The Vampire Next Door (25 page)

“I’m okay. I’d much rather use it conservatively until we know we can make more of it.” He didn’t want to tell her that his blood lust had returned. He could control it until they reached their destination safely. The last thing he needed was to be stopped and hassled for public consumption of alcohol.

“It’s pretty quiet tonight,” she remarked. “Of course, it’s the wee hours of the morning.”

“Plus it’s probably too cold for most people. I smell snow.”

“You can actually smell snow?”

A sudden movement from above caught him by surprise. Vorigan Malvant landed on the sidewalk right in front of them.

Morgaine yelped.

“Shit!”

“Is that any way to greet your maker?” Malvant asked in his oily way. “I had hoped you’d be happy to see me.”

Sly stepped in front of Morgaine. “Why the hell would I be happy to see you?”

“Because of all the wonderful things I have to teach you, of course.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Malvant sighed. “I didn’t want to do it this way, but you leave me no choice.”

“What way?” Sly took a swing at Malvant, who shoved him off the sidewalk.

Sly lost his balance on the curb, and while he was busy landing on his ass in the street, Vorigan Malvant grabbed Morgaine, took a giant leap, and disappeared with her over the rooftop.

Her scream shattered the night.

Sly tossed his precious briefcases of wine into the bushes. He tried to follow, but Vorigan was too fast and too clever. When Morgaine’s protests became muffled, then stopped altogether, Sly realized in horror that he’d lost them.

Morgaine’s wild ride over the rooftops finally ended in the back alley she recognized from her trip to Malvant’s basement apartment. He had shoved something in her mouth and held her wrists so tightly that he was cutting off the circulation. She struggled to get away, even though she doubted anything would come of it besides more pain.

When he finally wrestled her inside and down to his lair, he shoved her into a dark room and slammed the door. She couldn’t see a thing. Her arms prickled with pins and needles, and she smelled something foul and rotten. Probably coming from whatever cloth was in her mouth.
Ewww
. She yanked it out and began screaming and pounding on the door. She heard him laugh.

“No one can hear you. This place is soundproof, and the owners are away in Europe.”

Morgaine slid down the wall and started to cry.

“Oh, relax, will you? I’ll find your boyfriend tomorrow night, and I’m sure he’ll offer himself up in exchange. Then I’ll wipe your memory of his and my existence, and you’ll be free to go.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He laughed. “I’ll eat you for dinner and maybe even share you with Sly. We’ll be sharing so many things throughout the coming millennia.”

That thought didn’t comfort her. She knew he was right. Sly would sacrifice himself for her, and she couldn’t let that happen. She swiped the tears away and took some deep, slow breaths.

If only she could communicate with Sly or Gwyneth! Or if Chad could find her, he might be able guide her out while the others created a diversion. But all of them putting their heads together like that was highly unlikely.

She tried to calm herself, but the completely dark room closed in on her. Her heartbeat had been racing ever since she was abducted, but now she could hear it pounding in her brain. Her chest constricted. She broke out in a sweat, and her mouth went dry.

Get control over yourself, Morgaine! Remember, Sly has secret weapons. A glass of Vampire Vintage will allow him to break in during the day. Gwyneth knows where Malvant’s lair is. All they have to do is wait until daylight.

Yeah, they wouldn’t wait and she knew it. They’d walk right into Vorigan Malvant’s trap. She had to find her own way out of here before they tried anything.

Despite her heart hammering against her ribs, Morgaine forced herself to stand and feel along the perimeter. She needed to locate doors and windows. How could a room be so dark if it had windows? She prayed to the Goddess that the windows were just so light tight that she couldn’t see them. She placed her hands against the wall over her head. They were in a basement, so windows would have to be small and high.

Eventually she made her way back to the door without finding another egress. Dammit. Didn’t he know a bedroom without an escape window wasn’t to code? Oh, Hell. What did he care about legal apartments? And for all she knew, she might be locked in what was supposed to be a walk-in closet.

