Bag of Blood - Vampire Mystery Romance (6 page)

At six in the evening, it was already dark outside, the sky a mysterious navy blue. Stars sparkled from their positions, but not too many; the city lights prevented the majority from being seen. Breath puffing in the cold wind, Lena hustled from Robert's car to the thickly wooded door of Megan's house, her hood pulled tight over her ears.

Lena hammered tightly on the door with her fist (having pulled a fuzzy sock over her hand because she didn't have any gloves that fit, the pounding was muted somewhat.) After many long moments of shifting from foot to foot on the worn
welcome
doormat, the door finally flew open.

"Hi!" a cheerful Megan greeted. She was wearing dark sweatpants and a long-sleeved white turtleneck, and she currently had a miniature clone of herself clinging to her back.

"Hi Megan, hi Sarah," Lena greeted. The moppet piggybacking on her older sister glared, sticking her tongue out. "I'm not
Sarah
, I'm Georgia!" the child complained.

"Whatever, let me in before my toes fall off!" Lena insisted. "It's cold!"

Megan laughed. "Ok, ok!" she waved in the general direction of the Chevy, and Robert shut it off, shuffling into Megan's house.

"Did you make Lena brave the cold all by herself so that you could stay in the warm truck?" Megan scolded Robert. "Bad giant!"

Georgia squealed at the sight of her idol, holding her arms out and nearly falling off Megan's back. Robert caught her in his huge hands, swinging the five-year-old up and over his shoulders until she gripped his hair, her bare feet dangling onto his chest. She laughed.

"Don't drop her!" Megan insisted sternly, "and don't let her head hit the ceiling or doorways again. I don't get paid by my parents if any of the kids need stitches."

Georgia's twin scampered towards them as her sister shut the door, inviting her friends into the house. "Hold me, too! Hold me, too!" Sarah squealed, jumping up and down with her arms extended. Robert laughed as he hoisted the girl up into his arms, carrying her princess- style while clinging onto one of Georgia's skinny ankles, not letting her fall off his neck.

"Where's Peter?" Lena asked, looking around for Megan's brother.

"He's sleeping over at its friend's house. Tonight it's just the twins and Jared."

A loud barking started up, a white fuzzy blur skittering across the floor to launch itself at Lena's feet.

"Biscuit!" Lena grinned. She lifted the Maltese underneath her arm, where he wagged his tail into her armpit. She couldn't help but giggle at his fluffy tickling, and his tiny tongue shot out to kiss her face rapidly.

Megan's parents had gone on a trip to a romantic mountain lodge for their anniversary, leaving Megan to babysit over the weekend after promising to pay her for looking after her siblings. Though she often babysat, three days in a row was definitely more than her usual work, and Lena and Robert had promised to visit to keep her from losing her marbles.

"Have you heard from your parents?" Lena asked as she set the
fuzzball
dog down on the tile, where he wandered off to scoot underneath the sofa, no doubt in search of dust bunnies.

"Yeah, they called a few minutes ago." Megan replied, filling a large pot with water and setting it on the heated stove to boil. "They went skiing all day. Seem to be having fun."

Lena thought back to her own parents, her father going to weekly doctor appointments, the date to his surgery ticking closer and closer. Her mother, she barely ever saw, certainly not often enough to talk. She could not imagine either of them skiing.

"Good for them!" she replied, watching Robert gently place Sarah on the sofa before doing the same with Georgia. They laughed, tackling to him, and he fell to the floor with a grunt. "Argh! You got me!" he groaned, before "dying", rolling his eyes back and letting his tongue loll out of his mouth, his arms flung dramatically to the floor. Their laughter was loud and unending.

Sarah shook his arm. "Come on, Robert!" she insisted sternly. "You can't be dead yet! We're going to watch a movie!"

Robert miraculously came back to life. "Oh, alright then. I'm not dead yet." He winked at Megan, who rolled her eyes and began searching through the pantry, where she pulled out a box of macaroni; several packages of cake mix and taco seasoning also tumbled out of the cabinet's overcrowded contents onto the floor, so Lena helped Megan put them back in their spots.

