Night Fever (A Rue Darrow Novel Book 3) (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

“Hey, baby.”

“Hey, yourself,” I shot back at Nathan and moved the phone to my other ear. Another package had come. I described the colored glass ball to him, and he seemed as impressed as I was. “This one is stronger, but I can feel it giving. What do you think she’s up to with these items?”

He paused to consider it. “I’m guessing folks bring her stuff from their house that they feel are causing them problems. She figures out there’s a spell on it, and she’s hired to break the spell. It’s a theory anyway. I don’t know a lot about witches.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You’re saying she’s getting more money for breaking the spell?”

“Everyone’s got to make a profit.”

“So these are cursed items? What am I bringing into our home?” I tossed the ball on the carpet where I sat at the foot of the couch. Having nothing else to do with myself, I had hung out at the apartment and done boring chores like laundry and bathroom cleaning. Then the package arrived, and I had thought to distract myself. After that, Nathan phoned.

“Calm down, Rue. Nothing ever works on you. Even if there’s bad luck on it, it won’t work.”

“That’s not entirely true, but even if it doesn’t, it could work on you.”

“Hmm, I never thought of that. Be sure to disable it before I get home.”

“Thanks a lot. No pressure. When are you getting home?”

“Do you miss me?”

A tease lay on the tip of my tongue, but I scrapped it, remembering the last time. “Yes, desperately.”

“Good.” The big man crowed. Nathan was easy, and I loved him for it. “I’m planning on flying back tomorrow night.”

“So soon?”

“I thought you missed me.”

“I do, of course. I’m just surprised to get my boyfriend sooner than I thought.”

“Your boyfriend. I like the sound of that. Anyway, yes, my trainer is coming a couple weeks after, so we’ll have time to spend together before he arrives. Then it will get busy and intense. Apparently, I’m going to be put through a few trials.”

“Will you be kicked off the island if you fail?”

“Rue.”

“Right. You won’t fail, and you can call me in if you need me.”

“Woman, if you don’t behave, I’ll put you over my knee.”

“This is a PG-13 account of my life, Nathan. Keep it clean.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

We spoke a little longer, and then after the requisite kiss-blowing and declarations of love, I let him go. I picked up the cursed glass ball again and studied the surface. The energy was mostly dormant in my hand, but I sensed the spell all the same. Deeply rooted, it resisted me, almost as if it ran around inside the ball to escape my touch.

My curiosity rose at what Ilsa might be up to and if Nathan’s theory was correct. Perhaps she both made her own items for blessing and cursing to resell, and bought items off other people. I speculated that she could run a lucrative shop if people brought her things they wanted to just get rid of and told her to keep them. She could have me break the spells she couldn’t remove herself and then re-spell them. The additional benefit of being Ilsa was she could provide services for both humans and nonhumans.

Later in the night, I went out to hunt for my meal. I was sticking to “drinking” light. There had been a few more ghoul attacks. In the couple times I had spoken with Violet, she mentioned the need to put down those who died with the fever. Rather, I should say ensure that they stayed down.

Just when I spotted my prey for the night, and I extended my fangs in readiness, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out and checked the display. Georgia’s name flashed on the screen. She could wait until later. I let the call go to voicemail, but she rang again right away. I glanced over to the woman I had scoped only to find her gone.

Frowning, I sniffed the air. Her scent led half a block away, but I heard other humans moving and talking nearby. That meant I would need to find someone else or wait until the woman was alone again. Great.

I answered my cell phone when its peal disturbed the night a third time. “Thanks for chasing away my meal, Georgia.”

Speaking around my fangs was awkward, so I retracted them. Georgia’s sniffles brought me from my own problems to concentrate on her.

“Georgia?” I said into the phone and stopped walking along the dark road.

“Rue,” she sobbed.

“What is it? Talk to me, kiddo.”

She choked, and I realized she wasn’t being her usual dramatic self. I couldn’t sense over the phone, but something told me Georgia was so terrified, she could hardly speak. I started moving again at a fast clip, searching for her. Her apartment would be my launch point, and then I would expand from there if she couldn’t tell me where to find her.

The small voice and what she shared brought me to a sliding halt. “Rue, I’ve been bitten.”

“No.” I sank to a knee. “Who…what?”

I shut my eyes. Anything was better than a ghoul. Maybe one of the vampires had bitten her. No, she would be thrilled and hope to be made a donor with glamour side benefits. If that had happened, Georgia would have called me dancing on a cloud.

“The creature that’s been attacking everybody,” Georgia said, dashing my hopes. “It chewed my arm. I couldn’t get it off. The police came. I think it’s dead, but now I’m in the hospital.”

She had hardly finished the words before I arrived at the hospital by process of choosing the most likely and then tracking her scent. Even as I entered her room, I smelled the infection inside her, growing, expanding. Georgia had never looked so small and weak. Of course, not that much time had passed since she was attacked, but I was seeing her humanity and its fragility.

I sat down on the side of the bed, and she latched onto me. I let her hold on as long as she liked, sobbing and shaking. Once she had calmed down some, she lay against her pillows. I noted the used tissue everywhere, the empty box on the floor and the second one on the table to the right of her. Her eyes were puffy and red, and a bandage wrapped her left arm.

“I’m going to die,” she squeaked.

“No, sweetheart.” I touched her cheek. “You’re going to be fine. The doctors have probably already found a cure, but they’re not releasing the information to the general public.”

“Don’t try to make me feel better, Rue.” She began to rock. “I know I’m going to die. Everyone is saying it, that the people who get the fever all die.”

“That’s just busybodies who don’t know the truth.”

She stared into my face as if to judge whether she could spot the lie. I could have told her it was useless. A vampire had the ultimate poker face.

