Neck Deep In Vampires (A BBW Urban Fantasy) (11 page)

             
His tail twitched. He heard me. I bent down and kissed his fur. Nicholas knelt down next to me, his arm around my shoulders.

             
“How did you get out of those cuffs?” I asked him.

             
“I broke my thumb, pulled my hand out of the cuff, and then fell on the floor to cover for myself while I was picking the lock on the cuffs. I always carry a lock pick in my pants cuffs,” Nicholas said. Of course.  His thumb would heal the second the silver was off him.

Mirabelle,
Matteo, and several other witches showed up about twenty minutes later, with the veterinarian in tow.

              As the vet treated Barney, Mirabelle knelt down and looked at Peyton, shaking her head in confusion.

             
“I’ve never seen her before,” Mirabelle said. “I know all the witches in Florida. There aren’t that many of us. She’s got to be from out of state. What I don’t understand is, was she targeting you, a vampire? We never get involved in the affairs of vampires.  How did she end up being your Thrall in the first place?”

             
I glanced back over at Barney. The veterinarian had shaved a spot on his leg with an electric razor and was putting an i.v. in his tiny leg. Tears burned my eyes.

“He’ll be fine,” Nicholas said. “He’s a tough little bastard.”

“Yes, he is all of those things,” I said to him, blinking back tears. “Okay, Peyton…she showed up one evening…let me think.  Sandra had gone out in the morning, to do some sight seeing. I went to sleep. When I woke up that night, Peyton was there, and she said that Simon had sent her to replace Sandra because Sandra had to go back to New York due to a family emergency. She had the keys to the apartment, which she said Sandra had given her.”

“Did you call Simon to verify that?” Nicholas asked.

“No. I had no reason to suspect she was lying,” I said, shaking my head.

“Good God. She probably killed Sandra and replaced her.” I felt queasy. “How come I never noticed that she was a witch until after she kidnapped us?”

“
She could have used a charm, or a spell, to disguise her energy and make herself seem human,” Mirabelle said. “That would take some powerful magic. Even from her residual energy that still clings to her after death, I can tell you her magic was nowhere near that powerful. Neither is this warlock’s. They’re very weak, low-level witches.”

“Well, they were supposed to deliver me to someone,” I said. “Perhaps the more powerful witch. It’s definitely looking like I need to talk to your sister very soon.”

“Yes, about that. She and her daughter have flown the coop. Or rather, they left me a message saying that they were going on vacation out of the country.”

“Well, damn.
That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.  She co-owns my business with me, though, and I’ve cut off all her funding and cancelled her credit cards.  She’ll run out of money quickly.  The minute
Narcissa and Emmeline get back, we will question them,” Mirabelle assured me.

“Could Peyton’s blood have been making me weak?” I asked. “Because I didn’t start to experience those symptoms until I started feeding off her. She was constantly pushing me to feed from her, now that I think of it.”

“If her blood was bewitched, that’s possible,” Mirabelle said.             

             
“I’m taking Barney to the clinic,” Dr. Fischer announced. “I need to  do some x-rays.”

             
I ran over and knelt over his prone form.

             
“How did you even find us, you crazy cat?” I asked him.

             
His voice was blurry with the painkillers that the veterinarian had given him. “I ran outside and waited, and a car pulled up in front of your building.  I could sense the witch energy coming from the driver, so I climbed under the undercarriage and hung on.  Then when we got here, I watched through the window. I was waiting for you guys to wake up before I made my move. You sure napped long enough.”

             
“Well, you better be okay, because I’ve got a whole boatload of tunafish waiting for you when you come home.” My voice was quavery, and I swallowed back a sob.

             
“Don’t worry,” he wheezed, as I stroked his fur. “I’ve come back from worse than this.”

             
“Really?”

             
“No, it just sounded like a good thing to say. I feel like crap.” 

             
“We’ll remove the bodies, and I’ll call you as soon as we find out anything more,” Mirabelle said.

             
“You could look into who owns or who rented this house,” I suggested.

             
“I will, but I suspect that the person behind this was smart enough to cover their tracks.”

             
My heart was heavy as we drove back to my apartment. Camille and Sandra had died because someone was after me, we were no closer to finding the missing familiars, and who knew if my powers would ever come back? All that time I’d been drinking Peyton’s delicious blood, I’d obviously been drinking some kind of poison.

             
We stopped at the doorway. “She’s dead because of me,” I said, blinking back tears.  Poor Camille, living her whole life to serve others. She’d been so close to breaking away and starting to figure out life on her own.

             
“She’s dead because of some psycho who is targeting you, and who I am going to find, and kil,” Nicholas said fervently. “Why don’t you stay in the hallway? My men are on their way here. We’ll take care of it.

             
That was Nicholas, always trying to protect me.

             
“I need to say goodbye to her,” I said.

             
She lay on the floor in an enormous pool of blood, on her back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

             
“Hold on,” Nicholas said, rushing over to her. I ran after him.

             
He knelt next to her. “She’s alive,” he said. “But barely. I can still sense her life force.”

