The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  “Danielle?” I asked as I stumbled to a stop. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I asked the others, and they all said you hadn’t fed in a while. I’ve rested the longest, so I thought I’d come see if you needed some.”

  I smiled. This was a great example of Danielle’s generous heart. It seemed a waste to have her down amongst us creatures of the night.

  “I am pretty hungry,” I said as I pushed my door open.

  Tereus was waiting on my bed. My cat watched as I drank from Danielle’s neck. I was growing comfortable enough with feeding that I didn’t feel the need to have a supervisor present. Tereus would claw me in the backside if I got carried away. His assistance was nearly needed, but I managed to pull myself away from her tender neck just as her knees began to shake.

  “Oh Danielle, I’m so sorry.” I wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve. “I guess I was hungrier than I realized. I’m so sorry!”

  I helped her to the edge of my bed, where she sat for a moment.

  “I’m okay,” she finally said with a small smile.

  I grabbed my new cellphone and called down to the human level, the level the vampires were not allowed to enter. Minutes later, Mike Lowel appeared to help Danielle down the stairs. Just as I genuinely liked Danielle, I genuinely hated Mike. I didn’t even mind drinking his blood.

  Mike had been a small-time politician in Olympia, until he was caught embezzling funds from a state run orphanage. I couldn’t have written a better criminal, and I found myself struggling to not drain him dry whenever it was his turn to feed me.

  He didn’t like being my “sheep” any more than I liked having him, but we both needed each other. I needed him for obvious reasons, while he needed a place to hide from the disaster he had created. He had lost his job, his home, and his wife.

  He glowered at me as he slipped an arm around Danielle’s waist and helped her to her feet. I ignored him as I gave Danielle’s arm a gentle squeeze in parting. She smiled at me and shuffled away.

  Despite my guilt concerning Josh, I suddenly felt worlds better.

  “Now, what have I missed?” asked my cat, hinting that I had been leaving him in the dark.

  I filled Tereus in on our plan to find all the ritual tools and the two favors we had amassed in the process. Tereus just stared at me as I began pulling clothing out of my drawers and arranging them on the bed. I didn’t want to address his judging eyes. He didn’t like the idea of me gallivanting off to foreign nations. I could read the entire lecture in his silent stare.

  I glanced around my room, suddenly realizing that I didn’t own any luggage. Even before the fire that had destroyed nearly all my worldly possessions, I had only owned one large duffle bag. Before I could figure out what I ought to do, I heard a knock on my door.

  I opened it to find Jim on the other side with a menagerie of matching suitcases.

  “I thought you might not have any luggage for your trip,” he said in a sickeningly sweet voice.

  I cringed. Nik and Josh’s infatuation I could take with a certain amount of grace—maybe it was because I knew them well enough to feel something in return—but Jim didn’t know me in the least. With him, it was so incredibly obvious that his infatuation was purely Sedgrave-driven. I forced my grimace into a smile as I stepped out of his way; no matter how annoyed I was with him, this wasn’t his fault. I would just have to keep reminding myself of this fact.

  “Thank you, Jim. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  I helped Jim bring the abundance of cases into my room and escorted him back out without saying a word. I saw him open his mouth as if to say something, but firmly yet gently pushed my door shut. Despite my recent meal, I didn’t have the energy to deal with him. Unlike the others, I knew exactly where I stood with Jim. I felt I needed to be firm in my denial, even if our last conversation on the topic hadn’t gone as planned.

  Tereus made a noise that could have been a chuckle as he resettled on the bed. Like all cats, Tereus slept twenty-three hours of every day. I glanced around at the cases, ignoring my cat and wondering why Jim had thought I would need this many. There were enough to fill the cargo hold of the Titanic. I didn’t even have enough clothing to fill them all. I selected two of the smaller bags and put them on the bed, then stacked the remaining cases in the corner. There was even a round hat box in the group.

