Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

“See you, weirdo.”

“Talk soon,” she said, just as Ophelia came back into the dining room, a troubled expression on her face.

She flopped into her chair and stroked her hand over face. Ophelia never flopped. This was bad.

“Hey, sweetie.” I slid my still untouched coffee toward her. “Why the face?”

“My friends, they’re all gone,” she said, frowning.

“Is this an existential crisis about your origin story, or am I seriously misinterpreting?”

Ophelia lifted a brow.

I shrugged. “It’s a reasonable question.”

“My vampire friends in the Lexington area, the friends who were listed on the information I gave to Tina. Four of them are missing. Disappeared from the face of the earth. None of my contacts has any clue where they might be. And that’s not like, well, at least two of them.”

“Are you sure they didn’t just duck out because they owe somebody money or something?”

“I’m sure,” she said.

“When was the last time you heard from any of these vampires?”

“Michael I spoke to a week or so before I arrived on campus. We’d meant to meet up for dinner, but he traveled a lot for his business, and that made scheduling complicated. David I met every once in a while for . . .” She paused and glanced toward her boyfriend, who was playing video games in the parlor with Georgie. “Uh, coffee, but that was before Jamie. Clara? I hadn’t spoken to her in years—or Joanna, for that matter. I only included them on the list because of proximity. And I haven’t seen Marco in a century. Honestly, I’m not sure I would recognize him if I saw him.”

“And you think that their sudden disappearances may have something to do with their being on the list? And Tina’s sudden death? And maybe the vampire remains in that weird basement fire off campus?”

“It seems rather coincidental,” she said. “And I’m ashamed of myself for not connecting the dots to the basement fire before you did. I’ve been so distracted and tired. You were right, being a freshman is harder than I thought it would be. Do you realize I had to study to pass some of my classes this semester?”

“How did you think you were going to pass your classes?”

“Life experience,” she said, grimacing.

“Even Environmental Chemistry? You thought you would just absorb information about atmospheric pollution over the centuries?”

She shrugged.

I patted her hand. “I love you. Never change.”

“What do we do now?” she asked. “I am not used to being in this position. I’m used to taking charge, calling out the Council’s resources, sending hired muscle and sometimes swords after the problem.”

“We’re going to have to tell Jane.”

Ophelia flopped. Again. She frowned toward the kitchen. “Do we have to?”

I asked, “Do you have a Council UERT hidden on your person?”

“No!” Jamie called over the pew pew of his video game. “I would have noticed that.”

“So yes, we’re going to have to tell her.”

“Does that mean you’re going to tell her your suspicions about Tina and the inaccurate undead-student audits?” Ophelia asked, tilting her head while she stared me down.

“How did you know about that?”

Ophelia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, you give Keagan one wine cooler, and she’ll give you her social security number and iCloud password.”





14




If you’re a poor communicator, consider writing down your feelings and suggestions for your childe in a letter. If you’re a poor writer, consider an informative drawing.

—The Accidental Sire: How to Raise an Unplanned Vampire

Jane was of two minds about our news. She was glad that we told her. She wasn’t thrilled that I had held on to my suspicions about Tina until I could prove something, because, as she put it, “That never works in the Hollow.”

“I’m breaking out the whiteboard again,” Dick said. “Andrea says we need to justify keeping it in the cellar, otherwise we’re considered hoarders.”

“OK, we need to establish a timeline. Pool all of the information we have. There’s something missing here,” Jane said, helping Dick haul the rolling whiteboard up the cellar stairs. Gabriel, Jamie, and Ben had joined us, like woodland creatures gathering around Bambi’s informational birth. Ben sat next to me at the dining table, but Fitz wedged himself between our chairs, pressing his cold, wet nose into my palm.

“It’s OK, buddy,” I assured him. “You’re the only one I’ll let sleep on my feet.”

“I should be insulted, I think,” Ben said, attempting to scratch Fitz’s ears. Fitz wouldn’t have it and edged Ben’s hand aside with his nose.

“Here, gimme that.” Dick took the dry-erase marker from Jane. “I love you, Stretch, but your handwriting is serial-killer chicken scratch.”

“You do have lovely penmanship,” Jane conceded. “So what happened first?”

I raised my hand. “I was smooshed by a flying free weight.”

“No, before that,” Jane said.

Dick made a little dot about halfway across the board and wrote, “Meagan got smooshed.”

“Tina told me she received an e-mail from Jane, saying that she wanted me to send her a list of my Lexington contacts,” Ophelia said.

“An e-mail I didn’t send,” Jane said, nodding. “But I received a vile, profanity-laced response anyway.”

“I sent the list to Tina,” Ophelia added, blithely ignoring Jane’s jab. “And then threw a fabulous party for my fellow New Dawn students.”

“I had an extremely flirty conversation with the most interesting girl I would ever meet,” Ben added.

I grinned at him.

“Extremely flirty conversation?” Gabriel deadpanned. “You animal.”

“Meagan got smooshed!” Jamie shouted, arms raised.

I turned to glower at him. “You could sound less thrilled about that.”

Even Ben turned on Jamie. “Dude.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Jamie groused. “I feel left out.”

“Meagan got smooshed,” Jane repeated, smiling indulgently at her undead firstborn. “And then?”

“Tina said it would take too long for the ambulance to get to Meagan and that she needed to decide whether to be turned, right then,” Ben said. “She yelled for a vampire to step up and sire her. A volunteer stepped out of the crowd. I didn’t recognize him, but I figured he was a guest at the party.”

“He showed Tina a fake ID card. Sired Meagan,” Jane said as Dick scribbled. Jane slid a photo to Ophelia. “Ophelia, do you recognize him?”

Ophelia shook her head. “No, I don’t. But . . . that could be Marco,” she said, tilting her head at the photo. “He had this horrible handlebar mustache when I saw him last. Made him look like the leader in a vampire barbershop quartet. But that’s gone in this photo, so maybe?”

“OK, so someone who is maybe on the list you gave Tina turned Meagan after Tina picked him out of the crowd,” Dick said. “And then Meagan woke up within twenty-four hours, unlike every vampire before her. And then she bit Ben, turning him without giving him her blood, again, unlike every vampire before her.”