Blessed (30 page)

“Smart puppy you’ve got there.” Harrison took another drag. “The blood didn’t tempt you this morning because of the rain. It won’t tempt you on the dead because it’s dried. But tonight’s little ‘cookout’ could get messy. You know how the beasties can be.”

Because vampire — eternal — social affairs were oh-so-antiseptic.

“Zachary and Freddy can represent our group. Your friend Aimee and I raided the B and B bar for some gin. I gave her a shot and sent her off to bed.”

Accepting alcohol from a vampire was never a good idea. Besides, didn’t Aimee already have some kind of medication in her system? “Is she —?”

“Don’t fret; I didn’t bite her.” Harrison reached into his inner jacket pocket and withdrew another cigar. “Want one?” When I shook my head, he reached in again and this time withdrew a silver flask. “How about a shot of the good stuff?”

Human blood. I should’ve guessed he’d bring his own. “If Zachary finds out —”

Harrison winked at me. “Our little secret.” He glanced around, making sure no one was watching, and took a swig. “Take care, Quincie. No matter how Germanically cuddly this burg may seem, if either of us reveals our true nature . . .”

“What?”

“The last time a Wolf pack got its paws on a neophyte . . .” He grimaced. “Well, I’ll show you the video on YouTube sometime.”

The B and B looked hospitable enough, with its real antiques and plastic flowers, dark, heavy wood furniture, and the cuckoo clock behind the front counter. I could’ve done without the mounted deer head on the wall, but it did add to the atmosphere.

The Wolf
“frau”
innkeeper, as Harrison had called her, had left a note saying that she was off mourning a daughter and that guests could help themselves to microwave popcorn, day-old cookies, or soft drinks in the fridge. We were also welcome to borrow a variety of DVDs — ranging from chick to horror flicks — on an honor system.

Taking advantage of the privacy, I used the complimentary guest computer in the lobby to confirm that no drained bodies had shown up in Austin lately. Then I deleted the browser history.

Homesickness came in a wave. I wondered if Mitch had returned to Nora for provisions. I wondered how Mr. Wu and Mrs. Levy liked washing dishes. I wished I’d left the Moraleses a note, though I still had no idea what it would have said.

I wondered if the infected had shown any warning signs.

I’d been gone only a few days, and in that time, I’d traveled to Chicago, crashed a royal vampire gala, drunk from Brad, both offended and impressed the queen of the damned, been “hit on” by a human servant who later became a ritual sacrifice, traveled to New Schwarzwald, stumbled into a preternatural killing spree, and knocked Brad onto his ass. Now, in the forest not far away, a community of mostly teen Wolves were honoring their dead by chowing down on an elk or twenty.

The best part? Seeing Kieren again.

Upstairs, my room at the inn — with its oak sleigh bed, eyelet curtains, and private full bath — felt cozier than the suite at the Edison Hotel back in Chicago. It was the bath, though, that caught my imagination, specifically the two-person Jacuzzi tub lined with unlit eucalyptus-scented votive candles and porcelain bud vases filled with baby-pink sweetheart roses. What would Kieren think of that?

Later, Zachary — carrying my sports bottle and a roasted turkey leg — passed on a message that Kieren would be by in an hour or so and invited me, in the meantime, up to the roof to see the funeral pyre down the hill. “As long as we’re in New Schwarzwald,” the angel had suggested, “let’s both take the stairs.”

No wall-crawling. No wings.

I slung a crocheted blanket from the foot of the bed over my shoulder and followed. My GA mentioned that he’d last seen Kieren having a heart-to-heart talk with Freddy, which surprised me. Then I realized that they had something in common — a loved one who’d recently turned from human to neophyte.

Stepping onto the gently sloped roof, Zachary said, “I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you this, but I learned today that Kieren was turned down for admission to the Wolves’ college. He can reapply for the summer semester, but it doesn’t look good.”

“How is that possible?” I asked. “Kieren is a genius. Back home, if he hadn’t dropped out of high school, he would’ve graduated valedictorian.”

“It cuts against him, being not only a hybrid but also one raised by a mother who long ago severed ties with the international pack network. Especially since he’s never achieved full Wolf form, the consensus seems to be that — however brainy or knowledgeable — he’s not tough enough to rise through the ranks.”

It was so unfair. Kieren couldn’t live in the human world because he couldn’t master his inner Wolf, and he couldn’t succeed in the Wolf world for the same reason.

“By the way,” Zachary said, glancing up at sharp, bright stars, “the pack leadership — or what’s left of it — thinks we’re both shifters.”

“What? Me, too?”

The angel nodded. “Because of your relationship to Kieren. Because their healers have verified that Clyde is a Possum. Because of my appetite. But also because of your display of speed on Main Street this morning. Quincie —”

“I know,” I said. “I have to be extra careful around the Wolves. Harrison already hit me with the scary bedtime story.”

“It’s not just that,” the angel replied. “Whenever you tap into the demonic . . .”

“What?” Taking careful steps, I added, “What’s the big deal?”

“It further jeopardizes your soul.”

For a while, Zachary and I both went quiet. I gave him the blanket, and he gave me the sports bottle filled with blood. We perched, side by side on the edge of the roof, peering through the Michigan woods at the immense funeral pyre, listening to the mournful music of the Wolves. Everywhere that Brad went, grief and chaos followed.

I took a long drag of animal — deer? elk? — blood (it tasted gamy). “Does it matter how a neophyte is destroyed?”

“You’ve been reading Wolf lore,” Zachary observed, pulling the blanket around his shoulders.

