“I know,” she said soothingly, putting her arm under my back and lifting me up as if I were no heavier than a paper doll. She carried me back to the ambulance as if I were a baby. “You’ll need more blood than that, but that’s the limit of how much it’s safe to give in a ten minute period. Too much too quickly, and it can overwhelm your body’s regenerative abilities.”
“So I’d heal like a vampire?” I joked.
She smiled and laid me down on a stretcher in the back and strapped me in. “No. You’d develop cancer or an autoimmune disease, and vampire blood can’t heal those. Stay still, and I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Wait,” I said, reaching out to grab her with my left hand. “I need to go to the police station.”
“To report that you were stupid enough to jump out the window?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
“To report that I was kidnapped by somebody who’s planning to taint the entire city,” I said.
Her already-pale face drained of all color.
“Right away,” she said hoarsely.
We made it to the police station in record time. It hadn’t even been long enough for me to drink more vampire blood, so the paramedic picked me up and carried me straight in. I still felt a little dizzy, so I didn’t try to protest how babyish it looked.
“Miss Wereclanvulture,” the werebat officer said, looking startled. “We already have your statement. What happened —?”
“If you have a statement, it’s not from me, it’s from Rodrigo,” I blurted out. “He sucked my blood and imitated me, and a rakshasa who’s working for him made us all invisible, and the hot guy didn’t do anything, and I hate vampires!”
“Excuse me?” the paramedic holding me asked.
“I take it back,” I amended quickly. “I love vampires.”
In no time, I was ushered into a room with about a dozen cops, most of which I remembered from outside Loretta’s house . . . wow, had that only been about an hour ago?
As I choked down my second cup of vampire blood, which tasted repulsive but was definitely helping my arm hurt less, I explained the whole story. Faces around me became more and more alarmed.
As soon as I finished, the building exploded into activity. Buzzards were called, sirens blared, and everyone was running around shouting.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall. It was nice that I was better now. It was nice that the police were handling it. It was nice that I didn’t have to . . .
I opened my eyes. No, it wasn’t nice. I felt unsettled. Shouldn’t I be helping? I didn’t want to just sit here. I wanted to be involved in it.
“Hey,” I said, catching the sleeve of the ogre policewoman as she passed me. “I can help. Let me help.”
“You’ve helped enough,” she said, shaking her sleeve loose.
“No, I haven’t!” I blurted out.
The paramedic got called away, and I was left all alone with my thoughts. I really wanted to help. I really wanted to do something useful. But I didn’t want to run off and do something half-baked without thinking it through, because that hadn’t worked out so well before.
There had to be something I could do that nobody else could do, even if I didn’t have some amazing vulture power. There had to be something I could accomplish that they couldn’t do without me.
Then I had an idea. An awesome idea.
I took a deep breath and grabbed the next officer who passed me.
“I think I can figure out where Rodrigo’s hidden his turning stone,” I said.
Chapter 19: Technically All True
“Very unfriendly” seemed like a good way to describe the way Loretta was looking at me now.
“Hello,” I said casually, mimicking something I’d heard Rodrigo say before. “It’s good to see you again.”
Her hostile look didn’t change. It seemed she didn’t recognize a direct quote when she heard it. Sheesh, and people said my memory was bad. But then again, maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention back then. I often wasn’t.
“I convinced them to let me talk to you,” I said in a brisk tone, imitating the way Rodrigo spoke. “They were all too eager when I told them I could get you to talk.”
Okay, that part was stretching the truth a bit. There had been two police officers who’d been all for the idea, but the chief had taken a lot of convincing. Also, he’d been mad that we’d woken him up when whoever-was-in-charge had called him to ask his opinion. Apparently he was nocturnal, being a werewombat, and usually slept from six pm until two am.
“I know you’re keeping silent,” I said with a slight smile. “That’s a good idea when you’re here. Can’t let anything slip that way. But the thing is, we need you, Loretta. Our plans tonight won’t do much good if we have to move forward without you.”
“What plans?” she asked suspiciously.
I learned forward across the table she was handcuffed to. “There are a lot of people with plans,” I whispered. “Right now, I’m talking about the plan that Damon, Jordan, and Diana have decided to go forward with.”
Loretta stared at me in horror. “Rodrigo?” she hissed. “What are you doing here? You’re the linchpin to everything!”
“No, you’re the linchpin,” I whispered, figuring that was true whether or not Rodrigo had ever admitted it, and a little flattery wouldn’t hurt anything.
“We can’t risk you being here!” she hissed.
“I’m willing to take risks to see that justice is served,” I said, figuring that was something Rodrigo would say, and it was definitely true. Nobody else had been willing to be in the same room with Loretta to interrogate her. Even five minutes in the same room with her could mean she’d steal a devastating amount of time.
They’d only gotten her out of the trunk in the first place by towing the car to the station and then using knockout gas to make sure she was unconscious before moving her. They’d had to tow the car to the station because I had forgotten to give them the keys before running off, a fact which I’d rather sheepishly corrected when they’d reminded me of it.
