Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Abi
Idug my phone out of my jacket. My fingers shook as I called Daphne and listened to the ringtone. She didn’t pick up—she was probably still in the Pack meeting—but I listened to her voicemail and waited to leave her a message.
“Hey, Daphne, it’s Abi. Could you call me back as soon as you get a chance—and check your text messages.” I ended the call before switching to a text.
I knew vampire senses were stronger than human senses, so I wasn’t sure how much Josephine would be able to hear if she really was a vampire.
It was safer, then, to tell Daphne my realization in a text instead of saying it out loud for a voicemail.
I added my location for the werewolf’s reference, then fired off the message.
That done, I looked up and down the beach, trying to appear casual as I discreetly eyed Josephine, who was yacking Lina’s ear off.
I wonder… if Josephine really is the voracious vampire, why is she here in Algoma when she just fed off Noah over the weekend?
Maybe I had it all wrong. Again.
Sighing, I stood up, dusted my blue jean shorts off, and checked my pockets for my wallet and smashed granola bar as I tried to recall if Daphne had ever directly met Josephine.
They’d been in the general area—like the time I’d gotten seasick—but I don’t think Daphne had ever had a chance to get a good sniff of the wealthy woman.
I again glanced at Josphine and Lina, planning to do a quick peek and then immediately look away, but instead I did a double take.
Josephine seemed only half interested as she was playing with the beaded necklace she wore. However, Lina’s head was tilting uncomfortably to the side, almost as if she was sleeping while standing. Her gaze, too, was blank and dazed.
Pheromones. She’s getting swamped with vampire pheromones!
Even though I didn’t know what the exact expression would look like, having experienced the dazed sensation myself I had a pretty good idea.
Josephine had to be the vampire we were looking for, and she had Lina in her sights.
I casually started to stroll up the beach, heading in their general direction—although I tried to glance only occasionally at them and spent most of my time gazing at the darkening lake waters.
Just because Josephine was here didn’t mean she was hunting, but I didn’t like that she was using pheromones on Lina, and out in the open. There were only a handful of people on the beach since it was a weekday night, but wouldn’t that be enough to make Josephine hesitate?
Maybe I should call Beckett. He’d know what to make of it. No, no. I can’t; he made his boundaries clear. Daphne’s my only option as far as help goes.
I paused long enough to send another text to Daphne, telling her what was happening and that I was keeping an eye on the situation.
Unfortunately, when I looked up, Josephine was leading Lina up the boardwalk stairs, heading away from the beach and up to the street level.
Is she luring her away to feed from? This breaks all her previous patterns of catching someone unaware and attacking them. What is going on?
Instead of following directly behind them, I used one of the sets of stairs further down the beach, zooming up them like a thundering hippo and then sprinting up the sidewalk before the two ladies reached the street level, so I could close some of the distance between us.
There were shrub-like trees and long grasses that partially blocked their view, so I didn’t have to slow down to a walk until they reached the second or third from the top step.
Then Josephine pulled out a car key fob and unlocked a fancy white car that was some expensive make and model too far above my paygrade to recognize, and my blood turned cold.
Why didn’t I listen to my mother and carry pepper spray?!
I started running again while Josephine opened the front passenger door of the car and motioned for a dazed Lina to get in.
Thankfully, Lina moved slowly, so I was able to reach the duo before she’d done more than put her hand on the car door.
“Hello, Lina! And Josephine Dupont—it’s French, I know, you’ve told me.” I laughed, high pitched like a hyena, in between wheezes as I gasped for air. (I was an office worker, not a sprinter.)
“I apologize for being so rude, Josephine, but could I borrow Lina for one second? I have a very important question about wine. Dry wine, to be precise,” I said, talking as swiftly as I could politely manage without hopefully drawing attention.
Still talking, I grabbed Lina by the shoulders and tugged her away from the car. “I need to give some dry wine as a gift. I just so happen to dislike it, so I could use her expertise to make certain I select something appropriate. I apologize, again, this will only take a moment.”
Lina let me tow her along, her expression still slack and dazed. (In fact, it was quite creepy how out of it she was.)
I struggled to juggle my cellphone and keep tugging Lina casually down the sidewalk. (Lina was pliable, but she shuffled as if her feet were fitted with cinderblock boots.) “So, about von Stiehl’s dry wines,” I said to her, as if I expected a coherent answer from her.
“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
I almost didn’t recognize Josephine’s voice. The playful air of snobbery was gone, replaced by something ancient and cold.
“Figured what out?” I asked, playing dumb while I took another step away from Josphine and struggled to keep a listless Lina upright.
(I had no idea the radius in which Josephine’s pheromones worked—the book said it varied based on a vampire’s power—but I obviously needed to get as far away from her as fast as possible.)
“You’ve realized I’m a vampire.” Josephine took off her glamorous sunglasses that were reminiscent of old Hollywood, revealing her red eyes.
I’d known most vampires didn’t have the same lovely shade of merlot-red as Beckett’s, but Josephine’s had me grimacing in revulsion. Her pupils were a bloodshot color that would have had a normal person thinking she suffered from a severe eye infection.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but are you okay? Your eyes look a little funny. You might want to see an optometrist when you stop traveling for the summer and go home.” I studied my phone and tried to call Daphne again, but she didn’t pick up.
“Stop stalling, girl. I know you hang around the werewolves and work for Beckett Kinge. You know supernaturals,” Josephine spat out.
It seems I’ve really jumped into it. I have no regrets, though. I was being impulsive, but it’s not like I could stand by and let her just take Lina!
Josephine impatiently tugged on her beaded necklace. “Get in the car, human.”
“No, thank you.” Desperate, I scrolled to a different contact—Beckett Kinge.
Just before I was able to press the call button, Josephine darted across the gap between us with the speed of lightning. She grabbed my phone and flung it into the grassy hillside that marked the transition between the beach and the street.
I sucked in a deep breath and got about one second of a scream out before Josephine covered my mouth with her hand. I bit down on her palm as hard as I could.
Josephine snarled something—I’m pretty sure it was a couple curse words in French based on how it sounded—then grabbed me by my wrist and tossed me against her car.
She’d done it casually, as if I weighed as much as a doll, but I spattered against the vehicle like a bug.
I groaned as the world swirled and I was unable to tell what was going on for a few short seconds.
Ironically, I could hear the faint ringing of my ringtone.
With my luck Daphne was finally getting back to me, but who knew where my phone was.
Josephine shoved me into the passenger seat, slammed the door shut, got into the driver’s seat, and started the car up.
I was just starting to recover when she executed a U-turn that painfully slammed me against the glass window. I peeled myself off the window and was able to twist in my seat and look through the back windshield to see Lina—still dazed and out of it—standing on the sidewalk.
Good. At least she’s okay.
With that knowledge to bolster me, I took quick inventory of the situation.
Josephine hadn’t buckled me in since, apparently, she didn’t care about my wellbeing. The door was locked, but I don’t think she had the child locks engaged, and we were still in city limits so the speed limit was thirty-five miles per hour.
I was pretty sure trying to jump at this speed was going to get me severely banged up and some broken bones. But the speed limit was only going to go up as we left town, and I’d take my chances with the road over a homicidal vampire, thank you.
Stiffening, I prepared to make my move.
However, before I could grab the door handle, Josephine—using her vampire speed—put her hand on the back of my skull and then pushed with so much force she slammed my forehead into the dashboard.
Thankfully she missed my glasses so I didn’t get shards of glass in my eyes. But the blow made the world whirl and my vision went weird and my hearing turned muffled.
I tried to cling to consciousness, but all I felt was explosive pain.