Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Abi
Isipped at my delicious strawberry shortcake frappe and considered swapping alliances from caffeine to straight up sugar as I wandered out to Caffè Tlazo’s pleasant and breezy porch, where Daphne waited for me.
“Thanks for being willing to sit out here,” Daphne said. “With my werewolf nose, enclosed spaces can get kind of intense.”
I plopped down on a padded wrought iron chair that was settled against the café’s brick wall. “Of course. I’m sure it’s particularly bad in the summer when we're all sweating like pigs. Besides, sitting out here makes it that much easier to people watch.”
“Yeah, you mentioned you wanted to people watch while we talked about the… attacks.” Daphne lowered her voice, although she didn’t need to as we were the only ones sitting on the porch—the rest of the cafè patrons had chosen to stay indoors where the air conditioning hummed.
“Yes, because I’m pretty sure—and by I, I mean Beckett—it’s a vampire doing the attacking, and it’s probably someone temporarily moving through the area.” I took another sip of my drink, then added. “I’m regretting not coming here earlier. This drink is amazing!”
Daphne rattled her iced drink, which was a pleasant, light green color. “The food here is fantastic, but the drinks are extra special. Everyone in my Pack loves this place.” She leaned back in her chair. “But if Mr. Kinge says the attacker sounds like a vampire, it must be.”
“Have you seen anything to back up his conclusion?”
“I haven’t encountered any around town if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You’d be able to tell if you did?”
“If the vampire did something like use pheromones, I’d be able to tell immediately,” Daphne explained.
“Pheromones, as in… the chemical signals?” I asked.
“Yep. Vampires can use them to control humans. It clouds their minds and makes them open to suggestions,” Daphne said.
“Conventionally, it’s thought of as one of the methods vampires employed to make it easier to prey upon humans back in the centuries when they fed straight from the source.
But vampires are pretty hush hush about those days.
” She shrugged and leaned back in her chair.
“Would you only be able to tell as you walked past a vampire if they’d recently used pheromones?”
“Nah. That’s just the most obvious sign. I can usually still pick it up when I meet one since their bodies function differently from humans, or shifters and fae. Even their base scent is different since their bodies run cold.”
“Now that you mentioned it, I have noticed Beckett is usually refreshingly cool while I’m dying of heatstroke and sweating buckets,” I mused.
Daphne stopped chewing on her straw and made a weird noise, her eyes bulging as she—I assumed—inhaled some of her drink.
“Are you alright?” I asked when her coughing subsided.
“You’ve touched Mr. Kinge? Multiple times?”
“Yes.” I blinked. “Is that some kind of vampire taboo?”
“No.” Daphne stared at her drink. “It’s just… Mr. Kinge doesn’t get close to people.”
Oof, that’s a sentiment I understand. But while Beckett doesn’t get close to others because he needs to stay on the down low, I previously never had a chance to socialize much outside of work.
It was a very lonely life.
Still, this was a reminder that my time with Beckett was limited.
“Well, Beckett hasn’t had a house manager who knows what he is,” I said.
Daphne made a whining noise in the back of her throat that was very dog-like, and looked painfully uncomfortable and not at all convinced.
“Anyway.” I took another long slurp of my strawberry shortcake frappe, savoring the fruity flavor. “Despite encountering nothing to convince you we’re dealing with a vampire, you trust Beckett so much to base the conclusion off what he says?”
“It’s trust, but not the kind you’re thinking of. It’s not a friendly kind of trust.” Daphne tilted her head as she thought.
“Do vampires and werewolves not get along?” I asked.
“The different supernatural races are traditionally more self-focused and closed off. Naturally this has caused some friction as vampires will rally for vampire causes, fae will push for the matters that they care most about, and so on.” Daphne explained.
“But in more rural areas, away from the big magical city centers like Magiford, things are a little different. You’ll get spots where the different supernaturals are totally isolated from each other and a little more…
competitive as a result. Or you’ll get areas like Algoma, where the supernatural population is so thin we’re forced to lean into each other. ”
“You say that even though you’re part of a Pack?”
“The Ahnapee River Pack is tiny. It’s literally just composed of my family,” Daphne explained.
“And it stays small because of that. We’re not willing to risk trying to turn anyone because, over the last few decades, the survival rates for turning shifters have dropped so low that it's more than dangerous, it’s a death sentence for anyone who tries it.
