The Tomb of Blood

by Britney Jackson

  “Great,” Rose said sarcastically. “My new normal is constantly wanting to sink my fangs into everyone I see, constantly feeling this intense, insatiable hunger, and constantly being locked up in the house. That’s such wonderful news.”

  Erik winced at the razor-sharp bitterness in her tone. “You won’t have to stay in the house forever, Rose. Kallias just thinks it’s best if you stay home until you gain a little more control over your hunger. Young vampires have almost no self-control. You don’t want to accidentally kill someone, do you?”

  Rose narrowed her eyes at him. “Of course not. But who says I would?”

  “I do,” he said unapologetically. He placed the square glass on the counter, the glass clanging against the wooden surface, and then, he grabbed a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. “I remember what it was like when I first awoke as a vampire. So does Kallias. The hunger is impossible to control. All it takes is one drop of fresh blood or a sudden surge of rage, and suddenly, someone is dead at your hands. Trust me. You don’t want that guilt.”

  Her brows furrowed. “I can control it.”

  Erik snorted at that. “Rose, you almost bit Emma last week.”

  “She hugged me,” Rose said defensively, “and she smelled…good.”

  He laughed as he tipped the whiskey bottle and poured the amber-colored liquid into his glass. “Face it, babe. You’re not exactly the picture of self-control at the moment. All of our poor, shattered mirrors can attest to that.”

  Her face reddened. “Kallias told you that I shattered the mirror?”

  Erik cradled the glass of whiskey in his hand as he leaned against the counter, waiting for the lasagna to cool. “Nope,” he snorted, his green eyes sparkling with amusement, “but I saw you sweeping up the glass. How many does that make now? Two? Three? Eighty?” He burst into hysterical laughter.

  Rose glared at him as he doubled over, laughing loudly and obnoxiously at her. “One,” she grumbled. “It makes one. Last time, it was a vase, not a mirror.”

  He clutched his stomach and laughed even harder. “Close enough.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s not funny.”

  “It is to me,” Erik snorted, “but then again, I’m not made of glass, so…”

  Rose shifted her gaze down to the glass that he held in his hand, and it instantly shattered, causing whiskey to soak the front of Erik’s black shirt and splatter in the floor, around his feet. Then, she flashed a sassy smile at him.

  “Damn it, Rose,” Erik complained as he shook the liquid off of his hands and glanced down at the shards of broken glass that had landed at his feet.

  Rose shrugged. “Hey, I don’t know what to tell you,” she said in her sassiest tone. “Apparently, I have no self-control. No glass in the house is safe.”

  Erik scowled at her. “Leave my alcohol alone.”

  “You better get it out of those glass bottles, then,” she warned, lifting her eyebrows. “I can’t control myself, remember? What if I shatter all of them?”

  His eyes widened in horror. “What kind of monster are you?”

  “The kind without self-control,” Rose said dryly, “apparently.”

  Erik sighed, “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

  She shrugged. “I can try, but I have no self-control. So, no promises.”

  Erik grimaced as he wiped his hands over his shirt, as if that would dry it. “You’re cleaning this up,” he grumbled as he stepped over the shattered glass.

  “I was already planning on it,” Rose said as she turned and crossed the room. She grabbed the broom and dustpan from where she’d placed them earlier, in the corner, between the garbage can and the wall. “It was so worth it.”

  Erik grabbed a fork and shoveled a massive bite of lasagna into his mouth, not even bothering to scoop it out of the pan and into a plate first.

  As Rose returned to sweep up the shattered glass in the floor, something lying on the counter, next to the pan of lasagna that Erik was currently devouring, caught her eye. She frowned and stepped closer to the counter, her brows furrowing as she realized that it was a newspaper. A picture of a blue orchid, lying on a patch of blood-soaked pavement, stretched across the front page of the newspaper. Above that picture, the headline read, “The Fanged Serial Killer.” She picked up the newspaper and scanned the article. “What is this?”

