I chuckle and overact a ‘little girl’ face. Alas, I have too much dignity to baby talk or call her mommy.
As if she heard that thought, she giggles.
Wait. She did hear that thought.
“Would you perhaps do me a favor?” asks Aurélie.
“Sure. As long as it doesn’t involve sheep, hot oil, and lots of plastic sheeting.”
She stops painting and peers around the canvas at me with a blank look. “I do not even know what that means.”
“Something a guy at school used to say whenever someone asked him for a favor. It’s probably supposed to be perverted, but he never explained it.”
“Perhaps some things are better left vague.” She covers her mouth and giggles. Based on what she did with Ashley in the bedroom, I know this woman is far from innocent, even if she looks like a twenty-year-old ingénue. “No animals are involved in this favor. But I can arrange the hot oils if you like.”
For the briefest instant, her supernatural radiant beauty makes the idea almost tempting—if only for curiosity’s sake. I resist, but barely. Maybe in a few decades I’ll be that adventurous, but not yet. She emits that same too-innocent giggle.
“I’ve arranged the purchase of a doll I wish to welcome into my home. Unfortunately, the man who is selling her has declined my request to meet after dark. The poor man does not wish to be in his shop after the sun sets. Perhaps it is in a not-so-nice part of the city? I would appreciate it if you would pick the doll up for me during the day.”
“Oh, sure.”
The feeling of undigested ice cream coming out is no longer the strangest sensation I’ve experienced. At the mention of adding a new doll to her collection, the ones gathered around me seem to give off a sense of excitement. Like a bunch of children eager to have a new playmate. None of them move, speak, or otherwise do anything, but damn if I didn’t feel that. I have got to be imagining things. Especially after that prison tour.
Aurélie remains suspiciously silent.
“I will give you the address and let Paul know you are coming.”
No point mentioning it’d have to be an overcast day. I’m sure Aurélie knows this.
A satisfied smile alights on her lips and she blurs into a flurry of brushstrokes that I half expect to start flinging paint everywhere.
“Do you think that vampire will go after Alex again?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Alex. That guy I asked you to fix the other night?”
“Ahh yes, him. Most likely not. Some of our kind keep mortals around as feeder pets. Eventually, they grow bored with them and either kill or release them. Perhaps a careless one, as she quite thoroughly made the man worship her. I’d consider it cruel to abandon one so conditioned.”
I sigh. “Yeah. He was not in a great place.”
“A drug den, you said…”
“I meant a great place mentally.”
“Oui. That as well.” She smiles at the canvas. “He will not remember ever having seen her.”
“Thanks. Not sure I’ll ever get used to seeing ghosts.”
She stares at me for a long moment, shifts her gaze to the painting, and ducks behind the canvas again. “Oh, they shouldn’t trouble one such as you often. Only when they want something.”
“What did that naked old man in the prison want?”
“Not to be lonely, I imagine. Or to frighten you. Some spirits do entertain themselves that way, you know. And being around people is how they feed.”
“Ghosts eat?”
“Not in the same way you or I—or even mortals—do. They draw energy from people and things around them. Aha!” She steps fully into view and beams at me. “Now, come see and tell me what you think.”
“Okay.” I set the doll I’d been holding down and hop to my feet, padding across the sitting room to take in the canvas, which is as big as a refrigerator door. Aside from her making me look even younger, I almost can’t tell it’s a painting and not a photograph. “Holy cow… This is amazing.”
She blushes and fans herself again. With her, blushing is an on-purpose kind of thing. “Oh, you are too kind.”
“I mean, seriously. This is like right up there with Rembrandt and stuff.”
Aurélie playfully shoves at my shoulder. “Surely, my work does not compare to the masters. It is merely a hobby. I’ve barely been painting for a full century.” She pauses, eyeing me with a note of pleading. “You truly find no faults in it?”
“Not really. Except maybe that you made me look like I’m twelve.” I grin. “Do I really look that young to you?”
