Ashley opens the lid and peers in. Her eyebrows go up. “Eww. He’s dead.”
Sophia gasps and shies away.
“You know, Sarah,” says Dad. “When I mentioned helping you move random dead people, I was kidding.”
“He’s not dead.” I fold my arms while flat on my back. “He’s Dalton.”
“Why’d you kill him?” asks Sophia.
“I didn’t. He’s sleeping.”
“Yo, Sare,” says Michelle. “Your boy don’t look so good.”
I sit up. “He’s not an Innocent. He can’t really function during the daylight hours, even if the sun’s not touching him.”
“But he was awake before…” Ashley tilts her head in confusion.
“He was at the edge of being roasted alive. That’s normal. Someone comes near him with intent to kill, it would wake him up too.” I hold my hands up. “Don’t ask. I have no idea how it works.”
“Can we get him out of the box?” asks Ashley.
“Yeah sure.” I force myself to my feet and walk over.
Lifting him is trivial since I’m at full strength in here. I set him on the floor by my bed, but do loan him a pillow.
Ashley sticks her head in the box and sniffs. “Okay, it’s not too bad. If I leave it open for a day or two it should stop smelling like burned steak.”
I spin back to them. “Thanks for helping.” My gaze focuses on Ashley’s neck, and my fangs come out on their own.
“Whoa,” says Sierra. “Sare, your eyes are glowing.”
It’s not until I look at my little sister that I realize how damn hungry I am. You know that Tom & Jerry thing where the cat is so starved that whenever he looks at someone they turn into a hotdog or something for a second? Yeah, my kid sister just became a brownie sundae in my mind.
“Shit. You guys need to get outta here. Too much sun. I think my tank is empty.”
Sam walks closer. “You can have some blood if you need. I don’t want you to go nuts.”
“No way, kiddo.” I put a hand on his head. “You’re too small to donate. Same goes for you two.” I make shooing gestures at my sisters.
“If you’re going to lose your shit, take whatever.” Ashley offers an arm.
“You just fed Aurélie not too long ago. I can’t feed on you for like three months. Not like I want to.”
Dad tugs at his collar. “If you need a bite…”
“I’m not… no. Ick. Gah! Dad! Too intimate.” I shiver.
Michelle, who’d been staring down at the rug, seems to resolve an inner argument and looks me in the eye. “Okay. I’ll do it. You’re different, and it’s freakin’ me out.”
“I’m not going to go crazy. I can hold it together until later.”
“You look like hell.” Michelle grasps my shoulders. “Doesn’t hurt, right? Just like donating blood?”
“Yeah.” Her neck, so close to my face, is damn hard to resist. Something inside my psyche pushes me closer to her.
“Can we watch?” asks Sierra.
“Uhh,” says Dad.
Oh, hell. I lean in and bite her as gently as I can. When I get a mouthful of dark chocolate coffee flavor, I momentarily hate myself. Both for biting my friend and that my brain went to chocolate because her skin is dark brown. Despite my guilt, I keep drinking. Though, a few sips in, I catch a hint of coffee and remember she always orders a mocha latte at Starbucks.
Michelle holds on to me like we’re making out, though she’s not doing anything with her mouth other than emitting strange gasps. This is the first time I’ve fed from someone without putting them in a mental fog before.
“Do you always cry when feeding?” asks Dad.
I shift my eyes to him. My expression must be pathetic, since he shies away. Once I’ve taken enough blood to where I no longer feel in danger of losing control, I let go and lick the side of her neck. Michelle shudders.
“You okay, hon?” asks Dad in a soft tone.
“Not really. I just bit one of my friends. Something I told myself I’d never do.”
Michelle holds me tight, but I can’t tell if she’s being comforting or simply can’t stand on her own.
“Wow, that was intense,” says Michelle. “If it feels like that every time, you shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“What did it feel like?” asks Sophia, hand clamped on her neck. “Did it hurt?”
“It didn’t hurt.” Michelle lets go of me and stumbles over to sit on my bed. “It’s kinda like the way you feel when you take that first bite of an awesome ice cream cake.”
