Immortal Souls (The Immortal Souls: Magic & Chaos)

Chapter 11

Aleczander and Evangeline were the other two of Sam's Guardians. In total there were three left standing.

Aleczander.

Evangeline.

Jack.

Not that she had really relied on anyone but Jack for the past few years.

In the beginning there had been seven. Including her adoptive parents Gabrielle and Anthony Jacobs, and then her grandparents, Joan and Henry Foster.

All of whom were now dead.

Sam picked the phone up out of the holder and dialled Aleczander's number. The phone had barely started ringing before it was answered. "Hello?"

Sam sighed internally at the sound of the woman's voice on the other end of the line; she had been hoping to get Aleczander. "Hi Evangeline, it's-"

"Sam!" Evangeline interrupted. "We haven't heard from you in ages. How've you been?"

"I'm fine. How are you?" Sam asked, forcing herself to make polite conversation so that she didn't seem completely uncaring.

"Good, good," she said. "Everything's great."

There was a moment of silence, then Sam asked, "Is Aleczander there?"

Evangeline sighed dramatically. "And here I thought you called to talk to me," she said. Sam rolled her eyes. It wasn't that she disliked Evangeline, it was just that she was the kind of person who always seemed to be in a perpetual good mood, always enthusiastic and on the bright side about everything. Which sometimes made talking to her for prolonged periods of time extremely irritating for any person who didn't think that the whole world was made of marshmallow fluff and rainbows.

"I actually just called because I need an address," Sam explained, in an attempt to make Evangeline not feel totally rejected.

"Oh," she said and took a second before saying, "He's in a meeting right now . . . "

Sam thought for a moment, she had called for Aleczander, but the odds were if he had the information she was looking for, Evangeline would too. "You wouldn't happen to know the address of a Blood-Bar close to here, would you?"

"I would happen to know," she said simply.

Sam waited for a few seconds, expecting Evangeline to fill the silence by actually giving her the information she'd asked for. When she didn't Sam sighed and asked, "Where?"

"I'm not giving you the address of a Blood-Bar!" Evangeline said, laughing. "You could get yourself killed there Sam. Not every Vampire in the world likes to follow the rules and some of them are dangerous. If they see a pretty girl like you walking into a place like that they'll assume you're consenting to having your blood drained. And then a dangerous Vampire will be walking around filled to his fangs with Magic."

"I don't want to go to a Blood-Bar. The address is for a Vampire I met yesterday," Sam explained. "He was abandoned by his Sire and doesn't know a lot about his situation. He was looking for another Vampire to try explain the do's and don'ts."

"And he told you all of this?" Evangeline asked sceptically.

"No," Sam admitted. "He came into the library yesterday looking for books on Vampire mythology. But he kept looking at me so I assumed he was up to something shifty and I read his thoughts and memories. He doesn't know who I am or what I can do. I didn't tell him anything. But, I dunno, I feel kinda sorry for him so I suggested he try looking for information at a Blood-Bar."

"Why would you suggest a Blood-Bar? Why didn't you just give him this number?"

Sam let a breath of frustration. "Because then he'd wonder how exactly I knew other Vampires and I'd rather not drag every stranger I meet into the middle of all of my crap."

Evangeline laughed a little. "Right," she said. "Sorry, that's understandable I suppose."

"So can I have the address or not?"

"Sure, just give me a second." Sam could hear papers rustling on the other end of the phone. Which presumably was the sound of Evangeline searching for an address book. "There's a few around the area," she said when the noise had stopped. "Mmmm . . . maybe this one," she mumbled to herself. "It's one of the more reputable, less dodgy people. I think Claudio actually goes to this one frequently, so that would be good." Evangeline seemed pleased with her decision. Sam could feel her smiling on the other end of the line. "Okay, two towns over there's a good one. If you tell him to walk to the centre of town where there's small park with a playground. If he walks past on the side of the playground he'll be on the main street, forward on for ten minutes until he finds an old hotel, it should be all boarded up and pretty derelict on the outside. Go down the alley to the far left of the building and he can get in through the emergency exit. This is Nick's bar, he's good people and should be able to direct him to wherever he wants to go. And if he goes there on a Thursday he'll find Claudio."

Sam scribbled all of that downon a piece of paper so that she could remember it all later, when she was sureshe'd run into the Vampire again.