by Kat Cotton
I reached over to the table beside me and broke off a piece of the cake.
Oh, it was so nice being about to enjoy a cake without Clem Starr here to steal it from me. She had no morals about other people’s cake ownership. Although eating cake under her nose, knowing she could smell it and see it and almost taste it, did make the cake taste so much sweeter.
There was no way in hell I’d tell Clem Starr about the issues with the Northside Gang. There was no way in hell I’d let the pack return to help, either. I wanted those guys safe.
It wasn’t like the Northside Gang were particularly hardcore. Even their name was stupid. Northside Gang. Northside of what, for starters? I might have a pack, but we didn’t go around calling ourselves lame names. We didn’t even have a name. There was one time Jeb had wanted to give us a name and get t-shirts printed, but I’d bitched that idea out of him. No one wanted to wear lame t-shirts.
There were major differences between a pack and a gang.
A pack was family. We looked after each other and worked together, protecting each other. The best form of protection for vampires was keeping a low profile. If no one knew we existed, then they didn’t hunt us.
That was just simple common sense.
Gangs were just a bunch of thugs. They loved chaos and mayhem. If they could, they’d feed at will. They gave no thought to protection or making sure the general public didn’t go into an insane panic. Gangs made things dangerous for us. When humans formed mobs with blasting torches and stakes, they didn’t ask who the good guys were.
I’d just taken a bite of my tiny cake when something thudded in the basement. We’d spent the day doing gymnastics training. Well, Vlad had done the training, while I watched. I’d thought I could get some work done at the same time, but he was so insistent on me watching. And every time he did a trick, I had to score him. Since I knew nothing about gymnastics, I’d just say a random number. Then he’d argue with me. I had no idea why he couldn’t just score himself.
The kid never tired. He could do the same routine a hundred times without getting sick of it.
I set my cake back on the plate and went to investigate.
“Pretty man,” Vlad said when he saw me.
I’d tried to teach him to call me Nic, but that hadn’t caught on.
“Tasty?”
He wanted fresh human blood. He kept calling out for it. But he wasn’t ready. I had a steady supply of groupies only too willing to let me feed on them, but I couldn’t risk them with Vlad. It’d be terrible PR if he sucked one of them dry. Word got out about those kinds of things.
I needed a tester human. Someone who didn’t matter. I thought I’d start with humans who tortured animals. Kill one of them, and you were only doing the world a favor. But who had time to look for them? It wasn’t like I could advertise on Craigslist.
With Vlad downstairs, I’d not even fed much myself. I couldn’t risk having a live feeding in the house. Chances were, he’d smell the blood and go into a frenzy. So, instead, I’d had to grab a quick bite when I left the house. Which wasn’t very often.
I ran back upstairs and got a bag of blood from the fridge. We were almost out of blood. I’d need to get some more tomorrow, but I wanted to get out my next video as well as the usual training routine for Vlad. I needed more hours in the day.
I put the blood in the microwave. He might like it better at human body temperature.
Before I went back downstairs, I took another bite of my cake.
When I held up the bag to Vlad, he shook his head.
“Not tasty.” He stomped his foot.
Sometimes, that kid wasn’t so cute.
“It’s this or nothing.”
Vlad snatched it out of my hand.
“No. We don’t do that.”
I took the blood bag back from him. He looked like he’d lunge at me again, but I put my hand up. He stopped himself, then sat down nicely. That was how I’d trained Hellhound, and it worked on Vlad too. They needed to learn who was boss. The boss was always the one who controlled the food.
“Good. Now we get the tasty.”
He drank down the blood.
“Sleep time now.”
Even though he had a bed in the basement, he’d bundled all the blankets and pillows on the floor to make a nest. He kept doing that, and I’d put everything back on the bed. Civilized vampires slept in beds, not in a nest. Every night, I insisted he get into the bed. I’d dismantle the nest and coax him back to his bed.
