The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires (33 page)

Oh, right, my sister had been dating our burglar. Behind my back. The last tendrils of fog seemed to clear from my head. I narrowed my eyes at her and demanded, “Gigi, who is this?”

She blanched and looked down at the hands twisting in her lap. “Um …”

“Spill it,” I ground out.

“That’s John,” she said, giving a nervous little chuckle. “He’s sort of my boyfriend.”

“I thought … Ben?” I mumbled.

Gigi’s face sort of crumpled into that weird “there’s something I don’t want to tell you” origami expression. “Every time I was supposed to be going out with Ben, he would drive me to meet John.”

“Wh-why did Ben agree to that?” I asked, struggling over the syllables.

She shrugged. “Because he really likes me.”

“Gigi!”

“Shut up, both of you!” John yelled, exasperated. “This is not the time for girl talk.”

We both shrank back into our chairs, chastened.

“Both of you, just be quiet,” he said, his tone stern but not unfriendly. “Gigi, I’m very glad to see you. Now that you’re here, you can help me.”

The smooth, velvety tenor of his voice seemed to curl around her body, making her relax and sag into the chair. A dreamy smile tilted the corners of her mouth, and she leaned into the caress of his voice.

“Don’t you want to help me, Gigi?” he asked, his lips nearly touching her ear. She nodded, smiling shyly. “Just close your eyes and sit there quietly,” he whispered.

With his focus aimed elsewhere, I was able to move again, to concentrate. Gigi’s eyelids drooped, and her head dropped to her chest as if she’d suddenly decided to take a nap at our kitchen table.

“Hey!” I stood up from my chair, flinging it behind me. “What are you doing to her?”

He turned on me, that winsome expression firmly
in place, although his eyes were as dead and blank as a shark’s. “Sit down and be a good girl, like your sister.”

Although I fought against the urge to obey, my arms reached out of their own volition and righted the chair. I sat heavily, gripping the edge of the table and praying for the strength to push up and stand again. But the urge to stay seated seemed to be the only thing that kept me breathing. If I stood, something terrible would happen. John hummed a tuneless ditty as he opened the back door and disappeared into the house. His absence let me flex my hand enough to reach out to Gigi. But then he came back, and the music clogged my thinking.

The humming continued while John wrapped duct tape around our ankles, secured our wrists behind our backs, and put us into the trunk of his car. The humming was so soothing, so calming, that my limbs were too limp and heavy to push John away. Hell, I even tilted my head helpfully so John could tie my blindfold more easily. I was only able to move and think freely after the trunk slammed shut and the humming stopped. Even in that small, cramped space, it felt easier to breathe.

It took a few long, agonizing miles for me to focus enough to rub my face against the carpet of the trunk. I worked until the blindfold slipped from my eyes and around my neck.

“Gigi,” I whispered, my tongue heavy and thick. She didn’t stir, so I kicked her shins. She jerked awake, head rolling wildly around in the little space.

“Iris, what—where are we?”

“Deep breaths, Geeg,” I told her, shaking the last foggy remnants of John’s influence from my head. I leaned forward to tug the blindfold down with my teeth.

Head lolling, she blinked against the harsh red light of the brake lights. I cleared my throat.

“What the
hell
has gotten into you, Gladiola Grace?”

“Wow, you sounded exactly like Mom just then.”

“Don’t flatter me.” I growled. “Why did you lie to me? Did you think I would forbid you to date him? Did you think I wouldn’t understand that you wanted to go out with a vampire? I would never judge you, because clearly—pot, kettle, black, hello?”

Gigi squirmed uncomfortably. “Vampire?”

“John is a vampire.”

She scoffed. “No, he’s not.”

“Are you telling me that you did not notice that your boyfriend doesn’t have a pulse?”

“Well, it’s not like I was feeling around on his wrist.”

I closed my eyes and bit my tongue, because I did not want to know where she
had
been “feeling around.” Instead, I asked, “Have you ever seen him during the day?” She shook her head. “Have you ever seen him eat?”

The two of us smacked our heads together when the car hit a bump. She winced. “I thought he was a little cold.”

I groaned and promised myself that if we lived through this, my sister would be sent to a convent school.

“He came to a football game at school. I knew he wasn’t the sort of boy you wanted me to date, so I had Ben cover for us. He was mysterious and perfect and charming.”

