Bram Stoker, Dracula.
* * *
I knew the moment Acacia went from being an inanimate corpse to an animated one, something with a will inside. Her eyes snapped wide and her entire body jerked uselessly, mummified as she was, and she took a reflexive, hissing breath as the pain of the open wound bit. The hiss became a wail when, twisting her head, she couldn’t look anywhere without seeing a cross. She finally scrunched her eyes closed.
“Stephanie?” I said softly. She gasped again and her eyes flew open. I knelt astride her outstretched legs, shoulders and back eclipsing the cross directly behind me.
“Jacky? Why did you—no! I wasn’t going to hurt him!”
“Of course not, Stephanie.” Just half-drain him, you greedy witch. I kept it out of my voice, focused on channeling a stern Grams. “May I call you Steph?”
“No! She’s dead!”
“So’s Jacky, dead for years. Acacia’s fine then. And Paul’s fine, so we’re fine.”
“Then…” Her eyes drifted to the cross-covered walls, snapped back to my face as she shuddered. “We’re okay? You can let me go?” She tried to smile.
I shook my head. “Nope. We’re both stuck in here together until I get what I want. Then the nice priest who redecorated for me will let us out. Understand?”
“No.” Her voice got small, thready, and now I just felt sick. She wasn’t a fighter, wasn’t hard, beyond what her condition made her—just somebody’s tool. Taking breath for words, she flinched again. “I’m bleeding.”
“I know. It’ll pass.” I pulled up my borrowed shirt. “I got a matching one.” The twisted mark of Dupree’s stake was fading fast, but still visible in the bright light of the room’s bare bulb. Her eyes widened.
“Your brother did that, after he found you and you didn’t recognize him. Thought I’d sired you and staking me would free you. Brotherly love is nice.” I pulled the shirt back down. “Of course he missed.”
“I never saw Rob! What do you want?”
Gotcha. Emerson would have been surprised to hear that, but I had to work to keep the relief out of my voice. “I want to know about your drinking habits—where you got your first drink, to be specific. Who gave it to you, who you fed yourself, who helped you turn.” I leaned in, just a little, whispered almost in her ear. “Make me happy, and I’ll forget all about what you did to Paul, what your brother did to me. You’ll wake up in your own bed, I promise.” She jerked her head away.
“I won’t!”
I sat back.
“Then we’re stuck here together. You know it won’t kill us, right? I’m slow but I’ve been catching up—I know what will happen; we’ll get really, really thirsty, but you can’t get to me and I’ve got the willpower to keep from draining you. So we’ll just dry out, get weak. One night, two, maybe three and then when day comes we’ll go to sleep together and won’t wake up, not unless someone finds us and gives us blood. We could sleep in here forever, or at least until someone looking to buy the property opens the door. When they find us, they’ll probably just bury us, so that will be fine.”
I kept my tone light, reasonable, like I was discussing how warm the nights were getting, as her eyes darkened with horror and she tried to twist away.
“No! No! Why?”
“Because your friends are trying to kill me. Because they tried to kill Grams. Because somebody is ripping people’s throats out and that just isn’t right. Do you remember your cousin, Richard? He died hard last night, because he was trying to help you. Your friend almost got Robert. Blood all over the walls… you should have been there—you’d have been drooling.”
“He would never—”
“Don’t say never, Acacia. He tried. We’re parasites, we have to be, but once we start killing, then they’re all just blood-sacks to us.”
I stood and stretched, giving her space. “I need his name, Stephanie. Who turned you and how? Unless you tell me, your brother is a messy corpse. He won’t stop trying to help you, he won’t stop coming, and they’ll gut him like an animal. But that’s okay, right? We’ll be asleep by then, anyway.”
* * *
Despite the tears she didn’t break down, but I hadn’t expected her to. I hadn’t even applied a touch of influence yet; first she had to understand our situation, had to know the way out. So I gave her time, checking on the GPS tracker I’d dropped in Dupree’s truck.
