by Kat Cotton
I put the money in my bag with its friends. The money seemed happy to be reunited.
“Okay, karaoke,” I said.
Even if this dusty old stuff was cool, I had more important things to deal with.
When we left the house, I asked Kisho about the scroll.
“It’s the prophesy.”
“The prophesy? The actual prophesy? The whole ‘Vampire King can only be killed by his own blood’ prophesy? Wow, you’re in a prophesy. That’s so freakin’ cool. You’re famous. Like Harry Potter.”
Kisho ducked his head. That shy smile returned. “Not really.”
“But you already knew the prophesy, right?”
“I knew the ‘Vampire King can only be killed by his own blood’ bit, but there’s more. I’ve always wondered, why didn’t he just kill me? He’s not exactly filled with fatherly love. If he’d killed me as a child, there’d be no threat to him, no one of his blood. It would’ve been so simple. But it’s not that simple. He can’t kill me. Not like that.”
“Because you’re protected by your mother’s love? Dude, you are so like Harry Potter.”
“It’s not my mother’s love. I can’t be killed unless I’ve fed. Until then, the vampire side of me isn’t strong enough, so I’m protected.”
“Sweet. So, you never feed, and the King can’t hurt you. That’s easy.”
“It’s not that simple. I can’t defeat him, either. At the moment, we’re both protected. If I feed, then all bets are off.”
That complicated the fuck out of things. The Vampire King would attack again. That much was certain. And unless Kisho killed him, he’d never be destroyed. And if Kisho didn’t kill his dad, I’d have this power in me forever, and I’d never be warm again. I didn’t want to voice that theory out loud just yet, though.
“Why did Yamaguchi have the prophesy?” I asked him.
“He’s a collector. All those things in that room he’s collected—they all have connections to the paranormal. That’s why he captured the kitsune, too. He’s fascinated by that kind of thing.”
I’d known Yamaguchi was a weirdo. I mean, a mobster with a collection of paranormal objects. Nothing could go wrong with that, right?
Chapter 35 Nic: Flying
I went back to the warehouse the next day. Vlad hadn’t fed. Surely, he’d see the sense of coming home with me this time, even if it was just for the food. I wore old clothes. I had a scarf to cover my mouth so I didn’t inhale too much dust and an ample supply of hand sanitizer.
“Vlad?” I called out. For all I knew, he’d left the warehouse.
“Watch me,” he called.
I looked up and saw him hanging from the wires.
“Do you want to come home?” I asked.
I hoped he’d come with me willingly. I didn’t want to spend much time in this dirty place. It gave me the willies.
The dust had gotten even worse. It made me cough.
“This is home,” Vlad said.
I shook my head. How did he feed here? How did he survive? A pile of manky blankets made a nest in the corner, left over from when the Vampire King had hidden him here. Or were they? This warehouse looked like it’d been undisturbed for decades, and no one knew where Vlad had slept. Maybe I should do some investigation into the history of the place. If he’d hibernated here, taking him home would be even more difficult. No wonder he saw it as home.
“Come on, Vlad. We can have more cake.”
That didn’t tempt him at all. I tried to tune in to what he was feeling, but I got nothing.
Above me, he swung around, giggling.
“I’ll get you more tasty. Twice a day.”
I wasn’t sure how I’d achieve that, but if it got him home, I’d promise him anything.
He just giggled.
“Please, Vlad. I need you to come home.”
I had some bagged blood in my bag, so I got it out. If he hadn’t fed, those bags would surely tempt him.
“Look, Vlad, nice blood.”
“Yucky blood.” He giggled again.
I couldn’t go after him while he was swinging through the air like that. I didn’t have the ability.
Then I had an idea. “Vlad, can you teach me?”
I’d never get to the level of gracefulness he had, but I needed to grow the bond between us. This was the easiest way.
“Teach you?” he called out.
“Yes, teach me how you do that.”
He laughed. “Jump up.”
I tried to jump up and grab the wire, but it was just out of my reach. Vlad jumped down and stood beside me.
