Forget Me When the Sun Goes Down (Forged Bloodlines Book 11) (13 page)

“We don’t need to go back for that, we can buy whatever we need.  What matters is right here between you and me.”

“We promised Jakob.”

“
I
didn’t promise anyone,” he scowled.  “Anja, you don’t owe Jakob a thing.  This is our chance, don’t you see?  We have the opportunity to make our own happiness.  Don’t waste it.”  I’d never seen him this agitated, at least not that I could remember.  Why was he so hot to leave town all of a sudden? 

“I’m not.  We’ll still be together, it’s not wasting anything.  We still have forever to make our future together.” 

Rob shook his head.  “You’ll just get caught up in all that drama again.  What kind of a future is that?”

“He’s my Sire, Rob.  I can’t let him die.  Plus, it’ll be light soon and we’ll need a safe place to hole up for the day.”

“I can find us a dozen places to pass the day safely in the next hour.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” I allowed.  “But it’s the right thing to do.”  If he didn’t understand that, there wasn’t anything I could say to convince him.

He let out a long breath before giving me a tight smile.  “Right then, back we go.”

“Thanks, Rob,” I grinned, kissing him on his raspy cheek.  “We don’t have to leave right this minute though.  I thought you wanted to look around town a little before we drive back?”

“Nah,” he replied, looking down the deserted street.  “The sooner we get out of this place the better.”

Bishop was more than happy to split up when they got to town, having had his fill of Carys and Aubrey flirting with each other on the drive over.  Leaving them at a gas station on the outskirts of town to feed on the convenience store clerk, he continued on, making a slow circuit of Whitefish.  Not that there was much to see at that hour.  All of the businesses were buttoned up, and that suited him fine.  He wasn’t so hungry that he felt the need to eat yet, and as long as he fed before returning to the house, he should be fine. 

In the meantime, he wanted to check a few things.  It didn’t take him long to break into the general supply store, there hadn’t even been an alarm system on the building.  Once inside, he confirmed the exact time, and scanning the local paper for the date helped get the current timeline straight in his head.  Bishop picked up a few supplies, flashlights and batteries, and a pack of fuses on a hunch.  He also helped himself to a couple of knives from the display case, feeling better once armed, even though he was among friends.  Briefly, he thought about taking a hunting rifle back with him too, but decided that was asking for trouble.

There was a phone sitting on the counter by the register, and he picked up the handset, only to set it down moments later.  Who would he call?  Everyone important to him was there in town.  A brief thought of Anja flashed through his mind, and he wondered if she was alright.  Had she found someone to feed on?  Surely she’d be safe with Rob, but it bothered him not knowing what she was up to.  Was she on her way back to the house yet?

Guilt chased those thoughts as he realized he should’ve been thinking about Carys first.  Was she behaving?  Probably not, and Aubrey would be less than useless at keeping her out of trouble.  Resolving to hurry up and get back to them, he left the store, heading for the nearest hotel. 

The lobby doors were unlocked, as expected, and though there was nobody behind the front desk, there was a phone with instructions to dial extension 234 to reach the clerk.  It was over in minutes, John the night supervisor returning to his bed sleepier, but untraumatized, and Bishop filled with warmth and vitality.

For a split second, he wondered if Carys and Aubrey would still be there when he got to the gas station.  Was that relief or disappointment he felt at the thought?  Maybe a bit of both.  Still, Bishop wasn’t sure what to expect as he pulled into the parking lot.  There was no sign of them outside, the bright lights of the mini-mart spilling onto the snow covered lot. 

Starting toward the glass doors, Bishop stopped in his tracks as he caught sight of the two of them in the corner of the store by the register, fused at the mouth, hands all over each other.  For long seconds, he watched them make out, a sick dread in his stomach as he realized he’d seen this before.  Flash after flash of memories came to him in a disheartening montage, seeing the pair of them in different times, in different places. 

Sometimes Carys invited him to join in, just as she had in his memory of her and Rob – and sometimes, he had.  They were a package deal, the three of them, and somehow it’d never sickened him the way it did now.  The question was, did he still love her enough to put up with this kind of shit?

An electronic beep sounded when he crossed the threshold, and Carys sprang back guiltily.  “It was the blood,” she said with an innocent blink, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. “Surely you can’t blame me for something done in the heat of the moment.”  The clerk lay in a crumpled heap by their feet, the bluish tinge to his lips telling Bishop that he was already too far gone to save. 

