Page 65 of Thirsty
Lorenzo closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure how to explain it to a human. He wasn’t sure he even fully remembered what it had been like tobehuman, so how could he ever describe it in a way that made sense?
He glanced over at Charlie, and immediately regretted it. He looked so open and trusting, and Lorenzo could imagine it instantly: not just how Charlie would taste, or how he’d react to Lorenzo’s bite; but how it would feel to consume Charlie in that way; to feel Charlie’s lifeblood become a part of him and take root inside, somewhere deeper than he could ever reach.
“Vampires live on blood,” Lorenzo whispered. “It makes us immortal. When you feed on someone—on a lover...when you take their life’s blood inside of you, for your sustenance...” He sighed, hoping he was sounding somber instead of desperate. “It is...incredibly intimate.”
Charlie was frowning slightly, his eyes still locked on Lorenzo. “Is it...I mean, is it always like that? When you bite someone for food?”
“No, of course not. It’s...different when a bite happens between a vampire and a human they are involved with romantically. Or sexually,” he hastened to add. “This...this essence you take of them, when you are already bonded in another way, it is...”
He sat up restlessly, drawing a knee up to his chest. “Some vampires don’t treat it that way—they just bite indiscriminately. But most of us—we only bite a lover when it is someone we are—when it’s serious.” He paused, staring down at the sheets crumpled by his hand. “And I just...wasn’t sure that’s what we were doing.”
Charlie nodded quickly. “No, you’re right,” he said. “This—that makes sense. Yeah.” He cleared his throat, not looking at Lorenzo. “Thank you for telling me. I—I’m glad to know, for my, um. My research.”
“Happy to help,” Lorenzo said quietly.
Chapter 19
The hotel was large and luminous, but its parking garage was barricaded for some reason, and there was no street parking out front, so by the time Lorenzo managed to find a spot and get them into the hotel, he and Charlie were sniping at each other a little. “I don’t understand why you’re so desperate to meet witches,” Lorenzo muttered.
“They’re kind of—a big deal, aren’t they?” Charlie asked. He always got a little nervous when Lorenzo harped on this; he could hardly say he was impersonating a crone on the internet and wanted to meet some in real life. “I mean, when it comes to supernatural creatures, aren’t vampires, wolves, and witches kinda the big three?”
Lorenzo scoffed. “That’s reductive.”
The hotel’s lobby was opulent but dated—it looked like it hadn’t been dusted in a few months or maybe even years, and they were the only guests in sight. “Why did the coven want to meet here?” Charlie asked, examining a chintzy velvet and gold banquette.
“I assumed there was a restaurant,” Lorenzo said, poking around. There weren’t attendants at the front desk, or anywhere.
Charlie turned to ask him something else, and frowned as his shoe slipped on an unexpected texture on the floor. He glanced down, and realized it was part of a much larger shape underneath them—what looked like a massive rune, almost the size of the entire room, painted directly onto the hotel’s marble floor. “Huh,” he said, straightening up with some of the black paint on his fingers. “Is that...new?”
“Uh oh,” Lorenzo said, as people in business suits emerged from the shadows and began chanting at them—at least six of them. Charlie was completely lost, but he was starting to get a bad feeling about this meeting Lorenzo had arranged.
“I condemn this vampire in the strongest terms!” intoned the businesspeople—witches?—in monotone unison, pointing at Lorenzo and Charlie. The rune under their feet was starting to hum. “I condemn any and all acts of bloodlust from all vampires! Your death fetish has no place in our magical commons!” They wobbled a bit on that last one, not all syncing up properly.
Lorenzo growled, making Charlie jump, and his eyes flashed red. Charlie shivered at the sight. It wasn’t a bright, glowing red; it felt darker, like when you see a cat’s eyes peering out at you from the darkness, and they have a flat sort of luminescence that seems to sayI can see you a lot better than you can see me.
The mages gasped, and all but a few of them scattered. The remaining few continued their tepid chant, but it was clear that the loss of their comrades had overbalanced the spell somehow—Charlie could feel the air in the room boiling over, shifting, collapsing, and Lorenzo grabbed him and yanked him out of the circle just as the remaining witches chanted, “Begone!” and a cascade of blue-white sparks came down over everything.
Charlie landed with a thud in what he realized after a moment was an elevator. Lorenzo was pulling himself to his feet using the iron cage that surrounded the vintage cab. Back out in the lobby, the mages sounded locked in recriminations.Fuck! Mark broke first. Fuck you, it was Claire! Yourbegonewas weak. Look we all know it was the left flank—Wait, is the vampire still here? FUCK.
By the time Charlie had gotten to his feet and dusted himself off, the witches had all fled. Lorenzo was pacing around the hotel lobby, growling lowly to himself, making sure they were gone. Charlie breathed out a little, shakily, and said, “Hey—thanks for saving us.”
Lorenzo turned back to him, his eyes softening. “You’re welcome.”
Charlie shivered. And as Lorenzo drew closer, he frowned. “Are you okay?” Charlie asked. “You look a little...”
The same sort of realization was happening on Lorenzo’s face, and Charlie glanced downward, where his forearm was still stinging slightly from the witches’ spell.
“Oh,” he said in a deep voice, as he watched his arm flicker in and out of reality. “Shit.”
The hex seemed to have shifted them partially into another dimension—at least, that was Lorenzo’s best guess. They were both translucent and had the vague sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff somewhere very cold. It seemed to be wearing off, though, a process that felt sort of like popping your ears, except every time Charlie popped, he could tell he was becoming more...real. He tried not to think about it too hard, and yawned as they finally got back to Lorenzo’s apartment,prompting another pop.
“You should eat something,” Lorenzo said, helping him pull off his jacket. “That might help.”
“You too,” Charlie said. Lorenzo scowled. He was so weird about drinking blood in front of Charlie, which bugged him to no end. And tonight, he definitely needed sustenance.
So Charlie dragged Lorenzo into the kitchen, shoved a blood bag into one hand and a mug into the other, and then started picking out some leftovers from the fridge, hoping whoever they belonged to wouldn’t be mad at him.
“So that was an adventure,” he said. As he watched, Lorenzo popped and became a little less translucent, his skin a little less gray and plasticine. Charlie grinned. Lorenzo put his blood in the microwave, and Charlie took a bite of his sandwich. He did start to pop a bit faster once he was eating. “Any other ideas for how we can meet witches?”