A new emotion took over.
Anger.
And it was helping combat her overwhelming fear of the dark.
Yes! Hang on to the anger.

“You fuckin’ asshole! Let me out of here!”

She was met with silence.

“Damn you to Hell! I hate your guts.”

Still no response.

“When I get out of here, I’ll stake you where your heart should be a thousand times! But I doubt you have a heart.”

“Well, now that’s just rude,” he called through the door.

Her shoulders slumped. He wasn’t the least bit worried about the consequences of his actions. He probably expected her to be angry and was completely unfazed by her threats. She wanted to burst into tears.
Keep it together, Morgaine. You can do this.

She wasn’t going to let her loved ones walk into a trap. Her panic wouldn’t help anyone. More than ever before, she needed to focus.
Think. You’re a powerful witch, dammit!

Ah, that was it! She needed a spell. But what would be powerful enough?

Frig.
Even
if
the right words opened the door, Malvant was still on the other side. How could she get out, overpower a vampire, and run away before he went after her?
That’s a hell of a lot to ask of a spell.

Wait a minute. She could astral project. Maybe she could create her own diversion and mislead him into thinking she’d escaped. If she could find a way to open the door, she’d really escape while he was chasing her image.

That would be a crapshoot if ever there was one. But something about astral projection stuck in her mind as the answer. There was one thing she could do. She could intercept Sly if he came looking for her before morning. She couldn’t speak to him in that form, but she could find some way of waving him off.
Hopefully.

*   *   *   *

“Please, Gwyneth. You’re the only one who knows where his lair is. You’ve
got
to help.”

“For pity’s sake, Sly. Quit jarring your preserves.” Gwyneth jammed her hands on her hips. “Chargin’ over there at night when there’s a way to sneak in during the day is just pure stupid.”
He’s wound up tighter than a fat lady’s girdle at an all-you-can-eat breakfast.

“If he hurts her and I do nothing, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“He ain’t gonna hurt her. She’s his way to get y’all to come runnin’, and he knows it. So should you.”

Sly shook his head and stared at the floor. “She must be freaking out, at the
very least
. I can’t stand the thought of her going through that.”

Gwyneth grabbed his hand and talked as she led him down the stairs. “Yeah, her cheese is probably slidin’ off her cracker, but y’all know as well as I do, she ain’t gonna die. She may think she is, but she ain’t. Now quit frettin’ and git some of that vampire wine. We’re gonna add some to the moonshine and see if it works like Morgaine reckons it will. Y’all must be hungry now, right?”

“The blood lust is back, yes. But I don’t want to waste time.”

“Well, we need to try makin’ it anyway, so y’all won’t be wastin’ time. Then we can go after her during the day.”

“Meanwhile I’ll be going crazy.”

“My granny used to say, ‘To act is easy. To think is hard.’ It’s especially hard when your thinkin’ is as cloudy as the sky in a thunderstorm, and this is your rainy day.”

“Gwyneth, do you honestly think he’ll be understanding when Morgaine falls apart? She
needs
me—now!”

She stopped and considered the wild look in his eyes. “I ain’t never hit a vampire afore, but if it’ll knock some badly needed sense into y’all, I might just clock y’all upside the head.”

He narrowed his eyes and frowned.

She eyed him for a moment and decided he wasn’t going to attack her, so she continued her rant. “I know my cousin wouldn’t want y’all gettin’ yourself killed. She’s in love with y’all, Sly, and wouldn’t forgive herself neither.”

“Did she say that?”

“Does she have to? I do declare. Men are so stupid sometimes.”

He sighed. “How sweet.”

“Hey, some folks have tact. Others tell the truth. And it ain’t the beard that makes the philosopher.”

“You’re right,” he mumbled. “Whatever you said.”

*   *   *   *

In the basement, Sly and Nathan opened the false wall and revealed the still. Everything seemed to be in order, so it must not have been discovered—yet.

