Netherworld II: Blood Potion No. 9 (22 page)

The fashion intervention would have to
wait. “I need to speak to Tristan, if Isabella doesn’t
mind.”

Lana smiled brightly at the cuddly
Hispanic woman. “Brandilynn would like to channel, my dear. She has
news of interest to Tristan.”

Isabella nodded. “Of course. Just let
me prepare.”

Tristan rose from his leather office
chair and held it out for her. “Please.”

He was impeccable as ever in a custom
suit that had easily cost him thousands of dollars. In contrast,
Isabella was mom-casual in jeans and a scoop-neck top. I sure wish
I could outlaw jeans for women. They are so darn uncomfortable, and
that seemed to be all Isabella and Fizz liked to wrap their legs
in. I sighed. My kingdom for a channel who prefers
skirts.

Isabella took the proffered chair,
settling down and closing her eyes. She breathed deeply, and I drew
close, waiting for that sensation of openness that exuded from her
when she was ready. While I waited, I looked at Tristan, enjoying
that I could stare at him without his knowing. His black eyes were
like fathomless holes in his lily-white face. His cheekbones seemed
sharper, his nose more hawkish than when he was a

ghost. Still, he was stunning with
cold, predatory beauty. It made me wonder what it would be like to
feel his fangs break my skin, to feel him draw on the wounds to
feed on my blood. I shivered, a little turned on and a lot repulsed
all at once. I love the man, but if I had to love him as a vampire,
we would never stand a chance. His kind simply freaks me out way
too much.

Next to us, I felt Isabella’s aura
change, a warm invitation. She was ready for me, and tearing my
gaze away from Tristan, I let myself feed into her body.

It was way different than being in
Fizz. Isabella was in a kind of trance, her consciousness barely a
hint in the back of her mind. Her body was heavier, the plus sized
frame weighing harder on me. She had the kind of warm softness
children like to snuggle up to.

I opened her eyes and looked around at
everyone waiting for me to announce my presence. There were
Tristan, Augustus, and Lana, of course. Besides them Gerald,
Patricia, Taylor and werehog Eddie, another of Tristan’s bodyguard
shifters, ranged around the desk.

“Hey, hey, the gang’s all here,” I
said.

Tristan wasted no time. “News, my
love?”

It was nice to hear him refer to me as
his love in front of everyone, even if he was all vamped out. “Lots
of news.”

I quickly brought my audience up to
speed on Hazel and C.K. being the source of the tainted blood, as
well as Bane’s concerns we might have a dragon right here in Fulton
Falls.

Eddie was wide eyed. “A dragon?
Here?”

Eddie may be a werehog like C.K., but
he’s nowhere near as ugly. Only one set of tusks curled from his
mouth, smaller ones that curved over his upper lip. His snout is a
suggestion rather than full-on pig. He’s more brown than pink and
taller too, and all around, just a much nicer guy.

Gerald was to die for, as usual. He
loomed behind Patricia but kept a respectful distance, giving her
and her girlfriend Taylor space. His braids whispered against his
black tee shirt as he shook his head. “That would be a pretty
distinctive trail. And a very dangerous beast to come up
on.”

Tristan blew out a breath, his brow
creased with concern. “The threat is too great. I don’t want you
shifters anywhere near such a creature.”

Gerald looked excited. “We can handle
it, boss. I wouldn’t mind tracking something like that. A
dragon!”

Eddie seemed to be in full agreement.
“Please, Tristan. This is definitely an experience I don’t want to
miss.”

Tristan looked at his two head guards,
his lips pursed. Finally he nodded.

Gerald grabbed his partner, his teeth
flashing in his dark face in anticipatory delight. “Eddie, let’s
see who’s up for a hunt.”

As the shifters bounded down from the
dais, Tristan called after them. “Don’t engage the creature. Just
find out where it is and Brandilynn will pass the information on to
Bane.”

“Of course.” Gerald suddenly halted,
smacking a palm to his forehead. Looking shamefaced he asked me,
“Addresses where we can pick up the scent?”