  “What?” Erik mumbled with a mouthful of pasta. His eyes widened as he saw her reading the newspaper, and he snatched it out of her hands. He swallowed. “It’s nothing. It’s just something I noticed while I was out last night.”

  Rose frowned suspiciously at him. “Why don’t you want me to read it?”

  “I don’t care if you read it,” Erik said a little too quickly.

  She raised an eyebrow. “But…you just snatched it out of my hand.”

  “Well, yeah, but…” he trailed off as he realized that he didn’t have another excuse to give her. He sighed and gave the newspaper back to her. “I haven’t showed it to Kallias yet either. I would have…eventually. I just…”

  Rose frowned at him, bewildered by his unusual behavior. It wasn’t like Erik to be so nervous about something. She glanced down at the newspaper and quickly read over the article, which discussed a series of murders that had happened over the weekend in Norway. According to the article, the victims had two things in common. First, all of them were drained of blood, and second, the murderer had left a single, blue orchid with every corpse. The police apparently believed that a serial killer was behind the murders, but the reporter also mentioned—somewhat jokingly—that rumors of vampires could be heard among some of the more superstitious people. Rose looked up at Erik, frowning worriedly. “Do you think it is a vampire? Is that why you kept the newspaper?”

  “Yeah,” Erik said quickly. He fidgeted anxiously with his fork, raking it through the lasagna. He ran his other hand through his wavy, blonde hair and pasted on a much-too-wide, fake smile. “Yeah, that’s the reason I kept it.”

  “You’re lying,” Rose accused. It had been a statement, not a question.

  The fake smile faded. Erik quickly busied himself with eating his pasta, angling himself away from her as he quickly shoved a massive bite of lasagna into his mouth. “You have no way of knowing that. You’re not a telepath.”

  Rose could barely understand his muffled words through the disturbing amount of lasagna he’d shoveled into his mouth. “No, but I am observant,” she told him, “and people give off certain body language cues when they lie.” She raised an eyebrow as he shoveled another massive bite of lasagna into his mouth. “And right now, your body language is practically screaming that you’re lying.”

  Erik swallowed his food and sighed, irritated that she’d caught him in the lie. He pursed his lips and set down his fork. “Fine. You’re right. I am lying.”

  “You don’t think that a vampire is behind this?” she asked.

  “Not about that,” Erik said, shaking his head. “I mean, it does seem a bit strange that a vampire would be so reckless with their killings, especially in Norway. But what I meant was: I lied about the reason that I kept the newspaper.”

  “What do you mean by especially in Norway?” Rose asked, her brows furrowing in confusion. “Are Norwegian vampires particularly…cautious?”

  Erik waved his hand dismissively. “No. I just mean that these murders took place awfully close to the Tomb of Blood. Aaron would never allow this kind of recklessness. If it is a vampire that’s behind this, I’m surprised they even survived the weekend. Aaron will put an end to whoever it is soon, I’m sure.”

  Rose nodded thoughtfully. “Ah. So, why did you keep the newspaper?”

  Erik cringed, as if he’d been hoping that she wouldn’t ask. He leaned forward and tapped the picture on the front of the newspaper. “The orchid.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such a flower enthusiast,” Rose said dryly.

  “Ha. Ha,” Erik said caustically. “No, it’s just…I�
�ve seen it before.”

  She stared blankly at him. “Well, orchids are a popular type of flower.”

  “The blue orchid,” Erik corrected. “It’s rare, but I know where to find them. It just…” he trailed off, his jaw tensing. “It just brings back memories.”

  “Memories of flowers?” Rose asked slowly.

  Erik looked away and sighed, “Memories of Alana.”

  Rose’s bright blue eyes softened in understanding. “Oh.”

  He shifted on the barstool and scrubbed his hand across his face, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “That’s why I didn’t say anything,” he sighed, the shame bleeding into his voice. “I knew that Kallias would realize why I kept it.”

  She returned the newspaper to the counter and propped the broom and dustpan against the refrigerator. Then, she slid onto the barstool, next to Erik, and rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “You loved her. That’s not something you should be ashamed of,” she said sympathetically. “It’s okay to miss her.”

