I raised a tentative finger. “I... don’t actually have a passport.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You shouldn’t travel internationally under your own name, given everything that’s going on right now. I’ll get you set up—it’s just going to take an extra few hours to get everything sent here.”
Right. Of course. My boss... the vampire who knew how to bury the bodies. Or how to construct fake identities in an unfamiliar city with twelve hours’ notice.
“I have two rooms made up for you, sir,” Edward said. “I’ll get you the password for the Wi-Fi and the secure VPN whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Edward. I prefer to use my own VPN, though.”
“Understandable, sir,” said the butler. “Vonnie, would you care for that sandwich now? Though I fear it may have grown a bit limp in the interim.”
“Sure,” I said, content to leave Leonides in peace to pursue his white-collar criminal endeavors.
After wolfing down one slightly droopy club sandwich, I debated grilling Edward about Dhuinne some more. In the end, however, I knew myself well enough to realize that I was at capacity for dealing with the craziness of magic and supernatural politics right now.
Also, I trusted Leonides.
I wondered if the fact that he hadn’t really fought me over my insistence in coming with him meant that... just maybe... he was coming to trust me, too? After fighting off a SWAT team together, perhaps he—
But I shook my head at myself. Who was I kidding? Mostly, I’d hidden behind a tree while he fought off a bunch of heavily armed men. Right up until the part where I’d accidentally set the aforementioned tree on fire. As well-oiled battle tactics went, it left a bit to be desired.
Hunger sated, I let Edward show me to a cheery bedroom on the upper floor. My overnight case was set neatly in one corner. Not for the first time, I was struck by a sense of cognitive dissonance at the idea that a demon lived in this pleasant, airy house near the boardwalk.
“Does Nigellus have a dungeon full of torture instruments and disturbing gothic statues hidden in the basement of this place?” I asked, looking at the light curtains fluttering in the breeze from the open window.
Edward only chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint, my dear. The buildings in this neighborhood don’t have basements. Too prone to flooding, you see.”
“So he just happens to like pastels and mission-style furniture?”
“It’s appropriate decor for the area,” said the butler. “He has other houses with different styles and furnishing choices. Honestly though, I think it pleases him to spend time in a place so different from Hell.”
I thought about that for a moment, mulling it over. “Is it really terrible there?”
He looked surprised. “In Hell? Oh, goodness, no. Personally, I’ve always found it quite beautiful—though it’s certainly a spare and desolate kind of beauty.”
“What, no lakes of fire and brimstone?” I quipped, remembering with a pang how many times my disappointed family had threatened me with such a fate as punishment for my wicked ways.
“No,” Edward said gently. “Definitely more ‘desert southwest’ and less ‘eternal damnation.’ Unfortunately, threatening people with a one-way trip to someplace vaguely similar to the Grand Canyon or Monument Park isn’t highly effective when it comes to fomenting fear.”
“So the demons started rumors about fiery eternal punishment so humans would be afraid of them?” I asked, frowning.
“Not the demons, Vonnie. The Fae. For the last couple of millennia, religion has been very much the Fae’s weapon of choice.”
I’d been right earlier. There was too much here to take on board at once.
“My parents would burst a gasket if they ever learned about this stuff,” I observed, trying to picture the kind of epic meltdown that would likely ensue.
Edward looked pained. “As weapons go, I fear it has proved a fairly effective one over the centuries.”
“Yeah,” I agreed heavily. “It really has.”
He excused himself shortly thereafter, leaving me alone in the cheery guest room. I removed my shoes and flopped onto the bed, pulling out my phone as I did. It had only been about nine hours since I last checked in with Len, but I figured now was still a good time to do it, while nothing else exciting was going on.
Hey, Blue. We’re all good here. Might take a nap until dinner. Looks like we’ll be staying overnight.
Less than a minute later, the phone vibrated.
