Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
BOZ
Memphis leaned over my cubicle wall and sniffed. "If I can smell your fear all the way from the door to your cube, the vamps will know something's wrong the minute they enter the building. We need to get you a charm or a scented candle or something."
I laughed. The wolf shifter had quickly become one of my favorite coworkers. I'd assumed he and Sekhmet were mated, but she was his little sister. Her husband, Ray, was a journalist for the northeastern supernatural communication network, and they were expecting their first baby any day now.
Memphis couldn't wait to be an uncle, and I didn't want to take that from him, or any of them, because of my fear. When he and Kristen asked me to take a field trip with them to the council building across the street, I gladly complied. I felt like a sitting duck at my desk .
Enid, the witch I'd met when I first started and had seen walking around the apartment building with Santa before Christmas, worked in a tiny office on the second floor. She waved in greeting and raised her eyebrows at me. "You and Santa, eh?"
It creeped me out, the way every other supernatural being in the city knew more about me than I knew about them. "Do I smell like him or something?"
She grinned. "Or something. Consider it good fortune to have a bond with a vampire as old and powerful as Santa."
"Powerful?" I asked.
"Sex appeal is its own power." Kristin nodded.
"He's kind of a big deal, beyond the club," Memphis said. "He's the reason my sister and I could stay in Boston. He donates money to every shifter halfway house and shelter in the city."
"He funds the witches' school, too," Enid said. "Imagine having a scholarship from St. Nicholas himself."
Nicholas. I'd asked Santa for his name, but he'd refused to give it to me. Part of me didn't care, but I had to admit, I wanted a deeper understanding of him. Was that even his given name, or another he'd chosen after becoming a vampire?
I returned my focus to the conversation. Enid asked for a drop of my blood to complete her binding spell, and she bound my fear to me with the scent of my blood.
"Won't that attract the vampires?" I asked.
"It will repel them. Your blood will smell heavily of alcohol. If they bite you, they'll experience the same side effects as when they eat human food. If they harm you, it won't be pleasant."
"What if that doesn't stop them?" I asked.
"I've tied you to Santa's wards using your blood. If something happens to you, he'll feel it, the same way he would sense an intruder."
"What if they send humans or shifters during the day?" I asked.
Enid glanced at Kristin and Memphis. "Stick together. From what Colette told the council, these vampires are resourceful. Human and shifter threats are highly possible. Don't go anywhere alone, if you can help it."
I would be Kristin and Memphis's new shadow until it was safe.
During our daily debrief meeting, Colette introduced me to Rocky. The tall, lanky vampire with dark brown skin and thick cornrow braids set one of his to-go cups on my desk to free a hand for me to shake .
"Rocky's our youngest vampire in Boston," Colette said. "All of two months."
"If you say so," he said. "I don't remember much about it."
Colette nodded. "That's expected. The blood lust is overpowering at first. How is your training going?"
He grabbed his second cup of blood from the corner of my desk and clutched it to his chest. "It's still going." He took a gulp from one cup, and then the other, double fisting them. Was this my future?
Colette looked like she had more questions, but each time she opened her mouth, Rocky took a drink. "This isn't helping," she finally decided. "Thank you, Rocky. You may go now."
He vanished in a flash, with a rustle of papers on top of the filing cabinet outside Colette's office.
"Your experience will differ from most new vampires. My line, Empress Marcella's line, can help our vampire progeny through the first months of the transition. Our mind control will help you stifle your urges around humans, and we'll provide an unending supply of real blood."
"I know you're trying to make me feel better about becoming a vampire," I said slowly, not wanting to anger her. "What if I don't want to?"
"I want you to live." She took a sip of her drink. "That's the most important thing. As a human, you're fragile. "
I remembered the pain of my leg breaking, and I agreed. If my choices were between living and dying, I would always choose to live.
I asked her the question I'd first asked Santa. "Do you remember when you were turned? What was it like?"
She laughed. "Yes."
Well, that was better than Santa's answer, at least.
"I hated the empress, my sire, for the first two weeks. I couldn't get her out of my head. Back then, blood donors had to be coerced, so we spent most nights feasting on any who mistakenly offered to buy our services as streetwalkers. Empress Marcella is incredibly talented in that regard. She could make a man think he'd experienced all the pleasure of Santa's VIP room without touching anything but his neck."
Even though my brain power was analytical, the psychological aspects of mind control intrigued me.
"Do you think I'll have that kind of power?"
"No. You might have telepathy or even telekinesis, but the skill wanes the further removed you are from the empress's blood." She leaned forward and lowered her voice, setting me on edge. "It wouldn't surprise me if that was the real reason she chose me to turn you, rather than visiting herself. While she is the smartest vampire I've ever met, she knows her weaknesses, of which math is one."
Her archaic way of speaking made me snort a laugh. "I may be good with numbers, but I'm horrible with people. That wouldn't improve, even if I could control their minds. I'm no competition for her empire."
