Sweet Blood of Mine (31 page)

I was just glad he hadn't been getting his jolies from watching old ladies. Nobody seemed to notice we weren't doing laundry as I practiced. It took a while, but I eventualy got the hang of probing, dirty as the term sounded. While I could not read minds, as I had discovered long ago, I could sense emotional states. Most of the people in this place were practicaly comatose. No surprise there. One girl, however, was rather enjoying herself thanks to the erotic novel in her lap.

Another interesting tidbit—I could hook into a person's psyche without them immediately wanting to tear off my clothes. I had to attune to their emotional state before diving in.

"Isn't this like mind control?" I asked.

"It's dangerously close. If you can raise sexual impulses, then you can make a person do things they normaly wouldn't do. As it is, we can either prevent them normaly wouldn't do. As it is, we can either prevent them from responding to us by keeping our hooks attuned to their state, or we can attract them."

I was a little disappointed I couldn't telepathicaly make them do what I wanted. It didn't take me too long to figure out how to attune my state to people's auras so I could hook into them after Dad explained the process, although it took a lot of control and wilpower to settle my mind into passivity.

"Once you've hooked, you can transfer the link to another person," he told me. "That's what happened to you with Cindy Mueler and that other boy."

"Does that mean they were feeding off each other?"

"No, humans can't feed. They don't have a psythus. By linking two people you can increase the flow of energy just as you did to the young couple at the footbal game. Much as it sounds like magic, there are some scientific principles to psychic energy generation and so forth."

"Cindy and Alan are dating now. Cool, huh?" Ever since my accident with those two in Calculus, they'd been inseparable.

His eyes hardened. "Don't toy with people's emotions, Justin. It's wrong for one thing, and for another, the feelings you think you're creating are ilusion. You can't make someone like or love another person if true feelings don't already exist."

I gave him a shocked look. "I would never do that." I actualy had planned on trying it, but I knew he was right.

"One derogatory term for our kind is
cherub
because of our ability to force emotional connections between people. It's a dangerous power."

"Anything is dangerous in the hands of a hormonal teenager," I said with a grin.

He chuckled. "No doubt."

I practiced hooking and unhooking for a while, seeing if I could leave the individual in question totaly unaffected. They seemed to know something was afoot because most would glance around as though someone had just tapped them on the shoulder. So long as I maintained a calm emotional state, I could feed with hardly a reaction.

The only problem with a neutral emotional state? The energy tasted like rice cakes—think Styrofoam—and it trickled rather than flowed.

After practice, we went to a hipster restaurant in downtown Decatur for some real food.

"Do dhampyrs hate us?" I asked Dad as we ate.

He pursed his lips. "I would imagine that each individual has his or her own opinion of our kind much as ordinary humans do. In general, though, spawn have earned their bad reputation."

"Elyssa's mom is a hair stylist," I said. "A hair stylist! I would never think someone like her was a dhampyr."

"Like anyone else, they've got to earn a living."

He made it sound so mundane. How many people could say their hairstylist was a half-human vampire? I sighed. "So there's probably no chance of Elyssa and I getting back together."

"Ah, to be young and foolish," Dad said. "I hate to say it, son, but it sounds like she has some prejudiced feelings that wil be hard to overcome."

I tried not to hang my head, but the weight of his words hit me like a hammer, even if Elyssa had already told me in no uncertain terms how she felt about what I was.

But there was nothing I could do about it. Just like I couldn't change my skin color or where I was born. Then again, dating demon spawn was probably more extreme than most people wanted to deal with.

We left the restaurant and walked down an aley formed by the restaurant and a neighboring pub. Shattered formed by the restaurant and a neighboring pub. Shattered glass littered the pavement and crunched underfoot. A stray dog trotted past us, something hanging from its mouth. We reached the junction of a service entrance where four buildings backed up to each other. Dumpsters lined the paved strip. Steam escaped the sewage covers in the middle of the service aley. I wrinkled my nose at the unwelcome odor pervading an otherwise crisp autumn evening.

A crackle and a low hum filed my ears. I stopped and looked around, half expecting a power transformer to explode. Dad took a couple of steps forward. He bounced back as if he'd hit a wal.

"Oh crap." He lunged forward and rebounded again. He pressed against the air like a mime touching an invisible wal.

"What is it?"

"We've got a problem."

I stil wasn't sure what the hel was going on. "What are you doing? There's nothing there."

"It's a confinement circle."

A young man, probably in his twenties, came from around the corner and gave us a triumphant look. "Wel that was easy."

"What do you want?" Dad asked.

"The bounty, of course," replied the man. He strutted over like he was the cock of the walk and studied me. "You must be the little monster everyone's so worked up about." He looked at my dad. "You, on the other hand, are wanted by the Conroys. I guess it's for the best if I turn you in with your 'son'." He flashed air quotes to demonstrate exactly what he thought about our family relations. "I'l let the authorities sort it al out." I hadn't known this guy for thirty seconds and I already hated him.

Dad clenched his fists. "The Conroys put a bounty on me? Who put a bounty on my son?"

The man shrugged. "I don't know. I just turn the monsters in to the Conclave and let them sort it out." He rubbed his hands together. "Now, if you'l just cooperate, I promise things wil go smoothly."

I was getting realy tired of this dude's insinuations that my dad and I were nothing more than monsters for him to ship off.

I stepped forward. Dad stopped me. "You can't break through it, son. It's a circle."

"A circle?"

"It's what sorcerers use to trap demon spawn." He pointed to a chalk outline on the ground.

"A chalk circle?" I pshawed. "That's stupid. Who in the world came up with that rule?"

