The Entity Within (21 page)

“They’re fine,” Daniella assured Mrs. Sweeny, who put her dogs back on their respective leashes.

“Thanks for catching them,” the older woman said. “I hope they weren’t any trouble?”

“Tell her they better not come back here,” Bella said from the top of the stairs.

“Who was that speaking?” Mrs. Sweeny asked.

“My grandmother,” Zoe lied. “She gets crabby without her meds so I better go.” She shut the front door.

“I get crabby without my meds?” Gram asked as she strolled into the living room from her bedroom on the main floor.

“Sorry, Gram. I had to say something to cover up the fact that Bella was talking.”

“What did I miss?” Gram asked. “I heard a big commotion upstairs.”

“Demons possessed a pair of pampered Chihuahuas.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They couldn’t get to the pit bulls they wanted. It’s a good thing that I put that protection spell over Daniella or they might have tried to jump from the dogs to her,” Zoe said.

“Ick.” Daniella shuddered. “Like fleas?”

“Only a billion times worse,” Damon said before speaking into his smartphone. “Neville, research the names Guy Pettigrew and Guy Worley and send me what you find ASAP.”

“What do you think it all means?” Zoe asked.

“That the demons are coming up with new ways to make trouble. First possessing you, then the human at the funeral home, now dogs.”

“You haven’t had demons do those things before?” Zoe said.

“I usually kill them first,” Damon said.

“What about an astral projection?” she asked.

“Also something new.”

“Music?”

“Ditto.”

“What is so special about these demons?”

“The fact that you called them forth,” Damon said.

“I need to figure out why my mother would send those two guys to hell, if that’s even true,” Zoe said.

“Did she keep a journal or anything?” Daniella asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Did she give you your talisman?” Damon asked.

Zoe nodded.

“When?”

“On my thirteenth birthday.”

“Did she wear one?”

“Yes.”

“Where is hers? Is it back in Boston?”

“No. I have it in my jewelry box.”

Daniella held up her phone. “Nick just texted me that he’ll be here in a minute with dinner.”

“Show her talisman to me after dinner then,” Damon told Zoe.

The knock on the front door came a moment later. “That’s our secret knock,” Daniella said. “It’s Nick.”

Nick wasn’t alone. The good news was that he didn’t have any obvious demons accompanying him and the take-out bags of delicious-smelling food he was carrying. The bad news was that Tanya was right behind him with a bag of her own, a designer tote.

“What are you doing here?” Zoe asked Tanya.

“I’m not here for you,” Tanya said. “I’m here for Damon. I can’t believe how rude you all are to eat in front of him and not offer him anything.” She sidled up to Damon and ran her hand up his arm. “You poor thing. When was the last time you fed?”

Damon just shrugged.

“Well, don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got everything you need.” She moved her hand to his chest and then down to the buckle of his black pants.

“I’m working,” Damon said, lifting her hand back to his chest but not removing it.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a little feast of our own. Look, I brought your favorite. Type O.” She lifted the blood bag from the tote and held it up as if it were a prized possession.

What would Damon do? Would he rip it open and start guzzling blood? Would he and Tanya take turns swigging the type O?

“Don’t get any of that on my furniture,” Gram said.

“You’re a witch. You can remove stains,” Tanya said.

“Where did you get that from?” Zoe heard herself ask.

The temperature in the room went twenty degrees colder. “We don’t talk about that,” Nick said as he took the food to the table.

“I already figured out it has something to do with the funeral home,” Zoe said, turning to face Daniella.

Daniella shook her head. “My lips are sealed.”

“If you two want some privacy, you can go in the kitchen, Damon,” Gram said.

Zoe wondered if that was rude, sending him to the kitchen as if he were in a time out for being bad.

“I go where Damon goes,” Tanya said, clutching his arm and still holding the blood supply.

“If you’ll excuse us.” Damon wrapped his arm around Tanya and led her to the kitchen, the swinging door closing behind them.

What if I can’t excuse him?
Zoe wondered. What if it was too much to take that he was a vampire who drank blood and had a dark side? Was she really in any position to be judging him? It’s not like she was Suzy Sunshine. She was a witch whose mother practiced dark magic and may have sent the wrong people to hell.

