Fangs for Freaks (6 page)

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Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Best friends, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #School & Education, #Friendship, #Fantasy & Magic, #Horror stories, #Universities and colleges

BOOK: Fangs for Freaks
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Thomas looked at me with a half-smile.
“What?” I demanded, unnerved by his tender look.
“What?!” I demanded again, “Do I have dirt on my cheek?” I rubbed my face furiously with the palm of my hand.
“No, no dirt. It’s your fervor. You get very passionate about your job. I like that.”
He gently tucked a stray tendril behind my ear, sort of deflating my righteous anger. Now I just felt kind of gushy and warm and, if you must know, tingly in all the right places. What can I say? I’m not a complicated chick.
“Do we have a plan of attack?” I asked softly; my mouth felt kind of dry and woolen.
“First, let’s get there and check into our room. Then, if there’s time, we can go to the house. Otherwise, we’ll wait until tomorrow night.”
My whole body came alive at his mention of our sharing a room but I was immediately distracted when he suggested waiting until the next evening to do anything.
“Why can’t I scout out the house during the day? There won’t be any vampire activity and I might be able to talk to the hostages or free them on my own without a fight.”
“We don’t know what you’ll be up against, so it’s best to wait until both of us can check it out.”
I leaned back in my seat, mouth dangling open in shock. I was the Protector of half-blood vampires for crying out loud and he didn’t think I was capable of going to an Undead house
during the day
without screwing things up? I couldn’t believe he thought so little of my skills that I couldn’t be trusted to do a little recon.
He took my silence as agreement and leaned his head against the window to close his eyes and take a catnap. I fumed silently, stewing in resentment. Sure, I was on the assignment but Thomas wasn’t going to let me do anything. He was just letting me tag along or, worse yet, had been
forced
to bring me along and really didn’t want me here at all!
I was not going to wait meekly for the big, strong Vampire Investigator to save the world. That was my job. He could be the sidekick for a change. I was going in during the day.
We touched down two hours later with Thomas dozing most of the way. It didn’t take much time to rent a car and head down the coast to Paradise Point. The plan (at least Thomas’s plan) was to gather as much information as possible about Cookie and her beach house while waiting for darkness at the safe house. My plan was to leave Thomas napping and save the two half-bloods myself.
We arrived in Paradise Point in a little over two hours. Thomas took us directly toward the ocean and we did a drive-by of the scenic beach homes.
“What are you doing?” I asked, wondering why we were sightseeing and not heading immediately to the safe house.
“Just trying to scope out the area,” he answered in a noncommittal way. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You know, sunrise is gonna happen any minute now.”
Which was a bit of an exaggeration on my part, but the man had a way of keeping secrets and pissing me off.
He reached over and patted my knee in a patronizing sort of way. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he said.
Can you believe he actually
said
that to me?! He might as well have said, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” If I was having second thoughts about leaving him behind and rescuing the prisoners myself (and I might have been), his attitude at that moment sealed his fate. He was so being left behind in our room.
He wound down the long beach road and took a turn east toward a large two-story house, which I could only assume was the safe house. It looked like a sleepy residential area. Thomas drove around the back of the house and parked in a spacious gravel lot, next to a white Mercedes and silver Lexus. Say what you want about vampires, but being around for so long, they seemed to have mastered the material aspects of living.
I was surprised to discover the house was a split-level with a secluded half basement. We entered the back door and stepped into a small alcove, complete with reception desk. Now this looked more like a cute bed-and-breakfast than a safe house. Though I really didn’t know what I was expecting. After all, who goes to a safe house or even knows what one is supposed to look like anyway?
Thomas rang the bell and waited patiently, absently caressing my shoulder with his strong hand. He started to massage my neck and I practically purred with contentment until the check-in clerk bounded down the steps to our left and greeted us.
“Hello, Thomas!” the man’s voice boomed. He was larger than life in every aspect, from his body to his voice.
“Phillip, good to see you,” Thomas returned the greeting.
I noted with more than a little pride that Thomas seemed to match the other man in strength when they shook hands.
My man was no wimp
.
“What brings you to Paradise Point?” Phillip asked, scouring his counter for keys and paperwork.
“Just taking a break to get away. Thought I’d take Colby here to see everything your fine city has to offer.”
Phillip finally looked up and noticed me. Not that I minded being completely ignored by an innkeeper or anything, but hey, I’m not invisible either.
I smiled and held out my hand. He stared at me and pointedly ignored my outstretched hand. I pulled it back slowly, as though I never offered it to him in the first place, pretending to stretch my arms.
I looked at Thomas and said brightly, “So far I’m lovin’ the local hospitality.”
“Thomas, you know you’re always welcome but she”—he grunted while nodding in my direction—“can’t stay here.”
Thomas moved toward Phillip, leaning over the counter in a semimenacing sort of way, saying, “She goes where I go. You know the law now, Phillip. No discriminating.”
“I’m not talking about discriminating. I’m talking about safety. I can’t guarantee you won’t be harassed here. You know Paradise Point considers itself outside of Tribunal law.”