I looked at the pile on the floor. It’d take ages to remake the bed, and my tea was going cold. Sleeping in the nest wouldn’t hurt just this once.
“Okay, sleep in your nest.”
He curled up on top of it and went straight to sleep. Damn kid looked too cute when he slept. I shouldn’t be too harsh on him. I pulled one of the blankets over him before I went back upstairs.
Hellhound padded in and curled up on the nest too. That dog had completely deserted me for Vlad. I guessed he’d been Vlad’s dog first.
When I got upstairs, my tea had gone cold, but the rest of my cake was still fine. I turned on the television. I needed to know that there was an outside world, not just this house and that basement.
The news showed a scene of devastation. Nothing like the damage Vlad caused, but still obviously like a vampire attack. They’d lured a few victims into the alley behind a bar and fed on them. Tacky stuff. This was another reason why I hated gangs. A quick feed in a back alley gave us all a bad name.
A girl with bedraggled hair came on screen, crying.
“You aren’t suggesting it was vampires?” the interviewer asked.
This was the biggest concern of all. Not so long ago, no one would’ve straight-out said vampires like that. Not if they didn’t want to be carted off to the nut house. But now, even if it wasn’t a vampire attack, they had no qualms about blaming us.
“They drank our blood. It’s vampires, alright. Big, ugly vampires.”
She turned her neck to the camera to show the puncture marks.
I wanted the interviewer to ask why she’d gone into the alley with him if he’d been so ugly, but I knew who was behind it. Lucio, leader of the Northside Gang. And he’d have had no second thoughts about glamming her to go into the alley with him. He was that sort. Too damn stupid to thrall her after he’d fed on her, though. Couldn’t even clean up his own messes. Stupid gangbangers.
Next, they cut to the mayor. Of course they cut to the mayor. All this talk about vampires was his fault. He’d teased it out in a public relations coup. He’d normalized vampires because he wanted us out in the open. Damn him. But, hell, he looked like a swell guy in this interview. He worked the press well.
“We have to fight this danger. We can’t have young girls being attacked in the streets.”
“Damn you, Mayor,” I said to the television.
“The city has taken urgent steps to get this matter under control, but we need public support.” Then he went on about some phone line for reporting potential vampires. He also reminded people about the curfew.
“Liar,” I said to the television.
If he’d had things under control, he wouldn’t have come around here asking me to help. I’d have to be a last resort for him, since he hated vampires so much.
Maybe it was a good time to leave this town. I had no ties here. I could terminate my Airbnb contract and find another city. This was none of my concern. If the public were on the watch-out for vampires, it could turn nasty really quick.
I turned off the television and emptied my cold tea down the sink.
Another town would be a fine thing indeed.
Chapter 6 Clem: Parasites and Ninjas
“We have to hunt for the kitsune,” Kisho said. “I don’t think that’s a good place to start.”
At least I’d been able to convince him to go to a café for breakfast.
“Well, since we have no leads, I think this Hello Kitty place is as good a place as any. After all, foxe
s eat cats, don’t they?”
I waited for Kisho to sigh and give me a very literal explanation of why the kitsune wouldn’t be at a Hello Kitty theme park. Instead, he gazed at the menu.
“If that’s what you want.”
Damn. It wasn’t what I wanted at all. Hello Kitty Land would be a nightmare. If I couldn’t provoke him, I didn’t want to go. I kept scrolling through my phone.
“A cat café? That would be even better.”
“Whatever.”
Man, when he did that “whatever,” I kind of wanted to punch him. Maybe a physical fight would clear the air faster than just provoking him. Except, Kisho would never fight me. I knew that. He’d never hit a girl, and he’d never hit a human. That made the whole plan impossible. I wasn’t sure if I could take him in a fight, anyway. As gentle as he seemed, he could fight. I’d seen that.
I called to the waitress to put in my order.
“A coffee and French toast.”