“Sorry, mate.”  Aubrey had the good grace to look guilty about it at least.  “Call of the blood and all that.”

“I get it,” Bishop said shortly, more perturbed by the dead body.  “Did you have to kill him though?”

Carys sauntered up to his side, wrapping her hands around his arm.  “He felt no pain,
cariad
.  And his sacrifice was truly needed.  You know how weakened I was from Jakob’s tainted blood.”

“Besides, what’s a dead human to us?” Aubrey shrugged, baffled by his concern.

“I’m a cop, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to frown over something like this.”  Not that he felt squeamish about killing when needed, but it felt like a waste of human life. 

“What’s done is done,” Aubrey said, going to the Slurpee machine to pour himself a cherry one. 

“Yes, there’s no use crying over spilt blood,” Carys nodded.  “Shall we go?”

“Just like that?” Bishop frowned.  “We can’t leave the body here for the next customer to find.”

“Whyever not?” she blinked up at him, and Bishop could see it was left to him. 

“Fine, I’ll take care of it,” he bit out, more than a little grouchy at having to deal with it.  He might not have all of his memories, but he knew it put them all at risk to leave a body behind drained of blood with two sets of fang marks on his neck.  Slinging the body over his shoulder, he carried him out to the car and put him in the trunk, to dispose of in the woods later.  The ground would be frozen too hard to bury, but he’d find a place to stash it long enough to give the local wildlife a chance to muddy up the cause of death.  It wasn’t the perfect cover up, but it’d have to do. 

Then he went back inside to mop up the spilled blood with a pile of napkins, flushing the sodden mess away. 

“Aren’t you done yet?” Aubrey whined from atop the counter, amusing himself by scratching off lottery tickets. 

Bishop stopped in his tracks.  “Oh, I’m sorry, am I inconveniencing you by cleaning up
your
mess?  I just need to take care of their security cameras and then we can leave.”

“What for?  We’ll be long gone before the authorities look into it.”

“We don’t know that.  Who knows how long it’ll take for Nelleke to cast the spell to restore Jakob.  We could be hanging around here for another few days at least, I’d rather not have the cops circulating the footage of us. 

Aubrey hopped down from the counter.  “You weren’t serious about going through with that, were you?  What is it to us if he lives or dies?  We’re free now, brother.  Let’s not waste it.”

“Indeed, we can hardly be expected to make such a sacrifice for a man we hardly know,” Carys agreed. 

“He’s your Sire.”

“And I have yet to remember him beyond a flash of feeding.  Jakob is nothing to me.”

“If he’s an
Ellri
, we owe it to him for that alone.”

“You can’t prove he’s an
Ellri
, it’s merely a theory,” Aubrey pointed out, and Bishop’s hand clenched into a fist, barely holding back the urge to pop him one.

“Fine.  You’re welcome to do whatever you want, but I’m going back to the house.”

“Oh alright, there’s no need for such a face,
cariad
,” Carys smiled, laying on the charm with a thick hand.  Had she always been this fake?  “Of course I’ll come back with you.  You’re coming too, aren’t you, Aubrey?”

“Whatever makes you happy, dearest,” he agreed, tossing the Slurpee over his shoulder where it made a spectacular mess all over the wall.

“Great,” Bishop muttered, stealing the old fashioned tape from the surveillance recorder.  “One big happy family.”

* * *

Something inside him eased when he saw Rob and Anja’s car already parked in the driveway.  Not that he’d seriously doubted she would return, he had a feeling that she was the sort of person who kept her word.  Still, it made him hustle a little faster to get inside, wanting to see her again, even if all they were was friends now. 

“Hey, you’re back,” Anja beamed up at him when they walked into the great room, eyeing the bag from the store.  “What’d you buy?”

Bishop left out the part where he hadn’t actually paid for anything.  “A few odds and ends, including something I think will help us all be more comfortable.”  He held up the box of fuses.

Anja smacked a hand against her forehead.  “Holy Hannah, why didn’t I think of that?  Do you think that’s all it’ll take to turn the power back on?”

“I’m hoping so.  Unless nobody’s paid the power bill.  Who wants to come and hold the flashlight for me?”  Bishop held out the flashlight to Carys, offering her the chance to come first, but she waved him away. 

“I need to freshen up.” She shook her head, disappearing in the direction of her bedroom, while Aubrey watched the swish of her hips.

“I can help,” Anja offered, only to have Rob swoop the flashlight out of her outstretched hand. 

