Tainted Blood (Hell's Belle Book 2) (3 page)

"This is not a request, Nina," he clarified. Fabulous.

"I owe you nothing," I growled. "Consider your request denied. And you're paying for that bottle of gin. That was the expensive shit."

"Sun is bright today, no?" Bertrand stirred the cherry in his glass by the stem. "I wonder where your vampire friend Frankie is this afternoon. Any ideas?"

"Talk," I said through gritted teeth. Goddamn it. Frankie never asked for this daywalking ability, but that was the price he paid for getting a favor from Bertrand. Vampires may see it as a blessing to be able to walk in the sun, but this meant that Frankie's life was tied to Bertrand getting what he wanted. Double damn.

"My son..." Tavio began, almost tearing up.

"Wait, stop," I held up my hand. "
You
have a son?"

He smiled very slightly, his fangs barely visible under his top lip. "Yes, I have a son."

"Is he a vampire, like full-on?" I asked.

Tavio gave a sad little nod. "Yes, for about two centuries now."

"You probably know him. Or, I should say, know of him," Bertrand took over. "He is quite a famous musician. Have you heard of Killing Haley?"

These guys had me knocking back shot number two, which I almost spit out when I heard the name of the band. "There's a rumor that the lead singer killed his girlfriend. That's how they got their name. There's truth to that?"

Tavio just sighed and shook his head. "Matty couldn't have done it." He left it at that.

I raised my eyebrows. "So he's a vampire. Why do you need me to babysit?"

"We need you to keep an eye on the whole band. Things tend to get...out of hand when Killing Haley plays."

Bertrand pulled a thick manila envelope from inside his coat and dropped it on the bar, pushing it at me. I shot him a dirty look, but picked it up and emptied the contents. Sifting through them, I saw it was filled with news clippings about the band. Post-show riots outside the concert venues, fans trampled during performances, suicides by venue employees and plenty of unsolved murders. Every clipping had a picture of Matteo Purefoy, his porcelain white skin in direct contrast to dark eyes rimmed with kohl liner and blue-black hair teased out like a British New Wave artist from the century prior. His hypnotic eyes almost invited fan mayhem.

I tugged at my hair, considering Purefoy's Gothic good looks. Vampire. I'd have never guessed. Did he file his fangs? Of course, being an emo heartthrob meant he didn't smile much. Maybe that's why I never noticed.

Darcy scurried in from the back room, finished wiring up the satellite radio. It was our attempt to bring Auntie Babe's bar into the 21
st
century. Her tools clattered to the floor when she saw Bertrand and Tavio calmly sipping their drinks at the bar.

Collecting herself, she picked up her screwdriver, tucking it into her back pocket as she walked towards us.

"Killing Haley. I love them! I didn't know you listened to them too," she said when she saw the photos. Then she smiled, almost shyly, and gently ran her fingers over Purefoy's headshot that sat on the bar.

I pushed the papers back at Bertrand and my uncle. "I don't."

"Don't we have an agreement?" Bertrand pushed the pile back to me. "This may be useful."

"Please, Nina. Please." The desperation in Tavio's voice piqued my interest. His boy was a vampire, two centuries old. He could take care of himself.

"I'd have to check with Dr. O," I grumbled. "I am not a freelancer and have responsibilities...."

"I'll talk to Lachlan." An easy smile spread over Bertrand's face. "As you see from the news stories, this absolutely falls within your purview. You just aren't showing up
after
the fact. For once."

He let that simmer for a second. "Think of it as being proactive rather than reactive."

In one elegant motion, he dropped a $100 bill on the bar, pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves and stood. "That should cover the bottle."

Tavio reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. "Thank you. You don't know how much this means..."

I snatched my hand away from Tavio. Kicking my vampire speed into gear, I jumped over the bar and cut in front of the demon before he vanished out the door. "It means that Frankie won't fry. Right, Bertrand? If so, then we have a deal."

The door to the bar opened so quickly it almost flew off its hinges, nearly taking Bertrand out in the process. A high-pitch voice squeaked out an enthusiastic, "Hi, it's Eva!"

Eva, the fourth member of our pathetic coven, pushed her ample behind through the door first. Plastic bags hung from every inch of her arms and she dragged a folding card table in after her, crashing it against the door as she blundered through. I cringed at the abuse to our poor doorframe.

"Hi, Eva. You're really early." I smiled at the hapless middle-aged woman huffing and puffing in front of me.

