glanced at their signs.
STOP THE SUCKERS COLD!
STAKE THE VAMPS!
BLOOD BELONGS TO THE LIVING!
DRIVE THE POINT HOME!
At least that last one was clever, if gruesome. The picture was of a pointy stake aimed at a cartoon vampire.
“Back—get back,” Chase said, pul ing out his badge.
“We have a right to protest!”
“Vampire-lover! The law’s supposed to be on our side—what are you, a vamp wannabe?”
