Always the Vampire (16 page)

I did now, and I gulped.

“Surely Saber does the same on occasion,” he added.

I answered him by crossing my eyes. “Stand up, turn around, and brace yourself on the door.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He followed orders, slowly and with teeth bared in pain. The shorts rode halfway down his hips, and I jerked them to his ankles, not letting my gaze linger on his tight butt for more than a second or three.

When I’d released each foot from the shorts, I tossed them on the car seat. With another reminder to be clinical, I took a discrete deep breath.

“You ready to get wet?” I asked.

The big louse chuckled, and I belatedly got the joke.

“Let me rephrase that, Triton. Are you going to behave, or are you dragging your sorry self to the surf alone?”

“I’ll be good. Come on.”

I ducked under the arm he held out and took his weight. Which wasn’t as dead as it had been at the apartment, but we hadn’t taken three steps into the water when he collapsed to his knees, taking me with him.

Both of us paused there on all fours, Triton panting and mooning the condos on the dunes, had anyone been looking. I tried not to get my shorts any wetter than they were.

“This isn’t going to work,” I said.

He glanced at me then turned his face to the surf. “Just get me in deep enough, and the water will support me.”

“Triton, there are sandbars out here,” I said sternly. “The waves are higher because of the storm. And if they don’t knock you on your bare behind, the riptides may pull us both out. I’m not in the mood to be sucked out to sea in the dark.”

“You have another idea?”

“I do. How close are you to changing?”

“Thirty minutes to an hour.”

I reconsidered my solution for another minute. It might be risky, it might be downright crazy, but it was my port in this storm.

“Triton, have you ever surfed?”

He gave me a long look then nodded. “Cowabunga.”

I changed into my black, scooped-back maillot behind the open driver’s side door. No chance of Triton peeping, and since I had killed the interior lights, no me mooning the condos.

Having dry clothes to wear on the drive home? Priceless.

As I slid my surfboard free of the truck, I peered over at Triton. He lay curled on his side, arms around his middle as if protecting himself. Damn, what would I do if he couldn’t shift? Or only partly shifted? I shook away those negative thoughts, grabbed a chunk of wax, and swiped it over the board in a zigzag pattern. I didn’t need the waxing for super traction, just to render the fiberglass less slippery.

With the leg leash strapped to my ankle, I hoisted my board and hurried back to Triton.

“Hey. Big, fat, Greek shifter.”

He opened one eye. “I’m not fat.”

“Tell that to your lip. Roll on your knees so I can help you up.”

He did, groaning and moaning. I purposely put my vampire strength in gear, grasped his sandy arm, and got him to his feet.

“Come on. I need to get you in deep enough to put you on the board.”

With my board under one arm and supporting Triton with the other, we shuffled into the surf. Ankle deep, then knee deep, then ankle deep again when we hit a sandbar. Finally, I had us in hip-deep water.

“Okay, time to get on the board,” I shouted over the roar of the waves. “Can you help me paddle out?”

“I can try.”

“Try hard. I’ll take the front. You get on behind me. Scoot up enough that your head will be in the small of my back.”

“My feet will stick off the end of the board.”

“Then keep them together or they’ll act like a rudder.”

He nodded and I straddled the board. My legs were just long enough to dig my toes into sand shifting with the strong undertow, but it helped steady the board while he mounted close behind me.

“All right, let’s go flat together.”

I eased down on the board, felt Triton mimic my progress. The board swayed with the waves, but we didn’t capsize. I began paddling hard and fast, focusing on slicing through the water, chesting up to breach each breaker. I ignored Triton’s labored breath on my bare back. I ignored the feel of his chest pressing into my butt. I even ignored the tickle of a more intimate part of him brushing my calves.

It seemed to take hours to get to the line up, the place where surfers turned their boards to wait for a wave, but we made it without taking a spill.

“How are you holding up?” I hollered over my shoulder.

His guttural “Fine” rumbled up my spine.

“Ready to straddle?”

“Rest first.”

“All right, but if you think you’re ready to shift, slide off.”

“I won’t sink the board. Not like I almost did your father’s boat.”

I grinned at the memory. Triton had been late for our monthly new-moon rendezvous, and we’d rowed like Vikings on speed in our attempt to reach the beach before he shifted. We’d only made it to the inlet before he’d torn his clothes off and flopped over the side.

“My father would have killed me if we’d sunk that boat.”

He chuckled, a gentle vibration that trickled all the way to my feet. “Your mother would’ve killed you if you’d shown up soaking wet again.”

Or she would have had Triton’s ring on my finger faster than she could filet a fish.

“Cesca, I’m going to slide off now.”

I looked over my shoulder. “You’re shifting?”

“No, but I’ll feel better in the water.”

“You’ll burn too much energy treading the swells.”

“I’ll hold on to the board.”

Still facedown, he eased away, pushing himself backward until his chest cleared my butt. One more push and he was off, hand-overhanding himself to mid board as I scooted back for better balance. When I levered up to straddle my board, Triton rested his hands by my knee.

“Better?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

We floated with our own thoughts for a moment, but Triton’s breathing sounded better every second he was cradled in the sea.

“I’m sorry, Cesca.”

He’d barely breathed the words, yet I’d heard him clearly.

“What for?”

“Not protecting you from the vampires that night.”

I shrugged. “What could you do? Fluke them to death?”

“If you hadn’t been with me, you wouldn’t have been captured.”

I patted his head. “Marco would’ve kidnapped me anyway. It was just a matter of time.”

Triton shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ve felt guilty about that night. And about the other time I failed to rescue you.”

