The Inquisitor paced in the room, finely furnished but borrowed. He took a sip of water from his glass as he pondered.
Jared is dead. That is unfortunate, he was so helpful in maintaining the trial. But the woman, Dani, she may become a problem. She knows of my existence now. She insists that Jared was manipulated. That makes her a liability. I was going to leave her be, but I guess now I’ll have to take care of her. Permanently.
❖ 🩸 ❖
Dani sniffled on the couch next to Syla. Jared’s body lay prone on the bed, drenched in sweat and cooling fast. “I’m sorry this had to happen,” Syla uttered. “He had to be stopped.”
“I get that,” Dani sniffled, wiping at her face as she tried to regain some semblance of composure and failing. “It’s just… he was all I had. I’m alone. Again.” The last word came out nearly a sob.
Syla wrapped her arms around Dani, letting the woman mourn. The whole thing was unfortunate – a vampire manipulated into killing other vampires in order to protect another.
Antun discretely wiped the blood off the dagger and put it back in his waistband, hoping that putting it out of sight might help. He cleared his throat, “I’m really sorry, Dani. But now that we know about the Inquisitor, I worry about your safety. Jared said as much near the end, that the Inquisitor won’t wait much longer before going after you. I know we’re strangers, and that we just killed someone dear to you, but you are in danger and not from us. Would you be willing to come with us for your safety?”
Dani wiped at her face, her bottom lip quivering as she took blubbering breaths. She looked at Syla beside her, then at the rest of us, disheveled from the fight and the run. I tried to give my most reassuring, gentle smile, but worried that it fell short when her expression remained the same.
Michael grabbed my hand, squeezing it three times. I looked up at him. I love you too, but what are we supposed to do now? He read my eyes, shrugging helplessly in reply.
“I-I’ll go w-with you all,” her words wobbled through her tears. “But what do we do about Jared?” She started to cry again.
Antun, taking charge, said, “If we lead the police to his body, they’ll run DNA analysis for identification and see that it matches the DNA from the girl who scratched him. It’ll be case closed, nice and simple. The mortals will never know of vampires’ existence.”
Dani looked as if she wanted to argue but had no grounds to. Her shoulders shook with the restraint of holding back her tears. “F-fine,” she finally replied. “But what will they do with his body?”
“If no one claims him, they’ll likely cremate the body,” Michael responded as gently as he could.
“How can I claim him?” Her bottom lip trembled. “We weren’t related or anything, but he was all I had these past months. I want to have his remains, but I don’t know how to go about any of it.”
“We’ll help you,” Syla assured. “We’ll figure something out, won’t we, Antun?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “If I need to hypnotize the detective again, I will. We just need a plan. Why don’t we go back to the house and figure it out?”
After a moment, Dani nodded, still a little unsure but having little choice.
We headed back toward the car, realizing we’d have to double-buckle to get everyone home. Once we got to the car, Michael got in the front passenger seat and lifted his arms to me. “Sit with me,” he invited. With a growing blush, I did, sitting on his lap as he put the seatbelt around the both of us. He rested his hands on my thighs, and mine rested on top of his. I felt a little silly but at the same time loved the opportunity to do this.
I happened to catch Sarah’s eye in the rearview mirror, and she was not happy that this was how the seating would be on the drive back. I looked back at Dani; her gaze was stuck out the window, staring at nothing. Poor woman, I thought, holding onto Michael’s hands tighter.
We avoided getting pulled over for having too many people in the vehicle, and upon arrival, we emptied out of the car. Antun invited Dani and Sarah into the house as guests out of habit.
Up the stairs, Syla headed straight for the kitchen. I followed, knowing she’d need an extra set of hands to carry everything out. She got the kettle started; her actions flowed smoothly as she prepared the tea leaves and got cookies out of the freezer. Placing them around the outer edge of a plate, she microwaved them to warm them up.
Once everything was ready, I helped carry out mugs of tea to everyone, starting with Dani. I placed the plate of cookies closest to her; she needed the treat more than anyone else in the room. I perched on the arm of the chair that Michael occupied, tea in hand, as Sarah and Syla sat to either side of Dani on the couch.
Antun sat in his usual chair, and after a minute of letting her settle, he asked Dani, “Do you need help coming up with a plan?”
She stared at him blankly, her emotions drained, and nodded. “We worked together to keep safe, to keep others safe as we fed… I think part of me suspected he was going too far, but I didn’t want to see it…” She began staring off into the middle distance again, her eyes watery.
Syla brought her back with a gentle touch on her arm. “None of this is your fault,” she tried to assure.
Dani shook as tears began to fill her eyes again. For long minutes, we sat as she cried. As she began to settle, Antun asked, “Would you like to stay here with us? If you have nowhere else to go, that is.”
She nodded somewhat numbly, mumbling a thanks.
Antun looked at Michael and I. “Do you mind bunking together for a bit?”
Sarah looked ready to tear me apart, but I said, nodding along with Michael, “We can do that.”
“I really ought to get more beds, I have the space…” Antun muttered under his breath. “Anyway, you’ll bunk with Syla for the time being, if that’s amenable to you.”
Dani nodded again, looking more and more tired by the second. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to be alone for a while?”
Syla stood, saying, “You can use the bedroom. Let me show you.” She guided Dani upstairs to the guestroom and came back downstairs after Dani had closed the door.
