“Yeah. There are ways for vampires to get around during daylight hours, and I kind of have a magical way of making the sunlight not hurt Lucas.”
“Oh, uh. Wow.” Silence falls between us for a few seconds. I pull the band from my ponytail. “So, when’s a good time to come over? Phil and I both have the night and then tomorrow off.”
“Once the sun goes down. Is that too late for Penny?”
“Lord no,” she says with a laugh. “That kid hasn’t been sleeping very well lately. It’s a Wonder Week.”
“What’s that?”
“A growth spurt that messes with her sleep cycle, her happiness, and basically my sanity. She might be up. She might not be.”
“Well, I hope she’s up. Totally selfish of me, I know. But I’d love to snuggle that little girl.”
“I’m sure she’ll love that too.”
“Do you want me to bring anything?” I ask.
“No, I’ve got it covered, though if you brought some wine I wouldn’t object.”
I laugh. “The good thing about sleeping with someone who owns a bar is basically unlimited access to alcohol of all kinds. I’ll bring something expensive that I don’t have to pay for.”
“Sounds good. I’m making that sour cream chicken Rosita used to make. Do you remember it?”
“I do.” Rosita was our nanny who doubled as a cook most nights. The last time I saw her was the day before I was sold to the highest bidder at a research laboratory. “I haven’t had that in a long time. Sounds good.”
“I hope I do it justice. Does Lucas need anything? I know he, uh, doesn’t eat food.”
“I don’t think so. This is actually our first dinner party we’ve been invited to as a couple.”
“Oh, is it weird? Being with someone who doesn’t eat food?” Since Abby told me she wants to be involved in each other’s lives again, she hasn’t held back on her questions. It’s oddly comforting to be poked and prodded about all things magic in my life. She’s really trying to understand my world.
“Kind of,” I admit. “Sometimes I think it would be so convenient to not have to eat but then again, I’d miss it.”
“Me too. I love snacking.”
“And I love wine.”
“It would save me so much time.”
“I know, right?” I laugh. “I hate cooking. Though, Lucas has been trying to cook for me lately. It’s sweet, even though he’s a terrible cook.”
Abby laughs. “That’s so weird to think about. I’m trying, Cal, really, but the thought of that vampire standing in front of the oven.” She starts laughing again.
“He looks good in an apron.”
“I think he’d look good in anything.”
I close my eyes and bring a hand to my face. “He really does.”
“So tonight. Right after sunset?”
“We will be there.”
“Good. I miss you, sis.”
“I miss you too, Abby. Especially lately.”
“Has something happened?”
“Something is always happening,” I confess. “I’m looking forward to a normal dinner, with normal food and a normal conversation.”
“I can promise you normal here. We’re not that exciting.”
“Sometimes that’s a good thing. Because lately for me, exciting means demonic possession and evil blackmailing witches.”
“I…I don’t even know what to say to that.”
I laugh. “Tell me we’re going to talk about the weather and work and other boring stuff.”
“Can we talk about magic just a little?”
“Of course. Phil’s okay with it?”
“He’s showing interest. I know it scares him, just like vampires do. Honestly I don’t think he believed me when I told him about everything you could do.”
“It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially for people who haven’t seen it firsthand. I still remember how unreal it felt to walk into Grim Gate Academy for the first time and see a whole new world of magic.”
“I’m sure it would be. I love you, Callie, and I’m proud of you. I feel like I haven’t told you that enough. But I do.”
“I love you too, Abby. See you later.”
I end the call, set my phone down, and put the last few cold items away before finding Lucas in his office. It looks like he’s on a video chat with someone, and he’s not speaking English again. He holds up his hand, letting me know it’ll be a minute, and I slip back out of the office and into the kitchen while I wait.
I’m finishing up my sandwich when Lucas comes in.
“Do you care if we go over to my sister’s tonight? I sort of RSVP’d for us already,” I admit.
“Do you want to go?” he asks carefully, and I know what he’s thinking. The last few interactions I’ve had with my biological family haven’t ended well. But Abby is trying so damn hard, and I miss my sister, now more than ever.
“I do. It’ll be nice to have a low-key night with Abby.”
“Then we’ll go.”
I smile. “Thank you. I also said I’d bring wine, so I need to go out and get some.”
“Take whatever car you’d like.”
“Walking is fine. I hate finding parking.”
Lucas chuckles, kisses me, and goes back into his office to work. I clean up after myself in the kitchen and then go upstairs to get a comfortable pair of shoes to walk in. I throw my purse over my shoulder and call Binx to come with me. The dress I’m wearing is black at its base, with multicolored flowers printed all over it. I add a black floppy hat and oversized sunglasses and head out, fully knowing how cliché I look walking down the street dressed like this with my black cat trotting along next to me.
And I love it.
I tuck the bottle of wine under my arm and ring Abby’s doorbell. Lucas rests his hand on the small of my back, fingers gently pressing into my skin. A few seconds pass before Abby opens the door with a smile on her face.
“Hey, sis,” she says and steps to the side. “Oh, right. I have to invite you in. Please come in, Lucas.”