You’re still crazy, and I regret agreeing to this. Have a good nap IN THE SPAWN OF SATAN’S FREAKING HOUSE.
I sent him a devil emoji followed by a snoring emoji, and got no reply. Tomorrow, I’d have to figure out how to approach the whole, ‘Hey, by the way, we’re going to take a side trip to the faerie realm where we might both die or go insane’ thing, in a way that wouldn’t immediately have him sending Rans and Zorah after us. My vague sense of guilt at putting Len in this corner... probably should have been worse than it was.
What kind of person was I turning into? Cold, manipulative, inured to violence? Was this what Jace’s disappearance had done to me? Or was it more than that?
Ivan.
Richard.
Even Kat’s stalker ex.
Leonides.
Maybe the same thing had happened to him years ago, and that’s why he didn’t seem to flinch at doing the things I’d seen him do. I lay back on the bed and set my phone on the nightstand. As I’d been doing more and more often lately, I closed my eyes and pictured Jace in my mind.
Hey, baby, I told him. We’re about to do something kind of crazy, but for the first time, I feel like it really might get me closer to finding you. I swallowed hard. Stay strong, okay? I’m going to come for you soon, I promise.
Please, please, let that not be a lie. I knew I should be terrified for my own safety, going straight into the maw of the Fae beast as Leonides and I were planning to do. But mostly, I was just terrified that something would happen to both of us, leaving no one to look for Jace.
Would Zorah and Rans take up the search if the worst happened? Would Nigellus? I had to tell myself that they would, if for no other reason than how seriously Nigellus seemed to be taking the disappearances of the other human children. Because, if I couldn’t make myself believe that, I might be tempted to wuss out tomorrow... and Dhuinne was still the best lead I had.
The gentle breeze rolling in from the ocean soothed me, until I was eventually able to doze. A quiet knock on the open door roused me some time later. I rolled onto an elbow to find Leonides standing outside, holding a wine glass full of red liquid.
“Room service,” he said awkwardly.
EIGHTEEN
MY FORMER BOSS looked surprisingly ill at ease for a hundred-year-old badass vampire. I blinked into full wakefulness, taking a moment to place the tableau into context.
Connections clicked into place. “Is that... what I think it is?” I asked in a sleep-raspy voice.
“If you think it’s my blood mixed with a hideously expensive Chateau Cheval Blanc, then yes,” he said. “I don’t honestly know if mixing it with wine makes blood go down any easier—but it was Edward’s suggestion, and I suppose he’s more likely to be an expert on the subject than most.”
My vision tunneled down to the cut crystal in his hand, and I cleared my throat. “What? Didn’t they cover that part in Fight Club?” I managed to quip.
“Told you,” he said in a wry tone. “The passage about swallowing blood is decidedly misleading.”
I tried to rein in my trepidation, knowing that I’d need all the magical assistance I could get in the coming days. In a way, this was a better scenario than the nebulous vision that had been playing in my head at odd moments—him slitting a wrist with a blade or a fang and pressing it to my lips, as Ransley had done in the deserted St. Louis parking lot after I’d been shot.
“Okay,” I said. “I just need you to promise not to be offended if I make a ridiculous face or
gag or something. It’s not personal, promise.”
“Mostly, I’m offended by the idea of using a ’43 Cheval Blanc for this,” he said, still appearing slightly off-kilter in this admittedly bizarre situation.
“Welp,” I said gamely, “It’s not as though wine that expensive is ever going to be in my budget, so hand it over. Might as well live in the moment while I have the chance.”
He entered the bedroom and passed it to me, our fingers brushing as I grasped the delicate stem of the glass. This was definitely one of those situations that you didn’t think about too closely—not if you wanted to actually do it. I tipped the glass back and chugged the contents, not pausing to take a breath until it was empty.
“Aromas of citrus and green pepper, with a hint of iron,” I deadpanned—because the alternative to joking would probably be throwing up, and that seemed counterproductive at this point.
