No drunks. No druggies. No Creed fans.
Ben seemed to fit most of my dad’s requirements. Our relationship had not been pretty. It was definitely not smooth. I didn’t think that was possible when your first date involved a crushed sternum. It wasn’t what I’d pictured for myself—living with my boyfriend with a bunch of vampire housemates, working for a shadow government. I didn’t know if we had gotten to the “can’t live without you” phase. But I could get there.
I was totally going to check him for a Creed tattoo, just in case.
Working from home didn’t mean that Jane’s schedule was any less busy. She just spent a lot more time teleconferencing. Dick worked from River Oaks, too, out of “solidarity,” but I suspected it had more to do with worrying about our safety and the gourmet blood blends Tess was delivering on a regular basis. I sat at the dining-room table and answered the calls rerouted to Jane’s landline and answered her e-mails and spent a lot of time apologizing for the lack of face-to-face Jane time. Jane was in her kitchen, stress-drinking and commanding the search team that was sweeping the Hollow for Dr. Hudson.
Ophelia sat at the other end of the dining-room table, typing furiously into her laptop and answering her phone every ten minutes or so. She answered in a different language every time, so it was difficult to guess what she was working on. Maybe it was a really complicated homework assignment? Frankly, the fact that she could yell at people in so many languages made her either ten times more awesome or ten times more intimidating. Fitz was completely oblivious to this, dozing at my feet.
Ben shuffled out of the kitchen and set a mug of bloodychino in front of me, kissing me on my head. He’d spent most of the early evening holed up in Jane’s library/office with a bunch of thumb drives and papers Gigi had sent home with Dick. He dropped a stack of papers in front of me.
“You look tired,” I told him, stroking my thumb along his cheek.
“I would say you’re wrong, but I did fall asleep a minute into your dad’s video last night, which is embarrassing.” He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that. After all that fuss I made, I fell asleep. I was exhausted, I guess.”
“It’s OK. It was just a bunch of advice on car repairs,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yeah?”
“My dad wanted to make sure I knew how to jump-start a battery, change a tire, that sort of thing,” I said. “Thanks for doing that for me. It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever given me.”
“You’re welcome.” He leaned forward and was about to kiss me when Ophelia suddenly started yelling in German. And she sounded very angry. Even angrier when she stood up and knocked her chair back.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ben said, grimacing, as Ophelia stomped outside and continued her conversation on the porch.
I pursed my lips. “No, it does not. So what are you working on right now?”
I leafed through the papers he had dropped onto the table.
“Oh, just reading through the personal papers and files from Dr. Hudson’s office. Jane said I could read over them since I read faster than she does. I’m hoping I can catch some sort of clue, like a Post-it that says, ‘I have a remote cabin on the lake and run there when the Council officials are looking for me. Here are the coordinates.’ ”
“That would be a helpful but oddly worded Post-it to leave for oneself,” I said. “But Dr. Hudson has used Post-its for evil purposes before.”
“True.”
The phone rang, and I reached for the receiver. “I wish I could help you with your speed-reading. But I have three conference calls to reschedule and a copier-paper vendor to yell at.”
“Good luck with that,” he said, ducking his head for a quick kiss before grabbing his papers. I answered the phone, listening as a Council rep out of Buffalo requested a meeting with Jane the next week. I opened her schedule on my laptop and glanced down. Ben had dropped one of his papers on the floor.
I picked it up, giving the Buffalo rep a string of “Yes, ma’ams” and “Mm-hmms” while scanning the paper. It was the bibliography for one of Dr. Hudson’s bonkers academic articles. Most of his work seemed to be based on legitimate genetic research, but then there were a few journal articles with titles like “Genetic Chameleons: Vampires and Their Magical DNA Adaptability” and “Better Vampires through Chemistry.” All of them were written by an Allan Fortescue, PhD, Professor of Biology, University of Kentucky.
“Hello?” the Buffalo rep called testily.
“S-sorry,” I stammered. “Yes, I have you confirmed on Mrs. Jameson-Nightengale’s schedule for Tuesday at three A.M. She’s looking forward to talking to you.”
The Buffalo rep hung up without thanking me. I stared at the bibliography. Why did the name Fortescue seem familiar? Just because he was a professor at my college? Had I heard the name on campus? I hadn’t taken any classes with him, but that didn’t mean that I hadn’t glimpsed his name on a door plate or in the campus newspaper.
I opened my Internet browser and went to the college’s Web site. No matter how I searched, I could not find a Dr. Fortescue in any of the science departments. I even tried the political science department. Nothing.
I chewed on my thumbnail, listening to Ophelia continuing to rant from the porch. I felt sorry for the German speaker on the other end of the line. I called Morgan’s cell phone, using Jane’s “ghost phone.”
“What is it with you using landlines now? Are you becoming Amish? Is that where you are? Pennsylvania Dutch country?”
“Yes, I’m becoming Amish. It’s like that old movie Witness but with more fangs.”
Morgan snorted. “Are you calling because you need me to order you a fancy new bonnet on the forbidden Internet?”
