Bloodlust (12 page)

“I think Brad killed Carrie Smith. Or that he has something to do with her death, anyway.” The words tumbled out of Jason’s mouth so fast that he wasn’t even sure what he was saying.

“Whoa!” Sienna held up a hand. “You’ve got to slow down. Say that again.”

“Sorry.” He took a deep breath and forced himself to speak more slowly. “I think Brad may have done something to Carrie. I think he may have killed her.”

Sienna’s mouth fell open. “I have known Brad Moreau my whole life,” she said. “You’re crazy. What would make you say something like that?”

Jason hesitated, trying to figure out how he could make Sienna listen to him. “Look, I know after, uh, what happened on the beach, this could seem like some pathetic attempt to—”

“To get me away from my boyfriend so you can have a shot?” Sienna offered.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I mean, no. That’s what it could seem like. Not what I’m doing. I’m here because I’m worried about you. Carrie had these marks on her arm. Lauren Gissinger has them too—on her throat. And I think I saw Brad put them there. I mean, I know I did. At Belle’s party. I saw Brad with blood on his mouth right after he’d been kissing Lauren’s neck.”

Jason knew he was talking too much, saying too much at once, but he couldn’t stop. “Well, obviously not kissing, because that wouldn’t have made Lauren bleed,” he rattled on. “Adam thinks Brad bit her, but…I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. But I think Brad may be dangerous. You’ve got to stay away from him.”

Sienna stared at Jason as if he’d been speaking in a language she’d never heard before. “You
saw
this? You just stood there and—”

“No,” Jason interrupted. “I wasn’t there. Not right when the biting happened, anyway. I saw it on tape. Adam’s been shooting all this footage. He’s convinced that Malibu is being taken over by vampires.”

“Vampires?” Sienna repeated. She stood up.

“Yeah. Insanity, I know,” Jason said. “But something is going on. And you have to promise me you’ll stay away from Brad until—”

“Stop,” Sienna ordered. “Just…stop.” Slowly she sank back down onto her lounge chair. Her dark eyes betrayed concern.

“I know you love Brad, but—”

“Seriously, Jason. Stop talking,” Sienna ordered. She took a shaky breath. “Okay. Okay.” Jason thought it sounded more as if she was talking to herself than to him. But then she lifted her eyes to his and stared at him for a moment. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she whispered. “I’m trusting you here, all right?”

“Of course,” Jason assured her. “I’d never…” The words died in his throat as he noticed Sienna.

She’d been sitting there the whole time, of course, but suddenly he really
saw
her, and his breath caught in his chest.

Sienna’s dark hair was glossier than he’d ever seen it; her skin clear and creamy, almost luminous; and her lips glowed a deep rose red. She was stunning, spectacular—
impossibly
beautiful.

Jason realized he was staring. “What is it?” he asked. “Sienna, you can tell me anything.”

And then Sienna smiled, slowly revealing a pair of very white, very sharp, and very real fangs.

“A
dam is right: Brad is a vampire,” Sienna told Jason quietly, her voice shaking a little.

Jason couldn’t respond. He felt like he was caught in a particularly weird and vivid dream.

“And so am I,” Sienna continued.

Jason’s brain finally managed to get a message to his body, and he stood up so fast, he knocked his chair over. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sienna’s fangs. They were perfectly shaped to make the marks on Carrie and Lauren. He took a step away from her as his mind reeled in shock.

“Jason.” Sienna reached for him, but he whipped his arm away from her. And suddenly the confusion in his mind vanished to be replaced by fear. Total, overwhelming fear. Sienna was a vampire. A monster. A killer.

And so was Brad.

“Which one of you killed her? Which one of you killed Carrie Smith?” Jason managed to ask, clamping down on the fear that engulfed his entire body.

“Neither. We didn’t. It’s not
like
that!” Sienna replied desperately, moving toward him. Jason’s muscles tensed. But all she did was set his chair back on its feet. “It’s not like that, Jason. My whole life—the whole time my parents have lived in Malibu—there’s never been a death. Not from a vampire.”

“So you’re saying you’ve never bitten anyone?” Jason asked doubtfully.

“No. I have. We all have. We have to feed to stay alive,” Sienna told him.

“You
all
have?” Jason cried. “You mean there’s more than just you and Brad?”

