He nodded. “Sweet and with a kick it is.”
I kept my gaze on him as he walked up to the bar, ordered me a drink, then came back and set down a glass of something green on the rocks before seating himself across from me.
I sipped the melon-flavored liqueur, hoping some liquid courage would push me along. The Midori sour was, indeed, very sweet. And it definitely had a kick. I hadn’t had a drink in weeks, and I hadn’t eaten much since breakfast, so the alcohol went straight to the filter between my brain and my mouth.
Inhaling, I squared my shoulders and pushed back the half-finished drink.
“So, you’re a vampire.” Though it was meant to be a question, it came out more as a statement.
“And you’re an enigma,” Rans retorted, not bothering to deny the allegation. “Nice to meet you properly.”
“You drank my blood yesterday,” I said, keeping my voice level, like his penchant for guzzling other people’s hemoglobin was no big deal.
“Yes.” His answer was as simple as my question.
“But there’s no wound on my neck,” I pointed out—quite reasonably, I thought.
“No, there wouldn’t be,” he said. “My blood and saliva have strong healing properties. Your throat healed in moments.”
I swallowed hard. “Am I going to turn into a vampire now?”
He laughed—a single bark, with a noticeably jagged edge to it. “No, luv. Not hardly.”
“But now you’re stalking me,” I accused.
He shrugged. “A bit, yes. I did mention you’re an enigma.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked in bewilderment. “What about me is remotely enigmatic? I’m a broke-ass waitress working at a bar and grill.”
“Your blood,” he said, his eyes studying me carefully. “It’s unusually… what’s the word I’m looking for? Stimulating.”
I shivered a bit, unable to stop myself. Then I promptly changed the subject.
“Who shot you yesterday?” I asked.
Rans looked amused at that. “A man with a shotgun.”
My frown appeared to have no effect on him. “Why did he shoot you?”
“Someone told him to, I expect.”
“So someone’s trying to kill you?” I pressed.
“Kill me?” He snorted. “With a gun? No, that was more of a love-tap, really.” His expression sobered. “Or a message, I suppose you could say.”
I blinked at him. “What kind of a message requires a shotgun blast through the chest?”
He shook his head, impatient. “It’s not important. What’s more important is what you’re doing walking around in broad daylight with blood like that running through your veins.”
I paused to try and parse that statement, without success. “I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about,” I told him truthfully.
“Really? None at all?” His gaze sharpened again, and it felt like he could see straight through my skull to what lay beneath. I didn’t like the feeling. When he spoke again, his tone was thoughtful. “You actually mean that, don’t you?”
I threw my hands up, frustration overflowing. “No, I’m lying to you. Vampires tear my shed door off its hinges and drink my neck like a Capri-Sun on a near daily basis. I thought that was a normal part of life. So, do you maybe want to… I don’t know… explain some of this?”
He seemed to consider my words as he studied me closely. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to eat me alive—and not necessarily in the bad way. A frisson raced up my spine, but before I could decide whether to run for the hills or call him out on it, his expression smoothed into something like regret.
“Best not,” he said, not unkindly. “You were supposed to forget what happened yesterday. If you’re smart, you’ll try your best to do exactly that. Go home, and stop asking questions that might draw the wrong kind of attention.”
I bristled. “Oh, yeah? Questions like, ‘Who’s going to pay for the repairs to my shed?’”
He laughed, then—a low, pleasant sound that did things to my overactive libido despite my best efforts to maintain my armor of outrage. With a crooked smile, he reached out, brushing my cheek with the backs of his knuckles—a fleeting caress that left my skin warm and tingling where he’d touched it.
“What did you think the hundred-dollar tip was for, Zorah Bright?” he asked.
And then he was gone. I sat frozen for a moment, my hand rising stupidly to cover the echo of his touch on my cheek. By the time I came back to myself and hurried after him with Vonnie’s worried check-in text buzzing at my hip, he had already disappeared into the city.
