by Bill Blume
Man, Gidion never suspected Dad had known. That made him a lot more nervous about his vampire hunting. If Dad could read him that easily back then, what were the odds he didn’t suspect what he’d been doing these past few months?
“Oh, um, Grandpa invited me over for dinner tonight.” More like ordered.
“Sorry to hear that.” Dad smiled at him, then walked over to his dresser to retrieve his ID card, wallet, keys and various other going-to-work necessities. “You need any money to pick up dinner on the way to his house?”
“No, I’m probably good. Suspect he’ll order pizza for me to pick up.”
Dad nodded. Grandpa didn’t cook, and when he did, the results weren’t pretty. He subscribed to the Southern tradition of cooking vegetables to the point of oblivion.
“Gotta go.” Dad patted him on the shoulder. He smiled, the grin widening as he looked at him. “You know. Funny thing was, as ticked as I was with you about that window, I was proud of you, too. You stood by your friend, even as scared as you were. Just remember as you two get older, you’ve got to let him pay his way for his mistakes. That’s part of growing up.”
“Are you saying I was wrong to do that?”
Dad didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know. People learn a lot more from their mistakes than having the right way handed to them. I follow that rule whenever I train someone to do my job at work, but it’s different when it’s someone you love. I’ve stepped in for you more times than I should have, and it gets harder not to step in as you get older.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not that. The difference is that the risks get greater as you get older.”
He wasn’t hurting for risk these days. Four lives to worry about, including his.
“Have fun over at Grandpa’s,” he said. “Text me when you get home.”
“All right, Dad.”
Dad diverted to the kitchen to grab something from the freezer for dinner before he rushed out the front door. So far, he’d dodged Dad’s suspicions, but after this conversation, he wondered just how far he could go before Dad figured it out…and shut him down.
Chapter Seventeen
Grandpa owned a small house inside the city. The place only had one bedroom and had suffered through enough remodels to qualify for a multiple personality disorder. Thanks to Grandpa, the mental issues probably included paranoia. The front door didn’t just have a bolt, but included a large metal bar that could be dropped in front of it. He also kept a variety of swords on the wall. The wakizashi Gidion used had once had a place on the wall next to the bedroom door.
Gidion dropped a box of meat lover’s pizza on the kitchen table. Grandpa was under the kitchen sink battling a drip that refused to die.
“Nimrods who owned this place before me must have relied on idiots to update the plumbing. Not a damn pipe in this place is the right length or fits right.”
“What do you want to drink, Grandpa?” Gidion stepped around his elder to pull two glasses from the cabinet.
“Grab me a beer, kid.” He growled like a dog defending his turf. “Damn idiots. Sure as hell weren’t in the Navy. I can tell you that much.”
Gidion knew for a fact that Grandpa had already replaced all the plumbing underneath that sink—twice, but he wasn’t dumb enough to point that out. Grandpa was already in a mood to chew out his happy ass. No point adding an accelerant to that fire.
“You want a Killian’s or a Bass Ale?” Gidion asked as he looked at the selection in the fridge. Grandpa might have been all American, but when it came to his beers, he was a snot. Domestic beer didn’t live in a Keep house. Dad lived by the same philosophy.
“Get me a Killian’s,” he said as he crawled out from underneath the sink. “And give me a hand here.”
Gidion held out his hand and pulled him to his feet. He didn’t weigh as much as he used to. It was weird to watch Grandpa get smaller as he got bigger.
Grandpa turned on the hot water and canted his head to look beneath the sink. He grunted his approval of his handiwork. Gidion wondered how long it would last.
“So, we’ve got a lot to talk about, don’t we?” Grandpa pulled out two paper plates and set them on the kitchen table.
More than you know, Gidion thought to himself. “Look, about Tamara…”
“Yeah, yeah.” Grandpa waved him off. “Listen, I know you couldn’t just leave her there, but you can’t be bringing every pretty puss to the funeral home. When they’ve seen your face, they’ve already learned too much.”
That last line was one of Grandpa’s favorites. He’d grilled that into him during the past few months.
“I couldn’t just drop her off at home without cleaning her up first.”
Grandpa laughed like that was the funniest thing he’d heard all year.
“Well, it’s true.” Gidion sat a little straighter as he mounted his defense. “Dropping her off at home looking like she’d been beaten and bloodied would cause too many questions.”
“And her showing up after midnight didn’t cause a bunch of questions?”
Gidion didn’t answer that. Dammit. He chomped a large piece of pizza to keep his mouth too busy to implicate himself even more. Grandpa was right. It wasn’t like he would’ve gone to all that trouble if she hadn’t been some pretty girl.
“For what it’s worth,” Gidion said once he’d finished his bite of pizza, “she kissed me when I dropped her off at her car.”
“That’s the Keep blood in ya, boy!” He pounded his fist on his chest. “Damn proud of ya.”
“Yeah, about that whole ‘when they’ve seen your face, they already know too much’ stuff.” He put down his slice of pizza and traced a finger around the rim of his glass of iced tea. “We need to talk about the other night.”
“Thought we were doing that.”
