Always the Vampire

The rest I knew, so I studied Cosmil’s, Lia’s, and Saber’s expressions. Cosmil’s “you finally got a girl” grin had faded, though he held a hopeful gleam in his eye. Lia seemed the most thoughtful, and the longer Saber listened, the more his cop face settled into place.

Triton finally dropped the key piece of information I’d been waiting to hear—that Lynn had been a shifter for only five years. Good to know I hadn’t harbored a minor, but no way should shifting have made Lynn as shaky as she’d been. Not with five years worth of shifter experience.

Last, Triton revealed that Lynn shared a duplex with three college friends. The roommates believed Lynn to be Wiccan and assumed she conducted new-moon ceremonies when she went off alone each month. A perception that Lynn fostered, in part by working in a New Age shop.

When he finished his story—without the X-rated parts I’d seen in his mind—silence reigned until Lia turned to me.

“What impressions did you have of Lynn?”

“Not many. She was shivering on most of the drive back to Triton’s. She didn’t do much more than murmur hello and good-bye.”

“You’re a vampire,” Triton put in. “You intimidated her.”

“Perhaps,” Lia agreed, “but there is more. Cesca, what’s bothering you about the young woman?”

Triton sent me a glare, which I sent right back.

“You have to take this in the context of timing, but here it is.” I held up a hand to tick off my points. “First, it doesn’t quite fit that Triton and Lynn wouldn’t have met before now.”

“Why would we have met?” Triton muttered. “I don’t know every dolphin in the sea.”

I ignored him.

“Second, it’s hinky that Lynn would be hanging out at the pier where Triton usually shifts.”

Triton objected. “Plenty of dolphins hang there. So do sharks.”

“Yes, but to avoid the party at that beach, I took you farther south. If you had shifted injured at the pier beach, you would have been more vulnerable to a shark or some other kind of attack.”

Saber nodded. “True.”

“Third, it’s odd that Lynn is such a young shifter.”

“Why?” Lia asked.

Saber answered. “Because unless you can tell me differently, there are no weredolphins. Never have been.”

“Which means,” I concluded, “that Lynn could be the product of a spell, and we know of only one wizard on the loose.”

“Damn it, Cesca, Lynn is not Starrack’s tool,” Triton raged as he came off the sofa and stormed at me. “You’re jealous and petty. You couldn’t land me when we were younger, so you thought you could have me on the side and keep Saber, too.”

“Honey, are you jealous of Lynn?” Saber asked.

I whipped my head toward him. “No, but I lust after her straight hair.”

Triton sputtered. “You undressed me at the beach.”

“You whined that you were too weak to do it yourself.”

“You looked at my goods.”

“So? I’ve seen you since we were kids. Nothing’s changed.”

Suddenly, Triton’s skin darkened, and his brown eyes went pitch black. In slow motion, I saw his fist take aim at my face.

In the next instant, Saber yanked the back of Triton’s shirt, pulling him away from me enough that his fist whooshed harmlessly through the air.

My heartbeat pounded in my throat as the five of us stood frozen. Then Triton wheezed, exhaling the smell of oil, and dropped to his knees in an unconscious heap.





FOURTEEN




My first instinct was to rush to my unconscious friend, even if he had intended to clock me.

Cosmil’s voice whipped across the room.

“Do not touch him, Francesca. No one touch him.”

“He’s had a flare of the Void illness, hasn’t he?” I asked softly, my gut clenching with new dread.

“I fear so,” Cosmil confirmed as he strode to the far side of the stainless steel island and opened a drawer.

A pile of surgical gloves and masks hit the countertop, and Cosmil slammed the drawer shut before donning a pair of gloves. He tossed a second pair of gloves and a mask to Saber.

“Lia, please prepare a healing circle. Saber, if you would kindly help me examine Triton and then move him outside?”

I stepped aside as the men went into action. And, yes, I wondered at the precaution of gloves and masks. Cosmil hadn’t insisted we wear masks after he had been attacked, although Saber had worn gloves to treat Cosmil’s oozing head wound. I supposed taking any measures to slow the spread of infection was a good thing.

But, damn. Why would he be having a flare unless his attackers had reinfected him? Or Lynn had been the culprit. Other diseases spread through blood and other body fluids, and from the bit of love scene Triton had projected during our image-projecting exercise, it was a darn good bet he’d been intimate with Lynn.

Lia touched my arm.

“Come. Help me with the circle.”

With a last glance at Cosmil checking the pulse in Triton’s ankles, I trailed after Lia to a cabinet filled with candles of every color and a whole shelf of leather-tied pouches. Just like the ones Lia had brought with her, but my gut told me Cosmil had made these.