“No, I’m calling you because I am going to ask you to use your remote access to the school’s intranet to find some information you probably shouldn’t be looking up.”
I could hear her typing, so I guessed I had caught her near her laptop when I called. “That’s fine.”
“No, you could probably lose your job over this. This will be considered an abuse of the newspaper staff’s access to the school’s internal servers.”
“Yeah, probably, but I’d rather go out for helping a friend than, say, playing ‘Candy Crush’ on my workstation, which is probably how I’ll be fired.”
I nodded. “That’s true. Can you look up someone called Allan Fortescue? F-O-R-T-E-S-C-U-E? Allan with two Ls. The name seems really familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where I would know it from.”
“Ummm . . . he’s showing up on the personnel server but not as a current employee. Dr. Fortescue was let go about three years ago for being a complete wackadoo. He attempted to publish a bunch of journal articles with reputable academic publications, claiming that he could find a way to change vampires’ genetic makeup through chemical intervention, whatever that means. His supervisors asked him to drop the research interest a couple of different times. He was written up for insubordination, showing up to class late, or skipping classes altogether without making them up. He earned himself a rating of negative two on Rate My Professor.”
“I didn’t know they did negative numbers,” I said.
“They do when you forget to give a final in two of your classes and then count the grades as zeros.”
“Ooooh.” I winced. “Any forwarding address on his file?”
“According to the HR rep who handled his exit interview, he wrote, ‘I will see you all in hell.’ ”
“So, a no, then.”
“Is that helpful?” she asked.
“No. But I appreciate the effort. Just clear your browser history and blame Joanie the hyper girl if anyone asks.”
“I’m using Joanie’s login.” Morgan snorted. “I would say it’s for plausible deniability, but honestly, she ate the last of my emergency desk ramen last week. She has this coming
.”
“Agreed.”
“Welp, I have to go, because my mom is trying to force me into meaningful bonding moments at least every forty-five minutes. And it’s been forty-three. She has not handled empty-nest syndrome well.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” she admitted.
“See you, weirdo.”
“Talk soon,” she said, just as Ophelia came back into the dining room, a troubled expression on her face.
She flopped into her chair and stroked her hand over face. Ophelia never flopped. This was bad.
“Hey, sweetie.” I slid my still untouched coffee toward her. “Why the face?”
“My friends, they’re all gone,” she said, frowning.
“Is this an existential crisis about your origin story, or am I seriously misinterpreting?”
Ophelia lifted a brow.
I shrugged. “It’s a reasonable question.”
“My vampire friends in the Lexington area, the friends who were listed on the information I gave to Tina. Four of them are missing. Disappeared from the face of the earth. None of my contacts has any clue where they might be. And that’s not like, well, at least two of them.”
“Are you sure they didn’t just duck out because they owe somebody money or something?”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“When was the last time you heard from any of these vampires?”
“Michael I spoke to a week or so before I arrived on campus. We’d meant to meet up for dinner, but he traveled a lot for his business, and that made scheduling complicated. David I met every once in a while for . . .” She paused and glanced toward her boyfriend, who was playing video games in the parlor with Georgie. “Uh, coffee, but that was before Jamie. Clara? I hadn’t spoken to her in years—or Joanna, for that matter. I only included them on the list because of proximity. And I haven’t seen Marco in a century. Honestly, I’m not sure I would recognize him if I saw him.”
“And you think that their sudden disappearances may have something to do with their being on the list? And Tina’s sudden death? And maybe the vampire remains in that weird basement fire off campus?”
“It seems rather coincidental,” she said. “And I’m ashamed of myself for not connecting the dots to the basement fire before you did. I’ve been so distracted and tired. You were right, being a freshman is harder than I thought it would be. Do you realize I had to study to pass some of my classes this semester?”
“How did you think you were going to pass your classes?”
“Life experience,” she said, grimacing.
“Even Environmental Chemistry? You thought you would just absorb information about atmospheric pollution over the centuries?”
She shrugged.
I patted her hand. “I love you. Never change.”
“What do we do now?” she asked. “I am not used to being in this position. I’m used to taking charge, calling out the Council’s resources, sending hired muscle and sometimes swords after the problem.”
“We’re going to have to tell Jane.”
Ophelia flopped. Again. She frowned toward the kitchen. “Do we have to?”
I asked, “Do you have a Council UERT hidden on your person?”
“No!” Jamie called over the pew pew of his video game. “I would have noticed that.”
“So yes, we’re going to have to tell her.”
“Does that mean you’re going to tell her your suspicions about Tina and the inaccurate undead-student audits?” Ophelia asked, tilting her head while she stared me down.
“How did you know about that?”
Ophelia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, you give Keagan one wine cooler, and she’ll give you her social security number and iCloud password.”
14
If you’re a poor communicator, consider writing down your feelings and suggestions for your childe in a letter. If you’re a poor writer, consider an informative drawing.
—The Accidental Sire: How to Raise an Unplanned Vampire
Jane was of two minds about our news. She was glad that we told her. She wasn’t thrilled that I had held on to my suspicions about Tina until I could prove something, because, as she put it, “That never works in the Hollow.”