FIVE
HE KNEW MY NAME. I lay awake, staring at the early-morning darkness above me and trying not to freak out. Okay, yes, I was a waitress. I’d been wearing a nametag when he and his friend had come in to AJ’s. A nametag with my first name. Not my last.
I’d slept poorly. What a shock, right? But the practical upshot was, I still felt weak and achy and generally like shit, two days after being drained by a vampire. How much had he taken from me? Should I be worried?
I spent an unproductive hour of my quality time with insomnia, trying to mentally tweak my budget this month to accommodate a trip to my doctor. No way in hell. Now that I was no longer on my father’s health plan, I was uninsured—bringing in too much money to qualify for assistance with the premiums, but not enough to make the cheapest qualifying plan work. At least, not if I also wanted to eat and pay the utilities.
It didn’t matter. I couldn’t exactly tell the doctor that I was suffering from blood loss when I didn’t have a wound to explain it. He would just start harping on about chronic fatigue syndrome again. Still, it was worrying. I’d managed to reach a balance between what I was physically capable of doing in a day, and what was necessary for my job.
Sure, it required taking more pain medication than I would have liked, but I’d been getting by. Right now, though, I felt like I’d been run over by a bus… and I was due at MMHA bright and early this morning, followed by an eleven to three shift at AJ’s.
I sincerely doubted that the neglected lawn was going to see any attention today.
Since sleep was clearly a distant dream at this point, I slipped out of bed, drank a bunch of water, and ran through a gentle yoga routine while I waited for the sun to rise. Every joint ached, every muscle burned with fatigue after hours of doing nothing more strenuous than lying awake in bed. As it always did, the yoga helped a little, and a hot shower helped a little more.
This morning, I succumbed to the lure of the massaging showerhead. I still felt like a damned nympho freak, but I craved the brief flush of endorphin-fed physical and mental relief that would follow. By the time I’d eaten a solid breakfast and popped a few more ibuprofen, the prospect of heading out and working until three no longer made me want to hide under the covers and burst into girly tears.
At eight-thirty sharp, I strolled out of the spitting rain and into the bustling offices of the Missouri Mental Health Alliance; ready to add my paltry support to a cause I cared about. Before a sharp downturn in my unpredictable health had derailed my college career, I’d managed most of a two-year degree in accounting. That was what I did at MMHA—keep the books.
The unfinished associate’s degree had originally been intended as a stepping-stone toward becoming a CPA like my father. Looking back, it had been a young woman’s attempt to make an emotionally distant father love her, and a fairly sad attempt, at that. I didn’t have any particular interest in a career in accounting, and at this point in my life it would have been difficult to pursue it further in any case. But it did mean I could offer a valuable service to MMHA.
That, I did care about.
In the absence of any grand explanation for my mother’s assassination when I was little, I was left with a very troubled man who’d done a very bad thing in a moment of madness, and who had subsequently hung himself with his bed sheets in prison. By supporting an organization seeking better mental health care a
nd screening, I could feel like I was making a difference, however small. So I volunteered.
Today, though, I walked in to find the place in barely controlled chaos.
Daisy, my boss, was pacing up and down the tiled floors of the MMHA front office, brandishing a stack of documents. “What the hell are we going to do about this?” she snapped.
Papers from another stack on the front desk flew around the room when the wind from the front door I’d just opened caught them, sweeping them around the foyer.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, watching Daisy cursing and rifling almost frantically through what papers were left on the front desk. Vonnie shot me a wide-eyed look as she scrambled around, trying to help me pick up the papers that were now scattered across the floor.
“I got an email this morning.” Daisy put the papers aside and stood straight, hands on her hips as she glowered at me.
Daisy was one of the few paid employees at MMHA. She was in her mid-thirties. Tall. Thin. Skin darker than mine, with large brown eyes. She always looked lovely, with lips painted deep red and the cutest wigs.