  “I don’t miss her,” Erik snarled, removing his hand from his face. His green eyes narrowed at her. “She ruined my life. You think that I miss that?”

  “I think that you miss the person you fell in love with,” Rose corrected. “Whether that was Alana or just the person she pretended to be…you miss that.”

  Erik buried his face in his hands. “I’m so screwed up,” he groaned miserably into his hands. “What kind of person holds onto memories like that?”

  Rose shook her head and pulled his hands away from his face, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Stop doing this to yourself,” she demanded. “You loved her, and she used you. That kind of pain leaves scars, but you’re not screwed up.”

  He sighed, “I’ll tell Kallias about it as soon as he gets home.”

  “Do you really think this is something to worry about?” Rose asked curiously. “I mean, according to the article, the police think it’s just a serial killer.”

  “The fact that the reporter even mentioned the word vampire is a cause for concern,” Erik said. “It’s imperative that humans stay in the dark about our existence. All of them. Even the superstitious ones. If Aaron doesn’t deal with this quickly, then we might need to do something about it. It just baffles me that he hasn’t dealt with it already. Aaron is usually swift about this kind of thing.”

  “You mean he usually kills the vampire responsible,” Rose assumed.

  Erik nodded. “Immediately. And mercilessly.”

  “This guy sounds so pleasant,” Rose muttered sarcastically.

  —

  As Rose typed out an e-mail on the computer, the keys of the keyboard clicking loudly as she tapped them, echoing through the silent bedroom, she heard the door creak open behind her. The scent of leather, aftershave, and peppermint wafted into the room as the boots thudded against the floor behind her. The warm, powerful scent of his blood invaded her senses as he came closer to her, awakening that primal, uncontrollable hunger that clenched in her stomach and burned its way up into her throat. Her eyes fluttered closed as his warm, muscular body enveloped her, his unshaven chin resting on her shoulder, and his leather-clad, muscular arms coming around her to cross at her stomach.

  His breath felt warm against her ear. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking my e-mail,” Rose answered, “and my Facebook.”

  “Oh,” Kallias said. He released her and straightened. His long, brown hair fell to one side as he frowned at the computer. “What is a Facebook?”

  Rose paused in her typing, her eyebrows lifting. She spun the office chair around so that she could look up at him. “You don’t know what Facebook is?”

  Kallias shrugged. “I know what e-mails are.”

  “Oh, good,” Rose muttered. “So, you’re only like a decade or so behind.”

  He chuckled at her teasing as he shrugged off his leather jacket. “I’m over twenty-five hundred years old. You’re lucky that I’m not centuries behind.”

  “Facebook is a type of social media,” Rose said. “It’s for socializing.”

  “You socialize through the computer?” Kallias asked bewilderedly.

  “It’s socializing for socially-awkward people,” she joked, “like me.”

  Kallias snorted. “Ah, that explains it,” he said as he tossed his leather jacket onto the bed. “Well, I’m not socially-awkward. I’m just an asshole.”

  Rose spun her chair back toward the computer and returned to typing the e-mail. “Yeah, those kinds of people use it, too,” she mumbled distractedly.

  He sat down on the bed and started removing his weapons from all of the sheaths that he kept hidden at various places on his body, tossing one dagger after another onto the mattress beside him, until his mattress looked like some kind of weapon showcase. “So, what does a Facebook do?” he asked curiously.

  Rose grimaced at his word-choice. “It’s just Facebook. No a,” she corrected, tapping away at the keyboard, “and it doesn’t do anything. You do. You use it to keep up with people, and to tell the world what’s going on in your life.”

  Kallias had just begun to unlace his bulky, black boots when she said that last part. He stopped and frowned worriedly at her. “Uh…” he began nervously. “You haven’t told the world what’s going on in your life, have you?”

  “Yes, Kallias,” Rose said, spinning around to scowl at him. “Yesterday, I posted a status that said, ‘I just had the tastiest blood. You know…because I’m a vampire now.’ Four hundred people liked it, including Vlad Dracula himself.”

