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“YOU SET IT ON fire?” Agent Sorano growled in Graham’s ear.
“Trust me, that was not a scene you wanted the human police to find.” Graham covered the mouthpiece of his phone as the vampling in his trunk screeched. He didn’t plan on telling Blood Vice about his souvenir.
“And the vampire culprit?” Sorano asked, as he expected she would.
“He was crazy, obviously.” Graham hadn’t had much time to come up with a cover, but he did his best on the fly. “I couldn’t let him leave to continue his killing spree elsewhere, so I trapped him in the building before setting fire to it.”
“The duke will want an official incident report.” Sorano sighed. “I don’t understand why you and your pet psychic don’t report these things to us as soon as you’re aware of them. You’re not the law—”
“Until these events actually happen, you can’t arrest or convict anyone of anything,” Graham snapped. “If we can stop a vampire or werewolf from making a terrible mistake and instead turn them into a productive member of society, why shouldn’t we?”
Sorano grumbled. “You mean a productive member of your freak society in the mountains.”
“Look, I gave you a head’s up. I could have let the humans stumble upon that mess, and then you’d have a hell of a lot more work on your hands. I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you.’”
“You show up fashionably late to a scheduled massacre, fail to invite us, and now you want a thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” Graham hung up as the vampling in his trunk let loose with another agonizing wail. A shop rag had erased the worst of the blood on the car’s hood, but now he wondered if he shouldn’t have stuffed the scrap of fabric down her throat. If he was stopped for speeding, this was going to get messy fast. He didn’t need any more deaths on his conscience tonight.
Sorano had only echoed the blame he’d internalized. It was one thing to let it grow and fester like mold on his heart, but he couldn’t accept it officially. He couldn’t let a guilty plea threaten all the good work he had done—that he had left to do—with Dr. Delph’s foresight.
“Easy!” he shouted to the vampling as her tossing and turning rocked the car on the highway. The interior of his trunk was taking a beating. The underside of the lid was coated in a thin layer of silver for this very reason, although he’d only had to rely on it a handful of times.
Most of Graham’s marks only required a little heart-to-heart. The promise of genuine help and opportunities that didn’t necessitate the exhausting anxiety of juggling their otherness. A place where they didn’t have to hide or fear the sharp bite of the law if they stepped a toe out of line and let their fangs show once in a while. That’s what waited for them in Spero Heights.
Graham couldn’t wait to get back. After a long trip, it felt almost like being welcomed into Lorelei’s open arms. Traffic thinned and all but disappeared as he migrated onto the backroads that led through the patch of forest surrounding the low-rising mountains Spero Heights had been built atop.
The moon was a few days shy of full. It hung proudly in the clear sky. Silvery beams filtered through the treetops and illuminated the road ahead where the BMW’s headlights hadn’t yet reached.
The car rocked again, and a flash in the rearview mirror caught Graham’s attention. The lid of the trunk popped open. The back end of the car dipped suddenly and then bounced, the tires lifting off the road for a brief second. Then a blur of red and white rolled across the asphalt.
Graham slammed on the breaks, squealing the tires as he pulled the car off onto the shoulder. He threw his door wide and tore off after the woman. She recovered quickly, and before he could reach her, she’d pulled herself up on shaky legs and stumbled into the ditch.
The night air was warm, but the vampling trembled uncontrollably. Blood drunk. Graham knew the symptoms. He’d been there himself once or twice, though it had been lifetimes ago. She moved like a spooked animal, unsuccessfully hiding in the tall grass that filled the few feet between where the road ended and the woods began. Cicadas echoed through the trees, and he heard her gasp of horror followed by a whimper.
She was coming down from the disorienting frenzy her change had initiated, her mind rolling back in on itself. Eventually, she’d remember everything she’d done. Then the real trouble would begin.
“What’s your name?” Graham called out. If he could get her to remember her humanity, even for a moment, there was a chance he could subdue her long enough to make it to Orpheus House, Dr. Delph’s clinic for supernaturals in need of rehabilitation.
“I’m only trying to help you,” he said, hoping that would at least ignite conversation. Boy, did it ever.
“Help me? Help me!?” she screamed from behind the wall of quivering grass. “You put me in a goddamned trunk!”
“You tried to bite me,” he countered.
“You bit me first!”
She thought he was Nilsen, Graham finally realized.
“My name is Graham Pierce, and I most certainly did not bite you.” Though it wasn’t a terrible idea, he decided.
“Wh-where’s Walt?” she asked. “Is he with you?” Her short-term, human memory was still intact, which was a very good sign.
“I’m afraid Mr. Nilsen is dead.”
“Dead?” She fell quiet, as if she were remembering how that had come to pass. “I-I saw him. He was there.”
“And now he’s not. You’re perfectly safe.”
“You still put me in a trunk.” Her voice took on a hostile edge again, and Graham feared she might run. But sometimes probing rage was the best bait for the job.
“You were too violent to risk the leather upholstery.”
“This is kidnapping! And I had a date tonight, you asshole!”
