Demon Blood (Vampire in the City Book 5) (4 page)

Even as I made my way across the club, I began to be aware of a presence in the area, altogether different from the vampires and the humans. Try as I might to regain my sobriety to pay attention, all I could sense were glimpses of an unfamiliar face.

More than even seeing the person, I felt its presence, and it drew me in. I started quickly walking through the drunken crowd, and finally, began to see more clearly the person I was searching for.

He had golden blond hair, which was longish and fell around a somewhat pale and delicate face. His large hazel eyes were staring at me, even from the significant distance between us. Almost unconsciously, I walked across the dance floor. When I finally approached him, he was smirking at me in a way that I found strangely familiar.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

His lips curled up into a smile. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Are you human?” I felt I had to ask. Something about him was decidedly un-vampire-like. One way to tell our kind is that we are fairly still, inside and out. There is no wasted motion, no twitching of the eyes, or rubbing of the nose, or scratching of the head. In addition, should you get close enough, there is no heartbeat, and no pulse. Plus, we are always perfectly room temperature.

This man, on the other hand, was somehow all movement. His eyes were sparkling, and I had the feeling that if I touched him, he would be hot.

Not able to control myself, I reached out and touched his arm, only to find out that I was right. His skin was extra warm to the touch, almost as if he had a fever, and I could virtually feel his blood pumping under the skin.

Now that I had done that, I was almost paralyzed to do anything else. He smiled at me again, and I felt my knees weaken. “Let’s sit down and talk,” he said, turning to walk to one of the booths.

Since I hadn’t yet let go of his arm, I had no choice but to follow along. He sat down, pulling me with him.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said into my ear, sending shivers up my spine.

“Really?” I asked. “Why?”

He stared at me for a second, his odd eyes boring into mine. “I assumed…,” he began. “But no, I suppose I must be mistaken.”

For one horrible moment, I thought he meant to get up and leave, and in that time, I realized I would rather stake myself than have that happen. “Kiss me,” I commanded, grabbing him by both arms.

He actually laughed then. “It’s been awhile, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

Then he leaned forward and his lips met mine, and in that second I understood why movies showed fireworks at such moments. With my super vampire strength, I held him as tight as I possibly could, but after a few moments, he pulled back.

“As pleasant as that was, some of us need to breath at the moment,” he said, again with a smirk.

“Sorry.” By that point, I wasn’t even entirely sure what had come over me. I wanted to ask him to come home with me, but I didn’t think I could stand the long trip back to Queens, even in a taxi. But maybe if I had a bit of his blood beforehand, I could deal. The moment I thought of it, I knew I had to have it immediately. I hadn’t felt this amount of blood lust in ever, but I was having too good a time to question it.

“I’m going to bite you now,” I tried to say in my most commanding vampire voice.

“Sure, go for it,” he said, in a strangely amused tone that I was unable to contemplate at the moment.

Instead, I leaned over and licked the side of his neck, unable to help myself from imagining all the things I could do to him at my house later. Then I slowly let my fangs pierce his pale skin, and felt the rush of blood into my mouth.

After that, everything went black.

Chapter Five

I woke up confused, groggy, and feeling like I had gotten run over by a truck. Thankfully, however, I was in my own bed. Standing up shakily, I realized I was still wearing all of my clothing, including the jacket and shoes that I had on the night before. I sat back down again to remove the high-heeled boots, and felt strangely constricted, like my skirt was too tight. Finally, I managed to get everything off and pulled on an oversized shirt I usually wore to sleep in.

Gypsy must have heard me moving around, because she came barreling through the cat door, leapt up onto my bed, and yowled at me.

“Hi, girl.” I reached out to pat her, but was struck by an attack of sneezing, which sent her back out the door as fast as she had come in. I stared after her for a minute, confused. That’s when I also noticed that my surroundings had a fuzzy, almost dream-like appearance to them.

