Page 44 of Accidental Vampire

I cannot recall the first mortal I drank from. I remembered the first mortal I killed. He was a sailor, a fisherman, his boat cracked up in the cove. He was wandering inland to seek help. With the first drop of his blood, I had to have it all. It had that burnt sweet taste of opium. Saint found me in a field at noon the next day, sun poisoned, my skin blistered in places. Worth every second of agony, worth risking all of Warren’s disapproval.

We drank from mortals. We didn’t befriend them. We didn’t treat them like family. It was absolutely bizarre for me to be sitting in a car, driven by a mortal on anerrand.

I had been perusing the small library of popular occult fiction amassed by the “Snacks”. They all seemed to find perverse pleasure in reading about fictional vampires, trading bits of lore and absurdity that the mortals invented. I was flipping through one that cast immortal soulless humans as the villains and a warrior vampire named Wrath when Shaw threw a hoodie at me and proclaimed we had anerrand. Wrath was a good name for a vampire.

I obviously couldn’t say no. Payback was a bitch, as the mortals were fond of saying. I owed Shaw for us being here. I had assumed he’d want cash to fund this wild collection of people. Cash was never a problem. But no, he wanted anerrand.

This debt would be the only thing that could tear me from Tiffany’s side. I forced assurances from Aurora and Richard that nothing would happen to her. I didn’t have confidence she could defend herself, either. Omar was a fluke. Fear and blood lust didn’t mix well. Flush with strength, any newly made could take on a threat. With her distaste for blood, I didn’t think she could willingly cause harm. She had been out cold when I checked on her before leaving, having lost another battle with blood lust. I didn’t understand why she resisted the blood like this. I had half a mind to force her for her own good.

A sharp electronic wail cut off my worrying.

“Sugar.” The word landed like a slap from Shaw.

The car swerved as Sugar jolted and juggled his phone to silence the alarm. Shaw reached forward into the driver’s seat, plucked the phone from Sugar’s hands. He couldn’t fight for it and drive at the same time.

“Fuck me, Shaw. You promised. You promised I could come. Don’t send me home.” Sugar’s handling of the car got erratic as he tried to turn around and confront Shaw. I’d survive a crash, the boy wouldn’t.

“Andyoupromised you’d get your shit handled. Did you bring anything with you?” Shaw’s voice seemed gentle, but I tasted the anxiety coming off Sugar. He squirmed into the silence.

“Pull over. There’s a Duane Reade right there.”

“Shaw...” the boy protested.

“Pull over.” Sugar broke eye contact in the mirror and jerked the wheel. The brakes squeaked as we stopped. He left us in the running car.

My fingers twitched for a phone. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Being so far away from her, the distance… given what happened last time. I didn’t even bother to ask Shaw what this was about. I just wanted it over with.

Shaw was flipping through the boy’s phone. Graph after graph with sharp spiked lines. The dips going into a red zone on display. Whatever it was measuring, Shaw was disgruntled. I sighed heavily and fussed with this god awful hoodie. I didn’t know why I was wearing it. Shaw threw it at me and I put it on like a robot. I pushed the sleeves up, I didn’t like how it bound the wrists.

Shaw gave a definitive exhale. It wasn’t a sigh, it was the sound you made when you resigned yourself to a decision. He bumped my arm to show me his phone. The video was in color, but just barely, not the Technicolor marvel we’ve become accustom to in media. Everything had a green tint. It took me a second to make out what I was watching.

It was an overhead shot of the Rec Room. Aurora sat in Gonzales’ lap, her blond hair looking dull and gray. She was leaving bite marks on his forearm. My heart stopped when Tiffany wandered into the frame. I snatched the phone from Shaw and watched as she looked agitated, like she was trying to ignore the other people in the room but couldn’t quite manage it. Maybe she didn’t like Aurora?

She raked her fingers through her hair, which had waves, and that seemed to be a source of annoyance for her. Bisou had loaned her a hair dryer, much to her delight. I turned the phone, wanting to see her face better, but the camera remained stationary. She stole a glance at the couple on the couch before wandering out of the frame. I stared at the phone for a few long moments, hoping to see her again. I handed it back to Shaw when Aurora straddled Gonzales’s lap and made a move on his neck.

I sank deeper into the worn fabric of the car and stared out at the city moving around us, feeling calmer now that I had proof she was alive and well.

“It doesn’t get better,” Shaw said.

“What doesn’t?” I asked, watching a woman untangle a leash from around her legs as a fluffy white dog barked and yipped.

“The anxiety that comes from caring about someone.”

Fuck, I was doing a poor job at this charade Aurora invented about who made Tiffany.

“When her maker comes…” the rest of my lie got cut off with a blaring car horn and shouted curses.

Sugar emerged from the shop, interrupting our conversation. He got into the driver’s seat, tore a wrapper free with his teeth, and took a bite. The sickly sweet smell fruit scented candy filled the air. I tiled my head to read the package..Skalittles? Skittles?Little rainbow colored buttons. I looked at Shaw and raised an eyebrow. We stopped to get the Snack a snack?

This was one of the reasons we didn’t associate with mortals. Not only was caring for your food source considered distasteful, but vampires were generally bad at it. We were prone to neglecting things like food and water. The wars that sent most vampires fleeing Europe exposed vulnerabilities that mortals caused. According to Warren, Veronica had made a proper riot about it when she established herself here. She forbade harboring mortals for the sole purpose of using their blood and insisted on consent. She and Juliet met transgression with brutality. She really did not want to have to account for missing and murdered mortals littering the city.

The crack of the plastic cap and the hiss of the soda were the only sounds in the car. He stashed that in a cup holder, and popped the top of a can of cashews, dumping some into the other cup holder. Sugar seemed to be eating for Shaw’s benefit, not his own. I didn’t care. This wasn’t my drama, but the weight of it made the boy visibly uncomfortable.

“I’ll go back on the pump,” Sugar said, defeated. He banged his head against the headrest for good measure. That was evidently the answer Shaw was waiting for; he passed the phone back to Sugar, and the atmosphere lightened instantly. We pulled into traffic. Sugar maneuvered the car one-handed as he tore into another plastic package.

A few blocks later, Shaw had Sugar park and gave exacting details about staying with the car, not to move from this spot, who to call and when. Sugar made a half-hearted attempt to convince Shaw to let him come too, but even I knew he’d lose that one.

Shaw levered his door open and hesitated.

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