My siblings all stare at me like they want to be next.
“She’s being nice. It feels like all the life drained out of your legs and you can’t stand up.” I shoot Michelle a look. If you make them beg for me to bite them, there will be retaliation.
She grins and thinks, Well, I could’ve said it felt like the best orgasm I’ve ever had. Now I know why you won’t bite Ash.
I gasp.
Dad raises an eyebrow at my sudden blush. “I have the feeling I’ve missed something.”
Michelle and I say, “Don’t worry about it,” at the same time.
“So, what now?” asks Dad.
“Nothing really. He’s safe here, so he’s going to be out like a plank until sundown.” I glance down at the man who spared me from death and gave me eternal existence. His skin is as shrunken and sallow as Glim’s, and he looks every bit a corpse that has been mummified for over a century.
“What about my trunk?” asks Ashley.
“I’ll bring it over as soon as it’s dark.” I smile, and pick it up one-armed by a side handle like an oversized lunch box. “Easy.”
“Come on you guys,” says Dad while making shooing gestures at the sibs. “Let’s let the man sleep in peace.”
I take the sunglasses out of my hoodie pocket. “I don’t think he minds.” With a flick of my wrist, the earpieces pop out, and I slip them on. “He sleeps like the dead.”
Michelle groans. Dad cackles. Ashley looks confused. Sierra frowns at me with a sigh.
After a moment, Sophia breaks the silence with, “I don’t get it. What’s with the sunglasses?”
We all break out laughing.
Except Dalton. He just kinda lies there.
Taking the Mick
16
Michelle leaves around five after a few hours of video games and generally hanging out in my room. Her phone beeps at her, a reminder that evidently, she had plans with the parents for tonight. It’s gotten cloudy again, so the rest of us all migrate upstairs. I take the opportunity for an excessively long shower to wash away the sticky grunginess of my ‘desert trek’ from earlier.
While I’m standing in the spray basking in the joy of no longer feeling funky, Sierra walks in on me and goes over to the toilet.
“Excuse me,” I blurt, covering myself as best I can with my hands. Stupid transparent shower curtain.
“You’re excused,” deadpans Sierra.
“I locked the door.”
She doesn’t look at me, but holds up a screwdriver. “You did. But you’ve been in here for an hour and eleven minutes, and Sam’s stupid friend stopped up the downstairs one again.”
I turn away before she drops her pants. Ugh. Family. Love ’em, but they can be so damn annoying. Fortunately, she’s quick. As soon as she’s out of the room, I dry off and change. In the wake of my afternoon roast, I’m in a dress mood, so I put on a little cream-colored thing with spaghetti straps and pleats. Ahh. Feels like I can breathe again.
For the rest of the day, we abuse the PlayStation. Ashley’s cell phone rings at like seven. Her mom wants to know where she is and if she’d planned to be home for dinner. It feels a bit like old times when Ashley randomly announces she needs to go home to eat. She hurries out the door so fast she forgets her shoes… and doesn’t come back for them. She probably made it halfway home before noticing and decided not to bother.
A minute or two past nine, Dalton shambles out of the kitchen.<
br />
“He looks somewhere between hung over and hit by a bus,” says Dad, from his recliner.
“Cheers, mate.” Dalton salutes him with two fingers. “Oi. Bit peckish after my near dance with the sun.”
“Please don’t eat my family,” I say, flat.
Dalton reaches over the sofa back, grabs Sophia’s ankle, and holds her up by one leg. She squeals, dropping her Kindle to hold her dress in place. “Nah. Too small. I’d need like eight of these to notice I’d eaten.”
Dad looks about ready to jump out of the chair, but relaxes when Sophia’s yelling turns into giggling.
“Just takin’ the Mick.” Dalton winks, tickles her foot for a second, and lowers her gently onto the sofa. “But, I do need to see about a nibble.”
Sam and his friends upstairs get loud for a few seconds, laughing about something.