  Twenty minutes later I was packed and completely unsure what to do with myself. Before I had spent more than a few minutes sitting on my bed petting Tereus, I heard another knock on my door.

  “Come in,” I said without getting up.

  Josh poked his head in and glanced at the packed cases. “I see Jim took care of you.”

  I nodded with a sigh.

  “Nik says it’s time to head to the airport.”

  I glanced at the clock. It read one-thirty. “Do we have time to make it to the airport and fly out?”

  “If we hurry.”

  I pushed myself off the bed, giving Tereus one last pat.

  “Jim has agreed to look in on Tereus,” Josh said as he grabbed my luggage.

  I followed Josh up to the main level where Nik, Emma, and Mikhail waited. Josh passed my luggage off to the humans currently hauling supplies up to the ground level before kneeling down beside his little ghost dog. He tried to pet it, but Josh’s hand slide right through its head. The dog yipped, jumped around in a circle, and ran off.

  “Guess that’s it,” said Josh.

  “Think he’ll follow us?” Nik asked, sounding as annoyed with the dog as he always was.

  “No clue. He’s stayed mostly in the seethe since he found me here.”

  “Ready to go on a trip?” Mikhail asked, slapping a sleek leather booklet into my hand.

  I flipped it open and saw my smiling face staring back at me. It was my passport, and a damn good fake. I flipped through it, felt the edges of the thick paper, and slid my fingers over the empty pages. Soon I would have my first stamp, even if it was in a fake passport.

  “I think I am,” I said to my primus.

  Chapter Five

  Have you ever had to spend an entire day stuck in the airport while trying not to get scorched to death by the sun? Have you ever done this on Valentine’s Day while surrounded by two men trying to romance you while one of their exes watched?

  No?

  Well, let me tell you, you are missing out!

  We arrived at the airport at three-thirty in the morning and raced through the normal lines as fast as anyone can at an international airport in the wee hours of the morning. It was nearly five o’clock when we finally made it to the small terminal where our private jet waited. Through the large windows I could see the thick clouds beginning to turn gray with the approaching sun.

  We were about to board when technical difficulties were announced. Nik displayed an impressive knowledge of curse words in a variety of languages before ushering us back into the deeper portions of the large airport.

  It was a long day of navigating the field of love, even with Emma playing defensive linebacker for me. Though both men were clearly trying to be nonchalant about it, each one bought me a drink at one point and later offered me food, offering the same to Emma as an afterthought. I cringed, and she winked at me, enjoying my discomfort.

  Finally, when I couldn’t take it any longer, Emma and I went to peruse the little shops designed to lure the money of stranded travelers away from their wallets. Despite my comparative wealth to last year, I kept my money to myself in all the stores except for one. In one I found a selection of cheap paperback books and bought two with mostly naked cowboys on them. I chose them more to annoy Nik and Josh than to enjoy myself. Still, reading would pass the time. Emma bought a book too and we returned to the restaurant.

  When the sun set that evening, we returned to the terminal, boarded the plane, and waited.

  I asked Nik why we weren’t leaving and he informed me that if we had left right at sunset, we would have arrived in London during the da
y. We waited until about midnight before taking off.

  The plane being owned by vampires meant the windows had been double shaded. As it turned out, the pilots were donors to Mikhail. Evidently the primus had a large flock of human sheep. Rumor had it some donors would go months without being called upon, and only then when Mikhail grew worried his effect on them was fading.

  I selected one of the sideways-facing couches and sprawled across it in a clear message of unwelcome. Emma took a seat near my head, further defending me from the men. Nik and Josh took a pair of seats on the other side of the little jet, sitting together in solidarity.

  I smirked to myself as I opened my book and continued to read. Before I had made it through two paragraphs, a perky woman in a blue dress suit and white scarf tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Miss? I must ask you to sit up and put your seatbelt on for takeoff.”

  I obeyed, and long before I would have expected it, we began to trundle down the tarmac.

  Much like the day in the airport, the nearly twenty hours of flight were unbearably boring. I even let Emma paint my nails.