The epad app showed him well west of town now, and nobody was beating down my door yet. So the cops thought they knew where Acacia was. Maybe. And Acacia’s master didn’t know she was missing yet. Maybe. When he realized she was gone, he might fall for the same play the cops had—and head right for Dupree.
Robert Dupree might have bought himself his own little Killing Night, but he’d known that.
“You’re wrong.”
I barely heard her. Turning around, I came back to sit by the engine block. She craned her head to look at me. “He wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t do that.”
“So tell me who he is. If he didn’t, then he’s safe.”
“I can’t. People don’t understand him.”
Now I locked eyes with her, pushed. “So make me understand.”
Without a thought, she hit me with all the influence she had. “He’s good,” she whispered and I loved the guy, whoever he was. “You’re all so beautiful, so magic, I wanted that, lots of us do. But you wouldn’t let us, you kept it to yourselves!”
I hunched against the warm waves of adoration coming off her and managed to choke out the question I’d bet everything to ask. “How? How did he help you?”
And her story spilled out. Blood in wineglasses that made them strong and made them sick. Drinking each night, until only the blood made them feel human. Days in a long, dark room barely moving, even to clean themselves. He was always there, pouring the blood, comforting, promising, as more and more of them disappeared—“gave up and went back to their dead animal lives,” he said.
Only the strong remained to die and be reborn as his children, and how could they not love him? It was good and it was right, and I wanted to love a man I didn’t know and I screamed and scuttled away until my back hit the wall by the door.
Acacia laughed, eyes shining. “See? See? He gave us what we needed.”
I gagged, tasting blood. Her eyes burned with a pure belief I remembered.
Waking up in illuminating darkness, feeding off the victims he brought me, eager to do anything, be anything he wanted.
There were no words.
She wasn’t me, and this wasn’t influence-magnified Stockholm Syndrome, an escape from fear into mindless love and worship. I’d bitten the inside of my lip in my mad scramble backwards, and now I swallowed repeatedly. Finally able to think again, I looked away, blocking out her sporadic giggles and the sick adoration that beat at me.
And I’d sealed myself in with that?
I held onto Dupree’s claim of his sister’s memory-lapse—which she’d pretty much confirmed from the other direction; she might have been willing, but He’d still eaten her completely. She’d been a clueless wannabe, not a sociopath, before her sire got ahold of her. I hoped.
Ignoring her, I retrieved my epad, brought up Paul’s files—the autopsy pictures of the seven V-Juice overdose victims they’d identified. Five girls, two boys, pale, hollow faces, decently closed eyes. Someone had even straightened their hair to return a little dignity. All the girls were blondes, like Acacia and Belladonna.
“Is Bell one of your sisters?” I asked without thinking, and looked up in time to see her mouth twist with disgust. No, then; He wouldn’t let her be jealous of any fellow sisters in his harem. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t a co-conspirator.
“How many?”
She looked at me blankly, her smothering influence fading as my question broke her focus.
“What?”
I relaxed, but didn’t push back. “How many gave up? How many weren’t strong enough for his blood? Do you remember their names?”
I forced myself to sit back down beside her, extended the epad so she could see as I flipped through the pictures.
The first drained all the pink from her cheeks, the fourth made her gasp and turn her head away.
“And these are just the ones the police found dumped. There are random ODs, too.”
“ODs?”
“Too much of whatever meth-cocktail is in the blood. You think vampire blood makes you strong? It’s not even ours. What was her name?”
“Vivian. I mean—”
“That’s the goth name she used?”
She nodded, eyes tearing. “She didn’t— Something must have happened to her after—”
“They were all found stripped and mummified in plastic sheets. Someone kept this batch in an old restaurant freezer—probably didn’t want them decomposing one by one before they got rid of them all together. The power company found them, tracing illegal power usage.”
