She frowned at him. “No, Kallias. I like this. This is you. This is your dagger. It’s personal to you. It means much more to me than flowers ever could.”
He smiled hesitantly. “You’re sure?”
“Of course,” she promised.
He sighed, “I need to leave now.”
A deep, sinking feeling settled in her gut. “Can’t you just…stay?”
“No,” he answered. “Theron might be in the city by now.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me,” she muttered.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, a strange, affectionate action that seemed completely uncharacteristic for the rough, dangerous vampire. He placed his hands on her face. “Please, don’t practice your abilities tonight.”
“Yeah, I know. I learned my lesson last night,” she muttered.
He smiled ever-so-slightly at her and then turned to leave.
Rose followed him into the foyer. “Please…don’t get hurt tonight.”
He froze in the doorway. “Stop caring so much…for both of our sakes.”
Rose watched as Kallias left, closing the front door behind him. She stared at the large wooden door for a moment, trying to ignore the strange, deep feeling of dread that knotted at her stomach, warning her that something really terrible was going to happen. Finally, she sighed and stalked into the living room.
“Are you okay? You seem unhappy,” Emma chimed with a peppy smile.
Rose slumped onto the sofa and flashed a fake smile. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“Allow me to translate,” Erik offered. “She is pissed.”
Rose glared at the obnoxious vampire. “I’m mildly irritated, at most.”
Erik turned toward her and grinned. “This is mildly irritated for you?” he asked. “This feels like Geoff’s enraged. Damn, you have intense emotions.”
Rose sighed and pretended to be interested in the television show.
Erik moved closer to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She stiffened and glared at his arm, as if it were the most offensive object in the universe. But then, her entire body relaxed, slumping limply against him, as he began to project calming emotions to her. He leaned over, speaking into her ear, as he said, “He only acts like that because he is afraid of hurting you.”
Rose felt her lips curve into a slight smile. “I know.”
“Well,” Emma sighed, standing up, “I guess I should probably leave.”
“No, take your time,” Erik said sarcastically. “It’s not like there are humans out there that might be dying while you sit here, watching a TV show.”
Rose frowned at him. “Umm…but you’re still sitting here, too.”
“No one asked for your opinion, nun,” Erik muttered.
“Nun?” Rose exclaimed. “How am I a nun?”
Erik listed on his fingers, “You’re a virgin, a prude, and you dress weird.”
Her eyes narrowed. “They’re pajamas! Comfortable pajamas!”
“You’re a virgin?” Emma asked in surprise.
Rose sighed, “This really isn’t anyone’s business.”
Emma smiled reassuringly as she slipped on her heels. “It’s okay. Kallias can fix that. Sex with a vampire is very pleasant. Not that I didn’t enjoy sex with Geoffrey before we were vampires, of course. But blood definitely makes it better.”
Erik whimpered…like a dog…exactly like a dog. “Don’t remind me.”
“Blood and sex were on the list, Emma,” Geoffrey sighed.
Emma giggled. “Sorry, Erik. Sex without blood is good, too, though.”
“The list,” Geoffrey complained.
“Yes, it is,” Erik agreed. “That’s what I keep telling myself.”
Rose just sat there, blinking at the unusual, excessively honest vampire.
Emma patted Rose’s shoulder. “Just tell Kallias, and he’ll fix it.”
“I don’t think fix is the correct word to use there,” Rose mumbled.
“No, but she got the first letter right,” Erik joked, winking at her.
Rose shoved him away. “Ugh. Go kill vampires or whatever it is you do.”
Erik laughed loudly at her. He climbed off of the sofa and knelt, rolling up the legs of his black leather pants to check his weapons: a black handgun in a holster attached to his ankle and a sheathed dagger attached to a belt around the other ankle. He smoothed his pants down and grabbed his keys from the table.
“Do you have your weapons?” Geoffrey asked Emma.
Emma pulled out a dagger and gun from beneath her dress to show him.
Erik froze, tilting his head. “Where did you just pull those from?”