The man listened to us with an amused expression on his face then lifted a large rune-covered staff and waved it around in a way that probably wasn't good for our near future.

I knew something horrible was about to happen to Dad. Before I could think, I blurred forward and snatched the staff from the man. I snapped it into four pieces. Threw the pieces to the ground. I grabbed the man by the neck.

He squealed like a pig—probably just like Coach Wise preferred—as I chucked him at the dumpster. He bounced off the open lid and landed inside with a metalic clang. I blurred over to him and looked inside. He was out cold.

I approached the oh-so-dangerous chalk circle and rubbed out a section with my shoe. Dad stepped across, staring at me with amazement.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"I, uh, just walked across it," I said. "I felt a little static in the air, but that was it."

"You know what this means?" he said.

"That I can step across a chalk line?"

He shook his head. "You
are
part human."

"So I'm not a demon spawn after al?"

"So I'm not a demon spawn after al?"

He grinned. "Oh, you're definitely demon spawn, but you have a human side too." He whistled. "And they thought half-breeds were impossible."

"The Conroys must have known something if they took Ivy."

"Maybe. Or perhaps they're just evil people."

"That goes without saying about anyone who'd steal a baby from her parents." I pointed a thumb over my shoulder at the dumpster. "What about him?"

"I don't know what to do about him. This is bad news. If he found us, there wil be others looking to colect the bounty."

"Why would magicians need money? Can't they just make it out of thin air?"

He chuckled. "They don't like to be caled that. It lumps them in with the ordinary ilusionists. Besides, even the best sorcerers can't make things out of thin air." Dad stared vacantly for a moment then narrowed his eyes. "Do you have an internet phone?"

"You mean a smartphone? Yes."

"Let's check the Conclave's website. Maybe they have my bounty posted there."

My eyebrows threatened to fly away. "You must be kidding. They have a website?"

I puled out my smartphone and typed in the address my dad gave me. Sure enough, it was a website for the Overworld Conclave with slick professionaly-designed graphics and everything. The main page listed bounties.

Mine and my dad's were at the top of the list. Most of the bounties ran around a thousand bucks. Our bounties were fifty grand each. I almost felt flattered.

"How can sorcerers have a website? I thought magic and technical stuff didn't work very wel together."

"Technology and magic work very wel together," he said. "Some of the things they can do nowadays would scare your pants off. Besides, this isn't the Arcane Council's website. The Overworld Conclave governs al supernatural beings. Or at least it tries to."

"Tries to?"

"Every faction complains that other factions have too much power. Most of the time nothing gets done.

About the only thing most factions agree on is keeping the supernatural set out of the limelight. Anyone caught breaking that rule is usualy dealt with quickly and efficiently."

I gulped. Had I stepped over the line? Stupid question. I had dived over the line with footbal. That had to be the reason the Conclave had listed a bounty on me.

I went to the dumpster and, despite the horrible odor, puled out the unconscious sorcerer. A few shreds of moldy lettuce fel off his brown leather duster. I patted him on the cheek a couple of times. He jerked awake, mumbling something about remembering his gym shorts.

When his eyes settled on me, they hardened.

"How did you break the circle?"

"I'l be asking the questions," I said. "How did you find us?"

"A lot of detective work."

"Tracking spels?" Dad asked.

He shook his head. "Didn't have blood or anything to track you with."

I wasn't realy sure what the limits of magic were in that regard. For al I knew he could wave a magic wand around and teleport to us.

"You two should just come with me," the sorcerer said. "It'l be a lot easier on you that way."

I gave him a yeah-right look. "How about you leave us alone and go away?"

He snorted. "I'm the least of your worries. Ever since the bounties on you two went public, al sorts of supers are looking for you."

supers are looking for you."

"Vampires?" Dad asked, worry creasing his forehead.

The sorcerer pushed himself to his feet and looked at the splintered mess I'd made of his staff. "Do you know how long it takes to make one of those?" He shook his head. "No, of course you don't."

Something rustled. A bit of broken roof tile fel onto the aley floor from two stories up. Dad cursed. The sorcerer dug in his trench coat and whipped out a smooth ebony stick about twelve inches long. Something cold prickled at the edge of my senses, almost the same way it did when Stacey was around. But this felt cold and hostile rather than hot and stalkerish.

"I just knew those sons of bitches were folowing me," the sorcerer said. "Lazy bastards were probably waiting for me to put you in sleepers."

I gulped. "Um, who's folowing you?"

Dark forms dropped from above and landed in front and behind us. I counted six. One shadowy figure stepped into the dim light of a lamp. He looked pretty ordinary to me aside from his abnormaly ice-hued skin and his Fabio-length brown hair. He smiled. His canines lengthened into ivory-colored fangs.

I had just met my first "normal" vampire.

The vampire's fangs reminded me of Elyssa's, except her straight white teeth and ful lips complemented hers and drove the sexiness factor through the roof. This guy wasn't ugly, but the large gap between his two front teeth gave him an almost comical appearance. He realy needed an orthodontist and some titanium braces to fix those ugly chompers. Apparently, becoming a vampire didn't fix your teeth.

"It's him," said a tal thin vampire as he stepped from the shadows and pointed at me. Light danced menacingly in his ruby-colored irises.

"Oh yes, the footbal star," said a shorter vampire with a slight lisp who stood next to the other. I recognized both their faces even though they'd worn hoodies while watching me at footbal practice.

"Hey, it's Thing 1 and Thing 2," I said. "You two get your jolies stalking me?"

"I am a sorcerer and member of the Arcane Council," said the sorcerer. "These two spawn are in my custody. Let us pass peacefuly."