Witches and vampires made for a volatile combination.

So why did she care what Damon and Tanya were doing in the kitchen? Were they just feeding or doing more? Were they having quickie vampire sex? What would sex with a vampire be like?

“You think too much,” Nick told Zoe as he held out a chair for her at the dining room table.

“He used to tell me that, too,” Daniella said.

“And I was right,” Nick said.

“Vampires don’t think?” Zoe countered as she sat down.

“There are times when I wonder,” Daniella said with a laugh and a tilt of her head toward the kitchen.

“I’ve never had corned beef and cabbage,” Nick admitted as he helped Daniella into a chair with such gentlemanly courtesy, it made Zoe wonder what it would be like to have that care taken with her.

Nick just did help you into your chair,
her inner voice reminded her.
Has Damon ever held out a chair for you?

She couldn’t remember.

He’d kissed her. She remembered that. Hard to forget. Just as Damon was hard to forget. How long were he and Tanya going to stay in the kitchen?

“You’re not eating,” Gram said. “It’s really good. Where did you get this, Nick?”

“From a neighborhood Irish pub just outside Vamptown,” he said.

“Are you doing anything special at the bar tonight for the holiday? Green beer on tap or green blood or anything?” Zoe said.

“I fought on the side of the English at Waterloo,” Nick said. “So I never celebrated St. Patrick’s Day until now. The English and the Irish weren’t on the best of terms for much of that time.”

“Wow. So you’re older than Damon,” Zoe said. “He told me he was turned on the battlefield at Gettysburg on the third day of fighting.”

“That’s more than he tells most people,” Nick said. “I’m not the oldest vamp in Vamptown, though. That honor goes to Pat. Of course, age is relative for a vamp. You stay the age you were when you were turned. Most vamps do, anyway.”

“But not you?” Zoe said.

Nick looked at Daniella.

“I didn’t say a word,” she said.

“No, not me,” Nick finally said.

Daniella wiped at her eyes. “Nick is no longer an immortal and it’s all my fault.”

“What did you do?” Zoe said.

“I had sex with him. It made some of his vamp strengths stronger but it meant that he will eventually die.”

“But not for a long time,” Nick said. “Daniella’s aging was also changed by our actions. She is now aging at a slower rate.”

“So having sex with a vampire could be an anti-aging technique?” Zoe said.

“I’m not sure all this talk about sex is proper dinner conversation,” Gram said.

“What about sex between a witch and a vampire?” Bella asked from the floor where she was seated beside Zoe. Looking up at Zoe’s shocked face, Bella said, “What? You know you were thinking about it.”

“Familiars cannot read a witch’s mind,” Zoe stated.

“Anyone could have read your mind,” Bella said. “So who is going to answer my question?”

“No one,” Zoe said.

“I don’t know the answer,” Daniella said.

Nick remained silent, as did Gram.

“That corned beef is very high in sodium content and causes bloating,” Bella said. “You’d do better to give some of that to Morticia and me down here.”

Morticia mewed her agreement.

“Why does only one of your cats talk?” Daniella asked.

“I don’t know the answer,” Zoe said.

“Morticia and I communicate telepathically,” Gram said. “That’s the usual way in our coven.”

“But I’m special,” Bella said proudly. “Oh shit! There goes that damn spooky organ music through the floorboards again.”

“No swearing at the dinner table,” Gram reprimanded her.

“I’m on the floor, not the table,” Bella said. “What does a familiar have to do to get a little peace and quiet around here?”

“I thought maybe they’d play ‘Oh Danny Boy’ or something Irish,” Daniella said.

“No such luck,” Zoe said.

“Maybe we should blast some music back down at them,” Daniella suggested. “Maybe some Muse from my smartphone. Their song ‘Uprising’ would do.”

“Would do what? Get rid of the demons?” Zoe asked.

“No.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” She was also afraid of the answer to those other questions … about a witch and a vampire having sex and about what Damon was doing with Tanya in the kitchen.

*   *   *

“Feel better now?” Tanya asked Damon in the kitchen.

Damon wiped his mouth and nodded. Two empty bags of blood sat on the countertop.

“Good.” Tanya sidled up against him. “I could make you feel even better still.”

“I’ve got to stay focused on hunting demons,” he said.

