Daughters of Dracula (The Stoker Sisters #1) (9 page)

Alexis nodded impertinently and said, “Probably.” She followed Sadie into the kitchen. “Would it kill you to answer a question without my having to repeat it?”

“A werewolf lurked in the darkness of the school parking lot. As it prepared to pounce and attack me, Keegan fought it off, with his bare hands.”

“
I’m liking
this boy more every day.” Alexis licked her lips and reached for a string of licorice. With enticing precision, she whipped one end of the candy into her mouth and tantalizingly drew it out. “I do believe I should take a closer examination at who this boy really is. We can never be too certain.”

“Leave him out of your games, Alexis. He’s an innocent football player who is strong and kind-hearted. He could have gotten himself killed back there.” She knew her sister was trying to challenge her again. It was a game Alexis never tired of. The moment Sadie set her eyes on a guy who was even remotely interesting, Alexis jumped in to make trouble.

“I just want to make sure he’s on the up and up. Maybe I should join this school of yours. I mean, academics aside, this could be fun.”

“No, you don’t. You just want to slither your way into another of my attempted romances.”

“Oh, so now it’s an attempted romance.”

“You know very well what I mean. I’m in school. You’re not. Leave me the guys at school and have your fun with everyone else. Besides, we’re simply here to get away from the hunters, remember? This isn’t the time to be building relationships with the locals.”

“If only you knew how to have fun with them, Sadie,” Alexis said as she grabbed another licorice and sauntered out of the kitchen.

Fuming, Sadie tried to ignore her sister’s exasperating antics. Adding to the pile of dirty clothes in front of the washer, she stripped out of her jeans and t-shirt and headed to the bathroom for that luscious bath.

The moment she reached the hall, Alexis strolled out of her bedroom with scented oils in one hand and trivial reading material in the other. With a shake of her shoulders and shimmy of her hips, she let her nightie fall to the floor at the threshold of the bathroom.

“If you need me I’ll be in a nice warm bath.” Alexis didn’t even look back as she entered the bathroom, leaving the door ajar.

“You know very well I was heading there.” Sadie stormed into the bathroom in time to see Alexis step into the empty claw foot bathtub and twist the faucet on.

“I’m bored silly, Sadie.” Standing there nude, in the tub she faced Sadie as she set to pinning her long hair up. As modern as Alexis had become, she’d not lost the ability to set her hair in a proper chignon when she desired it.

“And a bath is going to excite you?”

“No, silly.
Irritating you excites me.” She settled into the water and sprinkled in scented oil.

“How fabulously mature of you.”

“Why did we come to this dead nowhere town anyway?”

“To get as far away from those hunters trailing you in Ireland, my dear sister.
You’ve left a mess in Europe, and got me involved, too. Now it’s time to lay low and blend. Besides, it’s not all that bad. I’ve already come to like it very much here. The weather is pleasant. The people are kind.”

“And enrolling in school.
Whatever gave you that idea? It ruins all the fun we could have. No one needs to know you're not an adult.”

“For one thing, I was turned when of adolescent age. It’s the proper thing for me to be in school. Secondly, I don’t see how that keeps you from having your fun. We don’t exactly run in the same circles, remember?”

“This town is
more dead
than a zombie convention.”

“Need I remind you that prior to your dramatic return into my life, I was running my life in a rather safe and proper way? It had been decades since I’d even had a brief run in with a hunter. While you…I swear, Alexis. Sometimes I think you deliberately set out to taunt them just to keep your life thrilling and filled with excitement.”

Alexis cupped a handful of water, raised her arm high and let the water trickle down. “Maybe I should drive up to Hollywood.”

“Maybe you should just sink into that tub.”

“
Vampiring
was so exciting in Europe. There was something vibrant, mysterious and right about being there. Perhaps it was the old blood.” She snickered and gazed at Sadie. “Get it.
The old country… old blood.”

Tired of Alexis’ selfish ways, Sadie took a seat on the edge of the tub and dipped her feet into the rising water.

“Of course there’s also nothing quite like the taste of blue blood. You can’t get that here, which is such a pity. For crying out loud, the veins here are so clogged with fat and junk, it’s disgusting.”

“Red blood, blue blood, fatty blood; you love it all. You always have. You’ve loved everything about being a vampire right from the start. You thrive on it.” Ignoring Alexis’ irritated glare, Sadie lightly kicked her feet through the water that was now getting dangerously close to the lip of the tub.
“For Heaven’s sake, Alexis.
You actually bring a bad reputation to being a vampire.”

“I hardly see how that’s possible.”

“Just because I wasn’t there to witness it doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what you’ve been up to this past century or two.
Mingling with pirates, cavorting with mercenaries, and getting close to the Sicilian mob.
Do you have no sense of right? No sense of morality?” Realizing Alexis had no intention of cutting the water off, Sadie reached over to do it herself. “You have always been rather immature and irresponsible.”

