Zen and the Art of Vampires - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,61
I told the rat.
It didn't look impressed.
"I'm not either," I told it, then gathering my wits, marched my way through thick, smelly mud to the front of the barn. Kristoff and my suitcase were nowhere to be seen, but a faint light glowed from inside the barn. I entered through one of the double doors that had been left slightly ajar.
Kristoff had a cell phone to his ear, then closed it with a quick, jerky motion. "Alec isn't answering."
"Do you think something is wrong?" I asked, watching him closely.
His lips thinned a smidgen. "No. The police probably arrived, and he got out quickly. He might have left his phone behind. I'll try again in the morning."
"Ah. Um. Why are we here?" I asked Kristoff as he jerked a couple of mildewy bales of hay off a platform. He had set a flashlight on an overturned bucket, since the interior of the barn was almost completely dark. "That is to say, why are we not at a hotel or something like that? I know we can't go to yours if they saw your license plate, but that doesn't mean we can't go to somewhere civilized."
He yanked an empty moth-eaten grain bag onto the upper half of his bale platform. "Unfortunately, I did not think to bring a false passport with me, so once the police have my name - which they will get from the hotel where Alec and I were staying - they will simply track that no matter what hotel I register at."
"Oh." I thought about that for a moment, distastefully eyeing the refuge he'd found us. There was a suspicious rustling behind the bales. "You couldn't... you know... make someone give us a room without registering under your real name?"
He stared at me. "And how am I supposed to do that?"
"Well, I don't know!" I slapped my hands on my legs in exasperation. "You're a vampire, aren't you? Doesn't that mean you can mind meld with people? Or brain wave them into doing what you want?"
"With my mesmerizing powers, you mean?"
"Yes! Those!"
He sighed a martyred sigh. "I am a Dark One, Zorya."
"My name is Pia."
"I do not have magical powers that affect mortals. So no, I cannot stare deep into someone's eyes and convince them to give me a room without first providing my passport and credit card." He went back behind a half wall and brought out a really filthy-looking blanket.
"Well, what's the use in being a vampire if you don't get any special powers?"
"I didn't say I don't have any powers - I simply said that I do not have any over mortals. And the only one I can mind meld with, as you put it, is someone close to me, like a Beloved, and I sincerely doubt such a woman exists." He plopped himself down on a couple of the bales of hay, and pulled the blanket over him.
"What are you doing?" I asked, feeling somewhat lost and alone. I rubbed my arms against the cold - it was cold and dank in the barn, the night air teasing its way in through a dozen or more missing slats in the walls.
"Going to sleep." The words emerged with a surly edge to them.
I considered the black lump that he made in the near darkness of the barn.
"Where am I supposed to sleep?" I asked, hating the pitiful tinge to my voice, but feeling particularly vulnerable at the moment. Being helpless in the company of a murderous vampire will do that to a girl.
"I made you a bed over there."
The black lump bulged in the direction of the clumped bales of hay with the dirty feed bag. I looked at the so-called bed, moving hesitantly toward it. The rustling had stopped. Maybe it was the wind, not rodents.
"Turn off the flashlight."
"Not on your life," I said, edging my way over to the bed. One squeak, one sign that there were rats or mice near my bed, and I'd go sleep in the car, small as it was.
"Fine. If you want the police to come investigating who is hiding out in a barn that's supposed to be unoccupied, leave it on."
"Are you deliberately being as obnoxious as possible?" I asked, hefting the flashlight. It had a nice solid feel in my hand. It would make a reasonable weapon in case anything with four legs decided to attack.
Why did I have a feeling it was the two-legged predators I had to worry about more?