"Maybe." Colette leaned back in her chair, and the tension in my shoulders eased. "What other questions do you have?"
I asked her about the training Rocky had mentioned. Mine would be on-the-job with Colette. I was relieved I could stick with my small circle of friends and colleagues while I went through something so momentous.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. If I had to become a vampire, allowing one of the empress's progeny to turn me would save me some of the hassle, and it would save Santa from having to sire me before I got too old and ugly for him, if he was still around. "I'll do it."
"Fantastic. We have some paperwork for you to sign, and then I'll take a picture of it to send to Rome."
Fifteen minutes later, I left her office with thoughts of super speed and strength, and of possibly being able to use the force. I returned to my desk to grab my coat and scarf, wondering if I would even need them afterward, since Santa didn't seem to feel the cold.
As I walked past Colette's office on the way out to Santa's car, I wondered, "Will I be able to fly? "
Colette laughed. "Highly unlikely. The vampires who can are from another line."
I would still be vulnerable to the vampire who had attacked me, then, even as a vampire. Still, I would survive the fall and heal with super speed.
Maybe being a vampire wasn't such a bad thing, after all.
"You smell terrible," Santa said when I slid into his passenger seat. "Did you take a bath in bourbon?"
"It's only for a couple days!" I hoped. "The witch said she connected to your wards, that you wouldn't?—"
"I'm kidding!" He gave me an awkward hug, almost pulling me out of the bucket seat. "You smell like alcohol, but I can also feel the magic binding you to my wards and lifting the side effects for me." He grinned. "Though I wonder how you'll taste."
Santa didn't have to say much to get my libido pumping. The short drive always took too long, especially when he had to work.
It was Thursday night. After relieving some of the pressure with a quickie in the shower, Santa left for Fanglory. He closed on Thursdays, leaving me at home watching bad reality television until I fell asleep waiting for him.
I had two more nights as a human, and then Colette would turn me into a vampire. To prepare, I tried watching one of the vampire reality shows. It was like the old standard, Survivor , but instead of winning a million dollars, the one who outlasted the others was turned by the vampire host during the final episode. Tonight was the two-hour season finale.
One thing was certain: I wouldn't have passed all the ridiculous tests to become a vampire. I still didn't understand why Empress Marcella had chosen me, of all people. I'd only met with her once over a video conference call to share the findings of my report. That was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, and yet, I didn't remember most of it.
"She wipes your mind," Santa confirmed when I blabbed my fears of my new boss, along with the plot of the reality show and my certainty I would have failed miserably. "She can access your memories, sometimes without you knowing." He shuddered as he lay down beside me. "She's seen me in your memories, then. She hasn't told Colette to kill me yet, so that's good."
"Why would she want to kill you?"
"Killing another vampire is forbidden without her permission, and I killed my sire. I thought it was the only way to break the sire bond."
"It's not?"
He shrugged. "Key and Greed met with an old-world shaman who freed them from it. "
"Shamans?"
"Vampires who know magic. Most of their magic is herbal, but the powerful warding spells around the empress's palace in Rome differ from witch magic. I don't know how they came to be, but they are both vampires and witches. Either they were witches before they were turned, or they learned magic afterward."
"Did you ever try to learn magic?" I asked.
"Magic? Sweetness, I am magical enough. I drew you to me."
"You pushed me away at first," I reminded him.
"I'm glad I did." He pressed his lips to mine in a gentle kiss. He tasted of mint, but I hadn't registered the seconds it took him to brush his teeth before coming to bed. "If I'd let you pay me, we wouldn't be here now."
"Yeah?"
"You're the first person I've ever brought home from the club. I found the rest of my strays at VAMP or the homeless shelters and halfway houses around the city."
"Ever? In two hundred years?"
He kissed me again. "Is it that hard to believe?"
"No. You're very particular about separating your work and home life." I liked that about him. He never talked about work. I knew he enjoyed it, but he didn't rub it in my face. When he returned home, he still made me feel like I was the most important person in his life, no matter how much sex he'd had at the club .
Sex was sex. Cuddles were priceless, especially with a vampire who'd told me he didn't kiss on the lips.
A new fear dawned as I remembered the sign hanging outside the VIP lounge at Fanglory. "Humans only. No Vampires Allowed."
"Will you still want me when I'm a vampire?"
"I'll miss being able to bite you," he said. "That's been a fun bonus to our lovemaking."
"Lovemaking?" I chuckled. I was overtired and still reeling from the television show. Maybe I misunderstood his words or heard what I wanted to hear.
"Fucking a vampire is intense." Santa ignored my question and chose a different descriptor. "I've found myself wondering what it would be like with you, if I didn't have to hold back."
"You've been holding out on me?"
"I don't want to break your pelvis accidentally." He leaned down and kissed my shoulder before resting his head on my chest. "The sign at Fanglory … new vampires aren't the problem. It's the older vamps who try to overpower me. We've cleaned up so many destroyed sets over the years. I finally said no vamps."