“Um, yeah, I’m not talking about last night. I’m talking about the other night when I killed the vampire down at the Canal Walk.” He cleared his throat, not that it made his confession any easier to say. “The lady I saved that night walked away knowing a lot more than my face.”
“What?”
“Grandpa, the lady I saved recognized me. She’s my world history teacher.”
Cue the explosion. After a few words unfit for public consumption, some of which Gidion assumed to be foreign curses or Grandpa just having a seizure, he explained the whole mess. He told him about the hits the vampires had on his teacher and Tamara, the lack of any obvious connection between them and the worst news of all: Pete.
“You’re risking disaster with that boy.” Grandpa downed what was left of his beer. “You can’t trust him. All they gotta do is give him a drop of blood and he’ll slit your throat for them if they ask.”
“I’ve got Pete under control, Grandpa. Just trust me.”
“The fact you think you can control a feeder is sign enough you’ve lost all control of this mess, boy. They own him.”
This after Dad’s bashing of Pete bit too deep into the wound. “Listen, I know Pete. He won’t roll on me. We’ve had each other’s backs since we were kids.”
Grandpa laughed. “Boy, you’re developing into a fine young man, but you aren’t there yet.”
“Look, Pete might be the key to taking out the entire coven. They punished him. He’s bitter about it, too. All it takes is for him to lead me to the vampires and then I track them home at the end of the night. Soon as that happens, I just wait for sunrise,” he slapped his hand on the table, “and it’s game over.”
“What? You think you can waltz into their lair and kill at your leisure?” Grandpa shook his head. “We’ve been over this, boy. You don’t ever attack a vampire when it’s asleep. They wake up as pissed off as a feral cat in heat.”
“They can wake up as pissed as they like. Won’t save them when a fire burns their house down around them. If the flames don’t get them, then the sunlight will.”
That got Grandpa to stop the smart remarks. He nodded. “That could work
, but not if Pete outs you before you can follow them to their lair.”
“He won’t turn on me.”
“You can’t trust him. The boy is hooked on their blood. People who get a taste for what’s in those beasts’ veins never recover. They’re dead on their feet and just don’t know it.”
Gidion knew better than to debate this. Grandpa and Dad both got like this. Whenever they “knew something,” they wouldn’t budge. Didn’t matter even when he was right.
“There’s something else I want to talk about,” Gidion said as he started eating his pizza again.
“What’s that?”
“Dad.”
Grandpa leaned back in his chair. “If you’re worried he knows what you’re doing, then stop.”
“No, I’m sure he doesn’t know yet. If he did, he’d crawl down your throat until he reached daylight, wouldn’t he?”
Something between a groan and a growl whispered from Grandpa’s throat.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Gidion said.
Grandpa eyed him about the same way he’d glared at the bum pipes beneath the sink. “It’s not like I haven’t warned you about your dad’s reaction if he found out.”
“No, but Dad’s not an idiot. He did this, and I’m guessing you trained him the same way you trained me. What’s to stop him from piecing it together?”
That only made Grandpa laugh. “You think I did this without his approval?”
“Wait. He knows?”
Grandpa shook his head. “No, he knows I’ve given you the training…well, some of it. As far as he’s concerned, you’ve been taught how to fight, vampire hunter style, minus all the killing moves and the knowledge they exist.”
“You’re telling me he bought that?” Even Gidion wouldn’t have been fooled by that.
“Your dad hunted longer than I did. You’ve been lucky so far, making every kill you’ve gone for. Take it from one who’s been there. You aren’t gonna bat a thousand. A few get away, and some hold a grudge enough to come back for another try when you’re older and weaker. They’ve got time on their side.”
Gidion glanced at the front door, the metal bar that could slide into place. Then he considered the walls, all the swords on display, none kept in a scabbard, making them easy to draw at a moment’s need. The place was arranged for a last stand. Grandpa could take two steps in any direction and arm himself. Was this what his house would look like if he lived to be in his seventies?
“So, what you’re saying is that you conned Dad into going along with my training in case any vamps came after me as payback against him or you.”
Grandpa nodded. “You got it.”
“He really bought that?”
“He watches you a lot closer than you think,” Grandpa said. “Mind your steps.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.” He thought about the conversation about Pete’s window. How had Dad managed not to suspect anything yet? Hell, maybe he had.
“How’s your arm doing?”
Gidion held up his right arm and gripped it with his left hand. “Sore, but I’ll be fine for hunting tomorrow.” The forearm hurt more than anything else. Moving wasn’t painful, but lifting stuff sure wasn’t pleasant, like the bones in there were tender or something. Still, better his arm than his head.
“You might should take off tomorrow, too,” Grandpa said around a mouthful of pizza. “You’re good, a real natural, but don’t get cocky. Getting cocky…”
“‘…gets you killed’,” Gidion said. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. If I don’t feel up for it, I’ll stay home.”
“Gidion, when the vampires get close to your scent, the best thing to do is lie low. You seem determined to run straight at ’em.”
“If I hide in a hole, then Ms. Aldgate and Tamara are gonna die. They aren’t after them for a quick snack. Someone in the coven wants them dead. I gotta find out why and keep that from happening. Besides, while I trust Pete to keep his mouth shut for now, it’s only a matter of time before he slips up or I do. Soon as they figure out what I know, it’s open season on Gidion Keep.”
