Count

8. There's Something About the Girl

I couldn't stop thinking about Inari after she left. All of a sudden, this mortal girl had crashed into my life and filled it like an ocean breaker spilling onto a ship. If I weren't careful, I would be swept away.

She was intelligent, funny, sweet, and beautiful. When her eyes sparkled with mischief, I wanted to pry every tantalizing secret from her mind; when they were downcast with anxiety, I wanted to hold her and banish every painful thought from her head.

As we stargazed, half of me had been content to lay there forever, but the other half yearned to feel her soft, warm curves beneath my hands. To make her gasp my name. To bury my fangs in her neck as my fingers teased pleasure from her folds. How would she whimper if I touched her? How would she shudder and arch her back and pump hot blood into my mouth?

I groaned. I was hard just thinking about it. I wrestled with my perverse fantasies before caving and heading to the shower for release.

When I emerged, I had a text from Markus, a fellow vampire who worked for VDAC (pronounced V-dac), the Vampiric Democracy of America and Canada.

Markus: Another vamp has disappeared. Call me when you can.

I hit the dial button.

"Sergio," he answered. "How have you been?"

"Well enough. You say someone has disappeared?"

Markus cursed. "Yes. An American vampire by the name of Stephenson. Have you heard of him?"

"Vaguely. He was in the meth trade, correct?"

"That's the one. He was a nasty piece of work all right, but it concerns me that no one seems to know what's happened to him. Like the others, he vanished overnight without a trace."

I poured myself a glass of blood from the fridge. "Have we considered the possibility that these men and women are simply going into hiding for some reason? It wouldn't be the first time vampires have sought out solitude."

"One or two of them, maybe, I could see up and abandoning their lives. But almost a dozen in two years?" I imagined him shaking his head. "That would be too great a coincidence."

"I see your point." I took a long drink of blood, weary all of a sudden. "What is our next step?"

"I say we investigate on the sly. Try to figure out if there's any connection between the missing vamps that we can't see. So far, I have nothing. Some of them, like Stephenson, are old and cemented in their positions, but others are new. I can't think of any political motivation for disposing of such a diverse bunch. I'll keep asking questions to my contacts in the VDAC office, and you see what you can find out over there. But Sergio, be careful. I don't want you to turn up missing, too."

"You as well."

The conversation lapsed, neither of us wanting to end on such a melancholy note.

"Will you be at the Jacquinots' ball in a couple of weeks?" I asked.

"Yes," Markus said. "Will you?"

"I suppose I must."

"But?"

I smiled. "There's a charming little human girl here I am loath to part from."

Markus scoffed. "Bring her along."

"Out of the question," I said, clutching the phone. "I don't want her mixed up in vampire business."

"If she's involved with you, she's already mixed up in vampire business," he said logically.

"At the ball, she'd be a walking bloodsack."

"This event is one of the best you could bring her to," he countered. "It won't just be vampires; it'll be full of Enlightened humans and Ignorant ones, as well. Everyone will be on their best behavior. Besides, who in their right mind would try and steal a pet from Sergio di Genovesi?"