by Nazri Noor
“You and your fucking carpe noctem.” He smashed his palm into the dashboard, grunting under his breath. “Be serious with me. I’m trying to talk to you here, Sterling. What if you’d lost?”
Not to be too offensive about it, but Gil was like a dog with a bone when it came to nagging me about nonexistent problems like my “smart mouth” and my “massive ego.” My fingers gripped the steering wheel like iron clamps. I was careful not to apply the same pressure to the gas pedal as I eased us out of the parking lot.
“But I didn’t lose, did I? Don’t pretend that we didn’t end up coming out better than before. We got what we wanted to know, and then some.”
“Yeah,” Gil said, gazing out the window, arms folded. “Like this Filigreed Masque you told me so much about.”
I sighed, breathing evenly to regulate my temper. No good driving angry. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about that, okay?”
Asher leaned in between the seats, poking his head into the conversation, a kid trying to break up a fight between his parents. “Tell him about what? Because you didn’t tell me nothing, either.”
I rotated my hand at the wrist as I rattled out the artifact’s properties. “Old enchanted relic, belonged to the guy who owned the pile of twigs we live in. Different accounts about what it does magically, and – um, and the Scepter of California wants it.”
“The Scepter of California?” You could taste the derision dripping from Gil’s voice. “Are you serious? I thought you told the vampire courts to take a hike? I thought you wanted to be left alone. What do you owe her?”
“I owe her nothing, but this is a great way to keep her off my back. We figure out what’s going on here, I hunt down the Filigreed Masque on the side. I turn it over to Vilmas, and voila – the Scepter’s appeased for another decade or so, and I won’t have the courts riding my ass. Win, win.”
Asher coughed softly. “You and this Vilmas guy, seems like you go way back.”
My fingers twitched, eager to reach for a cigarette. “Yeah. It’s complicated.”
Gil huffed. “The vampire court’s in town, we get in a fight with the Blood of Garm, and we still have zero leads. Complicated is one way to put it.”
“I’m still amazed that entire fight just happened out in the parking lot like nothing,” Asher said. “I love that they don’t care about passersby, or cops.”
“Of course not,” Gil said. “They’ve got a few wolves embedded in the department. Blood trials are off the books. Always have been.”
I squinted at the road, enthralled by the passing of what looked like such a generic skyline. Pines everywhere, on a loop. “I wonder if we can talk to the cops. I hate the idea. No way to make it look plausible. ‘Hi, we’re new in town, and we’d like to ask some questions about some serial killings, the latest of which happened in our backyard.’”
Gil scoffed. “As if. What, we throw on some suits and ties, bring out the fake IDs and badges? What is this, a costume party? Not happening. Leave that sort of investigating to humans and hunters. Besides, like I said, the Blood of Garm has pack members in the force. Probably unethical as shit that Damien knows as much as he does, but what the cops know, he knows.”
“Fair point,” I said. “We’re not normals. Gotta think like we’re not normals. Gotta think like freaks.”
Asher snapped his fingers, his eyes lighting up with excitement in the rearview mirror. “We can check out Everett’s grave tomorrow, find some answers about this place, and about the Masque.”
See? Always nice to have a necromancer in your corner. Loved me some freaks.
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“In the meantime, we’re going to do some cleaning around the house,” Gil said to the window, his arms still folded. “Get the place in order. Make it livable.”
I sighed. “Whatever you want, Dad.”
I caught him turning to me and glaring out of the corner of my eye, just for a briefest second. Aww, he wasn’t that mad at me, after all.
You know how your body starts to relax when it realizes it’s nearing the end of a long journey? My legs were as wobbly as jelly by the time we pulled into the Everett House driveway. Cold air rushed into the car as we dragged ourselves out and up to the cabin. I unlocked the front door. Asher rushed in, hugging his elbows and shivering. Gil hit the lights with a flick of his fingers.
A hum, a crackle, and the lights immediately went back out again.
I hissed into the darkness, blinking as my eyes adjusted rapidly.
Asher yelped. “Huh? What’s happening? Is it an ambush?” He snapped his fingers, a plume of sickly green energy sprouting from his palm.