I chuckled, giving him both Exotica
Erotica’s location and Hazel’s home address, which I’d memorized
from Bane’s computer.

As the weres bounded about the room
rounding up other shifters, Tristan squeezed my shoulder. “Good
work, Brandilynn.”

His smile, even in his vampire face,
warmed me from head to toe. Bane’s attractiveness waned now that I
was in my sweetie’s presence. The wolf so wasn’t worth losing this
man. I’d remember that next time my oversized libido kicked in.
“Thanks.”

Wendy, Tristan’s new aide, joined us.
“Mr. Keith, the car is here to take you to your
meeting.”

Tristan straightened his tie. “Thank
you. Sorry Brandilynn, but the county commission has another
showdown with the city council over that stupid jail they want to
build on the waterfront. Patricia?”

“Go ahead. I’ll be just a moment.” It
was only now that I noticed how silent Tristan’s sister had been
through all the proceedings. She wasn’t a chatty girl, but it was
usually her questions and observations that cut to the heart of any
matter. Brainy to the max, that Patricia.

Right now she was busying herself at
her desk as Tristan blew me a kiss goodbye and headed out. She
muttered something to Taylor, who nodded and excused herself. The
psychic grabbed Lana by the arm. “Let’s get coffee. My
treat.”

“Can’t say no to that.” The women
headed out through the grand doors, a few steps behind
Tristan.

I readied myself to leave the body.
Suddenly Patricia was in front of me, her stance wary but
nonthreatening. I jumped anyway.

She pretended not to notice. She might
be a bloodsucker half her afterlife, but Patricia has good manners.
“Before you jump out of Isabella, I’d like to talk with you. Walk
me to the door?”

My jaw nearly hit the floor. We get
along pretty good and I like her, but Patricia and I were not what
you would call bosom buddies. Especially when she's a vampire.
Something was most definitely up with the dark and foreboding Ms.
Keith. “Sure, Patricia.” I hauled Isabella’s body to its feet,
wondering what was on Tristan’s sister’s mind.

We stepped down from the bandstand that
served as Patricia and Tristan’s office area, walking slowly down
the center aisle the lines of desks made. Using Isabella’s body was
difficult after the stick figure lightness of Fizz. Patricia didn’t
try to hurry me though Tristan was waiting for her. She also didn’t
speak, and her silence weighed as heavily on me as Isabella’s
frame.

I finally couldn’t take it anymore.
Speaking low, though the enhanced hearing of the roomful of
shifters and vampires could probably pick up any whisper I uttered,
I said, “Look, I know you’re protective of Tristan and I haven’t
been a good girlfriend to him lately. But before you decide to bite
my neck or tear off my head to teach me a lesson, remember, this
isn’t my body.”

Patricia snorted laughter. I was
relieved to hear the humor. “Tact is not one of your gifts,
Brandilynn.”

“Afraid not.”

She sighed, sounding more human than
vampire. “Tristan is important to me. He’s always been there, even
when we were children. I was very sickly when I was alive, and he
made it a point to take care of me.”

I tried to imagine the strong, no
nonsense Patricia as being weak. Nope, didn’t translate one bit,
not even being familiar with her as a ghost like myself. “I didn’t
know that.”

She nodded, her dark eyes far away. “I
became bedridden two years before he was made into a vampire. I was
only in my twenties. I hadn’t had the chance for a full life like
others. He brought me over so I could have the opportunities life
had denied me.”

Wow. “Then being a vampire is a gift
for you, not a curse,” I mused.

“It’s both, but I’m grateful to my
brother.”

I shot her a smile. “It shows. I don’t
know what he’d do without you.”

She shrugged the compliment off. “Now
he has a problem I can’t take care of.”

“Me.”

That made her chuckle again. “I’ve
never had to make myself keep my nose out of Tristan’s romantic
affairs, because he never had any. Not since becoming a vampire, at
any rate.”

I got what she was saying. Tristan had
kept no steady girlfriend until me. “That’s
interesting.”

