Broken Heart 01 I'm the Vampire, That's Why (5 page)

"How are you feeling, Mrs. Matthews?"

Irritated. Scared. Dead. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

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He looked at me, fiddling with the ever-present PDA in his hands, and shook his head.

"Thank you for keeping my kids safe and taking care of them."

"You're welcome." He seemed pleased by my gratitude. Hmmm. Maybe vampires didn't often express appreciation. "Patrick told me that Lorcan spoke to you."

"Yeah. You said something last night about the Taint. Did it make him into that slobbering beast?"

"No. The cure we attempted had an unexpected side effect."

"What was the cure?"

Stan considered me, as if trying to decide whether or not I deserved an answer. I resorted to crossing my arms and using the Look, which almost never failed to quell my children's pestering.

"The problem with the Taint is that once it's inside the bloodstream, it stays… latched. It doesn't matter if the diseased vampire drinks from clean sources after exposure, either," he said. "The Taint has been around for as long as there have been vampires, but it's recently become an epidemic."

"Nature's way of controlling the vampire population?" I asked.

"We think this strain was introduced on purpose."

"You mean like a biochemical attack? Who would do that? And why?"

He shrugged. Either he didn't know the answers to the questions or he didn't want to tell me.

"Lor fasted for a week—only a very old vampire can survive without sustenance for that long. We were trying to rid his system of the infected blood. Then we injected him with multiple rounds of lycanthrope—uh, werewolf—blood. We hoped that doing so would be able to kill off the Taint."

"Did it?"

"We're not sure. He awoke from his rest as you saw him, Mrs. Matthews. And he was starved. It seems the transfusion made him… well, ravenous, much more so than we expected. He also seems to have more strength, which is saying a lot since vampires are already ten times stronger than most humans."

"But why are you guys
here'
? In Broken Heart?"

"Ah. That reminds me." He tapped on the PDA and frowned. "The meeting starts in fifteen minutes."

"What meeting?"

He pried his gaze away from the PDA. "Patrick didn't tell you?"

"He said that he needed to feed. Where does he get his blood?"

"From donors, of course."

Disgust roiled in my gut along with a very unfamiliar, weird desire. I felt my top gums split, then my

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incisors elongated. Holy crap. Had that happened before? Well, duh. I'd punctured and sucked on Patrick's thigh twice, but this was the first time I'd been aware of my fangs. "Please tell me," I said, talking carefully around my new incisors, "that by 'donors,' you mean there is a blood bank somewhere."

Stan stared at my teeth, and then his eyes lifted to mine. "Vampires need live, circulating blood. Humans are, for the most part, a vampire's main food source."

"You mean I have to kill others to survive?"

"No, no. Donors are not killed. It only takes a pint to satisfy most vampires."

Yet Lorcan had drained me and God knew who else to alleviate his thirst. Had he done so because he was starved or because he was a vampire-lycan? All this thinking and talking about blood was making me kinda hungry.

"You're human." I knew because Stan smelled like a ham-and-cheese sandwich slathered in mustard with a dill pickle on the side. I heard the blood frantically pumping through his heart as he picked up on my sudden interest in his neck.

"Didn't you feed?" His voice squeaked on the last word.

I nodded. "For some reason, though, I feel… peckish."

Stan flinched. He stood up and leapt for the door. Then he realized it had no handle and he yelled,

"Ernie, open the damned door!"

"I'm not going to eat you," I said, even though I felt like gnawing, just a little, on his neck. I knew exactly where to place my new fangs, too, and how much pressure it would require to pierce his flesh and sip from him. "But, you know, if you're willing to donate a pint…"

"Ernie!"

"Why is Stan avoiding you?" asked Patrick, his hand slinking up my back to massage my neck. We were standing in the high school gym, near the end of the retractable seats on the left side. To my surprise, several townspeople and vampires milled around the basketball court, while others sat on the bleachers and chatted.

"I told him I was feeling peckish and he freaked out." Just thinking about drinking blood forced my creepy teeth to emerge.

Patrick stared at me. "You didn't take enough sustenance from me?"

I shrugged. I had felt replete this morning, er, evening until the incident with Stan. "Can't I have anything else?" I asked. "How am I going to live without chocolate?"

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"Your body will reject regular food, including sweets," he said, dashing all my dreams of indulging in a champagne truffle. "You don't need them, love."

"Oh yeah? Well, here's some news, pal. Women cannot live without chocolate. Just try to get us through PMS without it."

A corner of his mouth quirked and he dipped his head near mine. "You don't have to worry about PMS.

You will never have another period. Or menopause."

I had to admit, on some levels, this vampire thing was okay dokay. "I'll still miss chocolate."

