“She was found at the scene of the crime—”
“And so were Dean Chapman, Logan Hobbes, Timothy Baker, and a very inebriated Edward Jameson,” Arthur pointed out. “I’m pretty sure that the poor minister was too sloshed to do the deed. Mister Baker’s memory might be going, but I doubt he’d forget witnessing a murder.”
“Unless compelled to do otherwise,” Gabriel said.
Arthur straightened in his chair. “That’s a serious accusation, agent. Do you have anything but suspicion to back it up? I’m pretty sure you’d have to use your own wiles to take a peek into his head. Have you gotten his written permission to do so? Because if not, you’re in violation of the law you’re accusing Priscilla of breaking.”
It was Gabriel’s turn to sulk. It wasn’t a true pout, the way that Arthur sometimes did. The glimmer in his eyes flattened into an unfriendly stare. His spine relaxed a few degrees from its perfect posture, and his full mouth pursed in dislike.
“No,” he said finally.
“Then I’d appreciate if you’d keep your accusations to yourself,” Arthur said. Priscilla was so grateful for the defense that she could have kissed him. He was getting a month’s supply of free cookies for this.
Arthur guided her through her statement one more time, just to be sure there wasn’t something they’d missed. She couldn’t recall anything very clearly. The yearning to feed had been too strong, and it had taken most of her control not to break a cardinal rule. Don’t drink from the dead or the diseased. It brought contaminants into the system that were a nightmare to purge. She left that particular tidbit out of the report though. No need to give Gabriel any details that would fuel his theories about her.
“All right then,” Arthur said with a sigh. “If that’s all you can tell me, I think you and Dean are free to go. I’ll be in touch.”
“Not so fast,” Gabriel said.
“Now what?” Arthur exclaimed.
“Miss Pratt, and all the vampires in this place for that matter, are still persons of interest in this investigation. As such, she has no place assisting in your investigation.”
Arthur glanced at her guiltily. “He’s right, Priscilla. I can’t bring you in on this yet. Not until we get conclusive proof that those bite marks weren’t yours or Dean’s. It’s a conflict of interest.”
Disappointment washed through her. She’d been itching to clear her name. Trust Gabriel to ruin that as well. “I understand,” she said, and couldn’t keep the sullen note out of her voice.
Arthur gave her a thin smile. “Patience, Pratt. It shouldn’t take the coroner more than a day or two to tell us what we need to know. Take a break from the murder business for a little while and fix up the shop. I’ll be in touch as soon as you’re in the clear.”
Gabriel harrumphed. Actually harrumphed. She fought the urge to laugh. She hadn’t heard something like that since leaving Salem in 1690. Old-world habits died hard, she supposed. Making one’s disapproval known in a polite way had been a subtle art in Puritan society. She wondered exactly how old Gabriel must be if he’d adopted similar habits.
“Can do,” she said with a small smile. “I think I owe you a cookie. Got any suggestions?”
Arthur smiled, the first flash of good humor he’d had all night.
“Surprise me.”
Chapter Five
“I’m what?” Dean asked incredulously, staring at her from his position across the round table.
“Grounded.”
“You can’t do that,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, obscuring the logo on his T-shirt from view. That was fine. She wasn’t much of a science fiction person anyway, and whatever Star saga it was, she didn’t really care.
“I can, and I am,” she said. “You shouldn’t have been out at that hour.”
His scowl deepened. “I’m a freakin’ vampire, Priscilla. Night is day and day is night now. Midnight is sort of early to give me a curfew.”
“I don’t care. You’re under house arrest until this murder is solved.”
“Why?” he exclaimed, pushing away from the table. “Because you think I did it? Thanks so much for your confidence.”
“No.” It came out from between clenched teeth. “I don’t think you did it. You’re staying here because it’s safe.”
“I’m not going to get attacked,” he protested. “And even if I did, what could hurt me now?”
“An agent of Parliament,” she snapped. “You are extremely lucky that you were changed after the revelation of our kind. If you’d been made before that, Parliament would have killed you. They had a zero-tolerance policy for child vampires. If you had been caught, you would have died. Some of the enforcers still think that way. Gabriel is old. If he thinks you’re a threat, he’ll probably kill you.”
Uncertainty showed on Dean’s face for the first time since she’d sat him down to talk. “He couldn’t get away with it,” he said, but didn’t sound so sure.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m not taking that chance. You are my responsibility now, Dean. I have to protect you.”
“Why do you even care?” he muttered.
“Because I am your guardian,” she said. She knew better than to call herself his mother. She’d tried it only once and it had felt wrong. Dean hadn’t reacted well either, and so she’d avoided all references to parenthood since then.
Guardian sounded like a nice neutral word. It had more connotations than family. She relaxed when he only seemed to bristle a little at that.
“You don’t want me,” he said flatly.
“What makes you think that?”
He gave her a bleak stare and answered her question with one of his own. “Why did you adopt me?”
“Pardon?”
“Why did you adopt me?” he asked. “Me, specifically. They give you files, you know. You could have chosen a girl my age. You seem to like girls better.”
