Murder in Vein (2010) (28 page)

"What's with the fruit?" Madison asked as she shed her jacket
and hopped up on a stool.

"Or fruit. I have fruit." He grinned, then explained, "I love
the smell of oranges, most citrus actually. So I keep it about." He
filled a teakettle with water and placed it on the stove. It looked
like the only cooking utensil he owned.

"And the tea?"

"Same thing. I like the comfort of it, even though I cannot drink it. Guess it's an English thing-or more likely an
Indian thing. Though tea was just a novelty in England when I
was ... before I turned." The words were spoken with a touch of
sadness. "Some evenings, especially if I'm reading, I'll brew a pot
and hold the warm cup in my hands. It seems so ..."

"Normal?" Madison ventured.

"Quite"

"The Dedhams do that, too. They have favorite smells around
that remind them of the past. Dodie loves to bake just so the
house smells good."

Colin picked up a navel orange and leaned against the counter. He started peeling it, sending a sweet, juicy scent into the air.
When he was done, he handed it to Madison. "Please. I'd like to
know someone can enjoy their flavor."

She took the peeled orange and broke it into sections, placing
them on a napkin Colin provided. She took a bite. It was fresh and succulent. When the teakettle whistled, Colin placed a tea
bag in a sturdy mug and filled it with hot water.

"If I were truly a proper Englishman," he told Madison as she
watched, "I'd be making this with loose tea in a china teapot." He
picked up a lemon and held it up in question. "I don't have any
milk, I'm afraid."

"Lemon's fine," answered Madison, swallowing the orange in
her mouth.

"If you like nice scents," she said, looking around, "then why
don't you have flowers in here? I've noticed that Dodie loves fresh
flowers in the house."

Colin smiled. "Dodie Dedham is the best homemaker I've
ever come across-alive or dead." He removed the tea bag from
Madison's mug and slid in a freshly cut lemon slice. "That should
warm you up and calm you down," he said, pushing the mug
in Madison's direction before turning to the sink to wash his
hands.

"About tonight, Madison." He turned around while wiping
his hands on a towel. Madison was blowing over the surface of
her hot tea.

"Which part of tonight, Colin?" She put her mug down, lest
she stop feeling so trusting and throw it at him. "The part where
you boffed and devoured Miriam, or the part where someone
wanted to kill me?"

"Let's start with Miriam and work our way up, shall we?"
Colin put down the towel and leaned against the counter. "I was
only doing what comes naturally to me, Madison. I am, after all,
a vampire."

The calm, civil tone in Colin's voice annoyed Madison. "First
of all," she said, holding up an index finger, "I thought you were
avoiding Miriam."

"I was, it's just that she was ... well, rather persuasive."

Madison slapped her hand on the counter. The tea in her
mug jiggled. He might have had a jolly good vampire time, but
she hadn't.

"It was a setup, Colin. Miriam was paid to seduce you to
get you away from me." Madison rolled her eyes. "Not that she
wouldn't have done it for free." She held up two fingers. "And,
secondly, you were supposed to be keeping an eye on me, to
some degree. If Ethan hadn't been so smug as to think he could
entrap me later, I would be dead right now, or at least drugged in
the back of a van."

Colin put both of his hands flat on the counter and leaned
toward Madison without one shred of remorse on his handsome
face. Instead, his face was pinched with anger. Madison wasn't
sure if it was aimed at her, Miriam, or himself.

"I admit, I've made a right hash of it, Madison. But vampires
suck blood. Miriam cut her own neck and paraded it in front of
me. It also sounds like you might have been dead even if I had
stayed upstairs with the rest of the party." He leaned back against
the sink again, his face a dark bucket of brooding.

Madison became alarmed. "Miriam doesn't know you're a
vampire, does she?"

"No, but she knows I have a thirst for blood, like many in the
covens. And she has a desire to be ... sucked."

Colin ran a hand through his thick black hair. "Vampires are
like animals, Madison. Remember that. Most of the time we can
control our urges, but sometimes we regress to our more primi tive side. Remember Samuel tonight at the Dedhams'? When he
saw the marks Wilhelm had left, he came dangerously close to
savaging your neck for real"

"What?" Madison was shocked. "I thought he was just mad
at me."

"He was, but he also wanted you-your blood and your body.
Like an animal, he can smell fresh blood and open wounds. We
all can."

Madison gave that serious thought. "But Dodie didn't mention that when she fixed Wilhelm's cuts."

"Trust me, Dodie covered those up and doused them with
alcohol for a lot of reasons, one of which was to mask them from
us and our natural tendencies."

"But what about Dodie? She didn't seem turned on by them.
Nor did Doug."

"She's a younger vampire. She has less impulse along
those lines. And both she and Doug have a protective instinct
toward you. But if Samuel had bitten you, they would not have
interfered."

Madison felt squeezed from both sides, as if two opposing
walls were closing in on her-vampires on one side and those
wanting to be vampires on the other. Pushing her tea away, she
cradled her head in her arms on the counter. "What am I going
to do?" she asked herself, not Colin.

"You're going to continue to assist us and stop whoever is
doing these killings."

She shook her head in final surrender. "I'm going to die one
way or the other. It's up to me to choose how, right?"

