Blood Revealed (6 page)

“They haven’t asked half the stuff I want to know,” Blythe said.

“I don’t think military strategists are common among journalists, Mom,” Jake pointed out.

“You’ll just have to ask them yourself,” Simone said and let the fridge door shut solidly, cutting off the light.

Jake snorted.

Blythe had to smile, too. “I’m just a hotel receptionist now,” she reminded them both. “The chances of me ever getting to ask a direct question or two are so remote, I would have more chance of dating Chris Hemsworth than sitting down with vampires and studying their military strengths and weaknesses.”

“Then you believe this stuff?” Simone asked, surprised.

“I’d rather have proof,” Blythe said honestly. “Although, if you listen to it long enough, it starts to make a strange sort of sense.”

“Besides, isn’t Chris Hemsworth married?” Jake asked.

“And younger than you,” Simone said pertly.

Then Jake pointed at the TV. “Isn’t this conference happening in your hotel? That’s the logo, behind them on the wall, isn’t it?”

Blythe had noticed the logo a long time ago and didn’t look. “It’s a huge hotel. There’s a whole office full of people who take care of the events in the convention wing. Garrett and the others don’t stay in the hotel. I’ve never met any of them. I’ve never even seen them except on TV.”

Simone rubbed the apple she had selected against her pajama pants. “Maybe you’ll get lucky,” she said. “Just think, you could be one of the first people to meet a real, live vampire.”

“They’re not alive,” Blythe pointed out.

“Anyway,” Jake shot back, “who says we haven’t all met a vampire before now? They’ve been passing as human. We could have had neighbors and teachers who were vampires. The mailman could be one. There’s no way to tell if they don’t want you to know.”

The silence in the room was broken only by the soft tones of Kate Lindenstream answering a question that Blythe had missed and none of the director’s words registered, because Blythe was too busy dealing with Jake’s startling observation. Her chest squeezed. Jake had put his finger on a complication she hadn’t considered until now. How
did
they tell vampires apart?

“That’s…creepy,” Simone said.

“It is,” Blythe agreed softly as Simone shuffled back toward her bedroom.

Blythe got to her feet and picked up her coffee mug, intending to rinse it out. “We’ll just have to find out as much as we can about vampires and about the other races they were talking about.” She ran the faucet, holding her hand under the water stream to test the temperature.

“Know thy enemy?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think the vampires are an enemy,” Blythe replied, placing the mug upside down on the drainer.

“Just because they say they’re not?” Jake asked. His tone was curious, rather than confrontational.

Blythe frowned as she sat back down at the table, thinking it through. “No one does anything without a reason,” she said slowly. “If this isn’t some huge hoax, then because we have no corroboration or proof, for now we have to take everything the vampires have said at face value. With me, so far?”

Jake nodded. His clear blue eyes, so much like his father’s, were steady and filled with sharp interest.

“I keep coming back to
why
,” Blythe said. “Why are the vampires exposing themselves in this way? They’re apparently so good at hiding and blending in with humans, that they’ve gone unnoticed throughout all of history and could theoretically have gone on doing that for the rest of time. So why would they put up with
that?
” and she nodded toward the TV screen, where the journalists were still shouting out questions in a barrage that sounded a lot like the distant fire of a hundred AK47s. “The reason would have to be overwhelming. If they’re not lying, if they really are trying to warn humans, then the
why
makes sense.”

Jake frowned, staring down at his fingers curved over the keyboard of the laptop. “So, revealing themselves is proof that they’re speaking the truth?”

“
If
they’re speaking the truth. There could be other very good reasons why they’re doing this that they haven’t shared and those reasons could completely change the meaning. Maybe the
vampires
are our enemy and these others they’re talking about are the good guys, but the vampires want to get in first and ingratiate themselves.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t sound nearly as good as wanting to warn us. We didn’t know about them before tonight. If they really were our enemy, they would have been better off staying hidden and attacking without warning.”

