Blood Leverage (Bloodstone Chronicles Book 1) (12 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I
’M not sure what was left to say, but the
implications of shared blood and emotions were cause for a long conversation between my new acquaintances. My sense of intelligence firmly reestablished, I ignored the debate and settled in to eat.

It took about two-thirds of the pie—which was delicious, by the way—for Ian and Keanu to finish their discussion. Then, Ian said he needed to use his computer and walked out without saying another word.

Instead of following, Keanu came over and sat beside me, picking up my fork and helping himself to the remains of my pie. He casually ate a few bites before cracking up at my dumbfounded expression.

“What the hell, you guys can eat pie?”

“We can eat anything,” he said, grinning. “Though food does nothing for us nutritionally.”

“I’ve never heard of vampires consuming anything but blood.” Apparently I had a lot to learn.

Keanu shrugged and swallowed another bite. “No surprise there. It’s unnecessary, and besides, vampire purists find the process repulsive.”

“They find food more repulsive than blood?”

He smirked. “Not the food, but the elimination of it.”

“The elimination…? Oh.” I laughed, though the idea was downright gross.

“Hey, we still have the same organs as you,” Keanu noted through another mouthful. “With the exception of blood—which is fully absorbed into our systems—what goes in must come out and
that
is a process most vampires would rather avoid.”

“I can honestly say
that
is something I’ve never considered before.” And I didn’t want to consider it now. “Now that the shock value is over, may I have my pie back?”

Keanu grinned. “Sorry, in my opinion taste buds more than compensate for the occasional bowel movement.”

The pie was almost gone and the notion of vampire bowel movements had curbed my appetite, so I let it go. “Now that you’ve questioned me and have an idea how to find Eggplant, may I ask what happens next?”   

To his credit, Keanu set my fork down. “Rory, I’m sorry. Ian and I discussed everything on the phone earlier, but he didn’t mention you were
here
until I arrived.”

He sat straighter, his expression turning serious. It looked unnatural on him. “Both Ian and I will do everything we can to help Luigi, and you of course,” he added. “We’re taking a three-pronged approach.”

Not wanting to stop the flow of information, I remained silent.

“The first thing Ian and I will do, which I’ve already begun, is to make a nightly search for Nicky.”

“In Niagara Falls?” I asked eagerly. No one had invited me along but I planned on helping whether my help was wanted or not.

“Not Niagara Falls proper,” Keanu explained, “but in the surrounding wilderness. There are three possibilities.”

Three prongs, three possibilities, the three of us… I gave my head a little shake in an effort to sharpen my waning focus.

“The most likely possibility,” Keanu said soberly, “is that Nicky died shortly after his abduction, in which case we’ll be searching for his remains to bring them home. However,” he added as my face fell, “my initial search found none of his scent, nor any trace of a bonfire, and no bodies have washed up downstream of the falls.”

I blinked. “A bonfire?”

Keanu looked away. “Well, yes. The scent of decaying flesh is noticeable even to humans. To a vampire, you might
as well hire a plane to skywrite, ‘
DEAD BODY BURIED HERE!
’ Unless this Eggplant is a moron, she won’t try to bury a body unless she’s already burned it beyond the possibility of decay.”

The key lime pie shifted uneasily in my stomach. “Okay, duly noted. And the other possibilities?”

“Our search covers option two as well. It’s possible that Eggplant will have assisted Nicky in healing himself, used him for whatever she needed him for, and released him in the wilderness after clearing his memories. Or, in a similar vein, there’s always a chance he may have escaped. Never underestimate a vampire’s ability to underestimate a human,” he said, clearly enjoying his new role as teacher.

“Okay.” I resisted the urge to point out Keanu’s own underestimation of me at that moment and kept my voice bland. “Whether Nicky’s body has been discarded in a remote spot, or he’s alive and lost, you and Ian will search for him. And the third possibility?”