Without even hesitating, Emma pulled the skirt of her dress up around her hips to reveal the black belts around each thigh, designed to conceal her weapons. Rose’s eyes widened as she realized that the gorgeous, peculiar vampire had also inadvertently revealed her lacy, pink lingerie. She looked away, blushing.
“Nice,” Erik said. “That’s kind of hot.”
Geoffrey scowled at him. “Seriously, Erik? I am right here.”
Erik raised his eyebrow at him. “You’d rather me say it when you’re not?”
Rose stared at a random place on the wall as she waited for Emma to put her dress back down and cover her extremely sheer panties. “Vampires are weird.”
Erik turned and grinned at her. “Then, you should fit right in.”
“Ha. Ha,” Rose muttered sarcastically.
“Are you missing anything else?” Geoffrey asked his wife.
Emma patted down her dress, frowning. “No. Oh, wait. Keys?”
Geoffrey smiled and tossed her the keys. Emma caught them easily, but as she spun toward him so rapidly, her thigh brushed against a small decorative table that set against the wall. The table tipped, and the glass vase slid off of it.
But the vase never hit the floor. It stopped, suspended in the air.
Emma, Geoffrey, and Erik all stared at the floating vase.
“What…” Emma began, turning toward Erik with a questioning look.
But Erik wasn’t looking at the vase anymore. He was staring at Rose.
Emma followed his gaze. “Did you do this, Rose? That is so neat!”
“And dangerous,” Erik added harshly. He grabbed the vase from where it was suspended in the air and set it on the table. His eyes narrowed at Rose.
Rose stared at the vase in shock. “I didn’t even realize what I was doing. It just happened. I just saw it falling, and…” she stammered. She swallowed, terrified by her power. She looked up at the vampires that were staring at her.
Emma and Geoffrey just frowned at her, not sure what to say, but Erik’s gaze was suddenly intense. His brow creased with concern, and his jaw clenched.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Rose said defensively.
“Yeah. That’s what worries me,” Erik said.
“Well, I think it was neat,” Emma said, elbowing Erik a little too harshly.
Erik winced and rubbed at his ribs. “Ouch,” he complained.
Emma turned and started toward the door. She stopped in the doorway to the foyer and blew a kiss at Geoffrey. “See you later, handsome.”
Geoffrey smiled at her. “Be careful out there.”
Erik gave Rose another concerned look before he turned to head toward the front door. “See you later, handsome,” he said mockingly to Geoffrey.
Geoffrey rolled his eyes, choosing not to respond.
“You, too, Rose,” Erik said seriously. “Be careful.”
Rose nodded uneasily. “Yeah. Sure. Okay,” she stammered.
22
Strange Blood and Bad News
“Can I ask you an awkward question?” Geoffrey asked.
“My life is a long list of awkward questions,” Rose muttered jokingly. When he gave her a puzzled look, she smiled encouragingly. “Sure. What is it?”
The television flashed in the dark living room as two Roman soldiers on the television show foug
ht to the death with swords that, as Rose had pointed out, resembled the swords used in medieval wars, not the ones used by Romans.
Geoffrey adjusted his tie nervously. “Could I have some of your blood?”
Rose blinked in shock. “You’re right. That is a pretty awkward question.”
“I don’t want to taste it,” he added. “I have already fed from Emma.”
She noticed the redness in his face. “Why does it embarrass you to talk about feeding?” she asked curiously, amused that she’d finally met someone who blushed more than her. “I don’t blush when I say that I ate bacon for breakfast.”
“Er…” he stammered. “Most vampires feed during sex.”
“Oh. Oh!” Rose said, suddenly understanding the embarrassment.
“I don’t want to feed from you. I just want to examine your blood,” he assured her. “I was a scientist when I was human. Specifically, I studied blood.”
“Like a hematologist?” Rose asked.
He frowned, obviously confused. “A what?”
“A person who studies blood,” she said. “We have a name for it now.”
