Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Well, I’m not. Trust me, I’m brave enough that if I was seriously hurt, I would have told you.”
I watch him for a long moment, unsure of what to say or do in response to any of this. “I… don’t have human drugs here. But I can send Ezio out into the sun to get them.”
“Ah yes, I love my painkillers with a side of burned-up vampire, how kind. No, I can run to the store later. Honestly, I’m just a little sore. It’s not that bad.”
That idea pisses me off. “No, I’ll hire one of those human runner things.”
“Human runner things… you mean a delivery? Oh yeah, we could do that.”
“I’ll get it,” I say as I pull out my phone and download the app he recommends. As he pets Gustov, I try to think what all a wolf would want and add it to the cart as well as ice packs and a heating pad.
“There, I gave them a three-hundred-dollar tip to get here faster.”
Julian nearly chokes. “What the hell? If I knew you were tipping that much, I’d have gotten it myself!”
“You would like money?” I ask as I grab my wallet.
“Oh my god, don’t pay me. I’ll be like a sex worker, but instead of sex, I just wag my tail while you give me belly rubs.”
I drop a hundred-dollar bill on his head before I wander off to feed Gustov and stalk the app until the dot starts moving toward the house.
The windows are all coated to keep the sunlight from coming through, so I can walk freely anywhere in my house, but I’m not dumb enough to linger in front of them.
So the moment I see the man heading toward the porch, I pull the door open, standing behind it.
The porch was built in a way to block the majority of the sun, but I’m not planning on walking out to test it.
“Please put it inside the doorway.”
“Uh, yeah, of course, thanks for the tip, man,” he says as he drops the bags inside the house.
Once he’s done, I shut the door and gather the bags which I carry into the kitchen.
I grab a plate and put two donuts on it.
It doesn’t look like enough, so I put two more and then round it up to a nice eight that I carry into the bedroom.
“Here.”
“Oh my god, why are there so many?”
“I also brought you drugs,” I say as I hand him the bottle.
“Christ, how many pills are in here? FIVE HUNDRED? How banged up do you think I am?”
I slip out of the room and rush off before coming back with the bags which I dump on the bed. “I got more in case five hundred wasn’t enough.”
“Cas! I don’t need this much stuff,” he says as he wades through it all.
“It’s my incompetence that got you hurt.”
“What are these? Microwavable… mittens?”
“Your hands always feel clammy or cold when you force me to hold them. I thought this would help.”
Julian’s eyes shift up to me and he raises an eyebrow. He pulls out a squeak toy in the shape of a duck. “Oh, Gustov even gets a little toy.”
“No, that’s for you. Gustov got his own.”
“I don’t want a freaking dog toy!” He tosses it at me, and I catch it before giving it a squeeze.
His eyes snap over to it in an instant, so I squeeze it again so he can hear its squeaky cry.
“Don’t do this to me, Casimir.”
I squeak it again.
Both Gustov and Julian are staring at it with clear interest. There’s no way he doesn’t want this. “I mean… if you don’t want it, I can give it to Gustov.” I squeak it two more times and he reaches over and takes it.
“I’ll hold on to it… for now. I really can’t eat eight giant donuts.”
“That’s a defeatist attitude.”
“Is it?” he asks as he eyes them. “Or maybe it’s a health concern. I’ll just take one, thank you. But… I could share them with the friends I invited over.”
“Friends?” I ask, immediately skeptical.
“I knew you wouldn’t invite any friends over, so I thought I’d do it.”
I think about this for a moment as he dives into his donut. The look on his face tells me that he very well might eat all eight of them, even if he claims I’m ridiculous!
“Ohhhh, you mean for me to eat. ‘Friends.’”
“No! Not… ‘friends.’ You can’t eat them. Would you toss me my bag so I can get dressed?”
“It’ll be easier to wash their blood off if we’re both naked when they arrive,” I explain.
Julian sighs. “Just… stop talking. This donut is divine, and you’re ruining it with your talking. Let me just eat it. Mmm, soooo good.”
I pull the donut away from him.
He looks heartbroken. “Wha—? Casimir, why?”
“You should only moan for me.”
“You’re jealous of a fucking donut? And don’t forget we’re not dating, remember?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Oh yeah, I forgot you were in it for the money.”
“I’m getting paid?” he asks in disbelief. “I’m pretty sure I’m just over here getting tendonitis from painting your dog nonstop.”
“You could paint him with blood. That sounds delicious.”
“I… don’t… why? Like… why is that what comes to your mind?” Julian finishes his donut before reaching over and taking Gustov’s face in his hands. “I’m scared. Please… Gustov, save me.”
