Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things That Byte (Dowser 8.5) Read online

  “Then what’s so immoral about you drinking from me?”

  “You and me, we’re not … I shouldn’t be stealing experiences from you. And … you can’t drink from me. Things like this should be … reciprocal.”

  Benjamin was watching me too closely, listening carefully, dissecting my words. I remembered him in the Talbots’ basement, holding his fountain pen, studiously bent over his notebook. I wondered how much of this encounter would go in the chronicle he was writing.

  “You … for you, drinking blood from me is like sex?”

  “I … I don’t know. I’ve never done it before.”

  “You drink from Kett. You drank from him when he turned you.”

  I frowned. “Yes, but I don’t really remember it. I was dying.”

  Benjamin nodded thoughtfully. He had drained the second bag of blood.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Do you remember drinking from Nigel?”

  “I do. He had to help. I couldn’t break through his skin.”

  “From his neck?” I really shouldn’t have been asking such intimate questions — because I couldn’t take my gaze off Benjamin, off the blood moving through the veins of his own neck.

  “Yes. Where else would I drink from?”

  An inappropriate smile spread across my face as all the places Kett had drunk from me when I was human sprang to mind. All the places I could drink from Benjamin.

  “You’re too young!” I blurted. And finally, I managed to step back, diverting my gaze to the floor.

  “Too young?” Benjamin echoed. “Too young to nourish you? Because you’re worried about hurting me?”

  “Yes.” Answering with that half-truth, I stepped back around the bed, retreating from everything the predator wedged down deeply inside me was raging for … blood and sex … connection, dominion …

  I sat down, pressing my back to the wall. And Benjamin followed me. He crouched down before me, a third bag of blood in his hands.

  I really shouldn’t have been counting.

  He’d pushed up the sleeves of his thin sweater. A mass of scar tissue wreathed his left wrist.

  Anger flashed through me. Suddenly I was holding his hand, though I was careful to not touch the wounded tissue. “What’s this? Who did this to you?”

  “You know, Jasmine. From the bracelet.”

  Right. Benjamin usually wore a necromancy working that helped him keep his vampire nature in check. I hadn’t realized that it hurt him so badly.

  I was still holding him. I should have let him go.

  “It should heal. It should have healed already.”

  Benjamin shrugged. “If you won’t drink from me, then maybe you want some of this?” He lifted the IV bag in his right hand, completely ignoring that I was still holding his left wrist.

  He pierced the plastic bag with the straw before I answered. Then he sipped from it deeply.

  I held him fast by the wrist, watching the muscles of his neck while he swallowed.

  Then Benjamin offered me the blood, offered me the straw. And God help me, I leaned forward and took a sip.

  He watched my mouth.

  I took another sip.

  His gaze flicked up to meet mine. The red of his magic was ringing his dark-brown eyes.

  “I won’t bite your neck,” I said.

  “Where, then?”

  “Your wrist.” I flicked my gaze to his left wrist. I still held his arm aloft between us.

  “Okay.”

  “And … and we need a safe word.”

  A grin lit up Benjamin’s face, transforming him from a serious and gentle person … into a sexy, available man. “Like what? Avocado?”

  I laughed despite myself. “Avocado it is. If you feel light-headed … or … worried.”

  “I already feel light-headed.” He was still smiling, still easy, still perfectly ready to let me feed on him. Like he was prey.

  Except he wasn’t prey. He was like me. A vampire. And the offer of his blood was a thing more profound than either of us had the experience to understand.

  “At least tell me you’re nineteen. Twenty?”

  Benjamin chuckled. “I’m older than you.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I was turned in October 2016. And you?”

  “May 2017. But that doesn’t count.”

  “That’s exactly what counts. That’s exactly how vampires measure the passage of time. And we’re vampires, Jasmine.” He took another sip through the stainless steel straw.

  “We are.” I sighed. “We are vampires.”

  Benjamin shifted forward, pressing his wrist into my hand. I eased my grip, allowing him to settle his scarred skin against my lips.

  “Avocado,” I whispered.

  He nodded.

  Keeping my gaze locked to his, I bit down. I found a vein by instinct, sealing my lips over the wound I’d created. His blood slowly seeped into my mouth. And I drank, sipping. I shuddered as the taste of him — sugary sweet and pleasantly warm — slipped down my throat. But I tried to be gentle. I tried to be careful.

  I saw the moment that my venom hit Benjamin. His shoulders relaxed and his grin became lazy, blurring his usual laser-like focus.

  Then I saw the moment when he realized why two vampires sharing blood was as intimate as sex.