Priscilla wasn’t sure what to say to that. She did tend to get along with women better than men. She felt like she could wrap her head around their motivations more easily, because she was one.
“You were already due to be adopted by Aaron Burke,” Priscilla said slowly. “And after he died, there was no one there to take you in.”
“So basically it was pity,” he concluded.
“I’ve been thinking about adopting for a while,” Priscilla said. “But until recently there wasn’t any room.”
“So it’s down to convenience then,” he said.
“No.”
“No? Then what is it?”
Priscilla stared with him with her lips pursed. “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’re going to hate me no matter what.”
He huffed out a breath. “I don’t hate you.”
“But you’re never going to be happy here. You’ve already decided that. So it doesn’t matter what I say or do. Regardless of any sacrifice I make—”
Dean stood up abruptly and glared down at her. It was the only way he could make himself taller than her. The change had, unfortunately, halted him in the middle of his growth spurt, and he was only 5’6 and therefore two inches shorter than she was.
“Sacrifices. Is that all adults care about?” he hissed.
Before she could even open her mouth to reply to that, however, he’d turned on his heel and strode toward the back. He nearly broke the divider between her counter and the lobby as he stormed through. Each footfall up the stairs was loud and when he slammed the doors to the upstairs bedrooms, she winced. She hoped he didn’t destroy anything in her bedroom on the way back to his own.
Priscilla laid her head on her arms and closed her eyes. Her head was beginning to hurt. Dehydration and hunger were taking an unpleasant toll on her body, and she couldn’t really wrap her head around why Dean hated her so much. She’d been kind to him thus far, hadn’t she? True, she wasn’t really the maternal sort, and her parenting skills might have been a little lacking, but surely she couldn’t have messed up too badly? Not enough to warrant t
his backlash.
Her business was open once more, but she didn’t think there’d be much traffic until the morning. Dawn was only a few hours away now and Becca would be in to start morning prep soon. She wasn’t going to get much done in the hour and a half she had until the sun rose. And since she’d been effectively starving herself for months, she’d react as badly to staying up past dawn as a new vampire would.
As if fate was trying to prove her wrong, the bell above her door tinkled and someone walked in. Priscilla lifted her head and pivoted in her chair to get a good look at her visitor. Her head throbbed viciously as her eyes processed exactly who she was seeing. She scowled. Oh great. It was tall, dark, and annoying.
Gabriel had changed out of his charcoal-gray dress shirt and slack combination, though he’d kept his coat. It was almost bizarre to see him sporting a T-shirt, denim shorts, and a pair of Birkenstocks under the heavy coat.
“What do you want?” she asked flatly.
In answer he reached into his coat pocket and drew something out of its depths. He tossed it to her and the bag landed on her table with a wet sound. She stared down at the plastic bag, full almost to the brim with dark red blood. She poked it experimentally. It was still warm. Her stomach clenched with desire and she fought not to rip into it at once.
“Your friend Olivia insisted I give this to you when she came to retrieve her daughter,” Gabriel said. “She seemed to think you’d need it.”
Priscilla picked up the bag and held it carefully in her hands. Blood, fresh from the vein. Gabriel couldn’t have been holding it for long, or it would have lost some of its temperature and begun to clot.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Now please go.”
Instead, he rounded the table. She sighed. Of course he did. The man was dreadful at doing what he was told, despite his status as a lawman. He sat down across from her and gave her a level look.
“Why?” he asked finally.
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this for that boy? He clearly doesn’t know what you’re up to.”
“And what exactly is that, agent?” she asked.
“Oh please. I’ve been around for over five hundred years. I know the signs of starvation when I see them. You look like a wax figure. Eat, for God’s sake.”
She blinked. Five hundred, huh? He wasn’t the oldest creature she’d had the pleasure—or misfortune, in Avalon’s case—to associate with, but he was probably the oldest vampire besides her own sire. She carefully bit into the bag. It wasn’t quite like feeding from a human. There was so much muscle in the neck, even when a human wasn’t particularly beefy. It could take some doing to hit the artery just right in order to get blood.
The thin plastic was too easy to pierce and she always overdid it, feeling like there should be more resistance against her fangs. She tried very hard not to make a sound while Gabriel watched her feed. She hadn’t had warm human blood for over a year, and the last time she’d had blood without chemicals, she’d been too far gone to enjoy it properly. Arthur had only volunteered his jugular to save her life from a near-fatal poisoning.
There wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy the aching hunger, but it would have to do. Priscilla couldn’t exactly ask Olivia for anymore. One pint was all it was safe for a human to lose. To her surprise, Gabriel slapped another down onto the table as soon as she’d finished the first.
She gave him a small smile. “Exactly how deep are those pockets, Mr. Winthrop?”
“Deep enough. That’s not going to be nearly as appetizing as the first. Anticoagulants taste like rubbish. That’s why I don’t drink from bags.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought the media was pushing bagged blood pretty heavily these days.”
His lip curled. “There are also talking heads that will try to sell you the idiotic notion that you can somehow contract vampirism just by being bitten. Anyone with half a brain knows it’s bloodborne. Saliva is one of the least effective vectors for pathogens. So forgive me if I don’t trust everything the mainstream media says.”