“Worse,” Gil said, his face exhausted, ghoulish in the pale light of Asher’s magic. “It’s a power outage.”
Gil did some inspecting through the cabin’s innards and came back with some bad news. Technically, it was worse than a power outage. The electricity had failed. This old-ass cabin had finally shown its old, ancient ass, crapping out on us in the dark of night. See, that wasn’t necessarily a problem for me, vision wise, nor for Gil, and the moonlight outside was still sort of enough for Asher to stumble around by.
Nope. The problem was basically everything else. The boys had brought a space heater, and they were freezing. We didn’t trust the flues of the cabin to use the fireplace, either. Hadn’t been cleaned out or even used in forever. There might have been some rats stuck in there. Dead bodies? I don’t fucking know.
So Asher and Gil huddled together for warmth, piled under every single blanket we could find in the house. I contributed my tailored leather jacket, too, for whatever comfort it could afford. The sound of the two of them shivering and cursing softly as they tried to get some shut-eye wasn’t the best white noise for me to relax to, but it worked well enough.
I was tired, okay? Vampires get tired, too. I eased into my night cap, the second of only three bottles I’d brought with me. The crystal phial was still warm, its enchantments holding beautifully. This blood flowed more easily, not as thick or as rich as the first bottle, but textured and delectable in its own unique way. Every person is a story, and you can read faint traces of the chapters in their blood.
This was from a twenty-three-year-old man, handsome, strong, grown south of the Bible Belt and come west to try his hand at becoming a movie star. I sighed as I swallowed his stories. Glimmering hope sparked under a skin-thin layer of discontent and desperation, a swirling tumult of emotions. Actors, am I right?
I kissed the last of his blood off the rim of the bottle, licking the final drop from the corner of my lips. Radiant warmth ran through my body, returning life to my coldest vents and chambers. I closed my eyes, accepting that I needed rest to be at my best, trying not to think too hard about how I had just one last bottle of precious sustenance left.
My sleep was deep. In my dreams, I was a hit at the blockbuster. I signed autographs. I died of a cocaine overdose.
I awoke to the unmistakable fragrance of garlic, fried crisp and buttery in a pan. I pushed myself up, opening my eyes to a darkness not so different from the night before. I must have slept some twelve, thirteen hours. Nice. To say I felt refreshed would be an understatement.
The cabin was empty again. Asher and Gil must have wandered off for whatever reason. The garlic smell came from a covered plate on the dinner table. I lifted it up, savoring the scent of one of Asher’s signature dishes. Sinangag was Filipino fried rice, typically served for breakfast, made with scrambled eggs and lots of garlic. You could throw anything else in there, too, make it an even tastier dish: dried fish, shredded chicken, Filipino sausage. Sky’s the limit.
A little piece of paper was propped up on the table. “All yours. Went into town. Be back soon.” Asher had signed it off with a loopy cartoon heart and a giant capital letter A.
“Love that little bastard,” I muttered, shoveling mouthfuls of the rice down my throat, not even bothering to heat it all up.
Delicious. Whichever vampire start
ed the garlic myth was either a genius at misinformation, or a poor sap with a really, really bad allium allergy. Same for silver. Just propaganda. I can’t tell you how funny it is every time someone shoves a silver crucifix in my face, expecting me to recoil or something. Don’t just blame us vampires, though, werewolves were in on the con, too.
Speaking of werewolves, my phone started freaking out in my pocket, playing the appropriate though perhaps slightly offensive custom ring tone I’d assigned to Gil. It was a wolf, howling at the moon. It usually pissed him off if I didn’t pick up after the second howl. Seeing as how pissed he’d already been the night before, I decided to be a pal and pick up after the first.
“Electrician’s coming,” he said. No “Hello, how are you? Did you sleep well?” Still pissed at me, then.
“What?” I said through a mouthful of rice.
“Something tripped in the house last night, so we’ve been poking around looking for an electrician who’s willing to service a house with a sleeping vampire in it.”
“Very funny.”
