Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
When they arrived at the inn after their second night of rainy travel, Skarde handed the horse off to a stable keeper. He and Gemma ran through the rain to the back door, but it was bolted. As they dashed to the front door, dread built inside him.
The initial entry into any dwelling where humans congregated sucked.
“Maybe you should wait out here until I secure a room,” he suggested, wishing to shield her from the reality of how she’d be treated as a vampire.
“Why?”
“No one likes our kind.”
She took his hand in hers and squeezed. “I’ll go with you. Maybe they won’t know what I am. Having me with you might camouflage you.”
“They always know.”
Her small smile was everything.
“Try not to smell,” he advised.
They entered what, unfortunately, turned out to be a very populated tavern.
Friday night. Stupid mistake to forget the day of the week.
He should’ve kicked in the back door or waited in the barn.
In some towns, like this one, the bars remained crowded until dawn.
Then the humans slept all day, which worked for him.
No one to bother him during his own day sleep.
One step inside the tavern and the nasal onslaught of sweat, piss, alcohol, and sloppy sex hit hard. Gemma’s face turned green. She stumbled against him with a hand to her mouth.
“Focus on me, not them. Don’t breathe through your nose,” he ordered.
“It’s awful. I never knew we stank this much.”
He whispered, “Focus on me.”
She leaned against him and buried her face in his armpit. “You smell like heaven.” She giggled. “Bet that’s the first time anyone said your pits smell good.”
Inside he laughed, but externally he remained sharp in order to read the room. This was an inebriated, dangerous crowd—bad-mannered, with a tendency to lash out at the unknown, and possessing marginal training in fighting techniques.
The loud din of laughter and drunken behavior stopped as they neared the bar.
Tense, he continued forward, keeping Gemma in front of him.
Sometimes in places like these one human broke from formation and attacked or drove others to follow.
A fight might result in having nowhere to stay.
And having nowhere to leave Gemma while he dealt with the witch or necromancer.
Skarde wasn’t exactly sure what manner of evil creature he was expected to kill.
With less than fifteen minutes until sunrise, they had no option but to stay here.
Instinct screamed he ditch this idea. This inn wasn’t safe.
He kept his left hand in his pocket, around the hilt of a knife, and his right around Gemma.
She whispered, “They’re tracking us like a pack of dogs about to attack. The hate is intense.”
He glanced down but didn’t reply. Predator-prey, sweetheart. You’ve become the predator. They fear us.
As they neared the bar’s counter, one broke rank. A hook-nosed, burly man who reeked of beer and horse liniment gathered spittle in his mouth. Once lobbed, it would hit Gemma.
Too fast for humans to see, Skarde grabbed a wooden tray off the counter, using it as a shield against the spittle on its way to them as he rolled Gemma into a dance-style dip.
The dull thwack of the spittle against the tray echoed in the eerie silence.
With a dramatic flourish, he tossed the tray which walloped the troublemaker in the head and knocked him out. Leaning into Gemma he proclaimed, “Darling, you are more beautiful than the sunset on the winter solstice.” And he kissed her.
As he pulled away she said, “You are a panther with an ass of steel.”
The inn’s owner, a skinny man with sallow skin and wrinkles from the stress of decades glared at them, unsurprised. He waved for them to follow him to a back room. Leaving silence behind them, they trailed into a storeroom.
Shelves of miscellaneous food, brew, and odds and ends stacked to the ceiling surrounded them. The innkeeper handed him a key. “The Hunters said you’d be coming. They said you’d be handling the problem over at the church.” He scanned Gemma. Arousal dilated his eyes.
Skarde had heard rumors about female vampires, but there were few of them, and even less often did one venture into human venues.
Now he knew why. The only ones Skarde ever met had been possessed and insane, which meant they’d been unattractive.
Apparently, a healthy female vampire could mesmerize humans by simply entering a room.
The uncouth innkeeper gaped at her and rubbed a hand over his crotch. “You’re pretty.”
Her face scrunched up. “Are you talking to me?” She glanced up at Skarde, confused. “Is he seriously propositioning me to screw him or suck him off right here while you watch?”
“Remember the allure you said I had? Apparently, for lady vampires it intensely effects men.”
She clapped a hand over her nose. “Forgot not to smell. Shit, I’ve got to…” She eyed the exit and pushed outside, running to empty her stomach only to discover that as a vampire, she was unable to vomit. She flashed him an even more panicked gaze.