“Bitter and acidic, like my cold, black heart?” he suggested.
Your heart’s not that cold, I thought, but what I said instead was, “How is your blood going to affect me, compared to Rans’ blood? Do you know?”
“Sorry, not really my area of expertise,” he said. “Rans is allegedly seven hundred years old. I’m barely pushing the century mark, but I’ve only spent a few months of that as a vampire. How the demon-bound aspect is likely to play into it—if at all—I have no idea.”
“I guess if history is any indication, we’ll find out before long,” I offered.
He raised an eyebrow. “Just try not to destroy the demon’s house, please.”
I blushed scarlet despite my best attempts not to. “I am literally never, ever going to live that down, am I?” I asked.
“Never say never,” he said. “Mostly, though, I just don’t want you to piss him off. He knows where some of the salt-packed demonic body parts are stashed, so I’d prefer to keep him relatively well disposed toward me.”
He was, I thought, trying to draw a reaction from me.
“Tell you what,” I told him. “When we find the assholes holding Jace, I’ll provide the chainsaw this time.”
If I’d expected relief, what I got was a searching look.
“You’re getting dragged into this world, Vonnie,” he murmured, “But you mustn’t let it take away your humanity.”
I didn’t flinch from his gaze. “I’m not convinced the everyday world is that much better, in the end,” I said, thinking of Ivan. Thinking of Kat.
“Maybe not,” he shot back. “But you are.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to react to that. After a moment, he let me off the hook.
“If you think you can eat something after the hemoglobin aperitif, it’s almost time for dinner. Knowing Edward, it’ll probably be something over the top.”
I swallowed a couple of times and checked in with my stomach. “Yeah. That might not be a bad idea. Besides, it isn’t as though I ever eat this well at home. Not unless I manage to score some of Len’s leftovers at the end of a shift, anyway.”
Len is totally going to kill me when I dump the Dhuinne bombshell on him, I thought. I’ll have to hide from him for the rest of my life, and he’ll never let me eat his tapas again.
* * *
Dinner would have been delicious if I weren’t already queasy from drinking human blood. Or... from drinking vampire blood, rather. After the meal, which had thankfully been accompanied by an unadulterated glass of the crazy-expensive wine, I quizzed Edward a bit more on what I could expect in Dhuinne. In the end, though, there was only so much he could tell me about a place he’d never personally seen.
Beyond that, there wasn’t much for me to do while Leonides organized the logistics of travelling to another country while assuming false identities. I plugged in my phone’s charger and googled County Meath in Ireland, looking specifically at travel websites with photos or information about the Hill of Tara and the Mound of the Hostages, where the gate to Dhuinne supposedly lay hidden.
There weren’t nearly as many photos of the interior of the mound as I would have expected, and the whole area seemed pretty quiet except for a trickle of tourist trade. I guess that made for good camouflage, or something. Even so, it seemed hard to credit that such a place was the only door leading in and out of a different dimension, home to a race that had made serious inroads on taking over the world with almost no one being the wiser.
The following morning, I stumbled down to the kitchen, where I was met with another wine-and-blood cocktail.
“Yeah, you know, it’s actually a bit early in the day for me,” I quipped. “If I drink it, do I get to name it? Let’s see... Bloody Vonnie. Red Death—no, wait. I think that one’s already a thing. Blood in the Water?”
“Drink,” Leonides said, not sounding amused.
Once I had, Edward placed a plastic cup of clear liquid on the table near me.
“Freeze that,” he said.
I felt a bit like a performing seal with both of them watching me intently, but even here and now, it wasn’t difficult to call cold anger to the fore. A sharp crackle preceded the cup splitting down one side as the water inside expanded, freezing instantly.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Not bad for the blood of a vampire only a few months fledged, sir,” Edward observed.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about Leonides getting congratulated when I was the one with the magic, but I let it go. Edward covered my hand on the table with his, and squeezed lightly.
