“Who are you?” Megan asked, her head swimming.
“Angeline. I already told you.” She walked farther into the bedroom and looked around.
Megan tried to look at it from a stranger’s point of view. It was mostly neat. Megan’s bed was made, but she had folded clothes on her dresser that needed to be put away. The walls were a pale yellow with pink accents.
“You don’t strike me as a pastels type of girl.”
Megan sat gingerly on the edge of her bed, questioning her own sanity. She should be running from the apartment. She should be calling the police. But in theory this woman had saved her, and curiosity got the better of her. “I am begging you, tell me who you are, what you want, and how you got in here. Please.”
Angeline seemed to sense that Megan was on the verge of tears. She sighed heavily and leaned against the treadmill. “My name is Angeline Vallencourt, I don’t want anything, and I got in through your back slider. I was able to just walk in like I had an open invitation. Your lock snapped like uncooked spaghetti. You should probably have that replaced.”
Now she had a broken door to contend with too. “If you don’t want anything, then why are you here? In my house? Why were you there tonight? I don’t understand. Any of it.”
Angeline rolled her neck back and forth. She took off her black overcoat, revealing baby blue scrubs with a Fog Hollow Veterinary Hospital logo above the right breast pocket. Beneath the words was a silhouette of a dog. “Okay. Remember how I told you earlier that I fed you some of my blood to save you? From dying?”
Megan looked away from her awkwardly. “Yes. And that wasn’t weird at all.”
“I guess I did my job a little too well. Apparently, you drank more than was necessary, so now we’re bonded. Blood bond. For real.”
Well, that sounded horrifying. “I don’t even know what that means. This all sounds like complete nonsense. No offense.” The hanger was looking more and more appealing. If Angeline was as delusional as she sounded, Megan feared that she might attack at the slightest provocation. Although her demeanor suggested otherwise.
“None taken.” Angeline shrugged. “I’m not usually so open about myself, and I’m sure you can see why. This would be the response ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, I’m positive. But I figured what the hell. I’m not in the mood to concoct a story. You seem like a nice enough person. So anyway, when enough of my blood enters your system, it creates a bond between us. When you’re upset or panicked or just generally uneasy, I’m going to feel it.”
“Come on, that’s insane.” Megan let out a strangled laugh, unable to make eye contact.
“But true. Why do you think I’m here? You were crying, weren’t you?”
Megan looked at the carpet, focusing on the fact that she needed to vacuum. “I was. But anyone could have guessed that. I was nearly killed and there are two people lying in a morgue right now that I saw alive just a few hours ago. Of course I was crying.”
“Okay, you can go with that if you want to. That’s understandable, of course, but what I was feeling was more of an imminent thing. But I get it. I should probably get back to work anyway. I called in my backup to cover while I checked on you. Since there doesn’t seem to be any threat to your life at the moment, I think I’m good.”
“Why would you bother? Even if this whole…thing…is true, you don’t know me. So what if I’m upset?”
“I have to, especially in the beginning. It’s strong, and sort of debilitating. I have an acute sense of what you’re feeling. If I don’t ease whatever trauma you’re experiencing, it becomes mine. Does that make sense?” Angeline asked.
“Sure.” Megan rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Of course it does.”
“It doesn’t last forever. As time goes by, the bond gets weaker and weaker, and then it just goes away. That’s one of the disadvantages to healing people. It’s hard to tell how much is too much. But at least it’s temporary.”
“Okay.” Megan shifted in discomfort. Part of her wanted to escape the lunatic in front of her, but the dissenting part of her was highly intrigued by the sincerity in Angeline’s voice.
Without another word, Angeline turned and walked into Megan’s kitchen. Shaking her head, Megan got up and followed her. She needed to call the police. At the very least they’d want to talk to her. She dug Nolan’s card out of her jeans pocket and shakily dialed his number on her cell. Voice mail. “She’s here,” she whispered. “Angeline. Hurry.” She stuffed the card into her flannel pants and found Angeline in the kitchen with her back turned.