Gwyneth had argued that the wine should go into the finished product and not the still in case the process of distillation destroyed the blood. It made sense to Sly, so they brought an empty Mason jar with them to get some of the fresh product.

Sly took the container from Gwyneth. “Why aren’t we just using the moonshine we made before Morgaine and I went to New York?”

“Because this is fresher.”

“I thought whiskey was better aged.”

“Naw, my motto is ‘Fresher is almost always better,’ isn’t that so, Nathan?”

Nathan chuckled. “I guess it has to be since we drank what was left of the last batch.”

She slapped his arm with the back of her hand and he laughed. Sly had never seen Nathan so happy. They really did seem good for each other.

He poured some moonshine from the bucket into the jar until it was about three-quarters full, and then he handed it to Gwyneth.

“Seems like the proper time to collect it anyways. There’s room at the top to add some of your wine cure. What’s it called agin?”

“Vampire Vintage.”

“Okay. So how much of this Vampire Vintage should go into our Vampire Vodka?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Morgaine said to tell you something about sourdough bread. Does that make sense?”

Gwyneth snapped her fingers. “It sure do. Let me think for a minute. If I can figure out how much starter goes into my sourdough bread recipe, I can probably figure out how much wine to put in the moonshine.”

“Like a ratio?” Nathan asked.

She looked at him blankly, then said, “Uh-huh, I guess. Now here’s the recipe.”

¾ cup cracked wheat

1 cup hot water

¼ cup margarine, melted

2 tablespoons molasses

2 tablespoons honey

¾ cup nonfat milk

½ cup flax seed

½ cup raw sunflower seeds

2½ cups sourdough starter

2 cups whole wheat flour

3½ cups bread flour

1 egg, beaten

“Add up all that except the starter, and what’s it come to?”

Sly rattled off, “Almost ten cups of ingredients, plus one egg.”

Both Gwyneth and Nathan stared at him openmouthed.

“What?” he asked.

“Nuthin’. So y’all are saying it’s about twelve and a half cups of everything including the starter?”

“Correct.”

Gwyneth splayed her ten fingers on the floor and then said, “Sly, will you put two and a half fingers next to mine?”

He shook his head, smiling. “I think it might be easier to find the ratio on paper. Or, better yet, let me just tell you it’s a fifth.”

Gwyneth gasped. “A fifth! Well, now that can’t be right. Ain’t a fifth a big-ass bottle?”

Sly and Nathan both burst out laughing. Nathan extended his hand and helped Gwyneth up.

“What in tarnation is so dang funny? I’m tryin’ to help Sly, and y’all are laughin’ at me.”

“Sorry, hon. He was just saying that the ratio is twenty percent, or one-fifth. If you divide the whole bottle into five parts, you’d need to add one of those parts of wine to the bottle to get the right ratio.”

“Oh. I do declare, Sly, how’d y’all know how to do that? Are you some math genius like Good Will Huntin’?”

Sly shrugged. “I was an engineer before the incident.”

“I see. So runnin’ trains takes math?”

“I wasn’t…”

Nathan put a protective arm around her and gave Sly a quick head shake.

He took one look at her confused face and said, “Never mind.” Explaining what an electromechanical engineer did might make her head explode.

Nathan gave her a side hug and said, “You know what, Gwyneth? I think you may be on to something. A job Sly could do.”

“Really? What’s that?”

“Math tutor.”

Sly straightened.
Math tutor?
It made sense. “I could tutor kids after dark. Now that I have an apartment, they could come to me or I could meet them somewhere.”

“And there’s all kinds of schools around. I’m sure some of them have math dummies like me,” Gwyneth said.

“And me,” Nathan added quickly. “That’s what made me think of it. I needed a tutor in trigonometry to get through high school.”

Gwyneth’s eyebrows rose. “Trigger what?”

“Not trigger…” He pronounced it slowly. “Trig-ah-nom-e-tree.”