Tempted by Blood. Laurie London

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      It was the same sort of image she’d recalled at dinner. The photo was grainy because of the dim light and fog, but there was no mistaking the details. There was the man who had helped them home, the undercover cop, with that curved blade held high in the air, poised over another man on the ground. And they both had fangs.

      Vampires? That was totally crazy. A chill snaked down her spine and lodged so deeply inside her that she wondered if she’d ever be warm again. But what else could they be? This made it pretty damn obvious.

      She remembered now that when she kissed him, he’d seemed out of breath, as if he’d just physically exerted himself. Jesus. Killing someone with a blade would certainly do it you.

      With shaky hands, she clicked through the rest of the photos, a dozen or so of them. Along with each one she looked at, her memory seemed to get clearer and clearer. When she got to the last one, her heart just about stopped. There was Krystal, standing next to a Jeep. The man had an urgent expression on his face and was pointing straight at the camera, as if urging her to go to where Arianna was standing.

      Then, in one big rush, it came back to her. The shadows coming to life, Krystal being taken by two men, the other guy showing up.

      They hadn’t witnessed gang members fighting. They were vampires. They had tried to take Krystal, but the other man, the one she had kissed, had saved her. Probably saved them both.

      Holding the laptop, she jumped from the couch and headed to Krystal’s room, but she hesitated at the door. These photos were very graphic. If her cousin saw them, it might really upset her. As the parent figure in the girl’s life now, Arianna had to be conscious of things like that. She closed the computer, tucked it under her arm and knocked.

      “Come in,” was the reply.

      She leaned in the doorway. “Hey, do you remember two guys in a Jeep last night?”

      “From the gang fight?”

      “Um … yeah.”

      Krystal scrunched up her brow, thinking. “No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see them.”

      “Do you remember seeing a Jeep at all?”

      “Nope.”

      Arianna exhaled slowly, trying to get her mind around all this. How could Krystal not remember standing next to the Jeep when Arianna had the proof right here?

      “How about some weird shadows that—” she almost said materialized from the darkness, but changed her mind “—that, well … looked weird?”

      Krystal shook her head. “Why?”

      She pulled up one of the more innocuous pictures. “How about this guy? Does this bring up any strange memories?”

      Krystal looked at the computer screen. “That’s the guy who broke up that knife fight. The guy you kissed.”

      “Yeah, I know, but can you remember anything more?”

      Krystal thought a moment before answering. “No, not really. Why?”

      “No reason. Just curious.” She clutched her computer to her chest like a schoolbook. There was no way she’d tell Krystal that she’d survived a vampire attack. Or show her any of the other pictures. There were plenty of others without Krystal that she’d be able to post on her blog. Given all of this, she was soooo thankful now that she hadn’t told Krystal about Paranormalish. “I think I had one of those strange déjà-vu experiences you sometimes hear about. Must’ve been a weird dream I had last night. One of those really realistic ones.”

      Krystal’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, I love when I remember a cool dream later.”

      “Yeah, me, too.”

      NORMALLY, VENTRA CAPELLI had a knack for knowing just the right outfit to wear in any situation. From soccer-mom chic in the suburbs when she faked a flat tire to emaciated hipster at an art gallery wanting a smoke, she knew how she needed to dress in order to throw any humans off guard. When she looked like them and they saw that she needed their help … well, it was like sugar water and flies. Or, now that she lived in the Pacific Northwest, beer and slugs.

      But tonight she wasn’t sure if this simple black sheath, businesslike yet elegant, with a long strand of freshwater pearls, a few chunky bracelets and diamond studs in her ears would get her what she wanted. For that to happen, those present needed to see her as capable, serious and in control. They needed to trust that she could do the work her predecessor couldn’t.

      As the elevator descended deeper into the depths of the Prague mountainside, she was thankful she’d thought to bring along hard copies of her documentation. Surrounded by all this rock, she doubted she’d get internet coverage on her tablet, although she’d brought the thing with her, as well.

      With a smooth swoosh, the doors finally opened up to a large vestibule. She tucked her handbag under her arm and walked out.

      She’d heard stories of how beautiful the Darkblood Alliance headquarters were, but nothing had prepared her for this. Her heels clicked on the marble flooring, the sound echoing off the chamber walls, emphasizing the vastness of the space. Various suspended sculptures hung from the frescoed ceiling, not unlike the Chihuly glass pieces in the lobby of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, a hotel she was intimately acquainted with. As she looked closer, however, she realized these weren’t glass works of art. They were made from various human bones.

      From floor to ceiling, the walls were covered in human-skull sconces. The lower jaws had been removed, replaced instead by pairs of femur bones, making the skulls appear to be biting them. Unlike jack-o’-lanterns where light shone out the mouth, nasal cavity and eye sockets, each one of these skulls glowed, the bone sheer enough to be illuminated by the candle inside. Hanging down from the coved ceiling was a chandelier made from artfully arranged bones and skulls. The overall effect was a stunning visual representation of the power vampires would always have over humans.

      “Lovely, isn’t it?” said a silky male voice behind her.

      She spun around to see a thin, middle-age vampire standing behind a reception desk. She’d been so distracted by the beauty of this place that she hadn’t noticed him. She knew better than that. It wouldn’t happen again.

      With his dark hair slicked back, he wore a hand-tailored Italian wool suit and a crisply starched white dress shirt. In an obvious display of individuality, a flamboyantly colored silk tie completed the look.

      “Rumor has it that a monk in the Middle Ages collected the skeletons of humans who had died of the Black Plague. Forty thousand people, to be exact. Our people did the same. It’s quite a masterpiece, wouldn’t you agree?”

      The Black Plague had changed everything. Until then, vampires had been at the top of the food chain, hunting and feeding from humans as they were meant to do. Humans at least had a small chance of surviving the Black Death, but for vampires, drinking the blood of an infected human was a death sentence. Their population dwindled to just a few pockets of survivors scattered throughout all of Europe—their race had almost been exterminated.

      Fear of death had caused a significant philosophical change in vampire culture. As an act of self-preservation, vampires stopped draining and killing humans, learning, instead, that they could survive СКАЧАТЬ