La Vida Vampire

“Describe it.”


Gorman shot Saber a petulant look and smoothed his blanket over his belly. “You know, blood. A kinda sweet, metallic smell only a thousand times stronger. Like a whole bath of blood.”

I felt myself sway and groped for the end of the bed.

Gorman saw my weakness and smirked. “Thinkin’ about all that blood make you hungry, vampire?”

“It makes me queasy.” You nitwit, I wanted to add but didn’t. I was too busy taking cleansing breaths of chemically treated hospital air.

When I trusted myself not to lose it all over Gorman’s hospital blanket, I said, “Are you sure that’s what you smelled?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. What are you, some kinda wimp? Swoon at the sight of blood.”

“Not the sight, the smell.”





FIFTEEN


“What the hell happened in there?” Saber demanded as soon as we were in the hospital parking lot.

“You heard me,” I said, pacing beside him. “I got queasy.”

“Thinking about blood?”

“Smelling it.” I shuddered and rubbed my arms. “For just a second, I was picking up what Gorman smelled before the attack.”

“You mean a psychic thing?”

“Yes, and I never want to be in that guy’s head again. But it triggered something.”

“What?” he probed, beeping the car unlocked.

I sighed to throw off the memory of Gorman’s evil thoughts and climbed in. “That same scent of blood was on my truck the night it was trashed, and a fainter version was on Yolette at Scarlett’s last Monday. Fainter than it was when we found Gorman, but there.” I rubbed my forehead. “I think I smelled blood on Etienne, too, but I can’t remember when.”

He slammed his car door. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” I reached for my seat belt and suppressed another shudder. “But I have the gut feeling it’s important.”

“There wasn’t any blood on your truck. Just paint.”

“I know, and that’s what’s confusing.”

“Yolette could’ve cut herself,” Saber mused.

“I remember thinking the same thing and that I didn’t want to be blamed for it.”

He started the car but stared out the windshield as it idled. After a full half minute, he turned to me. “The smell of blood really makes you sick?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“How the hell do you feed?”

Darn, I knew this would come out sooner or later. Wouldn’t it figure, Saber would be the first to know?

I grimaced and blurted the truth. “I hold my nose, okay?”

“You hold your—” He broke off and stared at me. Disbelief and amusement crossed his features. “But you drink flavored blood.”

“You snooped in my mini-fridge.”

“Why drink flavored blood if you hold your nose?”

“I like the caramel aftertaste.”

He gaped, then simply shook his head. “You’re the weirdest damned vampire I’ve ever met.”

I gave him a tired smile. “Get me home, will you?”

We took U.S. 1 back downtown. I didn’t feel like talking, and Saber didn’t push me. True, he was probably trying not to laugh, but his silence gave me the space to think.

Whatever was tickling my memory or my psychic sense, it was driving me crazy by the time we arrived at the penthouse at six fifteen. I had more than an hour before I had to get ready for work. Maybe the notes we’d made last night would help crystallize what I was reaching for.

“Saber, where’s the suspect list we made?”

“In my duffel. Why?”

“Just get it. Please.”

He gave me an I’m-humoring-you look but wheeled down the hall. While he retrieved the papers, I checked phone messages and found one from Maggie I’d return before I went to work. In the kitchen, I set the timer and got a pen from the junk drawer. The alarm would remind me when to stop sleuthing and get ready for tonight’s tour. Saber met me at the kitchen table with the legal pad and notes but minus his jacket and holster. I shuffled through the papers twice, with Saber looking on but not interrupting. The third time I started through them, he slapped a hand over the sheets.

“What are you looking for?”

“I’m not sure, but work with me, will you?”

He gestured toward a chair and took one himself. I sat and spread the papers in an arc between us.

“Let’s look at this again from the beginning,” I said, pen poised. “We have Rachelle murdered last Friday night, right?”

“Early Saturday morning somewhere between midnight and three,” he supplied.

I sketched out a time and crime grid and filled in Rachelle. “Then Yolette is killed, what, the following Thursday morning?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “You’re not a suspect now, so yeah. The ME figures she was killed between two and five.”

I scribbled the time by Yolette’s name. “Next we have my truck vandalized on Thursday night between eight and elevenish. It could’ve been a bomb or my brakes could’ve been tampered with, but that didn’t happen.”

“So?”