Today, she was rocking a cropped wig. Classy, yet hip. Her lips were pursed, and she was clearly pissed off. Just as clearly, I was the subject of her ire.
I laid the papers I’d rescued on the desk I usually sat at and squared up to her, figuring it was best to take the bull by the horns. “Take a breath, Daisy. Tell me what’s wrong, and what can I do to help.”
She shook her head, visibly trying to rein herself in. “The damn state auditor’s office just emailed me. They want to schedule a meeting to discuss some 501C(3) filing irregularities they found.” Her deep brown eyes bored into me. “Papers you filed, Zorah.”
I wondered if people ever grew out of that sinking, sick, childhood feeling of being called out by the teacher—singled out in class and told you’d done something wrong. Or maybe that was just me?
Taking a moment to breathe and tamp down any defensive or emotional reaction, I made myself consider her words objectively. Could I have made a mistake? I wasn’t a CPA, just a woman with most of a two-year college degree. That said, I was pretty sharp at the whole thing. I didn’t slip, not when it came to money—another reason I managed to survive in south city on a server’s income.
Being good with finances was one of my precious few super powers.
“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” I said, neatening the pile of papers. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m holding you to that, Zorah.” Daisy said seriously. “The auditor asshole will be here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. This is a big deal.”
I nodded, feeling fresh stress settle like a weight on my chest. “I don’t work at AJ’s tomorrow. I can be here. Daisy, I’ll get this sorted out. Trust me.”
Some of the tension in Daisy’s shoulders melted, and she nodded.
“Good,” she said, picking up another stack of papers. “Here. These invoices came in yesterday. They’re due ASAP.”
Her expression settled into something slightly less terrifying, and she patted me on the arm before she disappeared back into her office. I let my breath out. For the most part, Daisy was more bark than bite. She may have been one of the few paid employees here, but with a teenage daughter who’d attempted suicide twice in the past couple of years, this job wasn’t just a job to her. It wasn’t just a job for any of us.
We all had something invested in this venture. We all had something to gain by its success, and we all had something to lose by its failure. To be honest, this volunteer work was one of the few things that actually meant something to me.
Healthcare—including mental healthcare—had been one of my mother’s most important political platforms when she ran for office.
From all accounts, Sasha Bright had been an exceptionally charismatic woman. I didn’t remember very much from back then, but I remember her being beautiful. Loving. Dad said she was popular and successful growing up, and that’s how she ended up in local and state politics before running for a vacant US Senate seat.
I’d really looked up to her. All she was. All she stood for. Maybe I’d been too young to grasp everything about what she was doing, but I knew she was making the world a better place, not just for me and Dad, but for others. That’s really what pushed me to work for the non-profit. I wanted to work at something bigger than myself.
Even twenty years on, I thought of my mother a lot at this time of year, so close to when she was killed.
The older I got, the more passionately I promised myself two things. One, I’d find out what really happened to her, and two, I’d do something significant. Stand up for others who maybe couldn’t stand up for themselves. It felt like the least I could do.
“Need any help?” Vonnie Morgan—my safety call from last night and one of the few people I’d actually call a friend—approached, holding out the papers she’d picked up from the floor.
“God, yes,” I told her. “Can you help me get these invoices processed?” I gestured to the pile Daisy had handed me.
“Sure thing. I hate to say this, but you look like shit, honey,” she said, her eyes narrowed. “Rough night?”
“You have no idea,” I said with feeling.
Vonnie was the single mother of a teenage boy. He was about thirteen, I was pretty sure. She was also an amazingly strong woman, and I was a bit in awe of her. Hell, she had her kid when she was just a baby, herself. Sixteen. After dealing with a dead-beat dad who disappeared and never lifted a finger to support their kid, Vonnie still somehow managed to make ends meet and also volunteer her time.
I sometimes felt like I’d had it rough, but truth be told, I had no idea how she managed it all, supporting two people on a lowly retail salary. Vonnie was strong as steel. With only occasional babysitting help from her parents, she took care of business. Outside of MMHA, she worked two jobs and had recently started going to night school to be a paralegal.
