Chapter 9 #2
He nodded against Jaks’s shoulder. “I hadn’t realized how much until now. It’s weird, but I don’t want anyone else to be your food source. Sort of like you don’t want others to drink from me, I don’t want you to drink from anyone else.”
Jaks rubbed his cheek against the top of Quentin’s head. “Unless it is a life-or-death emergency, there is no danger of me drinking from another. After having access to you, other humans don’t even smell good anymore. It would be like going from a glass of rare vintage wine to vinegar.”
He laughed at Jaks’s scandalized tone. “Well, I would rather be wine, I guess,” he said, amused at his lover’s analogy.
“I hate to break up our lovely moment, but I really have to finish my work.” He waved a hand toward his paper-covered desk.
“Fair enough. I’ll go check on Grevin.” He tilted his head up for a final kiss before he slid off Jaks’s lap. “Have fun with your paperwork.”
“Yeah, fun. Can’t wait. After this, I have a delightful meeting with the council to discuss our vampire problem,” he said, his tone drier than the Sahara.
“Sounds like fun. See you later.” Quentin blew him a kiss as he sashayed out the door. Apparently, being a top vampire wasn’t all flashing fangs and dominance battles.
As soon as he exited Jaks’s suite, he was greeted by one of his favorite people.
“Darling!”
Quentin blinked at his mother standing right outside of Grevin’s door. Good thing he hadn’t transported on top of her. He patted his chest over his thundering heartbeat.
“I thought it would be days before I saw you again,” she continued, unaware of his mini panic attack.
“What are you doing here?” It was in a completely different direction from her assigned apartment.
“I was visiting your necromancer friend. He’s such a sweet boy.”
“Sweet?” It took him a minute to connect the combination of Grevin and sweetness.
His friend was many things, but sweet wasn’t a word he would’ve chosen.
“I’m sure he appreciated your visit.” He settled with saying.
No doubt they spent their time bitching about him.
Maybe it was conceited of him to think that, but he sincerely couldn’t imagine what else they had in common.
“By the way, Jaks is assigning Braed to me for guard duty.” Maybe his mother would have the sense to object.
Wow. Her fangs really showed when she smiled. “Good. I’ll remind him to be extra vigilant.”
He almost felt sorry for the guy.
Almost.
If he weren’t such a dick.
“I was going to call you and tell you that there’s a new vampire movie coming out on Friday. Are you available to catch a movie and maybe do some antiquing with me? I need to get some furniture for my new place.”
Quentin snorted. His mother had been dragging him to terrible movies since he was a child.
She especially enjoyed bad science fiction and horror movies.
It was somewhat ironic that she had become a vampire.
“Sounds fun. Text me when you have the movie times.” It had been too long since they had a mother-son outing.
“Will do. I’ve got an appointment with my therapist now. See you later.” With a smirk and a wave, she sauntered off.
Shaking his head, Quentin knocked on Grevin’s door.
“Come in.”
He entered to find Grevin reclining on even more pillows.
Grevin’s relieved expression cracked Quentin up. “Expecting my mother.”
“She’s fucking relentless.” Grevin’s admiring tone had Quentin nodding. His mother could be a bit much. “You don’t have to worry about Jaks taking down your enemies, I don’t think they’d survive first contact with your mother.”
It took Quentin more time than it should’ve to get his giggles under control. He dropped into the chair beside Grevin’s bed.
“I’m glad that one of us is enjoying this,” Grevin pouted, but the amusement in his eyes belied his sulky tone.
“She’s great, isn’t she?”
Grevin nodded. “She is, you’re very lucky.”
“I am.” He didn’t know much about Grevin’s family, only that the ones he’d mentioned were all dead, and not once had he talked about pulling them from the afterlife for a chat.
For a necromancer to ignore his own dead told Quentin everything he needed to know about Grevin’s relationship with his deceased relatives.
“You should know that I’m seconds from breaking out and calling a car to take me home. I’d like you to be my accomplice.” His words were delivered in such a deadpan manner that they sent Quentin laughing again.
“I think you should stay until the doctor clears you, then I’ll be more than happy to teleport you home.”
Grevin sighed. “I hate it when you’re reasonable.”
“It’s a burden, but someone has to be.”
“How was class?”
Quentin’s expression must’ve tipped him off.
“What happened?” Grevin asked.
Quentin sighed. “It was a shitshow.” Running his fingers through his hair, he told Grevin everything along with Jaks’s conclusions.
