Welcome to Castle Cove

by Kory M. Shrum

  Then I’m just sitting there, looking into the bottom of it, watching the blood dry along the rim. Like tomato sauce. This could be tomato soup, I tell myself, except it isn’t, and it never will be.

  “Let’s do the lighting,” Dr. Grange suggests gently. “Then it’ll be nice just to spend the night at home, alone.”

  “Alone?” My pulse starts knocking in my throat.

  She gauges my face, making some expression that could be mistaken for sympathy. “We will see how you feel after we do the lighting. If you don’t want to be alone, I’ll stay.”

  She bends at the waist and begins rummaging through the shopping bags. Then she lifts her head and sniffs the air. She frowns. “You have a cat?”

  “I do. But it doesn’t look like he’s willing to come out and say hello. He doesn’t like strangers.”

  When my mother stayed at my apartment back in Baltimore, Sushi hid in my closet for three days before daring to come out and meet her. I guess he took his meals at night while we were sleeping.

  “He may react to your new condition,” she says, folding back the cardboard flap on a package of light bulbs. “Just warning you. Don’t take it personally if he was affectionate before and is standoffish now. You will smell like a predator to him.”

  She gives me half the light bulbs, and we go around the house, exchanging them. I can tell a difference right away. While the 60W bulbs only bothered me a little, these are definitely better. The low light feels like my head is relaxing from a vice grip it was put in.

  “Better?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Now let’s see your bedroom.”

  I lead her to the back of the apartment and push open my bedroom door.

  She gives it a cold, appraising look. “I recommend you move the bed to this wall, turn it and put the privacy screen on that side.”

  It’s a solid suggestion. Probably not super smart for a vampire to place her bed right up against the window.

  I fold my Japanese screens and move them out of the way, and Dr. Grange moves the bed to the furthest wall with one hand. It’s a heavy bed—or so the movers told me twice when I moved in, the men red-faced and panting as they carried it up two flights of narrow stairs.

  Yet Dr. Grange just moved it with one hand.

  I put the Japanese screens on the opposite side of the room, basically reversing my initial set up, and the room is instantly darker. The screens block a lot of the light even before we manage to get the blackouts in place. Once they’re done, the room is pitch black. I blink, and my eyes adjust. I mean, wow. They really adjust. A moment ago, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Now I can see the outline of my bed, differentiate between the pillows, sheets and comforter and even make out the swirl pattern.

  “You’ll want to sleep with the door closed,” Dr. Grange says, her voice soft in the darkness. “This will keep out the light from the main area. And you’ll want to learn sunrise and sunset times.”

  I follow her into the living room again.

  “Thank you so much, Dr. Grange. If you hadn’t been so helpful, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  And it’s the truth. If I’d been bitten and left for dead in a ditch, I would probably have no idea what had happened to me. I could get burned or hurt. I could hurt someone else, not understanding my hunger.

  “You’re very welcome,” she says with a smile that doesn’t stick. “How are you feeling now? Do you want me to stay with you?”

  Choice 25

  Yes, please. I don’t want to be alone

  No, alone time sounds perfect

  Yes, please. I don’t want to be alone.

  “If you don’t mind,” I begin, my face heating with embarrassment. “I’d rather not be alone yet.”

  Dr. Grange gives me a warm smile, her brown hair curling around her face. “I don’t mind.”

  She sinks into the corner of my sofa, pulling a pillow across her lap. “What would you like to do? Watch television? I’m also quite good at Scrabble.”

  I consider her request. I’m not sure which board games I have in the house. I think I packed a few, but I don’t want to go through the boxes in the spare room just now.

  “I don’t recommend telling anyone from your old life about your transformation,” she advises, reaching a hand up to brush away a stray hair from her cheek. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “That’s easy,” I tell her. “I’m pretty far away from everyone I know. But I should call my mom.”

  Dr. Grange arches an eyebrow.