Blythe stared at Jake, absorbing his advanced strategic thinking. Perhaps there was more of her in him than she had thought. “Exactly,” she said at last. “Then there’s Occam’s Razor.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Jake said, screwing up his eyes and forehead as he fought to recall the information.

“All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one,” Blythe said, “and the simplest explanation is that the vampires are telling the truth.”

“So we should believe all this?”

Blythe shook her head. “There’s no proof, nothing to support what they’re saying. So we keep our options open for now.” She rubbed her fingers through her hair, only now realizing how tired she was. She still had blog posts to write before she could sleep, too. “While we’re trying to figure this out, we act as if they are telling the truth, because that has the greatest chance of being right.”

“How do we do that?” Jake asked. He grinned. “
I love vampires
buttons?”

Blythe smiled. “You and Simone and Eloise all know the drill. You take your panic buttons to school and I don’t care how the other kids tease you about it. You all make sure your cell phones are fully charged and working, twenty-four-seven. You watch your six and each other s’, too. You don’t go anywhere alone. And you kick in your sixth, seventh and eighth senses and walk around with your mental radar on high alert.”

“That’s war-time footing,” Jake pointed out, for all three of them had absorbed Blythe’s lessons on personal security over the years and understood the degrees of threat as well as she did. “If we’re to behave like the vampires really are trying to help us….”

“If they are really trying to help us,” Blythe replied, “then they’re not the enemy we need to watch out for.”

Patrick tilted the chair back until it was balanced against the wall and rested his head against the plaster. He wasn’t tired, yet he felt utterly drained, light and empty like a reed that had been cored and emptied of its pith. The small sitting room was empty of people except for Kate, Roman and Garrett and the silence was heavenly. Outside the door, Patrick’s extended hearing could pick up the sound of many people still talking among themselves out in the conference room where they had finally finished the conference, five minutes before.

Roman patted his shoulder. “Okay?”

Patrick closed his eyes. “Fine,” he said truthfully.

“Hungry?”

Patrick considered. “For a moment out there, when they asked the question, I could feel the hunger kick in.” He opened his eyes and looked at Roman. “Actually, it was more like a sudden need for a double scotch on the rocks, yet not quite like it used to be when the idea would sit in the middle of my mind and yell at me until I had the drink. This time it was more like…remembering what it was like to feel it. It was distant and after a moment it went away.”

And that was a ground-breaking first for him. The urge to drink, to get high or just pleasantly pissed, had lived in his mind ever since he could remember, sometimes only whispering and sometimes shouting so loudly he couldn’t think and his body separated from his control and went about acquiring alcohol even while his brain watched in disgust and despair.

The question he had been anticipating, that he had been rehearsing answers to for weeks now, had kept that voice alive in his mind, sitting at the far back and silently murmuring its siren song.

The question had been one of the first that the media had asked…which Nial had also anticipated. As soon as Patrick had moved to the center of the cluster of microphones, the question had been shouted at him. “Patrick! Patrick! Does this mean you are a vampire, too?”

Patrick had drawn in a breath and wished mightily for the scotch that would numb the discomfort he was feeling. He concentrated on phrasing the answer, just as he did when delivering lines while aching for a drink. “Have I always been a vampire? No. Garrett was generous enough to turn me, last February.”

He spoke the words deliberately, in a measured cadence, for they were life-changing and deserved an appropriate delivery. And now the truth was out there for the world to see and hear. He had exposed himself, just as the other three had done.

And the need for a drink wasn’t there. It had just…gone.

The follow-up questions had become much easier to answer. He had only to answer truthfully, which made this an easier press conference than some of those he had attended in the past, when his sobriety, the quality of his work and his failed relationships had been mental minefields to be stepped through, while he hid the uglier details from the press so the movie he was promoting wasn’t tarnished.

It had been a relief not to have to weigh the consequences of each word.

Roman had his head tilted to one side as he assessed Patrick, so he sat up, righting the chair properly and gave Roman a warm smile. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “Better than fine. I’m not exhausted like I usually am after one of these.”