“No.” She pinches my cheek. “Artistic license.”
13
Succubus
Aurélie wants me to pick up some expensive-as-hell doll from a collector in Portland, Oregon.
Before I left her place, she gave me a business card for a shop named Precious Eternity with the owner’s name, Paul Marchand, and a phone number. The whole thing is creepy as all hell, but whatever. It’s only a doll. I arrive home with about twenty minutes to spare before sunrise—and go straight to bed.
My eyes open a little past three the next afternoon. The leaden feeling in my bones tells me the sun’s being an uncooperative bitch today. So much for going doll shopping. Or doll-couriering. Oh well. I don’t really want to get out of bed yet anyway. Besides, my pillow still kinda smells like Hunter.
I roll over and bury my face in his scent.
By four, I’m able to summon the ability to get out of bed and head over to my computer to check the weather forecast for Portland. Looks like I’ve got a two day wait for the next gloomy period. Doesn’t matter what it’s like around here. I need to find a day where I’m able to operate outside and go to the doll shop. As far as flying back and forth goes, I can do that in the dark so the weather doesn’t matter. Looks like it’s supposed to be rainy and overcast in two days.
Today, Cottage Lake is brutal: ninety-nine and cloudless. Yay. Tour a jail day before yesterday, experience jail today. Though, I can probably tolerate the basement given Dad tinted up the windows, but unless I develop the itch to play solo ping pong or do a bunch of laundry, there isn’t much reason for me to leave my room.
I shoot Ashley a ‹Call?› text.
My phone rings a moment later. She’s already home from the vet place and has to go in early tomorrow. We ramble for a bit about her job, which mostly consists of cleaning out kennels, scrubbing consultation rooms after client visits, and mopping up accidents. It’s grunt work, but she likes being around the animal clinic and chatting with the vet techs and veterinarians. She apparently had a long conversation with one of the vets who reframed the concept of euthanasia in her mind.
“I’m still gonna cry every time, but I can probably wait until I’m alone and not fall apart in front of the clients.” Ashley sighs. “Would you believe they have two or three a week?”
“Wow… that’s rough.”
“It’s rougher to let them keep suffering,” says Ashley.
“Speaking of euthanasia… are you okay with River?”
She’s quiet for a long moment. “He’s got a unique personality. I dunno where we’re at yet, but we haven’t gone all the way. Not sure I’m going to. I get you don’t like him, but did you have to antagonize him so much?”
“Dude. He had to be going 110 down the freeway with you in the car.”
“128,” whispers Ashley.
“As far as I’m concerned, he may as well have been waving a loaded gun at you. Yes. I had to antagonize him. No one threatens your life around me and gets away without retribution. And the way he grabbed your arm at the jail?”
“Ugh. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d wonder if you were trying to steal him.”
“Ash, can I say something creepy and have you not freak out?”
“Sure.”
“If I wanted to steal him—which I don’t—I’d steal him and you wouldn’t remember ever liking him.”
She’s quiet again for
a while. “Oh. Yeah. Right.”
“I don’t want to steal him. I want you to be happy and safe.”
“I know,” says Ashley in a small voice.
“You don’t act like yourself around him.”
“I know,” says Ashley in a small voice.
“I’d never compel you.”
“You already did.”
“What?” I ask, eyes wide.
“When you first showed up at that party, you forced me to stay calm.”
A silent sigh slides out of my throat. “Yeah, but you were about to have a total meltdown. Forcing you not to fall to pieces fits in with my whole ‘keeping Ashley safe and happy’ policy.”
She giggles.
“Look, just be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
We switch gears and spend the next almost-hour talking about whatever random topic comes up until her mother wants help cooking dinner. As soon as I hang up, I send the same ‹call?› text to Michelle, but she texts back ‹@ work.›
Judging by the silence upstairs, I’m guessing the sibs are elsewhere.
I send Dad a message over Facebook informing him that I’m awake and hiding from the damnable daystar. He confirms that Sophia and Sierra are at Nicole’s and Sam went off with his buddies to some place for his friend Jordan’s tenth birthday party, and will likely spend the night there.
