The Vampiric Housewife (26 page)

    
“No.” He could hear the pain it caused to admit that in Rhett’s voice.

    
“Has anyone found a witness who has seen the Murrays or caught their scent?”

    
“Not yet but the night is young. Drew swears the girl is still in the city.” He paused for a moment. “Is it true that born-vampires aren’t burnt by the sun?”

    
“So Valerie has figured that out. Smart girl. Always was.”

    
“What about half-breeds?”

    
The doctor shrugged. “Experiments have been inconclusive. Some are fine. Some burn slightly. Other . . . Perish.” Rhett knew that Venjamin did not speak in theory. He had exposed multiple crossbreeds to sunlight without regard for their lives, only what their lives could prove to science. “It has to do with the melanin in the skin.”

    
“Do you want me to continue to interrogate Charlie?”

    
“That won’t be necessary. I have a jet standing by to take you back to New York. I want you heading my investigation.”

    
“Yes sir.”

    
Venjamin continued to watch Charlie through the mirror after Rhett left. His injuries from the fight had healed as well though he was still cloaked in blood soaked clothing. His head hung on his chest, his dark hair falling forward, all his limbs limp. His body was weak. He had lost a lot of blood during his fight with Rhett and had not been allowed to feed.

    
From a drawer the doctor retrieved a black bag like doctors were known to carry decades ago. Venjamin had always liked nostalgia. He collected old, outdated medical instruments. That was his greatest fear, to become one of those rusted obsolete tools. Collecting was a familial hobby. His father, too, had collected tools from his profession. Of course his father had held a different career. In the black bag were some of the old tools that his father had collected as well as some new ones that Venjamin had added.

    
With the bag in hand, he entered the room where Charlie sat. The prisoner raised his head, but there was no alarm on his face. Venjamin was disappointed. He had become accustom to invoking fear in his vampires. But he wasn’t worried, that fear would return. Charlie may have looked like a beaten man, a man who had given up, but the fact that he still refused to give the location of his family told Venjamin that he was far from it.

    
“Hello Charlie,” Venjamin said as he set the bag down on a table. Charlie didn’t respond. “I have to say, I am very disappointed in you, the choices you’ve made. You could have contributed greatly to this world if only you could have kept your professionalism and remained unattached.”

    
Charlie still said nothing.

    
“You know that I will get them back. I always get what I want, Charlie. You should know that.” Venjamin opened the bag and began taking out the tools, all of them made out of wood or silver. Charlie’s eyes were on the instruments. “Do you know what this is? It’s an actual vampire kit design to dispose of vampires. It’s very old. My father found it in Istanbul. Of course, it has some worthless items—a vial of holy water, some rancid garlic. The wooden stake and silver dagger will be useful however.”

    
“I’ve already been tortured. Rhett took great pleasure in it. You should be proud. You can do anything you want to me. I won’t talk. I don’t know anything.”

    
Venjamin smiled. “You lied about the vampire so you know more than you’ve led on. Oh, we know all about how your family met him right down to Valerie swooning in his arms.” A muscle in Charlie’s cheek twitched, but he would not take the bait. “But I am well aware that you will not be giving us anymore information. I don’t doubt that.”

    
“Are you going to kill me then?” he asked. He did not sound frightened.

    
“No. You’re still of use to me, Charlie. No, I’m going to do something else to you,” he said and pulled a jar of silvery liquid out of his bag and held it up to the light so it sparkled. “Vampire venom. It’s secreted by your Parotid glands that are located on the side of your jaw. In humans this gland secretes saliva when one tastes something sour. In vampires, however, it secretes a paralyzing venom when blood is tasted. Residing in this venom is a chemical that can mutate a human’s DNA and transforms the human into a vampire. Fascinating, isn’t it? Of course, this venom does not paralyze other vampires or mutate their DNA. We have run trials. But it does have an interesting affect on your healing process.” Venjamin’s eyes met Charlie’s. “You’ve committed treason. You must be punished.”

    
Finally fear ebbed into Charlie’s eyes.

    
“Dr. Venjamin?” Ms. Pines called out as she opened the door. “Sorry to disturb you sir, but tech support was able to decipher some information off the cell phone.”

    
“Thank you Ms. Pines. I’ll be there in just a moment.”

    
Venjamin set the jar of venom down. It would do Charlie good to stew in his anxiety for a moment. “If you’ll excuse me, Charlie. Don’t worry, I shouldn’t be gone long.”

    
Outside of the examination room, Ms. Pines waited for him.

    
A cell phone had been found broken into pieces in the tub of the motel room. Charlie didn’t have a cell phone on him. After all the stupid mistakes he had made on the run, Venjamin doubted he had bought the family phones so they could communicate. After his display these last few days, Venjamin half wondered how Charlie survived for a century and a half. Of course living in Sangre Valley for so long may have made him soft. Perhaps he should have one of the psychologists look into Sangre Valley’s domestic effect on made-vampires.

    
“What do we know?” he asked his secretary.

    
“It was taken from the motorist they killed, James Peterson. But it has a Sangre Valley phone number in its history.”

    
“Whose?”

    
“Lisa Cummings. Multiple times.”