“I’m breaking out the whiteboard again,” Dick said. “Andrea says we need to justify keeping it in the cellar, otherwise we’re considered hoarders.”
“OK, we need to establish a timeline. Pool all of the information we have. There’s something missing here,” Jane said, helping Dick haul the rolling whiteboard up the cellar stairs. Gabriel, Jamie, and Ben had joined us, like woodland creatures gathering around Bambi’s informational birth. Ben sat next to me at the dining table, but Fitz wedged himself between our chairs, pressing his cold, wet nose into my palm.
“It’s OK, buddy,” I assured him. “You’re the only one I’ll let sleep on my feet.”
“I should be insulted, I think,” Ben said, attempting to scratch Fitz’s ears. Fitz wouldn’t have it and edged Ben’s hand aside with his nose.
“Here, gimme that.” Dick took the dry-erase marker from Jane. “I love you, Stretch, but your handwriting is serial-killer chicken scratch.”
“You do have lovely penmanship,” Jane conceded. “So what happened first?”
I raised my hand. “I was smooshed by a flying free weight.”
“No, before that,” Jane said.
Dick made a little dot about halfway across the board and wrote, “Meagan got smooshed.”
“Tina told me she received an e-mail from Jane, saying that she wanted me to send her a list of my Lexington contacts,” Ophelia said.
“An e-mail I didn’t send,” Jane said, nodding. “But I received a vile, profanity-laced response anyway.”
“I sent the list to Tina,” Ophelia added, blithely ignoring Jane’s jab. “And then threw a fabulous party for my fellow New Dawn students.”
“I had an extremely flirty conversation with the most interesting girl I would ever meet,” Ben added.
I grinned at him.
“Extremely flirty conversation?” Gabriel deadpanned. “You animal.”
“Meagan got smooshed!” Jamie shouted, arms raised.
I turned to glower at him. “You could sound less thrilled about that.”
Even Ben turned on Jamie. “Dude.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Jamie groused. “I feel left out.”
“Meagan got smooshed,” Jane repeated, smiling indulgently at her undead firstborn. “And then?”
“Tina said it would take too long for the ambulance to get to Meagan and that she needed to decide whether to be turned, right then,” Ben said. “She yelled for a vampire to step up and sire her. A volunteer stepped out of the crowd. I didn’t recognize him, but I figured he was a guest at the party.”
“He showed Tina a fake ID card. Sired Meagan,” Jane said as Dick scribbled. Jane slid a photo to Ophelia. “Ophelia, do you recognize him?”
Ophelia shook her head. “No, I don’t. But . . . that could be Marco,” she said, tilting her head at the photo. “He had this horrible handlebar mustache when I saw him last. Made him look like the leader in a vampire barbershop quartet. But that’s gone in this photo, so maybe?”
“OK, so someone who is maybe on the list you gave Tina turned Meagan after Tina picked him out of the crowd,” Dick said. “And then Meagan woke up within twenty-four hours, unlike every vampire before her. And then she bit Ben, turning him without giving him her blood, again, unlike every vampire before her.”
“I regret nothing,” Ben insisted, shaking his head.
I laughed, but when I looked into Ben’s big green eyes, I could see that he was perfectly serious. He didn’t regret being bitten by me. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him hard.
I thought back
to what my dad had said in the tape about dating (or not dating). Love wasn’t always pretty. It wasn’t always smooth. Nothing about my relationship with Ben had been smooth. But at the end of the day, he was the first person I thought of when I was upset. He was the first person I wanted to tell.
It was possible that I was in love with Ben. That I wanted to be with him for the rest of my unnaturally long life.
Now, how did I tell him that?
Also, this was a super-weird time to have such a realization, surrounded by my family while we discussed murder timelines.
The room exploded into a series of “aws” and “ews.”
“Enough of that, or I’ll get the hose!” Dick exclaimed. “What next?”
“We brought Meagan and Ben into our home for wayward youthful vampires,” Gabriel interjected.
“Nice.” I snickered.
“Just after we smuggled you to the Hollow, a fire took place off campus. At first, the authorities assured us that no one was injured, and then vampire remains were found in the basement,” Jane said.
“Ophelia was questioned by the police about those remains,” Jamie said, to Ophelia’s mortification. She smacked his arm without even looking at him.
“Dude,” Ben said again. “Please stop helping.”
“Their investigation was unsubstantiated and inconclusive,” Ophelia spat.
“You should have that tattooed on your forehead to save time,” Jane told her.
Ophelia shot her a rude gesture I only recognized because my World Literature professor had an inappropriate sense of classroom boundaries.
“Do we know who owns the building Ophelia was suspected of burning?” Jane asked.
Ben opened his laptop. In a weird flash, I saw a picture of a campus map in my head. Ben was going to look up the house in some sort of real estate database—which he wasn’t supposed to be able to log into, but he knew his mom’s work password. He just needed to know the street address. He was trying to remember the exact location of the building and picture it in relation to the campus.