Keanu was all business now, his playful lecturing tone gone. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but as I’ve yet to find a trace of Nicky’s body, I believe the third possibility has merit. Despite the difficulties of hiding a human, history has no shortage of vampires who’ve tried. Therefore, whatever her reasons for coming here, Eggplant may well attempt to keep Nicky as a benefactor by force for as long as she feels safe. A specimen such as him would be hard to resist.”

“If you start licking your lips, I’m out of here.” Not that I had anywhere to go, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Alright, perhaps I was straying off-topic,” Keanu admitted. “Anyhow, there are loads of ways the authorities find evidence of human trafficking, most of them involving a money trail. Ian is the financial wizard and he’ll be staying on top of that.”

“Money trail?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “If Nicky is alive, he’ll be weak from blood loss.” He looked at me expectantly but I had nothing.

“Okay…” My mind was blank. So much for the Nancy Drew books I’d read as a child. Then again, Nancy Drew had never faced off with vampires.

Keanu laughed. “All I meant was that Nicky will require food in order to heal. Groceries aren’t easy to come by for a vampire and purchases can be tracked.”

My face burned in embarrassment at having missed something so obvious, but I had more important things to deal with. “It sounds like you two have given this a lot of thought. Just tell me how I can help.”

Keanu’s confusion at my request was obvious. “Didn’t Ian already tell you?”

My sneer spoke volumes. “You need to ask?”

“We’ll be teaching you to drive later tonight, and we need you to practice over the next week. In order to prevent rumors about Dominic’s absence, Ian has asked me to assist with Luigi’s deliveries.”

My confusion put Keanu’s to shame. “Assist how?”

In lieu of a verbal answer, a blur of light shimmered around Keanu for an instant and I found myself beside Nicky. My shriek shattered the air as I hurled myself off the sofa, knocking both pie tin and fork to the floor. I also landed on the floor, and it goes without saying that Ian arrived before the fork had finished clattering.

“Have you lost your bloody mind?” Ian threw himself between me and the apparition and a second waver of light made me blink before Keanu stepped out from behind Ian, once again looking like himself.

“I’m sorry!” Keanu apologized. To his credit he looked horrified. “Ian, have you told her
anything
? Anything at all?”

Without a word, Ian scooped me up and set me back on the couch.

Keanu sighed. “I’m sorry for frightening you, Rory. I assumed you knew about a vampire’s ability to throw a glamour.”

Slightly recovered, I lashed out. “How the hell would I know anything about anything? You’re the second vampire I’ve met and I’ve known you three hours, which is approximately twenty hours less than I’ve known my
first
vampire!”

Ian began speaking in what he clearly considered his ‘soothing’ voice—which was beginning to grate on my nerves. “I’m sorry you were surprised but you need to get used to it fast. If you want us to help with Nicky’s deliveries, one of us needs to mirror him.”

“Which one of you?” I asked quietly, not that it mattered. Seeing Nicky had been like a punch in the face.

“We’ll take turns,” Ian said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Why do you need to take turns? Is…” What the heck had they called it? “Is throwing a glamour difficult?”

Keanu rushed in, eager to be helpful. “It’s practically a lost art. After the conversions, vampiric bloodlines diluted to the point that some of our gifts are nearly impossible to master. Besides, not all vampiric abilities were public knowledge to begin with. If not for Ian, I wouldn’t have thought to try.”

“But you can do it,” I said, embracing my role as She-Who-States-The-Obvious.

Keanu straightened a bit from his slouch. “Ian spent decades teaching me the old ways, though I’d be useless without continuing to have his blood.”

“Not to sound rude,” I began hesitantly, not wanting to offend, “but if Ian is so amazing, why does he need you to take turns?”

Ian couldn’t resist answering that one himself. “Unless Luigi’s customers will take nighttime deliveries,” he suggested acerbically, “Keanu and I will be spending considerable time recovering from sun sickness until this situation is resolved.”

