Blood Secrets - By Jeannie Holmes Page 0,45
him, who is he? What’s his name?”
“I don’t know,” Alex grumbled, pushing away from Varik. “I was running for my life so I didn’t stop to swap recipes and Twitter handles.” She felt as though fine grit coated her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. When that didn’t work, she tried rubbing them.
“Is there something wrong?” someone else—Tasha, Alex placed the voice—asked.
“I’m not sure.” Alex frowned. “Varik, do I have something in my eyes?”
He tilted her head back. His breath was warm on her face and his hands gentle. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because I can’t see shit.” A chill flashed up her spine. Her hands tightened on his arms. “I’m fucking blind!”
Kirk nursed his amaretto cappuccino while he gauged the appearance and reactions of the girl seated in front of him.
Jennifer Lee was petite, barely five feet tall, and maybe a hundred pounds when weighed soaking wet. Bright red hair surrounded her head like a giant puff-ball. She would glance at him with her bright blue eyes and quickly look away.
Piper sat beside him in the corner of the booth they all shared in the back of Mug Shots. She yammered on about an assignment she and Jennifer had recently been given in a psychology class.
He hadn’t expected Piper to actually find a willing redhead to replace her cousin so quickly. He liked having a variety on hand and natural redheads were the hardest to find. Hopefully Jennifer would prove more loyal than Amber Lynn, whose body had been safely deposited in three separate Dumpsters around town. Steam cleaning the stains out of the carpet had taken longer than depositing the bitch’s body.
“So, Jennifer,” he cut into the girls’ conversation, earning a startled look from the new bunny. “Piper tells me you’re looking for work.”
Jennifer glanced at Piper, who nodded encouragingly just as he’d taught her. “Yeah, I got laid off from my job and my rent’s already late. If I don’t pay my landlord soon, he’s going to kick me out.”
He nodded sympathetically. “This economy is tough on everyone. What kind of work do you do?”
She shrugged and sipped her chai tea latte. “Whatever I can find. What about you?”
“I’m in the entertainment business.” Kirk leaned back in the booth and slipped an arm around Piper’s shoulders. “I supply goods and services to a select clientele.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“Oh, it is.”
“Do you ever meet anyone famous?”
“It’s been known to happen.”
“Like when the vampire band Primal Dark was playing in Jackson,” Piper said in a rush. “Kirk set them up with—”
He squeezed her shoulder, a silent warning to shut her mouth.
Jennifer sat forward. “Primal Dark? I love them!” She closed her eyes and began swaying in her seat, singing off-key. “She was my lover, my bloody lover, my dancer.…” She giggled and when she looked at Kirk, her eyes sparkled with visions and dreams of fame. “Do you really know them?”
He nodded and sipped his cappuccino. “Wow. I’d give anything to meet them. I’m, like, their biggest fan.” Kirk smiled, showing his fangs, and knew he had her.
“Vita in nex,” Peter intoned and poured a few drops of blood on the first sigil. “Life in death.”
Stripped of his clothing, he knelt within the circle he’d carved into the attic’s wooden floor. His latest acquisition lay to the left of the center, on the side of death. The newly completed Alexandra replica was to the right, on the side of life. The ritual was a delicate process and if performed incorrectly could result in his own soul becoming splintered and trapped within the doll.
He moved clockwise around the circle to the second sigil and dribbled more of the girl’s blood. “Pectus pectoris nutritor nex—the heart feeds death.”
The girl moaned softly. He’d drained as much of her blood as he dared, bringing her near death. She needed to be hovering on the edge of the abyss in order for the ritual to work. Shattering a soul required precision timing and over the years he’d become adept at making it quick. However, there was no way to make it painless.
He followed the outline of the circle to the third sigil. Three liquid rubies fell in its center and were greedily absorbed by the dry flooring. “Nex nutritor obscurum—death feeds the darkness.”
Power hummed within the circle. It crackled in the air and made the tiny hairs on his neck and arms stand erect.
“Totus animus servo obscurum,” he droned and added the last of the blood to the final sigil. “All souls