By the time she’d finished the second bag, she was already feeling miles better than she had only minutes before. It made her regret being sharp with Dean. This circumstance was less than ideal. What a change it must be for him. He’d grown up in Boston and now he’d been shunted suddenly to a little nowhere town with no plan and no future.
“You didn’t come here just to feed me,” she said astutely, narrowing her eyes at him. “What are you really here for? I’m not in the mood to be accused of murder again tonight.”
“The autopsy results came back.”
She whistled. “That was fast. The corpse isn’t even out of rigor yet. How did you manage that?”
“I have my ways,” he said, not really looking at her.
“So what did the autopsy reveal?”
“The bites are inconclusive. The saliva found in the wounds is being sent off for examination, but that will take more time than the examination of the body. I estimate we’ll be able to give the body back to the Sons of Adonai in time for a burial.”
“You can’t be serious. They can’t demand the body back so soon. No justice will be served if we don’t get the proper results.”
“You Yanks were quite specific about religious freedom in your founding documents,” he said with a hint of wry humor in his voice. “We’re lucky the Sons allowed the autopsy at all. It’s usually against their faith to allow the body to be desecrated in any way after death. They don’t embalm, so the coroner had to be quick.”
“So what can you glean from the body?”
“That you are cleared of this murder at least,” he said with a frown. “Older vampires don’t require as much sustenance, and the stomach shrinks over time. You’d never be able to consume even half an adult human in just one sitting. Your son, however …”
She bristled. “He wasn’t responsible.”
“Can you confirm his whereabouts during the time in question?”
She couldn’t, and that aggravated her all the more. Why couldn’t he have let her know where he’d be? Why was he so insistent on skulking off and going to parts unknown with Logan Hobbes, of all people?
“He wasn’t the only one out that night,” she hedged.
“Diane Webb’s location can be corroborated by several tourists. I was also able to get testimony from Miss Baker’s mother that said that she was on the square, trying to jump start a sedan when the murder would have taken place. So,” he said, staring at her with unnerving intensity. “Do you know where he was?”
“No,” she said. It barely came out as a whisper. She wasn’t sure where he’d been. She wasn’t even sure if he’d be capable of doing such an awful thing. He was a virtual stranger living in her house and he wouldn’t let her get to know him well enough to attest to his innocence.
Gabriel nodded, a small, satisfied smile curling the edges of his mouth. She ought to have known that he’d come here to deliver bad news.
“Is that what you came here to tell me? That you’re going to be watching Dean?”
“I’m watching every vampire in this town, Miss Pratt,” he said calmly. “I’m not the monster you seem to think I am.”
“Then what are you?”
He regarded her in silence for a minute as he thought. “I am a man who lost much because rules weren’t followed. I don’t abide lawbreakers. I bring swift justice when and where it is needed to prevent further loss of life.”
As intriguing as that statement was, Priscilla was too tired to try to puzzle out what he’d gone through to make him a fanatic. The fact was, he was a zealot, and zealots of any stripe were dangerous.
“It’s nearly dawn,” she told him. “Don’t you have somewhere to crawl back to, Mr. Winthrop? I need to hand the reins over to the daytime staff.”
He pushed away from the table and reached into his pocket, withdrawing another bag of blood. He offered it to her. She wasn’t sure if it was a peace offering or a bribe
, but she took it anyway. She’d be useless to everyone if she didn’t begin eating right.
“Meet me there,” she said suddenly.
He paused in mid-step. “Where?”
“At the funeral,” she said. “They’ll need to bury him soon if they want it to be an open casket affair. Come with me.”
Gabriel’s eyebrow quirked up a fraction. “Somehow I don’t think you’ll be welcome at his funeral. Why do you even want to go in the first place?”
“Because I’m clearing my name,” she said, a stubborn note in her tone. “I didn’t do this, and I’m going to prove it to you.”
“By going to a funeral?”
“By finding the real killer. You said I’ve been eliminated as a suspect. So there’s no reason at all why I shouldn’t be able to help the police.”
Gabriel snorted. “Arthur was right about you.”
“That I’m stubborn?”
“That you’re foolhardy to the point of blind stupidity. What do you think the Sons will do to you if you show up at that place? You’re a vampire, not Superman, Miss Pratt. You’re hardly indestructible. Do yourself a favor and stick to pastries. Keep your nose out of it.”
“And if I don’t?” she countered.
“Then you are going to get yourself killed.”
She gave him a syrupy smile. “And as an officer appointed to maintaining the safety of all vampire citizens, wouldn’t you say it’s your duty to make sure I come away unscathed?”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “There’s no chance of talking you out of it, is there?”
“No chance at all.”
Gabriel sighed. “At least warn me before you try something stupid that could get us both killed.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That is a yes, Miss Pratt.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “I think you like me just a little.”
“Believe me, if I didn’t like you, you’d be dead.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Your first-date etiquette is a little lacking,” she teased, trying for a bit of light humor.
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