  “Not to tell her what happened,” I clarify. “But because I’m sure she’s blown up my phone by now. We’ve been talking almost every day since I moved here. And a couple days of nada probably has her freaking out.”

  “I believe your phone is with your possessions. In that box.”

  Right. Because I had my phone on me when I went out to check on the woman and I would’ve still had it on me when I was attacked.

  Dr. Grange’s eyes slide from my face to the cardboard box sitting on the kitchen island.

  I pray under my breath as I open the box, searching for my phone. Please don’t be smashed. Please don’t be smashed. A breath loosens from my chest when I spot its silver case with black hearts on the back. There is a new chip in the case and a long scratch along the side, maybe where it hit the pavement. But the screen is unbroken. I can live with that.

  I try to turn it on, but nothing happens. My hopes sink.

  “Try charging it,” Dr. Grange says.

  Her reasonable suggestion reels in my panic. I find the charger in my bedroom socket and bring it into the kitchen. I plug it into the island’s socket and lay it on the countertop to charge.

  The charging icon appears on the black screen, and the last of my fear abates.

  “How is your hunger?” Dr. Grange asks, those warm eyes still surveying me.

  “4 or 5,” I admit. “Is that normal?”

  “Yes. First of all, you’re still healing. And even if you weren’t, you’re like a newborn. Every two to three hours for the first couple of months is normal. Should we heat up a bit more on the stove?”

  “I want to try the male pescatarian,” I say. I catch sight of Sushi in the doorway of my dark bedroom, hungry but too afraid to come out into the living room.

  I call to him. “Come on, buddy.”

  He lays his ears flat against his head and slinks into the shadows.

  “Or not…”

  “He’ll come around,” Dr. Grange says with an encouraging smile.

  “Are you sure? He’s a pretty melodramatic cat.”

  My phone buzzes on the countertop, turning itself back on. The screen lights up with the familiar icons and background of the Eiffel Tower. Where Greg proposed. Time to change that.

  Immediately, a red icon showing a missed call and voicemail pops up on the screen. Then another.

  I glance nervously from the icon to Dr. Grange. She gives me a knowing smile. “I’ll heat the blood. You call your mom back.”

  “Thank you.”

  I play the first message, timestamped for the night I was attacked.

  It’s not my mother.

  “Baltimore. Oh Christ, Baltimore. Help me. I shouldn’t have left Alpha’s with them, but I didn’t know who else to call. I don’t know where they’re taking me. They’ve got me in a trunk and—”

  “What the fuck,” a man cuts in. “I thought you took her phone.”

  A scream cuts off the message. Katie’s scream.

  The hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up. I listen to it two more times, feeling sick over my pounding heart. That man’s voice…where do I know that voice?

  When I turn, Dr. Grange is staring at me, eyes wide. “Please hand me the phone.”

  The unquestionable command is clear. I hand it over.

  She puts the phone to her ear and listens to the recording again.

  “You know this person?”

  “Katie works at B
& B with me,” I manage.

  “Last name?”

  I tell her. I haven’t missed the intense and formal tone Dr. Grange has fallen back on. Something is wrong.

  I purse my lips, barely even forming the question when she holds up a finger, asking me to wait.

  She presses numbers on my phone and I hear the ringing followed by Katie’s prerecorded voice. “Do you think she would answer despite the late hour?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Why does she call you Baltimore?”

  “It’s where I’m from,” I say, and realize my hand is trembling.

  Dr. Grange is pulling her own phone out of her pocket and dialing a number. A male voice answers.

  “I think I know where they are,” Dr. Grange says without so much as a hello.

  “Who?” I ask.

  Instead of answering she asks, “What is Katie’s address?”

  I tell her. I expect her to repeat it, but she doesn’t. She’s listening to someone speak.

  “I’ll bring her.”

  She returns my phone. “Get your coat. I’ll explain in the car. Wait.”

  She grabs her purse off the arm of my chair, but stops, turning back.

