Caprice

Chapter 2 - Running-3

“That would help,” he said on a little gasp. “Your sister-in-law was hot-looking.” His eyes were more jade green tonight, and the pupils were huge. He chuckled, watching my exasperation rise.

“Jeez!” I said. The only reason I had Real Red—human blood in glass bottles—delivered to my house was because in the past I've had different vampires from his vampire camarilla (his assorted most trusted minions), stay with me for protection. Namely Leif and Heath Sufferden. Tremayne Inc. bottled it. That was back when it was illegal to hunt humans, and they had set up an elaborate, and very ingenious donor program. Now that it was legal to hunt humans again I had a feeling he'd probably seen a drop in sales. A week ago I had told the guy in the white van who delivered the blood to my doorstep that I didn't have any need for more, as I hadn't had many vampire stay-overs. Vasyl had not been by to visit either, since I'd been home, but he shunned human blood, anyway. He preferred horses' blood—fresh, not bottled. I know. I'd had a hard time with that, too. But I'd gotten used to the idea, and didn't think about it much. The horses weren't hurt in any way, and maybe they got a little payback like humans did for donating. I was relieved he never needed to drink my blood. But it puzzled me as to why Vasyl hadn't shown up tonight, since I'd been in danger. He was usually posted outside, keeping vigil from the roof top. He should have been in Tremayne's face the moment he got out of the car. But then he'd made himself pretty scarce since I'd walked out of our wedding over a week ago, and we'd later had a row, as the English say. He knew enough to let me have some time to get over Dante's death. It was not that simple, because Dante had become a true Undead. Vampires were not “undead”, as they try to say in books and movies. They actually had a heartbeat. They were one step up from demons, as they had evolved to look like us and could live among us, whereas demons had to live in a darker world, and could only come into our world for short periods of time, and did not look like us unless they could imitate someone, as had happened with my grandma.

Vasyl hadn't shown up. He hadn't come to my aide at my brother's house, and now another master vampire was in his domain. I was Vasyl's human—the bite on the inside of my elbow said so. He was my sworn protector from any and all danger, and any other vampires who entered his realm. Tremayne had never come to my house before—not for a visit or anything—and now I was surprised he had the balls to do so now. Could he have possibly sensed that Vasyl wasn't here? Vasyl had warned Tremayne and all his camarilla off, back when he'd made it known I was his. Plus, Tremayne had refused to come here a few weeks ago when I'd asked him for help in looking for my cousin, saying he didn't want to come on Vasyl's turf. What had changed? Too bad I couldn't figure this one out.

More than a vexed about this, I was actually pissed off about it. I really didn't want to go anywhere with Tremayne. Not tonight. Not any time. But what were my choices? Have him stand on guard over me tonight while I slept. I think not! Besides, the way he explained it, with Rick chiming in, we were to keep moving so that the demons couldn't find me.

As the moments ticked, and I opened my drawers to take things out, I became nervous thinking about the clash of two powerful, old-as-dirt vampires slashing each other in my living room. The last time that had happened, my picture window had been broken when Vasyl had fought off another vampire magnate from South America who'd wanted to make me his human. The Dagger of Delphi had settled that argument pretty quickly. Especially after his head was severed, which ended his existence. The Dagger of Delphi, I learned, only poisoned a vampire with the silver stiletto blade, rendering the vampire helpless until you could lop off his head. I hadn't done the lopping. That had been Roger Quist, who owned a handy laser wand. He had come to my rescue when a demon was chasing after me in an alley. That's when I met Rick for the first time, too. That had been quite a rowdy night for me. I'd had to go and save Tremayne from his imprisonment, and then with Rick's help, get to Dark World. And after all the running away from a demon, I run into more of them in Dark Realm.

The refrigerator door creaked opened and closed, pulling me back from my morbid memories. Then the toilet flushed. I tried not to think about the armless leprechaun using my bathroom—too late.

The floorboards moaned from Tremayne's heavy steps as he clomped back to the living room. I figured he weighed more than the refrigerator. I turned to my dresser. Spacing out, I grabbed folded clothes and placed a pile on the bed. I grabbed some more and set the pile down. I'm running like a coward. Considering that a demon had disguised itself as my grandmother, it was probably a good idea. I was a huge chicken—bawck, buck, buck, buck…

“Who is this Hobart again?” Tremayne asked, casually leaning his huge frame up against the oak threshold of my bedroom—entirely too close for comfort. The only other two vampires who had ever been in my bedroom had been Vasyl and Leif. Leif had no business there, and was about to r**e me—but I had taken care of him when I'd “wered-out”.