Apparently when they’d taken a statement from “me” before, Rodrigo had claimed I’d thrown the key away into the garden. They’d been annoyed, but they’d believed it and had people searching for it for over ten minutes before they’d given up and just towed the car.
Loretta glared at me. “Some risks are smart, and some are stupid. We both agreed not to go back for each other!”
“Who’d be suspicious of me, looking like this?” I asked.
“She’s not dead!” Loretta hissed. “She escaped!”
“And immediately got recaptured,” I assured her. “Damon Vampireclanjubokko showed his true loyalty.”
And for that, I added silently, I was going to punch him in the gut at my first opportunity. Maybe I’d even go for his pretty face. He was a vampire. He’d heal quickly.
“I’ll find a way out,” Loretta said quietly. “Just give me time.”
“While your time runs out?” I asked. “You’re not going to get the opportunity to feed here. Unless you got a substantial amount of time before the captive escaped . . .”
“I’ve got seventeen days, which is more than enough to make it to the next full moon,” Loretta said. “If I haven’t escaped by then, the point will be moot anyway.”
I swallowed. She had a point. Vampires had to feed during the full moon. Most of them didn’t need to the rest of the time unless they wanted to use their species’ magic, but the only way to survive the full moon was to feed on what their species needed. That was the reason why the Red Cross existed, so that draculas were taken care of.
Would the police give her someone to feed on in prison? That seemed unethical, given that Loretta had already proven she was willing to kill. On the other hand, not feeding her would definitely result in her dying.
I had a brilliant idea. I knew how to make sure no one would die. It would also make it easier to keep her contained, which meant everybody wou
ld win.
“What if you became another species instead?” I asked sneakily. “You could become something with powers no one would expect. Jiangshi life force stealing can work through walls, for instance. You could use that —”
“I would rather die than go back to being a jiangshi!” she shouted, jumping backwards. Her chair fell over, and the handcuff chains kept her from stooping to pick it up again. She stood there trapped at an awkward half-standing angle, her eyes blazing.
I stared at her, my mouth wide open and my mind spinning.
Back to being a jiangshi? Back to being a jiangshi?
That would . . . explain a lot, actually.
“Who are you?” she hissed. “You’re not Rodrigo. He would never suggest such a thing. Are you from Los Abarimon?”
“Uh . . .” I said.
“Oh, I don’t believe it.” She burst out into bitter laughter. “You’re Lisette, aren’t you? I can’t believe you’re such an idiot that you came here on your own!”
“I don’t think you’re going to kill me,” I said quickly, my heart hammering. I didn’t think she would, but I didn’t know for sure. “If you did, the police would have a recording of it and you’d get on Death Row for sure.”
“Oh, you’re assuming that I care about that.” Loretta smirked. “How do you know I’m not sucking your time right now?”
I leapt up and ran for the door.
“Oh, are you retreating?” Loretta asked in a singsong voice. “How nice to know your true cowardice!”
I flung open the door and ran through the doorway into the makeshift “room” the police had made for me, an empty refrigerator box with the side facing the doorway cut loose, creating a wall to stop Loretta’s power from being able to reach into the hallway while the door was open.
I slammed the door to seal Loretta away from me.
I leaned my forehead against the door, breathing shallowly. She probably had sucked some of my time the instant she had realized I wasn’t Rodrigo. How long had I been in there after that point? One minute? Two?
I’d gotten somebody else to do the math for me before I’d gone in. If it took two or three hours to suck sixty or seventy years, she could probably take half a year for every minute she spent sucking time from somebody. Yeah, okay, it’d be a long time before I was a grandma, but I still wanted to keep all my retirement years, thank you. It wasn’t like I ate my vegetables because I wanted to die early.
I took a deep breath, trying to force myself to calm down, and I pushed the box out of the way. The two officers standing beside it in the hallway nodded to me.
“Good job,” one of them said. “We got some useful information.”
“Not enough,” I said. “Not what I went in for.”
And not worth the cost I probably paid at the end, I added silently.
“Los Abarimon,” one of them said, tapping a notepad he’d been writing in. “That alone is worth a lot.”
Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten that I’d heard the centaur and the poisonous tree talking about that before.
“Do you think that means Rodrigo has allies?” I hedged. I sure hoped not. One of him was more than enough.
“Allies, or possibly rivals,” the officer with the notepad said.
Terrific. That didn’t sound much better.
“You did a great job in there,” the other officer said, clapping me on the shoulder. He was an oni and had enormous hands, so it sort of hurt. “You were very brave.”
“That’s not what Loretta said,” I muttered, a little stung by that now that I had time to think.
The oni shook his bald head. “Don’t listen to what anyone like her says. Running away was the smart thing to do. Staying put would have been stupid, not brave.”
I nodded, feeling relieved.
“You were a great liar,” the other officer joked, putting the notepad away in the breast pocket of his uniform. “Feel like becoming an undercover cop eventually?”
“No way,” I said. “And I wasn’t lying. The things I said were technically all true.”
