henri dunn 01 - immortality cure (10 page)

“Yeah, well, thanks for not bothering to ask me yourself.”

“I assumed that since you’d turned your back on my kind, you would not want to see me,” Sean said. There was unmistakable hurt in his voice, and it only made me angrier. What right did he have to be hurt? He was the one who hadn’t come to check on me after hearing that a goddamn scientific disaster had befallen me. What had he expected me to do, send a postcard? “Hello from the Land of Former Immortality”?

“I didn’t turn my back on vampires,” I said. I stood, agitated. “I was made human against my will, and no one will turn me back. The vampires here call me a Blood Traitor.”

“Did you not give a scientist your blood?” Sean was so matter-of-fact about it my blood boiled. “That has been a crime among our kind since the humans began tinkering with alchemy.”

“It’s not that black-and-white and you damn well know it,” I hissed.

He smiled again, wider this time. “Even this hasn’t changed you. You are indomitable, Henri. It’s my favorite thing about you.”

“Except the whole being alive again thing.”

“It can’t be all bad,” Sean said. He glanced over toward the giant picture window. I still had blackout curtains hanging around it and a set of steel blackout blinds that I could pull down and fully block out the sun. “What’s it like, feeling the sun on your skin without it burning?”

I froze and slumped back down into the chair across from him. “It’s warm. But the warmth is penetrating. It sinks into your bones and feels like you’re being hugged by the sky.” I shook my head and took a swig of tart wine. “God, I sound idiotic.”

“No,” Sean said, leaning forward. “It sounds heavenly.”

“It’s not worth it,” I said flatly. “I miss my fangs. I miss blood.”

He eyed my wineglass. “Perhaps you merely miss the habit of it.”

I rolled my eyes and took another swig of the wine before setting it on the glass coffee table. “Is this why you’re here? To ask me inane questions about the sunlight and rub it in my face that I’m stuck like this?”

Sean frowned, the marble mask of his face morphing into the visage of a mourning angel. “You’ve never been stuck anywhere. You always find a way out.” He met my eyes. “But as long as you’re in this state, you should avoid Cazimir and the other vampires. If you need help disposing of bodies, you have better resources. Though I confess I don’t understand why you’d kill without a pressing need. Unless it’s for revenge.” There was no question in his tone, but I could read it the subtle change of his expression, a tiny quirk of the eyebrow.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “I’m trying to solve the guy’s murder.”

Sean reached up and touched a finger to his chin before dropping his hand. “All the same.”

“Did you hear about Thomas?” I asked.

“Thomas? I heard that Lark had turned him, but that was a while ago now.”

I filled him in, finishing my wine and pouring a second glass in the process. I leaned over the counter while Sean considered my words from the easy chair.

“I cannot protect you from this,” he said finally, rising to his feet. Sean is tall and imposing and has a way of filling up a room.

“I didn’t ask you to,” I said, but a flicker of disappointment flared inside me. Sean had always been a shield. He was powerful and well known amongst the elder vampires. Being his fledgling came with certain protections since hurting one of his meant starting shit with him. But this stupid Cure had taken that from me, too.

Sean was across the room, and then in a space of a second, he was in front of me, his cool hand on my cheek, eyes burning into me. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Turn me back.” I knew even as the words left my lips that he wouldn’t do it. He dropped his hand.

“I cannot take that risk,” he said, looking away from me.

I sucked in a sharp breath. I’d known what he’d say but it didn’t hurt any less to have it confirmed. Even my own sire was afraid that the blood in my veins might be poisonous. And worse, I couldn’t fault him for that fear. There was no way to know.

“Sean.”

“I will be in touch,” he said. And then he was gone before I could see more than the door swinging shut behind him.

CHAPTER 10

I
woke up at the next morning to pounding on my front door. I checked my phone in a panic to make sure it wasn’t the second of the month and my landlord wasn’t pissed that I’d forgotten to drop the check in the rent slot last night. Nope, still mid-July. Relieved, I threw off the covers and yawned as I forced myself upright. It wasn’t even ten a.m. What kind of monster banged on a door before noon?

Through the peephole, I saw a shock of blue hair and groaned. If Aidan was here, it was because Cazimir had sent him, and that couldn’t mean anything good. I considered trying out the fire escape but decided against it. It was daytime, so the sun was out and shining bright. Despite Seattle’s dreary reputation, the summers are pretty hot and sunny, and today was no exception. Vampires didn’t conduct business in the daytime. So it was unlikely Aidan was here to drag me to an impromptu murder trial where I’d be hanged on the basis of having no one else to accuse.

