I squinted at him. “No. Silver doesn’t hurt me. When has it ever?” I held up my fingers, each adorned with a different ring. “Neither does garlic. You know that.”
“Just checking,” he said. “It never hurts for me to keep in mind, you know?”
“Ass,” I said, chuckling. Asher and I got along partly because of our crass sense of humor, which included occasional gibes about casually killing each other. You know, regular friend stuff. The garlic thing had come up as we got to know each other. He was half Filipino, and a lot of the food we both loved – pork adobo, beef salpicao, or even sisig – tended to use a lot of garlic. Delicious cuisine, and none of it came close to murdering me from the inside out. Not all the vampire legends got it entirely correct.
But we’ll get to all that later. I realize the subject of how to kill me is very interesting, but I’m consistently more invested in the subject of how to keep myself exquisitely preserved and functionally alive. I peeled myself off the couch, making a dash for one of my suitcases.
“Hungry,” I muttered, a statement Asher considered more of a warning than a declaration. He ducked out of the way, taking over the couch in my absence. I unzipped the smallest of my suitcases, carefully tilting it on its side as I did. It was easier overall if the guys thought that I only really cared about appearance and style. They didn’t need to know about what all I had actually packed for the trip.
A few bottles of the good stuff, of course, culled from some of my loveliest, loyalest thralls. I pressed one of the bottles against my cheek – still warm, even though I’d extracted their precious nectar days ago. They weren’t plain bottles, of course, but gently enchanted crystal phials, a gift from a blood witch in exchange for some especially filthy favors. It pays to have friends in low places. Magic thermoses? Hah. Get yourself a blood witch and you’ll have hot clam chowder for days. No, really, it’ll be hot for days.
I popped the top off, which is a very crude way to say that I broke the engraved wax seal and extracted the stopper. Also crude, maybe, to lick at the moist end of the stopper, but I couldn’t help myself. Sweet, sultry. A thirty-four-year-old woman, kindergarten teacher by day, artist by night, her blood just like her, a delicate balance of brightness and rich, earthy dark.
“Nice and warm,” I murmured. “Could be hotter.”
“Too bad we don’t have a microwave,” Asher said distractedly, scrolling through his phone.
There was a crunching from the other end of the room as Gil popped a potato chip in his mouth. I hadn’t even heard the rustling from when he’d busted the packet open. The blood does things to your head, see?
“Sorry,” he said sullenly. “I guess it’s something to add to our to-do list.”
“For sure,” I said. “I didn’t bring a ton. If I run out I’m not doing a hot water bath on the stove to heat up refrigerated pig’s blood. Bain marie my ass.”
Because that was the alternative: head into town and make googly eyes with a friendly neighborhood butcher. The good things about the Everett House? It was far enough out of town proper to afford us a little bit of privacy, but not so far that it was off the grid. That explained the power, and the barely-there internet. It also meant that we were a short drive, or at most, a reasonable hike away from a grocery run. Great news for Asher, who was still very much human, and Gil, whose mostly omnivorous diet only occasionally called for a dose of rare meat.
Me, on the other hand? Damn it, but Gil was right. I was going to have to charm someone into handing over their precious blood, if not enthrall them formally. That was going to be its own pile of bullshit. Failing that, it was local butcher pig’s blood time. Ugh. Not my favorite by a margin, but serviceable, and better than starving.
Worst case scenario? Hunt in the woods. Rats, like Gil proposed. Did rats even live in the woods?
God, I fucking hated this place.
Gil poured the last of his chips into his mouth, picking shards out of his beard and sheepishly dusting off his shirt. “Right. Everyone rest up for now. We’ll figure things out tomorrow, make out a game plan for how we handle the – you know, the dilemma.”
Asher shuddered. “Let’s not bring that up right now. I know I’m all about death magic, but shit still gives me the creeps.”
“Which part?” I shut the front door and slid the bolt, balancing my bottle of dinner and probably breakfast carefully in my free hand. “The bit where the victims have no face left? That part?”
He scowled. “I just said, man.”
“Just go to bed,” Gil growled, sliding into an armchair, folding his arms and legs, then shutting his eyes. “The both of you.”
“I don’t really sleep,” I said.
“Don’t fucking start with me, Sterling. We’re tired as shit and all I had for dinner was sour cream and onion. Don’t make me eat you.”
“He’s probably too stringy anyway.” Asher yawned, pulling a thermal blanket out of his backpack and snuggling under it. “Probably real bitter, too.”
Gil chuckled, went silent, then began snoring within seconds. Werewolf or not, that was a superpower right there. Asher conked out a minute or so later, too. In no time at all the Everett House was alive again, after possibly decades of emptiness and neglect, now home to a pair of dueling buzzsaws.
Outside it was late night, or early morning. The wind rushed through the pines, some as old as I was, many more even older. I nursed my phial of blood alone in the darkness. Every sip had to last. I needed to savor the syrupy richness of warm, vibrant red. I stared out the window a
t nothing, and waited for dawn.
3
Someone was banging the door down. I could hear the ancient hinges squeaking. Any more of that and they were going to give out, and we’d have no door, and where would that leave us?
“Gil? Asher?” I groaned feebly into the half darkness. “Where the fuck are you?”