“Did you eat him, too?” Graham felt a little queasy making such low blows in her condition, but he’d have to do better than that if he wanted to take her by surprise. “I’m curious. What shade of red would you call your gown?”
When an excruciating moan filtered through the grass, Graham made his move. He reached through the trembling reeds and closed his hands around her arms, wrenching her out into the open where the moon spotlighted her tangled tresses and the blood-stiff folds of her dress. Terrified eyes peered up at him and swelled with tears. They spilled down her face, creating pink trails through the blood caked to her cheeks.
“Am I dead?” she whispered.
“You are.” With her face inches from his own, Graham could not bring himself to lie.
“Is this hell?”
“It can be, sometimes.”
“Are you the devil?” she asked next. It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed that of him.
“I’m more of a fairy god-vampire. A guardian demon. A crusader of supernatural underdogs.” He rattled off the stranger things he’d been called over the years—all of which sounded only slightly better than devil, and all of which seemed to confuse his traumatized mark. “What do they call you?” he asked.
“Eliza.” Her voice was raw and uncertain, as if she were struggling to remember anything else about who she was or how she’d gotten here. Her arms shivered despite Graham’s firm hold on her, and her teeth began to chatter. The moment of lucidity was slipping away.
Graham released one of her arms to tilt her chin up. “Well, Eliza, I won’t sugarcoat it. This is going to hurt.”
“What?” She took a shallow breath as her eyes dilated, and the wild animal returned.
Graham was one step ahead.
His fangs locked on to the bend of her neck, and one hand slipped up behind her head, taking hold of her hair so she wouldn’t thrash about and injure herself further. Dried blood flaked from her dress as Graham pulled her closer to keep her upright. Her screams wailed like a siren, gaining and losing momentum as he drained the excess blood from her veins.
A vampling could not contain such power for long, not without it tearing their mind to shreds. Even Graham struggled under the weight of it, though he took as much as he could. The feat roused shameful memories of the villages he’d slaughtered in his youth. He’d not consumed such volumes since. Indulging was too dangerous. Poor Eliza was proof of that.
Her flesh was full and juicy, like an overripe plum. But there was no pleasure to be had in feeding from her—at least no pleasure that Graham could feel decent about. Not under such circumstances. Normally, he would have been tender and slow, but the BMW was still parked on the shoulder of the road, the driver’s door and bloody trunk lid open wide to the world.
Eliza’s nails raked the sleeves of his jacket, peeling the leather away in long strips. Then she went after his face and head. He held tight to the one arm he hadn’t released and did his best to avoid her attack. When her screams dissolved into sobs, Graham let go of her hair and smoothed his hand down her back, letting his drink of her taper off until she went limp in his arms.
He extracted his fangs delicately and adjusted her in his arms before carrying her back to his car. There were headlights in the distance, quickly approaching. The final exit for Spero Heights was just a few miles off.
Against his better judgement, Graham opened the door to the backseat. His windows were tinted, and while that wouldn’t stop Eliza from fleeing the car or from attacking him, he couldn’t bring himself to stuff her back in the trunk.
The compartment was covered in blood and the thin carpeting was shredded. Graham could see a crack in the wall that divided the trunk from the backseat. If she hadn’t gotten the lid open, he had little doubt she would have kicked her way inside the car with him.
He laid her on the leather bench seat and tucked her feet into the floorboard before closing the door. Then he hurried to the rear and slammed the trunk lid before climbing into the driver’s seat just as the other car on the road passed by.
Graham waited for their taillights to disappear from his rearview. Then he twisted the mirror down until it gave him a clear view of Eliza’s face. Even unconscious, her expression was troubled. She moaned softly as he put the car in drive and pulled back onto the road.
Rather than wait for Dr. Delph, Graham dialed him first for a change.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” the doctor answered. They never bothered with proper greetings or pleasantries. “She should have been left for Blood Vice to deal with. They will discover her absence.”
“It’s not like you to turn down a potential patient, doc. What gives?” Graham tried to keep his desperation in check. He wasn’t beneath begging, but Delph rarely needed such motivation.
“What gives? She just slaughtered over a hundred people. In a matter of minutes. Do you really have to wonder why I think bringing her here and endangering my current and former patients is a terrible idea?”
“She’s no more of a danger than the changeling you have in the basement,” Graham said. “Couldn’t you set her up in a room down there?”
“It’s out of the question.”
“Then I guess she’ll be staying at my house.”
Dr. Delph’s insufferable sigh made Graham smile. “This will cause more trouble than you can fathom.”
“I’m coming up the hill now. See you in five.”
Graham hung up and stole another glance in the rearview mirror, hoping Eliza would stay out long enough for them to get her settled. She had a long road to recovery, he knew, but this was the first step. And he was responsible for it.
He didn’t go so far as to pat himself on the back. Certainly not when he remembered the carnage of the gymnasium he’d just burned to the ground.
But if Lorelei could look past his many transgressions and encourage him to become more than he was, to become so compassionate that the Fates would choose him as their champion, surely someone like Eliza deserved an advocate in her corner, too.