Georgia snatched another tissue and crumped it in her fist. “Change me, Rue. Make me into a vampire. I never wanted to be one because you can’t glamour yourself, but if it means I don’t have to die, I want it. Please, do this for me, and we can be sisters forever.”

Oddly enough, I found myself wondering if it was possible. Could I stop the spread of the disease by making her a vampire? One didn’t want to make every Sue and Mary a member of the undead society, but this was Georgia.

“Silvano?”
I said inside my head.

“Rue, you never call. You never write.”

Wow, Silvano joked? I had no idea.
“I’m sorry about that. I have a question.”

He was silent for a moment. I imagined he was annoyed that was the only reason I had contacted him.
“I’ll answer if I can.”

“Thank you. Can you tell me if it’s possible to stop a person from becoming a ghoul by turning them into a vampire before they die?”

Silence. This time he let me sense his displeasure along our connection. I wasn’t surprised. Nothing I did pleased Silvano.
“It’s not possible, and even if it was, I hope you would contact me for my guidance before you turned anyone.”

The tightness in his tone made me wonder if he spoke the truth.
“Are you sure? You aren’t just speculating?”

I could almost hear him grinding his teeth.
“Ghouls are similar to us. They grow stronger with age. They are also undead. Their disease—or fever as the humans are calling it—is powerful and unstoppable when a human is infected. You could say the instant a person is bitten by a ghoul, they are a ghoul and no longer human. Rue, you cannot turn anyone other than a human into a vampire.”

While he spoke, I held Georgia’s hand, and she stared at me wide-eyed and hopeful. I knew she thought I was considering her plea. Yet, I had to tell her it was impossible. After I broke off the connection with Silvano, I stood.

“Georgia, I need to make a quick call. I’ll be right back.”

“No, don’t go,” she pleaded, squeezing my hand. The gentle pressure she placed on my fingers didn’t compare to Violet’s hold.

“I promise. I’ll be right outside.”

Somehow, I convinced her to let me go, and I moved to the hall. Bill was on my speed-dial, and I phoned him to back up Silvano’s story.

“I’m afraid he’s telling you the truth, Rue. Your kind is powerful indeed, but you can’t stop a ghoul’s disease that way.”

“That way,” I repeated, knowing he meant killing them.

I thought of how I had ended Carl’s life without any emotion. Could I do the same with Georgia, especially when I did
feel
when it came to her? All of my friends made me feel. That’s why I kept them close, and Georgia as much as she bugged me was a good friend.

“Thanks, Bill,” I said. “I appreciate you answering me without the run around this time.”

I wondered briefly if he could read my mind over the phone.

“I can’t read your mind across distances.”

“You just did.”

“A guess with age.”

I smirked. “All right. I’ll talk to you later.”

I ended the call with him and entered Georgia’s room again. A couple hospital staff had come in while I had been distracted talking to Bill. Both of them wore masks and gloves, and they were rigging an enclosure around Georgia. The man whirled to face me. “You’re not supposed to be in here. She can’t have visitors. We’re now on quarantine, and a rep from the CDC is on the way.”

The woman looked at the man. “Should we make her stay and have her examined? I’ve never had to deal with this kind of situation.”

“Me either,” the man said. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “If you two are done lamenting your career choices… Whether I stay or go is my decision.”

He snorted and walked to the phone on the bedside table. I had the impression he assumed my tiny self couldn’t stop him from making a call to security.
Oh no, the big man is making a phone call. I’m so scared.
Yeah, I was officially in a bad mood.

“Put the phone down,” I growled.

He did, and I elbowed the woman aside and parted the enclosure to step into it. Georgia now lay in bed shaking like a leaf, wide-eyed, and by the sound of her heartbeat, she was close to popping.

I looked into her gaze and took her hand. “Calm down, Georgia.”

Her heartbeat dropped to a normal level in seconds, which startled me. That couldn’t be good. I had to be careful with my words.

“I want you to be take it easy from now on. Everything is going to be okay.”

“B-but I’m going to die,” she whimpered.

I found it interesting that she could protest against my words even while I glamoured her. Perhaps it was the effects of the ghoul infection that interfered with the works. This time, I couldn’t lie to her, knowing the truth. “Yes, sweetheart, but you’re not going to be afraid of it. I’m going to be with you when it happens, so you won’t have to worry. Right? You’re not going to be scared.”

“I won’t be scared,” she repeated, giving herself over to my control.

“Good girl. Now, just lay back and rest. I’m going to sit here with you until almost sunrise. These two pointless characters over here won’t bother you at all.”

I felt a couple of angry looks directed at me, but I didn’t pay them any mind. Georgia’s eyes fluttered closed, and I drew a chair up to do just what I had promised her. The night passed slowly. Anyone who entered Georgia’s room, I sent on their way. Beyond her door, there was a hive of activity, and from the voices I picked up when I wasn’t focusing on my friend let me know New Orleans was indeed in a state of emergency.

My phone had rung once or twice, but I turned it off and sat without moving until I sensed the day coming. At last, I stood and bent to kiss Georgia’s cheek.

“I have to take my rest now, Georgia, but I’ll be back tonight. Don’t worry. I
will
come back.” She was sleeping and didn’t stir, but I was confident in my previous glamour, and I left her to return to Nathan’s apartment.

When I strode into the bedroom, I remembered to turn on my phone and tossed it on the bed. Yawning, I unbuttoned my blouse and threw that in the closet basket. My gaze fell on the window. I had discovered after I returned from the past that all the windows in Nathan’s apartment were fitted with sun blocking enclosures. These weren’t cheap items one could rig up oneself. From the quality and sturdiness of them, I’d say they had been professionally installed. I’m sure they weren’t there before I changed the past, and it gave truth to Nathan’s saying I had been living with him for six months. He had gone to lengths to be sure I was safe.