Crimson Debt: Book 1 in the Born to Darkness series (4 page)

So I smiled at Gerald Holms and thanked him
for his offer. “I’ll think about it,” I lied, pulling Taylor toward
the lobby exit.

“You do that. Here.” He produced a card with
his name and number on it, then pressed it into my hand. “You’ll
see,” he said darkly. “When something happens to someone you love
and a vamp’s behind it—you’ll get it then. But then it’ll be too
late.”

“Uh, thanks.” I accepted the card and, with
his morbid goodbye ringing in my ears, I hauled Taylor out to the
car and drove us both home.

I wished later I would have listened to his
warning. But he was right—by the time I was wishing that, it was
too late.

I spent the night worried about my best
friend but she went to sleep naturally enough and the next day she
seemed fine. A little subdued, maybe, but nothing really out of the
ordinary. I had a job as an adjunct to one of the biology
professors—it wasn’t my field but all I really had to do was set up
and take down the labs—so I had to leave her alone for a night
class.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her for
the hundredth time as I was walking out the door.

Taylor made a face. “I swear to God, Addison,
if you ask me that one more time…”

“Sorry, sorry. You just had me really freaked
out last night. It was like you were some kind of a robot or
something.”

“Well, I’m fine now. So go on and go. You’re
going to be late and you know how much Dr. Pincer
loves
that.”

“Well…” I had my hand on the knob and Taylor
made a shooing motion at me.

“
Go.
I’m fine and I’ll see you
tonight. We’ll order that pizza we wanted last night and drink a
gallon of Margaritas if you want.”

“Extra salt on the rim.” I pointed a finger
at her.

She laughed. “Like I would forget? You’re
talking to the queen of saltoholics here.”

Hearing her sound so much like her old self
put me at ease. I gave her a grin and stepped out the door, intent
on getting to the class in time to set up that night’s lab. I told
myself that she was fine and that the effects of the vampire’s
glamour had worn off.

How could I know that would be the last time
I saw my best friend alive?

When I came back from my class, Taylor was
gone. Just gone. Her car was still in the parking lot and her
clothes were in the closet. Her cell phone was lying on her bed—she
hadn’t even taken her keys.

I was frantic. It was clear to me that
someone or something had come into the apartment and taken her away
because there was no way she would leave without those things.
Unfortunately there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle and
Taylor was over twenty-one so the police refused to let me file a
missing person’s case until twenty-four hours went by.
Incidentally, that’s almost exactly how long it takes to turn
someone into a vampire but I didn’t find that out until later.

Of course my thoughts immediately went to
Celeste and I was sure she had something to do with my friend’s
disappearance. But when I went to the Embassy Suites where the
Vampire Bedazzlement had been held, I found nothing. The show had
moved on and one of the hotel employees told me it was only held
there every other week anyway.

I was frantic and so were Taylor’s mom and
dad. We scoured the city for days, putting up posters while I
continued to try and track down Celeste. I visited glam-sex clubs,
vamp topless bars and even a vampire-friendly nudist colony, which
is something I would
so
like to be able to forget, but no
one would give me more than hints. Then, finally, exactly a month
after she’d disappeared, I got a call.

“I understand you’re trying to find me,
little human.” The sultry feminine voice on the other end of the
phone couldn’t be mistaken. It was Celeste.

I took a deep breath. “I am, yes. My friend
Taylor was one of your vic…er, volunteers at a show you did about a
month ago. And the day after your show, she disappeared—do you know
anything about where she might be?”

I expected her to deny it but Celeste
obviously didn’t believe in lying—or else I was so far beneath her
notice she didn’t fear any retribution from me. “The beautiful one
with long dark hair? Oh yes, I know where she went,” she said at
once.

I felt my breath catch in my throat. “You’ve
seen her? Where is she?”

“She’s here, with me.” Celeste let out a
deep, throaty laugh that made the short hairs on the back of my
neck stand up. “She’s my new pet. You may visit her if you
like.”

“She…I…where are you?” I asked, barely able
to get the words out.

“Sheila will give you the address.” Celeste
already sounded bored. Another voice took over and gave me
directions to a community in the New Tampa area where none of the
houses started below the two million mark. It was a long haul from
our apartment in Beach Park—the poor part of South Tampa—but I made
it in record time.