“Don’t play innocent, little sister. Human blood is the only food that will satisfy you as well.”

“There is a lot of bad out here, Alexis. We could do something right. Our presence here doesn’t have to be negative. Our feeding doesn’t need to take innocents’ lives.” Throughout the years, Sadie had always sought the best way to satisfy her hunger, while doing something that could help mankind.

“You’ve always been a dreamer; always there to save the injured bird or tend to a sick cat.”

“Come feed with me. I’ll show you what it is to bring a conscience to your
vampiring
.” Sadie pulled her feet out of the water and twirled around to set them on the floor. “Coming?”

“If you promise me fresh blood, I’m there.”

Chapter 9

“Honestly, Sadie. What are you trying to prove by dragging me down to the seediest part of town?” Alexis grimaced as she stepped over the outstretched legs of a homeless man.

“Everyone sees only the quaint side of living in this beach community. This part of it is ignored, if people know of its existence at all.”

A young woman, strung out and stick thin sat on a concrete stoop smoking a cigarette. She eyed Alexis and Sadie, bit a nail off and spat it towards them.

“Well, I can certainly understand why.”

Two young boys ran by, yelling at each other over the rightful ownership of the twenty dollars the first boy held in his fist.

“It’s almost midnight,” Alexis said as she turned to watch them scramble by.

“Few mothers bother to check in on their kids down here,” Sadie explained.

As they passed a narrow alley they heard the plaintive yelp of another young boy.

“Come on.” Sadie led her sister into the darkness to find an arrogant young man clutching the collar of the young boy. Barely ten-years-old, the boy was no match for the brawny young man who obviously wanted to show the youngster a lesson.

“I din said you could keep any profits, Jason. Now where’s all the cash you owe me.”

“I swear, K.B., I gave you everything I got.”

K.B. shook him up a bit, shoved him against the wall and slammed his ear with his palm. “I gave you five grams of good stuff and you come back here with this?” He held up a fistful of bills before slamming into the boy’s head again.

The click of Alexis’ heels on the pavement caught K.B.’s attention.

“You
ain’t
hitting the right street, ladies.” He gave Alexis an appraising glance, offered her a crooked grin and winked.

“And you're not hitting the right lad.”

“The right lad?”
K.B. grabbed the young boy by the hair and pulled him closer. “Well,
pardonnez-moi
,” he said in a dense accent. “
We’s
got ourselves some high class lassies
comin
’ to the hood.”

“You’ve no business manhandling that boy,” Sadie said. “Release him.”

“Oh,
ain’t
that sweet, Jason. The fine lady here’s worried about your bad ass.” He let out a maniacal chuckle, amused about the girls’ presence. But the moment Sadie took a step forward, his demeanor changed and he was no longer amused. “
I’s
take care of my
b’ness
my way. You ladies head on out and tend to yours however you want.”

“The boy is my business.”

“This piece of crap.”
K.B. raised his fist and prepared to pummel Jason.

The boy cringed in anticipation of the pain, but Sadie stepped in and grabbed K.B by the arm. With one quick twist she brought his arm behind his back and pushed him into the wall. His head slammed into a cement windowsill and, as he swayed to remain upright, he stared at Sadie in amazement. Seconds later, his eyes rolled back and he fell forward, his head crashing into the piles of newspaper that littered the alley.

Before the boy could run, Sadie took a hold of him.

“This is not your life, Jason. This is not what you’re destined to be. There’s a whole world out there. Cut from this business and tend to what a young boy like you should. You might think this is cool and you’re making some nice money, right?”

“It’s decent.” While Jason tried to put on an air of cool detachment, he stared at Sadie with wonder and awe.

“Stick to school and work to get out of here. I promise you your life will be more than just decent… and you won’t have to risk your life in the process.”

“I
ain’t
smart enough for school. This is all I got.”

Sadie cupped his chin and looked deep into his eyes, using her vampire compulsion. “You’re far smarter than you think. I see it in your eyes, Jason. You're not only smart, but you have the making to become a powerful and important man.”

He beamed then looked away sheepishly.

“Now go home and forget about everything here.” She released him and he rushed out of the alley. She fervently hoped she’d gotten through to him.

Turning her attention to K.B. she found Alexis already at his throat, fangs deep in his artery.

“Don’t bleed him dry, Alexis,” she said as she knelt beside her and sank her fangs into his thick arm. As much as she despised this one human, she wouldn’t drain him dry. She has always been careful not to kill anyone when she fed. It was a way for her to keep her humanity, to keep her sane. Otherwise, if she drained her prey, kill them, she would become a true killer, an evil vampire, a “
Strigoi
” as Romanians call them…the ones that gave vampires a bad name, the ones that caused hunters to go after all vampires, the ones Bram Stoker based his version of Dracula on. She was a vampire, but she wasn’t evil…at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

Chapter 10