Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (30 page)

Those were the last words I was able to say.  With one las
t retching cough, I spit out more blood than I ever want to see again, and then the whole world went dark.

I knew I wasn’t going to be happy even before I opened my eyes.  The scent of disinfectant was so strong my nostrils stung from it.  The surface I was lying on was hard and uncomfortable and even colder than I was—which made it feel like I had been put on ice. 

I laid there for a second, none too eager to open my eyes. 
Something was covering me, and I pulled it between my fingers, using my senses alone to determine what it was.  It felt like a sheet, but it definitely wasn’t one of Nathan’s or Grams’.  Grams was fond of linen and Nathan was an Egyptian cotton kind of guy.  The one covering me was neither.  It was rough against my fingers, kind of like canvas.

At least it was only covering me from the neck down. 
If I was dead they would have covered my face, too, right?

Telling myself not to be such a baby, I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling.  It was low, like the ceiling of a basement.  My first thought was
not
the most reassuring one I could have had.  I mean, I don’t know if we actually
have
a family crypt, but, knowing Grams, there is a very real possibility. 

Trying not to totally freak out, I forced myself to calm down and think rationally.  The disinfectant actually became my ally there.  The smell that had woke
n me up in the first place was still burning my nose and making my eyes sting.  Somehow, I didn’t think they disinfected crypts.  What would be the point?  The dead are about as disease-resistant as they’re ever going to get.

Since the crypt was out, I turned my head in an effort to figure out where I actually was and came face to face with some of the scariest tools I have ever seen.  They were laid out neatly on a stainless steel tray and seemed to gleam in the low light of the room.  My eyes fell on a long,
skewer-looking thingy with a hook on the end and I gulped.  I refused to even
think
about what it might be used for.

Feeling more than just a twinge of fear, I slapped a lid on my imagination and continued my search for something to tell me where I was.  There wasn’t much to see, to be honest.  Other than the tray of torture tools, the only other things I could see were bare walls, a long counter with a sink in the center, and one of those big red trash cans with the biohazard symbol stamped on it like they have in hospital emergency rooms.  I really didn’t think it was very likely that I was in the hospital, however.  Nathan would have had a hell of a time trying to explain to a bunch of surgeons why he wanted them to sew up a dead girl.

Giggling at the mental image, I turned my head to the other side and all amusement died.  My Oh-Shit-O-Meter jumped into the red zone as I stared at the oversized drawers, some labeled with names and dates, that filled the wall across from me.  Being a forensics show junkie, I knew exactly what was in those drawers—and it wasn’t paperwork.

I was in
a damned
morgue
!

I immediately jumped off the icy table and stared at it, my skin starting to crawl and my stomach twisting into knots.  The stainless steel slab was surrounded by gutters that met at a drain at the foot of the table.  An autopsy table.  I had been lying on an
autopsy
table.  That was so wrong on so many levels I can’t even
name
them all.

My hand immediately jumped to my chest, half-expecting to find Frankenstein stitches where they had dissected me.  Relief hit me so strong my knees started to shake with it when I found nothing but smooth
, unblemished, skin.  There wasn’t so much as a scar to remind me of my first—and hopefully only—gunshot wound.  

And
when I say I found nothing but skin, I mean
nothing
.  I was totally and completely naked.

With a little squeal of surprise and embarrassment, even though there was no one there to see, I dove for the sheet I’d left on the table and wrapped it around me.  I felt an uncomfortable tug on my arm as I covered myself and looked down to see an IV line taped to
it.  Flowing through the clear tubing was a bright red, crystalline substance that looked kind of like blood.  It wasn’t like any blood I had ever seen, though. 

I didn’t really care if it was the Elixir of Life itself.  I wanted out of that room and that stupid needle was tethering me there.  It simply had to go. 

I reached down to tear the line out and had barely touched the tape holding it in place when the double doors behind me flew open and two figures blurred into the room.  Tyler had seen better days.  His shirt was splattered with blood and he smelled like burnt hair and soot.  The guy with him was unfamiliar, but I could sense the vampire in him. 

Well,
guy
wasn’t really the right word to describe him.  He was just a kid, maybe fifteen years old when he was turned. He was really kind of adorable.  He wasn’t much taller than I was, kind of skinny.  His ginger hair curled around his almost pretty face and he had a bridge of freckles across his nose that I found too cute for words. 

But his eyes, so violet-blue they seemed purple, were gorgeous.  They matched his violet colored aura to perfection.  I smiled when I realized he smelled like mint.  It wasn’t one of those ‘Oh, yum!’ kinds of smells, just pleasant,
soothing.

“You don’t want to do that,” he grumbled, quietly.

The sound of a man’s deep voice coming from such a childlike body made my hands freeze even before his hands closed over them to stop me.  I don’t know what I had been expecting, but that definitely wasn’t it.  Maybe I expected him to be squeaky or for his voice to break like any other pre-pubescent male.  But his voice was smooth and deep and cultured with an accent that was from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

“I really think I do,” I told him, shaking off my shock after a second.  “Who are
you
?”

“Em, this is Skipper Reed,” Tyler made the introductions, catching my eye with a warning look.  “Skipper’s the guy I told you about, the one who created
Nexus.  Skipper, meet Miss Ember Blaylock.”

Really?
I thought, studying the little man with a little more interest.  This was the badass vampire Blake had told me about?  This
kid
? 

“That blood is most difficult to come by, Miss Blaylock,” Skipper said, frowning as he checked the IV for damage.

So much for the intros.  The fact that he seemed really annoyed by my mere presence was enough to aggravate the hell out of me.  He smirked unpleasantly when he looked up and saw my raised eyebrow, and then decided to really piss me off.

“Just relax and let it do its job.  If you behave, I will give you a lollipop.”