She turned to Kisho, and he repeated my order, saying pretty much the same thing I had but with a Japanese accent. To be honest, this place didn’t look very promising. It was like an old man café. I bet the coffee would be undrinkable.
“Are you eating?”
“Vampire, remember?”
Hell, yeah, I remembered. I didn’t want to add sulky, grudge-carrying vampire, because that wouldn’t make things any better. Jeez, I’d always thought that Kisho was the nice one and Nic was the bitch, but I bet Nic never held grudges. And he never refused sweet food either. He’d make snarky little comments and I’d make them back at him and we’d end up fighting, but then it’d be over. Not so with Kisho.
I’d be dead and buried before he forgave me for kissing his dad. It wasn’t even like I’d enjoyed it. I’d only done it to save them. He and Nic and the rest of their pack would be dead or the Vampire King’s bitches or something equally horrific now. I’d be dead, probably, or maybe married to the Vampire King. I’d be like the Vampire Queen and Kisho’s stepmother. Also, there was that little matter of the Vampire King wanting the Demon Child to instigate a war.
I didn’t even want gratitude or a thank you. Just some simple conversation would be good.
Outside, a zillion people were walking to their jobs. I checked them all for fox tails, but I guessed spotting a tail hanging down below someone’s jacket would be way too simple. None of them looked particularly happy to be headed to work. None of them looked foxy, either.
“Isn’t there any other way to spot them?” I asked. “Some charm or kitsune-spotting device?”
Kisho shrugged.
If I had been at home, I’d have contacts I could use. I didn’t know a single person in this city, though. Personally, I’d have been happy to just stay at the hotel, snuggled under my blankets. I was wearing a coat, but it wasn’t nearly heavy enough to deal with this cold.
My food arrived, and I ate in silence. Kisho played with his phone. People bustled around us, but at our table, there was nothing but silence. I missed the old Kisho.
“Okay, let’s go to the cat café.”
Surely, cute little kittens would melt his heart. He was not the sort of person to be unresponsive to cats.
We got to the cat café and paid some ridiculous amount of money. That made me rethink the whole idea. We could go to a park or somewhere and play with stray cats for free. I guessed these café cats would be free of all diseases, though. Maybe. I wasn’t really a cat person.
The first cat hissed at me. The second one tried to bite me. The third one scratched my arm. Why did the cats hate me? Maybe they just hated working in a café and having dumb humans fool with them all day. Whose stupid idea was this cat café, anyway?
Kisho in the corner, a kitten curled up on his knee purring.
How come he’d got the good cat? I’d got the feral little bitches. He was the undead one. Shouldn’t animals sense that?
We left for the next place on my agenda. On the way to the station, we passed a stall on the street.
“What are those fish-shaped things?” I asked Kisho.
“Taiyaki. It’s like a pancake outside with filling, usually red beans.”
That sounded potentially delicious. And it was mind-broadening to try out new cultural experiences.
I ordered one, and the old man handed it to me in a sleeve of paper. I tried to take a bite, but it was too hot. What the hell, Kisho? He was supposed to say “don’t bite that, it’s too hot.” Now, he never warned me about anything. He never let me snuggle with him or touch him or any of the fun stuff. I could die, and he wouldn’t even care.
As we walked down the busy street, dodging all the slow walkers, I nibbled sadly at the top of my little fish. At least it warmed my hands.
Was it even worth trying to win Kisho back? Maybe I should just focus on getting this case solved and move on. He’d never feel the same way about me again. The cold weather chilled my skin, and the tall buildings around us never let any sun through. I wanted to go home and curl up in my warm bed. Except I had no home. I’d need to sort that out sometime.
Then I saw a building and rushed over.
“This is karaoke, right?”
“No, it isn’t.”
I couldn’t read the Japanese on the sign, but I was pretty damn sure it was.
“There’s a poster with people singing.”
“It’s just advertising.”