“They can’t be—”
“The police thought it was just someone covering for a designer-drug gone toxic,” I said gently. “Checking their stomach contents turned up the ingested blood. Pig blood. Your sire drugged you, Acacia. A lethal meth-mix that hooks you fast and burns you up. Sooner or later a dose will kill anybody. Or turn the lucky ones. How many more are there?”
“Just five—” She caught herself, but I’d been slowly piling on the influence since sitting back down. These are real, I’m telling the truth, you can believe me. Really just a projection of my own certainty—she believed that I believed.
“I work with the police, Acacia.” True. “And I need to find out who poisoned these kids and stuffed them in bags.” True. “If it’s not the man who made you, I need to know who it is.” Absolutely true.
“No. He would never.” Absolute certainty so deep it almost drowned me. I hung on.
“Then who?” Help me. “Who could get to all of them?” Help them. “Why kill them this way and are there others?” Help them. “Please tell me something that makes sense!” Help me save them!
She started to cry and I made myself sit back, let her mind work on it. “Where was Vivian from?”
“N-New York.” She sniffed.
“That’s a long way to sleep in a freezer. Friend?”
“Our online fang club. When I told everyone I was coming here she wanted to join me. We shared a room ‘til they found us. When she left…”
“Did she tell you she was leaving?”
“No. I woke up one night and they told me she’d changed her mind, gone home…”
“Why do you think they lied?”
“S-something must have happened to her. They didn’t want to worry us while we were turning.”
“So tell me about her.”
She did, while I listened and pushed where I could. And it wasn’t working. Her eyes swam as she talked about Vivian. Dammit, stripped of the pose and attitude, Acacia was nice. Clueless but nice, and her niceness was a shield. She was like Hope but without the backbone or intelligence—she couldn’t imagine evil in anyone she loved and her enthrallment reinforced that. Her mind danced around it, invented excuses, reasons somebody else must have done those awful things.
And I couldn’t push her past that—she could feel and resist that kind of attack just like I had. I’d never overcome her enthrallment before Emerson realized I’d suckered him and broke down the door. Or her sire got to Grams or Dupree. I could see it coming, certain as sunrise.
If she wasn’t a vamp I could just make her forget all this like I did for Marco—
Wait. Forget. I clutched my head.
“Acacia,” I interrupted her. “Don’t you want to find out who’s responsible for all this?”
“Yes! I want it to all go away!”
She wanted me to go away, to stop threatening her world. But I could work with that. I leaned in, kept my voice low, urgent. “You said you don’t remember your brother running into you at Angels.” Why? “So somebody’s memory has been messed with—yours or his. He wouldn’t lie.” He loves you. “Maybe somebody played with his mind and sent him after me.” He’s a victim. “Or maybe he told you something important and the vamps trying to kill him don’t want you to remember.” Help him!
She nodded spastically, my influence reinforcing every sisterly instinct. “So what can I do?”
“If he talked to you then you need to remember. I can help you, if you trust me.”
My plan rested on her sire being as psychotic as Tommy had been, but between his poisoning kids in job lots to make a few devoted vamps, and his escalating to ripping people’s throats out, it looked like a safe bet.
So now I just had to find the nerve to do something I’d sworn I’d never do. This was really going to suck.
Chapter Twenty
Only beware of this, that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the soul.
Deuteronomy 12:23.
* * *
A hundred magic traditions and every old religion recognized the significance of blood. I tried to ignore all that ritual crap, but even for me, to bring all my influence to bear on a subject I needed a blood connection. And like I’d told Emerson, between vampires the willing donor, not the donee was dominant. I was pretty sure there was some sexual allegory there that I really didn’t want to look at.
Damn nineteenth-century romantic writers.
Acacia’s eyes widened when I unsheathed my Arkansas toothpick, got even wider when I laid it against my left wrist and sliced. I raised my arm before I could lose my resolve and she lunged forward against her chains, mouth wide to catch the red that bloomed against my pale skin. Her lips suctioned to my wrist and she bit.