“Hmm.” Dalton glances at the ceiling. “A handful of somewhat larger snack-size portions might do.”
I glare at him.
“Oy, you’ve got no sense of humor.” He walks around the sofa to me and takes my hand. “Thank you, luv. Very much appreciate the assist. And I don’t nosh on little ones.”
Mom glides in from the study, wiping paint off her hands. “If you’re in bad shape, I suppose I could offer. You did, after all, save my daughter’s life.”
“Mom!” I yell.
Dalton, eyebrows up, spins toward her. “Are you sure, missus?”
“You’ve a manic look to you,” says Mom. “Might be best for you to take the edge off, and I don’t mind.”
“Mom…” I squirm, dreading the idea of my mother having a supernatural orgasm right in front of me, Dad, and the girls. “Are you really sure you want to do that?”
“It’s fine.”
I turn away as he moves in for the bite. Dad shifts in his chair, clearly conflicted. True, Dalton’s the reason they didn’t bury me, but he’s also got his lips at my mother’s neck. Mom doesn’t make a sound, and I don’t look at anything other than my toes until Dalton thanks her.
“Oh, my,” says Mom.
I’m as red as a beet when I lift my gaze off the floor, but I have to know. Much to my surprise, her thoughts give away not a sense of having ‘gotten off,’ but more like an explosion of freedom, like if she’d won the lottery and moved to a tropical island and never had to worry about stress ever again.
My blush fades at that, leaving bewilderment on my face.
“I only took a little,” says Dalton.
I creep closer and stand beside him. “Can we talk?”
“Of course.”
We head down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the sliding glass door onto the deck. The wood’s slick with rain and cold under my bare feet, and the wind’s blowing right through the thin fabric of my dress, but it’s so much nicer than before. I’d much rather be a touch chilly than melt.
“I really can’t think of my family as a food source.”
Dalton nods. “I wasn’t going to, but she offered, and the woman had a point. About taking the edge off, I mean. A bit of an emergency as it were.”
“What happened? How did you wind up in that place? Concrete pipes?”
“Umm… let’s just say that certain parties had become upset with me, and I lost track of time while trying not to be discovered by them.”
I rake a few strands of hair off my face. “Were they upset with you for making me?”
“Oh, no. I doubt anyone’s going to care about that. They only get their knickers in a twist if someone gives the Transference to an actual child, or too many people too fast, or if their progeny are gobshites.”
“What the heck does that mean?” I ask.
“Mean spirited, reckless idiots.”
“Oh. So what got their panties in a knot?”
He grins. “Well, you see, it’s a matter of some misplaced antiquities.”
Both my eyebrows go up. “You stole something?”
Dalton grasps his lapels and rocks heel to toe. “I’ve dabbled in acquisitions.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He gives me his ‘charming’ smile. “It’s true.”
“No, I mean I believe you, but I don’t believe you.”
“I’m not sure I follow, lass.”
I pace around, alternatively burying my face in my hands or raking them over my head. “What did you steal? You’re a thief?”
“That’s a bit harsh. One party hired me to obtain a particular item from another party.”
My eyebrows form a flat line. “That’s still stealing.”
“Oh, you are precious.” Dalton hugs me. “It’s heartwarming that my progeny is so innocent.”
“You’d be funny if you were funny,” I mutter.
He laughs.
“Give it back?”
Dalton winces. “Ehh… it’s not quite that simple. I obtained said antiquity, but before I could deliver it to the buyer, another party stole it from me. Perhaps I may have been a bit lax in taking precautions to secure it in transit. Now, I’ve got the party who hired me upset because they think I gave it to the third party on purpose, and the bloke who originally had it is also rather cross with me.”
“Ugh.” I shake my head. “Well, if you stole it once, you can steal it again.”
“Alas… It’s not quite that easy. I think I’ll be better off returning to London for a century or so until they forget.”
“London?” I stop short in my pacing. “What’s so difficult about getting it back? Or don’t you know who has it?”