He laughed as if that were a joke, which really annoyed me. I took my honesty seriously.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” the oni said, clapping me on the shoulder again, and possibly bruising me. “I’m sorry we can’t send you home now. It’s safer if Rodrigo thinks he’s safe and stays put. If he thinks he’s cornered, he might make hostages out of your family.”
“I understand,” I said, swallowing.
I was really scared that my family might be in serious danger and have no clue. And I was even more scared that trying to do anything about it would probably just make things worse for everybody.
The night kept passing, and nobody came in with prisoners. I dozed off in a hard plastic chair and woke up every time a door opened. One time, it was a kappa reporting that the water roads had all been sealed off so no mermaids could leave.
Another time, it was a werebat to report tensely that two stones had been tainted and the “perps” had escaped.
I wanted to scream, and my nails dig into my palms. Didn’t they know they were supposed to stop this before any stones got tainted? That was the reason I’d come to them in the first place!
An hour later, the report went up to three. Then four.
“How is this possible?!” I screamed at one of the officers on duty. “I told you all the places they were going!”
“They aren’t going all the places you said!” he snapped back. “They seem to have changed their plans after they nearly got caught the first time!”
I felt sick to my stomach. Of course they had. They’d had hundreds of targets to choose from, and had only picked the six they’d thought would be best. They must have figured out that I’d escaped and told the police about their plans.
Wait . . .
A horrifying pit widened in my stomach. If they’d figured out that I’d escaped and gone to the police, my family was in danger. The centaur and the rest would have called Rodrigo immediately.
“Is anyone watching my family?” I squeaked.
“We’ve got two people there,” the officer assured me. “Don’t worry.”
I was worried. If Rodrigo took them hostage, he could bite any of them and turn into them and then walk out unscathed. Even if that didn’t work, they’d be left with two versions of somebody and not know who to shoot.
Annette. He’d pick Annette. She was still unturned, and so wouldn’t be able to shift to prove her identity. Plus she was only fourteen. Anyone would hesitate to shoot her if they weren’t sure which one was which.
My sister was in danger. So were my parents and my other sister. I had to get down there. I was the only person who could pick out who was who if that happened.
“I need to get down to my family,” I said. “If Rodrigo imitates any of them —”
“They won’t let that happen,” he said shortly. “Besides, we don’t have any spare cars to taxi people right now.”
My cheeks grew hot with fury. I was grateful that I didn’t have Kegan’s fair complexion, because the flush would have shown on her.
“I understand,” I said tightly.
The phone rang, and the officer ran to answer it. He ran to the map of the city they’d put up on the wall and pushed a fifth pink pin into it.
I set my jaw and shifted into my vulture form. I hopped across the room and shoved the door open with my beak. I slipped through and spread my wings, flapping them.
“No!” the police officer shouted. “Lisette, get back here!”
Too late. I was already launching myself into the air.
They didn’t have anyone to “taxi” me? Fine. That meant they didn’t have anybody to stop me, either.
I was going to save my family.
I didn’t try to fly the whole way. Instead, I found a car that was going in the right direction and landed on the roof in a sprawling thump.
“Get off!” the yeti within shouted, opening the sunroof and smacking his h
airy fist at me. “I don’t take hitchhikers!”
I let out an evil hiss and hopped into the air, flaring my wings. Then I landed on the car behind him, almost a perfect landing. I was fairly proud of myself.
I soon got pretty good at car-hopping, and my landings were, well, improving, although I’d nearly lost one of my tail feathers to an unfriendly weretiger passenger who’d opened up his window and leapt on the roof after me.
By the time we reached my parents’ neighborhood, the roads were dead enough that there was nobody left to hitchhike with. I hopped off the last car I’d been riding, flapped my wings experimentally, and launched myself up into the air.
A moment later, something slammed into me and pushed me down into the ground. I nearly let out a panicked screech, but then the bat wings in my face ballooned up into the officer I’d seen several times tonight.
“Are you crazy?” he hissed. “They told us you were coming, which you shouldn’t have done in the first place, but careening through the air like that would have been a dead giveaway!”
“I have to protect my family,” I hissed, shifting into my half-form so I could speak. “None of you will recognize who’s who if Rodrigo imitates any of them!”
“And if he taints any of them because he saw a vulture flying outside?” the bat hissed.
“He can’t do that! He doesn’t have the tainted turning stone with him!” I whispered back.
“He certainly has a backpack that matches the description you gave us,” the werebat hissed.
I went still. It was here? It was here? I’d risked my life to try to get Loretta to tell me where Rodrigo’s tainted stone was, and it was here?
I had to get my family out of there right now!
“Stop it!” the bat hissed as I tried to scramble away from him. “The best way to keep your family safe is to not do anything rash that will let him know you’re here!”
“But we have to get them out,” I whispered. “We have to. We have to. Maybe one of my relatives could call them and say it’s an emergency. It would be true!”
“What kind of relative would call at one-thirty in the morning?” the werebat demanded.
Trials of a Teenage Werevulture (Trilogy of a Teenage Werevulture Book 1) Page 17
