Blessed (9 page)

How long had Uncle Davidson been a vampire? How long after his transformation had we lived under the same roof? I’d never guessed that he was a danger to me. I wonder if even he realized that or if, after the initial bout of blood lust, Uncle D had convinced himself that he was no longer a threat. That he could exist, passing as human, without potentially murdering the people he cared about. Just as I was doing.

The jugs looked so innocuous on the floor of the closet, not far from my red cowboy boots. I touched Kieren’s crucifix beneath my shirt. I had the Moraleses to consider, my employees, my neighbors and classmates.

A moment later, I slipped into the upstairs bathroom and began rummaging through the medicine cabinet. I spied a nearly empty four-inch-tall bottle of cherry cough syrup and an expired tube of concealer about the size of my forefinger. I rinsed them out until the tap water ran clear. Then I took both to the closet to fill with holy water.

Now I’d always have a handy means of self-destruction.

Once I’d replaced Kieren’s clothes with mine, I texted Aimee and Clyde, asking that they hit the public library the next day and look for anything they could find on the undead, demonic magic, or related transformations (it was worth a try).

In the meantime, I’d see what I could find on the Web, and then we’d meet on Sunday afternoon to compare notes.

I logged on to Kieren’s PC, keyed in the password (Brazos), checked his bookmarks, and zeroed in on the shopping folder. When I clicked
MAGICAL TOOLS
, the screen seemed to shimmer. It took me a second to realize it wasn’t the computer.

I closed my eyes and, opening them again, saw spots. I tried once more, and this time, seemingly projected images filled my mind.

I stood in the entryway of Bradley’s two-and-a-half-story Arts-and-Crafts house.

He was there, laughing on the landing, impeccably dressed in his gray toasting suit and toying with the antique bowie knife that used to hang above his fireplace. “Weapons and witchcraft . . .” He lifted a shiny black dress shoe to the stair rail and leaped neatly down to the foyer. “Baby, who do you think you’re trying to bump off?”

Before I could reply, Brad pointed the blade at my mouth. “Go ahead. You know you want to.”

Just like that, at his whim, I did. I couldn’t resist. I felt the way he wanted me to. Tempted. Tantalized.

Moving closer, I leaned in to kiss the sharp knife point and tasted blood.

Still seated at Kieren’s desk, I realized that my fangs had pierced my lower lip. I wiped it and stared down at the red smear on my finger, trying to make sense of the dream. Or had it been a delusion? I could’ve sworn that I hadn’t fallen asleep.

“Why don’t you cry?” Meghan demanded from the booster seat behind me. “Don’t you miss him?”

Driving the Moraleses’ Chevy through the Hill Country, I tilted the air conditioner vent upward, hoping to cool off my little passenger. “Brazos?”

Brazos had been all love and loyalty, playful in his blue bandana. If Bradley had committed no other crime, I still would’ve hated him for poisoning Kieren’s dog.

I peered at Meghan via the rearview mirror. “Of course I miss him, and I know you do, too. But your parents found a breeder who has two German shepherd puppies for you to pick from. Don’t you want a new puppy?”

“No.”

I itched to turn the car around. I had answers to find, and with every passing hour good people like Sergio were more at risk. Besides, my dead heart seemed to clench whenever I spotted a beige SUV like Brad’s (who knew there were so damned many of them?). But when Miz Morales had asked if I’d take Meghan to pick up the new dog, I couldn’t refuse. Roberto had an engineering journal to edit, and given tonight’s full moon, Meara had been reluctant to leave the house.

What I was doing mattered, not only to Meghan’s morale but also to her family’s safety. By tonight, any sightings of a Wolf on the Morales property could be explained away by a harmless family pet.

I also had a theory that — even though Wolves supposedly didn’t feel the full moon’s pull until adolescence — its influence was making the cub a bit mouthier than usual, and the last thing we needed back home was Meghan testing her mama’s patience.

Besides, Aimee and Clyde had been researching vampirism at the public library since the doors first opened this morning. Maybe their luck would be better than mine.

“Kieren,” Meghan clarified, interrupting my thoughts. “Did you hurt him? Did you make him go away?”

The memory rushed back.
That night at Sanguini’s. The chef’s wager. His dare. Biting deep, gulping thick blood, grasping smooth leather. Kieren’s hips nestled tight between my thighs.

“Quincie!” Meghan screamed.

A horn blared. Our car had wandered over the yellow center line, only yards from an oncoming station wagon. As I swerved back into my own lane, the wagon barely missed us. Gripping the wheel, I shouted, “You okay? Meghan? Meghan!”

She nodded, tears welling in her big brown eyes, and that’s when I fully appreciated that she was anything but okay.

Baby Meghan. What was it that the Moraleses had told her? That Kieren had gone away to school? That she’d see him again someday? She was only four; another fourteen years without her much-idolized older brother probably sounded like an eternity. If there was anything I understood, it was how much the idea of forever without Kieren could hurt.

Worse, she’d seen me — red eyes, fangs extended — the one night the blood lust had nearly won. She had the smarts, the instincts to recognize the threat. And now I was her acting chauffeur. Poor kid. That didn’t exactly say “happy puppy day,” did it?