Unlikely, but not impossible. I grabbed my sole chef’s knife out of my drawer of kitchen utensils before I opened the door.

Aidan held one of those drink carriers with four Starbucks cups on it. “Good morning,” he mumbled, sounding like he meant the exact opposite. He eyed the knife in my hand. “Whoa. I come in peace.”

“I’m sure,” I said, but I didn’t put the knife down. “What do you want?”

“To go back to bed and sleep for the next eight hours,” he said, shoving the tray of coffees toward me. “But Monsieur Cazimir has decreed that I help you solve Thomas’s murder. So drink up.”

I eyed the tray. “You’re joking.”

“Nope. I don’t joke about Caz’s wishes.”

“How are you going to help?” As soon as I said it, I realized how insulting it sounded. I didn’t correct myself.

Aidan shrugged, his blue-and-black striped sweatshirt riding up as he did. “Beats me. Can I come in? This shit is getting heavy.”

I rolled my eyes but stepped back, letting him inside. He put the tray of drinks on the counter and pulled off his eyeglasses, rubbing the lenses on his sweatshirt before putting them back on his face.

“Who else is coming?” I asked.

Aidan frowned like it was a particularly hard question. Caz likes ’em pretty but not necessarily razor-sharp. Then he seemed to catch my meaning and waved at the coffees. “I didn’t know what you drank, so I got options. Mocha, soy latte, chai tea, black coffee. Pick your poison.” He winced at his own words. “Sorry. I mean, whatever you want. I’ll drink one of the others.”

I put the knife on the counter and traded it for the black coffee. I popped the plastic lid off and sniffed it. Seemed okay. Besides, vampires aren’t the poisoning type. If vampires wanted you dead, they’d do it in some melodramatic fashion for sport or drink your blood. Which made Thomas’s death more of a mystery, unless someone had tried to Cure him and it had gone terribly wrong.

I sipped. Tasted fine. No tingling on my tongue. I didn’t drop dead. All good signs.

Aidan picked up the cup labeled “mocha” and took a large swig, which made me more confident that none of these drinks were drugged in some way. Since he couldn’t know which one I’d pick, he’d have had to drug them all.

“Lark wants you burned,” Aidan said, as casually as one talks about the weather.

“I got that, yeah,” I said, remembering the seething fury in her ethereal brown eyes. I took another sip of coffee. It tasted burnt and bitter, but I could feel the caffeine working its magic.

“Tonight.” He watched me to gauge my reaction.

I didn’t react outwardly, but my blood ran cold, like ice water had flooded my veins. “Wait, are you telling me what she wants or what she’s going to make happen?”

Aidan shrugged, an annoying habit of his that was going to get on my nerves. “I just know she’s insisting that you pay.”

“Fuck.”

Being human again meant that even most vampires who didn’t outright hate me for what I represented didn’t trust me. It wouldn’t be hard to convince them to form a panel and convict me of murdering Thomas. Not that they needed to. Vampire justice is vigilante and not ruled by any boards, royalty, or leaders. Factions of vampires who follow a leader or a certain set of laws do exist, but it’s all over the map.

Cazimir fancied himself some kind of Vampire King of Seattle, but it wasn’t official. Some vampires bowed down and paid lip service to the title, mostly young ones whose sires had abandoned them, leaving them without protection while the newness of their transformation made them vulnerable. New vampires tended to be clumsy, used to moving a human body rather than a vampire one, which could react faster and be harder to control until one got used to it. And the bloodlust was harder for them to control since they hadn’t had much practice. Which meant getting in good with someone like Caz could be a lifesaver.

But even though most vampires tended to ignore people who declare themselves monarchs, the best way to kill a vampire without pissing off their friends and family was to make it look justified, and that meant some kind of trial. “Trial” is a loose term. It’s not like a jury of your peers and two sides arguing. It’s someone presenting a case and someone else going, “Sounds guilty: get ’em!” It’s a way to cover your ass.