But he did that slight twitch thing he did when he lied. He couldn’t fool me.
I walked into the building. A young boy stood at the desk. He said something to me in Japanese.
“Karaoke?” I asked.
I would not be denied my karaoke, no matter how hard Kisho tried.
The boy nodded. He said something, then asked me how long in broken English.
“One hour?” I actually had no idea about anything, but an hour sounded good.
He nodded, then pointed to Kisho.
I nodded back. “Yep, we’re together.”
Kisho groaned. Groaning was good. If he thought things were bad now, he should just wait until he heard me sing. He did come over to the counter to join me.
“Onedrink!” the boy said. He said it as one word. “Onedrink order.”
Ah, we had to order a drink. No problem.
I scanned through the menu and pointed at something that looked like hot tea.
He handed me a little folder with a room number on it: 405. Then he pointed to the elevator. Woohoo. That had been easy. I hadn’t even needed Kisho.
Kisho followed me into the elevator but still didn’t look at me.
I found the room. It wasn’t very big, and it reeked of stale smoke. I grabbed a microphone, then saw a portable screen thing. Damn, I bet that was in Japanese too. I’d have to ask Kisho to help, and he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about this thing.
But, no. There was a handy “English” button on the screen. I could rock this karaoke thing.
“This is not helping find the kitsune,” Kisho said.
“It’s putting me in the right mindset.”
He stood by the door, but I shuffled over on the bench to make room for him. He reluctantly sat beside me. Even though he sat on the very edge, our knees almost touched. Between the bench and the hideous glass-topped table, there wasn’t much room for his long legs. Even better for me.
What did I want to sing?
I scrolled through the songs until I found “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Bon Jovi? Hell, yeah.
The music started, and I gripped the microphone. I’d own this song.
When the chorus started, I jumped up on the table screaming out the words.
Then the music stopped. Silence.
Huh?
Kisho had the controller in his hands.
“Did you stop my song?”
“Please don’t ever try to sing that song again.”
I jumped off the table. “Why?”
His eyes flashed, and he actually looked at my face, not the floor or the ceiling or some spot
on the wall. This was major, major progress.
“Have you ever heard yourself sing?”
I shrugged. “It’s Bon Jovi. It’s about loudness, not tunefulness. Don’t sing-shame me, okay?”
He opened his mouth, ready to say something, but closed it again and handed me the controller.
“Do as you like. Put your song back on.”
Damn. He closed up faster than a clam.
“NINJA TRAINING?”
“It’s not just helpful in hunting for the kitsune. It’s giving me useful fighting skills.”
“You realize everyone else here is under fourteen years old. It’s not genuine ninja training.”
I tied the ninja headband around my head.
“If it was genuine, then it wouldn’t be in the tourist brochure. Duh. Everyone knows ninja are furtive. That’s the core thing about them. Having an ad in This Week in Tokyo kind of kills that.” I tipped my head to the side and thought for a moment. “Or does it? Maybe that’s the cleverest thing of all. Hiding in plain sight.”
I shut up while we learnt to throw ninja stars. We had a competition throwing them at a straw target. Me versus the teenage boys.
Ha, by the time we’d finished that, those fourteen-year-old boys were in tears because I’d kicked their asses. Teach them to underestimate me just because I was a girl. And white.
One of them scowled like he wanted to kill me. I bet he’d have tried if I hadn’t flashed my ninja star at him in a threatening way.
“What’s Japanese for ‘in your face, bitch’?”
Kisho wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t throw the ninja stars, either. That was probably a good thing, because I had a horrible feeling he’d make me look like an amateur.
“Okay,” I said. “Time to go.”
“I DON’T THINK THE KITSUNE will be at the parasite museum.”
Kisho had gone even paler than his normal vampire white.
“It’s a fox. They have parasites. They’re probably riddled with them.”
“I’ll wait in the foyer.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “And if I miss the kitsune because I’m on my own?”