“If you tell me that he wooed you by reciting passages
from
Twilight
as if they were actual conversation, I’m going to have to bludgeon you with that tire iron.”

“You promised you wouldn’t judge!” she exclaimed.

“I promised I wouldn’t judge, not that I wouldn’t mock. I don’t suppose you managed to sneak your phone in here with us, did you?”

“It’s in my back pocket,” she said, her eyes alight with excitement. It took a few tries for us to roll over, with our hands bound, then get my hands lined up with her pockets.

“No, not that one,” she said as I blindly patted her cargos.

“Seriously, how many pockets do you need in one pair of pants?” I grunted. “Shift your butt.”

Gigi shifted as John turned a corner. Just as my fingertips found the solid, square weight of the cell phone, the turn sent Gigi rolling across the floor of the trunk, her head thunking into mine.

“Ow!” I yelped, wincing as the bruised spot on my head grazed the tire iron and Gigi’s head-butt landed. I closed my eyes, clenching my teeth as the pain radiated through my head. The scent of Gigi’s shampoo—lavender, wisteria, and jasmine—wafted up to my nostrils. It was a calming scent. It reminded me of the relative safety of our bathroom at home, of sitting out in the garden with a glass of lemonade. And something else.

The car slowed. I patted Gigi’s pockets, frantically trying to manipulate the phone out of her awkwardly wrinkled pocket. I had no idea how I would dial it or talk, but it had to be better than lying there like a hog waiting for slaughter.

“You got it?” she asked.

The car stopped completely.

Gigi whimpered. “What’s going to happen, Iris?”

“I don’t know, Geeg,” I whispered back, still working the phone out of her pocket. “We’re going to be OK.”

I heard her sniff. “You don’t know that.”

“No, but I’m the big sister; it’s my job to lie.”

The trunk popped open, and John’s face appeared overhead. I pulled my hand away from the phone and pretended that I was trying to comfort my sister. He tsked indulgently, pulling the cloths back over our eyes. “Naughty, naughty. What have you two been up to back here? I could hear you talking, you know. I’ve always wondered what two sisters talk about late into the night. I’m definitely going to keep you around long enough to find out …”

Ugh. Evil, creepy teenagers.

John hauled us out of the trunk by our elbows and set us on our feet. He cut the tape away from our ankles and then linked his arms through ours, like he was escorting us to a garden party.

“Step carefully, my pretty things,” he said, helping us down a long, uneven path as he hummed a happy tune. He pushed us gently onto a bench, the cool metal unyielding against our awkwardly positioned hands. I heard a low, threatening growl to our left. Gigi shrank into my side. I shushed her. “Now, you two just sit there and look appetizing. No funny business.”

There was silence. I assumed that John had stepped away. The humming had stopped, and my head cleared.
We were surrounded by pleasant earthy scents. A strange sensation niggled at the corner of my mind. Something I should be remembering. Wisteria. The light citrus of commuter daylilies. Mulch … no, ginkgo. The sour “earthy” scent of ginkgo. Where was I when I’d last smelled ginkgo?

“Oh, sonofabitch!” I yelled.

Gigi gasped at my right. “Iris, you said a cuss word!”

“And I’m about to say a few more. Sonofabitch!”

“No, that’s the same one,” she reminded me.

“Wisteria, ginkgo, crepe myrtle. Those weren’t black-thumb plants!”

“Have you been drinking?” Gigi asked.

“His garden is chock-full of temperamental wonders.” I continued to rant. “He has flipping Mexican heather. Do you know how temperamental Mexican heather is? I’m astonished that he could keep it alive. Our winters are too cold. Our summers are too hot. If you let the soil dry out the least little bit—”

“I get it, I get it. You’re a big plant geek,” Gigi said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Mr. Marchand. He said he had bad luck with plants when I visited him last week. He acted like he didn’t know anything about gardening. But I don’t care how good your landscapers are, unless they’re sitting outside your house twenty-four hours a day with a hose, Mexican heather is going to die without constant, focused care. The kind of care that might go into growing large batches of rare plants used to drive vampires into a frenzy.”

“What does that mean?”

“Mr. Marchand is the guy, the guy growing all of the ingredients for the vampire whammy potions. It’s more than likely he’s the guy brewing and selling them. And I owe Mr. Crown a large apology.”