In my eyes, she was a freaking rock star.
“So…?” Vonnie stared at me, drawing the word out and batting her long lashes as she waited for me to indulge her with some dirty details of last night.
If only I had dirty details… or anything I could share. Somehow, I doubted she wanted to hear about my quality time in the shower.
“C’mon,” she wheedled, pushing long, red hair off her shoulders. “Spill.”
She picked up papers from a chair beside my desk and sat, laid the rest of the papers in front of me then stared at me, unblinking. I gazed back blankly, still fresh out of words. It’s not like I could say much about the frankly bizarre meeting.
I’d been silent too long.
“Oh, come on.” She narrowed her gaze. “Something happened last night.” She pointed at me, eyes insinuating I was holding back. “You only texted me once. Was it horrible? Did he have radioactive bad breath? Give me a little something to work with, here!”
I rolled my eyes. “No, he didn’t have radioactive bad breath.”
“Okay, but he was hot, right?” Vonnie nudged me.
I sighed, reminded unwillingly of just how hot he was. But, beautiful face or not, he was still a vampire.
A freaking vampire.
“Yes, he was hot.” And a vampire. “Mysterious.” Like… really mysterious. “Nice body.” Too bad about the drinking blood thing.
“What did he look like?” Vonnie asked, her chin resting on her pale hands. “Details, girl. You’re letting the side down.”
I sighed. “About five-foot-ten or eleven, dark, floppy hair, English accent. Face that should be on a piece of Roman statuary somewhere.”
She blinked at me. “And your date was only ten minutes long, because…?”
“He’s trouble,” I said softly.
Vonnie regarded me with a serious expression for a moment. “The best ones are always trouble, Zorah.”
I shook my head, though. “No. He’s the kind of trouble that… I don’t know if I could get out of afterward.” At least, not aliv
e, I finished silently.
But goddamn it, fool that I was—part of me still wanted to try. Just… not for the reason Vonnie probably assumed.
SIX
“YOU’RE REALLY HARSHING my vibe here, Zorah,” Vonnie observed.
I snorted, dragging myself away from my grim musings. “Sorry, Von,” I told her. “I can make up some story for you about a quickie in the Studio 88 restroom if you’d like, but the truth is, I don’t have his number, he doesn’t have mine, and I don’t even know what his last name is. I’m pretty sure that means it’s not going anywhere.”
“He at least knows where you work,” Vonnie said optimistically. “That’s something, right?”
Yeah, it was something. I really wished I knew what.
“Maybe,” I said.
You’re stalking me, I’d accused, and he’d said, a bit, yes. He’d called me an enigma, because of my blood, then seemed to lose all interest when he’d realized I was telling the truth about not knowing what the hell he was talking about. How much could a vampire tell about you from drinking your blood?
After the meeting, I had even more questions, with no good answers and no way to track down the man who had them. I frowned. Wait, I did have one thing. I had the name Guthrie Leonides. I resolved to Google the hell out of that name as soon as I got off work this afternoon. Now, though, I’d just had a fresh crock of shit tipped into my lap in the form of this state auditor’s bizarre accusations, and I had less than two hours to try and sort it out before I needed to leave for AJ’s.
“Look, I need to try to figure out what’s going on with these filings,” I told Vonnie, who nodded her understanding and let me be.
I sat down at my desk and rifled through the papers, reorganizing them into some semblance of order. Some would be of use for the meeting tomorrow and some wouldn’t. I pulled out manila folders for those I thought would help and filed away the rest.
After spending well over an hour recalculating and double-checking the paperwork, I still couldn’t see any mistakes. I read through the message Daisy forwarded to me, went through every filing discrepancy the auditor named in the email, but not one of them looked out of place on my end. Beyond that, there wasn’t much else I could do, so I organized the files in a box and brought them to Daisy.
The Last Vampire Box Set Page 4