The Vampiric Housewife (25 page)

    
“Charlie didn’t tell me to keep you safe,” he blurted out. “But he would have. Just to be honest.”

    
She kept her back to him. “Thank you.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Let the Fangs Come Out

    
John would have preferred to be alone. He couldn’t even remember what alone felt like. Well, physical aloneness. The other type of aloneness—the kind that meant being away from Lisa and everything else familiar to him, having his father stolen from him, the kind that came from being surrounded by the people who were suppose to love you but didn’t understand a damn thing about you or what you were going through—he knew all too well. In the last week he had gotten to know that kind of loneliness real well. As much as he wanted to kill it, he would give just about anything to have a day to himself without his siblings or mother or some stranger just a foot away.

    
But Amelia insisted that they put all three mattresses into one room so they could sleep together and feel safe. He didn’t know why she didn’t want to take advantage of having separate rooms. She was usually the antisocial one. But after what happened tonight, she was probably scared. And when Harry didn’t object to the idea or even protest, instead rushing to help her haul the two twin mattresses into the bedroom that housed a queen sized one, John wasn’t going to fight them.

    
The room was almost wall to wall mattresses, no bed frames or box springs. Just some sheets, thin blankets that smelled as if they had been in storage for a season, and flat pillows. John immediately claimed a twin mattress. If he couldn’t have his own room, he would have his own bed. He half wished that he had his old coffin back. At first he liked the human beds, less constrictive, softer. But the coffin offered a certain security.

    
Valerie had yet to join them as they settled into the mattresses.

    
“I can’t believe her,” John snarled under his breath. There was only one bed left in the apartment. That was the only place she could be.

    
“Stop it,” Amelia snapped. “Just stop it.”

    
“There is only one place she could be right now and—“

   
 
“Don’t even go there, John.”

    
“Why not? She doesn’t want Dad to come back. She made that clear in the motel room when she said that shit about human blood. Venjamin just took care of the problem for her.”

    
“Mom doesn’t want Dad dead or hurt. She already saved his life once.”

    
“Then why else aren’t we going after him? Why are we letting some stranger tell us what do unless she just wanted to screw—“

    
“Stop!” Amelia yelled. “Grow the hell up, John. Dad escaped from Venjamin once before. He got caught so we could get away. And you want to honor his sacrifice by throwing ourselves to Venjamin? Dad can take care of himself. He will take care of himself. He will escape and he will come and find us. And that stranger in there is the only chance of survival that we have! Dad knew that too.”

    
“I guess Mom’s not the only one with a crush,” he snickered. “We know what kind of men you fall for. Look at Drew—“

    
He felt a slap across his face that he had never seen coming. His face stung. Amelia had never hit him before—not really hit him. A punch or a jab in the chest in sibling rivalry but never in anger. He turned his head back to look at her, shocked. Harry had moved back and was watching with an enthralled smile on his face.

    
Amelia’s face was bright red, her dark eyes glowering with anger, tears barely brimming. “You should be ashamed of yourself John Charles Murray.”

    
Guilt made him sick to his stomach. He had only been thinking about Drew working for Venjamin. The thought that Drew tried to rape her and feed off her never occurred to him. He would never have insinuated such a thing.

    
“Aims, I didn’t mean—“

    
“You have no right to judge anyone! He was your friend for two years.”

    
“I know. I’m sorry, Aims. I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

    
She took a deep breath but was still fuming. “Well, you should be ashamed for what you said about Mom too. She’s doesn’t want anything bad to happened to Dad. She’s just angry at him. Can’t you see this from her point of view? I know I can, and I can’t blame her for being angry at him.”

    
“Don’t—“

    
“He lied to her! Her whole adult life was a lie, a lie that he was part of. Do you even realize that Mom and Dad probably aren’t actually married? Do you realize that her husband, her friends, everyone was just pretending so they could spy on her, on us. What if you found out Lisa had been dating you just because someone was paying her too?”

    
“She’d never—“

    
“You’re probably right. Both her parents are born-vampires. But she could have been. Drew was. He was never your friend. He was spying on you for two years. How many of your friends have fathers from the Silent Coven? How many of them have been lied to and spied on by their fathers? How does that make you feel? Mom knew Dad for nearly twenty years. She loved him. Had children with him. And everyday he pretended—“

    
“He wasn’t pretending! He loved us. He cared about us. He got us out, didn’t he? He saved our lives!”

    
“John, we know nothing about him! He lied to us our entire lives about everything, what he did for a living, what he was, what humans were. Christ even what year it was! Who knows what Dr. Venjamin was doing to us at all those doctor appointments. How can we trust him? How could Mom ever trust him?”

    
“None of that matters! We know everything important about him.”