“Not like that. Like this.”
He sprang into the air. I tried to copy him. I got higher, but not high enough. He showed me again. After about ten tries, I finally made it.
“Hey, this is fun,” I said.
I tried to swing myself to the next wire the way he did, but I couldn’t get the force behind me. I had to jump to the floor and start from the beginning. Vlad made this look so simple, but it really wasn’t as easy as I’d thought. It took another three attempts before I could jump that high again, and a whole heap to get the wires to swing.
Vlad had moved down to the floor, calling out handy tips.
“Swing more, swing more.”
“I’m trying.”
We’d been at it for over an hour, and I finally managed to jump up, grab the wire with enough force and swing my body to the second wire. I could fly. My body soared through the air. No wonder Vlad loved this so much. I felt invincible.
I grabbed for the third wire. I had it in my hand, but my hand slipped, and I tumbled to the floor.
Vlad laughed and clapped his hands. “Funny man.”
“Hey, it’s not funny.”
I ran to catch him, but he jumped up on the wires again. He was still laughing at me.
I jumped up too. I had no chance of catching him, but it didn’t matter.
The whole time I’d been training Vlad, it’d been a drag. I had a plan, and I needed him to adhere to my needs, but this wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t training. It was fun. The bond between us wasn’t enough; the training and the feeding hadn’t been enough. But this game made things different between us.
“Pretty man is too old.”
“Hey, kid, enough of that.”
He laughed.
I had to jump down to the floor. Hell, every time I did that, I raised a cloud of dust. Even with my vampire strength, this game had nearly killed me.
I sat on the floor, gathering my strength. I didn’t call to Vlad or expect him to give up, but he jumped down too and sat beside me, resting his head on my lap.
I stroked his hair. He had such shiny hair.
I’d tried to treat this kid like he was just another member of my pack. Well, partly like that, partly like he was a puppy. I’d been wrong. There was an emptiness inside him that caused the wildness. I didn’t know if that would ever go away, but I realized that Vlad was like the little brother I’d never had. I had to change the ways I trained him.
“Let’s go home, Vlad,” I said.
He shook his head emphatically. “This is home.”
With that, he jumped up and swung away again.
I set the bags of blood on the floor for him and left him for now. I’d come back tomorrow. Eventually, I’d find what I needed to do to get him to come home.
As I walked to the car, I got a message on my phone.
Watch out, Nic. Expect it when you least expect it.
Lucio, of course.
Fear gripped me. I couldn’t stay at that rat-infested warehouse 24 hours a day, watching Vlad, but I couldn’t leave him alone now, either. I needed a solid plan, because there was no way I’d ever let Lucio attack my unicorn baby.
Getting Vlad to come home became even more imperative.
Chapter 36 Nic: Death
It had been bad enough when Oscar had turned up unannounced, but when Jeb did it, I nearly punched him.
“What do you
want? I don’t need the rest of you keeping tabs on me.”
I expected a nasty comeback, or at least a sly grin. That was Jeb’s usual way. When he didn’t meet my eyes, I had a horrible suspicion that something was wrong. My stomach sank. I didn’t need to deal with pack business at the moment, and I sure didn’t want Jeb finding out that Vlad had run away.
Jeb stood in the doorway, towering over me. We couldn’t talk there, though. I asked him in.
We sat down, and Jeb didn’t say anything for a while. That stretched the tension. He’d done something terribly wrong and didn’t want to confess to it. Jeb fucking up again. Typical. Jeb never sat still, and he never stayed silent.
Anticipating what he had to say just screwed with my mind, and I’d been stressed enough. I got up and put on the kettle. If ever a situation called for chamomile tea, it was this one.
While I made it, Jeb sat on the sofa. Normally, he drove me nuts with his high energy. He sat with his hands folded on his lap, barely moving.
Once the tea had brewed, I sat down to talk. Except he still didn’t say a word.
“What have you done?” I asked him.