  At about ten o’clock in the evening, London time, we landed at Heathrow Airport.

  I smiled at all the men and women with beautiful accents and, to no one’s surprise, they smiled back. Nik took the lead, weaving his way through the throng of travelers flocking around Heathrow. I had always thought SeaTac to be a big airport. Heathrow took my breath away. Most of its walls were made of glass, making me more resigned to the hours we had spent waiting on the tarmac in Seattle.

  Our entourage made its way through the crowd and out to the wide sidewalk where other arrivals were being picked up. Waiting for us idled two large sedans. The cars transported us across London to an exquisite stone building. The discrete stone signs running beside the steps declared it to be the Corinthia Hotel.

  Sitting in the back of the sedan I had missed most of the views of the world’s greatest city, but I wasn’t missing anything now. Men jumped to attention and opened the doors, guiding us out of our cars. They treated us like any visitor, unaware of what we were or what we ate, by helping to carry in our array of luggage.

  Like the outside of the hotel, the lobby was beautiful, but in a more ostentatious way. My jaw settled on the ground, and I felt Josh’s equal astonishment as we both eyed our surroundings. Nik and Emma appeared to feel more at home as they sauntered up to the desk.

  My eyes traveled up to a globe of glowing glass, while Josh continued to ogle the glossy floor. Our eyes drifted over the tall columns, the modern flower arrangements, and finally to the rich guests passing toward the exit or the concierge’s desk.

  I tried to school my features to look as though I belonged in this opulent place, but before I could, three more men garbed in matching uniforms materialized to retrieve our luggage and lead us up to our rooms. We took a crowded elevator ride up to the seventh floor.

  The bellhops guided us to two double doors and into our suite. While the lobby had been opulent and over the top, our suite was simply beautiful. The far wall of the center room was entirely made up of a row of curved windows, creating a little sitting space that hung out over the sidewalk. The tall windows were draped in thick curtains. A long couch and matching chairs sat around a fireplace. Off this room were four bedrooms. We parted ways to admire our chosen rooms while our two bellhops sorted out the luggage, most of which ended up in Emma’s room.

  We waited an hour or so before slipping back out of the hotel. Nik had informed us that he had taken the suites for two nights, but hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary to stay that long. I wasn’t so sure we would be lucky enough to find this broach in a city of 8.3 million people and covering over six hundred square miles (when you’re bored in your hotel you google things), but Nik seemed confident.

  “Do you even know where to start?” I asked quietly as we piled back into our sedan, this time with Nik behind the wheel. He drove through the narrow streets with the ease of a London inhabitant.

  “I have known Drake for about two centuries, and only known him to ever piss off one individual, who happens to live here in London,” explained Nik. “He didn’t give us specifics because he knew he didn’t need to.”

  I kept my mouth shut on any teasing remarks and focused on enjoying what views I could see from the back seat. Despite the late hour, most of the roads were still teeming with activity. This was truly the city that never slept.

  As Nik drove us deeper into the city, the traffic began to ease until we were slipping through dark neighborhoods of ancient, small shops. Finally, Nik pulled the sedan to the side of the street. We climbed out after him and jogged across the narrow street. At the end of the block he led us into a street guarded from car traffic by three pegs sunk deep in the pavement. I could tell that at one time the street had been wide enough for the original cars of London, but now it was much too narrow for the modern cars and any pedestrian traffic.

  We hurried through the darkness and down to one of the last buildings. With nimble fingers and a few special tools, Nik picked the lock.

  “It can’t really be this simple,” I whispered as we slipped into the little shop.

  I had no idea how to categorize the tiny market. Near the front sat a few cases of non-perishable food items. Further back I found basic supplies such as batteries, garbage bags, paper plates, and Band-Aids. Beyond this section I found tall shelves full of nick-knacks. I spotted everything from used cast-iron pans, bits of jewelry, decorative signs, comic books, toys no long found at Toys-R-Us, and ugly Christmas decorations.