Great. I finally have a day where I could do something other than spend time with my siblings without guilt, and I’m trapped inside. Oh, fate you are a bastard. Blah. Computer games it is. I could go for a nice long soak, but the only bathroom in the house with a full tub is on the second floor, and it’s got a giant window.
Stupid sun.
Woodinvile at night is kinda nice.
Even if I am wandering around feeling lonely and bummed out. Michelle got home from work and her parents dragged her straight into some family thing at her grandparents place. Ashley had to crash early to get up for work tomorrow, and Hunter’s waiting tables at Mi Tierra.
I glance at a few people walking by and debate feeding even though I don’t feel particularly hungry. Do vampires ever boredom-eat? Or stress-eat? Like if I have a bad night, would I ambush a whole bunch of people and then sit around feeling like a whale and hating myself?
Not quite the same as overdoing it on mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Even blood won’t make me fat. In fact, I have a feeling we can’t actually overeat. Not sure where I’m getting it from, but something tells me that once I feel satisfied, trying to drink more blood would be sorta like the way I felt the one time I ate an entire pizza myself. Like full on ‘ugh, shoot me now’ mode. I still don’t know how that didn’t make me sick, or give me twenty extra pounds. I guess I have—had—a metabolic superpower. Probably the same reason everyone in my family could turn sideways and hide behind a traffic sign before the age of like thirteen. Well, except Dad. He can still do that.
Speaking of my family, they’re all home now, but everyone’s sleeping. I could go home to ‘be with’ them, but watching them sleep is kinda creepy. There’s always the idea of developing an addiction to video games like Sierra, but I can’t see myself playing them that much. That girl’s tolerance for sitting in one place all day mashing buttons is epic. She has to get that from Dad, the way he can spend fourteen hours sitting in front of the computer like it’s no big deal. Ugh. Not me. My eyes would melt.
Considering the idea of feeding doesn’t nauseate me, I might as well top off.
I roam around for a while before spotting a youngish guy who looks vaguely familiar. He was probably a year or two ahead of me in school. We’re more or less alone, and he’s near my age, so I can use the ‘we’re making out’ cover story if anyone catches me feeding. People tend to get strange when they see a girl who appears to be fourteen to sixteen clamped onto a grown man’s neck.
“Hey,” I say, hurrying up behind him. “Frank?”
He looks back at me. “No. Uhh, you got the wrong dude.”
I smile. “Nah. Only the wrong name.”
His expression goes blank as my mental fog takes hold.
The instant I reach to embrace him, something crashes into him from the right side, launching him off the sidewalk—and straight into the grille of a passing car. With a frighteningly loud whump, the guy bounces off the hood of a green Camry and slides to a stop in the middle of the street, moaning.
“Oh, poor guy,” says a woman. “That’ll make his insurance go up.”
I whip my head to the right and lock stares with a gorgeous woman with long, black hair and skin almost as pale as Aurélie. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“You crazy bitch!” shouts the driver of the car that hit the guy.
I point at him. “What he said.”
The woman glances over at the driver, who promptly passes out. She grabs my wrist and fly/drags me off behind her. Our abrupt transition from sidewalk to shadowed alley leaves my head spinning.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I rasp. “You just threw my dinner into traffic! And that’s not a crummy hamburger. You shoved an innocent dude in front of a car!”
“Oh, he’ll live. The driver wasn’t going that fast.”
I stare up at this woman, aghast. She’s got me by an inch or two and looks mid-twenties—and still hasn’t let go of my wrist. My attempt to pull back doesn’t get me far. “The scarlet evening gown’s a bit much for Woodinville. Let go of me.”
“It took me a while to find you, dear.”
Out comes my iPhone.
“What are you doing?” she raises an eyebrow.
“Calling 911 because you just caused a damn accident.”
“Put that thing away, child. The driver will call for assistance soon enough, and he does not remember seeing either one of us.”
