Chapter 9 Drink Me
DRINK ME
The oversized cargo shorts slip down my hips, and I yank them back up as I pace the narrow strip of floor between Paloma's desk and a precariously stacked tower of grimoires. The walls press in. The air tastes like copal smoke, but the dryness in my throat is from something else entirely.
"This bad news," I say, and my voice cracks on the last word. Forty-three years undead, and I sound like a little kid caught in a lie. "How bad are we talking?"
"What do you know about the men who hired you?" she probes, leaning in conspiratorially.
"Just that they're assholes."
"Ha, that's the understatement of the century. Those motherfuckers run this whole damn city and think they can do whatever the hell they want."
"I already know that," I grumble.
Her face is exasperated. "Are you sure? Because I don't think you would have taken a job with them if you knew how unbelievably dangerous they were."
I roll my eyes. "Oh, come on, P. They're just garden-variety vampire mafioso types. A little criminal thuggery but no big deal. Totally normal in my world. Newsflash: vampires are shady. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I'm shady as fuck too."
Her brows knot together. "I'm not talking about dealing a little coke and getting into bar fights.
I'm talking about organized crime. I'm talking about kidnapping your enemies and torturing them for fun.
Having the whole sheriff's department in your back pocket and disappearing anyone that crosses you without consequences.
These people are manipulative to the bone, and they kill for sport.
" She waggles her finger at me. "We're way past shady. We're deep in the darkness."
A cold feeling prickles across my shoulders. Maybe La Madre was right after all. "I'm guessing that's an appetizer. What's the next dish in the bad news buffet?"
Paloma's up on her feet and rifling through the pile of books tottering dangerously close to the edge of a rickety wooden shelf. "Sit down, Sophia. This room is far too small for us to both pace around." I drop down into the chair with a huff, but she ignores me. "What have your Malditas told you?"
I clear my throat to make space for the lie. "They had no good answers, so I need to figure this out by myself."
"Ha," she snorts as she grabs another stack of books and slams them on the desk between us. "Typical. You're so damn terca, I swear to God."
She's right. I am a stubborn old goat, and it always bites me in the ass. It's easy to forget that I'm older than Paloma sometimes, and not just because I'm frozen in my twenties and she's aging like fine wine, but because she's wiser and more grounded than I'll ever be, vampire powers be damned.
I slump lower in my chair, the oversized tie-dye shirt bunching around my shoulders as she scolds me gently.
"But being a vampire doesn't mean you don't need help every now and then. Especially with stuff like this." She taps one of the books, her expression softening just a fraction.
"It's not just about saving my skin, P," I say as I pick up one of the books and run my thumb along the buttery leather spine. "I care about Angel. I don't want him to die."
She reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze. "I know. I can tell."
"He's just a beautiful broken thing, and Goddess help me, all I want to do is fix him."
Paloma scoffs. "Spoken like a damn cliché."
"So, what's all this?" I ask, waving the book at her.
"This," she says, pointing a sharp black nail to a passage near the bottom of an open page, "is from a bruja in Guadalajara. 1700s she documented a similar case—a turning that never fully took and killed the victim."
"What happened?"
"From what I can tell, a turning with all the steps followed is pretty much always bound to succeed.
If a human is drained, branded, and drinks from a vampire, they will transform within ten days, but if there's some kind of spiritual blocker administered early enough, it's harder for it to.
..take. Like a vaccine that stops the magic from taking root. "
"A blocker? Like a talisman? A ritual? A crystal? What?"
Paloma flips through another book—this one modern, printed, with sticky notes jutting from its pages like neon feathers. "An herb."
She slides the book across the table, and my eyes land on the intricate botanical sketch.
"Sangre Negada?" I say as I squint at the minuscule lettering. "Never heard of it."
She shakes her head. "You wouldn't have.
It's rare. Extremely rare. It's a little red flower that grows on the graves of saints and is only harvested every three years.
Once you pick it, dry it, and bless it properly, it transforms into a shield that's used to ward off the darkest magic.
I consider myself an amateur botanist, but I'd never even touched the stuff until recently.
" She drops her voice. "Really recently. "
My heart stutters. "How recently?"
Paloma's eyes fall to the desk. Her lips press together in a tight line.
"Paloma." My voice climbs an octave. "How fucking recently?"