"Oh, I know. The shop was dead today. And I wanted a little company. Thank you, handsome." She winked at Alfonso, who got off his stool and helped with her packages. He yelped when she pinched him on the ass in thanks.

Her cheeks were flushed and her gray hair tumbled wildly over her shoulders. In her tie-dye caftan, she looked like a fortuneteller straight out of central casting. Eva ran a botanica in downtown Providence, right down the street from the Biltmore, the most haunted hotel since The Overlook captured our collective imaginations back in the 1970s. Eva was also a fraud, passing herself off as a witch and gypsy fortuneteller. She thought she had a good con going with her fake tarot skills, except that her skills weren't actually fraudulent. Eva did have "the gift," as my Auntie Babe called it. Eva just didn't know it.

By the time we met her, she was Marcello's human slave, procuring magic items that only witches could handle that he then spelled so he could use them to gain the strength to kill me. Poor Eva was a mess by the time we found her.

But Auntie Babe took her in, and Eva joined our motley witch’s coven: my aunt, a Haight-Ashbury throwback; Alfonso, a belligerent drunk; Eva, the fraudulent fortuneteller; and me, half-vampire and half-very reluctant witch. I suppose I could count Casper among our group as well. He usually hovered around and jumped into my body when I needed an assist. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to accomplish half the witch shit I attempted if Casper wasn't body surfing me. 

Eva doddered to the back end of the bar to set up her table. She came with all the accouterments — wild scarves, incense and pillar candles.

I turned my attention back to Bertrand and Tavio. "When does the band get into town?"

"Tonight."

I nodded. "If you want me on this job, my team works with me. No problems, right?"

"We'll be in touch." Bertrand touched the tips of two fingers to his forehead and gave me a slight nod before sweeping out of the bar.

I slammed the door behind the two men, and then slumped against it.

I looked at Darcy. "What the fuck did I just get us into?"

She shrugged. "At least you have satellite radio?"

"Yeah, and Babe's going to kick my ass for it when she gets back from Mexico." I stalked back to my station behind the bar. The sun was creeping down, and I had to get ready for the night crowd.

CHAPTER THREE

"I can't believe that you just allowed that demon and that vampire to dictate the terms of this arrangement," Frankie said. He was livid, but mostly because Bertrand was right. If anything happened while Killing Haley was in town, we would clean up the fallout anyway.

"Come on, Frankie. Don't you think it may be cool to, you know, to actually
prevent
someone from getting ganked by some monster? We'd be ahead for once."

We were sitting at Babe's colonial style antique kitchen table. I was dousing my various blades with Holy Water and then polishing them to a shine. Dog, my Hell Hound familiar, let out a huge sigh, crawled under the table, and flopped down on my foot. 

A familiar was a spirit animal matched to witches that assist in magic or simply keep watch over their masters. Dog was mine. She looked like an overgrown Rottweiler.

Frankie spent the past half-hour parading around the apartment, showing off the shockingly overpriced jeans he bought. He didn't sit down until he forced me to admit that they made his butt look cute.

I was housesitting while Babe was in Mexico visiting family. She said she needed a break from the cold. I missed my apartment, but I couldn't beat the commute to the bar, just down a flight of stairs. Darcy had taken over my loft, which was in an old factory building left to me by my parents. I had built Frankie a daylight free apartment in the basement, but now that he could daywalk, he spent a lot of time just crashing on the couch in Babe's living room. He claimed that it was because he didn't want to be around if Darcy, who was a banshee, started wailing. I didn't mind too much. The company was nice. And vampires don't snore.

"Of course I can see the appeal," Frankie said with a sigh. "Stop. You are doing that wrong."

He gingerly took the blade from my hand. "Since these are tucked up against your arms, only use the Holy Water on the outside part. Unless you enjoy chemical burns." His own fingers were quietly sizzling from handling the freshly coated metal.

"Nope, I like my blades doused. It doesn't really hurt, anyway. It's more like an itch, like an allergic reaction." After the Marcello battle, I wanted my gear fully loaded. It was worth a little discomfort.

"When you turn full vampire, you'll change your mind about that." He handed the blade back to me. "Did they blackmail you?"

I shrugged. Yes, they did. But I didn't want to tell Frankie about it. As much as he was enjoying life in the sunshine, the threat of Bertrand taking it away — at any time — weighed heavily on him. Part of him would be happier still living in the dark. Hell, he was still up at 2 a.m. with me. It wasn't like he was waking up with the roosters.

