Page 77 of Midnight Kiss

I entered the pub and found it rowdy. Several men sat at the bar, drinking mugs of beer; others lay on the tables, too drunk to continue drinking. All of them were vampires. Vampires who had come to bury their sorrows in “neutral” territory. The only reason the Lowberry existed was because the U.C. protected it. But there were vampires here who knew things. Had information that might help me.

The room smelled of booze and smoke, and the wooden floors squeaked underfoot. I stopped at the bar, a long slab, polished by years of use, and found a burly bartender clearing away glasses.

His dark gaze met mine, his eyes sparkling the deep crimson of a “free” vampire. “What you want?”

“I’ve come to see Patrick,” I said.

“He’s in the back.” He gestured toward a door at the far end of the room.

I nodded my thanks.

Anticipation wasn’t the correct word for my current mental state. It was more than that. I had come to Patrick as a last resort. He was an old acquaintance, one who’d been a part of Sanguine Nox, but he had found his place here rather than in the U.C. He called himself a free-thinker, but he was just as much a slave to vampire society as I was.

I knocked once on the door, ignoring the stares of the other vampires who didn’t appreciate my presence thanks to my lighter eyes, and entered the room.

Patrick lounged in a swivel chair, swinging it from side to side and talking on the phone. “Yes, darling,” he said, “yes, but I can’t exactly leave now, can I? You’ll have to wait for me to—” He cut off and narrowed his eyes. “Talk to you later.” He hung up. “You don’t wait to be called.”

“Not by you,” I said. “Not by anyone who isn’t my superior.”

“For a man who wants information, you sure don’t act like you want it.”

“Time is short. I came for answers.”

Patrick tapped his fingers on the top of his desk. “And you think I have these answers for you?” He ran a hand through ginger hair. “Listen, I’d love to help, but I don’t know that I can. This cursed item you mentioned, is there any chance I can see it?”

“No.” I couldn’t risk him or anyone else knowing that I hadn’t handed it over to the elders.

“No?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t have it. But I can tell you about it.”

“Go on then.”

So I told him, briefly, about the book, its contents—not anything about Guardians—the blood-stained pages, the curse, and the slow weakening of its human victim. I left out the part about who that victim was.

“Hmm.”

“What do you think?”

“I think that you’re screwed if you want this human to live,” Patrick said. “I think that you ought to let them die.”

“I can’t do that.”

“The only way to keep the human from death is to turn her into a vampire.”

Frustration welled inside me. “No.”

“What’s wrong with that? You don’t need to get it sanctioned if you’re concerned for their safety. The human’s safety, I mean.”

“I might not need to have it sanctioned, but it goes against everything I believe in.”

“Then you’re a fool.”

I glared.

“You are a fool,” Patrick repeated. “Listen, I’ve been around for longer than I’d care to admit, and do you know how many humans I’ve turned?”

I tucked my hands into my pockets.