All Ahnapee River Pack members are born werewolves. ”
I stretched my rudimentary knowledge of werewolves. “Isn’t that fairly rare?”
Daphne nodded. “It’s more likely in some specific werewolf lines, like my family. But it’s balanced by fertility struggles. That’s why there’s a big age gap between me and Flint, and we’re the only kids our parents had.”
Although this information was absolutely fascinating, I kept my mouth shut. Even I was emotionally aware enough to recognize that to a human like me this was interesting, but to Daphne, she was revealing familial pains.
“I understand,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “And so you interact with other local supernaturals because of your small Pack size?”
“Exactly,” Daphne said. “It would be dangerous not to.”
“Okay, so does that mean you trust the gnomes just as much as Beckett?”
Daphne tapped the plastic side of her drink. “Yes, but it’s a different kind of trust. My Pack trusts the gnomes to report facts and be honest despite being fae who are usually tricky creatures. But our trust of Mr. Kinge is… the kind of trust you give a leader.”
“Why?” I asked. “Beckett has made it more than obvious he doesn’t want to be a leader.”
“Yes,” Daphne agreed. “But he’s incredibly powerful due to his age and experiences.”
Aloud, I said “Hmm.”
Internally, I recognized that Beckett was screwed if he ever slipped up and his vampiric nature was revealed, making him go public.
The gnomes look to him for protection, while the werewolves naturally fall in line as they recognize his abilities. If supernaturals were democratic they would have forcibly voted him into some kind of position.
“Daphne.” Flint said in a monotone voice, appearing next to our table.
I jumped and almost sloshed my drink. (I hadn’t heard Flint approach as my back was to him.)
Daphne smiled at her little brother. “Hey. Did you already finish at the library?”
“It’s closed until ten a.m, so I put the books in the book drop,” Flint said.
“Woops. I didn’t think of that. Here.” Daphne fished twenty dollars out of her purse. “Go get a drink or something.”
Flint nodded his silent thanks, then slipped past our porch side table to head inside Caffè Tlazo.
I sipped my drink—which was sadly almost gone.
“So, the attacker is a vampire, is it?” Daphne fanned herself with her hand, stirring tendrils of her dark hair as she redirected our conversation to the point of our rendezvous.
“That narrows it down significantly. Though vampires are harder to track, at least now we’ll know what supernatural we’re trying to sniff out. ”
“Why are they harder to track?” I asked.
“Fae and wizards leave strong scents behind whenever they use magic.” Daphne explained.
“Shifters usually have an animalistic scent to them that’s easier to pick out around humans.
Vampires are a little more tricky since they move differently.
Unless they’ve recently shed they can be hard to track given their propensity to climb things.
Twerps—they feel so superior that they’ve got a thing about looking down on others.
” She rolled her eyes. “But if we know we’re looking for a vampire that’s half the battle. ”
“Could you scent a vampire if one walked past you?” I asked.
“It depends on the conditions. Today, yes.” Daphne motioned to 4th Street, which was perpendicular to us given that the porch of the house-like building Caffè Tlazo occupied was technically nestled on the side of the building, not the front.
“The wind is more of a low breeze and it’s blowing in the right direction.
Plus, the humidity helps glue scents. But if the vampire walked downwind, I wouldn’t be able to scent them. ”
“I see.” I frowned, considering the puzzle. “Then if we want to maximize our chances of encountering the vampire, we’d be better off walking around town in the early morning or late evening, given their nocturnal nature. Plus all the attacks have been at night.”
“True,” Daphne agreed. “A vampire brazen enough to attack like this probably doesn’t come out during the day and mingle. They see humans as beneath them.”
“And they’d have to be new to the area, not a local, given the sudden start to the attacks. Unless a local was made into a vampire?”
Daphne shook her head. “Vampires are struggling from the same issues as werewolves. The success rates of a human becoming a vampire have dropped to an all-time low. Any newly made vampire would be rejoiced over, and their sire wouldn’t let them go. So the vampire must be passing through.”
“Or they could be like me and newly moved to the area,” I pointed out.
“Maybe, but it would be dangerous to settle into an area and hunt there. Even if there isn’t a strong supernatural presence here, if they attract too much attention, the Magiford Curia Cloisters will intervene.”
Caffè Tlazo’s door opened, and Flint stepped onto the porch, carrying what looked like a fruit smoothie. Surprisingly, he was not alone.