“No, but seriously, it’s hard to find a service guy who’s willing to work after dark. So let him in. And Sterling? Don’t eat the electrician.”
“I fucking won’t.” I glared at the phone. The absolute gall of him. “I have self-control, okay?”
“Sure, just like you had self-control last night. Okay.”
I sighed. “You’re going to have to let go of this eventually.”
“Whatever. We’ll be back later. Just let him in, and be sure to get dressed before we show up. We’re going to scope out Everett’s grave later.”
He hung up without waiting for me to answer. I dumped my phone on the table, annoyed, then looked down at myself. Damn it, I hated when Gil was right about me, even when we were fighting. I’d totally forgotten to change out of my ripped-up clothes from last night. My tank still had a gash across the belly, and my jeans were hopelessly scuffed.
There was a knock at the door.
13
That couldn’t be the electrician already, could it? I dragged the back of my hand against my mouth, pushing my hair up into a serviceable spot and smoothing down the creases in my tank top. Did that even change things? There was still that big, gaping hole over my abdominals with the blood crusted around it. Fuck it. I shoved my phone in my pocket and stumbled for the door.
In the groggy fog of my garlic-addled mind I fancied the possibility that it could be someone else out on the doorstep. A delicious chaser for my breakfast. Dessert. Something delicate, sweet, and nectary, like Olivia Everett.
Shit, I hadn’t even visited her place like I’d promised. What was it called again? The name of the shop was alliterative, that much I remembered. Was it – Everett’s Erotica? Wishful thinking. The autocomplete function in my brain liked to make shit up sometimes. Everett’s Exotica, that was it, what I imagined was a fine purveyor of sweet, rare, and delectable morsels.
Oh, and they had fresh produce, too.
I reached for the doorknob, my heart pounding. Olivia Everett, my honeyed peach, my juicy California clementine. The thought of warm skin and blood had me hungry – no, thirsty all over again. I swung the door open, risking mild skin blistering from the last rays of a dying late afternoon sun.
The thing on the porch was not, in any shape or form, Olivia Everett. The person standing there was, in a word, majestic. He was a couple of inches taller than me, which was tall, indeed, the curled tips of his straw-blond hair just brushing against his clavicles. Oh, his clavicles. The top half of his hair was tied neatly into a bun at the back of his head, exposing a strong brow and a strong nose, and a beard as blond as the rest of him, as the fine down running along his thick forearms. His eyes were piercing blue, dare I say it, electric.
“Damn,” I muttered, entirely by accident.
The man cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me? I’m the guy you called for. I’m here to check on the electrical problem.”
He motioned at the utility belt around his waist, then lifted the toolbox he was carrying. Despite the cold of the early evening, he was mostly wearing denim, along with a shirt with the sleeves ripped off. The gesture made his muscles bulge. My attention and my gaze snapped magnetically towards the vein running from his bicep down all the way to his forearm. A weak, whimpering noise fluttered in the back of my throat. Asher’s garlic fried rice settled like a cold, congealed mass in the pit of my stomach, forgotten, thoroughly undelicious compared to the prospect of warm, virile blood.
The man was gorgeous, but that’s beside the point. You don’t understand. This was like if a pizza delivered itself to your doorstep, then threw open its own box, showing off its glistening, gooey layers of mozzarella and zesty tomato sauce, its stupidly handsome and perfectly blond crust. What the hell were they putting in the Silveropolis water? Why was everyone who lived here basically a supermodel in early retirement?
I took one wobbly step away from the man, hardly trusting myself not to go straight for his throat. Wanna know a vampire’s real weakness? Not garlic, not silver. It’s exposed skin. All that flesh, all those arteries? It’s a good thing we can’t go to the beach.
I was staring too hard. I knew it. The man knew it. The lone owl hooting from atop a nearby tree knew it. He scratched the back of his neck, reddening, his lips parting as he struggled to find something to say.
“My bad,” I said, discovering my voice at last. “Come in. We need all the help we can get.”
