“You do eat, right?”
“Yes,” Jacques tells me. “Of course we do.”
“Well, I took a gamble on the pizza. The only thing I was going on was the fact you don’t eat children. Pizza is a safe bet, most times. So are tacos, but the only decent Mexican restaurant is on the other side of town. And yes,” I add before they can interject, “I know you have no idea what that is. I’ll explain it all tomorrow. So come on, dig in.” I open a box of pepperoni pizza and take a slice. “That means eat.”
The four large gargoyles crowd around the small coffee table, curiously looking at the pizza.
“Sorry I didn’t think to bring plates,” I say. I’ve been single for so long it’s easy to forget things like this. When I’d order a pizza at home, I’d keep it in the box and eat it while binging Netflix. Classy, I know. “You can just pick it up.”
I pull apart four slices of pizza and hand one to each gargoyle. Feeling a little envious of tasting pizza for the first time ever, I watch them hesitantly take bites. It doesn’t take long before they go back for seconds. And thirds. And fourths.
I eat two slices before I feel full, and I’m sure part of it is due to being so tired. I’m a three to four slices kinda girl.
“This is good,” Thomas says. “Really fucking good.”
I laugh. “Pizza is a favorite for a lot of people. Eat as much as you like. I assume you’re hungry after not eating for years and years.”
“Now that I’m eating, I feel the hunger again,” Gilbert tells me. “It was there before, but dull. Now it’s back.”
“Uh, sorry?”
“No,” Jacques says definitively. “Do not be sorry.”
I wipe my hands on a napkin and lean back against the hearth, careful not to get my hair too close to the flames. “What does it feel like to be awake again?” I ask carefully, not knowing if I need to follow social norms before I bombard them with questions.
Jacques meets my eyes. “I have no sense of time when I’m asleep.” He looks at the others. “Neither do they.”
I just nod in response, studying the gargoyles. Compartmentalizing emotional or traumatic situations is a must in my line of work. I have to consciously turn it off and allow myself to feel sometimes. And right now, I’m struggling with whether I want to or not. Because on top of learning that magic and demons exist, I know in the back of my mind this has to be hard for the four men in front of me.
They were cursed to be monsters and just found out they missed a thousand years.
“Tired?” Hasan asks gruffly when he sees me yawn.
“Physically, yes. But I have so many questions.”
He stiffens, assuming my questions are going to be directed at him and his brothers. Tough luck, buddy. If I’m the one who woke them, I deserve a sit-down round of Twenty Questions. Each. But I’ll get to them later. As far as I know, they’re not going to kill me or murder other innocent people. Priorities, right?
“Vampires,” I start. “They don’t look like they do in movies.”
“Movies?” Hasan questions.
“I’ll explain that another time. The vampires responsible for the murder in the park were taken care of, but that doesn’t solve my problem, does it? You said they were young, meaning another, older vamp is out there turning humans, right?”
“Yes,” Jacques answers.
“How do I kill them? Is decapitation the only way? What about a wooden stake through the heart? Silver bullets are for werewolves, right? And any idea where the, uh, sire would be hiding out?”
Thomas tips his head to Gilbert, trying hard not to smile. “You want to hunt down the sire and kill him. Yourself?” he asks.
“I’ll do what I have to do.” I sit up and rake my fingers through my damp hair again. I’m used to working alone, but I can’t rip anyone apart—literally rip them apart—the way Hasan did. “I took an oath to protect the people in this town, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
7
“You? On your own?” Gilbert’s eyes narrow with concern, and for some crazy reason, I know it’s genuine. “You could get hurt. You did get hurt.”
“I know, and I’ll be better prepared this time. Nothing throws you off your game like shoving a knife through someone’s heart and having them not die. Trust me, I can handle myself.”
“I’d like to see you handling yourself.” Gilbert smiles, sky-blue eyes dancing in the firelight. Maybe I’m becoming delirious from sleep deprivation, but I swear his eyes are more vivid than before and his skin is more olive than gray.
“I’m a detective. That means I look for bad guys. So far, I’ve been good at my job. I catch the bad guys. I’ve spent the last few years taking on cases no one else would touch, cases some of the law’s most respected cops swore to be cursed, and solved them, proving a human was behind the crime.” I pull my shoulders in, suddenly cold again. “And now I can’t help but think this…you guys…the vampires…it’s all happening at the same time for a reason, and I’m not one to believe in fate or any of that shit.”
“I understand,” Jacques agrees quietly. “I too doubted fate until…” He trails off, looking away. I notice a long scar running down the back of his neck, disappearing behind his wings. “You should rest, my lady. The sun will be rising soon.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and roll my neck.
“Sore?” Thomas asks.
“You could say so.”
He flashes a cocky grin. “I can help you with that.”
I swallow hard, fanning the rising heat inside of me. “I’m sure you could.” The image of his hands on me flashes before my mind’s eye, and the smoldering heat threatens to turn into flames.
“I have to work in the morning,” I mumble. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep with…with…” With you here. “With knowing there are more vampires out there.”
“We’ll keep you safe.”
I look into his deep, dark eyes. “I know,” I say, and despite everything inside me telling me not to trust him, I do.
“The bedroom upstairs,” he starts, and a shiver goes down my spine at the thought of us going into the bedroom together. “Will that suffice? It has a fireplace.”
“The couch is fine.” I eyeball the small sofa. “And the fire is already going down here. I’d rather not use any more furniture for kindling. I’ll, uh, get some firewood in the morning. I brought a blanket for myself.” I have no idea how clean the bedsheets are upstairs. I’m by no means a neat freak, but the thought of sleeping in God-knows-whose bed skeeves me out. “Are you guys tired? I’d think a thousand-year nap would tide you over for a while, right?”
“We’ll rest in the morning,” Jacques says.
“Okay,” I tell him, and get up to use the bathroom and get my bags. By the time I’m back in the living room, only Jacques remains. The couch has been scooted closer to the fire, with the dust cover pulled off and messily folded on the floor beside it. I wrap my blanket around my shoulders and sit on the couch, adjusting my alarm for the morning. There’s no way I’m working out, but I’m farther from the station.
“It’s a phone,” I tell Jacques, who’s looking over my shoulder at the glowing screen.
“What does it do?”
“A lot of stuff. Want to see it?”
His dark eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Yes.” He strides over, folding his wings at his back, and sits on the couch. I turn my head, taking him all in and wondering if it’s uncomfortable to have his wings scrunched up like that.
“So this is a phone. Technically, a phone is something you can call someone on, but now phones do so much more than that. Your voice goes through and gets converted, then transmitted as radio waves to the nearest tower.”
Jacques’s blank stare lets me know I made the right career choice by becoming a cop instead of a teacher. He moves his head closer and my heart speeds up. He might be part monster, but he’s also a man. A very attractive, half-naked man who’s sitting very close to me. I blink and turn back to my phone, hoping he can’t see the blood rushing to my cheeks.
“We call it technology,” I start again.