“You think it was the chalk?”
“According to our tests, yes, but continuing to claim it was some unknown chalk that caused the accident won’t earn me any favors.”
“Not to mention yours was missing. You’re right. If you continue claiming that, it will look like you are inventing an excuse for your incompetence.” Grevin winced. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re right.” Quentin ran his fingers along the seam of his jeans.
“Besides, if I hadn’t been so lazy, I would’ve gone and gotten some chalk from the supply room.
Instead, I used chalk from an unknown source, endangering everyone.
I’m not even really upset about being suspended.
I’m upset that Rendell gets to lord it over me that I was a shit teacher, and after all the safety precautions I drilled into them during their first class, I do something like this. ”
Grevin patted Quentin’s arm in a surprisingly comforting move.
Grevin wasn’t known for his emotional intelligence.
Few necromancers were. They must be able to disconnect from their feelings to handle the dead, and the more they dealt with the dead, the worse the disconnect grew.
It was a brutal cycle. “It will turn out all right. You’ll either get rehired on your terms, or you can tell them to go fuck themselves. ”
Quentin sighed. “It sounds so easy when you put it like that.”
“It’s only complicated if you make it so.”
He couldn’t argue against that. “Any update on who might have attacked you?”
Grevin shook his head. “You probably won’t be surprised to learn the cops didn’t turn up anything new.”
“I am a little,” he admitted. “Those two at least seem semi-competent. If they didn’t find anything, there were probably no clues left behind. I was hoping I had missed some evidence, but I guess that was wishful thinking.”
“I still don’t know the motivation. I mean, not everyone likes necromancers, but I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill me. I try to keep out of people’s way.”
It was a sad fact that necromancers were considered the gutter trash of the magical world. To be overlooked or denigrated unless they were needed.
“It had to be someone who knew the weaknesses of my wards and was familiar enough with my house to know how to find my private ritual room.”
Quentin hated to agree. Betrayal hurt.
“Is there anyone you want me to contact about you being here?” Surely there was someone to miss the cranky necromancer.
Grevin thought about it for a minute. “No. If someone is plotting my death, I’d rather they don’t know I survived. Right now, no one knows what happened to me unless you told anyone.”
“No. I kept it to myself. Besides Jaks and Dr. Wesson, I only told mother.” He frowned. “Braed was there also. I don’t know who he might have told.”
Grevin rubbed his forehead. “Hopefully, no one. I don’t think they used magic to break the circle, but they had to use magic to remove my protections.”
“True. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sense any.
” Quentin tapped his chin as he reviewed and discarded the few investigation skills he had.
“I haven’t reached out to the bounty hunters yet.
I’m sure they have much more sophisticated tracking spells.
I only know a few. The only reason I found Vlad so fast was that he wasn’t hiding, and they gave me the address,” he admitted without shame.
Grevin laughed. “Dammit. Stop making me laugh. It hurts.”
“Sorry, Grev,” he said, smiling. If his friend was hurting, at least Quentin lightened his heart a little bit.
“If you want to call your bounty hunter people, I have no objection. The wards are down, so I won’t need to let them in. You don’t even need clearance from the police because they already closed the case.”
“Already?” Quentin frowned. “That’s unusually fast police work.”
Grevin snorted. “I don’t know how much ‘work’ was really done. I got the impression that they were certain I was at fault and only pretended to look things over so they could claim they investigated.”
“Huh. That wasn’t the impression I had of them before. Maybe they’re prejudiced.” Quentin chewed on his bottom lip, pulling at the chapped skin he still hadn’t taken care of.
“Stop that. You’ll make your lip bleed, and then you’ll have Loverboy killing his clan to keep them away from you.”
Quentin smirked. “Right. I should only do it in front of vampires I dislike is what I heard.”
Grevin’s bark of laughter echoed in the room. “Ouch, Q, stop being so funny.”
“Sorry again.”
“No, you’re not.” Grevin squinted at him. “Are your eyes glowing?”
It took Quentin a second to jump to a different conversational track. “What?”
“The silver ring around your eyes was glowing. Since when did you have any silver in your eyes?”
“Hmm, I would’ve thought the bracelet would block that.”
Grevin gave his bracelet a cursory look. “Necromancers can see past enchantments. What’s going on?”
It only took him a second before he decided Grevin could be trusted. He told him what his father had shared.