Sienna dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, God,” she said. “Yes. It’s…it’s hereditary. There are several of us. But we don’t kill people. We only feed because we have no choice.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? You haven’t actually
killed
anyone, but you drink human blood?” Jason exclaimed.

“Do you think I should allow myself to die instead?” Sienna asked, her eyes bright with emotion. “It’s not like you’re thinking, Jason. It’s…it’s pleasurable. It’s good for both of us, both sides. It’s not even that I haven’t
killed
someone to survive—I’ve never even
hurt
anyone.”

Jason sat down. Mainly because he wasn’t sure his legs were going to be able to keep him upright. Sienna returned to her seat next to him. “How can you say you haven’t hurt anyone?” he finally asked. “Do you get permission? Do the people you…you
drink
from, say, ‘Sure, go ahead, I’ve got more blood than I need’?”

Sienna swallowed hard. Jason could see the muscles in her throat working. “You’re talking to me like I’m a monster. Like I’m a stranger. Like we’ve never kissed.” She met his gaze steadily. “Like you don’t know me at all.”

“I don’t,” he snapped. “You told me that yourself, remember? And you were right! I obviously don’t know anything about you, because you’ve been hiding the truth.”

“Well, I’m telling you everything now. I’m trusting you. Not just with
my
secrets, but with the lives of every single person that I care about. And we’re not monsters.” She leaned closer to Jason, and strangely, she was so beautiful that even knowing what he did, Jason didn’t want to draw away.

“Think about it. Think about that film of Adam’s that you watched,” Sienna urged. “Did Lauren look like she was in pain? Did Brad have her overpowered? Did she look like she wanted to get away from him?”

Jason pictured Lauren and Brad on the monitor. The truth was that Lauren had looked like she was having the best damn time of her life. But he wasn’t ready to hear more rationalizations. “Has it happened to me?” he interrupted. “Has anyone…drunk from me?”

She just stared at him, her eyes big and worried.

“I deserve to know,” he told her.

“Yes,” she said softly. “But it wasn’t me.”

He felt a single second of confusion, and then he knew exactly who she was talking about: Erin. Jason remembered the ecstasy he’d felt while dancing with her. He hadn’t even known her, but he’d been beyond happy during their make-out session.

“Erin,” Sienna agreed.

“And that’s why I couldn’t remember much the day after the party!” Jason guessed. “Because somebody drank from me. Is that part of the whole experience—the victim doesn’t remember it?”

“You remembered having a good time,” Sienna pointed out.

A new thought slammed into Jason, making him feel sick. “So that means my sister, too?” He remembered Dani telling him that she’d had the best time in her young life after Brad’s beach party.

Sienna nodded. “But she’s fine. You know that. You can see it.”

The idea of a vampire gorging itself on his little sister’s blood nauseated Jason. It couldn’t be true. None of this could be true—it was beyond ridiculous. Maybe he’d been out in the sun too long. And that made him think of something else….

“You’re out in the sun!” he cried, glancing up at the perfect yellow ball in the cloudless blue sky. “You can’t be a vampire. The sun kills vampires.”

“Watching
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
doesn’t mean you know anything about what we are,” Sienna replied. “The sun doesn’t bother us, not anymore. We’ve adapted.”

“Fine,” Jason said grimly. “Then what does bother you? What kills you?”

Sienna bit her lip. “You want to kill me?”

“No.” Jason forced himself to dial it back. He was feeling a little crazy. This whole conversation was too surreal. “No. Of course not. I just meant…what else is true about vampires? What’s true and what’s just made up in the movies?”

“Well, we can change our appearance somewhat,” Sienna said, and gestured to her supernaturally beautiful face. “This is what I look like naturally. I usually tone it down a little bit on purpose. We all do. We want to blend in with regular people.”

“So you can actually alter your appearance?” Jason asked. “You can shapeshift?”

“No,” Sienna said quickly. “Nothing so extreme. We can just…modify ourselves to a degree.”

“Modify.” Jason jumped on the small fact, wanting to understand. “So no morphing into bats or wolves or fog, then?”

“No. And no sleeping in coffins. I’m sure that was going to be your next question.” She actually sounded a little hurt. Absurd.

“And crosses, stakes through the heart, garlic?” Jason asked.

Sienna raised one eyebrow. “I thought you
didn’t
want to kill me.”