"About a month ago," she mumbles, and I watch the realization spread across her face.
The air from my last breath sits like a stone in my lungs. When I speak again, the words come out strangled, airless. "Paloma, look at me."
She slowly raises her head, and when her tear-filled eyes meet mine, all I want to do is comfort her, but I can't. Not when my blood is boiling.
"Tell me what you know," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "And don't leave anything out."
She fiddles with the book pile, neatening the stack as she talks. "About a month ago, a couple of vamps came in here. The usual type. Leather jackets and bad attitudes. I didn't think anything of it because there's always some vampire sniffing around looking for some spell or hex or whatever."
"Go on."
"Well, one of them, a tall guy, asks if I can do a special order. Says they'll pay me five grand to procure a rare herb for them. Another five to bless it and prepare it."
I raise my eyebrow. "And you weren't suspicious?"
"Of course I was! I would never trust a bloodsuck..." She stops herself, but I dismiss the insult with a wave. "Sorry, Soph. Obviously I don't mean you. You're different."
Am I? "And so you did it?"
She nods. "I did. You have no idea what happens to people who tell them no. Mom's medical bills have skyrocketed. The insurers won't cover her new medication, and—"
"Trust me. I know. So, how did you get it?"
"I have a connection in Peru. Another witch.
At first she was cagey, but after some back and forth, she managed to find me a plant that was still blooming and shipped it over to me for a fee along with a book.
" She looks me dead in the eye, and I soften.
"Forgive me, Sophia. I didn't realize it would lead to all this.
It came by mail. I blessed it. The vamps picked it up, and that's all I know. "
I pick up a random book with a pretty embossed cover. "I don't suppose there's a neat little undoing spell somewhere in here, is there? Some tonic I can make?"
She shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. But...there is something you can do."
"Oh?" I say, hope bubbling somewhere in the depths of my chest.
"Yes. It's just a very, very bad idea."
Angel's gotten worse. Much worse. I'm just thankful I caught a series of fast-moving magical currents on the way back, shaving nearly an hour off the return flight.
Any longer and I'm certain I would've found a corpse propped up in this bed.
I don't bother with clothes. The second I shift back, I'm crawling under the covers with him, gathering his limp body against mine.
His head lolls in my hands as I wipe the blood from his face—it's everywhere. Crusted around his eyes, dried in dark trails from his ears, smeared across his upper lip where it's leaked from his nose.
"I'm here," I whisper, even though I don't know if he can hear me. "I'm here. I've got you."
I pull the sheet up over both of us, cocooning us in darkness. If Julian's watching—if there are cameras hidden in the vents or the light fixtures or fuck knows where—let him see nothing but a lumpy outline under expensive Egyptian cotton.
Paloma's warning echoes in my head: You can never tell another soul.
Every instinct in me screams not to do this. I know it's wrong. I know what I'm doing could get me banished or killed, but I don't give a shit.
I need to save him.
I have to.
I want him to survive because the idea of him dying is too devastating.
I tilt Angel's face toward me. "This is going to help," I whisper, more to myself than to him. "We can trust Paloma."
My fangs descend. I bring my wrist to my mouth and bite down hard, causing the magic-laced blood that runs through my veins to rush to the surface.
"Come on," I murmur, pressing my wrist against Angel's cracked lips. "You need to drink."
Nothing happens. His mouth stays slack, blood smearing across his chin.
Panic ripples through my chest. "Angel, please."
I angle his head back, let a few drops fall onto his tongue. For a horrible moment, there's still nothing—just my blood running down the corner of his mouth, wasted.
Then his lips twitch.
His tongue darts out, tentative, catching the blood at the edge of his mouth. Again, more deliberately.
"That's it," I breathe. "That's it, come on."
I push my wrist against his lips. This time his mouth closes around the wound, a weak pull that barely registers. But it's something. It's a start.
"Drink," I tell him softly. "That's it."
The pull gets stronger. His hand comes up around my wrist and draws it close to him.
It's pure instinct, like an infant latching onto a nipple.
Angel's grip on my arm tightens. The pull at my wrist grows steadier, more insistent.
I can feel my blood leaving me, feel the power flowing into him with each swallow.
"Good," I whisper, my free hand stroking his sweat-dampened hair. "You're doing so good."