Colin arched an eyebrow at her. "You're not going to die,
Madison. Not unless those bastards get their hands on you or unless you do something incredibly stupid. That's why I brought
you here tonight. Doug and Dodie are on surveillance till morning. I didn't want you to be alone."

Silence fell between them. Colin pushed Madison's tea back in
front of her. She picked it up and took several soothing swallows.

"Now," said Colin. "Tell me everything you found out. Then
we're going to call Samuel."

Upon receiving the call, Samuel came straightaway to Colin's.
He wanted to hear what had happened at the club personally
from Madison. She told the two of them everything she had
heard and seen at the club, over and over. Samuel questioned
every detail, often asking the same question more than once but
in a different way. She felt like she was being interrogated by the
police or a lawyer.

"You're sure," Samuel pressed, "they mentioned Lilith as being
involved?"

"Yes," Madison answered. "Both Ethan and Lilith gave money
to Ben. Ethan said something about it being for Ben's people."

Colin glanced at Samuel. "Sounds like this Ben is the one
hiring the guys grabbing the ones with bloodlines."

Samuel nodded but kept his eyes on Madison. "And you're
sure Ben is the same man you saw at Dark Tidings? The one you
think you know from somewhere else?"

"Yes" Madison squeezed her eyes shut in concentration.
"Even his voice is familiar, but for the life of me, I still can't place
from where."

"Did you see Ben?" Samuel asked Colin.

Colin shook his head. "Not tonight, but I vaguely remember
him from Dark Tidings." He turned his eyes to Madison. "Long,
light brown hair and dark glasses. Right?"

"That's him." A new thought crossed Madison's tired brain.
"What about Lady Harriet?" she asked with some alarm. "She has
a bloodline. If he's noticed, might he go after her?"

Colin's eyebrows raised at the thought. "There's a horrible
thought."

"Makes you wonder," Samuel observed, "why he hasn't done
it yet. He obviously knows what he's looking for."

"Perhaps it's because she's the leader of his coven," suggested
Colin.

"But if he runs out of available bloodlines," added Madison,
getting worried, "he might go after her. He started with young
women, then killed Geoff. Doesn't sound like he has a preference
anymore.

"True," agreed Colin. "He might just be going after what he
believes to be easy targets. If he's desperate for a bloodline, he
might overlook the fact that Lady Harriet is his superior at the
coven.

Madison looked at Colin, then Samuel. "Shouldn't we warn
her?"

Without answering, Samuel walked to the window and looked
out into the darkness. "What concerns me is that these beaters
have discovered that the bloodlines are connected to us."

"But they don't know how," Madison told him. "They think
the blood from someone with a bloodline is special-that they
just have to drink it to turn into vampires." She paused and
looked at Colin. "That's not how it works, is it?"

"No," Colin confirmed. "Only a vampire can turn a bloodline holder into a vampire, and it's an involved and dangerous
process.

"Still," said Samuel, facing the view, "this means they are sure
we exist."

Madison was puzzled. "When we were dancing, Ethan told
me he didn't believe vampires really existed ... or that's what it
sounded like he meant."

"He could have been lying to keep you off guard." Samuel
turned back to them. "He probably knew by then that he was
going to turn you over to Ben."

Samuel walked back to the counter and took a stool next to
Madison. "Did they say anything about where they were storing
the blood from the bloodlines?"

Madison shook her head. "No, or they did and I didn't overhear it. But it definitely sounded like Ben was in charge of getting
the blood."

"Fresh blood doesn't have a long shelf life," Colin pointed out.
"By tomorrow or the next day, they will be needing to replenish
their stock. That means more deaths."

"We need to get to these men and make them talk," Samuel
decided. "We have to find out if others are involved besides them
and Lilith. Ben might be in charge or he might be just another
paid employee like Piper and that bastard in jail."

A phone rang. Samuel pulled a cell phone from his pocket
and looked at the display. "It's Isabella. Let's see how her evening
went with Lilith." Taking the phone, he walked back toward the
windows.

While Samuel spoke with Isabella, Madison folded her arms
on the counter and lowered her head again. It wasn't until she
woke while being carried by Colin that she realized she'd fallen
asleep. He placed her on a bed.

"What are we going to do?" she asked him in a sleepy voice as
he pulled off both her boots.

"We're doing nothing," he told her. He pulled a cover over her.
"You're going back to sleep while Samuel and I figure this out. It
will be morning soon. Then I'll take you back to the Dedhams'.
And you are not to go to Wilhelm's today, as was planned. Is that
clear?"

She gave him a sleepy nod in agreement.

olin didn't take her back to the Dedhams', Samuel did. They
left Colin's just before sunrise. Gordon and Samuel's black
sedan were nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was guided to a
sleek silver Mercedes sports coupe. Samuel settled in behind the
wheel.

"You can drive?" she asked the blind vampire.

"My eyes may seem incapacitated," Samuel told her from
behind his sunglasses, "but they see as well as yours. Maybe even
better."

It was then Madison remembered what Pauline had told her
about Samuel regaining his sight after he became a vampire. "It's
still hard to believe someone gave you a driver's license."

"Who says I have one?"

Madison jerked her head in his direction but said nothing.

Samuel started the engine and pulled the car out of the parking spot. "Now buckle up."

Madison snapped the seat belt in place. "Just remember, you
may not be able to die, but I can. Seems you vampires let that slip
your minds on occasion."