Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night

“I don’t carry a stake because it’s not a sure thing. A gun, I can shoot and take someone down, at least long enough to get the hell away from them. With a stake, you’ve got to hit the heart. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know where somebody’s heart would be.” He winced as I swabbed the blood from his hands with a disinfectant pad. “I mean, really, do you think you know where the human—sorry, vampire—heart is?”

“Yes. But I’m a doctor.” I dabbed at a particularly nasty cut and reached into the first aid kit for some bandages. “So, you deal with vampires you don’t trust and feel the need to arm yourself. Sounds like you should make a career change.”

He chuckled, and there was an edge of bitterness to it. “This pays better than anything I could get. The job market is tough.”

“So is the market for blood donors, I guess. Since you have to service more than one vampire.” I eyed the cooler. “So, exactly how much blood do you have left in your body, if you don’t mind my asking?”

He grinned. “You’re a smart lady. Okay, you caught me. It’s not all my blood. I get it from other donors, ones who don’t mind providing so long as they don’t have to deal with actual vampires. I take it, and give it a little markup for my troubles.”

I shook my head. Was nothing sacred anymore? “You profit from trafficking human blood?”

“Got by honest means.” He nodded to his injured hand. “And really, it’s not like I don’t have my fair share of trouble trying to deliver the stuff. What are you two doing here, anyway? Where’s Max?”

“Max is…” I hesitated. Not knowing exactly what kind of guy Bill was, I didn’t want to tell him that Max was the first vampire in known history to father a baby, or that he’d used that awesome power to knock up a werewolf. “Indisposed. I don’t know when he’s coming back. There are some strange things happening in the vampire world lately, and Nathan and I needed a place to hide out.”

Good girl, Nathan sent across the blood tie. He had a way of saying something like that without sounding completely patronizing. My heart, which was slowly thawing out from the death of my fledgling, warmed a little at Nathan’s approval.

Apparently, Bill accepted my answer. He cleared his throat and asked, “So, Nathan is your sire and your name is?”

“I’m Carrie.” I frowned down at his hand. Bandages never stuck right to joints.

“I’d shake your hand, but you’ve already crushed my other one.” He looked around the kitchen. “So, if you’re staying here, you need blood. I can cut you a good deal.”

I shook my head. “Even after we beat you up?”

“I don’t know what fight you were watching, but I had your sire pinned. Human on vampire, that’s got to count for something.”

“I was suitably impressed.” It was very strange, how easily he had gotten me to trust him. He was either a genuinely nice person, or a master manipulator. The thought made me uncomfortable. “Listen, the other vampires you…service…are they affiliated with the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement, by any chance?”

He nodded. “Some of them were.”

“They haven’t had any communication from other members, either?” My heart sank. Scores of Movement vampires out there and no way to contact them. And if they were anything like Nathan had been when he’d been under the Movement’s control, they would just sit tight and wait for word, as they’d been trained to do.

The Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement had been the final word in the battle between good vampires versus bad vampires—until a really bad vampire blew it up. But before their headquarters went kablooie, vampires had two choices: join the Movement and follow their rules, or don’t and they’d kill you. In return for the privilege of not being killed, Movement vampires killed the vampires who didn’t follow the rules. If we could find Movement members who were still committed to the organization’s ideals, we could put together a fighting force capable of wiping out the Soul Eater and any of his cronies who might be hanging around. But the Movement had never established any kind of communications system outside of their own records, and with good reason. When a vampire went bad—and some did—they didn’t need to have the names and addresses of their new enemies. Still, in an emergency like this it made it impossible that we’d find enough support to even put a dent in the Soul Eater’s plan. There was no way to prove that a vampire we might meet worked for the Movement, or the Soul Eater. Of course, I was a non-Movement vampire, and so was Nathan. But I knew we were okay. When it came to networking, hearing someone was aligned with the Movement was like a seal of approval. Non-Movement vampires could be good, but they could be very, very bad, and I liked to err on the side of caution.

Nathan pulled himself to his feet, wincing, and shuffled over to the island in a stooped-over kind of walk. I wanted to admonish him for not resting, but his signature look of single-minded determination stopped me from saying anything. “We need you to supply us with the names of your customers,” he said, so curtly that I wanted to tack on a “please” to soften the sharp edges of his command.

Bill appeared to be of the same mind as me, because he snorted at the request and shook his head. “No. Even though you asked so sweetly, I have a privacy policy with my clients that I can’t break. It would ruin my reputation and my business.”

“Listen, you were the one who came in here, armed, and shot me.” Nathan gestured to his stomach, where the wound was now pink and tight and shiny. “Maybe you should give us, the injured parties, some kind of recompense. And as for confidentiality, you have no idea the kind of danger we’re involved in. Just knowing that we’re here, well…let’s just say we vampires have our own ways of keeping our affairs private.” He changed his face, though I could see it took a lot of his already taxed strength, and stepped closer to Bill.

I knew Nathan would never kill a human. He might knock one out and throw him out the door, maybe scare him a bit, but not kill him, no matter how we’d been threatened. It wasn’t Nathan’s way. But Bill didn’t know that. He paled a little, then regained some of his confidence. “Buddy, I was in the Corps. You’re not going to intimidate me with a pair of fangs and a few threats.”

A smile twitched at the corner of Nathan’s mouth. “Yes, I see you’re a very tough guy. Especially when taking on an unarmed vampire.”