  She marches over to the blood simmering in the pan. She turns off the burner. She pulls a mug from the cabinet and pours the steaming blood into the cup.

  Then she thrusts the warm ceramic cup into my hand. “Drink this on the way.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Come on, we have to hurry.”

  I grab my coat and keys and the phone I’m still holding. I maneuver the mug from hand to hand as I try to get my coat on and put the rest in my pockets.

  Dr. Grange’s black BMV chirps as if greeting us when we step out of the apartment onto the cobblestone street again.

  I climb inside, careful not to spill the blood on either myself or the leather seats.

  “Drink that,” she reminds me. “You’ll need the strength.”

  “Please tell me what’s going on,” I beg, casting a nervous glance over my shoulder at my balcony. We left the light on. I just hope we remembered to close the door. But at least Sushi might eat now without any vampires in the apartment.

  “The men who attacked you were seen in Alpha’s just before the attack,” she says, plainly. She takes a moment to lean forward and turn on the heat. She adjusts the vents so that they will defrost the cloudy windshield.

  “We received a report that they’d left with a young woman from the bar, but we were unsure of who she was. The people we interviewed didn’t know her, so we didn’t have a way to follow up.”

  “You recognized his voice on the voicemail,” I say, heart hammering. Hell, I recognized his voice on the voicemail. Then again, he was speaking right into my ear before he tore my throat out. I’m sure that made his voice pretty memorable.

  She gives a small nod of acknowledgement. “When they were almost caught, we were certain they’d bed down somewhere until they could…”

  She gives me a cautious look.

  “Until they could?”

  She stares ahead at the dark road. It’s obvious she’s weighing her words carefully. “They came to Castle Cove for something. Ethan and I don’t believe they will leave without it.”

  “What do they want?” I dare to ask, as the SUV speeds on through the night.

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Why are you bringing me?” I ask, nervously turning the cup in my hand. “If you’re going to have a fight with these guys, I’m of no use to you.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “I wasn’t a fighter as a human,” I say, hoping she understands that I’m serious. “Just because I was made a vampire doesn’t mean I’m magically turned into a ninja, too.”

  “We don’t need you to fight,” she tells me. “I just need you to get into the house.”

  Oh. Realization dawns on me. “Ethan can’t enter the house.”

  “No. He’s bringing Liam. A living vampire like yourself. But you’ve actually been to this house and know this person. Even if they’ve warded it against us, you should still be able to enter.”

  Enter and die, I think. No point going into the lion’s den if I can’t fight the lion.

  Dr. Grange spares a glance from the road, searching my face.

  “Don’t worry,” she says at last. “We’ll only ask you to do this if we run into a roadblock. And you won’t be without backup. Now drink your blood.”

  I nod, continuing to feed directions to Dr. Grange. I sip on the blood which is cooling so quickly and becoming thicker by the second. I don’t like it when it thickens up, so I drink faster. Trying to get as much of it down as possible.

  We are the first ones to pull up outside Katie’s duplex in Midtown. Her porch light is on. A black lab in the fenced yard at the end of the street is barking, and there’s something about the sound of it that makes my nerves electric, sparking under my skin. The whole street is awash in bright moonlight and the long, shifting shadows makes my skin crawl.

  “They’re in there,” Dr. Grange says quietly.

  “How do you know?”

  “Listen,” she says. “Can’t you hear them?”

  I have serious doubts that I can hear past the barking dog.

  “Close your eyes,” she whispers. And I realize it’s because she’s worried they will hear us.

  I close my eyes. And at first all I can hear is the strident barking. But slowly, other sounds emerge from the darkness. A squeaking swing from the park across the street. Leaves scratch the sidewalk, as the wind pushes them along. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance. And then the breath.

  Most of the people in the duplexes are sleeping. Their breath like a collective, rolling sigh. Not unlike the ocean surrounding Castle Cove on three sides.

  But my ears prick at the sound of a voice. “Just the BMW.”