We were at the end of Para Central, at
the ballroom’s double doors. Patricia stopped and faced me. “It
should be more than interesting. He loves you. Even when he’s in
vampire form – cold and dangerous and hungry – for your sake he
manages to find something inside that is human again. Do you
realize how difficult that is for our kind?”

I thought hard about that. The truth
was, I’d never been a vampire, so I couldn’t claim real
understanding. And when in doubt, go with honesty. “I guess I
don’t.”

She stared hard at me, as if willing me
to get what she was saying. “It’s huge. To want someone so much
that you’re ready to deny yourself the greatest sweetness of this
existence … well, that’s a big deal.”

“What do you mean?” I really wanted to
absorb the information. I knew it was important.

“Once the supply of bottled blood is
safe again, Tristan told me he plans to give up live donors
entirely. He’s doing that out of love for you.”

If he’d announced it to Patricia,
Tristan was serious about it. Giving up live blood is monumental
for a vampire.

He really loves me.

I swallowed. The momentous realization
made me ask something I was warned against speaking to vampires
about. It’s akin to getting super nosy about someone’s sex life and
demanding minute details. “I need to understand this, Patricia. Is
live blood really that important to y’all? How is it so much better
than bottled? And why does sex have to be involved in the taking of
it?”

She looked away but didn’t become angry
at my demand to know the intimacies of vampirism. We were big girls
talking about a man we both loved. After a moment of reflection she
told me, “It warms us. It makes our hearts beat again. And so much
more. For those few moments we feed, we are ourselves as we were in
life. Not this cold, empty shell that wants to hunt and ravage. Not
the wispy remnants of who we were when we’re ghosts. Alive. As
alive and hopeful as small children on Christmas Eve. And it’s so
big and so wonderful that our entire bodies wake and demand
fulfillment in every way. The living body beneath ours, with its
vitality and warmth, must be consumed in full.”

I tried to imagine what she was telling
me. I tried very hard to grasp how important it felt to be alive
again when you’d been dead so long. And I wondered if Patricia
cared enough about Taylor to have given up live donors
too.

So many questions, but only one really
mattered. “Tristan is giving this up for me?”

“For you.” The wistful Patricia was
gone, and the vampire in front of me was all cold business again.
“It may be that you prefer Dan. Or this shifter agent. But you have
to make a choice, Brandilynn. For everyone’s sake, not just my
brother’s.”

“Bane isn’t an issue.” Much. “But Dan …
I love him. And I love Tristan.” There. I’d finally admitted it to
someone, in plain talk.

“Then like Tristan, you’re going to
have to give something important up. That’s all I have to say on
the matter.”

I sighed. “I have a feeling you’d like
to say more.”

She grinned, letting some glamour fall
away so that I saw a shimmer of fangs in her smile. “I would, but
it’s not my place. If he’s the better man for you, choose him. If
you love Dan more, let my brother go.”

I knew she was right, darn her. But it
was so hard. What if I chose the wrong man? What if it didn’t work
out in the end and I was left alone again? “Someone’s going to get
hurt,” I whispered.

“They’re already hurting,
Brandilynn.”

With that, she turned her back and left
me struggling. Boy, Patricia knew how to make an exit.

* * * *

I was happy to shed Isabella’s skin and
be myself for a change. I spent a few minutes listening to Gerald
and Eddie prep the shifters who’d volunteered to track the dragon.
I wanted to be in on the hunt. I’d never seen a dragon since
they’re only indigenous to Europe and Asia and keep mostly to their
own kind. Dragons and humans maintain an uneasy peace, careful to
not encroach on each others’ territories. How C.K. and Hazel had
managed to get one into the U.S. would no doubt be fodder for a
Congressional hearing or two. No doubt it had entailed a lot of
witchcraft, and my dread of Hazel grew to immense proportions. I so
didn’t want him to know I was spying on him.

Once I’d heard the weres’ plans, I
decided to cruise to the library for a little research on dragons.
Extra knowledge never hurt anybody, I reasoned. Know thy enemy and
all that stuff.