“You’ve already invited him once,” I say, stepping inside. “The offer stands until you rescind the invitation.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.” Abby closes the door behind us.
“All you have to say is ‘I rescind your invitation’ with the intended vampire in mind,” Lucas tells her. “It will force them out of the house.”
“Really? And they can’t get back in?”
“Not until you invite them again.”
Abby shakes her head. “That’s just…so weird. I don’t get why you can’t walk into a house uninvited. It makes no sense.”
“There’s ancient magic in declaring a house a home,” Lucas explains, taking off his shoes after I give him a pointed look. I don’t wear shoes in the house, and I know Abby wouldn’t want us tracking germs all over the floor when she has a one-year-old toddling around. “It offers very basic protection, but unfortunately only against those of us who operate on those same basic principles of magic.”
“And I thought medical school was complicated.”
“Don’t think about it too hard,” I tell her. “That’s what I do, at least. Especially when it comes to different dimensions. Instant headache.”
“I can only imagine.” She leads us into the house. “I hope you’re hungry. I might have gone a little overboard on the appetizers.”
“I’m starving,” I tell her and she turns, looking from me to Lucas.
“Should I have bought bottled blood?” she whispers.
“No.”
“I feel like I’m being rude, though. Inviting you both over for dinner and then making you watch us eat.”
“I already ate,” Lucas tells her and Abby’s face tenses. She’s trying to be okay with this, but I know it weirds her out. By Lucas saying he already ate, she knows he bit me and sucked blood out of my body, which is weird when I think about it too. “And human food has no appeal to me anymore. Besides, I watch Callie e
at all the time.”
“I do eat a lot.” I give Abby a reassuring smile as we make our way through the foyer and into the kitchen. Abby lives in Lincoln Park, just minutes from Lucas. “Is Penny awake?”
“She is. Phil is giving her an emergency bath after a diaper explosion.”
“Sounds fun.”
“It’s the second one today. She had a ton of blueberries for breakfast and the aftermath is catching up to us. How someone so little can poop so much is beyond me.” She gets out two wine glasses and sets them on the counter. “Do I need to get the wine opener, or can you…”
“Do this?” I set wine down and hold my hand over the bottle, telekinetically pulling the cork from the bottle.
“That alone makes me wish I could do magic.”
I pour two glasses and take a seat at a barstool. Lucas sits next to me and rests his hand on my thigh. “How’s work?”
“Busy, though I’ve only worked about sixteen hours since I saw you last. I’m on a pretty good rotation right now which is perfect since Phil’s been doing a lot of surgery.” She takes a drink. “And you’re…you’re okay? The last time I saw you, you were covered in blood.”
“I’m fine.”
“Physically, you are. But what happened?”
“It will be handled,” Lucas tells her, and I take a big drink of wine. We don’t know who sent the vampire bounty hunters after me or how they found out I was a witch in the first place. Lucas still has one of the vampires who hurt me locked in a cell in the basement of the bar. He pulled out her fangs, and without fresh blood, they won’t be growing back anytime soon.
“Good. And you said something about demons? Is that, uh, related to the reason you came into the ER?”
“No, that’s something entirely different.” I swirl the red wine around in my glass and silence falls over us for a few seconds.
“So, tell me about that house you guys bought,” Abby says, changing the subject. She gulps down the rest of her wine and goes to the oven, checking on the appetizers she’s keeping warm. I tell her about the plans for the restoration as I help her set the table.
“That’s exciting,” she says, getting another bottle of wine from a little wine fridge in the kitchen. “I can’t wait to see it all finished.”
“Me too. It will be a while, though. The house has to be pretty much gutted before we can even start on the fun stuff, like doing the kitchen and the bathroom. I’m also really looking forward to putting a pool and a hot tub in the backyard. And then I can have parties. Hopefully by next summer, you guys can come over and swim or something.”
“I’d really like that.” Abby takes a bowl of salad to the table and then comes back into the kitchen. Her phone is on the counter and starts buzzing. She picks it up and quickly ends the call, but not before I see who’s calling.
“You can answer,” I tell her. “I don’t care.”
“Mom calls all the time,” she says, giving that as her reason not to answer. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I know she doesn’t…that you two don’t…”
“It’s fine, Abby. I really have made my peace.”
Abby nods and looks from me to Lucas. “You must think we’re terrible people.”
“I do,” he agrees, and I elbow him in the ribs. “You are excluded, of course.”
“I don’t blame you,” I press. “And please, drop it before I put a memory charm on you making you forget everything that happened,” I joke.
“Or turn her into a cat,” Lucas adds under his breath.
“You can do that?” Abby asks.
I purse my lips and glare at Lucas. “No. Absolutely not and I’ve never accidentally transfigured anyone before.”
Abby cocks and eyebrow and refills her glass. “I’m trying to keep my questions to a minimum because I know how annoying it can be, but what?”
“Transfiguration is a type of magic. It’s the way werewolves shift and the way my familiars can take on the form of a regular animal.”
“And you can transfigure people?” Her eyes are as wide as saucers.
“And objects. It’s not my strongest area of magic. I’m better at conjuring.”
“Don’t be modest,” Lucas starts. “You’re incredible, Callie. Downplaying it does you no favors.”
