Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

Ophelia snickered.

“If they have any clue that I’m down here, my closest friends are probably upstairs, trying to chisel their way through your sunproof doors to get to me,” I told Jane. “I have a few other friends on campus, a few Facebook-contact-only friends back home, but no family. You probably noticed that the emergency contact space on my enrollment form was blank.”

“I thought maybe you were bad at paperwork or being snotty toward your parents or something. So you have no family?” Jane’s face softened for a second. “Not even a distant cousin who would count as next of kin?”

“My foster parents made it pretty clear that there was no need to keep in touch after the last check from the state cleared,” I told her.

Her lips pursed so hard that she seemed to be clenching them around her teeth. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“Oh, loads of them.”

“Can we start with the simple ones?” Jane asked.

“What was that whole ‘Protocol: Jupiter Ascending’ thing before? Of all the Channing Tatum movies, you picked the one where he’s a space werewolf with magical flying boots?”

Jane snickered. “Oh, as the highest-ranking Council official in western Kentucky, I have the right to name any security protocols I design myself. And I name mine after horrible movie bombs that the actors regret making. You know, because they wish those movies were secret.”

I nodded. “I respect that.”

“Great. Everything else you’re going to have to ask on the drive home, because sunrise is just a little too close for comfort,” Jane said. The door opened, and one of the UERT goons carried in my blue suitcase and my laptop bag. My chest constricted painfully at the sight of it, but I tried to write the sensation off as Ben-related heartburn. “Ophelia packed your bag for you. Anything else you need can be shipped to Half-Moon Hollow.”

“Can’t I say good-bye to Morgan and Keagan?”

“No. For one thing, you’re not supposed to be awake yet. And we don’t want you biting them, so we can’t trust you to say good-bye in person. “ Jane told me. “I don’t have room in my house for any more accidentally undead coeds.”

“Rude.”

Jane snapped her notebook closed. “Well, prove to me that you can be trusted around people without biting them, and I won’t have cause to make jokes at your expense.”

“Meagan, I’ll see you soon.” Ophelia reached across the table and squeezed my hand, which in the realm of Ophelia gestures was practically a bear hug. “If you need anything at all, you have my number. And I don’t give that number to anyone I don’t want to talk to.”

“She really doesn’t,” Jane muttered. “It took Jamie’s intervention and a court order before I got it.”

I stood and picked up my suitcase. Considering how light it was, I wondered if Ophelia had packed anything at all. I unzipped the suitcase and saw that it was crammed full of all my favorite jeans, pajamas, and sweaters. So why . . . oh, right, I had superstrength. That was weird.

“Just one more thing, Jane,” Ophelia said. “Can I see your phone?”

Jane lifted an eyebrow but handed Ophelia the device. Ophelia held the phone up to eye level and squinted with concentration. The phone crackled with a loud, staticky zhing noise and a burst of light.

Ophelia smiled brightly and handed Jane the smoking hunk of plastic.

“I see you’ve discovered your vampire talent,” Jane muttered.

Ophelia chirped, “Yes, I have. Jamie was right. I just needed to relax a little bit and focus on something other than Council business and raising Georgie, and it came to me, just in time for me to mess with you. Which is a side bonus.”

Jane tossed her smoking phone into a wall-mounted box marked “Hazardous Materials.” Her tone was as dry as the cafeteria’s toast. “I’m so thrilled for you.”





3




Like any child, a new vampire needs boundaries. Just think of your newly turned vampire as a murderous toddler.

—The Accidental Sire: How to Raise an Unplanned Vampire

I wasn’t allowed to go back to my dorm room. I wasn’t allowed to leave the containment floors. I was led down yet another hallway into an enclosed parking garage. It was more than a little horrifying to watch Ben’s body being loaded into the hidey-hole in the back of a Council SUV and closed in under the lid inset in the floor, like he was inconvenient luggage. They didn’t wrap him in a body bag or anything, though, so I guessed I should be thankful for that.

I would miss New Dawn, a recently completed residence hall added to the far side of the UK campus, which had been built with coed, commingled living in mind. The college had been eager to be one of the first in the country to prove that all students, living and undead, could coexist in a safe, federally subsidized environment. Only three floors showed aboveground, containing the administrative offices required by the people who supervised vampires on campus. Below ground level, the floors alternated between living and undead students, then were sorted by male and female. Beyond the lack of “been lived in for decades” smell, the dorm featured a coffee bar in the lobby, super-fast Internet, private soundproof study pods, and a third-floor lounge containing board games from every decade since 1850 to encourage play among the students. I loved Board Game Nights.

The black vehicle with its heavily tinted windows was driven by a friendly, recently turned brunette named Miranda Puckett, who kept up a steady stream of conversation with Jane for the long drive. Mostly funny stories about an extremely uptight vampire named Collin whom Miranda appeared to be dating. I didn’t think Jane intended to ignore me, but it sounded like she and Miranda hadn’t caught up in a while.

Miranda drove us through a tunnel that seemed to go on for miles, until we finally emerged into the inky dark of Kentucky in October. Just before Ophelia had been “urged away” by the goon squad, she’d pulled me aside and told me that no matter how stupid or complicated things seemed at Jane’s, I needed to make my placement there work. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but since she didn’t follow it up with some sort of hyperbolic threat, I knew she was serious.

“Otherwise, you could end up staying in one of the Council’s holding cells,” she’d said. “You do not want to end up in one of the Council’s holding cells.”

With that piece of helpful advice echoing in my head, I leaned back against the headrest and stared out the window. The trees slipped past, melting into one giant dark shape. Headlights from other cars zoomed by. I blinked as headlights and the stuttering white of the center line became one long, syncopated pattern, flash dark flash dark flash dark.