"You hear from Max today?" Frankie said, treading lightly. Max and I almost had a thing. But that was back when he was human and thought I was normal, too. When he learned the truth, he had almost forgiven me. But then Bertrand gave him the Berserker curse. Not my fault. I warned Max not to trade favors with a demon, and he did it anyway. It got him in the same predicament as Frankie.

Men. They won't ask for directions, but they'll ask a demon for a favor.

"Nope. I think he's still mad about last night," I said. I closed the Holy Water bottle tightly and carefully wrapped my blades into their black silk cloth. It was blessed, too, just for good measure, so the silk was hot against my skin.

"Sorry kiddo," Frankie said. He got up, rubbing me on my head as he walked past. "Are you sure my butt looks okay in these?"

"Would you please shut up about your ass? God, Frankie! You spent a fortune on those things. Of course your ass looks hot!"

A little self-satisfied smile crept around his lips. "You think I'm hot?"

"Don't make me throw my blades at you." I tucked them into their leather pouch and snuck another look at his rear end. That's when I noticed. His butt may look good, but he looked a bit gaunt. "Frankie, when was the last time you ate?"

He went very still. "Yesterday. I think."

I groaned. "I swear this daywalking thing has you all screwed up! You are sleeping at night and forgetting to eat."

And it was after 2 a.m. on a weekday. Rhode Island blue laws meant that the bars shut down at 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday. Frankie's best window for feeding was between 11 p.m. and last call. He always found willing participants at the Goth-friendly club downtown, where humans played at vampirism. Some even sharpened their canines into fangs. Since Frankie knew how to control his feeding, and they were willing participants, there was nothing wrong with doing it. Of course, they had no idea they were doing it with a real vampire.

I crossed my arms and gave him my best mother hen look. "Can you find someone this late?"

He turned toward me and grinned, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Stop nagging at me, Nina. I know where to find food. I'll just go to the tunnel."

I screwed up my face in disgust. The tunnel was where the Goth kids went after hours. It was an abandoned train tunnel that ran under College Hill. Years ago, the city cemented over the entrance, but time, weather and the determination of drunk youth had chipped a hole in the concrete large enough to crawl through. Inside contained broken up train tracks, coal soot and rats’ nests in pitch-black corners. Dirty water — runoff from the drain pipes – leaked from the ceiling. It was gross.

"You sure that's wise?" I stood and stretched, upending Dog from her comfy position on my foot. She gave me the stink eye.

"Why? Worried someone will kill me?" Frankie snorted, snarling a bit. Immortality sure makes vampires cocky.

I sighed. "Come on, it's nasty down there. Crack pipes all over the dirty train tracks. It reeks of piss. It's just a bad element. And after what happened to those Beta-Vamps..."

"I appreciate your concern." He smiled coolly. With his fangs flashing at me, it was clear that he was lying about his appreciation.

"Come on, Frankie," I argued. "I'm only being a pain in the ass because I care about you."

"Of course," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm just hungry."

I shifted my weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "If you
really
need to eat...I mean, you know I trust you."

Turning my back to him, I opened the fridge and pretended to look for something.

Frankie had never ever bitten me before our binding bite and hadn't since. But binding bites are very intimate. It can be like making love, or it can be like rape — again, all vampire-dependent. I barely remember it, since I was close to dropping dead, but I didn't recall anything unpleasant about the experience. Admittedly, this pushed our friendship into uncomfortable territory.

"I don't think we should, Nina," Frankie said quietly.

I pulled out a bottle of black cherry soda and popped the top. "We survived the binding. I don't see why we can't deal with this like adults."

For bindings that were willing — and there were more than a few of those — keeping the vampire sustained was simply a part of the partnership.

Frankie's blue eyes turned to vibrant cerulean, a sign that he was starting to vamp out.

A rush of his hunger washed over me. I gasped and staggered forward. My soda bottle dropped from my hand and crashed to the floor and shattered. I gripped the counter to keep myself upright. I had never felt his hunger before. The intensity was almost too much.

"Frankie, please. I feel it." My voice was a hoarse whisper.

As quickly as it overwhelmed me, Frankie snapped it off.

"I appreciate the offer, Nina. Really, I do. But I can't," Frankie said quietly, bending down to pick up pieces of the broken bottle.

I watched him, still panting slightly from the overwhelming feeling of his hunger. His skin was more grey than pale. The six-foot vamp looked almost small as he wiped up the mess on the floor with a kitchen towel.