Oh. My. God. I laughed as burning frost danced through my veins, slow, languorous, creeping up my arm to spread until I could feel the direct connection between her mouth and my unbeating heart.
Now I understood, and I gave Paul, and Hope, and every other voluntary donor I’d ever had a silent apology as I counted. Forcing myself to break the connection, I ignored her hungry gasp. Blood ran down her chin and my wrist until I sealed the wound with my own lips.
That was… Later. I’d think about it later. Now I steadied myself and took hold of Acacia’s face, looked into her wide, dilated eyes. “Are you ready?”
She managed to nod and that was all I needed. “Then remember. Remember everything.”
She screamed and twisted away, head hitting the engine block behind her with a sickening thud. She vomited up the blood she’d just had from me as I scrambled to unchain her. She kept screaming as I sawed at her plastic and duct tape shroud; cut free, she wrapped her arms around her head, curling up as I desperately worked to free her legs.
Pulling her feet free, I threw the knife aside.
“Acacia! Acacia! Dammit Stephanie!” The screams turned to siren wails—broken only for air and way beyond what anyone living could project without coughing up their vocal cords in bloody chunks. I grabbed her arms. “Steph, stop!” The wailing cut off like all the air had left her lungs, but her eyes and silent mouth screamed.
I’d never been a touchy-feely person, even before, but I pulled her in and wrapped her cold body in my cold arms. How could I possibly have forgotten this part?
“I know, Steph,” I whispered into her knotted hair. “You want to die, right now. If you’re dead you can stop seeing it, you can stop knowing what you are.”
“Kill me.” She choked, tried again. “Please.” Her nails dug divots into my back.
I pulled away so she could see my face. “I’ll kill him instead. Promise.”
It was the easiest promise I’d ever made.
* * *
Watching a priest try to minister to a grief and guilt-stricken vampire should have been funnier. I busied myself taking the little wooden crosses off the walls, then left Father Graff with Acacia and wandered upstairs. We’d passed into day sometime during the drama, and dust motes danced in sunbeams muscling their way through the old shutters. I sat down to watch them, back to the wall.
They made pretty death rays, and I hypnotized myself with golden sparks of dust until my burner phone buzzed, summoning me back downstairs.
The scene had barely changed; Father Graff gripped Acacia’s folded hands as she prayed almost silently, moving her lips and twitching over words that obviously hurt. He held a rosary and she kept her eyes fixed on the cross she carefully didn’t touch. I should have realized she was Catholic; most Cajun were, being originally French Canadians.
“Jacqueline,” he said. “Stephanie has made a full confession, and now there are some things she needs to tell you. What was done to her.”
It was so much worse than I’d imagined.
She told her story with a flat, dead voice, a wrenching whisper as my epad recorded in dictation mode. The one thing she couldn’t tell me was who He was; he’d always worn the Mardi Gras mask and hood that seemed to be his little group’s trademark. But I’d been wrong; Acacia hadn’t been his enthralled follower—she’d been his toy.
I forced myself to ask clarifying questions, get numbers and dates, recorded everything while trying to keep the screaming inside my head. Finished, she sagged bonelessly into the sleep of the dead. I could feel the heaviness of the sun myself—probably the only thing keeping me from committing some serious property damage. That, and knowing she’d given me enough information to find the monster.
With a final prayer, Father Graff put away his rosary.
“Will she rest?”
I sighed. “Dreams are for the living, Father. She’ll be okay ‘til dusk. She really needs her family, but her brother is buying us time as a decoy. And if He gets his hands on her again—”
My cell phone rang, Paul’s number blinking on the screen.
“Are you going to answer?” Father Graff asked as I stared at the number.
“I—excuse me, Father.” I stepped away and gingerly held the phone to my ear, feeling ridiculous. “Paul?”
Bite Me: Big Easy Nights Page 13