“Oh, we were just called scientists back then,” he said. “Anyway, I’d like to look at your blood. It smells different. I want to know if it looks different.”
“Last time I checked, it was red,” Rose said dryly.
He frowned. “Er…yes. So is vampire blood. But under a microscope, it looks different. There are peculiarities that distinguish it from human blood.”
She raised her eyebrow, intrigued. “Really?”
“Yes. It took a while for me to identify those peculiarities, but after so many years, I believe that I can identify the healing and restorative enzymes that allow us to heal so quickly, and I am also fairly certain that I have identified the sexual endorphins that create the…erm…pleasant reactions,” he said, a blush creeping up his neck again as he tried to explain it, “during blood-sharing.”
“Wow. That’s pretty impressive,” Rose admitted.
“I know that Erik said that you have telekinetic abilities, and I even saw you demonstrate those earlier with the vase. But even so, I don’t feel like that is an adequate explanation for why your blood smells so powerful. Sure, telekinesis is supposedly the most powerful psychic ability, but still,” he sighed, frowning. “Your blood smells so different from most humans, so incredibly powerful. I just… It seems to me that there might be more that we don’t yet know about you.”
Rose swallowed nervously. It had been hard enough to accept that she had telekinetic abilities. “And you think my blood will tell you what that is?”
Geoffrey shrugged. “Perhaps it’ll at least confirm or deny my suspicion.”
Rose nodded. “You’re not going to bite me, are you?”
His lips curved into a subtle, amused smile. He leaned forward and grabbed what appeared to be an oversized briefcase from the floor. He placed it on the coffee table, and the leather case thudded loudly against the wood of the coffee table, as if it were incredibly heavy. He flicked open the clasps and let it fall open, revealing hundreds of lab items, including every size of syringe, a microscope broken down into its smallest parts, and many flasks of strange-colored liquids. The black velvet lining of the case held each item perfectly still.
“Who knew you could fit a biology lab in a briefcase?” Rose muttered.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Geoffrey said. “It’s not a…room.”
She frowned. “It was a joke. I have this weird habit of making them.”
“Oh,” he said. He held up a syringe for her to see. “No biting involved.”
She rolled up the sleeve of her pajama shirt and held her arm out in front of her. “Knock yourself out,” she muttered as he moved to sit next to her on the sofa. As he sifted through his supplies, she asked, “Are you sure the blood won’t bother you? Fresh blood seems to be a pretty big deal to Erik and Kallias.”
Geoffrey grasped her wrist and began to turn her arm in his hand, looking for the right place to stick the needle. “Erik and Kallias are starved. Their hunger is unbearable,” he explained. “Vampires that feed regularly have more control over the hunger.” His ears reddened. “That is the main reason that Emma and I feed from each other before going out each night. It makes it easier to resist blood if we encounter any throughout the night, which happens fairly often.”
Rose winced as he shoved the needle into her arm without any warning.
Geoffrey glanced up at her, noticing her expression. “Oh, did that hurt?”
“Little bit,” she squeaked as he pushed the needle deeper to find the vein.
“I apologize,” he said. “My experience was with the comatose.”
“That explains a lot,” Rose muttered, wincing again.
He attached a vial to the end of the syringe to collect the blood, and dark red liquid poured into it, quickly filling it to the top. He placed the vial on the table and pulled the needle out of her arm. Then, to her surprise, instead of using a Band-Aid like a normal person, he licked his finger and placed it against the small, bleeding hole on her skin, as if it never occurred to him to do otherwise.
“Um…wow…that wasn’t gross at all,” she said sarcastically.
“It is much more effective than a bandage,” Geoffrey said as he moved his finger. “And I figured you wouldn’t want any more blood on your clothes.”
She glanced down at her arm, blinking as she found no evidence whatsoever that she’d just been stuck with a needle, which was surprising, considering her pale skin usually bruised from even the slightest needle prick.