I flung open my bedroom door, and ran down the stairs. No one appeared to be home, so I quickly went through the kitchen and into the backyard, where I stood, shivering a bit in the bright April sunlight.

I held out my arms and looked straight up at the glowing orb that should have been burning me to a crisp, but nothing continued to happen. Eventually, I gave in to my instinct and screamed.

The next thing I knew, David was pulling me back into the house.

“Emma, what the hell are you doing outside, and awake?”

“I don’t know! I just woke up and started sneezing, and now I can’t see and I’m also kind of freezing from being outside in just the t-shirt!”

David grabbed the throw blanket off the sofa and wrapped it around me. Then, quite disturbingly, he smelled me.

“I didn’t get a chance to take a shower yet,” I hastily explained.

“It’s not that. You smell completely human now. I don’t think you’re a vampire at all anymore.”

“How could that be? I mean, obviously, I am glad the sun didn’t burn me up but how did this happen?” I asked. “Also, I can’t remember where I left my glasses six months ago. And I think I need to take an allergy pill.” 

Then, another thought occurred to me, and I raced back into the kitchen and threw open the fridge. There was a giant, two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, and it was still half full. I poured a glassful, and took a long sniff. As a vampire, human food had made me vomit, but this smelled as good to me as it used to. After a hesitant sip, I downed the entire glass like it was a shot of vodka.

My previously favorite beverage was as good as I had remembered, and I quickly poured another glass, despite David’s warning of “Careful, you could get sick.”

I took a breath to say, “I have a lot of lost time to make up for.” Then I emptied another glass into my stomach, which hadn’t had any human food in it for a good half year. 

Maybe it was the carbonation, but suddenly I didn’t feel so well, and I rushed upstairs to the bathroom. I could hear David laughing behind me. 

About an hour later, I once again emerged from my room, this time showered, dressed, and feeling more human. I had to remind myself that feeling more human was an expected thing, since now I actually was human. After my shower, I had found an old box of contact lenses and put in a pair, restoring my vision. I also located an old bottle of allergy pills, which I now had to take in order to breathe around my cat. 

By then, it was a little after five in the afternoon, and the sun was still up, so I put on my jacket and again went into the back yard, this time much less dramatically.

There was an old cast-iron table and chair set in the middle of the yard, and I sat down in it, taking in my surroundings. I looked around at the yard and was surprised at how pretty the spring flowers were in the afternoon sunlight. 

In the time I had been an obligate creature of the night, I had told myself I didn’t miss things like the sun and being awake during the day, but now I realized that I had been lying to myself. I sighed and leaned back in the chair and let my head fall back so my face was up to the sun. The warm sensation coupled with the not-burning to a crisp sensation was very pleasant.

David must have heard me walk outside, because he soon joined me at the table. “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“I was thinking about ordering a pizza, since it’s been a long time since I actually ate anything.”

“I wouldn’t say no to pizza, but I was asking in the larger sense. Like what are you going to do with your human life now that you have it back?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Before I became a vampire I wasn’t really doing much. I worked at the freelance job I have now, but full time. And I was dating a loser. Not much else.”

“Will you go back to working full time?”

“I guess I could. I mean, I might as well,” I said. “But I still don’t know how this happened, or even if I’ll change back again just as suddenly.”

At that moment, the door slammed open and Tammy came out. “You guys would not believe what happened last night....Em! What are you doing? Get inside now!”

“I’m okay,” I told her, holding up a hand. “See? The big ball of fire in the sky doesn’t want to kill me anymore.”

Tammy narrowed her eyes at me and walked in a circle around the table, examining me from every angle. I sat still and submitted to this, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

The door opened again then, and Amy came out. “You’re normal!” she yelled at me.

“Well, relatively speaking,” I agreed.

“When did this happen?” she asked. “You were fine last night! You must be so pissed!”

I frowned. “I don’t know if pissed is quite the right word.”

“How can you not be pissed?” she persisted. “One day you’re an awesome vampire witch, and now it’s all gone. You’re just a plain, boring human.”