I kneeled down and touched his hand. "I felt you. You need to eat. So do it."

I pulled my hair away from my neck and tilted my head. He traced the scar along my neck, a remnant from Marcello's attack. It sparked alive at his touch, burning slightly, as if the witch blade that did the damage still fought to destroy the vampire part of me.  Slipping his hand behind my neck, he dropped his head, his mouth inches away from the scar.

I caught my breath when his fangs gently brushed against the scar. My body responded to the memory of his first bite. Desire welled deep inside of me. A small moan escaped from my lips as my body anticipated the rush of his fangs sinking into my skin.

"No, Love." Frankie's voice was soft, almost a whisper. His breath gently swept over the scar, sending small tremors through my body. "I will not do this to you again."

I pulled away from him with a mix of both relief and disappointment.

He sighed. "I should go now."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I think you should."

Frankie got to his feet and gave me a small smile. I waved at him from my spot on the kitchen floor, my legs still too weak to get up just yet. I had never felt such an intense craving like that before. I had never been with a vampire before, and that bite promised some awfully hot sex. That this overwhelming desire was for Frankie made it all the more confusing. I really needed a cold shower.

Frankie opened the kitchen door and started down the stairs to the bar. Dog bolted down the steps as well, nearly knocking Frankie over. She was after Cookie Puss, our bar cat and my aunt's familiar.

Yup, a Hell Hound and a cat familiar under the same roof. Can you imagine what the past few weeks were like since I began housesitting? Multiply that by 100.

I got up on shaky legs and took off after the Hell Hound. I was about halfway down when I heard the cat screech, Dog yelp and glass shatter.

Between my haste and my jelly legs, I lost my footing and went ass first down the rest of the staircase, landing at the foot with a thud. A chastened Dog panted in front of me, the cat's liberated claw sheath stuck in the center of Dog's head like a third eye. Cookie Puss was perched on one of the top shelves above the bar, hissing. Miraculously, she avoided breaking the dusty cobalt bottles on her scamper up the shelving. Based on the pungent smell, a bottle of whiskey was responsible for the smash. And if my nose was right, it was the cheap stuff. That was a relief. Those blue bottles weren't labeled. Some contained Babe's famous homemade moonshine — saved only for special occasions and our favorite regulars. But the others, particularly on the upper shelves, contained unfamiliar witch brews. Only Auntie Babe could recognize the potions in those bottles.

From behind, Frankie looped his hands under my arms and pulled me up to my feet. I could feel his body shaking with the laugh he was trying to suppress. Guess watching me klutz my way down the stairs was enough to douse any lingering feelings of desire for me.

"Oh for fuck’s sake, just get it over with," I muttered, dusting the grit from the floor off my behind. That did it, and Frankie roared, laughing so hard that actual tears started leaking out the corner of his eyes.

I marched to the front door, unbolted the lock and swung it open. "Out!" I tapped my foot and stared at Frankie, who was still laughing as he inched his way past me.  He stopped suddenly to envelop me in a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. Before I could respond, he disappeared in the pitch-black street, leaving me to lock up behind him.

A cold whisper of air touched my neck as I closed the door after him. Cookie Puss, still perched on the top shelves above the bar, hissed in my direction. This time Dog growled back, her hair on end.

"Casper?" I called, squinting in front of me. I hoped it was him and not that pain in the ass Lovecraft. So far, I wasn't impressed with my celebrity ghost encounter.

I felt the air pressure hit around me, and then the awful sensation of ice-cold slime encased my body. I shuddered as Casper slipped into my shell, his voice booming his usual "Wassup, Vampire" greeting.

"You want to know wassup? Wassup with sending that stooge Lovecraft in here earlier? Do you know who he works for?" I demanded.

I felt Casper shrug, my own shoulders spazzing up and down as he attempted to make the movement. "Oh my god! Use your words, not my body!"

Casper's voice echoed through my head, and I pressed my fingers to my temples, as if I could push away the migraine that appeared when he jumped into my body and proceeded to speak, his voice booming through my head. "Yeah, I know who he hangs with. Why do you think I asked him to come?"

"I want nothing to do with Bertrand or his lackeys," I said, raising my voice above his chatter booming through my brain.

"Nina, you stubborn vampire, Bertrand just
thinks
Lovecraft's on his payroll," Casper said, as his exasperation seeped into my body, making me twitchy.

"What do you mean?"

"He's going to spy for us!" My chest expanded as he puffed up with pride.