Gustov flops onto his back for Julian to rub his stomach.
“Oh, a napkin,” he says as he wipes his donut fingers on my dog.
“Don’t you dare.”
He looks me in the eyes as he rubs them harder before laughing. “They were clean… ish.”
I go over to my dresser and toss him some of my clothes even though his bag isn’t that far away.
I weirdly like seeing him in my clothes. There’s no strange reasoning behind it. There’s nothing like that at all. It’s just me being too lazy to go get his bag. That’s what it is.
The doorbell rings and I head downstairs while he gets ready. When I reach the door, I realize that his guest is Cyrus, which is acceptable.
“Come in,” I say as I stay back from the door. He lets himself in, but what I didn’t notice until it was too late was the man behind him.
I growl at him.
He growls at me.
“Why are you here?” I ask Terrance.
“Why are you?”
“This is my house.”
That just makes him growl again.
“I see you guys are getting along well,” Julian says with a beaming smile on his face as he enters the room.
Like he thinks that he can make everyone forget what he’s done just by smiling at us.
While it is rather effective, I still can’t forgive him.
“Casimir was even super sweet and got you guys donuts.”
“Ooh,” Cyrus says as he grabs one from the plate Julian’s holding. When his father also tries to grab one, I question if he really needs two hands.
The look on Julian’s face tells me he does.
“You owe me more than a donut after last night,” Cyrus says, eyes challenging.
“Speaking of last night… where is Ezio?” Julian asks, suddenly looking alarmed. “We forgot about him!”
It didn’t bother me at all that Ezio just happened to disappear partway through the whole ordeal. I mean… honestly, did any of us even miss him?
“He’s in a holding cell in the department,” Cyrus says.
“Oh good,” I say, pleased by this information.
“Not good! Why is he in a holding cell?” Julian asks, foolishly concerned about the man.
Cyrus’s eyes couldn’t get much bigger as he looks at Julian in disbelief. I think it’s partly because he, once upon a time, thought Julian was the sensible one. “Because he picked up a police car and threw it .”
Julian gives a little shrug that deflates Cyrus even more. Julian pretends not to notice what he’s doing to him. “Yeah, but no one saw it.”
“He admitted to it!” Cyrus protests.
“It was an accident, though,” Julian says.
Cyrus scowls at him. “He’ll get out tonight with ease because these vampires know how to get out of everything.”
“They sure do,” Terrance mutters.
Cyrus’s eyes snap over to him. “Oh, don’t even start with what I have to cover up pertaining to the werewolves. They’re just as bad.”
I smirk, enjoying the way he’s beating Terrance down. “What else do the werewolves do?” I’m hoping for more, but Cyrus seems to be done.
“Okay, I know you guys are just excited to be here, but I did bring you here for a reason. So last night we met the vampire who seems to be behind these attacks,” Julian explains.
“What’s really strange about him is that he appears to be able to control people.
You know like… how a vampire’s allure works when they want to feed?
But very different. He can make you do whatever he says. ”
“But I thought allure only works if the person is already interested, right?” Cyrus asks. “Like… someone couldn’t persuade me to do something I absolutely don’t want to do.”
“This vampire can,” I admit. “Older vampires do have higher control of their allure. Like I could persuade you to do something you aren’t completely interested in, but it wouldn’t be as effective as me, say…
persuading you to do something you want to do.
And it wouldn’t be anything extreme. Like I couldn’t tell you to jump off the roof since your brain would override the command. ”
“But he has complete control? So he must be quite old.”
“I don’t think he is, though, is he?” Julian asks me. “You were doing quite well in the fight until he used his allure nonsense.”
I nod. “Yeah… I mean, it’s hard to fully tell age when you’re up against someone for such a short period of time, but he didn’t strike me as being overly powerful or talented at fighting until he used his allure on me.”
“Hold on,” Terrance says. “He could… allure you ? I didn’t think it worked on vampires.”
“It… generally doesn’t, but he was able to control me.” It irks me to have to tell Terrance how badly I failed.
“But it went beyond that,” Julian adds. “Like he was able to talk Casimir into nearly killing himself.”
“Do you want to die?” Cyrus asks. “Is that why he could convince you to do it?”
“No,” I say. And I don’t want to die… but should I? Maybe that’s a different question.
“So you’re talking complete control?” Terrance asks.
“He was able to force Casimir to stab himself in the stomach,” Julian says. “He also made Ezio freeze where he was so he couldn’t help, which tells me he can control more than one person at a time and command them to do different things.”
“What did he do to you?” Cyrus asks Julian.