I glanced over my shoulder at the larger-than-life vampire, extremely happy to see he'd found the blood. My senses were super aware of him, although I had my mystic ring exposed in order to prevent him from thralling me into a melting pool of hormonal bliss, like Constance and my Aunt Shelly. His powers were so undeniably strong he didn't really have to think about thralling anyone, which was pretty apparent at Randy's house when Constance and Aunt Shelly had fought over him like he was the last double chocolate bon-bon in a confectioner's shop. I believed his claim that he wasn't putting a t****l on them intentionally. He couldn't help but ooze with vampire pheromones.

“He's the alpha werewolf of a local pack that hunts and hangs in this area,” I answered.

“You know him well enough that he would bring you meat for the winter? Nice!” Tremayne said, impressed. He took a slug of the blood. You don't know how well.

“You must have done it with him,” Rick said as he appeared from behind the tree trunk of Tremayne's leg.

My shoulders sagged before I straightened and gave him my b***h-look.

“Oops. Sorry Sabrina. Can't help it. I'll try to keep it clean,” Rick made the attempt to smooth things out.

“Right,” I muttered, and turned back to pulling clothes out of drawers and stacking them on my bed still folded. “Besides, I was a wolf-creature at the time,” I defended.

“You vixen, you,” Tremayne teased.

I fed him my alternate expression of weary-b***h-look.

“Especially since you made it with an incubus,” Rick said.

“I did not!” I said. Fists to my waist, I turned and glared at him.

“You still don't remember that, do you?” he asked.

“Nope.” I shook my head. Jacob was an incubus—so I was told—who had followed me from Dark World back to Tom's Tavern in order to give me back all my things I'd left when we were there for Tremayne's trial. I had no memory of him. It was as if Jacob had been wiped out of my mind. I wish I could remember him. Everything else about our visit to Dark World remained, however. Including the nasty stuff. I chalked it up to having spotty amnesia after that harrowing ordeal with the Woodbines, which put me into the hospital for a few days.

“Must be someone's erased your memory about him for some reason,” Rick suggested.

“Hmmm,” I said. Either that or I was blocking it from my memory. Denial was a strong force in the human psyche. What could I have done with a demon that would make me block a total memory of him and what we did? Needing to ignore the subject, I returned to my task.

“Oh. I guess I need a suitcase,” I said, and surged around my bed, out of the room passing both men.

“Where is it?” Tremayne asked, stopping me. “I'll get it.”

“Well, it's upstairs. The first door at the top of the stairs,” I said.

Tremayne had drained the bottle of Real Red, handed it to me, and moved off to find the stairs. I looked at the bottle in my hand. A red drip slid down the side. Eww. Thankfully I'd taken it with my one gloved hand and quickly moved for the trash in the kitchen. Tremayne's feet clomped up the flight of stairs to the second floor, each step creaked with every footfall. If he had wanted to, he wouldn't make a sound. I think he wanted me to be relaxed about him being in the house, and not sneaking up on me. The room at the top of the stairs had been my former bedroom. Memories of the night Nicolas had visited me there surfaced. My face warmed. Okay, I had to stop this memory dipping, damn it!

I turned to find Rick seated comfortably on the couch. I folded my arms and looked at him.

“What?” he asked, defensively.

“He's paying you.” I said, eyeing him. I didn't know how the vision had been all jumbled up in some of what I'd seen back at my brother's place, but it replayed as I stood there. Tremayne wrote Rick a check for a large sum. “What's the job?”

“I'm to be your bodyguard,” Rick said, palms up—and that was a weird look, really from a guy with no arms.

I squinted at him still suspicious. “Ah, you're along with us to protect me. What about Tremayne? He isn't exactly window dressing.”

“No, but he does need to rest during the day. You need to go out and eat during the day. He can't be out unless the sun is hidden.”

“True.”

“And I'm the best damned demonologist he's got. I can see through a demon's disguise, no matter who they look like.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Plus, I'm magical. I can move through ley lines.”

“Hey, I've gotten really good at that too.”

“That's great!” he said. “We could probably do some ley-line hopping.”

Tremayne's return startled me because I hadn't heard him come back down—must have floated. The black suitcase in his hands looked really small next to him, but it was humongous and ugly. “You gonna fill this?” he wondered.

“Probably. Why?”

He looked over at Rick. “I'll have a hell of a time fitting it into the trunk.”

“I'll get it to fit,” Rick assured.

I took the empty suitcase from him. “I'm going to have to take out the dagger. You might not want to be in the house when I do that.”

Tremayne nodded. “I'll wait outside. Storm's gone. We'll be able to put some miles behind us by daybreak.”