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“Just wait to die, then,” he muttered.
I had to bite my lips to keep from snickering or giggling hysterically. I was sure that crouching over him, laughing, while he was vulnerable and agitated wouldn’t improve the situation.
Shouting for him to hold on, I scurried out to my car, carefully shutting the door behind me so that sunlight didn’t spill into the kitchen. I had a case of Faux Type O in the back, destined for Ms. Wexler’s house the next day. I grabbed three bottles from the package and ran back into the house. Sadly, it only occurred to me after I’d run back into the house that I should have just grabbed my purse, jumped into my van, and gunned it all the way home.
But no, I had to take care of vampires with figurative broken wings, because of my stupid Good Samaritan complex.
Kneeling beside the fallen vampire, I twisted the top off the first bottle and offered it to him. “I’m sure this is clean. I just bought it. The tamper-proof seal’s intact.”
He gave the bottle a doubtful, guarded look but took it from my hand. He greedily gulped his way through the first bottle, grimacing at the cold offering. Meanwhile, I popped the other two bottles into the microwave. I even dropped a penny into each one after heating them to give them a more authentic coppery taste.
“Thank you,” he murmured, forcing himself into a sitting position, although the effort clearly exhausted him. He slumped against the pine cabinets. Like all of the Deer Haven homes, the kitchen was done in pastel earth tones—buffs, beiges, and creams. Mr. Calix looked like a wax figure sagging against the pale wood. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
“I’m Iris Scanlon, from Beeline. The concierge service? Ophelia Lambert arranged your service contract before you arrived in the Hollow. I came by to drop off the paperwork.”
He nodded his magnificent dark head slowly. “She mentioned something about a daywalker, said I could trust you.”
I snorted. Ophelia only said that because I hadn’t asked questions that time she put heavy-duty trash bags, lime, and a shovel on her shopping list. The teenage leader of the local World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead office might have looked sweet sixteen, but at more than four hundred years old, Ophelia, I’m pretty sure, had committed felonies in every hemisphere.
Scary felonies.
“Well, you seem to be feeling a bit better. I’ll leave these papers here and be on my way,” I said, inching around him.
“Stop,” he commanded me, his voice losing its raspy quality as he pushed himself to his feet. I froze, looking up at him through lowered lashes. His face was fuller somehow, less haggard. He seemed to be growing a little stronger with every sip of blood. “I need your help.”
“How could I help you?”
“You already have helped.” As he spoke, I picked up the faint trace of an accent, a sort of caress of the tongue against each finishing syllable. It sounded … old, which was a decidedly unhelpful concept when dealing with a vampire. And since most vamps didn’t like talking about their backstories, I ignored the sexy lilt and its effects on my pulse rate. “And now I need you to take me home with you.”
“Why would I take an unstable, hungry vampire home with me? Do I look particularly stupid to you?”
He snorted. “No, which is why you should take me home with you. I already know where you live. While you were running to your car, I looked in your purse and memorized your driver’s license. Imagine how irritated I would be, how motivated I would be to find you and repay your kindness, after I am well again.”
I gasped, clutching my bag closer to my chest. “Don’t you threaten me! There seem to be a lot of handy, breakable wooden objects in this room. I’m not above living out my fonder Buffy fantasies.”
His expression was annoyed but contrite. Mostly annoyed. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. But I need to find a safe shelter before dark falls. I have a feeling someone may be coming by to finish me off. No sane person would attack me while I was at full strength.”
I believed it, but it didn’t stop me from thinking that Mr. Calix was a bit full of himself. “How do I know that you won’t drain me as soon as you stabilize?”
“I don’t do that,” he said, echoing my earlier pronouncement while he swept my bag from my hands. I tried snatching it back, but he held it just out of my grasp, like some elementary-school bully with a My Little Pony backpack.
Scowling at him, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Considering you just vaguely threatened me, I have a hard time believing that.”
“Check my wallet, on the counter.”
I flipped open the expensive-looking leather folio and found what looked like a shiny gold policeman’s badge. “You’re a ‘consultant’ for the Council? In terms of credibility, that means nothing to me. I’ve met Ophelia.”
His lips twitched at my reference to the cunning but unpredictable teen vampire.
“Why can’t you just call her?” I asked. “She’s your Council rep. This should be reported to her anyway.”
“I can’t call her. The Council supplied me with that blood. Left here in a gift basket before I arrived,” he said, giving a significant look to the discarded packet on the floor. “Therefore, I can’t trust the Council. I can’t check into a hotel or seek help from friends without being tracked.”
“I have a little sister who lives with me. I don’t care how you ended up on the floor. We don’t need to be a part of it.” I grunted, making a grab for my bag as his tired arms drooped. “I am not running a stop on the vampire underground railroad.”
“I can pay you an obscene amount of money.”
I’m ashamed to say that this stilled my hand. If anything would make me consider this bizarre scheme, it was money. My parents had died nearly five years ago, leaving me to raise my little sister without much in the way of life insurance or savings. I needed money for Gigi’s ever-looming college tuition. I needed money to keep up the house, to pay off the home-equity loan I’d taken out for Beeline’s start-up capital. I needed money to keep us in the food that Gigi insisted on eating. And despite the fact that the business was finally becoming somewhat successful, I always seemed to just cover our expenses, with a tiny bit left over to throw at my own rabid student-loan officers. Something always seemed to pop up and eat away at our extra cash—car repair, school trip, explosive air-conditioning failure.
