Authors: Melody Johnson
Jeremy closed his mouth and stared down at his hands again. He nodded.
“Which is why you need to tell me what’s going on, so we can figure out the tough stuff together.” Walker said, but he glanced at me when he said the last.
Jeremy just shook his head, holding his silence.
I pursed my lips. “Did Lydia get angry when you complained about her father?” I asked.
Jeremy finally looked up, frowning. “No. She complains about her old man all the time.”
“But he’s her dad. I bet she didn’t like
you
‘ragging’ about him.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then how was it?”
“It was like any other night.” Jeremy said, and then his jaw dropped. “You think that I, what happened to Lydia, you think that was my fault?” Jeremy asked, his eyes frantic.
Walker shook his head. “You tell me what happened, Jeremy.”
“I don’t know what happened!” Jeremy burst. “One second we were kissing and talking and she was laughing and kissing me back and then—” He ran both hands through his hair to the back of his neck. “—then something crashed into us. The only light behind Gretel’s is what little shines through the bathroom windows, so I couldn’t see shit, but whatever it was, the thing was on top of Lydia. And she—” he took a deep breath, but when he continued, his voice cracked. “—she was screaming. It didn’t hypnotize her like the vampires usually do. It didn’t strike at the neck or her carotid, and it didn’t just suck her blood. It looked like it was actually
eating
her.”
Jeremy stopped speaking. He looked away and after a moment, when I thought he would continue, tears spilled down his cheeks. He wiped them away with a jerk of his arm.
Ronnie squeezed his knee.
“This is bullshit!” he exploded. “What the fuck was that thing?”
Walker shook his head. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I tried to get it off her,” Jeremy said, still wiping away tears. “But it swiped its hand out, it just fucking backhanded me, and I slammed into a tree. I couldn’t move for a minute, and Lydia, God, she screamed the whole time. It was a while until she finally stopped screaming. And this,” Jeremy looked down at the slashes on his stomach, “this was from its backhand. It wasn’t even attacking me, and its claws nearly spilled my guts.”
“What did you tell the doctor who stitched you up?” I asked.
Jeremy narrowed his eyes on me. “What’s it to you?”
I looked at Walker. “His blood is at that crime scene, and when the labs come back with his blood alongside Lydia’s, her father’s going to demand answers.” I looked back at Jeremy. “What do you think he’ll do when the sheriff tells him that his daughter was with you in the woods that night?”
Jeremy blanched.
“What you said at the hospital matters. The police will look into that.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t go to the hospital.”
Walker made a scrambled noise in his throat. “You went to Theresa, didn’t you?”
Jeremy shrugged.
I pointed my thumb down the hallway. “This Theresa?”
Ronnie nodded. “She’s a surgeon.”
“Was. She’s retired.” Walker swiped his hand down his face. “That was a good move, but you should have come to me, too.”
“I wanted to, but—” Jeremy shook his head.
Walker pressed forward this time. “But what?”
Jeremy pounded his fist into his thigh. “Lydia kept screaming! And I just laid there while she screamed and that thing
ate
her and she died. I just laid there, Walker. Is that what you would have done?”
Jeremy’s shouts rang through the entire house, making the resulting silence heavy between us.
“Sometimes,” I whispered, “simply surviving is all you can do.”
Ronnie nodded.
“Amen to that,” Walker said, “but now we need to clean up the mess.”
Jeremy frowned. “What do you mean?”
“DiRocco’s got a good point,” Walker said, nodding to me. “What the hell are we going to do about your blood at the scene?”
Jeremy’s eye widened. “You don’t think Bex will take care of it?”
“Bex alters evidence and memories to keep the existence of vampires a secret. If this wasn’t a vampire attack—”
Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t know what it was.”
Walker shrugged. “Then I don’t know what she’ll do.”
My phone vibrated against my side, Maroon 5’s
Maps
jamming from inside the inner pocket of my jacket. I glanced out the window at the matte, black night sky. The moon was still bright and high, but the stars were dull, nearly invisible in the dim early morning. Dominic’s threat to visit if I didn’t call before sunrise was like the burning jolt of a cattle prod. I jumped to my feet and regretted the instant electric pain that tore through my hip.