"I will try to think of ways to keep your mind off it." Patrick nibbled my ear, his tongue darting out to caress the lobe. A different need shivered through me. I had no idea why we were so lovey-dovey after two days of knowing each other. I suspected my willingness to be fondled by Patrick had to do with drinking his blood. The man was almost 4,000 years old and I bet that meant his blood packed some wallop. And there was the mysterious
fede
ring to consider. Patrick seemed to believe that my ownership of it made me his soul mate.

"I'm not a sexual slave, am I?" I asked in half-jest.

Patrick pulled me into his embrace and placed a soft kiss on my lips. "Not yet."

Sure, I realized genuine desire threaded through the arrogant words, but just hearing the purr of possession in Patrick's voice was like getting a bucketful of cold water dumped on me. I wriggled out of his grip and stood back, crossing my arms and giving him the stink-eye. "I don't belong to you."

He seemed more amused than angered by my rebellion. One long, pale finger stroked my cheek. Then he whispered, "Not yet."

"Why, you son of a—"

"All right, everyone, please take a seat. We're about to begin the meeting," yelled Stan, probably for the humans, because I could hear him like he was shouting in my ear. Patrick guided me to the front row and I sat down, still miffed at his high-handed behavior. Two rows of six metal foldout chairs were in front of the lectern where Stan stood, fiddling with his stupid electronic gadget. Behind him, there were eight chairs. Seven were occupied. One by Patrick and five by men who looked like they'd stepped out of the Mr. Romance issue of
Romantic Times BOOKClub
. All were tall and handsome with the same athletic grace I'd noticed about Patrick. All were dressed casually, but T-shirts and jeans couldn't hide the caged-panther energy they gave out. The seventh chair was filled by a tiny brunette who would make Kate Moss look fat. She looked drawn on paper she was so white, and impatient to boot, evidenced by the tapping of her itty bitty shoe on the floor.

Still in a snit, I looked at the person next to me and nearly swallowed my tongue. "Linda? Linda Beauchamp? What in the Sam Hill are you doing here?"

Her green eyes rolled up in her head in typical Linda fashion. "Last night when I was walking Buster, some ol' huge, smelly thing knocked me down and sucked me dry. Then,
apparently
, I died." Her red hair, worn big and fluffy, looked particularly big and fluffy. She noticed the direction of my gaze and snorted. "If I'd'a known this would be my last hairdo for eternity, I would'a splurged on a whole new look."

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"I think it's you, hon," I said, and I meant it. "Let me guess the next part of your story. You woke up latched on to some handsome man's thigh?"

Linda snorted again. "I wish. I woke up sucking on a neck the size of the panhandle." She waved pale hands that showed off long, sparkly green acrylic nails. "That one on the end with the baby blues and dark hair? Ivan Taganov or some such. I just about ate him alive." She waggled her fingers at Ivan and he leered at her in a way that made her giggle.

"I tell you, I've been meaning to lose a few pounds and thanks to our new diet, that happened." Linda patted her waist. Yeah, she had lost a few pounds. She was still short and curvy, but the "chubs," as she'd called them, had disappeared. I watched as she gave me the once-over. "You're looking purty good, too, girl."

"Thanks."

"We aren't the only two, you know." She leaned back and I took a gander down the row.

Damnation! There was Patsy Donahue, the owner of Hair Today, Curl Tomorrow, the only beauty salon in Broken Heart. I saw Simone Sweet, who was the best mechanic at Joe's Garage; Louise LeRoy, who had just moved here to take her deceased grandmother's place as our librarian (the library was housed in the oldLeRoyMansion ); Phoebe Tate, a waitress at Old Sass Café; and there were others. I counted nine women, including me, and one man, Ralph Genessa, recently widowed and trying to raise his twin toddler sons. He worked as a short order cook for Old Sass Cafe down onMain Street .

"Okay, toots," said Linda to Stan, which startled him so much he nearly dropped his favorite toy, "let's get a move on with these here proceedings. I'm hungry."

Stan turned the color of an unwashed gym sock.

Sweat poured off his brow and he wiped it away with his wrist, which he then rubbed on his khaki shorts. Sucking in a deep breath (lucky bastard), he placed the PDA onto the lectern then gripped its sides.

"We appreciate your cooperation—"

"As if we had a choice," interrupted Linda. "We all know that we're vampires. Hell, you're the only human here, shortcake."

I looked at Stan. Linda was right. The townspeople had been turned
into
vampires, probably the very same night I had. Lorcan had been a busy little freak, hadn't he? Foreboding crawled down my spine and lodged in my stomach. Maybe if I'd killed Lorcan when I had the chance… but no, by then the damage had been done. How could one man,
thing
, kill ten people by draining 'em dry? And why had Patrick and his grim-looking cohorts saved us all?

"Er, yes. Well." Stan cleared his throat. "I know you have questions. And we have a lot to cover before… um, you eat. If you'll look under your chairs, you'll find a personal digital assistant. It will be your way to contact us—"

"And when you say
us
," I said, "who are you talking about?"