Chapter 8
Sometimes Lorenzo’s supernaturally heightened senses felt like a curse.
Usually he didn’t notice them; he’d been a vampire for over two hundred years, so he was used to the sharp eyesight and sensitive hearing by now.
He remembered being overwhelmed by it back when he’d first turned—on a ship, of all places, suddenly feeling the pitch of the boat and hearing the boiling spray of the ocean to such a heightened degree that it felt like torture.
Now, of course, it was better. Enhanced eyesight helped when you could only ever go out at night, and the sharp hearing was useful.
The heightened sense of smell was the strangest part, though.
Humans ran the gamut—many smelled awful, like body odor or vape smoke; but sometimes he could smell a person’s blood so clearly that he could almost taste it on his tongue.
Most of the time he tried to just shut it out, though it was hard to do so entirely.
Rachel smelled like pears and rotting eggs; Maggie smelled like pebbles and rainstorms; Isolde smelled like something primally terrifying that he couldn’t put his finger on, and a little like horse.
Here, in his car, as he drove down a dark, winding road with Charlie in his passenger seat, it was very, very hard to shut out his scent.
He smelled nice—soapy and clean, the faint call of blood under a much stronger layer of warm human familiarity.
He’d gotten a whiff of Charlie’s scent before, but it was stronger here, in the small car.
He was starting to notice all its delicate layers—the floral and artificial scents that must have been his laundry detergent, fabric softener, maybe cologne; the city scents that clung to him, as they did all humans, going largely unnoticed—soot and dust.
And beneath all that, the sweat of his skin, tangy and tempting. And something more; a scent that seemed to seep into Lorenzo’s very bones; something just of Charlie’s, like a color only he could see. It drifted around him, maddening.
And it was impossibly distracting, knowing what Lorenzo knew now.
He hadn’t been able to smell, touch, or taste Charlie in the dream, because he hadn’t actually been there—it had all been in Charlie’s mind. But Charlie’s mind had still pulled him close, unafraid and clinging. Charlie had turned the dream into something hot and inescapable.
Charlie wanted him.
It was only a dream. There was no way to say for sure what it meant or what it portended.
It was just that here, now, with Charlie right next to him and his delicious scent bottling up in the car, he couldn’t help but wonder what Charlie would be like—what he would taste or smell like—if Lorenzo touched him like that for real.
He cracked his window and cool air rushed in, dissipating the scent. He breathed a small sigh of relief. Charlie glanced at him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Lorenzo said levelly.
Why oh why had he told Charlie that he was a creature of his word?
Luring Charlie in with his false promises at first had been no great sin, but to outright refuse to help him now, when they’d made a deal?
One that had been struck after spending more time with Charlie, getting reacquainted with him, even letting him meet his friends?
No, he couldn’t deny him. He’d lost their bet. There was no sense in losing his honor too.
He was stuck with Charlie—for now, at least.
He’d just have to ignore how tempting he smelled.
“Alright,” Charlie said. “So, druids! I’m excited.”
“Really?” Lorenzo asked. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t even know there was a kind of supernatural creature called druids before last night? And now I’m about to meet some?” He grinned triumphantly. “Good thing I won our bet.”
Lorenzo clenched his jaw and said nothing. “So, how do you know these druids?” Charlie asked.
“I’ve worked with them in the past.”
“Like when you were security for the werewolves?”
“Yes,” Lorenzo said. “Like that.”
“Hm. Well, until we get there,” Charlie said, getting out his phone to take notes, “I still have a lot of questions for you about vampires.”
“Ugh,” Lorenzo said.
“Where to start,” Charlie said, tapping a finger against his lips. “Oh—is any of that religious stuff true? Like, do crosses and holy water burn you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t go around touching crosses,” Lorenzo said.
“Fair enough,” Charlie said. “But as far as you know . . .?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “Okay,” Charlie said, tapping on his phone. “And, clearly the mirror thing is fake.”
“Yes,” Lorenzo said, glancing in the rearview.
“But you can’t go out in daylight?” Charlie asked.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“What happens if you do?”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve never tried it.”
“So you just don’t know?”
Lorenzo sighed. “It is said we burst into flame. Or disintegrate into ash. Possibly both.”