When I got there I found Taylor sitting on a
couch beside the petite Celeste. My friend didn’t look particularly
happy but she didn’t look as miserable as she would soon become
either. I found out later that this was a pattern for Celeste—she
latched onto a human she thought had “potential” and turned them to
serve as her companion. For a few months—sometimes even a few
years—everything was all right. But the moment her new prodigy
disappointed or displeased her in any way, the gloves were off.

“Taylor, what are you doing here?” I asked,
thinking how unlike herself she looked. Her normally tan skin was
as pale as paper and her eyes had a strange glitter to them I had
never seen before.

“I live here now.” Her full bottom lip
quivered but she didn’t quite dare to let herself cry.

“What do you mean you live here? You live
with me—we share an apartment. We’re roommates, remember?”

Celeste smirked at me. “Taylor is no longer
your concern. She belongs to me now.”

“She doesn’t belong to anybody,” I said,
fixing the vamp with a glare. “She’s a person—not some doll you saw
in a toy store and decided to buy.”

“Listen to me, little human.” Celeste leaned
forward, focusing her eyes on mine. “Taylor is
mine.
You
will accept this and stop hounding me all over town. It was amusing
at first but now it is both embarrassing and tedious. Do you
understand?”

I realized she was trying to glamour me. “No,
I don’t
understand.
I don’t understand how you think you can
just take someone away from their normal life and own them. That’s
bullshit.”

Celeste’s dark eyes widened and then
narrowed. “Ah, I see you are one of those rare humans who are
immune to our glamour. How very tiresome.” She sighed. “Very well,
we will do this the hard way. Leave now and stop harassing me or I
will have you killed.”

“You can’t do that,” I said, feeling like I’d
suddenly been ejected from my safe life as a grad student and
dropped into the middle of a mafia movie. Taylor’s new mistress was
literally making me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Celeste gave me a very unpleasant smile that
didn’t reach her eyes. “Watch me, little human—I am not one to
suffer fools gladly. Taylor is one of us now. You must accept this
and realize there is nothing you can do to change it.”

“You mean she’s a
vampire
?” Despite
Taylor’s altered appearance I couldn’t believe it. But my best
friend was nodding, her lower lip trembling again.

“It…it’s true, Addison. I’m a vampire now.
That’s why I have to stay here, with Celeste. She’s going to teach
me all about it. And besides, I need a light-tight place to sleep
and you know we don’t have anything like that at the
apartment.”

“But…” I shook my head, at a loss for words.
“But what am I going to tell your mom and dad? They’re frantic,
Taylor.”

Blood tears welled up in my best friend’s
eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to keep them from falling.
“Tell them…tell them I love them and I don’t…don’t know when I can
see them again.”

“Taylor—” I started.

“Enough,” Celeste interrupted me. “This
interview is over. Go back to your human life and pursuits and
forget about Taylor. She is mine now and I will hear no more about
it.”

I wanted to protest further but Taylor gave
me a frantic look and a tiny shake of her head. Flanking me on
either side were some very scary looking vamps, obviously just
looking for an excuse to do some serious damage.

“I’m sorry, Addison,” my best friend said
softly as they took me by the arms and dragged me out. “So
sorry.”

As it turned out, I was sorry too. But there
was nothing I could do about it—my best friend’s life was ruined
and it was all my fault.
I should have stayed with her. Should
have listened to that man’s advice. He said watch her for at least
twenty-four hours, so what do I do? I leave her alone and go off to
my class. What the hell is wrong with me? Why didn’t I stay with
her? Why didn’t I listen to him?

My thoughts were a vicious circle of guilt
and recrimination, and there was only one thing I could do. I found
the card Gerald Holms had given me and called him as soon as I got
back to the apartment. A week after that, I was headed for the
VAB’s version of basic training.

So I guess you could say that Taylor and I
both got new professions as a result of our little girl’s night
out. Unfortunately, neither one of us was very happy with our new
jobs. And neither one of us could quit.