“And Stoker’s novel,” I reminded him. I recalled Arthur staking Lucy. How she was decapitated and her mouth stuffed with garlic. How, later in the story, Mina had begged Jonathan and the rest to, if necessary, do the same to her. Kieren’s notes had mentioned the same ritual. “Does it? Matter, I mean. So far as the soul is concerned?”

“I’m not disputing the Wolves’ beliefs,” Zachary replied. “But giving up one’s soul to the Big Boss falls under the powers of the divine. Not the supernatural and especially not the demonic.”

I was sure that my GA knew what he was talking about, but it still seemed that if a price of becoming an undead immortal was the loss of the soul, the demonic had something to do with it. “I just don’t get it,” I began again. “Why would God send me an angel and then reject me because of what I’m becoming through no fault of my own? That doesn’t sound like —”

“In my experience,” Zachary said, “when the Big Boss green-lights something that seems unfair, it’s to protect us from a worse potential future. One we can’t foresee.”

Actually, I could foresee it in high-def. Better that I — like his Miranda — be destroyed than lose my soul and claim victims for centuries to come.

Hard to argue, but where was the justice in that?

Fine. Maybe I had it coming for having doubted Kieren’s innocence, for letting myself be wooed by Brad. For having been too much of a big dummy, in my blood-wine stupor, to see what was happening. But what about Aimee? All she did was eat a tainted dessert.

“It’s not about punishment,” the angel added. “Dying with your soul, it’s a blessing. A second chance at redemption. A second chance at true eternal life.”

I thought about what Kieren had said at the library about how the old books could be wrong. Had it just been the love talking? “With Miranda, did you always feel like it was best —”

“No,” my GA replied. “There were moments when I longed to rationalize the whole thing away. To pretend we were the exception. That it would be different with us.”

And it hadn’t been. I briefly considered asking how evil she’d become by the end. But I could tell it was a painful subject for Zachary, and I had a feeling that it was a very, very long story.

We sat companionably and stared out at the flame below and the stars above. Zachary finished off the turkey leg, and I finished off the whole bottle of blood.

“Do you spend a lot of your time on rooftops?” I asked.

“I can’t fly around all the time. Too showy. But I like being up high.”

I wasn’t the only one who was homesick.

After a Jacuzzi bath, I slipped on an oversize Fat Lorenzo’s T to watch
Ladyhawke
and then sang along in a soft voice with
Lady and the Tramp.

There had been noticeable wolf, canine, and shifter representation in the B and B movie library, though too many in which the four-footed died at the end.

On the registration desk counter, I’d also noticed a stack of brochures for a nonprofit organization advocating the protection of Michigan gray wolves. If someone didn’t know they were staying in a pack-run B and B, they’d probably just assume that the owners were environmentalists.

Much more than an hour had passed, but Kieren had told Zachary that he was still coming to see me, and I had faith in that.

At half past midnight, I pushed aside thoughts of Harrison’s YouTube horror stories and unlocked the door of the München Room. Then I climbed into a queen-size bed so tall it had its own step stool, resting my body on the double wedding-ring quilt and my head on the eyelet-fabric pillows. I’d wake up when Kieren knocked.

“It’s me,” a familiar voice whispered. “Sorry I’m late.”

I felt the bed dip. A muscular, warm arm pulled me closer to a muscular, warm body. Kieren. He’d taken a shower. His hair was still damp. But I could still detect the scent of smoke and pine. It wasn’t like him, just crawling beside me onto the quilt like that. As if it were something he’d done before.

The cut over his brow had scabbed over, but now the eye beneath it was swollen. “What happened?”

“Long night,” he replied like it was no big deal. “Not everybody is as understanding as Graciella about y’all showing up at about the same time as Brad.”

I hadn’t come here to ruin Kieren’s new life. “We have to try to talk to Ivo, but if that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, we’ll hit the road. Depending on Clyde’s condition, you know, whether he can travel, if it makes sense to move him.”

If he wasn’t already dead.

“I’m glad you told me what a hero he’s been,” Kieren said.

Had I said
hero
? Maybe not, but it fit. I’d never forget the sight of Clyde —
Clyde
— this morning, jumping out of the SUV right after Aimee. He’d honored Travis’s memory and his promise to Kieren by being there for both of us.

I closed my eyes. “He’s my friend, too.”

Kieren kissed one eyelid and then the other. “I love you, Quince.”

Just like that. I. Love. You. Quince.

I rested my hand on Kieren’s chest, and he flinched. “What?”

He reluctantly raised his black T-shirt to reveal a dark purple bruise running clear across his rib cage. “There used to be a gazebo in the town park,” he explained. “Brad threw me into it this morning. We fed the scrap to the funeral pyre.”

With those injuries, Kieren had held me against his chest at the library and then been forced to defend himself tonight. “How bad is it?”

“I asked one of the healers to take a look after you left the clinic. The ribs may be bruised or cracked. Don’t worry, though. I heal fast, shifter fast, and I did manage to lie still on a cot while Graciella chanted in Latin and waved some rosemary over me.”

“Did Brad recognize you?” I began again. “You know, this morning.”

“Now that you mention it,” Kieren replied, “I’ve been thinking. When I first saw him, I thought that he’d come after me.”

Not surprising, given their history. Brad had gone to a lot of trouble framing Kieren for Vaggio’s murder, in large part to diminish the young Wolf in my eyes.

“But then he tossed me aside, just like anyone else.”

“Something’s wrong with him,” I whispered. “I wonder whether it’s something we can exploit to our advantage.”