“I’ll get the fuses switched,” he offered, with a challenging glint in his eyes that Bishop had no interest in tangling with.

“Suit yourself,” Bishop replied, handing over the box of fuses.  “I’m guessing the electrical panel is somewhere in either the utility room or possibly the wine cellar.”

“Need a hand?” Anja asked, and Rob gave her a pleased smile. 

“I can always use your hands, yeah?”

The pair of them disappeared in search of the fuse box, and Bishop tried to tamp down the queasy feeling he got when he pictured them groping around in the dark together.  Disappointed, he figured he might as well go take care of that body in the trunk. 

Nobody paid him any mind when he went back out again.  Nelleke and Jakob were talking earnestly about snow while sitting by the fire, which was banked low.  He should probably bring in some more firewood while he was at it too.  Slinging the body over his shoulder again, he trudged up the property in the direction of the tree line.  There were tracks a-plenty in the powdery snow, proof that there was ample local wildlife to take care of his problem. 

Once he was a fair distance from the house, he laid the body down by a fallen log and spent some time pulling down evergreen boughs to cover him with, in case anyone came searching before the local scavengers had time to search him out. 

He heard the crunch of snow well in advance, not that Anja was trying to be at all sneaky as she came up behind him. 

“The lights are back on,” she reported cheerily.  “I thought you should know, that was a shiny idea.”

“Good, I’m glad.” 

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.  Bishop tried shielding her from the view of the body, but it was pretty easy to spot up close.  “Oh,” she murmured in disappointment.  

“Carys and Aubrey had a little accident.”

Her whole body slumped in defeat.  “Aw man...  Would it have killed them to use the teensiest bit of self control?”

“Look at who you’re talking about,” he snorted, pulling down another branch to cover the body with.  “Neither one of them know the meaning of the word restraint.”

“I know, but...”  She let out a long sigh, staring down at him.  “Who is he?”

“I don’t know, a convenience store clerk.”

“Yes, but is he married?  Does he have a family?  Is someone’s life about to be utterly destroyed when he doesn’t come home today?”

“I don’t know, Anja.”  It hadn’t crossed his mind in such detail.  “In any case, there’s nothing we can do about it now.  Feeding accidents happen from time to time.”  Though he doubted it’d been as much of an accident as it had been carelessness. 

“I know.  I mean, I get that we’re vampires.  I just feel like it’s all... like it’s...”

“A really big waste of life.”

“Yes, exactly.”  A beatific smile lit up her face, and it struck him how utterly gorgeous she was.  Carys was a beautiful girl too, but Anja... there was a light inside her that Carys’ jaded beauty didn’t possess.  “You get it,” she nodded, laying her hand on his arm.

He did and he didn’t.  The clerk was nothing to him, but Bishop understood her want to preserve life, he felt it too, even as he instinctively knew it must not have always been that way for him.  He wondered when that had changed for him.  Was it since he’d become a cop?  It made sense, he was bound to have come into contact with a lot of death.  It was sweet that she felt a total stranger’s death so deeply though, and he offered her a faint smile.  “You must be an old soul.”

“Are you calling me an old lady?” she raised a brow at him, and Bishop’s hands came up in supplication.

“No, that wasn’t it at all.  I meant, with age comes wisdom.”

“That’s a little sweeter,” she allowed, with an easy smile.  “I guess I haven’t thought about myself that way.  I could be older than you for all we know.”

“Only one way to find out.”

“What’s that?”

“Want to arm wrestle?” Bishop grinned, waggling his eyebrows in an effort to get her to smile again.  Anja laughed at that, and all he wanted was the chance to grapple with her, not inappropriately, but for the chance to hold her in his arms again.  Man, he had it bad – and she wasn’t his.  Not anymore.  He sobered, tearing his gaze from her face to look up at the sky.  “We should go back inside.  Dawn is coming soon, don’t you think?”

Her face lifted up to the stars overhead.  “I think you’re right.  Plus, now that we have power, I can make a cup of cocoa at the touch of a button.  I found some mini-marshmallows in the back of the cupboard when I was looking through the kitchen before.  They’re kind of hard, but I think they’ll be okay.  Don’t you?”

A brief flash of memory came to him.  He remembered Anja handing him a mug of something hot, wearing nothing but a smile.  She was breathtaking.  It only lasted a few seconds, but he replayed it in his mind, not wanting to let go just yet.