  He stared at her, his lips twitching. “You’re being sarcastic.”

  She flashed a sassy smile at him. “Aren’t I always?”

  He nodded toward the computer. “Who are you e-mailing?”

  Rose turned back toward the computer and sighed. “Owen,” she said as she returned to typing. “Apparently, he freaked out a bit when I never e-mailed him back a few weeks ago. You know, because I was kind of busy dying and stuff? When I logged in tonight, I had twenty-seven e-mails, asking me if I died.”

  Kallias frowned suspiciously at that. “Did you tell him no?”

  “I told him that I’m literally writing from my grave right now,” she said.

  “Right,” he snorted as he unlaced his boots. “I should have known.”

  Rose chewed on her lip as she pressed send and looked back over the previous messages. “Do you think it’s strange that Owen is so worried?”

  “I don’t know,” Kallias admitted. “Is Owen usually an anxious person?”

  Rose spun around in the office chair to look at him. “Owen once put out a fire in the restaurant while whistling, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “But lately, ever since I mentioned the word vampire at work, he’s been acting…unusual. He just seems so worried, all of the sudden.”

  Kallias leaned forward and rested his elbow on his thigh, scratching at the brown stubble on his jaw. “Was this before or after Theron attacked you?”

  “Before and after,” Rose answered. “Why do you ask?”

  “It makes sense that he was worried afterward,” Kallias explained. “You were stalked and attacked by someone. Vampire or not, that’s still a big deal. Any friend would be worried afterward. But before? That does seem a bit suspicious.”

  Rose leaned back in the chair, frowning thoughtfully. Back before she’d left Florida, when she’d known so little about vampires, she’d had a strange feeling that Owen knew something that he wasn’t telling her, and that feeling had yet to subside. But she had no real reason to not trust her friend. Just an odd, unexplainable feeling. “I’m sorry about your mirror, by the way,” she told Kallias, changing the subject. “I’ll replace it. Eventually. Somehow.”

  Kallias laughed, “I don’t care about the damn mirror, Rose.”

  She ran her hands over her thighs nervously, her jeans scratching roughly against her palms. “Since I became a vampire, my emotions are so…”

  “Volatile?” Kallias f
inished for her. He leaned back on his hands, an understanding smile curling at his lips. “I know, Rose. We’ve all been there—Erik, Emma, Geoffrey, me. We understand what you’re experiencing right now.”

  Rose sighed, “How long did it take before you were able to control it?”

  He winced. “I still have trouble controlling it sometimes.”

  “Oh. That’s encouraging,” she muttered sarcastically.

  “I feel partially responsible, honestly,” Kallias sighed, watching her with a sympathetic expression. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that night. It’s hard enough for you to stop thinking about it without me mentioning it. I upset you.”

  Rose picked at a loose thread on her jeans. “I was upset before you said anything,” she reminded him. “I just can’t pull myself together. I keep seeing it.”

  “I know,” Kallias said softly. “It’ll get easier. I promise.”

  “You mean you hope,” Rose corrected with a tired smile. “You already have to deal with my insatiable appetite for an eternity. It’d suck if you had to deal with an eternity of me accidentally shattering all of your mirrors and vases, too.”

  Kallias stood and crossed the space between them. He knelt in front of her chair, resting his hands on her thighs. “For the last time,” he chuckled, “I don’t mind the broken mirror…or the vase. And I don’t mind your appetite either. I mean, come on, why would I mind that? You know how it feels to share blood with someone. It’s not exactly unpleasant for me.” He offered her a wicked grin.

  Rose laughed, “Do I really feed more often than most vampires?”

  “Of course not,” he assured her. “It was an off-hand remark. I didn’t expect you to take it personally. Hell, Erik used to feed five or six times a night.”

  “He hasn’t changed much,” Rose said. “Have you seen how much he eats now? He ate an entire pan of lasagna tonight…for one meal…out of seven.”