Angeline was standing behind the counter, selecting a knife. She pulled out the butcher knife and turned back toward Megan.
“What are you doing with that?” Megan asked, swallowing hard.
“It’s obvious you don’t believe me, and I need you to in order for this to be less awkward than it needs to be. So, I’ll prove it to you.” She held out her arm and began to cut a long slice up the center. She hissed at the contact.
“No!” Megan yelled. She made a move toward her but felt her knees grow weak at the spectacle.
As quickly as the cut opened, it healed. There were no remnants of any wound on Angeline’s arm. It was as smooth as it was before she had picked up the knife. “See? And that’s how I healed you. Same idea. My blood is magical,” she said sarcastically, wiggling her fingers in Megan’s direction.
“What are you?” Megan asked. Her voice cracked in a mix of awe and fear.
“I think you know.”
“You’re a—”
Angeline held her hand up. “We don’t have to say it. I’ve never liked the label. But yes. I have to get going. Your cop friend is going to be here any minute, and I don’t really want to deal with that right now.”
Megan was about to ask how she knew that but decided it was a fruitless question. She still wasn’t sure if she was actually on planet earth, in a terrible dream sequence, or maybe dead. And this was obviously hell.
“Do you live here?”
“In Fog Hollow? Yes.”
“How have I never seen you before? It’s a small town,” Megan said. She swallowed hard.
“Maybe you have. But unless you frequent the vet’s office in the overnight hours, it’s not much of a mystery. I don’t go out all that much. All of these delivery services they have now are a godsend.”
Merlin came out from under the bed and sauntered over to Angeline. Her eyes brightened into that honey color that Megan had had such a hard time describing. Angeline picked him up and put her face up to his.
“Oh God, please don’t kill my cat!” Megan clamped a hand over her mouth. She’d read enough stories to know that vampires fed on animals as a snack between their human entrées.
Angeline placed Merlin on the floor near his food bowl and turned angrily to Megan. “What do you think I am, some kind of monster? Whatever. Apparently, I’ll never learn. If the good detective is looking for me, tell him he’ll be hot on my trail somewhere in Transylvania. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him where to find me. I’d prefer to continue my quiet existence without law enforcement up my ass.”
Angeline walked out the front door and shut it tightly behind her. Megan ran after her, opened the door, and peered down the sidewalk. Nothing. No car, no bicycle, no Angeline. She could hear a siren in the distance growing closer.
Nolan pulled up to her curb and killed his flashers. He saw her standing on the front porch and raised his hands into the “what gives” gesture.
Megan shook her head. “She’s gone. She must have heard me call you, though I don’t know how. I whispered and I was in my bedroom at the time.” She was sort of lying. She was pretty sure she did know how; she just didn’t want to admit it. Megan grasped on to her last perceived vestiges of sanity with an ironclad grip.
“What was she doing here?” Nolan asked, looking up and down the street. Megan lived on a quiet, tree-lined street with very few cars not in driveways. If there was someone on the s
treet, they’d be easy enough to spot.
“I don’t really know,” Megan said thoughtfully. She frantically tried to decide if she should tell Nolan the truth or continue to be vague.
“You didn’t ask?” He didn’t look like he believed her. “Was she here to hurt you? Kill you?”
“Do you want to come in?” Megan asked, holding her door open wide. It was much too chilly to continue the conversation from her front porch. Plus, she had no interest in her neighbors overhearing anything about the undead.
Nolan took a seat at her kitchen table. He played with the fringe of her moss-colored place mat while looking down. Megan offered him something to drink, and when he declined, sat down across from him.
“Look, Megan, if I’m going to help you, you have to be honest with me. I gave you the benefit of the doubt earlier, but I feel like you’re either keeping something from me or stringing me along to distract me. Either way, it’s an obstruction of justice.”