Around the next bend, I turned in the dog breeder’s gravel drive, punched in a key code to open the gate, and we rolled across the cattle guard.

At the top of the hill, I spotted a homey log cabin on steroids — probably a three- or four-bedroom, fronted by a long front porch, complete with rocking chairs and hanging baskets of marigolds and geraniums. It looked nice and wholesome and like somewhere that a preschool girl-beast and her undead babysitter could have a pleasant afternoon.

After putting the car in park, I unbuckled my seat belt and twisted in the driver’s seat to face Meghan. When I reached for her hand, she cowered in the booster seat.

I wouldn’t tell her that I hadn’t hurt Kieren. I’d never been a good liar.

At the same time, I couldn’t lay on her the blow-by-blow of the night I nearly sucked her big brother dry — albeit with his permission — and have her skip away thinking that had been a good thing. “Did your mama tell you that I talked to Clyde?”

Meghan brushed imaginary lint from her Barbie T-shirt. “Clyde?”

“Yep, Clyde. He drove all the way past Dallas with Kieren, and he told me that your brother’s appetite is bigger than ever. He ate two whole orders of barbecued beef ribs, a pulled pork sandwich, and a whole mess of coleslaw at some joint in Waco.”

“Waco on the way to Tío Carlos’s house?” she asked, somewhat reassured. Then, just as fast, her hopeful expression fell. “Kieren had coleslaw without me.”

I might not have known how to prevent the rise of Brad’s undead army, but this was a tragedy I could deal with. “How about we visit the dogs, pick out your puppy, and grab some take-out coleslaw on the way home?”

Later, we left with both remaining puppies and the mother German shepherd.

It’s not hard to fake eating solids when you’re offered soup. But that night, Dr. Morales served grilled catfish, the take-out coleslaw, and Cajun-style dirty rice.

After some small talk about varmints on the roof — probably squirrels, maybe raccoons — and getting the trees trimmed, Miz Morales noticed that I was just moving my food around on my plate. “You’re not hungry, Quincie?”

I sipped my sweet tea. “Not all of us have shifter metabolisms.”

“Teenage girls.” Roberto ruffled Meghan’s hair. “I hope you won’t give us any of that nonsense when you’re her age.”

“Me?” In typical werechild form, Meghan had plowed through three fillets and had just launched into her fourth helping of slaw. Having never seen her exhibit so much enthusiasm for a vegetarian dish, I figured there had to be a story there. Something between her and Kieren. When things were better between us, I’d ask.

“You’ve hardly touched your fish,” Meara pressed.

In life, I’d been a proud and notorious foodie, grateful that restaurant work was such terrific cardio. “Actually,” I began, “my stomach’s acting up. I don’t know that I’m catfish-ready at the moment.”

She sprung to her feet in full-blown mom mode. “You’re not feeling well?”

On the upside, she whisked away my plate, covered it in aluminum foil, and stashed it in the fridge for when I felt better. On the down, my physical condition had become the focal point of the household.

No, I wasn’t dizzy. Kind of nauseated. The smell of the fish and Cajun spices was getting to me.

No, my forehead wasn’t warm.

Yes, I had the chills, hence my low body temperature.

“You look awfully pale,” she mused, and something in her tone made me wonder if she’d guessed the real problem. Miz Morales was making all the right noises, but we both knew my “symptoms” might be medical or mystical.

She suggested that Meghan go help her daddy feed the dogs outside.

(After much debate, we’d decided to name the mother German shepherd Angelina and her pups Concho and Pecos — like Brazos, all after Texas rivers.)

Once they’d left, she presented me with a glass of 7-Up. “Is it cramps?”

“Um . . .” If I hadn’t died, my period would’ve started earlier this week. But according to Kieren’s books, vampires — being creatures outside the cycle of life — didn’t menstruate. Mostly as a distraction, I reached to clear Miz Morales’s plate.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she scolded, stacking the dishes. “You just sit there and relax. This won’t take a minute. Would you like some soda crackers?”

“Maybe later,” I said, and then, as she loaded plates and silverware into the dishwasher, I decided to change the subject. “About my uncle’s body . . .”

Meara stopped what she’d been doing. “Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about how he became . . .”

“A different being,” she supplied. Her tone grew gentler, and I could tell she felt guilty about her suspicions, especially in light of my recent loss. “At the end, love, that was not your uncle. It was a corrupted, damned thing that had gradually taken his place.”

A damned thing. “How gradually?” I asked, thinking back to the way my anger had spiked when I found out Clyde had told Aimee what I was.

I was still too ignorant of the full ramifications of what Brad had done to me. To me and so many others at Sanguini’s.

Miz Morales returned to the kitchen table. “It varies, if I’m remembering right — about a year, sometimes less, sometimes more. Then the soul is gone. It’s been, well, some time since my own Wolf studies, and I focused on healing, not the demonic.”

I glanced at my hand, resting on the table, crisscrossed in scars. Back in middle school — because of a partial shift gone wrong — Kieren’s claws had nearly ripped it in two. An accident on a railroad bridge that had involved an oncoming train and that had haunted him far more than me, especially since he’d saved my life in the process.