"So when Colette turns me, I'll be the only vampire you'll fuck?"
I felt his lips turn up in a grin against my arm. "Yeah, you will. I haven't attempted a casual vampire romance for decades."
I don't know why those words made me happy, but my chest felt lighter than air as I smiled at the ceiling. "Casual vampire romance. That's what I'll be to you?"
He mumbled something against my arm.
"I call bullshit," I said. "You're not too tired to enunciate."
His gentle nibbles on my arm tickled, and I laughed.
"You're more than that to me, and you know it. I fucking l-like you. I don't like many people."
"I like you, too, dork."
He frowned up at me. "Dork? I am the sexiest being you've ever seen."
"So tell me your real name, and I'll call you that."
"Fuck you." He shifted from nibbling my arm to tickling my ribs, and I dissolved into tearful laughter. I was overtired and in love with a vampire I still knew little about.
He knew how to put me to sleep, though. He stopped tickling me and rolled us onto our sides, curling around me like a weighted blanket. My mind finally settled, and I slept.
As tired as I was, my Friday morning was productive. It was almost eleven when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket, pulling me away from proofreading a new report for Kristin. So far, I loved my next project after exposing the financial planning department's mishandling of the empress's money. I hadn't realized how stressful it had been. When I glanced at the time on my ringing phone, 10:50 a.m., I realized I'd been in a flow state poring over the numbers for the last two hours.
It was my mom. I didn't bother to take my phone to one of the common areas. Kristin was in her office with the door closed, and the rest of the department sat far enough away to give me some privacy at my desk. At night, the two rows of cubicles outside Kristin and Colette's shared office were reserved for visiting vampires. I was the only one in the department not hoteling with someone on the night crew. It got lonely during the day, but the result was uninterrupted work time, which I loved.
That also meant I was the only one close enough to hear the phone conversation that instantly escalated. "Your dad and I have been talking about … things. We think you'd be better off at a different job. We've found you a decent place in New York City, and you can work with Matt. You'll be roommates, too."
"I am not moving in with Matt." He'd been my best friend in high school, and I'd been to that shithole he called an apartment. "No way."
"You're throwing your life away!"
My dad had been excited to learn I worked for Imperial Accounting. He said he'd applied when he and mom first moved to Boston, but he hadn't passed the tests. It was the first time he'd said he was proud of a choice I'd made, not one he'd made for me.
With one sentence, my mom erased my good mood. "We don't approve of you becoming a vampire."
"We talked about this," I said. "I'll still come home to see you, same as always. The time of day will be a little different, but?—"
"You won't be the same. You'll change into one of those monsters like the ones that visited here last night."
I sucked in a breath. "Vampires came to your house?"
Through the frosted glass, I saw Kristin rise from her desk. She opened her door and stuck her head through a moment later. "Who are you talking to?"
"My parents," I whispered back while my mom shouted more nonsense about devils in suits.
"I need to go to them," I said.
Kristin shook her head. "No way. I'm sending the council's day team. They know what to look for. If your parents have been manipulated, they'll know."
She shut her door and returned to her desk.
"Mom, I have work to do. We'll send a team over to find out what's happened to you. Just sit tight, okay?"
"Send a team? Sit tight? Who are you? Are you still my son, or have they already ripped you away from us?"
She continued her rant against vampires. I expected to hear that brand of vitriol from religious zealots, not my mom. The fury in her voice brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't listen to any more of her hate. I ended the call and muted the ringer completely.
While I sat in shock, Kristin ordered lunch for us from the deli down the street. The next thing I knew, she handed me a bag of food, pulled me out of my rolling chair, and dragged me to the large conference room. There, she rescued the bag of food before sandwiches started spilling out the top and set it on the table. She shoved me toward the nearest chair across from Memphis.
The shifters surrounded me, giving me a group hug while I tried to read the scribbled contents of my sandwich. Still overwhelmed by the conversation with my mom, I sniffled and tried to hold back tears. I righted my glasses, which had been knocked around during the group hug, until I could read "roast beef, extra pickle" on the label.
"We will figure everything out," Kristin reassured me as she took her seat at the head of the conference table. "Eat up. Boz is running laps around you all with his new project."
"Aw," Julie huffed. "I can't believe the new kid is faster than I am."
"He's got a gift," Kristin said, "but he's no faster than the rest of you could be. Stop talking about your weekend plans and do your work! "
They snickered at that and we all dove into our delicious sandwiches. The tangy pickle vinegar made me wonder what it would be like to eat nothing but blood instead. Did it all taste the same? I'd read the board at Blood Drive, with all their infusions, but how much flavor was too much before it would make me sick?
Back at my desk, I started a list of additional questions to ask Colette and Santa about vampirism. I got three questions in before I started feeling drowsy. A yawn caught me by surprise, and I almost tipped backward out of my chair. I leaned forward, hitting my chin on the desktop.
"Boz? Are you all right?" I heard Kristin's footsteps, and then everything went dark.