The harsh clang of metal against the table drew her attention back to what Geoffrey was doing. He connected several small pieces of equipment, putting together a full-sized microscope, one piece at a time. “Goodness, Owen would fall in love with you over this equipment,” Rose said, looking again at the contents of the briefcase. “Not literally.” She frowned. “Possibly literally.”
He set a small piece of glass on the table. “Owen is a scientist?”
“No, he’s a waiter,” Rose said. “But he’s also a biology major.”
Geoffrey carefully squeezed a droplet of blood onto the glass. “A what?”
“It means he studies biology,” she explained, “in college.”
“Ah,” he said as he placed the blood under the microscope.
By this point, Rose had decided that Geoffrey was the most normal vampire that she had met so far. Aside from the using-his-saliva-as-a-bandage incident, he seemed almost human, most of the time. But she soon realized that, apparently, not even he could act normal forever. Geoffrey began rolling up the left sleeve of his perfectly pressed white button-down shirt, rolling it in perfect layers, much more neatly than she’d rolled up her pajama shirt sleeve. As soon as he had it rolled up to his elbow, he pulled out another empty vial and popped the lid off of it. Rose froze in shock as Geoffrey suddenly sank his fangs into his own wrist. Blood poured out of the two holes in his wrist too quickly, splattering onto the hardwood floor, before he covered one of the holes with the empty vial. Blood continued to pour into the floor as he filled the second vial with his blood.
“Well, we never did that in Biology,” Rose muttered, her eyes wide.
He glanced at her as he pulled the vial away from his wrist, and then, making the situation even weirder, he placed his wrist against his mouth and licked at the blood until it stopped bleeding. By the time he finished, his skin was clean of any trace of blood, but his lips and chin, on the other hand, were coated with it. He rolled his shirtsleeve back into place and buttoned the cuffs neatly.
He seemed normal again…if you ignored the blood all over his face.
“It’s easier,” he explained, shrugging.
“Mm-hmm,” Rose mumbled, blinking at the blood that covered his face.
He pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of his shirt. Rose had assumed that it was just one of those fake ones that were sewn into the shirt for looks, bu
t as he pulled it out and unfolded it, she realized that this one was actually real. He wiped his face with it, cleaning off most of the blood, before folding it and returning it to his pocket. Then, he pulled out another piece of glass.
Geoffrey placed a drop of his own blood on the small piece of glass, and then peered into the microscope, examining her drop of blood and then his own.
“How old are you?” Rose asked curiously.
“Er…226 years old, I think,” he said, his eye pressed to the microscope. “It was around 1818 when I became a vampire, and I was twenty-eight.”
“1818,” she repeated. “And you’re from England? You sound English.”
“Yes. London,” he confirmed, frowning as he examined the slides again.
“And your wife? How old is she?” Rose asked curiously.
“I think….222? She was four years younger than I was,” he mumbled.
She laughed, “She is outspoken for a woman from the Victorian era.”
He smiled. “Yes, I always liked that about her. She was…interesting.”
Rose smiled at the adoration in his voice. “Did everyone appreciate it?”
“No,” he said. “Her honesty was considered improper and unladylike.”
“Ugh. I hate that word. Ladylike,” she scoffed. “That word just enforces societal stereotypes and gender roles. It stifles personality. We’re not all ladylike.”
He smiled at that. “You should tell Emma your views on that. I think that she would like what you said. She was treated badly for her outspokenness.”
“I’m glad that she didn’t let them change her, at least,” Rose said.
“Well, Emma was already an outcast in society. She never really cared to learn customs and etiquette because…well, what would be the point? Even if she had perfect etiquette, she still would have never been accepted,” he explained.
“Why not?” she asked curiously. Emma seemed feminine enough to her.
Geoffrey seemed to be switching back and forth between the two slides of blood more frequently now, as if he were trying to understand something he had noticed. He pulled back, frowning at the microscope, and then pulled out two more pieces of glass. He prepared more blood samples to examine. “Emma’s mother was an…erm…what is the correct term?” he mumbled. “An…escort?”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 63