Vicious (16 page)

“Marshall. Good da see ya. What’ll be today?”

“Hey, Ray. Just the usual, except I need fifteen pints of pig’s blood today.”

“Ah, business must be good. One of dese days, you gonna need da bring me in some of dat dere red boudin. Can’t get it no more ’round here.”

“I know. Everyone just makes the white now. I’ll bring some for you next time.”

The big man smiled and disappeared in the back for a while. I looked at Marshall as he smiled wholeheartedly at the other patrons around him. His enthusiasm was infectious, and they couldn’t help but smile back despite the way his eyes pierced through the ordinary air of this humble place. People sat at little café tables covered in newspaper. Some ate po’boys filled with anonymous fried pieces, and others dined on large plates filled with red beans and rice. The smell of the place was a strange mixture of food and refrigerated meat.

Ray returned with three tightly wrapped paper-bag packages and lined them up on the counter. He and Marshall exchanged some more pleasantries as the transaction concluded with Marshall paying him with crisp bills. We left with two of the packages in Marshall’s arms and one in mine. I carried the package very carefully while trying to pretend I didn’t know what was inside. We loaded them in a cooler in the back, and I gratefully jumped back into the passenger seat happy to not have to travel with the blood in my lap.

“Well, looks like I’m going to have to find some blood boudin to bring to Ray next time. I’ll have to ask around. It’s true nobody really carries it anymore.”

“What the hell is blood boudin?”

“Boudin’s a sausage that Cajuns make. Normally you see the white kind, but there’s a red kind too that’s made with pig’s blood. It’s a great alibi for our needs.”

“So this is how you guys eat?”

“Yeah, sometimes. We pride ourselves on being civilized, so we drink pig’s blood. It’s the closest you can get to human. Sometimes, we drink human blood too, but we only do that sometimes, and we never kill anyone.”

“How do you drink human blood without killing people?”

“We raid the blood banks. They are not very well secured because no one really wants to steal blood, and we never take more than what could be considered an inventory error. With our abilities, we raid those places just as easily as walking through a grocery store, but Anna prefers this way.”

The idea made my head swim. “You really do like humans, don’t you?”

“Yes. I really like talking with you humans. I mean, I was one once, so I suppose that that is natural. Lulu’s got it easy. She gets to talk to them all the time. I wanted to go with her to read people at first, but she said a big guy like me doesn’t make the most approachable psychic. She says psychics are mainly women. People feel more at ease when a little woman like Lulu is handing them their future. I know she’s right, so I interact with them in my own ways. It’s like getting a little piece of what I lost back when I get to talk to regular folks.”

“Do you remember anything about before you were turned?”

“I remember my name is Marshall, and I remembered a woman. I remember a woman rocking me. I think she was my mother, but I really don’t know for sure.”

He looked off in a thoughtful way, and I almost reminded him to watch the road before I stopped myself from such a ludicrous notion. Marshall could see everything around us even if his eyes were partially distracted.

“Do you think if you could know, you would want to? I mean, if you could know about your life before?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I suppose it wouldn’t change anything, but it could explain a lot of things for me. It might be painful to know or maybe it would be a relief. I don’t know if I would want to know or not. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I said hesitantly.

Our conversation ended as we pulled up to the white house with the door as red as the blood in the back seat. Inside were a bunch of hungry vampires anticipating our arrival with a thirst that needed to be quenched.

Chapter Eighteen

Grant

We walked in the door to find everyone in the living room making preparations of their own for the upcoming trip to Texas. Cat and Gabriel were sharpening some eerie-looking blades while Lulu held a wooden pole steady as Anna screwed a long metallic point to the end of it. Strangely enough, Anna’s delicate-looking hands were gloved. I soon understood the pointed spear head was made of pure silver. A strong hand gently touched my shoulder, and I looked over to see Marshall leaning towards me with eyes fixed on something straight in front of us.

“You might want to hand that bag to me,” he said steadily but with an undertone of extreme caution.

I followed his gaze and understood immediately. Gabriel was no longer sharpening his blade. He was staring at me a little crazily with wide, inked-over eyes that looked confused and hungry. His breathing was heavy and I could tell through his slightly parted mouth that his fangs were out. He had smelled the fresh blood. The fresh blood I was holding.

The confused blood lust was obvious on the young vampire’s face. Cat caught on to this too and quickly stood to block me from Gabriel’s view as I hastily handed the package to Marshall. Marshall only laughed and tossed one of the packages to Cat who quickly escorted Gabriel from the room. I didn’t feel relieved until I heard the door to their room shut.

The others seemed to pay very little attention to the episode, and Anna tested the new weapon by holding its wooden handle and spinning it around with ease. I marveled at the skill and speed she wielded with such little effort. After some testing, she held the weapon out to me.

When I looked at her blankly, she said, “We made this for you. The silver tip makes it much too dangerous for one of us to use, but you can. It’s a weapon meant to help to keep you at a distance from danger, which is also what you need.”

I looked at the weapon and then back at her face with the same blank expression.

“Look,” she started in an aggravated way, “I don’t expect that you will need it or go into battle with us, but it helps to know you have a weapon.”

I smiled and nodded slowly as I took the demonic thing from her. She was always protecting me. It felt heavy in my hands, and I realized I was a man who had never wielded a weapon before in my life standing in a room of supernatural, professional murderers. Unease and inadequacy seeped into my chest like liquid fire and seared my organs. I blushed.

“You should practice with it a little before we go,” Lulu said as she tore open one of the paper sacks that contained the packages of blood. “Lea will be here at eight, and we will be leaving shortly after that. Dallas is about a nine-hour drive from here, so we are driving through the night to get there before morning.”