  That’s all I catch—those three words and my eyes fly open.

  Dr. Grange is smiling at me. “It will get easier with time. Once you stop telling yourself what you can’t do because you’re still using a human yardstick.”

  I catch the barest scratch of grit trapped between tires and the road. I turn and see a red Roadster pulling up nose to nose with the Dr. Grange’s SUV. Two men get out. One about ten years older than the other—in appearances anyway. I’m going to have to reconsider more than just my own abilities from here on out, aren’t I?

  “Fuck,” someone says from within Katie’s house. “There he is.”

  “Calm down. He can’t come in. And we won’t come out.”

  “Come on,” Dr. Grange says, turning off the car. “Put your mug in the floorboard.”

  I obey and slip out of the car.

  The four of us meet in the road.

  Ethan speaks first. His eyes spark in the darkness, holding the moonlight in an unnatural way. “Thank you for waiting, Penelope. I understand how difficult this must be.”

  “I can wait. But I will have him,” she says confidently. “You swore.”

  “I did.” Ethan gives me an appraising look.

  I catch eyes with the guy beside Ethan. “Hi.” I introduce myself.

  “Liam,” he says with a formal smile.

  Liam. Aiden’s brother Liam? Now doesn’t seem like the time to ask.

  His tight pants and wool coat give him a very urban look. The bright eyes peeking out above a blood red scarf are sharp and intelligent, adding to his calm confidence.

  He’s my age and more than a little cute. I remind myself not to get distracted. The guy who almost killed me is in that house.

  Ethan is pressing something into the palm of my hand. “You just need to get this over the threshold.”

  I turn the tight ball of cotton over in my hands, examining it. It’s orange terry cloth with a strange gold lettering wrapping around the exterior. It smells like sage or some kind of herb that makes me think of roast chicken. How strange.

  “You want me to
go in?” I ask.

  “You knew Katie in life,” he says. “They can only enter her home because they drank her blood and killed her, and therefore broke the protection it held. But if you have been invited into that home before, it will receive you.”

  “How many entrances?” Dr. Grange asks.

  “Front door and back door,” I say. “Unless you’re counting windows. And I guess there’s the possibility they could crash through the middle wall into the other side of the duplex?” How does the threshold magic work for duplexes exactly?

  “They can’t cross over,” Liam says. “It counts as a different home.”

  “We will distract them from the front, Liam from the side, and you enter from the back.”

  “What if it’s locked?” I ask.

  Ethan tilts his head. “You’ll have to improvise.”

  Breaking and entering. Right. Clearly vampires are lawless.

  “Do whatever you must but cross the threshold, deposit this bag onto the floor and say eructo,” he instructs, closing my palm over the small bag. “A-rook-toe.”

  “A-rook-toe.” I repeat it until he seems satisfied.

  “Come on,” Liam says, and we start toward the narrow gap between duplexes.

  Dr. Grange and Ethan stroll right up the front walk as if they’ve come to this house a thousand times.

  Liam is silent as we move past two side windows. He stops near the first and tries to slide it open. It’s locked. He tries the next, the one I know belongs to Katie’s bedroom. This one does open. He slides it wider, slowly.

  I freeze at the sound of Ethan knocking loudly on the front door. “Henry, Richard. We know you’re in there. Come out, come out, you naughty boys.”

  “Go on,” Liam says, nodding toward the back of the duplex. “Go through the back door.”

  “Right.” I start off at a trot, coming around the side of the house.

  And when I get to the back door, a sliding glass barrier. It’s dark with the venetian blinds luminous with moonlight. I press my face to the glass, but there’s no movement inside. No sounds of a television or radio. No lights. I tug on the door and…it opens.

  My heart skips a beat. Too easy. Too easy. My mind chants. But the only thing scarier than going creeping into this house is the idea of returning to Ethan Benedict and his glowing eyes with a sorry, I couldn’t do it.