I hissed like a cat dunked in ice water and Tyler groaned loudly behind me.  A lollipop?  Seriously?  Did I look like I was
five
to him?

“Let’s get something straight,
Skippy
,” I snapped. “Unlike you, I went through puberty a while back.  So you can take your lollipop and shove it right up your—”

Tyler’s long-fingered hand slapped over my mouth before I could finish giving Skippy his sucker instructions.  Judging by the eerie lavender glow in his eyes, I thought Skippy had probably gotten the point.
  I felt a sense of vindictive satisfaction when the little man growled.

“She didn’t mean that Skipper.  She’s had a pretty bad
couple of days,” Tyler said in a respectful tone, apologizing for my behavior.  He was going to have to if Skippy planned on
getting
an apology.  He’d started it with that lollipop crack, after all.

I gave Tyler a dirty look over my shoulder
, and he slowly removed his hand.  He didn’t move away from me, though.  He just kind of hovered there behind me.  I might be wrong, but I kind of thought he was making sure to stay close so he would be there if I needed to be gagged again.  The realization that he might actually be scared of the little vampire kid took me by surprise.  Skippy must have hidden depths—and not the good kind—if a fallen angel was afraid of him.

“My
girl
, do you know what that substance is flowing into your undeserving veins?” Skippy asked, emphasizing the word ‘girl’ just to annoy me.

“Kind of looks like blood there, Skippy,” I drawled, rolling my eyes.  He growled again and I took it that he wasn’t overly fond of the nickname. 
That meant that as far as I was concerned, it had just officially become his name.

“It is angel blood, to be precise,” he bit out, glaring at me.

He walked around the table and stopped to run his fingers over the scary tools laid out on the tray with a longing look on his cute little face.  Now, why did I get the feeling he was thinking about using them on me?

“Angel blood is very rare,” he continued, shoving his hands into his pockets.  To resist temptation maybe?  Hmm…  “I have only had a stock of it one other time.  It pained me to part with it, but the donor insisted.  Having made your acquaintance, I cannot
for the life of me figure out
why
.”

He shot Tyler a disgruntled look and I turned, mouth falling open, to stare at him, too.  He wouldn’t meet my eyes, but it didn’t take a genius to add two and two to get four.  I had just been given a mega-dose of angel blood! 
Tyler’s
blood!  The last time I’d been infused with a mythological being’s DNA, I had become a life-sucking quasi-demon.  So what neat little gifts would I get from an angel’s DNA?  A halo and my own fluffy pair of wings?

“Horns and a forked tail would be
far
more likely,” Skippy muttered behind me, cluing me in to the fact that my mental shields were down and he could hear my every thought.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I retaliated, turning on him.  “That reminds me, if your
mommy and daddy are looking for a babysitter, I’m free on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

It was Skippy’s turn to hiss in insulted outrage.  Before he could come up with a good comeback—or kill me—the doors opened again and Nathan walked in, looking as filthy and tired as Tyler, with Zan trailing behind.  The tension in the room slammed into them and they came to a quick stop, taking in my satisfied smirk, the pissed off mini-vamp, and Tyler’s panicked expression.

“Told you so,” Zan muttered, chuckling darkly.  “I think you owe me twenty bucks, bro.  I’ll put it on your tab.”

Nathan scowled at him and then stepped forward to put himself in a position to intervene should Skippy fly across the table with one of his toys and try to do a little slicing and dicing.  Like Tyler, he looked slightly panicked, but his voice was calm when he asked, “What’s going on here?”

“Little Skippy here needs a time out,” I chirped, still smirking at the adolescent in question.  Predictably, Skippy’s eyes glowed brighter and he hissed again, this time flashing fang.  I wasn’t impressed.

“She is your mate, Nathaniel?” Skippy growled, his glowing eyes fastened on me.

“You know she is,” Nathan answered, still sounding calm and collected.

I thought he deserved a standing ovation for that act.  He sure as hell didn’t
look
calm.  None of them did.  Even Zan looked like he was bracing himself for something very unpleasant.

“Then you have my sincerest condolences,” Skippy told him, smirking back at me.  “Perhaps you could instruct her on the appropriate way to address her superiors in the future.”

“My superiors?” I sneered, rolling my eyes.  “Look, you little brat, I’m—”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence.  Nathan slapped a hand over my mouth and grabbed me around the waist.  Tyler
unhooked the IV tubing from my hand and then followed, Zan taking up the rear, as Nathan turned and walked out the door without another word.

Nathan carried me, writhing and squirming to get loose, with Skippy’s laughter echoing down the hall behind us, to the first empty room he came to.  Tyler and Zan followed us in and Zan had kicked the door shut and leaned back against it before any of them took a deep breath.

“Let me go!” I howled, glaring up at Nathan.  “Kicking your ass for leaving me in the morgue is on my To Do list, buddy, but first I’m going to finish what Vampire Opie started!  Let.  Go!”

“She
didn’t
call him that?” Nathan groaned, staring over my head at Tyler.

“No, but you know how much he hates to be called Skippy…”

Zan started laughing. Nathan glared at him.

“Anything else?” Nathan asked, sounding resigned.

“She brought up the puberty thing,” Tyler told him, shrugging.

Zan laughed harder.  Nathan groaned again, louder and longer than the one before.

“Then she offered to babysit him.”

“Holy shit!” Zan choked out, laughing so hard blood tears filled his eyes and started to spill over.

Nathan moaned and dropped his forehead to rest against the back of my head, shaking it back and forth as if he could make what Tyler had just told him go away with the gesture.  I dug my elbow into his ribs, glaring at Tyler for being such a narc.  Why had he only told on me?  Why hadn’t he listed all the insults
I
had taken from the little monster down the hall?  That was so unfair!