He must’ve attacked a village girl or done something to give the pack’s location away. Normally, even if he broke pack protocol, he’d blurt things out almost gleefully. Jeb liked to break rules, then challenge my authority when I called him out on it. He’d argue for days. Jeb had an insatiable need for attention, and he never thought about how that need made the rest of us vulnerable. Maybe I’d need to isolate him from the rest of the pack for a while.
When I looked up, he had a tear in his eye. A tear. That wasn’t Jeb. His hands shook.
“Tell me.”
I wanted to get this over with so I could get back Vlad.
“It’s Oscar.”
“Oscar did something wrong?”
Oscar didn’t fuck up. It wasn’t in his DNA. Oscar kept the financial records and loved spreadsheets. He had the sunny smile. Screwing up was Jeb’s thing. Was Jeb blaming his own mistakes on Oscar now?
“He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Hell, that hitch in Jeb’s voice scared me. None of this was Jeb. I pressed my hands tight around the hot cup, not even sipping the tea, just taking in its warmth. Inside, my stomach churned.
Maybe I didn’t want to hear what Jeb had to say.
“What, then?” I softened my voice.
There couldn’t be anything wrong with Oscar. Oscar was the one I depended on most. Sure, we fought sometimes. Oscar was level-headed, but he lacked imagination. That caused conflict. But Oscar had been with me since the start.
“Lucio and his gang found our hideout.”
What the hell was Jeb talking about? Lucio and his gang?
“But Lucio no longer has a gang.”
“He does. He’s been recruiting. He has a gang, and he has a major chip on his shoulder about you. He said now it’s personal.”
I sipped my tea even though it was still boiling hot.
“He hurt Oscar?”
I held my breath, not wanting the answer. Oscar must be hurt bad for Jeb to be here like this.
“He’s not injured. He’s dead.”
I dropped the cup. It fell on the floor and shattered.
That couldn’t happen. It didn’t happen. Not in my pack. I did everything in my power to keep them safe.
“You’re lying.”
He grabbed my hand. I wanted to pull it away. This nice side of Jeb just made it more real. I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted it to be one of Jeb’s moronic jokes. I wanted him to laugh his stupid laugh and point at me, amused that he’d fooled me. I’d give almost anything to hear Jeb’s stupid laugh.
“I’m not lying, Nic. We managed to fight them off, all but one. Just when we thought we’d won, the bastard attacked. He got Oscar before we could do a thing.”
I jumped up and got a cloth. I had to mop up that tea before it stained the floor. I had to scrub every last bit of tea.
I put the bits of broken cup into a dust pan and kept scrubbing.
“Did you hear me, Nic?”
No, I didn’t hear him. I didn’t hear a word. This tea wouldn’t come off the floorboards. It was such a mess. I’d get it clean if I had to scrub every bit of polish off those boards.
Jeb knelt down beside me and took the cloth from my hand. “You’ve cleaned enough.”
No, I’d not cleaned enough. I’d never scrub that mess up. I wanted that cloth back. I went to the kitchen to get another one, but Jeb grabbed me by the shoulders.
“He’s dead, Nic. He’s dead, and we need to work out what to do.”
I wouldn’t cry in front of Jeb. I wouldn’t cry at all. Vampires didn’t cry.
“He actually said, ‘This time, it’s personal,’” Jeb said. “What did he mean by that?”
“I killed some of the Northside Gang.”
I blurted that out before I could stop myself. I’d intended to never tell the rest of the gang. They wouldn’t understand. This whole deal with the mayor and all the rest of it, I’d thought I could keep that to myself.
“Why? You know vampires killing other vampires isn’t right. Why even get involved? You said it yourself, it’s nothing to do with us.”
I gulped. I couldn’t go into my reasons now, not with Jeb.
“I had my reasons. Good ones.”
He shook his head.
“We need to move the pack,” I said. “They know where we are now. They’ll attack again.”
I grabbed my laptop. I’d find somewhere safe for them. Somewhere better. I’d been too lax, and that was what had caused this.