“Damn,” Grandpa stood and walked into the den to pick up his pipe. “You can’t save everyone, kid. There comes a time where you gotta accept that.”
“I’ll worry about it when I have to. For now, I’m just trying to keep myself and as many others as I can alive.”
“Well, take a few days to let that arm get all healed before you try anything. Got it?”
Gidion nodded. “I’ll be careful. Promise.”
Of course, if Pete sent a text tonight that the vampires had summoned him, then he wasn’t going to sit on his butt. He probably only had one shot at tracking Pete to find the vampires. Couldn’t pass on that. Pete was his surefire way to end this and save everyone, including himself.
Chapter Eighteen
The sun had already set and the clocks in the house were fast approaching nine o’clock by the time Gidion made it back home. He’d finished his homework before going to Grandpa’s, so he didn’t need to deal with that. Instead, he went for the bathtub. According to Dad, Mom had been big into herbal remedies. Her favorite cure-all was lavender oil.
Trouble sleeping? Rub a few drops of lavender oil on your temples.
Headache? Lavender oil on the forehead.
Bug bite? Put a drop of lavender oil on it.
Hell, he’d seen Dad add lavender oil to mouthwash to help knock out a bad mouth ulcer.
Way his arm was giving him hell, Gidion opted for a hot bath with thirteen drops of lavender oil added. Taking notes in class had hurt like hell. He hoped Ms. Aldgate realized every detail she made him write hurt her chances for survival.
Page strolled into the narrow bathroom and sprawled across the bathmat. She wasn’t being social, merely cowardly. A thunderstorm had made its way into the area. So far, they’d only gotten thunder here. The rain was to the north, but thunder scared the bejesus out of his dog. The way she panicked at the hint of bad weather, Gidion suspected a fortune-telling cat at the pound had warned Page she would die by lightning.
Gidion’s eyes narrowed, looking over the top edge of a Kyle Mills thriller novel at his dog. “You know, it‘s a lot easier to read without your panicked panting for a soundtrack.”
The expression on Page’s face didn’t alter a hair. He didn’t care how keen dog’s ears were, she probably couldn’t hear him over that panting. He turned up the speaker he’d plugged his iPod into, playing Metric’s latest album. Fortunately, he had the volume on his phone’s ringer loud enough to hear it over Page and the music.
“Yes!” It was Tamara, finally.
“Hey there,” she said, her voice close to a whisper. He turned down his music to hear her better.
“I take it this call is being made on the QT.” He sat up, shifting so he could keep his sore arm in the water while he held the phone with his other hand.
She laughed. “Gidion, I’m in the closet. Seriously.”
“I’m a little less hidden, but then my dad isn’t home.” He shifted, because one of the safety gripper strip thingees was digging into his butt.
“Wait,” Tamara said, “are you taking a bath?”
He winced. Crap. “Uh, yeah. Arm’s still sore from the way that vampire smacked my arm with a frying pan, so I’m giving it a good soak.”
She made this weird, excited cooing sound.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Oh no.” She had a laugh in her voice. “No need to apologize. Just don’t splash the water too much, or you’ll drive me insane over here.”
Holy hell, she was getting turned on by the idea of him in the tub. Yes! Grandpa never mentioned vampire hunting came with these kinds of benefits.
“I’ll do my best.” He went silent for a moment. Why had he asked her to call him again? “Oh! Yeah. I mean, I needed to let you know what I found out after you got home last night.”
“Just what is going on?”
“After you got home, I went throug
h that vampire’s stuff. He’d gotten a text more than a week ago, a text about you. For some reason, the Richmond Coven wants you dead.”
“Wait, you mean there might be more of those things coming after me?” Her voice got louder, and then she quickly lowered it, probably remembering she wasn’t supposed to be on the phone. “Why? That’s just nuts.”
“You didn’t know vampires existed before last night?”
“I’ve never ruled out the possibility,” she said, “but I was kind of holding out hope they’d be more sparkly.”
“Yeah, not so much. What about friends who’ve gone missing recently?”
“Thank God, no.”
“Have you ever heard of Lillian Aldgate?” No answer to that. “She’s a history teacher at my high school.”
“Sorry, no. Why?”
“The coven put out a hit on her at the same time as you.” He’d really hoped Tamara might know his teacher somehow. He needed to know what the common element was. There might be no ending this otherwise. “What about Charles Finley?”
“No, who’s he?”
“My teacher’s ex-husband.”
“Her ex? Is he a vampire?”
“No, but she ran into him downtown a few minutes before a vampire attacked her.” He wiped some drops of water from his eyebrows before they could slide down into his eyes. “Look, until I’ve shut this down, don’t go anywhere alone. Either you go out with both of your parents or a large group. Vampires value their secrecy, so they won’t compromise that even to kill you.”
“Since I’m grounded, consider that done.”
“If you notice any unfamiliar cars parked near your house, let me know. Note anything you can about it: license plates, color, make, model, the works. Oh, and if you own a box cutter, keep it with you at all times.”
“A box cutter?”