    
“That’s brilliant. Let’s hope that young John Murray get his hands on another cell phone. Make sure that if he does try to call Miss Cummings again, that the call goes through. Also send the Sheriff over to the Cummings’ place. Lisa must be bereft after the scene with Drew then the whole Murray family taking so violently ill. Have Adler comfort her. We’re going to need her.”

    
She nodded. “Also, I just received a phone call. Drew Sanders has located Amelia Murray’s scent. It’s old and weak, but he has it.”

    
“Wonderful. Keep me updated.”

    
“Yes sir. Sir, is there anything I can get you?” Ms. Pines asked in a very neutral manner. He could always count on Ms. Pines to be professional and not become sentimental or personal. She was a trained nurse however. She would surely recognize the symptoms the doctor was displaying.

    
“No, Ms. Pines. That will be all.”

    
“Yes sir.”

     
As Ms. Pines went to her work so did Dr. Venjamin.

Chapter Twenty-five

The Lone Vampire

    
Ethan had been awake long before sunset sitting on his bed in the dark wearing just his boxer briefs. The scars on his faces were only a preview to the ones covering the rest of him. His back was nothing but criss-crossing scars, his chest a collage of mutilated skin as if acid had been poured over his body. He no longer noticed them or thought about them, but had let them dissolve into his personality.

    
He was hungry. He hadn’t had a chance to feed last night since the Murrays’ unexpected appearance had interrupted his hunt. He would not have time to hunt tonight either. He had gone longer without feeding; he would survive. Vampires could go eternally without blood only the hunger, the gnawing, the never ending drive—
need
to consume blood would drive them insane. Plus their bodies would greatly weaken allowing another vampire or human to finish them off with ease. Ethan knew how to ignore the hunger except . . . he had living bodies in the other room. He could distinctly hear each of their hearts beating, almost in unison. How odd. He could hear their blood rushing through their veins and arteries. Thankfully they smelled of vampires. Not that he was tempted. There was no danger of him attacking the family. He had mastered self-control long ago.

    
The hunger may have awakened him, but it was the thought of the living vampires in the next room that kept him awake. There had been myths of such things. He had never believed in them. Even once he had become aware that their existence was more than lore, he had never seen one or met one until the Murrays. He thought he had been prepared for the contradiction that their very existence proposed. But he wasn’t at all prepared for Valerie Murray.

     
Worse than his hunger was his craving to see those violet eyes again, lose himself in those dark purple pools so he wouldn’t have to contend with his own whirling mind of guilt and anger, the thirst for a vengeance of which there was no cure. But he hadn’t dared to gaze into her eyes for a second time. His vengeance was all he had to hold onto. If he lost that, he’d have nothing.

    
Last night when she came into his room looking to him for answers, he had wanted to reach out to her, feel her radiating heat, and comfort her. He wanted to tell her that none of this was her fault, that she hadn’t been a fool to believe or trust or love her husband, parents, or anyone else in her life who had betrayed her. But words to convey that type of consoling sentiment were not in his vocabulary. He expressed himself better through actions. But the actions he’d take to soothe her were not appropriate given the situation.

    
He hated that he had to be the one to inform her that her biological parents were humans or that her adoptive parents were murdered in order to facilitate her marriage to Venjamin’s chosen stud. Worse yet, he could only tell her half truths. He wasn’t schooled enough to go into the genetic explanations of what he was, what she was, what her children were. Alessandro and Jonathan could do a much better job than him. They could tell her more about her past than he knew. He was forced to keep her in the dark as she desperately tried to climb out of it. But that’s where a vampire lived, in the dark. Maybe only a living vampire could live in the light.

    
But Valerie would be okay. She would overcome all that had happened to her. He had never seen strength like hers. Not the unfathomable physical strength of a vampire, but the type of strength to keep one moving, to keep overcoming all the obstacles life threw at you. She had fought off vampires who were trying to kill her. She had saved her husband’s life. She had chosen to trust him. His life had ended once too. He did not, however, handle it as remarkably as Valerie.

    
There was the problem of the husband, a double fold issue to be taken into consideration. He could be dead by now. They may never know what became of his fate. He knew Alessandro and Jonathan would forge a rescue for him. He was the only vampire who had worked for Venjamin for twenty years that would be willing to divulge his secrets. Charlie was more valuable than Ethan would like to admit. That was only one side of the problem. The other was that he was Valerie’s husband. Ethan did not doubt Charlie’s love for her. But he also knew that she did not love Charlie, at least not in the way a wife should love her husband. The question was, would she remain with him—assuming that he was still alive. He wished he knew the answer. She had saved his life, but she also threatened to leave him over something as insignificant as blood. Of course, vegetarians were always a bit fanatical about the source of their blood. Then again, he fathered her children. That was no light thing even when compared to all he had done to her. Ethan wanted her to be done with Charlie for her own sake, but also for his own.

    
His watch beeped signaling the official setting of the sun. He dressed in jeans and a dark blue shirt then pulled on his leather jacket. In a gym bag he threw his few possessions and knocked on the Murrays’ door. They were already awake and dressed in their fifties clothing. Something would have to be done about that before they left town. Valerie’s face was puffy. He wanted to stroke her cheek. He did not.