  The red of his magic flooded his eyes, wiping the grin from his face. He moved to drink from the IV bag and fumbled. Tearing his gaze away from mine, he shoved the straw into his mouth, draining the bag swiftly.

  Somehow, I managed to pull back from drinking, carefully licking the bite wound on his wrist and watching as his flesh healed, smoothing some of the scar tissue with it.

  I cleared my throat, forcing myself to check in with him before I drank again. “Are you okay, Benjamin?”

  “Yes.” He shifted closer to me, curling his hand around the back of my neck and pressing me forward, encouraging me to bite him again. Except not on his wrist this time.

  And God help me, I dropped his hand, reaching for his shoulders and drawing him toward me. “You can’t bite me, Ben,” I whispered against his neck.

  He buried his hands in my hair, pressing his lips to my ear. “I know.”

  “My blood might kill you … or drive you crazy. Or at least Kett thinks so.”

  “I know, Jasmine. I know.” He leaned back, pulling me with him to the floor until I lay across him, until my hair fell down all around us. He wound his leg around mine, pinning my thigh against him.

  I bit his neck. Blood spurted, but I got every drop.

  He gasped. A soft sound, full of pleasure.

  I drank. Blood flowed easier from a neck bite than a wrist.

  Benjamin shifted against me, rubbing against me. Then, realizing what he was doing, he angled his hips slightly away.

  I paused, pressing my tongue against the bite wound on his neck to stop the blood flow.

  He reached down, adjusting himself, shifting his erection. “Sorry … I, um … I didn’t know it still worked.”

  “It works,” I murmured, feeling a sharp spike of desire in response to him admitting his own. “It’s just not … I think it takes focus. Blood still flows through us.”

  “That’s what you were worried about? Why you were worried about our ages? About being inappropriate?”

  “I didn’t want to … take the experience from you.”

  Benjamin laughed softly. “I’m not a virgin, Jasmine. As a human, I slept with plenty of people … girls. Mostly at some camp for cancer survivors, or in the hospital. There’s nothing like fighting death to make you want to have sex. Actually, its more about the act than feeling any desire.”

  “Okay … I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  “And you?” He trailed his fingers down my throat, then along my collarbone. My skin under his fingertips felt smooth. His blood was already helping me to heal.

  “And me what? Am I a virgin?”

  He laughed quietly. “You said you and Kett aren’t toget
her like this. So am I your first?”

  That idea, that thought, made me pause. “This life is full of firsts.”

  “Yes.” Benjamin grinned. “Isn’t it fantastic?”

  I locked my gaze to his. He lifted his head, kissing me softly, then catching my bottom lip in his teeth. I darted my tongue into his mouth.

  “No biting me, Benjamin.”

  He nodded solemnly. “I’m going to need another bag of blood.”

  I shifted off him, untangling our limbs.

  He stood, grabbing his satchel from the bed, shifting it to the bedside table, and pulling out another bag of blood. Then he reached down and offered me his hand. I took it.

  He pulled me to my feet. And standing pressed against me, running his free hand up and down my curves — ass, hip, waist, and breast — he drank. Then he drew me onto the bed, offering me his body and his blood.

  And I took both.

  Benjamin fell asleep just before dawn. After checking to make sure that the curtains fully covered the windows so he wasn’t in danger of accidental immolation, I wandered into the bathroom naked, checking my rib cage for wounds. I found none — and felt more whole than I had for days. I made sure that Benjamin still had blood — two bags of the ten he’d started the evening with. Then I got dressed.

  A quick glance at my phone informed me that what had felt like days of slowly dying had actually been less than twenty-four hours.

  When I tried the door, the magic that had been securing it had faded. Either Teresa had forgotten to renew the spell that had held me at bay even at the height of my hunger, or she’d somehow known that I’d regained my senses.

  But when I checked, I found that her heartbeat didn’t number alongside the others I could sense around me. So she had left the house. Presumably, Benjamin wouldn’t need his bracelet replaced until sunset.

  Embarrassment flashed through me as I realized why Teresa had removed the bracelet in the first place. She had understood that her son needed to be able to access his vampire magic, his vampire nature, in order to feed me. But that didn’t tell me whether removing the bracelet had been done at Benjamin’s request.

  I peeked into Pearl’s room. I could clearly see a glimmer of the stasis field that covered the elder witch, who appeared to be sleeping along with the two other occupants of the room, Burgundy and Olive.

  Perhaps my seeing magic was a side effect of drinking from the elf? I wondered if that ability would fade, and how quickly.