Antun got his phone out, “Need to make a call.” He stood and began pacing, dialing into his phone. He mumbled before he began, “Just get the anonymity set up… Hello? I’d like to report a death at the abandoned hotel off Reservoir Drive.” He hung up before they could ask for any more information. “That should be enough to get some people over there.”
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, groaning. “ Guh, what a mess.” None of us had expected Dani, she was a loophole we weren’t prepared for. Now, we had to keep her safe from this Inquisitor guy while trying to find him and stop him from killing more vampires. We’d only cut off a branch, not the head of the problem.
Syla looked at Sarah, who was nursing her side, and asked, “Do you need someone to take a look at that?”
Sarah winced as she pulled her shirt up, exposing horribly bruised ribs, mottled purple and green, the edges yellow. “I don’t know if he broke something or just dislocated some ribs, but it hurts to move, to even breathe.”
As Syla and Antun tended to Sarah, Michael asked me, “Are you okay?” He looked at the line across my throat where my shirt had choked me, letting his thumb trace alongside it.
I swallowed, my mouth going dry. “I’m fine.”
Remember you’re in a room with other people. You can’t jump his bones right now. As much as I really, really want to. What is wrong with me?
I couldn’t believe that my body would betray me like this after what had just happened. This was not the time to think about getting my hands on him, we were dealing with a dead serial killer.
But Michael saw the heat in my eyes and winked, taking his hand away from my neck. It suddenly felt very cold and exposed without his hand there. It helped bring me back to the present and I shifted where I sat on the arm of the chair.
“Your body will heal that,” Antun said to Sarah. “It’ll hurt like hell for a day or so, I’m sure, but you’ll be fighting fit in no time.”
Sarah lowered her shirt, glancing at Michael as if hoping he’d been looking. Bitch, he had me. Nice try.
With a glare in her eyes but her brows set casually, she gave me a look that told me that she hated me.
Girl, the feeling is mutual.
I leaned against Michael’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around me. I grinned at Sarah’s forced smile that looked almost more like she was baring her teeth.
“I’m going to head home, get cleaned up.” Sarah stood, placing her mug on the coffee table and grabbing a cookie. She bit into it, closing her eyes and moaning when the flavor hit her tongue. “Syla, you are a wiz at baking, truly.”
Syla smiled and nodded once in thanks.
Sarah walked toward the stairs, still nursing that sore side. She turned and gave one final, “See you at work tomorrow, Michael. Drew,” she added at the end with less enthusiasm.
❖ 🩸 ❖
Early the next morning, Jones called Antun while we were gathering in the kitchen for breakfast. He put a finger to his lips before answering on speaker, “Hello?”
“We found the killer. Thing is, the guy is already dead. We managed to ID him with the scratch evidence; DNA analysis came back as 100 percent our guy. So, we got our killer, but any family of the victims may not get their closure as far as him dying before justice could be served.” Jones sounded exhausted, as if he’d run the tests all night himself.
“I’m relieved he’s been found, and that he won’t be continuing his current hobby,” Antun replied. “So, what’s the plan now?”
“Now, you and your associates’ part in this is done. It’s mostly paperwork from here on,” Jones grumbled.
“Why don’t I swing by anyway, I’ll bring you something from Starbucks.”
“You’re a good man, Antun. Just an americano, hot.”
“You got it. See you in a bit.” Antun hung up and looked at the rest of us. “Well, now it’s back down to the original murder, the one that didn’t link with the serial killings.”
“The one with the symbol,” I clarified, and he nodded.
Dani walked in, looking haggard as if she hadn’t slept in days. She stalked over to the coffee machine, reaching for a mug before pouring some for herself. She didn’t bother amending it, drinking it straight. She hissed through her teeth at the bitter flavor and heat but kept drinking. She seemed to be going on autopilot, going through the motions of living but not really being present.
“Good morning, Dani,” Syla greeted warmly. “If you’d like to have tea instead, I was planning on getting it ready for myself.”
“I’m okay,” Dani murmured, continuing to sip at the coffee with her gaze locked in the middle distance. I felt so bad for her, but I had no idea how to help. I’d experienced my grandparents’ deaths, but we hadn’t been as close as Dani had been to Jared. I couldn’t begin to imagine her loss.
Antun put a hand on Dani’s shoulder, and she turned to look at him, her eyes dull. “It’s going to take a while; mourning isn’t easy. But believe it or not, you’re not alone. You’re a vampire now; death is going to become familiar to you the longer you live. And at the moment, you’ve got four other vampires here with you.”
She looked surprised for a moment, as if she hadn’t realized that we were also vampires but wasn’t sure what to do with the information just yet.
“All I can say is that we’re here for you, Dani, whatever you need,” Antun finished. He lifted his own mug to his mouth, sipping the hot coffee.
She stared at him for several seconds, processing his words. She stared at his hands, as if she could still see the dagger there. “It’ll take a while… to trust you all. Yesterday you burst into mine and Jared’s room, his blood on your hands, and he ended up dying. Then you took me with you…”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Michael muttered.
“We get what it looks like,” I tried to assure her. “But Jared was killing other vampires. He had to be stopped.”
Dani gave me a confused look. “Other vampires? Why would he be killing them?”
“I think until we find this Inquisitor, we won’t know,” Antun said grimly. “For now, safety in numbers. We stick together, and when he makes his move, hopefully we’re ready.”