“Oh I know precisely where it is.” He stuffs his hands in his pants pockets and exhales. “That’s the problem. There’s a chap by the name of Anatoly Zarkhov. He runs a little pub, Abaddon, that’s a hangout for our kind.”
“Sounds lovely.” I shiver.
“On the outside, it looks like your ordinary unsavory sort of night club. There’s an inner circle for vampires though, and they select random people from the crowd each night for refreshments.”
I cringe a little, but still… “How is that different from hunting?”
“Sometimes they keep them for a few days, force-feeding them booze or sometimes drugs so the vampires who feed from them experience a similar effect.”
“Ugh. Yeah, okay, that’s not cool.”
“As you can expect, the survival rate is about fifty-fifty.” He emits a resigned sigh. “But that’s not my immediate problem. The antiquity is there, down in Zharkov’s little office. And it’s pretty much impossible for me to sneak in past his associates. Only one route in and too many of them to get past unnoticed. Even attempting it would be suicide.”
“What, is this something like the undead version of the Russian mob?”
Dalton chuckles. “Nah, these chaps are nowhere near that organized. But generally, I suppose.” A gleam dances in his eyes as he watches me.
“Are you looking at my boobs through my dress?”
“No.” He sidles over and puts an arm around me. “Going in there at night is suicide.”
“Umm. Are you serious? You know when I’m outside during the day, I’m basically a normal person. If I get hurt, it’s permanent. And I’m not a thief.”
“It’s not technically stealing to take something back from someone who stole it.” He bows his head. “We’ll even bring it to the original owner if it helps your conscience.”
“The only thing sketchier than your respect for the law is your work ethic.” I sigh into a weak chuckle. “I don’t have any idea how to steal anything. Are you sure I could even do this?”
Dalton does a double take at me. “Wait, you’re serious? You’d consider doing it?”
“Considering and actually doing aren’t the same thing. I already am considering it. You did, after all, save my life.” I look down at my feet, a puddle of rainwater around them. “Do you think I can do this without getting myself killed?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen the inside of the place during the day.” He rubs his chin.
“But, there won’t be any vampires up and about either. All of Zharkov’s associates will be dead as corpses until the sun goes down. At worst, you’ll have to deal with some human employees. So you should be able to charm your way past them with ease.”
“Dalton.” I stare up at him. “You do remember that if I’m out in the day, I have no powers, right? I can’t take over people’s minds if there’s even a scrap of sunlight in the room.”
“Well, that could be an issue… however you should still be able to charm them.” He smiles. “You look younger than you are, and on most people, you can use that to your advantage. Act like you belong there. Don’t show any fear or hesitation. That bloke who nicked a giant television from a store simply walked out like he’d paid for it. Confidence works.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Finally, I’m getting some ‘instruction’ from my sire, and it’s on how to be a criminal.
“And not to be sexist, but you can always cry if you get into a bad spot.”
“You know whenever you start something with ‘not to be a whatever’, that usually means you’re being whatever.”
He shrugs. “I’m just commenting on human nature. A crying young woman elicits sympathy. Not saying you’re weak and will cry. Only that you can use it to your advantage if you have to.”
“So all women are deceivers?”
Dalton hangs his head. “Cripes. No. That’s not at all what I’m saying.”
I grin. “Just taking the Mick.”
He shifts his eyes up to me. “Bollocks.”
“Did I use that right?” I ask. “Taking the Mick.”
“Aye.”
“Okay.” I gaze up at the stars, knowing I’m going to regret the next words I speak. “I’ll do it.”
Abaddon
17
One might think I’d avoid telling my parents that I planned to sneak or break into a nightclub during the day to steal back a precious antiquity because they’d forbid me from doing it or lock me in my room or something like that.
No. I don’t tell them because I don’t want them trying to help me.
After Mom’s crazy rebellious act of holding the fence for us―seriously, for her that’s wild as hell―I don’t want to take the risk of getting them drawn into any bad blood among vampires. I don’t know if using the phrase ‘bad blood’ in the context of vampires is a pun and I don’t really care.
A Beginner's Guide to Fangs Page 21