I pulled up to my condo in Hyde Park and
parked beside Taylor’s sleek little red sports car. She always
dressed in the latest fashions and drove the most expensive
vehicles—Celeste was big on outer appearances. Only I knew the
struggle my best friend had every night to survive. She was the
kindest, most straight-forward person I knew and she was living in
a nest of snakes, cursed with an affliction that had taken her
hopes and dreams from her and left her an empty existence as
Celeste’s flunky.

To say I hated Celeste and what she’d done to
my best friend was an understatement. Vampires were considerably
more than tourist attractions to me now—they were the enemy and I
would have been perfectly happy to see them all fry. Except for
Taylor, of course.

She had a key so she met me at the door
looking lovely in a deep blue designer gown that brought out her
eyes. She was decked in diamonds and her long nails were painted a
deep red color I was sure Celeste had picked out for her. In her
old life, Taylor had always kept her nails sensibly short and
mostly polish free—you can’t do serious medical work, even on
animals, with a three inch manicure. But that didn’t matter because
Celeste wouldn’t allow her to finish school. Taylor was never going
to get her degree in veterinary science. It left her free to keep
her nails as long as she wanted to—or rather, as long as Celeste
wanted her to.

“Oh Addison, I’m so glad to see you.” She
enfolded me in a rib cracking embrace that left me gasping for
air.

“Taylor …can’t…breathe,” I managed to get
out.

“Sorry!” she released me abruptly. “I keep
forgetting I’m so damn strong.”

It seemed to me she ought to be able to
remember that she could tear a bus in two by now—she’d been a vamp
for six years after all—but I didn’t say anything. I just motioned
her to the couch and sat down. Taylor sat beside me and I put a
hand on her knee.

“What happened this time?” I asked, when I
could speak again.

“I don’t…don’t know if I can say.” She
started to cry, tears of blood leaving two gruesome trails down her
lovely porcelain cheeks. “It’s bad. Really bad.”

I wondered how much worse things could get
for her. She was already living with the mistress from
Hell—Celeste’s temper was legendary in vamp circles, not to mention
she was completely unpredictable. Taylor had often told me how her
maker loved to keep her flunkies on their toes. One minute she
would be lovingly stroking Taylor’s cheek and the next minute, with
no warning or provocation, she would slap her so hard Taylor would
be thrown against the wall. And that was just one example of her
savage behavior.

Such treatment would have killed a human but
almost nothing but sunlight, silver, or staking can kill a vamp.
But though my best friend was able to heal almost any wound, she
could still feel pain—and frequently did thanks to Celeste’s
violent temper.

I hated Taylor’s maker with a passion but
there was nothing I could legally do to help my friend. My job was
to police vampire/human relations and check for vampire abuse of
humans. But vampire abuse of other vampires was a different story.
As far as the government was concerned, vampires were free to use
and abuse each other any way they wanted to and we were strictly
forbidden to interfere in their relationships.

For a while I had tried citing Celeste for
the smallest infractions, making her professional life as hard as I
could. But that only earned Taylor more abuse so I had to stop and
now we were stuck at an unhappy stalemate. I left Celeste strictly
alone and Taylor was allowed to “sneak out” every once in a while
to vent to me about her horrible life.

I had fitted my spare bedroom with
light-tight drapes and put aluminum foil over the windows for extra
protection and sometimes she spent the day with me but Celeste
never let her get away for long. She had a way of calling Taylor, a
mind control so complete that my friend would be in severe pain if
she didn’t answer the summons of her maker. So, a few overnight and
overday stays excluded, we were never going to be roommates
again.

To be honest, it was probably a good thing
Taylor couldn’t stay with me permanently. Despite Celeste’s
original feeling that she had “potential,” my best friend was
pretty much the worst vampire I had ever seen. She was unable to
glamour anyone, so getting enough blood to survive was a real
problem for her. Of course, with her looks, there were plenty of
human men who would have been willing donors. But Taylor wasn’t
able to do glam-sex and even if she could have, she wasn’t willing
to trade sexual favors for blood. I didn’t blame her there—she
shouldn’t have to become a whore to survive. There were other ,
less legal ways, to get blood and being a vampire she was strong
enough to take what she wanted by force. But she wasn’t the kind of
person who would do such a thing, which made her unlike just about
every other vamp I’d ever met.