“Awesome, you figured it out,” she said. “What now?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t really help us.”

“Shoot,” she grumped. “I really thought you had something there.”

“Well, it does show what a gift she has for botany.” A new voice sounded to our right. We both jumped at the dulcet baritone. Gigi cowered at my side, ducking her head against my neck. Cool hands peeled down the blindfolds, and the smiling face of Colonel Sanders’s evil twin appeared in my line of vision.

Mr. Marchand greeted us cordially. “Ladies, thank you so much for visiting us this evening. I can see the blindfolds are no longer necessary, Miss Iris, since you are so very clever.”

We blinked as our eyes adjusted to the dark, fragrant recesses of Mr. Marchand’s garden. This was a section I hadn’t been shown before, a quiet little alcove near the west end of the porch. A gorgeous hydrangea bloomed to our left. A fountain—a woman pouring water from an earthen jar—burbled cheerfully near a little table and wrought-iron chairs. Little red Japanese lanterns swung from a line overhead. It would have been an elegant, peaceful setting, if not for the whole “hostage” thing and the fact that Cal was gagged and handcuffed to one of the wrought-iron chairs with his laptop open in front of him.

“Cal!” I yelled. “What the hell?”

Mr. Marchand smiled cordially as John stood near Gigi, playing with the dark strands of her hair. Although he spoke with the same genteel tone, all of the amiable manners of the Council official I’d known were gone. This Mr. Marchand was cold, nearly reptilian in his movements, as his gaze bounced back and forth between his new guests and Cal. “Your friend, Mr. Calix, has been most unhelpful in resolving a little administrative matter. It might have something to do with injecting debilitating poison into his gift blood. Some people hold grudges.”

Dark with hate, Cal’s eyes were narrowed on Mr. Marchand, tracking his every movement. His lips curled back into a snarl as he struggled against the cuffs. Each movement of his wrist made his skin blacken and burn as he came into contact with the cuffs. Silver cuffs. Mr. Marchand had been torturing him with silver.

Bastard!

My own lip curled back into a snarl. If I lived through this, Mr. Marchand was going to be in a lot of pain. And you’d better believe I was going to cancel his contract.

“You have been a very naughty girl, Miss Iris,” Mr. Marchand chided. “I never would have guessed you were such a talented little liar. I believed you when you said you’d never met Mr. Calix in person. I defended you to the other members of the Council, did you know that? Mr. Crown and Sophie wanted to drag you into the detention center for questioning, and I said, ‘Oh, no, not Iris Scanlon. She’s as trustworthy as the day is long.’ How did you ever manage to fool Sophie’s filter system? She
would be so upset if she knew. She considers herself to be foolproof.”

I stayed quiet but eyed the pots of geraniums hanging from hooks on the porch railing.

“I have to admit it was foolish on my part to hope that Mr. Calix had simply scurried off like a sick animal. After taking the trouble to volunteer for Crown’s delivery duties and replace Mr. Calix’s gift with my own special blend of bottled blood, not knowing whether it worked was so frustrating.”

He laid a hand on my shoulder, a sort of friendly pat from your neighborhood undead sociopath, as he added, “John was able to find all of Mr. Calix’s files at your home, and his backup drives. But, industrious little squirrel that he is, your vampire backed up every document and note onto an online storage service. Can you imagine the liability of all of those documents just floating out there in the ether? We can’t allow that. But we can’t seem to get him to share the password with us so we can delete the account. I thought perhaps the presence of you and your sister might persuade him to be more accommodating.”

He slipped behind me, squeezing my shoulder affectionately. His lips were at my ear, the bristles of his mustache tickling the skin. “You see, if he doesn’t hand over the password and delete every single file, I’m going to rip out your little sister’s throat. And I’m going to make you watch. Imagine how much it will hurt him to see you suffer that. And then, as much as it pains me, I’m going to
let John do every depraved, twisted little thing he’s talked about nonstop since meeting you. And your Mr. Calix will have a front-row seat for it all.”

Despite the fact that every word turned my insides to water, I kept a still, serene expression in place. I kept my voice friendly, sweet, as if we were all sitting around in this garden scene waiting for mint juleps and petit fours to be served. “I think there’s been some misunderstanding, Mr. Marchand. Hurting me isn’t going to bother Mr. Calix. I’m just his employee.”