"You don't get much deader than that," said Sky through her teeth, squinting her eyes against the brightening sky.
But Aster had to sift through all the ash with his boot before he was satisfied. The bones remained, but even human bones required a proper incinerator to destroy. Aster wasn't even sure there was an incinerator that could decimate these bones. However, Husani had never said the bones had to be destroyed. He had only said the heart and body had to be separated and burned. Even with all the incredible, supernatural phenomena he'd witnessed over the past six months, Aster found it extremely doubtful that anything could grow back from a heart on an increasingly shrinking beach. Tide was coming in, and salty ocean water was far from embryonic fluid.
"Where'd you throw the heart?" he asked Sky, just in case.
"Like hell I know. I was too busy freaking out."
He only considered searching for it before the pain in his eyes reminded him of the coming dawn—and a most likely starving puppy dog behind him. Not to mention his own blood thirst wasn't exactly making things comfortable for him.
Thus, with a satisfied grunt, he turned on the spot and started the climb up the steep hillside and through the foliage, trusting her to follow.
Sure enough, a minute later he heard her ask: "Have you heard anything about Lea?"
"It's not like I was keeping tabs on her," he said thinly. The shrimp didn't have a cell phone, and it was dubious to Aster that Husani would have kept it after dropping her off at the hospital.
"Can't you, like, call the hospital and ask?"
"There are four hospitals in San Diego. I have better things to do than call them up just to sit through all their stupid hoops to find out." Like sleeping. Ugh, what a night. Not to mention the lemon wash scentlessness had been replaced with the nauseating stench of burnt, rotten fruit. He was drowning in it.
He felt her hitting his back and assumed it was Sky shoving at him to emphasize her anger at his answer. But then her hands were followed by her breasts and stomach, and he felt more than heard a gut deep growl.
Sighing, he turned. Sure enough, her pupils had dilated despite the brightness of the day and burned a bright gold. Her fangs hung in front of a panting, red mouth. But she didn't attack him, as he expected her to. Instead she just pawed his chest, lost, inhuman eyes to his neck like a dog begging for food.
He shivered. Still, despite his initial urge to be repulsed, he lifted her up as he had so many times over the past few days and brought her to his neck, where she nuzzled in and bit down. It didn't even hurt anymore.
This isn't normal at all, he thought with clenched teeth. He made plans to track down Husani and carried the sucking, mindless Sky back to the helicopter. Lane had already fallen asleep in the co-pilot seat. When he started to put Sky back down, she gave a whine, but surprisingly obeyed, leaving his neck with a gentle lick, her eyes closed. He stared down at her for a second longer before climbing in and shutting the cargo door.
The flight back home was a quiet one. Luckily he had some high intensity welding goggles for when the sun rose, but Lane scrunched up into a tighter ball against the onslaught. There were various tricky maneuvers to loading up the helicopter in the underground hangar, but by the time he landed Lane had woken up, which solved one problem of who he was going to carry in first. It didn't occur to him until later that he didn't need to carry the mutt anywhere. She had legs, didn't she? But since he was nearly inside the mansion already, he ignored it.
Once the pup and Lane were tucked away in the same bed, with the cooler of blood within reach of Lane, Morianton yawned, knocked his head a bit, and wandered back to his office to begin the search for his short teacher.
No sooner had he finished verifying that Lea's phone was a no go (it went straight to voicemail), when a buzzer went off on his phone. Groaning and wishing, for not the first time, that all the people on the planet would just blow up, he pushed the button on the blinking line. The line to his security personnel.
"Morianton."
"Sir, I apologize for the inconvenience, but the U.S. Military will be at your door in less than a minute. I had no choice but to let them in, under threat of—"
"I get the idea," he dropped his head to the desktop and ended the call.
Great. Smashing. Brilliant.
But despite his desire to just sit there and screw the world because he was tired, he swiftly got to his feet and ran back to the room that held the sleeping Lane and Sky. He wasted no time with pleasantries, yanking Lane roughly out of bed. His little brother squawked in indignation, but sobered in an instant.
"Hiding time," said Aster. "Head up the ladder, I'll wake up Sky. Can you take the cooler with you?"
In answer, Lane grabbed the cooler and hefted it onto his shoulder, an amazing feat if he had been human considering the red and black cooler was the same size as him and nearly full.
Aster dragged Sky out as well and was relieved to hear a human curse rather than a growl.
"What gives?" she asked, glaring at him blearily.
"You got to hide with Lane. Military's at the door most likely on the hunt for vampires."
Sky's eyes widened. "Wha?"
"Come on!" called Lane from his walk in closet. Sky shuffled about Aster and towards the closet, shooting baffled looks over her shoulder.
"You're coming too, right?"
"That would be a bad idea," he said flatly. And indeed, it would be. Without him they'd have no catch, and nothing would stop them from dismantling the whole mansion.
"But why would they—"
"Just get up the ladder and shut up."
Just as he said that, a distant bang echoed through the house.
In the walk-in closet filled with clothes and boxes of paraphernalia, a smooth wooden step ladder slid down from a square opening in the ceiling. Lane vanished into the darkness beyond with the cooler.
Sky scrambled up and turned around to peer at him from within the loft.
"But what are they going to do to you?"
"Whatever you do, don't make a sound," he said. Then Aster reached down for the bottom of the ladder and shoved it up. Sky let out a chirp of surprise as the ladder all but snapped back and a mechanism slid the ceiling back into place, leaving not a single sign that a moment before an opening had been there.
Aster quickly back tracked from the closet, careful to not touch the doorknob and leave prints, and headed for the hallway.
Around the corner came what he tongue-in-cheek labeled as a horde. Personnel in city camouflage flooded about him, looking better prepared for the apocalypse than the confronting of a single CEO. He raised his hands, but needn't have bothered. He was shoved unceremoniously to the ground and cuffed with the strangest pair of handcuffs he'd ever seen. They looked straight out of a sci-fi and encompassed the entirety of his lower arms and hands.
"A little unnecessary, don't you think? Especially given you're the ones who have broken into my home. I assume you have a warrant for arrest?"
The masked and hooded faces said nothing. But from their masses came a man with marked armor that could only signify a leader of sorts.
"Aster Morianton, you are being taken in for vampiric infection. You will be quarantined until further notice, as well as your ward, Lane Morianton."
Aster closed his eyes and smirked. It was about time. Whether it was his purchase of enough blood to supply an entire hospital or his long, uncharacteristic absence from work, he knew from the start he wouldn't be able to hide the evidence forever.
So he didn't fight back.
____________________________________________
I forget how high my voice is until I hear it in a recording, usually by accident because why the HECK would I ever record myself? *shudder* No wonder my husband's grandpa can't hear either my 5-year-old or me. It's humiliating and totally at odds with my image of myself. Me, strong, tough, bigger than life, I can do it! Reality: squeaky voice, burned out easily, weak joints, anxiety disorder, hypoglycemia, startled easily...
In another life I was a behemoth of a woman who could pick up cars, work from sunrise to sunset, and sing sweet jazz in a heady alto edging on baritone. I could eat instant Ramen for a week straight and come out just fine. I'd only have to look at a child to tell them they were in trouble and they'd run in fear.
...no wonder my husband thinks everything I do is adorable if I have a voice like a squeaky toy...ugh, the shame. How dare he!!!