I stared at his upturned face. “What other time?”

“In 1820. Florida was still being transferred from Spain to the U.S., and the whole town was being surveyed. I came back to reclaim the land trust for you. And I came back to search for you. I couldn’t find the vampire’s house.”

“The foundation was gone by then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I ran across a lot of rubble. Thought I was close a few times. None of the places I searched felt right.”

I took a deep breath. Remembered Isabella’s revelation that Cosmil had reconsecrated the ground. Had he really blessed it, or had he bespelled it?

“Why didn’t you open our telepathic connection, Triton? Maybe I could have led you to me.”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up and fail you again.”

“Oh.”

“The worst is that I got away. Made a life for myself. I’m sorry you didn’t have the same chance.”

I laid my hand on his shoulder. “I never blamed you, Triton. Not for the vampires or leaving town. I wanted you gone and safe.”

“Then you accept my apolo—”

He broke off, his neck muscles contracting in a savage spasm. Hands flailing, he sank under the surface. The ocean around me churned violently, but I didn’t fear a shark attack. I adjusted my seat on the board. Waited.

Minutes later, a beak bumped the nose of my board and water sprayed me from a blowhole. Triton in his dolphin form.

“But you’ll be okay?”

“Done.”

He swam near enough to rub against my leg under water. His way of saying thank-you, I guessed.

Or his way of reminding me of that extra favor, but I nodded. “I’ll be here, and you’d better be ready for butt-kicking boot camp.”

He slapped his beak on a swell, and a cascade of water smacked my face.

“Cretin.”

He laughed in joyful dolphin speak, then arched away.

All in all, I guessed it was good to have him home.

 

 

Saber welcomed me back to the cottage with a deep kiss and a long hug.

“I missed you,” he murmured as he nuzzled my neck.

Darling man. He focused on me before he asked about Triton. I framed his head with my hands and kissed him again.

“I missed you, too.” I released him and looked down at our feet so I wouldn’t step on the ever-present cat. “Where’s Snowball?”

“Passed out in her carrier in the kitchen,” he said, turning to flip the deadbolt. “Any idea why she’s hunkered in there?”

“She had a hissy fit over Isabella, a ghost she cornered this afternoon.”

“I take it you know this ghost?”

“She was Normand’s human mistress and my only friend, and she came to warn us that evil is stirring up vampire ghosts. Normand and company.”

“Is Starrack behind this, too?”

“She didn’t give me a name, but who else could it be? I’ll tell you about her and other things, but I need to shower this salt water out of my hair first.”

He eyed my loosely ponytailed hair with a mess of escaped wavy strands. “More trouble with Triton?”

“He was too weak to wade in deep enough to shift,” I said, taking Saber’s hand and leading him to the bedroom. “I floated him out on my surfboard.”

He leaned against the doorjamb while I turned the shower faucet on hot and peeled off my T-shirt.

“Tell me about the attack.”

I paused with my cutoffs half unzipped, the weight of the amulet pulling one side lower than the other. “Now? You don’t want to join me in the shower?”

“Not tonight.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Truth is, I’m done in.”

“As in Void tired?” I dropped my shorts, and the amulet in my pocket made a dull
thunk
on the bathmat covering the slate-tile floor.

He shrugged. “So what happened with Triton?”

I swallowed back my concern and my urge to fix Saber a can of chicken soup. Instead, I hollered the high points of discovering Triton through the shower door as I washed the salt water from my hair and body. Saber stopped my tale to ask if I’d smelled anything distinctive, and I relayed that I hadn’t and Triton didn’t remember a smell.

“I hope those jerks weren’t carrying the Void infection,” I added as I stepped out of the shower, and Saber handed me an oversized white bath towel. “I know we don’t have a handle on how the illness spreads, but if it got into his blood stream through those cuts, that would be beyond bad.”

“If Triton was severely injured, how’d you get him down those stairs?”

“I didn’t. Two other vampires did, and why didn’t you tell me they were being relocated here when I first mentioned them to you?”

He straightened, his shoulders tense. “What two vampires?”

“Oh, hell. You don’t know.”

“Cesca, tell me.”

“The old couple Gorman thought could fly? Turns out they can. Clarence and Imelda Clarke are vampires. And they’re planning to open a B&B. Want to take a guess who they’ll be catering to?”

“Damn it.”

He wheeled, heading for the living room. And my laptop, unless I missed my guess. I threw on undies and my long pink flamingo sleep shirt and followed, mopping at my hair with the towel as I went. Sure enough, Saber sat at my desk, the computer booting up.

“I’m sorry I dumped the Clarke info on you, Saber.”

“It’s okay, but you know I wouldn’t keep that from you. The Jacksonville VPA office should notify me of every new vampire moving into Florida, especially when we’re on alert.”

I frowned. “Alert, why? Because so many vampires in the state are ill?”

“Exactly. My last printout listed 157 vampires. None were newcomers. Did the Clarkes say where they relocated from? Did they sound southern, northern?”

“A little British, a little southern, and very upper-crust.”

He logged into the VPA website then into the restricted pages, fingers zipping over the keyboard. He typed in “Clarke” as I peered over his shoulder. Clarence and Imelda’s photos and vitals filled the screen in living color. They hailed from Charleston, and the first lines recorded that the senior center where they’d lived had reported them missing fifteen years earlier. The rest of the data read pretty much as they’d told me. Except for the side note that both had worn dentures before their Turning. Afterward, they’d grown fangs. Now they wore specially designed dentures with spaces for the fangs to extend.