“What do you want?”
The grin she flashes makes me feel like a mouse who walked into a cat’s lair. “You clearly don’t know who I am.”
“Sorry. Can’t say you look familiar, but I haven’t exactly been studying milk cartons lately.”
She tilts her head in confusion for a second before evidently deciding to ignore the remark. “I am Petra Stanovaya.”
“Bless you,” I mutter.
She frowns.
I tug at my arm again. “Seriously. Let go of me.”
“Hmm.” She eyes me up and down. “You should have considered that before you interfered with one of my projects.”
“Look, lady. Whoever you are, you’ve clearly got me confused with someone else. I haven’t messed around with anyone’s projects. And I have no idea who you are. I don’t remember seeing you at the… party or whatever that was.”
She laughs, and finally releases her grip on my wrist. “Oh, I don’t usually bother with those affairs. So boring. I trust you have been properly educated and understand how we Sybarites are?”
“The artists or something, right? Is this about that painting?”
“No, dear. The project you ruined was named Alex Parrish.”
It takes my brain a second to catch up to what she said. Now I remember why this bitch looks familiar. I saw her in Alex’s head. “Wait. What? He’s somehow your project? You cut him loose. How does he have anything to do with your art? You kept him as a feeder pet.”
“Oh, you are precious.” She tries to swipe a finger along my jawline, but I lean back. “I used to be an actress. After a century or so, it became quite boring. I have discovered a new passion.” Petra turns her gaze skyward, raising one hand, clenching a fistful of air as if she’s delivering some epic soliloquy. “My artistic passion is to orchestrate the utter ruination of a once promising young man’s life. It is a work of art to set in motion a series of events which rends open the deepest, darkest recesses of human suffering and lays them bare to the world. Can you not see the tragic magnificence of it? To rip the very fabric of a person asunder and let the tattered shreds of their essence gleaming in the moonlight of eternity?”
“Umm. Therapy. You need some. Like, now.” I shake my head. “That’s probably the most messed up thing I’ve ever heard.”
Petra blurs toward me, covering the few paces between us in instant. She returns to focus caressing my face with one hand. “You interfered with my work.”
I leap back. “You’re sick, you know that? I mean, killing to feed is bad enough—and stupid—but what you’re doing is like total socio stuff.”
“Simply killing them is too pedestrian. Besides, the mortal authorities would soon suspect something. My projects never draw suspicion to our kind. Since you interfered with one of my works, my next project will be destroying someone dear to you.”
Rage blooms inside me. I lean toward her, pointing. “If you go anywhere near my family, I will kill you.” I glare for a second. “Again.”
Petra throws her head back and cackles. “Aha, now you understand. That is precisely how I feel when someone interferes with my art. You do not understand Sybarites, I see. We do not allow anything to interfere with our calling. Besides, you do not frighten me, little Innocent.”
I fold my arms. “Okay. If you go near my family, Aurélie Merlier will kill you. They are under her protection since I’m her protégé.”
The sick bitch loses much of her smile. Her eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leans back. Hmm. Okay. At least she’s afraid of Aurélie. She might consider herself outside ‘vampire society,’ but she at least knows enough to recognize who I’m talking about. The mood simmering in the air between us makes my exchange with River feel like warm companionship.
“Be warned, missy. You’ve just gotten on my bad side.” She jabs her finger at me like a knife.
“Ruining lives isn’t art. It’s sick and evil.”
She waves dismissively, half turning away. “You care too much about silly mortal things. Maybe you will be my next work.”
“You’re acting like I knew you were doing something messed up with Alex and wanted to ruin your screwy version of art on purpose.”
Petra shrieks and lunges at me. I dive to the right, but not fast enough. Her open hand catches me across the face with the sting of claws, the slap hard enough to throw me off my feet into a wall. I bounce off the bricks and collapse in a heap, stars dancing in my eyes. My cheek burning like a gasoline fire.
The Artist of Ruin Page 12