             
I couldn’t even see her breathing, and my ability to sense anything was all screwed up.  “Are you sure?” I demanded. Good God, all that time I’d wasted sitting there jawing with Mirabelle while Camille lay here leaking out her life’s blood…

             
“I’m positive. She won’t make it to the hospital, though.”

             
“Turn her.”

             
Nicholas could do that. He was a Sire. It was a genetic mutation, and not all vampires had it. I couldn’t turn anyone.

             
“I can’t do that,” he said, his voice anguished. “You know the rules. I’d need to get permission from Simon, she’d need to be approved-”

             
“Damn it, she’s a 22 year old woman with her whole life ahead of her, and she was shot because she was with me! Turn her!” I shouted, tears pouring down my face. “She has lived her entire life in service of vampires, and we owe her! TURN HER! Nicholas, you can not let her die just because of stupid tradition.”

             
Nicholas bit his lip. Then he nodded. “All right,” he said.

             
I knew this was no small thing he was agreeing to do. Vampires live for a very long time, possibly forever; Simon, Andreas and Joseph, the first vampires, had all been turned in the 1400s and they hadn’t died. Only silver, sunlight, or cedar stakes killed us.  Therefore, when vampires considered adding a new member to their community, it had to be very carefully discussed and considered, because that vampire would be around for many centuries to come, possibly forever. It was considered an enormous privilege.

             
Nicholas bent down and sank his teeth into her neck. He was injecting some kind of serum into her which would cause her to Turn, and in a few hours she would wake up as a vampire.

             
After a minute, he sat back on his heels, looking down at her.  I could see color returning to her waxy face.

“Now, we wait,” he said.

              “Do you think she’s okay?” I asked.  Nicholas and I were in the living room of his rented mansion. Camille sat out back, reclining in a chair and staring at the night sky. She’d been very quiet for the last couple of days, ever since she woke up and learned that she was now a vampire.

             
“Go talk to her. See how she’s doing,” Nicholas suggested. “It’s a big adjustment.”

             
I turned to go, but he pulled me back to him. “One kiss,” he said.

He bent down to kiss me on the lips, brushing his mouth against mine gently.   I felt a flare of heat low in my belly, and Nicholas must have felt the same, because he tangled his fingers in my hair and deepened the kiss.

              My lips parted, and he pressed his mouth hard against mine, tongue moving inside my mouth. He looped his arm around me and pressed me up against him. I could feel the hardness of his arousal pressing against my stomach.

             
“You were the one who told me to go talk to her!” I laughed, pulling away from the kiss.

             
“I spoke too soon.” He grinned wickedly.

             
I stepped away from him, even though I wanted nothing more than to be with him.  Camille needed me. I knew what she was going through, kind of; after all, I too had been turned unexpectedly.

             
“I’ll be back,” I promised.

             
I walked outside, to where Camille sat, staring up at the stars.

             
I felt badly that she could never feel the sun again.  She’d just discovered that she loved living in the land of eternal sunshine, and now that had been taken away from her.

             
Still, that wouldn’t be enough to make her regret being turned, would it?

             
Perhaps it would, because there were tears streaming down her face.

             
My heart sank. Had I made a terrible mistake?

             
“Camille, did you want to be turned?” I asked her, sitting down next to her.

             
She blinked hard and wiped at her face. “I always thought I did,” she said. “Until I came to Florida.”

             
“And now you’ll never feel the sun on your face again,” I said. “I’m sorry. That sucks, I know. I used to love the sun.”

             
“No, that part isn’t so bad,” Camille said. “I don’t really like that bright hot sun blasting down on me, and I hate getting sunburned.”

             
Okay, she’d totally lost me. “I don’t understand. You were out in the sun every chance you got. And you said you loved being in Florida and didn’t want to go back to New York.”

             
“I loved Landon,” she said quietly. “When I went out during the day, I was going to meet him. I didn’t think things could work out between us, because he’s a warlock and I’m dedicated to a life of service to vampires, but he seemed to love me too. Now it’s really hopeless. I’m a vampire. I need to live among other vampires, so I’ll have access to Thralls. I can’t live here any more, and I could never ask him to give up his friends and family here. I left a message on his voicemail telling him it was over between us.”

             
“Oh. Oh, my God am I stupid,” I said, as understanding dawned on me.

             
I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet. I had been so wrapped up in my own problems that I’d missed what was right under my nose. I remember how he’d offered her that drink when I went to talk to Mirabelle at Bay Breeze. We’d met him the week before when I’d gone to introduce myself to the witches, but I hadn’t paid any attention to him. Camille obviously had.

             
“It’s all right.” There was a universe of misery in her voice. It wasn’t all right.

             
“How did you start dating him?”

             
“I ran into him out on the beach one day, and we started meeting up during the day while you were asleep. I kept telling him it would have to end as soon as you were ready to go back to New York.  I know my duty.” She didn’t sound angry, or bitter, just miserable.

             
Stupid tradition.

             
“Well…okay,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone then.” And I went back into the house to make a phone call.

             
Half an hour later, Landon showed up on our doorstep, and I led him out to the back yard where Camille was still reclining in her chair.