“That . . . sucks,” Charlie said, sounding surprisingly upset. Lorenzo glanced at him. “I mean, you said you grew up by the ocean. You must . . . miss the sun.”
Lorenzo gripped the steering wheel, feeling a phantom warmth on his arms, the grit of hot, wet sand between his fingers.
He hadn’t lost just one thing when he’d lost the sun: he’d lost long summer afternoons and colors you could only find in a sunset, the special laziness that comes from loafing around first thing in the morning, the look of joy on a loved one’s face as they squint up into a burst of starlight after a long winter.
“Sometimes,” he said quietly.
It took him a moment to realize that Charlie hadn’t responded. “What?”
“I can just keep asking questions, y’know,” Charlie said. “You answer in monosyllables and I’ll just keep asking more and more questions until I get what I want.”
“Sometimes is a duosyllable.”
Charlie bit his lip, but it didn’t hold back his pleased smile. His eyes were dark and sharp, like he was pinning Lorenzo in place just by looking at him.
Or maybe he was remembering the dream.
Lorenzo cleared his throat, noticing the turn he had to take just in time. “A clinic?” Charlie asked, sounding surprised. “Is this the right spot?”
Lorenzo parked next to some scrubby bushes and didn’t bother to respond.
Inside, the clinic was as dreary as these things usually are—there was a door that led to private rooms, a screen to one side setting off a section of the room for shots, and an old TV in the corner playing Bluey.
Luckily, though, they were the only patrons aside from a woman up front who was speaking with Dylan, Lorenzo’s druid friend.
“Now, heat-quenching potions are kinda unreliable,” Dylan was explaining as he handed her a small prescription bottle. “And your insurance is only going to cover some of them.”
“Which ones?” the woman asked, peering at the runes on her prescription label.
Dylan grabbed a sheet from under the desk and handed it to her.
“Call this number, and then this number, and they’ll send you some forms. Once you submit those, a shaman will perform a ritual that will indicate whether the insurer will cover it.
But sometimes they change their coverage, and even the shamans can’t predict it, so.
” Dylan shrugged, looking sympathetic. “Best be prepared to pay out of pocket.”
The patient thanked him and left, and Dylan grinned when he realized Lorenzo was waiting.
“Hey man, haven’t seen you in a beat.” He was one of the younger druids, beefy and handsome in a grungy kind of way.
Dylan was a bit more of a free thinker than the rest of his family—he’d left town after high school and only come back a few years ago.
“Dylan,” Lorenzo said. “This is . . . Charlie.”
If Charlie noticed that he’d given up trying to define their relationship, he did nothing other than flick Lorenzo a quick look. “Hi!” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same,” Dylan said. Turning back to Lorenzo, he asked, “So, you need some potions, or are you selling again?”
“Selling?” Charlie asked him.
“Neither,” Lorenzo said, hoping that would dispel Charlie’s questions. “Charlie . . . has some questions for you. He is a student.”
Dylan looked intrigued, and Charlie leaned forward against the counter, his smile widening. “Well, I have a lot of questions,” he said. “About you, and this clinic. But first, and most importantly . . .” He turned to look at Lorenzo. “What does he sell you?”
Lorenzo stifled a groan. “Vamps, man?” Dylan said. “Oh, we buy everything—hair, teeth, nails. Blood, obviously. It’s all great in healing spells.” He clapped Lorenzo on the shoulder. “But this guy’s usually only good for the little things.”
Because Lorenzo’s blood could be used for magicks far more dangerous than mere healing spells. But he declined to mention that; he could only imagine how insatiable Charlie would be with that knowledge.
“The little things,” Charlie was echoing. “So—you sell him . . .”
“Locks of hair,” Lorenzo grunted. “On occasion.”
“Wow,” Charlie said. “What does that get you?”
Lorenzo refused to dignify that with anything more than flinty silence, so Charlie turned to Dylan. “I mean, generally, what would you . . .”
“Depends on the day,” Dylan said, dragging a small scale from the side of the counter closer to them. “We got some vamp hair the other day, actually, where was it . . .”
He fished a small plastic baggie with a few locks of reddish-blonde hair out from under the counter and put it on the scale.
Rather than displaying the weight, the scale glowed faintly bluish-purple for a moment before displaying some glyphs on the readout.
