ever showed your human side. Ahh . . . mostly. At least I had the impression that’s what you tried really hard to do.”
I shrugged. “It’s safer that way.”
Lee nodded. “Okay. All I’m saying is that since the other night when you took me to Little Niflheim, since I saw Hel herself, I feel like I’m of that world. And I like it. I don’t want to lose that feeling. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rain on your parade.”
“That’s okay.” He gave me another of those wry, genuine smiles. “I got a little carried away. So no patrolling the local graveyards, huh?”
“Nope.” I smiled back at him. “Most of what I have to deal with is capricious, chaotic, and unpredictable, although I’m hoping the database will help. When it comes to vampires, Lady Eris actually keeps her brood on a pretty tight leash. There hasn’t been a rogue vamp since years before I became Hel’s liaison. There was, um, a little misunderstanding out at the House of Shadows last week, but it’s been resolved. I don’t expect to be going back out there for a good long time.”
We talked for a while longer. Lee reminded me not to use free Wi-Fi to access the database, and I assured him that the guys from Comcast had gotten me hooked up with my very own Internet service two days ago. He offered to stop by and check it out just to make sure everything was secure, which I chalked up to his paranoid streak, but accepted anyway.
I thanked him again and left. Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to doing database entry. I’d probably change my tune after the first few hours, but at least Lee had managed to make the prospect of it fun, and the idea of having my very own digital ledger was empowering.
Unfortunately, that part where I’d said I didn’t expect to be going back to the House of Shadows for a good long time?
Turns out I was dead wrong.
Twenty-nine
I got in a solid day’s worth of data entry before Jen called me in hysterics the following morning. And Jennifer Cassopolis was never hysterical. Jen was tough. Not razor-blades-in-her-hair, she’ll-cut-a-bitch tough, but she grew up in an abusive household, and it made her tough enough.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said when I could get a word in edgewise. “Slow down! Take a deep breath and tell me again. Who did what now?”
On the other end of the phone, Jen took several ragged gulps of air before swallowing convulsively. “Fucking Geoffrey!” she said, her voice thick with tears and rage. “He’s fucking turning my sister!”
Oh, crap. I closed my eyes. “Shit! Okay, let me think. Maybe we can put together an extraction team. Stefan—”
“It’s too late, Daise,” Jen interrupted me. “It’s already done. We got an invitation to the rising this morning. A fucking engraved invitation, like it’s a fucking wedding, for Christ’s sake! One of their minions hand-delivered it!”
I felt sick.
Turning a mortal into a vampire isn’t a spontaneous decision. It’s a process. Over the course of a month’s time, the mortal ingests small amounts of his or her blood-bonded vampire mate’s blood until it reaches the critical threshold necessary to keep the mortal’s flesh from corrupting during the three-day period between dying and rising. And yes, in case you’re wondering about the biblical echo, there are undead sects that claim Jesus was a vampire.
Anyway. It meant that Bethany Cassopolis was already lying dead in the House of Shadows, drained of mortal blood. And it meant that the process of turning her was already under way when I was there the week before.
That’s why she didn’t look as strung out as usual. And that’s probably why Geoffrey gave her permission to recruit an acolyte, so they’d have their very own playmate and blood source on hand for her rising.
And like a good little half-breed clinging to my mundane human morals, I’d passed up the chance to plant dauda-dagr between Geoffrey the prat’s shoulder blades and make an end to him.
“Daise?” Jen asked.
“I’m here.” I was pacing the living room in a fury, my tail lashing, but I had no one to be furious at but myself, and it wouldn’t do Jen any good to tell her about it. Not now. “Are you serious? They sent an invitation?”
“Oh, I’m serious!” A gasp veering back toward hysteria escaped her. “Apparently it’s traditional. Nice heavy cream-colored stock, a deckled edge