“We need to come out of hiding. Hiding does no good. The pack needs to be together. We can’t just be lazing around in the mountains. It makes us sitting ducks. At least if we were all here together, we’d know what was happening. We could be prepared.”
“No. It’s not safe here,” I said.
If they came back, it’d defeat the whole purpose of sending them away.
“It’s not safe anywhere,” Jeb said. “Anyway, the whole pack has decided. We’re coming back.”
Chapter 37 Nic: Pack
“You worked for the mayor? I don’t want to question your decisions as leader, but are you an idiot?”
Jeb’s grief had abated enough for him to return to his usual charming self. Then I noticed looks being exchanged among the entire pack.
Luis, Shelley and Andre didn’t have the same hatred burning in their eyes as Jeb, but they still didn’t obey me. They’d turned up the day after Jeb and had refused to listen when I tried to send them away.
“I needed fresh food for Vlad, and I also needed to ensure our safety.”
Luis at least nodded at that. He and Shelley were sitting together on the sofa. Andre was sitting on the floor with his head leaning back against the sofa between them. Jeb just paced around the room. If he didn’t sit down and keep still soon, I’d stake him myself.
“Ensure our safety!” Jeb said. “You did a great job of that.”
“Why isn’t Vlad with us?” Shelley asked. “He’s a member of the pack. If we’re discussing our future, he should be part of it.”
“It’s not an official meeting. How can it be an official meeting without Kisho?”
“When’s he back?” Andre asked.
“Yeah, and is that chick going to be in the pack now?” Luis added.
“She’s not a vampire,” Andre said. “She’s human. But totally hot.”
“Do not call Clem Starr hot.” Seriously, pack discipline was getting out of hand. “She’s not a vampire, and she’ll never be part of this pack. She might work with us, but in an outside contractor capacity. And note, she is totally off-limits.”
“This ‘no girls allowed’ policy is a total drag. We aren’t school kids,” said Andre.
“You do remember Zarah?” I asked him.
He nodded and rubbed his belly. He still had a scar there, and it takes a mighty powerful injury to scar a vampi
re.
“Back to the point,” Jeb said. “I think your decision to take on the Northside Gang was wrong.”
He gave me that look, the smug one that made me question why he was in the pack in the first place. I didn’t need him saying that. I’d thought it enough myself. If I’d moved out of town like I’d intended, Oscar would still be alive today. I knew that I’d made the entire pack targets, but, on the other hand, Vlad had needed that blood. It’d been impossible to move with him sick.
“That’s in the past,” Shelley said. “Right or wrong, we can’t change it now. We need to work out what we’re doing going forward. The Northside Gang—can we even call them that now?—aren’t going to rest. They want us dead.”
“That’s right. We need to take them on. We can’t just sit back waiting for them to come to us,” Andre said. “The best defense is a strong offense.”
Andre could be such a hothead. He’d be trolling the city for someone, anyone, to attack over this if I didn’t hold him in check.
“We need to find somewhere safe for the whole pack. Then we’ll wait this whole thing out. That’s the smart thing to do,” I said. “There’s this place in Lisbon—”
“Come on, Nic. That’s not going to work,” Andre said. “You think the world is going to forget us? You stole that kid literally from under the Vampire King’s nose. And you got your girlfriend to do that thing she does with him.”
I slammed my fist down on the coffee table. “She’s NOT my girlfriend.”
“Whoa, settle. Also, you started this thing with the gangs so you could feed your pet. I think we need to reconsider your position as leader.” Jeb ran his hand casually through his hair, as though he hadn’t just dropped a massive bomb.
“For starters, we can’t do that without Kisho here. And I’m not sure if anyone would prefer you as leader.” I made sure my smile to the rest of the gang had its maximum dazzle.
My fingers twitched. That was the twitch of wanting to kill one of your own pack. I’d do anything in the world to protect these guys from outsiders, even Jeb, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hate him. He’d long harbored ambitions to take over from me as leader. I’d kill him first. Not to protect my own position, but because he was way too selfish to make a good leader.