“This was thirty-five bucks. Damn, that’s rough. ”
“Hang on,” Charlie said, leaning in closer. “Is that . . . surge pricing?”
“Yep,” Dylan said, putting the scale away and crossing his thick arms. “That’s the coven for you.”
“Wow. So—you’re not affiliated with them?” Charlie asked. “The coven?”
“Oh, no. I’m a druid, not a witch,” Dylan explained. “I just work for them.”
Charlie leaned forward, a smile on his face like a set of cocktails was about to materialize between them. “Tell me more.”
Lorenzo zoned out as Dylan droned on about the history of the druids.
He was more interested—more fixated, really—on Charlie.
He was so incredibly at ease here; meeting someone new, asking all about them, joking around and fitting in.
Charlie was every bit as smart and catty as Lorenzo remembered him being—well, maybe a bit less catty—but he was also as sharply insightful as Lorenzo remembered. And wasn’t that the real problem?
What was so wanting in Lorenzo that Charlie had spotted and disdained all those years ago? And why couldn’t Lorenzo find his same comfort and ease?
“Well, thanks,” Charlie said at length, flicking a glance over at him. “This has been so useful. So far, Lorenzo hasn’t taken me to meet a single witch.”
“Of course not,” Dylan said. “They hate vampires.”
“Not druids, though?”
“Oh, no,” Dylan said. “I get a ton of side gigs for the vamps.”
Other vampires, he meant. Lorenzo swallowed back his discomfort as Charlie flicked a curious glance at him.
“Side gigs?” Charlie asked.
“Mm-hmm,” he said. “I work vamp parties, mostly.”
“Parties? Doing what?”
“Well like, druids are nature mages,” Dylan explained. “So I can enchant human blood so it tastes like—anything.”
“Wow,” Charlie said. “Like what?”
“I can’t get into that,” Dylan said, leaning back. “Client confidentiality, you understand.”
Charlie contemplated that for a minute, and then turned to Lorenzo. “What would you want a human’s blood to taste like?”
Lorenzo felt his lips part.
He had no idea what to say.
Before he could embarrass himself, Dylan said, “Oh, Lorenzo’s never at those parties. He’s a stand-up guy.”
Lorenzo winced. “Oh yeah?” Charlie asked, his gaze lingering on Lorenzo as he fought a wave of prickling heat.
“Yeah. Those things can get pretty wild, when you’ve got a whole nest of vamps together,” Dylan said. “Dark stuff. But Lorenzo’s cool. More of a lone wolf. Or a lone . . . corpse.”
“Thanks, Dylan,” Lorenzo said quietly.
Charlie narrowed his eyes, glancing back and forth between them as a small smile grew on his face. “Tell me more about Lorenzo.”
“I think we’re done here,” Lorenzo said swiftly.
Dylan laughed good-naturedly. “I see how it is. Listen,” he told Charlie, “Let me know if you ever want to come meet more of the circle. My cousin Jude does these crazy rituals, you could come see.”
“I would love that!” Charlie said warmly, offering his hand again. “It was so nice to meet you.”
Back in Lorenzo’s car, Charlie said, “So, about those parties . . .”
“I am not taking you to a vampire party,” Lorenzo said with finality. That was impossible for any number of reasons.
“I don’t want you to,” Charlie said defensively. “I just want to know.” He stared at Lorenzo for another moment, seeming to weigh his words, and then said: “What flavor blood would you pick?”
Lorenzo scoffed and didn’t answer, while Charlie wheedled him, smiling that ingratiating, silly smile that made Lorenzo want to do many, many things that he shouldn’t.
Charlie was insightful, uncomfortably so—that much was true. But unlike the last time they’d known each other, this time Charlie was noticing him. Focused on him. He seemed to be waiting Lorenzo out at times, curious about him. This Charlie was almost . . . gentle with him.
No. That was a dangerous line of thought.
“Come on,” Charlie was saying. “If life were a giant Coca-Cola custom drink machine at a druid-assisted vampire party, you’d pick—”
“Nothing,” Lorenzo snapped. “I’d want—”
He glanced over at Charlie, and then couldn’t help but hold his eyes as he said, “I would want to taste your blood just as it is.” He swallowed. “If it were me.”
“Okay,” Charlie breathed.