"Get me some butter and milk, will you?" Megan asked Lena, pointing to the refrigerator. Lena did so and measured the correct amount out, mixing it into a measuring cup with the cheese flavor packet; Megan dumped the dry noodles into the roiling water.

Without being asked, Lena went to the refrigerator again, emerging with her arms full of a bag of lettuce, a very squishy tomato, a bowl half-full of baby carrots, and a yellow bell pepper. Without saying a word, Megan handed Lena a cutting board and the girl set out to assemble a salad, mindful of the Whitgrass family rule of including one healthy item with every meal.

"Robert!" Megan called to the boy, who was playing Dinosaur with the girls (a game which involved crawling around on the rug, yelling "ROAR!" and the occasional "CAW!"). As far as Lena could tell, that was more or less the entire game.) "Make yourself useful and help the girls set the table, would you?"

"Awh!" they all complained, Robert even nosier than the twins. Lena hid a smile; he acted like such a little kid sometimes. She watched as he helped the girls to their feet, padding over to the cabinets to collect plates and silverware, cups and napkins.

Slicing the bell pepper into strips, Lena felt content. It was so nice here, so different from her cold and empty house. It was chaotic, yes, a mess in every direction you looked. And there was never-ending noise; screams and squeals, shouts and laughs. But it somehow felt safer here; she was with the two people she trusted most. The quiet of her empty home was more maddening than the four hyperactive children.

And speaking of four…

"Oh,
crap
," Megan sighed, pouring the macaroni from the pot into a colander which rested in the sink. "Jared's awake."

"Hmm?" now that she listened, she could hear the child's snuffles and coos coming from the bedroom he shared with Peter.

"Go and get him, will you, Robert?" she called. "I'm busy!" he replied, setting the forks out.

"I'll do it," Lena assuaged before the two could argue. Setting down her knife, she made her way to the crib of the one-year-old. He was standing, clutching the bars of his crib, and his face crinkled into a frown when he saw Lena.
You're not my family,
he was clearly thinking. He opened his mouth to howl, so Lena plucked him from the crib, lifting him high into the air.

"Hi, baby!" she cooed sweetly, bringing him to her face to kiss his neck in rapid, noisy kisses, tickling him like she had often seen Megan do. It worked; he burst into baby chuckles. His blue footie pajamas were twisted, one foot flapping empty; Lena adjusted it and wrinkled her nose at the smell; she loved Megan dearly, but some things a sibling had to do herself.

Carrying him into the kitchen, his curly black hair tickling her chin, Lena held him out to Megan. "I think he needs changed," she explained.

"Ugh,
again
?" Megan sighed, but took Jared from Lena's arms, smiling at him. He smiled back. She bore the little stinker into the bathroom, and Lena took over the macaroni duty.

The table was set and the four were seated before Megan returned, smelling of lavender soap and baby powder. She set her youngest brother into his high chair, scooping some macaroni noodles and extremely thinly sliced vegetables onto his tray before sitting herself down. She held her small hand out to Robert, and Georgia took her other one, reaching for Lena's hand. Lena accepted it, and Sarah took both Lena's other hand and Robert's free hand.

Megan lowered her head and the girls followed suit.
Oh!
Lena realized.
Prayer!
She had forgotten how religious the Whitgrass family could be. She felt something fuzzy settle on her foot and smiled.
Biscuit.

"Dear God," Sarah spoke quietly. "Thank you for letting  Robert and Lena come visit. And please protect mommy and daddy. Please don't let daddy get stuck in the snow again."

Lena couldn't hide her grin at the childish sincerity of the prayer. Sarah continued speaking. "Please keep all girls safe from the bad man." It took Lena a moment to realize what Sarah was saying; she must have been referring to the recent killings. She couldn't place why she felt so surprised that Sarah even knew anything of what was happening. Sarah started to wrap the prayer up, but Megan interrupted with a gentle whisper. "
The food
."