“It seems to me you’re more focused on Zoe the witch than the demons. You do know that witches and vampires are like eggs and water.”

“Oil and water,” he corrected her.

“Whatever.” Tanya thrust her lower lip out in a sexy pout. “I don’t like her.”

“That’s irrelevant,” Damon said.

“Not to me it isn’t. She doesn’t understand you the way I do.”

Damon knew that no one really understood him and he liked it that way. This was nothing new to him. Even in his life as a human, he’d been full of contradictions and complications along with a fierce competitive drive. His sire Simon had said that it was one of the reasons he turned him. Nothing got the best of Damon. Not even death.

Yet his memories of that terrible day in Gettysburg stayed in his mind. He’d seen plenty of blood since then, but nothing like that. The hill had been slippery with it after two days of battle, the air filled with the stench of dead bodies and the cries of those mortally wounded but not yet gone. Like his younger brother, Sam, who’d died there. Damon couldn’t be sure the voice he’d heard back then was really Sam’s, but the possibility haunted him with a powerful persistence and filled him with grief and rage.

He’d tried to become more civilized. Since coming to Vamptown, Damon drank blood from what appeared to be a beer bottle or from a glass. He hadn’t chugged it down like a wild beast for some time.

Tanya was excited by his appetite and the sight of the blood. He could see that on her face and in her eyes.

Tanya was right in front of him, ready, willing, and able, yet Damon’s thoughts were on Zoe in the other room. His vamp hearing allowed him to listen in on the conversation. They weren’t talking about him. Not that he wanted them to.

He was filled with frustration and it showed in the way he crumpled the plastic bag and threw it in the garbage. He let Tanya lick the excess blood from his fingers. Why the hell shouldn’t he? Maybe having sex would be enough of a release that he could stop brooding about kissing Zoe and the sweet taste of her mouth.

Eve hadn’t tasted that sweet, so it wasn’t just a witch thing. It was a Zoe thing. Maybe she’d used one of those creams of hers on her lips to make them so soft and delicious.

Shit, he was doing it again. Thinking of Zoe.

“Yumm,” Tanya murmured.

Swearing in Latin, Damon set her away from him.

“What’s wrong?” Tanya said.

How could he explain when he didn’t know the answer to that question himself? Shaking his head, he said, “Maybe after this demon thing is over.”

“How long will that take?” Tanya said.

“Hopefully not long.”

“Good.” Tanya smiled up at him. “If there’s anything you need from me, you only have to ask.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know how good I am in bed and out of it?” She slipped her finger beneath the buttons on his dark shirt to swirl a fingertip around his navel.

Hell, she was hot all right. So why wasn’t he as hot? Why was he still keeping tabs on Zoe in the other room?

Damon tried telling himself it was to monitor the situation and make sure the little witch hadn’t done anything to worsen the demon dilemma. But Nick was out there with her. He should be able to handle things.

Tanya thought so, too. “Why can’t Nick stay here and give you some time off?”

He removed her hand from his body before replying. “Nick isn’t a Demon Hunter.”

“I thought the demons were locked in the tunnel,” Tanya said.

“They are.”

Tanya did her lip pout again. “Then why do you have to guard the witches? It’s because you don’t trust them, right? They could be demons themselves.”

“No, they’re not demons.”

“What about that cat of hers?”

“Not a demon either.”

Daniella and Zoe walked into the kitchen carrying dirty plates and utensils.

“You should have knocked first,” Tanya told them.

“It’s my house,” Zoe said, dumping the dishes in the sink. “Are you two done in here?”

“Yes,” Damon said before Tanya could answer.

“Nick wanted to talk to you,” Zoe told Damon.

Damon was glad to leave the women behind. Being stuck in a kitchen with a female vampire, a female hybrid, and a witch was not his idea of a good time.

“Irma went in her room to watch
Jeopardy!
She recorded it,” Nick said as Damon joined him at the dining room table.

“I thought they didn’t have cable yet.” Damon had killed the cable guy demon and no one had come knocking from the cable company since then.

“She used magic and Neville’s tech talents via texts. But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about this demon danger. They’re getting bolder and figuring out new ways to communicate from outside the tunnels. I heard about the Hounds of Hell,” Nick said.