Page 24 of Thicker than Blood
The vampire shrieks as Elias lets him drop to the floor. I stare in frozen horror.
“Are you alright?” Elias asks the obviously mortal man in a soft voice.
Elias raises his hand and Benicio appears with a glass of liquid. Elias pulls the man’s hand away from his neck, surveying the holes dripping blood, but even I know more damage was done than just feeding. His skin is jagged and torn just below the feeding wounds.
“Oh dear,” Elias says. “Give me just a second and I’ll fix you up.”
He leans in, locking his mouth over the man’s wounds while the other vampire groans and writhes in pain at their feet. I know what Elias is doing. He’s healing the man, but for some reason, as my stomach twists and my chest tightens, I find it unusually unpleasant to watch. Maybe it’s because I’ve never actually witnessed it so up close, or maybe I just don’t like it because it’s Elias? Stupid crush.
After a minute or so, Elias lifts his head, his lips stained with mortal blood, and the victim leans against the wall, completely healed but clearly dazed.
“How do you feel now?”
The mortal nods, smiling. “Thank you. I don’t know what happened. I said he could feed, then all of a sudden he tore into my skin.”
“My apologies. Tobias is going through something. I assure you it won’t happen again.”
“Drink this juice,” Benicio says, offering the man a drink.
Elias turns back towards me, but before he approaches, he leans down to the struggling vampire. “Benicio will see to it thatyou get home where you can heal. I expect you to come to me and explain yourself or be banned from Paradiso. Understood?”
The vampire clearly can’t speak, so he just huffs a breath and blinks. Elias seems satisfied with that response, and as he stands and straightens his cuff links, my stomach flutters.
I almost can’t believe I’m really here and witnessing all of this. I’d pinch myself, but if I’m dreaming I’d rather not wake up just yet.
“So sorry for the interruption.” Elias smiles as if he didn’t just descend into violence seconds ago.
“No problem. How long will it take to heal from a broken neck?”
“Weeks. He’ll have plenty of time to consider his transgressions. We have strict rules down here that keep the mortals alive, and he broke one.”
“I thought you didn’t care about rules.”
Elias’s eyes glimmer. “Touché. In this case, keeping the mortals alive and well keeps us under the radar so that we can freely break all the other rules imposed on us.”
“Smart.”
“I am.”
“Do you think he’s behind the attacks?”
Elias seems to consider the question. “I don’t think so, but I’ll look into it just in case. He’s newly turned and has trouble with his impulses from time to time. Fortunately, the wounds to the mortal were superficial and therefore easily fixed.” He gestures towards the stairs. “Shall we?”
“Yeah.” I glance over my shoulder again just in time to see two large men dragging the wounded vampire out of the room with Benicio dutifully following.
Back upstairs, I inhale, aware of how different the air was below. Up here, it’s normal, but down there it smelled like sex and lust and all the things I didn’t know had a scent before.
“Do we need a special space or is the sitting room alright?” Elias asks.
“Anywhere is fine.”
“Good.”
I follow Elias back to the room we were in before, and once I feel my balance restored, I dig through my bag for the vaccine. My hands shake as I lift the bottle and syringe. I have faith in my formula, but it hasn’t been tested—it can’t be. My samples using human blood were encouraging though, isolating and surrounding a specific enzyme that’s potentially responsible for the compulsion vulnerability. I know this will work. I just have to be brave enough to prove it.
I pull out the second bottle—the antidote, should something go wrong. I’ll have to rely on Elias to administer it if I can’t.
I place both bottles on the coffee table. “The red bottle is the vaccine and the yellow one is the antidote you’ll have to give me to drink if something goes wrong.”