Page 17 of The Accidental Detectives

“Sleeping, silly. All vampires sleep during the day unless they’re trying to stay out of the pokey,” Marty said on a giggle, offering me a mug of blood before taking Charlie from Wanda, planting a kiss on top of her dark brown curls and setting her on her hip.

“Except this vampire,” I groused. “Because she has annoying friends who make her get up during daylight hours to do stupid things.”

I accepted the mug with gratitude. No need to freak out. I don’t drink real blood. It’s synthetic. The clan banned drinking human blood a long time ago. That was before my time. I hear it’s fucking amazing, but I also hear it’s addictive—which is why it’s forbidden.

Because imagine the pile of bodies if it wasn’t…

Either way, I’ve gotten accustomed to the sun (with boatloads of sunscreen) and the daytime hours because of the cases we take with OOPS.

Not to mention, my little girl Charlie is half witch/half vampire. Five a.m. is what we jokingly call her witching hour. Being half vampire, she also ages slowly. You might think that’s a good thing, because it all goes so fast, right? But imagine teething and the terrible twos in perpetuity. It doesn’t go so fast when you’re a vampire.

But she was a miracle, and I won’t ever forget how lucky I am to have her, and all the framily (that’s what I call the people in my life who came to be as a result of my change) that dotes on her because I’m a vampire. I wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids, but that’s a story for another time.

Speaking of my little devil, who’s actually ten in human years but still looks like she’s two (mentally and physically), held outher arms to me. “Mommy!” she cried, her toothy grin making my stomach clench.

I scooped her up from her Auntie Marty and gave her a kiss. “How’s my little princess today?”

“Tell Mommy while she was lingering in her coffin, we had pancakes with blueberries. Grampa Arch made ’em and she ate them all up, didn’t you, Sugarplum?”

Charlie nodded. “All up!” she agreed, rubbing her belly.

I snuggled her neck, making her giggle. “Who’s such a good girl?”

Marty shook Charlie’s favorite stuffed toy at her with a grin. “You know, I know her aging so slowly has its grievances, but I’m here to tell you, I don’t mind at all that she’s stayed so cuddly for so long. It won’t be but a bit before she’s a teenager like Hollis, with all her teenage ills. Believe me when I tell you, we’ve been locking horns a lot these days. Count your blessings.”

Nodding, I actually had to agree with Marty. Trust and believe, it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. “I hear when they go from the toddler stage to like six or eight, shit happens almost overnight. I’m not sure I’m ready for that crazy just yet.”

Because Charlie’s a rarity in our world, we don’t have any specifics on the rate of her growth. Add in that she’s half witch and it’s all wonky. In other words, we don’t know a lot about how she’ll mature. All I know is, my life is a zillion times better because of her.

Charlie struggled to hop down from my arms when she saw her brother Carl. Carl is my adopted son—I took him from a witch doctor years ago who had zero clue how to take care of him, and he’s been with me ever since.

We don’t have official paperwork or anything. I don’t know how he became a zombie or why he was with that witch doctor. I just know, he’s mine and I’d dare anyone to say different.

He’s also the sweetest kid to ever walk the face of the fucking Earth and the best big brother Charlie could ask for.

“Carl!” Charlie teetered over to him, holding her arms out so he’d scoop her up.

He grinned his pale green grin and knelt down in front of her. “Pi…piggy…back?” he asked in his choppy, jumble of words. Carl struggles with his speech, and he’s forever losing a part of his body—fingers, toes, you name it. We could own stock in duct-tape for all the patching we do.

Charlie hopped on his back instantly with her perfect smile. “Yes, pease!”

“Please,” he corrected as he hiked her up.

“Hiyah!” she ordered with a gentle pat on his back, her pigtails bouncing as Carl played her favorite game of horsie.

He burbled a laugh, looking to me for direction. “Up…st-stairs?”

I dropped a kiss on her cheek and ruffled his thick head of dark hair. “Yeah, buddy. If you don’t mind, that’d be great. We’ll do story time later, okay?”

He nodded with a warm smile and galloped off while Charlie screamed with delight, yelling “Giddyup!”

Wanda draped an arm around my shoulders. “He’s such a great young man, isn’t he? You’ve done an amazing job.”

I nodded, the familiar warmth of seeing them together settling in my belly. “He really is the best.” Then I set my mug down and cracked my knuckles. “So let’s get the show on the road. I don’t know how the fuck we’re going to get Owen’s wife Astrid to talk to us, but we gotta do it if we’re going to get anywhere. Anybody got a plan?”

Marty smiled and shook a clipboard at me. “Oh, I’ve got a plan, all right. How do you feel about the white-cheeked spider monkey?”

Chapter

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