Padding barefooted into the kitchen, Daisy fixed herself a cup of hot chocolate liberally sprinkled with marshmallows and told herself there was nothing to cry about.
But the tears kept coming just the same.
Chapter 4
Erik shifted restlessly in his chair. His internal clock told him he had missed his date with Daisy, but it couldn't be helped. Rhys had called a meeting of the Vampire Council and Erik had no choice but to attend. Rhys wasn't just his friend, he was the current Master of the West Coast vampires, a fact that Rhys never let Erik forget, just as he never let Erik forget that he, Rhys, was older, wiser, and stronger.
Erik glanced around. The house itself was just an empty shell. There were no carpets on the floors, no lights. Except for three large tan leather sofas and a couple of chairs, there was no furniture in the place. No pictures on the walls. A medieval sword sheathed in a leather scabbard hung over the fireplace. It wasn't merely for decoration. Rhys had used it on more than one occasion.
Rhys used the house as a meeting place to conduct vampire business; on occasion, he took his rest in the walk-in pantry that had been converted to serve his purpose.
Vampires rarely let anyone know the location of their lairs. As far as Erik knew, Rhys was the only one who knew where all of the others took their rest.
Besides himself and Rhys, there were seven other vampires gathered in the living room--five males and two females. Erik was acquainted with all of them to one degree or another. He trusted none of them, including Rhys, even though Rhys had been his closest friend for over two hundred years.
"...time to do something," Damon was saying.
Damon had been a vampire less than ten years. Blond and blue eyed, he had been turned by his lover, Mariah, when he was seventeen. She had found Damon bruised and bloody, lying facedown in a culvert, a casualty in the war between rival gangs. Erik couldn't imagine what Mariah saw in the kid. He reminded Erik of a weasel.
As for Mariah, she had been Nosferatu longer than Erik though not as long as Rhys. She should have been stronger than Erik. Unfortunately, she had been turned by a young vampire, whereas Erik had been turned by one of the old ones. His sire's ancient blood gave Erik a distinct advantage in that he was stronger and more powerful than Mariah, even though she was older. She hated him for that. Erik grinned inwardly. Now that he thought about it, Mariah hated just about everyone.
"We've let this kind of thing go on for too long," Nicholas said, glancing around the room. Nicholas was a tall, angular vampire with wispy gray hair and blue eyes. He had been turned five years ago, when he was in his late seventies. Rumor had it that Nick had paid a vampire ten thousand dollars in gold to help him cheat death.
"Damon's right," Mariah agreed. She ran a well-manicured hand through her pale blond hair. "We should have put a stop to this as soon as it started."
Rupert, a handsome vampire who looked like a 1930s matinee idol, nodded. "Thanks to the Blood Thief and others like him, the Internet market for our blood is growing."
"Better they take your blood than your head," Erik remarked. They had been talking about the Blood Thief and what to do about him for hours. Solutions were few and far between, with the major consensus being to set a trap of some kind. "I think we're worrying too much about this Blood Thief. So he takes a pint or two. If you want to get a vendetta going, why not go after the hunters?"
"Delacourt has a point," Saul agreed.
With his bright red hair, pencil-thin mustache, and flamboyant clothing, Saul looked less like one of the Undead than any vampire Erik had ever met.
"Maybe so," Rhys said, "but the Blood Thief has tagged one of mine." He glanced at Tina and smiled. "And I've promised to avenge her."
Erik grunted softly. "If she'd made a more secure lair, it wouldn't be necessary."
"She's young," Rhys retorted.
"Another mistake like that, and she won't get any older," Erik retorted.
"Enough, you two!" Mariah said impatiently. "This isn't getting us anywhere. The demand for our blood is spreading. I've heard there are others like the Blood Thief in Chicago, New Orleans, and St. Louis, and who knows where else. They're invading our lairs, taking our blood, and in some cases, heads."
"We need to retaliate!" Damon said, his voice rising with excitement. "Take out a few hunters."
"I agree, let's shed some blood!" Julius spoke up for the first time. "We haven't had a good rumble in years." He pumped his arm in the air, displaying the red and black snake tattoo that seemed to slither down his left arm.
That was Julius's answer to everything, Erik thought, but then, it wasn't surprising. A former drug dealer, Julius Romano had been turned when he was twenty-three. With his short brown hair and mild brown eyes, he had often passed himself off as a high school kid when looking for new customers. Now that he was a vampire, he still preyed on the young and the innocent--the younger the better.
Rhys snorted. "Taking hunters out is sometimes easier said than done. And from what Tina told me, the Blood Thief didn't leave so much as a footprint behind. No scent, nothing."
Rupert shrugged. "Maybe Tina imagined the whole thing."
"I did not!" Tina exclaimed hotly.
Erik crossed his arms over his chest. It was almost eleven. If Daisy had gone to the Crypt, she had surely left by now. "This isn't getting us anywhere," he muttered. "I'm going home."
"Erik..." Rhys spoke mildly, but the warning was there, just the same.