"Oh yeah!" Sarah agreed. "Please let this food make our bodies healthy and strong. Amen."

Everyone at the table replied with "amen.", including Lena, who said it a beat too late. She blushed as everyone looked at her.

"Oh, right," Megan realized. "Robert, I forgot that you're Jewish. Does that mean…"

"I can pray, too," Robert insisted. "Being Jewish doesn't mean you can't."

"Oh." Embarrassed at not knowing much about any religion but her own, Megan stood flushed and looked down. Robert patted her shoulder and heaped a spoonful of noodles onto her plate, smiling gently.

Jared crowed loudly and broke the tension by tossing a carrot slice across the table. "Jared!" Megan insisted. "I
told
you; throwing food is not nice." Jared giggled, enthralled at his own cleverness.

Dinner passed in cheerful conversation, collimating with a loud argument between Sarah and Georgia between what movie they would get to watch. Georgia wanted
Spirited Away
, an animated Japanese movie, but Sarah insisted that that movie frightened her and that she wanted to watch the
Barbie Nutcracker.
Megan settled the argument.

"Georgia, you got to pick out what we'd have for dinner. Remember, Sarah wanted hotdogs? That means that she gets to pick out the movie."

Georgia pouted at this, but finally agreed when Megan promised that they could have popcorn with chocolate pieces melting inside the bowl. Robert glanced down at his watch.

"I don't know if I have time to stay for the whole movie," Robert told Megan. "I need to be home before 8:30. How about I help clean up, instead?"

Lena strongly suspected that Robert simply didn't want to watch the Barbie Nutcracker, and her suspicion was confirmed when, at the girl's loud complaining at Robert's departure, he said "How about I swing by tomorrow and take you all out to Howie's for breakfast?"

"Count me in!" Lena spoke up. Robert grinned. "Did I invite you?"

"Shut up, jerk," Lena smiled, knowing he was teasing. Sarah gasped.

"Ooh! You said 'shut up'! Mommy says that's a bad word…" Lena tried hard not to roll her eyes.

"Hey, 'shut up' is two words." She growled.

"Lena, be nice." Megan countered, and Lena sighed. "All right, sorry."

"Yeah, breakfast would be nice," Megan smiled, knowing how inexpensive meals for children under eight were, and that babies were served for free. "I'll call Peter and tell him; you don't mind picking him up from his friend's house, do you?"

"Nah," Robert agreed. "Sounds fine. Bring the little squirt's car seat, will you?"

The 'little squirt' in question was leaning heavily on his tray, large brown eyes drooping with "the goofy look". "Uh-oh!" Megan teased. "Bedtime!" she used a damp cloth to clean the cheese sauce smears from his hands and face. "Help me tuck him in, Robert," she told him, lifting Jared from the high chair. He followed her into the hallway.

"Girls," Lena told the twins. "Can you help me take the dishes to the sink? Then you can put the DVD in and I'll get started on the dishes."

They reluctantly agreed and trailed by a sleepy-looking Biscuit began to bus the table. Lena opened the empty dishwasher and began placing cups and plates into the racks. She could hear the girls in the front room turning the television on.
Didn't Robert say he'd do the dishes
? She grumbled to herself.
I swear he said something about 'cleaning up'. He'd better put the leftovers away.

She finished up and, pouring dish soap into its holder, switched the machine on, where it began to gurgle sluggishly.

She heard the movie begin to play, and went in search of her two friends.
What's taking them so long?
She wondered to herself. Reaching the hallway, she stopped cold and stared, then blinked, looking away before looking back again making sure she was seeing what she
thought
she was seeing.

Megan was standing on her tip-toes in the dark hallway outside of the closed door of Jared's bedroom, her face tilted upwards, her hands around Robert's waist, while he bent at the knees with his hands buried in her thick, short hair. Their lips were pressed together tenderly.

Lena must have made some noise or other, because they quickly separated.

"Lena!" Megan panted. "I—um…" lip-gloss was smeared around her face.