Dillon called the next afternoon. Exhausted. Hungover. Heart still beating in his chest.
Don’t call my girlfriend again.
Fine. But Dillon was alive.
Mom was alive.
And now it was Kieran who was in danger, and he didn’t yet know how to make sense of it. Because it wasn’t possible, was it? That another Landry triplet had come in contact with another vampire?
But Kelley’s instincts, though new to him, had not lied to him yet.
Colleen Deschanel had told him to wait until he was done with college, but Kieran didn’t have that long.
Kelley grabbed his keys.
8
Kieran
Kieran watched the vampire pace the dilapidated cabin, pausing her neuroses from time to time to lean on cabinets that could barely support the weight of a mouse; gazing for long stretches out the windowless window at the expanse of nothing beyond. He wondered how she’d even found such a place. Was this where she took her victims? He thought not, by how out of sorts she seemed. She was conflicted, but that was as far as his senses took him into the mind of Ms. Elisabeth. If that was indeed her real name.
He thought it was. The panic that passed across her face indicated she’d told him something she shouldn’t, and was already regretting it. That made two of them.
But it did give him an idea. Kelley would say that you should avoid seeing your assailant’s face, as they were more likely to let you go if you couldn’t identify them later. But once you’d seen it, it was better to course correct in the other direction. Get to know them. Make sure they know you’re not just another face, but a real person, with a name, feelings, family, friends.
Maybe connecting with her would keep him from being her next meal.
“Elisabeth,” he said. “Or do you prefer Lis?”
She tensed at the sound of his voice, but didn’t turn.
“You’re going to kill me. I mean, you said as much,” he said. It was a strange thing, to sound so confident about one’s own death, but he’d never been in a situation quite like this one before. If he did survive this, he’d tell his brothers that very thing. That until you’re in it, you don’t know. He guessed his mind was trying to protect him by tempering his fear. If he did emerge from this with his life, there’d be at least one therapist out there set for the rest of their career.
She turned her head further. Listening now. But still, she remained facing the other direction.
“You don’t seem like you’re totally into doing it. That’s okay, I wouldn’t be either,” Kieran pressed on, bolder now. “I imagine being a vampire is pretty hard. Not all glamourous and fun, like the movies would have you think. It’s kinda unfair that people turn you, and then you’re forced to drink blood for eternity. That’s a long time.”
“We aren’t forced to drink blood,” Elisabeth said, so quietly he barely picked up the words. “Not our kind anyway. Maybe there are others who are.”
“Are there other kinds?”
“I don’t know.”
His heartrate soared at her response. He had to choose the right questions, ones she would want to answer, to keep her talking. “Why do you drink blood if you don’t need it?”
It seemed as if she’d go back to ignoring him when at last she spoke up. “We don’t have to, but if we don’t, we don’t feel quite right. Do you know how, when...” Elisabeth trailed off, thinking. “When you haven’t eaten in a day or so and you feel shaky?”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.”
“It’s like that, in a way, except if you don’t eat, you will eventually die. If I do not drink, I will just go on feeling like that until I do.”
Kieran’s emotions flipped between scared and fascinated. He was actually, really, talking to a real live vampire. And she was telling him things that he and his brothers could not learn from any book, or movie, or penny comic. “Is that what happened tonight? At the carnival?”
Elisabeth nodded without turning.
“That must be really hard, to feel like that all the time. But you feel better now, right?”
“I feel worse,” Elisabeth said. “No, I don’t like killing. You’re very astute, Kieran Landry. Maybe you’re reading me, after all? Maybe you lied about that? But there are rules, in our brood. Rules we have no choice but to follow, because there are more of you than there are us, and rules