He nodded, tipping an invisible hat as he passed the threshold. I snorted softly to myself at the oddness of the situation, a vampire inviting a human into his home. He didn’t seem to notice, already assessing what little he could see of the cabin’s interiors.
“You boys caught me just in time,” he said, one hand at his hip as he surveyed the disaster that was the kitchen. “Was about to head home. Figured I’d get called in to service you at some point.”
I let the front door swing shut on its own, the hairs on my arms bristling. “Uh. Service me?”
The man smiled, pointing up at the ceiling. “Yeah, as the new owners of the Everett House. The place is ancient, and terribly maintained. Notoriously so.”
“Oh,” I said, at a rare loss for words, trying to disguise my disappointment. Cheeky fucker. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Hopefully he knew what he was doing in terms of his work as well, because what the hell was I supposed to know about electricity? He’d placed his toolbox on the kitchen counter, peering into it with a flashlight, sifting. The beam flashed my way. I almost hissed out of instinct.
“The name’s Roth, by the way,” he said, giving me another of his generous smiles. The veins in his neck bulged when he did that. It was all far, far too distracting.
“Sterling,” I said, nodding. I watched the pool of light track quickly down my torso, flashing momentarily over the tear in my shirt.
“Woof,” Roth said. “Looks like somebody had a rough night.”
I shrugged, chuckling. “You could say that. We dropped by a bar last night. I’m not convinced the locals like us very much.”
Roth shrugged back. “They’ll warm up to you eventually. It’s mostly a quiet town, they’re not really used to visitors. Certainly not tourists. I had to pay my dues, too, being an out-of-towner.”
“Oh?” I glanced down awkwardly at my hands, unsure of where to put them, deciding they were best stuck down my pockets in case they wandered. “Not from here, then.”
“Nah. My dad moved here and I thought I’d help him settle down a little. He’s a good guy, deep down, just doesn’t really understand what he actually wants out of life, you know?” He pushed a lock of hair out of his face, his muscles straining again. “Sometimes it feels like he’s the kid and I’m the daddy.”
The daddy. This motherfucker knew exactly what he was doing. I held my expression perfectly still, wondering if I could keep my promise to Gil. Don’t eat the electrician, he said. Well fuck, I didn’t know the electrician was goin
g to be so damn edible.
“Right,” I said. “Parents, you know?”
What the fuck was I saying? My name was Sterling. Being silver-tongued was coded into my DNA, and here I was, babbling like a schoolboy.
“Yeah,” he said, finally selecting a hammer from his toolbox. Wait, a hammer? How was that supposed to help him restore power? “Yeah. Listen, just gonna head in back and check on things, okay?” He cocked one finger at me like a gun, winking. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll be right here,” I said, a chuckling, stammering, sweaty mess. I was half-tempted to call Gil and ask him if he’d made some mistake and sent over some local go-go boy instead. Not that I discriminated, but we needed the power back on. Fast. I had to charge my phone, for one thing. Oh, and the guys would probably be happier not to freeze to death. That was important too, I guess.
Roth’s voice came piping out of some back room. “Let there be light,” he said. And so there was, a low, almost imperceptible hum running through the cabin as the lights came back on.
“Nicely done,” I said. Huh. Maybe he knew what he was doing, after all. “A little sacrilegious, too. How charming.”
He came strolling back into the room, depositing his hammer back in the toolbox, grinning. “Eh. I reckon being a god would be overrated.”
Roth looked around the room, now that it was fully illuminated. Bags of chips sat on the coffee table next to half-finished cans of diet soda. An empty phial of blood was sitting on the carpet right by a chair leg. It clinked as I nudged it with my foot, then rolled obediently under one of the couches.
I pushed my hair up out of my face, shrugging. “It’s like a frat house exploded in here. I know.”
He laughed. “Honestly, it doesn’t look all that different from my place. Oh, hey. Cool sword.”
Oh, shit. The katana from Susanoo. I’d totally forgotten about it, left it propped up in a corner of the living room. Didn’t even bother sheathing it. The scabbard was just there on the floor. I rushed to stop him, but he was standing too close. Roth picked up the katana, admiring the blade, holding it up to his face.