Megan squirmed. “Okay. You want me to tell you? I’ll tell you. She showed up in my bedroom and told me it was because she knew I was upset. By swallowing her blood in that parking lot, it created some kind of weird bond that every time I feel something, she feels it too. She cut her arm and let me watch it heal immediately so she could prove that she’d done what she’d said she’d done. And then she left. I didn’t see her drive away, she just seemed to vanish.” Megan pursed her lips and shrugged. That was it. He could either believe her, not believe her, arrest her, or commit her. But at least she wasn’t waffling between telling him and keeping it a secret anymore.
Nolan just stared at her, much like he had earlier at the station. He laced his fingers together and closed his eyes. “If you were me, Megan, and someone told you that story, how would you react?”
Megan ignored the condescension in his voice. “Honestly? I wouldn’t believe them. I barely believe myself, and I was here for it.”
“I don’t really know how to protect you, if that’s even what you need at this point. Tell me something.” He leveled his eyes at her. “Did you kill Richie Haim?”
“Of course not! I was his victim. You saw that on camera. I didn’t even know he was dead until Angeline told me!” Megan felt a bolt of panic shoot through her. They didn’t really think she was guilty of killing the shooter, did they? “Did you check for fingerprints?”
“Yes. Everything is being done by the book. But it’s not like one of those crime scene shows where every test has results in minutes. Sometimes these things can take days, even weeks. So, if you had something you wanted to tell me, it would be a lot easier to just get it out on the table now instead of waiting.”
“I have nothing to tell you that I haven’t already,” Megan said. She sighed. “I called you, remember? You’re not the only one who doesn’t understand what’s going on. I have as many questions as you do, probably more.”
“Did she have an accent? What was she wearing? Anything that might provide some insight into where came from?” Nolan asked.
Megan swallowed. She should just tell Nolan, let him find Angeline, and wash her hands of the whole situation. It would really make things a lot easier, and besides, aside from her life, what did she really owe this woman?
“Scrubs. Blue. Nothing particularly distinctive about them.” Dammit. It was her opportunity to come clean, and she couldn’t force the words out of her mouth.
He sighed and shook his head. He made a note and looked up toward the ceiling. “Okay. We need to talk to this woman. If she shows up again, please call me. I’ll try to get here quicker next time. You don’t have any travel plans or anything like that coming up, correct?” Nolan asked. He walked out the front door before turning to face her.
“No, Detective Nolan. I’m not taking off or leaving the country or anything. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Good night,” he said, jogging down the stairs to his car.
Megan flipped the deadbolt, although the lock on her slider was apparently as strong as uncooked spaghetti. Her house was too quiet. She asked Alexa to play some classical music and turned down her covers. Merlin slept in a ball at the foot of her bed. Megan pulled her comforter up to her chin and stared at the ceiling. She had never been so tired and so wide-awake in her entire life.
Chapter Seven
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, 1929
Angeline drew circles in the sand with her toe while Kathryn added a few more sticks to the small fire that separated them. The waves crashed under the starlit sky. Everything was peaceful. Mostly everything.
“I’m so bored. You never want to do anything.”
Angeline sighed. “We are doing something. We’re enjoying a nice fire on the beach.”
Kathryn rolled her eyes. “Somehow I don’t think the dark lord or whoever the hell designed us to be ruthless killers envisioned us sitting on a beach sipping iced tea.”
“There is no dark lord, Kathryn. We share a blood disease. Nothing more, nothing less. All of those myths are just that—myths. Every library in every city we’ve been to in the last three years has confirmed the same thing. No one has any idea what we really are. We’ve become old, stale legends turned into bedtime stories to scare children.” Angeline shrugged and continued to mark the sand.
“Ugh, you’re such a flat tire. How about we go into Charleston and find a dance hall? I wouldn’t mind getting fried on some of those handsome locals.” Kathryn raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“No, thanks.”
