Chapter Ten #2
“I do believe he’s permitted to live here… but he’s not a man I’ve ever engaged with,” Ezio responds.
What’s so strange to me is how out of it the man seems. There’s no hesitation, no desperation, and no fear. He climbs up, he jumps off.
“Do you mind if we have the room alone for a moment?” Cyrus asks the security guard.
“Of course not,” he says as he gets up and leaves.
“Could someone have allured him?” I ask.
“Vampires can’t compel vampires,” Casimir says. “We can only allure humans, and it only works if the human is already interested.”
“Like how I have absolutely no interest in Ezio, so he couldn’t allure me,” Cyrus announces, sounding quite proud about this. It’s quite the jab at Ezio and makes Casimir look very pleased.
It results in Ezio glowering at Casimir even though Cyrus was the one who’d inflicted the damage. “You don’t have to look so damn happy about that.”
“So you’re telling me all the people you allure want you? That sounds suspicious,” I say to Casimir.
“Everyone wants me,” he declares.
“Casimir’s allure is stronger than most,” Ezio explains. “But he’s also older than most of the vampires you’ve met.”
“Make sense,” I say, wondering again how old he is.
“I know what you’re saying though, Julian,” Cyrus says. “It really does look like he’s been caught up in an allure to be so… emotionless while it happens. If we saw a human do this, we would have to consider drugs.”
“There are no cameras that show the ground floor?” Ezio asks.
Cyrus almost seems reluctant to have to answer Ezio’s question simply because he doesn’t want to interact with him, but when he realizes the rest of us are waiting for the answer, he can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.
“No. We’re checking with the surrounding businesses to see if they have any that might have captured the scene, but so far we haven’t seen anything. ”
“Can I go up onto the roof?” Casimir asks.
“Of course,” Cyrus says as he leads us out of the room and over to the elevator which we take up to the top floor.
It’s set up with outdoor furniture, some of which has graffiti on it, likely one of the reasons why they’d installed a camera.
I sniff the air, but in this form, the vampires’ sense of smell is likely superior to mine.
There are two officers wandering around trying to survey the area to look for anything of interest, which keeps me from shifting.
“Can someone stand in front of the camera and ask the others to step out?” I ask.
“Of course,” Cyrus says as he walks over to the others and tells them that they’re needed downstairs.
Believing him, they both head to the door which he then parks himself in front of as Ezio covers the camera.
I step behind Casimir so that if there is any way someone is watching, they can’t see me shift.
I even make him hold my clothes, which he seems as displeased about as normal.
“Why can’t they sit on a chair?” he asks.
“They’ll get cold.”
“It’s not even cold out!”
“You don’t know, you’re a vampire,” I say before shifting. Catching the dead vampire’s scent, I follow his trail from the doorway straight over to the fence, but there are different layers of smell. The most recent is the strongest, but it tells me that the vampire had come up here more than once.
“ And we’re sure he didn’t live in this building ?” I ask into Casimir’s mind, since I can’t ask the others.
“Did the vampire live in this building?” Casimir asks Cyrus.
“Grady did not. He lived…” Cyrus hesitates as he checks his phone. “In an apartment on Wicker Avenue.”
“ He sure frequented here a lot for not living here .”
“Was he alone each time?” Casimir asks.
There are so many different scents up here that it’s hard to pinpoint if someone had been here with him. Making it even more difficult, vampires don’t have as strong of a scent as humans, so it gets washed away by the other much stronger smells unless I know what to look for.
“ Is the hallway clear ?” I ask.
Casimir walks over to the door before pulling it open. “It’s clear.”
I move into the building, following the scent down the steps before stopping before a door leading into the hallway on the tenth floor.
“ Open it ,” I say as I paw at the door.
“Your fingers don’t work?” Casimir taunts.
I step down on his foot, putting as much weight as I can on it, making sure to dig my claws into his shoe.
“ Depends on what you’d like me to do .”
He pushes the door open and I trot down the hallway a moment before he grabs my tail, skidding me to a halt.
I give him an incredulous look. “ What ?—”
The expression on his face tells me that he’s sensed something.
“You smell his scent down here?”
“ I do. It’s as thick as the rooftop .”
“And do you smell anyone else?”
“ No .”
“Move quietly in case something is off,” he whispers.
With a curt nod, I slow down, walking forward on silent feet as he follows behind me.
“ They could be the same people who killed the vampires in the woods. If they are and they bomb this place… how many humans are there ?”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” he says as he slowly follows me over to the room where the scent ends. “This one?”
I nod and he tries the door, but it’s locked.
“I don’t hear anyone inside, but they could be refraining from moving,” Casimir says. “Cyrus, can you get this door unlocked for us?”
“Of course,” he says as he turns and hurries to find someone to unlock the door.
Meanwhile, I find that there really is only one scent that leads into the room, and it one hundred percent belongs to the vampire who died.
“ Could a vampire climb up this many floors to the window? What are we at? Ten floors? I’m thinking that Grady could have possibly been meeting someone here who was coming in through the window. ”
Casimir nods. “I’d have to look at the exterior again, but it’s likely.”
“ Otherwise, it’s only the scent from the man who died ,” I say.
Casimir hesitates and then looks up.
“What is it?” Ezio asks.
“You hear that?”
Ezio is quiet for a moment before shaking his head. “No. Someone’s walking upstairs? If they are, they’re quiet.”
“I’m going to go check it out. Ezio, stay here with Julian, and if something seems off, get him out of here.”
“Shouldn’t we stick together?” Ezio asks.
Casimir stubbornly shakes his head. “They likely know we’re here, so I want you two watching this door while I flush them out from upstairs.”
“Fine, fine,” Ezio agrees as Casimir takes off after setting my clothes on the ground.
I’m kind of with Ezio on this, but Casimir seems like he’s out for blood and is gone within seconds, probably prepared to tear a head off and deal with the consequences later.
Ezio walks over to me before staring down at me. We’re in a stare-off for a ridiculously long time before he reaches out and cups my face.
“Oh my god, I can’t not like you, you’re just too cute!” he says as he smooshes my face. “You’re so soft and fluffy!”
What the fuck is this?
I try jerking my head back, but he won’t let me go as he proceeds to rub his face against mine. “Don’t fight it, love it. Enjoy it,” he urges, and even as he tries to get some fur out of his mouth from when he’d rubbed his face against mine, I find it doesn’t deter him.
I show him a bit of fang since I feel like that is what’s necessary, but he just grabs me like I’m a lap dog and squeezes me to him tighter, which is how I’m left suffering as Casimir does who knows what.