Page 7 of Because the Night

I don’t remember making the decision. I just know that I am going to drink her dry. The realization crosses her face, and out of her coat pocket, she pulls a gun. Smart of her. Though it doesn’t slow me down in the least. I am past the point of rational thought.

My body surges forward, hands reaching, ready to grab her—until I slam back into Lucas. One of his arms wraps around me, holding my arms against my body, and the tube on the bag of donated blood is pushed between my lips.

“Drink,” he orders.

And I gratefully do as told.

“When you asked my grandmother to see to your estate during your absence, she took the task to heart.” Helena Cole sits behind her large desk, the picture of composure. Though, she watches us both warily, and I doubt her gun has gone far. Which is honestly fair enough. “Not only overseeing your assets, but also investing a sizeable portion and growing it into what has now become The Thorn Group.”

“I always liked Shirley.” Lucas sits beside me with his legs crossed. He keeps casting the computer and landline phonecurious glances. Any new technology seems to be of great interest to him. “I’m sorry to hear she passed.”

“Thank you. She remembered you fondly and often.”

I sit in the corner of the sofa with my third blood juice box. There’s a fridge hidden in Helena’s office with a handy supply for emergencies. While cold blood isn’t the best thing I have ever tasted, it satiates my hunger. And that’s the important thing. Now that I can think clearly, my behavior downstairs horrifies me. There was no me in the moment. No sign of morals or humanity. Only the hunger. That absolutely cannot happen again. “She worked for you?”

“When it suited her,” he says. “I left her with enough money to do as she liked. But it doesn’t surprise me that she built all this. She had a keen mind and a strong heart. She also got bored easily and was always searching for the next challenge.”

The worddaughterappears in my mind, surrounded by that strange stillness again. But I keep it to myself. It might just be my imagination. Given recent events, however, it might be more like weird, psychic powers. Asking Lucas for answers hasn’t gone well so far, so I keep my mouth shut and listen.

A black-and-white photo hangs on the wall. Lucas and a little girl stand beside the piano in the house I was just at in The Hills. Judging by the style of clothing, it was probably taken sometime mid-last century. No wonder he considered Shirley family, if he knew her from when she was a child. Alongside that photo are a variety of framed degrees awarded to Helena.

“Managing director,” says Lucas, reading from the plaque on the desk. “Society has come a long way.”

“With regards to some things. But there’s always more progress to be made. My grandmother wrote the rules for dealing with you and your property,” says Helena in a no-nonsense tone of voice. “Inspections of your house have been carried out periodically over the past seventy years while you’vebeen asleep. Any necessary maintenance was carried out only during daylight hours. You were never meant to be disturbed. What went wrong?”

Two sets of eyes turn to me expectantly. Awkward. “Everything was fine until I went into the basement.”

“You entered the basement?”

“Yes.”

Her lips thin in displeasure. “Jen didn’t instruct you to stay out of that part of the house?”

“No. She didn’t. The job was also given to me late in the afternoon. There was nothing mentioned about not being there at night.”

“I see,” says Helena, her hands clasped on the desk. With the way her eyes instantly hardened, I doubt my boss will have a job for long. “Mister Thorn’s decisions are, of course, his own, but I apologize for the part The Thorn Group played in this. You were a member of our staff and…well.”

The smirk returns to Lucas’s face. “I think Helena is trying to apologize to you for me making you a vampire.”

Before I can say anything, she withdraws an envelope from a drawer and announces, “I often wondered what I would do if this night ever came. Hand over your money and sever the connection, or carry on protecting you and your interests, as my grandmother wanted.”

Lucas watches and waits with preternatural stillness.

“Complicating my decision-making on this was that my grandmother warned me of your kind’s powers of compulsion. Meaning that if we were ever to meet, there would be a possibility that I would be henceforth robbed of my freewill.” She takes a deep breath. “My grandmother believed you never used such an ability on her, and it’s my hope and expectation that you will grant me the same respect.”

“Of course,” says Lucas.

Helena turns to me.

“We can really do that?”

“Yes,” answers Lucas. “But it’s no simple thing. It takes time to master the technique.”

“Huh. I won’t use it on you,” I tell her.

Helena nods. “Lucas, she said you saved her from one of your own kind. That none of us would be here if you hadn’t intervened. Therefore, I have to believe there is some good in you, despite what you’ve done to this woman.”

“You are, of course, free to believe what you like, Miss Cole.”

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