Lark wouldn’t kill me outright and risk incurring Sean’s wrath. But she could appeal to the other vampires and make a case. There was a body, and I was the “Blood Traitor.” The fact that I had not wanted to be human again wouldn’t do me any good. And running wasn’t really an option; as a mortal, I couldn’t hide from these people. Which meant the only way to save my own ass was to bring the real murderer to justice.

“Who didn’t like Thomas?” I asked Aidan.

Aidan shrugged again. It was like a tic. “A lot of people. He was a book nerd who didn’t like killing. When he heard about you, he was thrilled that science was working on vampire blood. He was hoping they’d make synthetic stuff like on that TV show and no one would have to murder for it.”

“He was a Weeper?” I asked, mostly joking, because Thomas had always struck me as practical and down to the earth. He’d taken the Blood from Lark knowing exactly what it would entail. Some vampires are turned on a whim or without any introduction as to what killing means, but Thomas had known. He’d lived with Lark for twenty years before she’d made him like her. Weepers are vampires who regret being what they are, resent having to hurt mortals to get blood and avoid it whenever possible, and brood about being “damned” and “soulless.”

Aidan smirked at the term. “Caz doesn’t tolerate Weepers. Thomas had reservations, that’s all. He and Lark stopped killing years ago and got on Cazimir’s case for sometimes going overboard with some of his groupies and occasionally taking a life.” Aidan clearly didn’t consider himself one of those groupies, which was sort of ironic, given that I was damn sure Cazimir would have. Maybe the lead groupie, but a groupie all the same.

“You think Caz killed him?” I asked.

Aidan shook his head. “Hell, no. But I’m sure Caz wasn’t the only vampire he and Lark harassed. Maybe someone was tired of the lectures.”

I tapped my fingers on the counter and considered. That was possible, but it seemed like a pretty extreme reaction. As a waitress, I’d witnessed more than my share of paleo/gluten-free/raw-food-only dieters try to guilt their dining companions into eating their way, and I knew how irritating it could be. But it was hardly a reason to kill. Especially in such a brutal way. And it’s not like vampires who kill humans aren’t used to suffering through the arguments against it.

Some vampires don’t kill, but that’s a hard road to walk. If a vampire doesn’t drink enough blood, they’ll eventually go into a catatonic state, sort of like an immortal coma, and the only way to wake them is to pour blood into their mouths or inject it into their veins until their heart starts beating again. So while vampires can subsist by taking small drinks from mortals and supplementing it with blood from other sources (hospitals, blood banks), it’s a lot of work and effort and far more complicated than killing some evil human the world would be better off without. There are more than enough evil people to go around: rapists, pedophiles, murderers, men who profit on the misery of others. It isn’t hard for even the most bleeding-heart vampires to find victims who deserved a swift and violent end.

Some found killing at all immoral and distasteful. I was never one of them.

I finished the coffee and tossed the empty cup in the trash beneath the sink. “Whoever did it has to be connected to Ray,” I said, adding, “the scientist,” at Aidan’s questioning look. “To get the vial, they probably killed him first. That means whoever it was knew about the Cure and wanted it for their own use.”

“Or they wanted to frame you for their crimes,” Aidan said.

I swore again. Aidan was probably right. I made a damn convenient scapegoat.

Aidan opened my refrigerator and examined its meager contents. It was woefully devoid of anything edible.

“I’m going to put on jeans and then we’re going to get to work,” I said. I glanced at the lone jar of martini olives on the shelf in front of Aidan. “And we can grab breakfast on the way.”

He shut the fridge door. “Cool.”

“Yeah,” I said, not quite rolling my eyes. “Cool.”

CHAPTER 11

O
n the way to Ray’s apartment, we hit a drive-thru for greasy breakfast sandwiches. That was the kind of food that, despite my knowing it was mostly fat and salt, was so hard for me to resist. There had been nothing like it when I was mortal before, and once I got over the weirdness of solid food and the flavor of cooked meat, breakfast sandwiches were the food I craved most. I ate my sausage-egg biscuit with another black coffee. Aidan scarfed down three bacon-and-egg English muffins and an order of hash browns.

“Don’t they feed you in Castle Dracula?” I asked.

Aidan rolled his eyes. “I eat a lot of Pop Tarts. You know how vampires get about meat.”

I smiled. To vampiric senses, animal meat smelled rotten and old. The smell of it cooking was pretty vile. I had never been sure why. Maybe because fire is so deadly, so the smell of burning flesh curls the nostrils.