So Phillip was a bigot, but he was a
safety-conscious
bigot, so I guess that made everything okay. Not!
“No one is going to go up against a Tribunal Investigator, especially when he’s accompanied by the Protector.”
Phillip grunted and looked me over one more time. I tried to stand a little taller and look a bit more menacing. The way Thomas said my title, even I wanted to look behind me and see who he was talking about. It sounded downright impressive and a little intimidating. Too bad I was wearing a pink tank top, lacy shrug and black broomstick skirt with butterfly flip-flops. I hardly struck fear in the hearts of vampires anywhere.
“I just don’t want any trouble,” Phillip hedged but gave us keys to a room anyway.
“No trouble,” Thomas promised. “You won’t even know we’re here.”
We moved away but not before I caught the look of disgust on Phillip’s face when he looked at me. This guy obviously thought Thomas and I were going to be spending all our time in the room, and he was revolted at the thought of intimacies with me. With
me
?! I might not be any Ileana Romanav but I was still one cute package. Jerk.
I shuffled behind Thomas down the hallway and ran into his back when he stopped to unlock the door.
“Oomph.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, caught up in a tiny pity party for one. Sure, Phillip was a jerk and all but it wasn’t like Thomas was all ready and willing to throw me down on the bed and ravage my half-blood self. Maybe I was revolting on some level to Thomas?
Thomas swung the door open and ushered me inside. The room was done up in grays and blues, lighthouse artwork over the queen-size bed and a small bathroom next to the closet. It was a snug room with no windows but when you’re a vampire, you hardly require an ocean view.
I dropped down on the edge of the bed and put my purse down by my feet. There were no other chairs in the room. I looked around for a television but came up empty. This room was made for one thing and one thing only. I sighed heavily.
Thomas misinterpreted my sigh and said, “Don’t worry about what Phillip said, Colby. We’ll be fine. We’ll hang out until sundown and go rescue the half-bloods.”
He sank down next to me and put an arm around my shoulder in a supportive, nonsexual sort of way. I leaned my head on his shoulder and asked, “Thomas, how did he know I was a half-blood?”
When Thomas didn’t immediately answer, I raised my head to look into his eyes. “Do I look so different from regular vampires? I don’t think so. I mean, sure I have the freaky yellow eye thing going for me, but I’m wearing my colored contacts, so that can’t be it. I am just as pasty as he was.” I gasped a little at the thought that crossed my mind next, “Do I
smell
? Do half-bloods have a revolting kind of odor I’m not aware of?”
I started to sniff my hand, arm and wrist when Thomas grabbed me and started to laugh.
“Colby, you don’t smell. Well, you do smell, but it isn’t some revolting telltale scent.” He leaned closer to me and put his nose to the nape of my neck and inhaled deeply.
“You smell like peaches and cream. Like summertime.” I closed my eyes and swayed toward him a moment, but quickly strengthened my resolve.
“Then how could he tell?”
It was Thomas’s time to sigh deeply as he straightened up. “Shake my hand,” he instructed.
“What?”
“Come on. Put out your hand and offer it to shake.”
I stared at him dumbly for a moment then extended my right hand to shake. Thomas took my hand and lifted it to my face, so my vampire license was clearly visible.
“He could tell I was a half-blood by my license? Does my ring look that much different than everyone else’s?”
“Your license is white gold and has a different crest. See how the shape is a rectangle? Look at mine. It’s a circle and the engraving is different. See?”
I compared our two rings. They were definitely dissimilar. But still, I doubted Phillip could really decipher the difference from such a distance.
I looked doubtfully at Thomas, who finally conceded, “Also, your photo was circulated to all the safe houses so they knew you were to get special treatment.”
“Yeah, I felt special too.”
“By special treatment, I mean you are to be kept safe and out of the way of other, less gracious vampires. Phillip was simply concerned he couldn’t offer you a secure room.”
“Well, this just blows,” I finally said after a moment of speculation. “Everyone hates me. I can’t even go incognito anywhere. It’s like I’m ‘Colby, Undead Lord of the Lepers.’ ” I punctuated my statement with air quotes. I mean really,
air quotes
? How lame was I?
Thomas gently took my quoting fingers and clasped them in his. He looked me in the eyes and said softly, “I don’t think you’re a lord of the lepers at all.”
I held his gaze shyly and whispered, “Really?”
He nodded, slowly moving his lips toward mine. “Really.”
Then he was kissing me and I couldn’t have cared less about Phillip, vampires or a colony of lepers. Thomas was kissing me. His mouth was sweet, strong and oh so yummy.
After a moment, I became almost painfully aware that we were making out on a very soft bed where no one would interrupt us, and we had hours to kill. What more could a girl ask for? This was it. The moment. The time for Thomas and me to take it to the next level, and I was so more than ready. We’d been dating forever and he was finally going to make me his, in every sense of the word.
Abruptly, Thomas ended our passionate kissing and stood up.
Or he was going to make me very, very angry, in every sense of the word.
“We should review our game plan,” he panted, reaching for his briefcase and maps he’d dumped on the floor earlier.
I was in shock by his rude departure and sat there with my mouth hanging open while he rummaged through his notes.
“What the hell was that all about?” I finally managed to utter.
Thomas didn’t even look up at me when he replied, “Colby, we don’t have time for this.”
I looked around the room and then down at my watch. I shook it at him in an exaggerated attempt to reinforce my next point. “We’ve got nothing but time until sundown, Thomas.”

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