The innkeeper shook his head as if coming out of a daze. “You two can stay in the room that’s around back. Number five. I’ll need payment up front. I assume you’ll be gone at nightfall?”
“We will take the room for two nights and be gone on the third.” Skarde removed far more coins than the room was worth and shoved them into the innkeeper’s hand. “No one enters. I don’t need it serviced. We don’t need food.”
“Stay out of sight. For your own good.” The man’s eyes sought out Gemma even though she leaned against the door frame with a green hue to her skin.
Skarde gave the innkeeper a glower of warning. He backed up a few steps until his back hit the shelves, hands held up at his sides. “Stay away from us.”
With haste, Skarde guided Gemma to their room and locked them inside. They only had minutes before dawn, and he needed to sun-proof the room.
“What happened? I felt like I wanted to vomit but I couldn’t.”
“We can’t vomit.”
“Why not? That’s weird. I thought only rabbits and small rodents couldn’t puke. All people can.”
“You’re not human. I don’t know why the reflex disappears. Maybe it’s assumed we won’t be eating contaminated food. Even if we do, it won’t poison us.”
“That’s weird,” she muttered as she wandered around the sparsely furnished room. It had one wobbly side table, a wooden bed, a wash stand, and a chamber pot.
“Not sure the bed has been washed…” With a lean forward, she sniffed. “Pretty sure that’s vomit and urine.” She pinched her nose. “Do you have bedbugs in your world? If so, we should stay out of that.”
“We’ll sleep under it.”
“Under? On the wood floor?”
“Those curtains aren’t enough protection.
In about ninety seconds, you’ll want the sun blocked.
Do you feel the prickle on your neck?” He yanked the shabby, pale green cover so it flew off the bed and draped it for an extra window covering.
Then he pulled off the sheets and tucked them into the mattress to fall over the edge on the window side as added protection for beneath the bed.
“Not much time left.” He lifted Gemma into his arms and rolled both of them under the bed, him with his back to the window. The quarters were tight. Again. “Stay on this side, away from the window. I’ll be better able to tolerate any rays that may sneak through.”
“If I smell you burning, I’ll be pissed.”
A small laugh tumbled out of him as he buried his nose in her hair. She smelled fresh, almost lemony, in comparison to the human stench around them. He tucked her tight against him.
“I can sense the sun’s location even when I can’t see its glow.” She tried to peek over him, but he didn’t let her move.
“That’s a survival instinct. If I don’t return by dawn tomorrow, make sure to do this again.”
“I don’t want to stay here, cowering under a bed by myself.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I don’t feel safe here.”
“It’s a hell of a lot less safe when I face off with a necromancer. Please, stay here. Promise me.”
“Okay. One night. Beyond that I’m leaving. “I can’t believe how much humans stink. How can you stand to drink from them?”
“We do it to survive.”
Her hands curled into his forearms so tight he felt their pinch. “I understand why you only drink from the worst of the worst now. I’ll do that too if I have to feed from a human. Only kill the ones who don’t deserve life… But who’s to say we have the right to judge if that person should die?”
“God allows us to persist.” Or maybe not, given our relative inability to multiply. “We serve a purpose, we cull humans. What about the one who tried to kill you?”
“I still feel guilty about that, not that there was another way. I understand that. He would’ve killed me.
No question.” She buried her face into his chest as if reminded of the stench around them.
“Inns don’t need to be like this. There’s such a thing as cleaning, sanitizing, and changing linens.
The check-in desk shouldn’t be in the bar.
” So soft he almost missed it she asked, “Did I smell this bad?”
“No. You always smelled of something floral, maybe what you washed your hair with.”
“Shampoo. Not sure you have that here, but maybe I can work out something with the mages or witches who can go between realms and have one bring some back. Also, I need dental care items. I’m not going to be using twigs and baking soda.
I’ll use the same plastic toothbrush for ten years before I do that. ”
“Since your change, you smell incredible.” He rolled her a bit and moved the hair off her neck to kiss her.
“Don’t start. There’s no room under here for anything, let alone get our clothes off.”
“Sleep. I’ve got you for now.”
“Are you going to leave before I wake up?”
“Perhaps. I can move in daylight a bit. I need to get to the church right at sunset. If I’m not here, stay inside the room. I’ll return as soon as I can.”
“In one piece. Promise me you’ll come back alive.”
He kissed her neck but didn’t reply. It wasn’t a promise he could make.