I blinked as that sank in. Of course Nicky’s business was scheduled during daylight hours. “How is that even possible?”

Overall, the plan was simple. To limit their exposure I’d load Nicky’s truck and bring it over the day before. We’d leave at first light to lessen the sun’s impact and complete the deliveries as quickly as possible. Then I’d drive Ian or Keanu back home, where they’d spend the next few days feeling like garbage.

I wasn’t keen on the last portion of the plan, but I had nothing better.

With everything decided, the next half hour was weird in its normalcy. Ian retreated to his office to continue running computer searches, while I followed Keanu to his rooms.

Although I was there for a verbal driving lesson, being in Keanu’s rooms was its own lesson altogether. Had I seen these rooms earlier, I would have known
immediately
that another man was in residence.

As Keanu droned on about the accelerator and brake pedals, I took in my surroundings. Instead of the art and antiques in Ian’s immaculate rooms, framed posters competed with a gigantic pile of laundry as the main focal point.

After fifteen minutes of fidgeting amidst the mess, I began sorting Keanu’s laundry. It consisted mostly of dozens of jeans and
hundreds
of t-shirts—many of which could have doubled as dust rags—and after a minute Keanu joined in to help.

As he absently kicked a pile of white boxers off to the side, oblivious to the red shirt lurking amongst them, I hoped he was better at driving than he was at laundry. “Not to lecture my elders, but I doubt this is where you want it to be.” I tossed it back to him and he threw it on the appropriate pile with an exasperated expression. 

“Shit. Thanks, Rory. I do that all the time. Didn’t even see the damn thing.”

I grinned companionably, relaxed by the familiar chore. “You can’t be that bad, I see no pink underwear.”

“You have no idea. Ian and I wore pink underwear for half a century after we met. He finally stopped buying white underwear altogether.”

I blurted it out. “
That’s
why he only owns blue underwear!”

Keanu cocked his head as I realized what I’d said and what it implied.  

“Oh shit, that’s not what—” I gave up.

Keanu was smirking and I glared as I stomped away to get ready. “Shut up, Keanu.”

“Hey, I didn’t say a word!” I heard him laughing long after I’d left the room.

Back in Ian’s bedroom, I not only found my dry clothes and duffel bag at the foot of the bed, I found Nicky’s knapsack and sneakers beside them. Since I hadn’t left Keanu until now, I could only conclude Ian had retrieved everything, for which I was simultaneously grateful and annoyed that he’d been eavesdropping.

Of course, seeing Nicky’s things kicked my emotions into high gear, which led to a stern self-lecture on the edge of Ian’s copper-trimmed toilet as I changed into my clothes. It took nearly ten minutes to stop crying and by then my eyes were so bloodshot and swollen I could barely tie my sneakers.

Ian was waiting as I emerged, and when he saw my face his inclination to panic was obvious. Fortunately, he managed to repress his instincts and merely told me Keanu had left to complete some preparations. We were to meet him outside.

I braced for unpleasantness as we left the bedroom. I hadn’t been in the guest rooms since the Eggplant incident and wasn’t looking forward to seeing them again. Then I realized Ian was leading me in an altogether different direction.

We walked through several empty rooms I may or may not have seen before. After maybe the seventh one, I stopped mid-room.

“Okay, where are we headed and why do you have these empty rooms?”

“I’m taking you to the rear exit and these rooms are exactly what they appear to be.” Ian took my hand and tugged gently, which left me no choice but to move whether I wanted to or not.

“They appear to be a confusing waste of time and space,” I snarked under my breath, but of course Ian heard me anyway. Stupid vampire hearing.

“That’s their main purpose,” he replied calmly. “If anyone made it past the guest rooms, they’d have to penetrate multiple rooms before reaching anyone. On top of that, Keanu hung the doors to deliberately misdirect people. It’s impossible to reach the inner house in a straight line without smashing through the walls.”