“I am,” Kate said tiredly. She had her head against Garrett’s shoulder. “I could fall asleep right here and now.”

Garrett glanced at Roman. “Figure it’s safe to try to leave the hotel? We should get her home and to bed.”

“Dominic said he would come and get us when it was clear enough to get to the parking lot,” Roman said. “And he can ‘hear’ if someone is hiding around corners, waiting for us.”

Patrick frowned. “I thought he could only read thoughts, not pick through minds like a dictionary.”

“That’s right,” Roman agreed. “Most people, if they’re hiding from others, can’t think of anything except the need to stay hidden and if they’ll be caught. Dominic says it’s like a neon light flashing in their minds. Very hard to miss.”

Patrick twined his fingers together, uneasy. When Dominic had been staring at his piano yesterday, had he picked up the neon-bright wanting that had dominated Patrick’s mind?

Garrett got to his feet and lifted Kate to hers. “Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day,” he said. “Time for sleep.”

Kate rubbed her eyes. Most of the makeup she had been wearing she had already wiped away. “As long as I don’t have to answer any more personal questions, I don’t care what tomorrow brings.”

The press had been particularly interested about Kate’s relationship with Garrett and Roman. Their interest had turned prurient and Patrick could see they were only just holding themselves back from asking what sex was like with a vampire. Kate had handled their questions with a grace that Patrick wasn’t sure he would have been able to manage if they had been as nosy with him. The one personal question they had hit him, about his reasons for becoming a vampire, had been hard enough to handle.

The tap on the door was barely there.

“Time to go,” Roman said. He scooped Kate up in his arms and she wound her arms around his neck. “Grab the door, Mikey.”

Garrett didn’t protest over Roman’s use of the diminutive, although Patrick had seem him freeze anyone else who tried to use any version of his name other than “Garrett”. He was an intensely private man, so tonight’s conference would have been as difficult for him as it had been for Patrick. He wondered if Garrett had felt the same touch of relief he had felt, once the truth had been spoken aloud.

Garrett, just like him, just like all of them, would discover tomorrow exactly what the consequences would be for revealing themselves for the world to see.

Patrick didn’t dread the coming day, which was another ground-breaking first in his life.

* * * * *

The inside of the limousine was silent. Kate was resting against Roman’s shoulder and from her breathing Garrett could tell that she was soundly asleep, in the completely relaxed and guard-down state she only ever could achieve when both of them were with her.

That was another factor that had made it imperative he stay in Los Angeles for the revelation. He would sooner stake himself than leave Kate and Roman alone to deal with what he knew would be a pack of rampaging bloodhounds after prey once the announcement was made.

Roman looked at him over the top of her blonde hair and gave a small smile that Garrett had no trouble interpreting.

“Yes, it’s done now,” Garrett replied.

“No regrets?” Roman murmured.

“I haven’t had any regrets since I kissed you in front of the cameras,” Garrett said flatly. “Life is good and will only get better. The Others are going to make it interesting, that’s all.”

He looked down as a muffled electronic buzz sounded.

“Shit, that’s her cell phone,” Roman said softly and furiously. “Dig it out of her pocket, before it wakes her.”

“Too late,” Kate said sleepily and without opening her eyes, she slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the phone. She brought it up to eye level and only then opened her eyes. She thumbed the screen one-handed, her eyes narrowed.

Then they snapped wide open and she sat up. “Fuck!”

Garrett leaned over her shoulder and read the text message there.

Gotta cancel tomorrow, Katie. Sorry. I’ll have my assistant call.

“Frederick Lord cancelled,” he said. “That’s not good.”

Kate hefted the phone in her fingers like she was weighing either the phone or the implications behind the cancelled meeting.

“How much was he talking about?” Roman asked.

“Fifteen million,” Kate said absently. “It’s the fact that he cancelled. He’s not going to invest now. He’s spooked.”

She didn’t say why he had been provoked into pulling his money from her next movie. The press conference and the revelation were the
only
reasons he would contact her at this time of night.