“Wait, are you saying my witch potential is gone too?” I asked, looking back and forth from Amy to Tammy. As witches themselves, they could both read auras. And from their confused looks, I could tell that mine showed nothing supernatural in the slightest anymore. “Well, that sucks!”

“What could cause this to happen?” Tammy asked, although it seemed like she was mostly asking herself. “Maybe something magical?”

“Or the opposite of magical,” I added.

“Wait!” she said. “I know something! What I was just coming to tell you guys, in fact. Do you guys know that occult store in the Village, the Magickal Well?”

David and I shook our heads in unison, but Amy said, “Yeah, that’s owned by the coven who host all those open rituals in Washington Square Park. They’re pretty cool.”

“Well, they’re no longer witches,” Tammy said.

“You mean like I’m no longer a witch?” I asked. “What happened to them?”

“They were having their meditation on the waxing moon at midnight, and that was the last thing they all remember.”

Something occurred to me, and I asked, “Where did you say they were?”

“They were meeting in the back room of the shop. It’s in the East Village.”

“That’s where I was last night, too!” I said.

“Oh, interesting!” Tammy tapped her chin with her fingernail. “Maybe it’s some kind of area effect?”

“I guess,” I said. Knowing less about witchcraft than my best friend, I didn’t feel that qualified to answer.

“What happened before you lost all your specialness?” Amy asked. “Weren’t you at a vampire club?”

“Yeah, but everything is really fuzzy.”

“What do you remember?” Tammy asked.

“Well, I took the train to 2
nd
 Avenue, and walked to the club from there. I stopped at a bar to eat, because I wasn’t sure of the protocol in the club.”

“You stopped to eat?” Tammy looked confused. “Oh, ewww, I get it. So what happened at the club?”

“Well,” I began, wondering how much to edit out. “There were a lot of vampires at the club, maybe one for every twenty humans. I talked for a few minutes with Alex and Michael, and then I just danced for a while.”

Tammy looked skeptical. “You just danced for a while, and then you came home?”

“Well, no. I mean, yes. I guess everything was really fuzzy, so it’s hard to say exactly what happened.”

“Why would everything get fuzzy?” Tammy asked. “From a spell?”

“No,” I said somewhat sheepishly. “Probably because I had too much blood.”

“How could you have too much blood?” she asked. Tammy grabbed my hand and examined the spell ring she had given me that would shock me if a person I was drinking from was near the point of death. “Did this thing stop working?”

“No, I’m sure it’s still working fine,” I said. “I mean I drank a little blood from a bunch of people.”

Tammy crossed her arms and looked down at me. “Why don’t you just tell me everything that you remember? Who were these people that you were drinking from?”

“Just people who were at the club. It was a vampire party, and from what I could tell, we were allowed to drink from anyone.”

“But I thought you had already had blood? So what’s the point of doing that?”

“It’s just, you know, yummy.” I shrugged. 

“Are you kidding me?” Tammy asked. “You just go around indiscriminately biting people and sucking their blood?”

“Well, it is kind of a vampire thing,” I said. “But for now I think I would prefer pizza.”

“On it,” David said, taking out his phone.

“So is there anything else that you can remember?” Tammy asked me.

I shook my head slowly. “No, that’s where it gets really confusing, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

Tammy started walking back into the house, and we all followed. “After we eat, I was thinking of going to the Magickal Well to talk to those guys. You should come with me, Em.”

“You mean you want to investigate this?” I asked. “I’m not sure we can do anything about it, but sure, I’ll come with you.”

“Amy? What about you?”

“What about me, what?” Amy asked, taking a can of regular Coke out of the fridge. I noticed that throughout all of Tammy’s questioning, the teen had been very quiet, especially for her.

“Don’t you want to come with us to talk to that coven?”

“No, thanks.” She opened the can and took a long drink. “I have a calculus test tomorrow, so I’ll leave the Scooby Doo work to you guys.”