Page 16 of Bitten Vampire
Wow. He nearly took off my nose.
I spin on my heels, then hustle back to the car. Beautiful, scary, and rude. I hope he doesn’t file a complaint. At the street’s end, a near-irresistible pull drags me left, towards the themed restaurant where Amy and Max ate their last meal.
I need to see it.
For weeks, I have pored over online maps, studying the street-view images obsessively, too afraid to set foot in the Vampire Sector itself. Now that I’m here, the urge to look in person is overwhelming.
According to the news reports, their car was still in the restaurant’s car park when their bodies were found miles away. The restaurant insists they left on their own, and the police agree—yet something about the story feels wrong.
It will only take five minutes,I reason,just a look-see.Butsunset is now an hour and thirty-five minutes away, and I can’t risk cutting it that fine. I don’t know the area nor its people.
I force myself to turn right.
Even as I drive away, my shoulder blades ache with the knowledge that the answers I want lie just behind me. Still, I’ve been here, made the delivery, and felt relatively safe; I can return when the time is right.
The checkpoint appears. My tag pings, the light flashes green, and I roll through without stopping. When my tyres cross into the Human Sector, relief floods me.
Five minutes later I step inside the front door of home, greeted by a rich, savoury aroma drifting from the kitchen. My stomach grumbles.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I call, and the house’s magic brushes my cheek in greeting.
How I wish I were a mage. I suspect the place would chatter nonstop to a true magic-user.
I toe off my shoes just as the back door bangs and Baylor barrels in from the garden, claws scrabbling for grip. “Hey, buddy. Had a good day? Been a good boy? I’ve missed you, yes, I have.” I brace; my knees get the brunt of his frontal attack as he skids into me, and while he wiggles, I dig my fingers into his thick, smoke-grey ruff. “What a good boy.” His eyes half-close in bliss.
Since we moved here, he’s lighter, almost puppyish again, and I don’t even care that he loves the house more than me.
The dining-room door creaks.
“Dinner’s ready? Brilliant—give me a sec.” I dart intothe kitchen, wash up, and hurry through to the dining room.
One place is laid at the far end of the long mahogany table. A high-backed chair glides out with a courteous scrape against the carpet, the house’s silent maître d’. Tonight, it has gone healthy on me again, serving perfectly pink salmon, new potatoes, asparagus. It is glorious.
“Thank you, this looks amazing.” A blur of fur flashes at the edge of my vision. “Baylor, no!” The shameless scavenger lunges for the plate, only to levitate clean off the floor. I snort as he drifts across the dining room back into the hall, paws pedalling air, and the house settles him just outside the now-warded threshold.
He flops with a melodramatic whine, nose millimetres from the magic, drool pattering onto the tiles.
I laugh. “Nice save,” I tell the house as I tuck in. “Hope he was not too much bother today. Thank you again for looking after him.”
Over the meal I recount my day, complete with Theresa’s theatrics. My water glass trembles in its displeasure. “I know, she’s awful. Jay did me a favour, really. Funny how the worst moments of our lives steer us onto the right path. Fate sure has a twisted sense of humour. His poor fiancée Melissa won’t know what hit her. I’m grateful I don’t have to endure another second of Theresa.”
With a soft pop Jay’s wedding invitation appears by my fork. Ivory lace, gold foil, obscenely thick card.
Oh no.
“Seriously?” I mutter. “Am I meant to RSVP ‘no’? Can I not just pretend it never arrived?” I nudge it away.
A pen appears.
I groan and scrub my hand across my face. The wizard’s house is so bossy. “He probably sent it to me to be mean, or as a warning. ‘You left, look what I have done.’ The whole thing feels like punishment. If I reply, am I not falling into a trap?”
Guessing at his motives is pointless. It was never about me; it has always been about him.
I know the house is right, and I know I’ve got to put this entire Jay saga to bed. I pick up the pen. I want to score into the card stock so hard that it leaves a hole. Instead, I carefully mark the box that says I regrettably decline the invite. “I guess I’ll send that back to him on Monday,” I grumble.
The invitation and the pen vanish in a blink.
“You can send it?” The mahogany sideboard’s drawer jiggles a confirmation. “Oh. Okay, well, thank you.” I have no idea of the extent of the wizard’s house’s power. It hurts my head even to imagine how the place works—its capabilities are astonishing.