He didn’t. He absolutely did not want to kill Sienna. But he did want to know how to protect himself from the ones who clearly could kill him. “Do any of those things work?” he demanded.

“Well, I think a stake through the heart kills pretty much everyone,” Sienna said. “But, crosses? No. And the only thing garlic does is ruin your social life.” She smiled, and Jason almost smiled back. But he wasn’t ready to let the subject drop.

“How old are you? Will you live forever? How long have you been in high school?” he asked, the questions tumbling out more quickly than he’d intended.

“I’m the same age as you,” Sienna replied, amused. “And I won’t live forever, but most…of us…do live longer than humans. We age the same way you do, until we’re adult. After that, we age much more slowly.”

“So, how many of you are there? Brad, you, Erin…Zach?” he added, suddenly picturing Zach’s cold once-over at school the other day. He was clearly the leader of Sienna’s group of friends. Chances were good that he’d be a vampire too.

“Jason, I can’t…,” Sienna began.

“What about Van Dyke?” he rushed on, suddenly remembering Van Dyke’s miraculous recovery at the first swim practice. He’d gone into the locker room—with Simkins, the assistant coach—and his body had been weak and pale. He’d emerged just a few minutes later, full of energy and raring to go, while Simkins had come out pale, but looking completely blissed out. Jason suddenly understood how Van Dyke had recovered so quickly: He had fed on Assistant Coach Simkins.

“There are several of us,” Sienna said. “Several families in Malibu. But no one will ever hurt you. I promise.”

“Oh, yeah? What about Carrie?” Jason shot back. “Someone sure hurt her.” He felt anger rising in him again. Carrie was the whole reason he’d come here, and he’d almost forgotten in the midst of this shock. “I found her body. That girl did not enjoy herself with someone from one of these families and go home happy.”

Sienna wrapped her arms around herself, as if she’d suddenly gotten chilled. “No. She didn’t. Poor Carrie.”

“‘Poor Carrie?’” he repeated. “That’s it? She gets murdered by a vampire and that’s all you’ve got to say?”

She grimaced, and he was relieved to see that her teeth had gone back to normal. No fangs. “There’s something called ‘bloodlust,’” Sienna said quietly, seriously. “It’s kind of an addiction—to blood. If a vampire’s in the grip of bloodlust, he doesn’t stop drinking. He can’t.”

“So the human dies,” Jason concluded. “The vampire keeps drinking until the human has lost too much blood to survive.”

“It hasn’t happened here in decades,” Sienna said. “It’s forbidden by our families. It’s against everything we believe in. You have to trust me on this, Jason. We all have tight control over our urges.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Obviously not all of you.”

Worry filled Sienna’s face. “Zach is furious about what happened to Carrie,” she said. “He’s going to take care of it. Don’t worry. He’ll bring down whoever killed her.”

“Zach. Zach will take care of it,” Jason repeated. He pictured the dark-eyed guy he’d met at school. He hadn’t looked as if he cared much about anyone on the face of the earth except himself. But Jason had to admit that he
had
looked capable—more than capable—of taking care of things. Zach gave the impression that he was in charge of just about everything that crossed his path. But he was still a vampire. And Jason saw no reason to trust a vampire—especially one he barely even knew. “And Zach cares why?” he asked.

“We
all
care,” Sienna snapped. “Because Carrie didn’t deserve to die. The same way you would care if some human had murdered her. We care even more
because
it’s one of us and that’s unacceptable. That makes it our responsibility, and that’s why it
will
be taken care of—by us, by Zach. Because he’s the strongest. Believe me, Jason. Whoever killed Carrie won’t go unpunished.”

“Sienna, dinner!” Mrs. Devereux called, stepping out into the backyard. She glanced at Jason and smiled graciously. “Would you like to join us, Jason?” she asked.

“No. Thank you.” Jason stood up and tried to smile. But the idea of eating with a family who liked to feed on humans turned his stomach.

“Are you sure? We’re having the most delicious risotto,” Mrs. Devereux said. “Our cook is world-class.”

“No,” Jason said abruptly. Usually he was good with parents. But usually those parents weren’t also vampires. He couldn’t help wondering how Mrs. Devereux felt about him. Would she want him hanging around Sienna?

“I, uh, my parents will be looking for me,” he added. He tried to force a smile, but his upper lips stuck to his dry gums, and he was afraid it had come out looking more like a sneer.