Walker, Ronnie, and Jeremy stared at me.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got to answer this.”
Walker opened his mouth. By the set of his eyebrows, he looked about to argue the interruption.
“Of course,” Ronnie said graciously. “Nothing too serious, I hope.”
Jeremy squinted at Ronnie like she was an idiot. “What could be more serious than my blood at the scene of a murder investigation?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Walker said coolly. “At the moment, it’s still an animal attack.”
“The FBI doesn’t get called in for animal attacks,” I murmured.
Walker glared at me. “If we play it right, they’ll just consider him a victim.”
“FBI?” Jeremy asked. “I
am
just a victim!”
My phone stopped ringing, but the resulting silence only heightened my urgency. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I turned on my heel into the hallway and eased down the steps. My hip protested painfully, but I needed privacy for a conversation with Dominic. Walls were thin, and I didn’t want anyone, especially Walker, knowing that I confided regularly with the enemy.
The only enclosed room on the first floor that I had at my disposal was once again, unfortunately, the bathroom.
* * * *
Adam Levine’s clear, prepubescent singing voice pierced the air just as I shut the bathroom door behind me. I locked it this time.
I fished my phone from my pocket, and sure enough, the bat I’d uploaded in lieu of Dominic’s picture flashed and vibrated in rhythm with Maroon 5. The time flashed at me, too, and my panic eased slightly. He was calling me fifteen minutes before sunrise. I hadn’t missed my scheduled phone meeting again; he was calling me early.
I sighed with relief and slid my thumb over the screen to answer. “I still had another fifteen minutes,” I said. Feeling anxious and uncertain always made me angry, so I added, “What happened to your hard-won, everlasting patience?”
My question was met with silence.
“Hello?”
“I thought you’d be interested to discover a curious development in Detective Greta’s investigation. Such a conversation would likely exceed five minutes, but perhaps I was mistaken.”
I smiled. Dominic’s tone was more formal than ever, but I heard an unmistakable hitch and tremor in his voice. He was amused. He knew how much I wanted information on Greta’s murder investigation. I’d want to know enough to happily endure an extra ten minutes on the phone with him.
Dominic sighed dramatically. “I can leave you to your business with Walker if you prefer.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” I said hastily. “I appreciate the call.”
“Ah,” Dominic said, and this time, I could actually hear the light puffs of his laugh. “That’s what I thought.”
“It figures, though,” I muttered, “that there would be a break in the case as soon as I leave the city.”
Dominic snorted lightly. Even his snort sounded formal. “I thought you would be happy on behalf of your dear friend’s good fortune and the good fortune of the city without thinking of your own personal agenda. I’m sorry you cannot capitalize on her success.”
I pursed my lips. “I
am
happy for Greta, but still, I—”
“Nevertheless,” Dominic interrupted in a sudden, theatrical tone. “You may rest assured that no such break has occurred in her investigation.”
“But you said—”
“I said there was a curious development. You jumped to the inaccurate conclusion that Greta solved something. The police department is no closer to discovering who is responsible for the murders than I am.”
I rubbed my eyes. “This could have easily been a five-minute conversation if I was having it with someone else. Anyone else.”
“I’m glad to hear you’ve retained your sense of humor despite being in Walker’s constant presence.”
I eased myself onto the toilet seat’s lid, resigning myself to his lengthy, circular logic.
“Are you all right?” Dominic asked, his tone suddenly serious.
“Yes, of course.” I said absently, thinking about the case. “If there wasn’t a break in the investigation, what is the ‘curious development?’”
My question was once again met with silence. I resisted the urge to say ‘hello’ again. I knew he was there, but it took more willpower than I’d like to admit to wait him out.
My patience didn’t go unrewarded.
“You are not all right. I heard your intake of breath and your heartbeat accelerate a second ago,” he said finally. “You released an audible wince.”
I made a rude noise in the back of my throat. “Can you please stop using your vampire senses on me and hold a normal conversation?”
“I don’t need vampire senses to hear you wince. You are in pain. Did Bex—”
“I’m always in pain,” I snapped. “It’s just a part of my life now, and it always will be.”