  “Look around,” whispered Nik as he pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight.

  Twenty-first century thieves, I thought to myself as I did the same and began shifting through the shelves piled with second-rate items.

  We scoured the ledges, some of which ran up the walls until we needed the fancy ladder that slid across the built in shelves. I was on the ladder, searching a shelf near the ceiling of the two story building when Josh called out in a hoarse whisper:

  “This it?” he asked as he shined his cell-phone light onto a small item in his hand.

  We scurried to his side and admired the little broach in his hand. Just as Drake had described it, the tiny dragon was made of gold, with a pearl in his mouth, one in its claw, and another tucked into the curl of its tail.

  “Doesn’t seem like much,” I whispered to the others.

  “It wouldn’t to you,” said a voice from the back of the shop just as the lights flickered on.

  Without hesitating, Josh closed his fist around our booty and charged out of the shop. We were just a split second behind him. With our vampire speed, we were out of the shop before the man could begin to give chase. Normally, we would have easily been able to outrun the shopkeeper, but we reached the narrow street and skidded to a stop.

  Crouching on the roof of the opposite building loomed a dragon, one front claw grasping the awning of a shop entrance. It wasn’t quite like the dragon Nik and I had faced shortly after I had turned into a vampire. That dragon had appeared, in retrospect, almost comical. This dragon was just huge. It was Pete the Dragon compared to Smaug.

  The scales of this dragon shimmered in the moonlight, making the gray color of its hide look almost silver. It opened its mouth and let out a horrendous roar, revealing its dagger-length teeth. A tail long enough to wrap around a semi-truck lashed out, smashing into one of the buildings second-story windows. The dragon let out another roar and I felt the damp night air warm under its breath. A second later, it opened its mouth again and a stream of fire erupted into the air, driving down to where we stood.

  All four of us dove for cover behind cement plant pots and in deep-set doorways, barely avoiding the sudden torrent of fire. Josh and Nik began to scurry around, dodging this way and that as the dragon continued to breathe fire down on them. From where I crouched, I spotted different portions of the street on fire. The dragon’s breath had lit a few window and door frames on
fire, as well as the tires of a distant bike. I glanced around, looking for something iron to use as a weapon.

  I was beginning to wonder if we needed to just keep iron daggers hidden in our clothing.

  Though we had a treaty with the fae courts around the Pacific Northwest of the United States, any agreement there had no effect on the European fae, especially when we had stolen from them.

  As I was looking for a weapon, Emma dove into my protective nook, one shoulder looking as though it had been burned.

  “We need iron,” I yelled pointlessly over the snarl of the dragon.

  Emma looked at me as though I was telling her the sun was yellow. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my search, half my attention on the men zig-zagging around the narrow street. Before I could find anything, my attention was attracted to a creaking, crunching noise from behind my head. I turned to see Emma tearing decorative iron workings off the little window near the top of the door. She handed me one of the straight pieces before tearing one off for herself.

  I led Emma out of our hiding place and across the street, just as Nik crossed to another hiding place, attracting the dragon’s attention. Using things like window seals, gutters, and decorative trimmings, we climbed the outside of the brick buildings. As a human, I never would have made it past the first-story window, but as a vampire, the only difficulty was keeping ourselves from being noticed by the angry beast perched on top of the building.

  We quickly began to notice that the dragon would lose interest in us if we held still, therefore we refrained from moving unless either Nik or Josh was distracting it.

  As we climbed, I tried not to think of Jurassic Park. Like the t-rex in the movie, the dragon could only see us when we moved. Unlike the t-rex, this dragon was not a computer-generated beast. It was real, and its fire could really kill us.

  Emma and I reached the second-story windows. I made the mistake of glancing in, where I noticed a young woman peering out the window, a frown wrinkling her eyebrows. Though the fae worked special magic to keep humans from noticing their activities, this woman was noticing, on some level, that something was wrong. I absently wondered if she had a little fae blood in her family tree.