“You’re unusually strong magically,” he said, “but I don’t know whether your newfound ability to draw magic from others is likely to be a help or a hindrance in Dhuinne. You must be attentive to the flow of magic around you, so you’ll be able to direct it either toward you or away. Do you understand?”
“I’m not sure,” I told him honestly. “I still don’t know exactly what it is about Dhuinne that I need to look out for.”
“That is precisely why you’ll need to remain flexible, Vonnie,” he said. “It will be up to you to determine precisely that, so you can counter it. You’ve already demonstrated abilities that would be the envy of the most devoted practitioners of magic throughout history. I have faith that you will rise to this challenge as well.”
“I hope you’re right,” was all I could say in reply.
* * *
As anyone who knew me might easily have guessed, I’d never flown internationally before. I’d also never used fake identification. At the age when the temptation to sneak into a bar might have reared its head for most teenagers, I was already taking care of a toddler.
I had a sneaking suspicion that the process of getting through airport security would normally have been more fraught than this, without the benefit of vampiric mesmerism to grease the wheels and derail any pesky questions about our credentials. As it was, we arrived at the gate at stupid o’clock in the morning, with about twenty minutes to spare before our scheduled departure time.
At the last moment, I realized that I didn’t know if my cell phone would work in Ireland, and even if it did, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford the international roaming charges. With no more time to put it off, I quickly excused myself to a nearby restroom and texted Len.
After agonizing over it for quite some time, I’d decided to leave things vague. Whether that would come back to bite me in the ass remained to be seen.
Hey, so, we kind of have to take a side trip and talk to some people about Jace. There won’t be any cell phone service, so I won’t be able to keep up with the twice a day check-ins. Also, I don’t know how long we’ll be gone. If we don’t come back in, I dunno, a week? Tell Zorah and Rans to please keep looking for Jace. I’m really sorry about all this, Len. I’ll be powering my phone off right after sending this text—we’re at the airport now, about to board.
I hoped he was still asleep, because the chances were, after cursing at my text for a minute or two, Len would be on the phone to Zorah before you could say betrayal of trust. I was pretty sure we were too far ahead of the
m to need to worry about them catching up to us, assuming they even managed to guess where we were going. I’d done a quick search, and there were no direct flights from St. Louis to Dublin—only ones with multiple connections that would take two or three times as long as our flight from Philadelphia.
It seemed more likely that they’d go to Atlantic City to try and interrogate Edward and Nigellus about our whereabouts first. That would leave it up to the demon to decide whether or not to send them after us, which was probably about the best backup plan I could manage if we ended up truly needing help.
We boarded the plane posing as Jeff Williams and Karen O’Rourke, coworkers traveling to a financial services conference in Dublin. Seven uneventful hours later, we disembarked in Ireland—where, confusingly, it was now thirteen hours later than it had been when we’d left the US. I suspected my body would have something to say about that disparity the next time I tried to sleep... whenever that might turn out to be.
Leonides disappeared to the men’s room for a few minutes after we got off the plane, and I tried not to be suspicious. I wasn’t clear on the restroom habits of vampires, and in all honesty, I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to find out the gory details. But after my own little subterfuge in texting Len, I couldn’t help wondering whether he, too, was up to something.
I spent the next half an hour white-knuckling the edges of our rental car’s seat as vehicles whipped past us on the wrong side of the frickin’ road. After leaving Dublin, we eventually ended up in a rural area, driving beneath a gray and cloudy sky while surrounded by miles and miles of brilliant green.
Shortly after passing a gas station set in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, Leonides turned onto a little side road with trees on either side so old and tall that the branches met across the road over our heads in places.
“We’re supposed to meet Nigellus’ go-between at the bed and breakfast where we’ll be staying,” he said. “Once we make our case to this guy, he’ll take our request to someone from Dhuinne with the clout to make a decision, and get back to us with the answer.”
Vampire Bound: Book Two Page 13