There’s a point in every tense situation where someone loses their stomach for the argument and gives in. Bill had reached his. Nathan took my seat at the kitchen island while I went to the refrigerator—to get some blood for Nathan, to replace what he’d lost, and something, preferably alcoholic, for Bill, whose hands trembled as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

“I’m not usually in the habit of attacking people,” Bill said apologetically. “But since the Movement fell apart, it’s been a little like the Wild West in the city.”

Nathan made a casual shrug, but I saw how he watched Bill. He would note every breath, every twitch, to analyze later.

Bill continued, oblivious to Nathan’s scrutiny. “I’d lay even money that Chicago isn’t the only place getting weird. Am I right?”

“You’re probably right. We’ve only been here, and where we came from.” Nathan shrugged. “Which is why I could really stand to talk to some of your other customers.”

“I don’t know.” Bill took a swallow of liquor. “I’d have to find someone willing to talk. But you guys…how do I know you’re not going to bust in and kill them? I mean, I just met you.” He stopped, a wry smile on his mouth. “I’m not sure I want to vouch for you. I don’t know you all that well and maybe I don’t want to be involved in whatever you’re involved in. I’ve already heard rumors of some Soul guy trying to become a supervamp. I really don’t want to get tangled up in that.”

“Supervamp?” I blurted, at the same time Nathan shouted, “You heard what?”

Bill looked back and forth at the two of us, frozen in indecision. “I’m not sure who I should answer first.”

“What do you know about Jacob Seymour?” Nathan asked, overlapping my, “When did you hear this?”

“I don’t know him. All I know is that every vampire in the city is either working for this Soul guy, or they get killed by him. And the last time I heard mention of him was a couple of days ago, at a bar downtown.” Bill shook his head vehemently and said, “I don’t want to get involved.”

“You became involved when you shot me,” Nathan said, reaching to squeeze the other man’s shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie. “Now, you just have to decide your level of involvement. If you give us the names of your clients and leave, you’re not too involved.”

“And yet there’s still the problem of losing my livelihood.” Bill laughed. “No, thanks. Look, I’ll do some work around here for you, same as I did Max. He’s still paying me, after all. And I’ll spy on my other clients. But I’m not going to hand over their names and compromise their safety. I work for good people.”

Nathan leaned back, letting his arm drop. “Fair enough. Let’s set down our terms.” He opened a drawer on the island, then looked dismayed that it contained only kitchen gadgets. “Carrie, do you have a pen?”

“I’m sure there’s one in the mess on the dining room floor,” I said, backing to the door. I wanted to keep an eye on Bill for as long as possible. “Scream if you need me.”

I wasn’t sure I trusted Bill. He had that smooth, friendly way about him that most con men worked hard to perfect. Maybe I was just being cynical, but I never trusted people like that. Plus, something he’d said had set off alarms in my brain. Every vampire in the city was either working for the Soul Eater or had been killed by him. Which meant if Bill was still in business, he was working with the Soul Eater’s goons.

I found a pen in the rubble of the dining room, and paper in a drawer of the sideboard. I hurried back to the kitchen, where Nathan drew up a list of “terms” for both sides. He requested that Bill not breathe a word of our presence in the city, and promised to match anyone’s offer of payment for that information. Of course, we had no money, but there was no reason to tell him that. I suggested that Bill make us a priority over his other clients. And Bill asked simply that we “not act like assholes.”

“Good idea,” Nathan agreed.

“Most of my clients don’t talk business in front of me. In fact, most of my clients don’t talk to me.” Bill glanced from Nathan to me. “I’m a little intimidated by the idea of spying. Not that any of them would do anything to me. They’re all as meek as kittens.”

“I’m sure,” Nathan agreed drily.

Bill spread his hands. “I just don’t want you to think I’m going to waltz in here with a ton of information in two weeks.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Nathan told him, sounding menacing and reassuring at the same time. “But if you tell anyone that we’re here, and what we’ve asked you about, I can guarantee you’ll come away from this place with more than a bruised-up hand.”

Since we’d pretty much covered everything and made all the threats we could reasonably make, we all sealed the deal with an awkward three-way handshake.

“What do you think?” I asked Nathan later as I stood at the windows in the library, watching the traffic pass on the street below. The sun had set, but twilight kept the sidewalk around Grant Park bright with a diffused glow. In the reflection in the glass, I saw myself, just as blond and pale and plain as ever, and Nathan, coming to stand behind me, all brooding dark, like an undead Heathcliff with his mussed black hair and hard, chiseled features.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned his face close to mine, so that his deep voice, softly accented with his native Scots Gaelic, stirred my hair and tickled my ear. “I don’t know. I think that we will either find information that will be helpful to us and get us into a lot of trouble, or we’ll find information that isn’t helpful to us and we’ll still get into a lot of trouble.”

“Trouble is inevitable.” I turned and stepped out of his embrace, putting some distance between us. Being close to Nathan always affected my judgment. “Do we really need to find it for ourselves? You’ve already been shot. Speaking of which, let me look at it.” I crossed the space between us and reached for the bottom of his T-shirt. I pulled up the fabric to see the wound, nearly healed, just a paler patch of white against his normal pallor. “It looks okay. Thank God.”

He pulled his shirt down, a little reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to break the contact of my fingers against his skin. “It’s like any wound. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

“Nothing to be alarmed about? Nathan, I would be worried if you had a paper cut, let alone a gunshot wound.” I rubbed my temples to ease a headache I didn’t have, but I suspected I would later on. “I’m worrying needlessly, aren’t I?”