The thought of seeing Lea made me shiver down to my toes, and the idea that I was about to watch three vampires drink pig’s blood was a little too much for me. I knew they were going to drink it, and I knew they had to drink it to live, but the idea of actually seeing the act made me want to run away and hide in a corner. I politely nodded to them before I spun on my heel and made my way through the dark hallway to my room.

I packed my few belongings and stashed my research in the bottom of my bag for safe keeping. Staring at myself in the antique mirror that stood in the corner, I tried to hold the spear Lulu and Anna had made for me with some air of authority. If I could wield it with even a fraction of her skill, I might at least appear to be formidable to any humans we encountered. I twirled it around me, trying to imitate the lovely fluid motions Anna had made. However, the visual effect was nowhere near as lovely, and I dropped the spear feeling clumsy. It wasn’t until I heard the doorbell ring that I picked it back up from the floor with urgency. Lea must have arrived with her crew. Amazingly, I felt worlds better dealing with that bit of news with the spear gripped tightly in my hands, even if I didn’t know what I was doing with it.

“Well,” I started aloud to no one at all, “I’d better get this over with.”

I grabbed my bag and walked out of my door, through the hallway and back to the front living room to find all of the vampires mingling uneasily with one another. Lea took me in as I stepped into the room as though I was a double-meat cheeseburger and she had been stranded on a desert island with no food for weeks. She noticed the large spear I was carrying, and her mouth curled in distaste. Unease washed all over me like a salty tide as I saw Anna tense at Lea’s reaction to my entrance. Cat and Gabriel watched with curiosity, and Lulu looked like she was on the verge of giggles over the whole tense spectacle. The blond male and the dark-headed female vampires, which I remembered were called Jackson and Bridgette, sat near the door eyeing me with curiously grinning faces as they whispered inaudible messages to one another.

“The blood bag gets a weapon? Does this mean he is going?” Lea had directed the question to Anna, but she continued to stare directly at me.

“The blood bag’s name is Grant, and he is coming with us,” Anna stated with relatively no emotion even though every muscle in her body was tense.

“You want to take him with us?”

“He has proven himself useful and wants to help.”

“Useful how?” she asked skeptically.

“He’s very insightful and has already uncovered a lot of information about the prison in Texas. He could do non-combat things for us during the day. He could be really very useful.”

She thankfully didn’t mention I had practically blackmailed her in order to be able to go with them. Now, looking at Lea, I was having second thoughts about my rash decision.

“Useful? Him?” Lea jutted her finger out toward me when she asked the question as if I couldn’t hear her. It was just like how parents discussed their children with other people while the kids were still standing right there listening to every word. You know, like saying “Billy is really bright but just can’t seem to concentrate in school” while Billy was standing right there. I had had just about enough of it.

“Why would he go and risk his life?”

“Maybe because I want to,” I boomed at Lea, which made everyone grow silent and still all over again.

Lea turned slowly to look at me and narrowed her eyes as she rose to her feet. She began to make her way very deliberately toward me, and I could see a mixture of disgust and curiosity swirl in her eyes. Anna tensed further in her seat, and in a motion too fast for my eyes, she stood and crossed the short distance to stand right beside me. Lea seemed to be neither shocked by this motion nor was she deterred by it. Oddly enough, neither was I. I gripped my spear tighter, and the wood of the handle creaked a little in my hand in protest.

“Tell me, Grant, did Anna here promise you something? She seems oddly attached to you. You see, Anna and I have known each other for a long time, and one thing we have always had in common was that we never found anyone we considered to be an adequate companion. Lulu and Marshall have each other, and Jackson and Bridgette are coupled and have been since the prison. The same goes for Chloe and Harris, and now it seems that Cat has found her a boy-child companion as well. But never Anna and me. I always thought it had something to do with the fact we were the first and the oldest. You know the viral formula they used on us was much stronger than the others. Most died in reaction to it before Anna and I came along. So I thought that we were unmatchable, but here you stand today, wanting to go on a dangerous mission paired with some creatures that could easily kill you. Did she promise you something? Did she promise to make you one of us if you helped?”

Anna fumed next to me. I could almost reach out and touch the heat and anger that was radiating from her as she glared at Lea.

“She has promised me no such thing, nor do I want that. Anna saved my life, and I am grateful to her. She tried to convince me not to go on this mission, but I persisted. Besides, I feel I can help you, and from what I understand, you need all of the help you can get.”

I was proud I had said the whole speech without one quiver or misstep. I sounded positively rock solid in my convictions, even though in reality my conviction rock was made out of wiggly green Jell-O molded to look like a Bundt cake.

Lea looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before she relaxed. “I will take you at your word, Grant. You will have no threat from me and my people as long as that is true. If it is not, and she turns you, all bets are off.”

In a rather anti-climactic manner, Lea turned with a great deal of determination and walked over to Jackson and Bridgette, making a small gesture to the both of them. They both sighed in a disappointed way as a response.

We divided our numbers and luggage into the three separate vehicles. There was a nice Honda sedan for Anna and me and a Nissan SUV for Marshall, Lulu, Cat and Gabriel. The Toyota sedan was given to Lea and her crew to drive. All of the cars had extremely tinted windows for obvious reasons.

Doors slammed shut, engines revved, and soon we were on the dark highway traveling north towards Dallas. I was happy I was riding with Anna alone. I kept thinking about all of the questions I could ask her to get to know her better and to learn more about real vampires. However, every time I opened my mouth to ask one of those questions, she would flash me those brilliantly blue eyes of hers, and the words would catch in my throat. She was so beautiful, stunning really. My hands got all clammy just being near to her. Her smell was otherworldly. Being near her was intoxicating.