Blood Ties Bundle: Blood Ties Book One: The Turning / Blood Ties Book Two: Possession / Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes to Ashes / Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night. Jennifer Armintrout
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The fading sunlight that had peeked from the edges of the blanket over the window disappeared. If Dahlia’s brick had broken the window five minutes later, it would have already been night. I checked my scorched flesh again. It had nearly healed.
“Why did that happen?” I asked, holding up my seared hand.
“Because you’re a vampire. Haven’t you seen any movies?” Nathan asked.
“I’m more of a werewolf fan, for your information.”
He made a face. “You wouldn’t be if you ever met one.”
“Werewolves are real?” I smiled in spite of myself. I’d always liked the idea of wild guys who were animals in bed. Not that I’d ever actually experienced said animalism for myself, but a girl can dream.
Sighing deeply, Nathan stretched out his legs. “Why is it you women find them so damned attractive? Is removing ticks from a guy such a turn-on?”
“I never said I was attracted to them. I just said I favored them to, well, humanoid leeches, for instance.” I spied Ziggy’s cigarettes that lay forgotten on the coffee table, and snuck one from the pack. “Anyway, why did it happen now? It’s been nearly two months since the attack, and I’ve been in the sun since then.”
Nathan pushed an ashtray toward me. “You hadn’t drunk any blood yet. You might have been light sensitive before, but after feeding, the sensitivity turns deadly. It’s in The Sanguinarius.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t finished it yet,” I confessed sheepishly. “But it makes sense. After I started…feeding, artificial light doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.”
“You were going through a prolonged transition into vampirism. Once you stopped denying your hunger, the change completed.” He snagged the cigarettes from me. “Are these Ziggy’s?”
Biting my lip, I considered the answer to that question. I didn’t want to get Ziggy into too much trouble.
I decided the best course would be the parental guilt trip. “You shouldn’t let him smoke. It’s not good for him.”
Nathan slid out a cigarette and lit up, another surprising development. “I know. These things will kill you.”
“Har, har.” I rolled my eyes. “You can make a joke about it because your lung function isn’t going to be seriously compromised in twenty years.”
“I don’t believe all that crap they say on television. I smoked when I was much younger than Ziggy, and it never hurt me.”
“Yeah, because you didn’t live long enough to get emphysema or cancer.” For the first time, I realized how wide the gap in our age really was. People from his generation hadn’t worried about carcinogens and tar and nicotine addiction. He was a century old. He was probably more concerned with the danger of women wearing pants.
He studied me, an amused smile on his face. I felt naked, and not from the gaping holes in my shirt. I plucked at them self-consciously. “Would you mind?”
He headed into the bedroom. He playfully tossed me a new T-shirt as he returned.
There was a dull thud and he yelped in surprise. He bent down and picked something off the floor. It was the brick Dahlia had thrown. She’d tied a scrap of paper to it.
“Did you see this?” Nathan asked, dropping into the chair to nurse his stubbed toe.
I shook my head. “It must be the message she was talking about.”
As he scanned the paper, his eyes lit up with alarm. He held out the note and I took it.
“‘Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire…’” I read aloud. The rhyme wasn’t complete. “You don’t think…Nathan, my whole life is in that apartment!”
“Not to mention The Sanguinarius.” He wrenched open the closet door and pulled his leather trench coat on over his bare shoulders.
“You didn’t give me the only copy, did you?” I imagined my eyes bulging from my head as I spoke.
“No, but it’s the only copy I have. The last thing I need is some firefighter finding it in the rubble and showing it off. Besides, we don’t know if this is Dahlia being vindictive, or if she’s done this on Cyrus’s orders. He might have someone waiting for you, and if he does, I can take them out.”
“I can’t see Dahlia doing anything that was going to bring me closer to Cyrus, even if he ordered it. She definitely doesn’t want me around.” I noticed that Nathan had pocketed several stakes while I spoke and had yet to hand one to me. “Planning a road trip?”
He nodded. “Yup.”
“Where?”
“To your apartment.” He turned back to his arsenal and strapped a leg holster to his denim-covered calf, dropping another stake into it.
I waited expectantly as he pulled out Ziggy’s axe. “Um…were you going to give me something to protect myself, too?”
“You’re right.” With an embarrassed smile, he headed down the hall. When he returned, he pressed something into my hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where my head was.”
I frowned at the cell phone in my palm. “So…is this a James Bond type of device that shoots fireballs or sprays acid or something?”
“Not exactly.” He took the phone and pressed a button, lighting up the screen. “But it does speed-dial Ziggy’s pager. If you have any trouble, call him.”
My jaw dropped. “What? Ziggy’s at the hospital and you told him to stay off the streets.”
I wanted him to be annoyed by my protestations, but he remained perfectly calm as he prepared for battle. “Ziggy is better equipped to handle an emergency than you are. I trust him to keep you safe. Besides, there are plenty of weapons in the closet that you can use, and I really doubt that Dahlia will be back.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Hey, it’s my apartment burning down! I’m coming with you.”
“No.” Nathan shook his head adamantly. “Too dangerous.”
“Too dan—” I sputtered in my anger. “You’re supposed to want me to die! Hell, if you’re so loyal to the Movement, you should be shoveling vampires into burning buildings by the truckload.”
“This isn’t open for discussion. You don’t know how to fight, and you’ll be nothing but a distraction to me.” When I opened my mouth to argue further, he held up a hand. “I’m leaving. If you want to live through the night, you’ll stay here.”
Grabbing the axe, he stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door so hard the walls rattled.
“Well…fuck you!” I shouted, kicking one of the couch cushions to the floor.
How dare he! As if I were somehow incapable of looking out for myself in my own, albeit probably on fire, apartment. And what did he mean when he’d said I’d be a distraction? Did he think I was going to get in his way, asking questions with painfully obvious answers and twirling my hair while looking on with a vapid expression?
Jerk.
I tossed the cell phone on the table. It slid across the glass top, colliding with the notebooks piled there. Papers cascaded to the floor. Frowning, I knelt to straighten them. I lifted the papers one sheet at a time and shuffled them into a uniform stack. When I laid the pile aside, I noticed the top page was an Internet printout of a map. It was a map of the very affluent neighborhood on the east side of town, with a big red X drawn on in marker.
Now, this was interesting. I flipped the paper aside to examine the sheet underneath. It was a fax, dated three days before John Doe had attacked me. Sent from VVEM to N. Galbraith, the letter contained only an address. The same address on the map.