    
“Maybe we do,” she said quietly. She had seen what her father was really like. Locked in the trunk of a car, she listened to her father joke around with the guard he had obviously known for awhile, then she watched him rip out the throat of the human who had done him a favor. There was no need for that guard to die. He had already let them pass. For the first time she had seen who her father really was. She wanted him safe from Venjamin, but she didn’t know if she wanted him in her life.

    
“Don’t be like her!”

    
“Mom has never lied to us! You should remember that.”

    
“Maybe you should remember that he’s our dad and nothing changes that.”

    
She stared at her brother. He couldn’t understand. He was pissed and scared and for whatever reason had chosen to blame their mom. Amelia had never realized her brother was so dense. They were all hurting right now, but she’d be damned if she allowed him to take it out on the rest of them, especially Valerie.

    
John may not trust Ethan, but Amelia did. Whoever he was, whoever he worked for, he had answers for them, he could teach them to be like other vampires while respecting their desire to renounce human blood. He was brusque and curt. Arrogant and pushy. But his every action had purpose, his every word had meaning. That meant that he could be trusted. Plus he had this masculine, confident mystique about him. It made you feel safe when you were near him. Maybe she did have a little crush. He was gorgeous, those deep blue eyes and mysterious scars, his massive size. She had been sketching his face in her head. But her attraction to him had nothing to do with trusting him. She had already learned not to put much faith in those instincts.

    
Valerie came into the bedroom. John immediately punched his pillow and lied with his back to the room. Harry crawled onto the other twin mattress, and Amelia made room for her mom. Her eyes were red as if she had been crying and she was paler than usual. Amelia wondered what she and Ethan had discussed. But she didn’t ask. Valerie lied down, put her arms around her daughter and silently began to weep.

Chapter Twenty-four

The Mystery Vampire

    
Dr. Venjamin was on one side of the two-way mirror grinding his teeth while Charlie was on the other side chained to his chair. That useless walking corpse. He wanted to save his family. Didn’t he realize that his family didn’t belong to him, that they belonged to Venjamin? At first this whole fiasco was a headache but now it was seriously pissing him off. It may have lead to a breakthrough—the secret to immortality lying in the blood of a vampire—but to determine that he needed his damn subjects back! He hated that a loathed corpse had not only defied him, but now held all the cards.

    
“So we have nothing. No idea who this vampire abetting them is, no idea where they went?” Dr. Venjamin said still glaring through the mirror. The doctor was crankier than usual tonight. The arthritis in his hands and knees could not be ignored. It was more frustration at the pain than the pain itself that irritated him. He was more concerned with the growing pain in his upper right abdomen. It was the stress of the situation that had exacerbated his illness. The ashen color of his skin, the arthritis, the chronic fatigue, diabetes . . . he was in the advanced stages already. Hemochromatosis. A disease of the blood. The irony wasn’t lost on Venjamin. It just may be a vampire’s blood that kept it alive, it was Venjamin’s blood that was killing him. Liver failure, congestive heart failure, cancer were in his near future. Vampires with their immortality had no comprehension of time or the lack of it. Venjamin was all too aware of it. He needed Amelia Murray’s blood!

    
“Not completely. We’re still tracking down information on the vampire,” Rhett said.

    
“And?”

    
“The story Charlie told us isn’t completely true. The vampire didn’t follow Val and the kids to the motel. He stopped Harry from biting a human on the street.” A small smile spread across the doctor’s lips.
Ah, Harry, how I wish I could see you in such an environment.
“And he caught Valerie before she fainted. She must not be feeding often enough. We have two vampire witnesses. They said he acted as if he owned them.”

    
“Did the two vampires recognize him?”

    
“Yes and no. The male said that he’d seen the vampire on the street two nights before stalking a dying homeless man. But he wasn’t a local.”

    
“Hmm. Do you think he’s a believer like Charlie said?”

    
“I don’t know. We’ve checked with several covens of believers, none of them recognized his description.”

    
“If you believed that you had God in your company, would you admit it to the Devil?” Venjamin asked finally turning around to face Rhett. For the first time in all the years he had known Rhett, the vampire looked worn. His injuries from the fight with Charlie had already healed, but his demeanor had changed. He had become more solemn. This was no longer a game to him, not now that he was losing. He may have captured Charlie but he had lost the family. They, after all, were the true prize. Rhett would not longer be hunting them for Venjamin’s cause, he would be hunting them to satisfy his own ego.

    
“Probably not. But why else would a vampire help them unless he was a believer? They’re a curiosity, a freak in the vampire world. If I was not so educated, I would have stalked them too, studied them, then tasted them to find out what they were. I would not risk my life for them.”

    
“Not all vampires are like you, Rhett. That is a shame.” Venjamin turned his eyes back to Charlie. “He gave you nothing, even after interrogation all day long?”