“Or how about, in your case, some of those pretty locals?”
“Knock it off, Kathryn.” Angeline stood up and brushed the sand from her blouse. She walked toward the ocean and let the cool water run over her feet. It had been three years, three long years, since she had seen her family, her friends, her home. Kathryn insisted that it would be too dangerous to tell anyone about her transformation. Her own parents might see her as an abomination and have her destroyed. She had no choice but to disappear completely.
At first, Angeline was enthralled by her heightened senses. Lights were brighter, smells were richer, sounds were clearer. She missed the familiarity of Benjamin, but the freedom of her new life allowed her to see that she had settled into what was expected of her. Benjamin was a good man who had treated her with kindness and respect, but the great love of romance novels didn’t exist between them. Angeline had never experienced that kind of love with anyone, and she had finally concluded why. She wanted that kind of love with a woman, not a man.
It wasn’t that Angeline had never acknowledged those types of feelings within herself. But it simply wasn’t an option to outwardly admit that kind of thing. Angeline had always assumed that she had been born with one of the wires crossed in her brain. It was something to power through and ignore, otherwise she’d end up in some sort of facility. Kathryn had shown her that that wasn’t the case. In fact, there were many women who shared the same feelings. And there was nothing wrong with that.
In the two hundred years or so that Kathryn had roamed the earth, she’d encountered many different types of people. She’d even had a relationship with a woman once, a duchess, but she’d determined that her preference was men. She’d shared many of her stories with Angeline, and they’d had quite a few laughs over her misadventures. Kathryn’s openness and accepting nature was one of the few things that Angeline admired.
What daunted Angeline most was the thought of her parents. Their devastation, their grief. How were they getting along with the knowledge that their daughter was missing and likely dead? Angeline wasn’t the type to just take off without a word, and they knew that. Her mother in particular would never believe that Angeline had run off with another man or had left to start a new life. It wasn’t in her bones. If not for the constant threat of her own demise, Angeline would have defied Kathryn years ago to find a way back home.
Angeline closed her eyes as she felt Kathryn’s presence sidle up behind her.
“You know, you probably wouldn’t
be such a wet blanket if you fed a little more often. More energy and less mope.” Kathryn twirled a strand of Angeline’s hair around her finger.
Angeline pulled away. “I didn’t ask for this. I know you wanted a little friend to drag along so you wouldn’t have to be alone, but why did you choose me? Maybe I wasn’t the picture of happiness and truth, but it was a hell of a lot better than this.” It wasn’t their first argument in the three years they’d been together, and Angeline was pretty sure it wouldn’t be their last.
Kathryn stood back, her eyebrow quirked. “I chose you because I sensed fire within you. I recognized the longing inside you. I thought you wanted to watch the world burn too. Clearly I was mistaken.”
“Clearly.”
“Plus, you were an easy target. That helped.”
“Giving me a choice would have been appreciated. You picked me out the same way a person picks out a dog. Wouldn’t you rather have had your partner go along with you willingly?” Angeline could feel the muscles in her gums twitching, threatening to lower her cuspids. She was generally able to keep her anger in check, but she was losing her desire to do so.
Kathryn laughed. “Do you know anyone who would willingly let a person bite their neck and turn them into a vampire? If that person does exist, I assure you, I wouldn’t want them tagging along.”
“I hate that word and you know it.” She cast a glance at the beat-up copy of Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion lying in the sand near their fire pit. Kathryn had mocked her mercilessly for reading it. But it provided her with a way to ground herself. She can’t upset you. She can’t upset you. She can’t upset you. Kathryn was pushing her on purpose.
“Vampire. Vampire. Sorry, sugar, you’re just going to have to accept it. It’s who we are. It’s who you are. We’re the undead. Monsters. Bloodsuckers. Forever and ever and ever.”
Before she could stop herself, Angeline pushed Kathryn. Hard. Kathryn flew backward, landing inches from the blazing firepit.
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