Dominic paused a moment. Silences during our conversations were always dead silences because unlike everyone else, Dominic didn’t always bother to breathe. Breathing was more for my benefit than his, but more often than not, he preferred to forgo my peace of mind in favor of reality. I’d been sickened by Dominic’s true nature, but now, having met Bex and her attempts to humanize her appearance for Walker, I was finding new appreciation for Dominic’s honesty.
“You will not always be in pain,” Dominic said in a low voice.
“Yes, I will.” The phone trembled against my ear, and I realized how hard I was squeezing it. “Even if I get the surgery you mentioned earlier today, it’s only a temporary solution. I’d have to endure physical therapy again, and after struggling through recovery, I’d be in the same boat five or ten years from now when the scar tissue and bone spurs build back up. I don’t even need to bear weight anymore for the pain to spike. I can barely walk.” I felt the hot spring of tears fill my eyes as I voiced the festering, expanding fear, the greatest fear of my life, even since discovering the existence of vampires. “In another few years, I’ll need a wheelchair to be mobile.”
“No you won’t,” Dominic said in that same low, steady tone. “Vampires do not bear the pain of their human afflictions. You’ll keep the scar, as I have,” he said, referencing the jagged, raised scar across his lip and chin, “but your body will transmit pain differently as a vampire. Your nerve endings will no longer register the pain of your arthritis.”
“I will never be a vampire, so that doesn’t apply to me,” I said automatically.
Dominic sighed, audibly taking a breath over the phone. “In your limited understanding, you perceive many disadvantages to the transformation, but there are numerous advantages as well, some as simple as the cure to your physical ailments.”
“I’ve been in pain since you met me. You have connected with my mind on several occasions. You’ve felt what I feel on a daily basis.”
“I can feel what you feel right now if I concentrate hard enough.”
I let that comment slide as it was disturbing on multiple levels. “Then why, in all this time, is the topic of my chronic arthritis being discussed? Why now?”
“I only bring it up now because of the hopelessness I hear in your voice,” Dominic admitted. “I would not want you to lose hope in your human life and do something drastic to ease the pain before I turn you.”
“Listen to the words coming out of my mouth,” I gritted from between clenched teeth. He was so bull-headedly infuriating. “You are not turning me. Ever.”
“But there are more advantages to the transformation than you could ever imagine, some that I couldn’t even describe to you sufficiently enough for you to comprehend. Some things you simply must experience,” he said, ignoring my frustration. “I’ve already divulged too much.”
“Why have you divulged too much?” I asked, baffled and curious despite my anger.
“Because I want you to embrace the transformation in loyalty, knowing that you will be a serving, faithful member of my coven. If you embrace the transformation solely for selfish motivations, you could destroy my coven, and I will not allow that to happen, not ever again.”
“Ah,” I said, “You don’t want me to be another Jillian.”
“Precisely.”
“So don’t turn me,” I said breezily. “Problem solved.”
“Like I said, there is more to being a vampire than you could ever imagine without experiencing it. One day, you’ll understand.”
“No I won’t,” I said stubbornly. I wasn’t the only one here who was bull-headed. I glanced at the phone’s screen to check the time. “We now have five minutes, and you have yet to divulge anything about Greta or her investigation. The last I heard, our unsub was working toward body number fifteen, and Greta’s team didn’t have one suspect.”
“Unsub?”
“Unidentified subject. It’s a term the FBI used when they joined her investigation last week.” I pinched the bridge of my nose to stave off a coming headache. “Tell me his kills haven’t escellated. Tell me we have a real lead on this guy.”
“On the contrary,” Dominic said, “no one was killed last night.”
I waited for more, but my waiting was met with more silence.
“That’s it?” I asked, nearly squeaking with disbelief. “That’s your big news?!”
“I don’t want to jinx it, but considering that sunrise is mere minutes away, I think I can safely say that no one has been killed tonight, either.”
I massaged my temples. “Nothing. You got me excited for literally nothing.” Then the light dawned. “You think the murders are vampire-related.”
“I said no such thing,” Dominic said, his tone scolding.
“You didn’t have to. You said, ‘considering that sunrise is minutes away,’ implying that the murderer is bound by the sun, in turn, implying a vampire.” I said.