“It feels weird to brag about how I accidentally turned someone who fully deserved it into a fat orange cat.”
Abby almost chokes on her wine and Phil walks into the kitchen, holding Penny close to his chest. Her curly hair is still damp from her bath, and she’s wearing the cutest pink footy pajamas.
“Hey, Phil.” I force a smile. “And Penny.”
“Callie. Hello.” He meets my eyes, returning my smile, and then looks at Lucas but doesn’t risk looking at his face. “And, uh, Lucas.”
I can see Abby silently yelling at Phil to behave, and I’m sure they had a strongly worded discussion before she invited me over. I’m not too sure on where Phil stands on the whole vampire assimilation movement.
“Thanks for inviting us over for dinner,” I say. Penny starts to squirm out of her father’s arms, whimpering for her mom. Phil makes a move to set her down but stops, realizing that she’s going to have to toddle past Lucas before she gets to Abby.
For a second, nobody moves. And then Phil sets Penny on the ground, walking behind her as she makes her way over to Abby.
“Did you drive the McLaren today?” Phil asks Lucas.
“We walked today,” he replies. “Want to take it out later? It hasn’t been driven in a while and I don’t like my cars just sitting.”
Phil’s eyes light up. “I, uh, yeah…I mean…it’s not good to just like them sit,” he sputters. “Cars? You have more than one McLaren?”
“Not in Chicago.”
“Lucas has a lot of cars,” I add. “I like the Chevelle the best. He’s been the only owner and bought it new back in, what, the 70s?”
Lucas nods. “I still have the very first car I ever bought, actually. It’s at my property in California.”
“A Model T?”
“From 1910.”
Phil’s smile grows and he looks at Abby. “That’s…that’s incredible. Did you buy it here in the US? You haven’t always lived here, have you?”
“No, I’m originally from what you’d call Rome today. I first came to the Americas in the late sixteenth century and then took up permanent residence here after the Civil War.”
Phil slowly shakes his head. “Wow. I, uh, I don’t know if Abby ever mentioned it, but I’m a bit of a history nerd. I never stopped and thought about how someone like you has lived through so much.”
“I’ve seen the worst and best of humanity over the last thousand years.”
“You were there then?” Phil takes the glass of wine Abby just poured for him. “During the Civil War?”
“Phil, chill a little,” Abby says under her breath.
“It’s all right,” Lucas tells her as we all move into the dining room. “And I was. As a vampire, I try to avoid human affairs, but there was one night when the Confederate Army marched through my land.” Lucas gets a distant look in his eye as he thinks back.
“He’s not going to shut up all night,” Abby warns with a smile. She slips Penny into her highchair and goes back into the kitchen to get the chicken.
“I don’t think Lucas minds.” I follow behind her, helping her carry out dinner. “As long as Phil doesn’t start asking about his human life. Lucas doesn’t seem to like to talk about it.”
“You said you thought he was turned against his will, right?”
“He was. I know that now. A human paid a vampire to turn him so he could force Lucas to fight in an underground ring. He said he didn’t even know vampires were real until he became one.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know. It was a long time ago, but I can’t imagine getting over that kind of mental trauma…like, ever.”
She nods and gets a bag of shredded cheese from the fridge. �
�My classy girl is on a cheese and Mandarin oranges for dinner kick right now.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad, actually.”
“At least it’s not blueberries,” Abby laughs. We go back into the dining room and start dinner. Everything is good, and Phil and Lucas talk about history and cars throughout the meal.
Most of Penny’s food ends up on the floor by the time we’re done eating, and I’m starting to see what Abby meant by the sweet little girl being crabby. Phil takes her upstairs to try to get her to bed, leaving Abby to walk us to the door.
“I had a really nice time,” I tell her. “Thanks again for inviting us.”
Abby beams. “I’m glad you guys came. We’ll do this again,” she promises.
“Yeah,” I say back with a smile. “We will.”
Chapter 10
I lift my glass up and move it half an inch, pressing it down on the table so it leaves a water ring on the surface. I repeat the process, making a pattern with the condensation.
“I never knew a glass of water could be so entertaining.” Eliza slides a cocktail in front of me and leans back, crossing her arms. Lucas is in the office at the bar tonight, and I’ve been sitting at a table in the back for the last half-hour reading. I just finished my book and am still reeling from the cliffhanger ending. The next book doesn’t come out for three months, dammit.
“Thanks,” I tell Eliza, and take a sip of the cocktail. It’s our first interaction since I astral projected into the bar and saw something I’ll never be able to unsee. I’m sure Lucas has ordered her to try to get along with me again. We had made headway until the incident. “So, about what I saw—”
“Forget it.” She stiffly sits down across from me. “You saw two vampires fucking. It’s not much different than two humans fucking, well, only better.”
“Sex with a vampire is better.”
“Ew, don’t put that visual in my head.” She pushes a strand of her blonde hair back behind her ear. She’s incredibly pretty, with soft and delicate features that remind me of Kristy in a way.
Pretty, blonde, and innocent-looking. But both Kristy and Eliza have powers you’d never suspect.
“Have you turned anyone else into a cat lately?”
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