  Hearing the remainder of the heartbeats clustered below me, I wandered down to the basement. In the map room, Rochelle was sitting in one corner, either sketching or working on older sketches. Beau was sprawled next to her, sleeping.

  The oracle looked up at my approach, offering me a smile, then taking a sip of something hot from a travel mug. I could see steam but couldn’t smell whether it was coffee or tea.

  Scarlett was suspended in the middle of the room, held within a column of magic that ran from floor to ceiling. Other tendrils — magical echoes of Rochelle’s ivy vines and barbed wire — crisscrossed the ceiling and connected to various places on the map. And if I looked at it sideways, I was pretty certain I could see a shimmer of magic also running all along the edge of the baseboards.

  Scarlett’s strawberry-blond hair floated around her. She also appeared to be sleeping.

  “Is Scarlett okay?” I asked Rochelle.

  “As far as I can tell.”

  That wasn’t particularly comforting.

  “The barrier is up,” the oracle said with great satisfaction.

  “The barrier?”

  Rochelle nodded. “Scarlett connected all the grid points.”

  I glanced at the map. “You … you’re saying the entire city is magically warded?”

  “Seems so.” A wickedly satisfied grin spread across the oracle’s face. “The elves have retreated.” She pointed to the stadium, which was now glowing a bright yellow-green on the map. “We still can’t breach their wards, but we can track them through the city. And … they can’t get out.”

  “You’ve … you and the witches have trapped the elves in the city.”

  “And you. We all did it.” Rochelle returned her attention to her sketchbook, as if it wasn’t an absolutely horrible idea to be trapped anywhere with murderous, rampaging elves.

  Beau rolled to his feet. One second he was asleep and the next he was eyeing me while gently plucking the now empty mug out of Rochelle’s hand. “I’ll get you a refill.”

  “Thank you.” Rochelle brushed her fingers against the back of her husband’s hand, then he stalked past me without another word. Apparently, he found my bloodlust, and subsequent meltdown, disconcerting.

  That made two of us.

  “This is why you sent Benjamin to me,” I said, returning my attention to the conversation. “Because when the elves start making a fuss, it’s going to be difficult to stop them from hurting … everyone.”

  “Actually, it was his idea. And obviously, he was right. You look much better. Tony has been taking point on tech, but I’m certain he’d like your help. Thankfully, the elves’ wards seem to come with some sort of diversion side effect. So no one nonmagical appears to have noticed that BC Place has been overrun by them. Not yet, at least. The diversion effect is giving Peggy trouble, actually, so she and Gabby are looking after the bakery. Tony said there weren’t any events scheduled at the stadium this week, but other things … like people coming from out of town …” She waved her free hand. “… are going to need to be handled, cancelled …”

  “You want me to help with … managing the media and the human public?”

  Rochelle frowned. “That’s your area of expertise, isn’t it? Tech stuff.”

  “I thought you wanted me to hunt the elves.”

  “We won’t kill them if they don’t try to kill us. But you’re right, the stalemate won’t last. Pearl is going to need Scarlett. And she appears to be fueling the barrier spell right now.”

  “What? Fueling? Holy hell.”

  “Mory is on her way back here. I insisted. She’s been awake for over twenty-four hours.”

  Thrown by the segue, I paused to scan the map, attempting to wrap my head around everything that had happened and what the hell we were going to do about it. Pearl was dying. Scarlett wasn’t going to be much better off if this went on for more than a few days. She was a powerful witch, but personal magic wasn’t an endless well. She’d burn out.

  I heard a car pull into the driveway. And just a few moments later, Mory practically tumbled into the room, holding a dead turtle in one hand and a folded sheaf of paper in the other. Liam leaned into the doorway, scanning all the magic the room held with a look of distaste.

  Beau slipped through the doorway silently, crossing to take up sentry by his pregnant wife and managing to keep an eye on all of us at once while carefully placing a steaming mug of whatever the oracle was drinking in her hands.

  “She’s there … Jade!” Mory said, speaking so quickly she was practically skipping words. “It took Ed hours to navigate the weird empty hallways toward the center. And I had some trouble maintaining my connection through the wards when he got too far away.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Hallways? Like, inside the stadium itself?”

  Liam nodded. “As far as we can see, they’re in the process of building interior spaces for some reason, plus some sort of maze.”

  Mory ignored my interruption. “The elves have … they’ve got something magical on Jade. On her forehead. When Ed tries to look at it closely, it glows too brightly for me to see it, exactly. Then the camera shorts out.”

  “It’s one of the gemstones.” Every gaze in the room turned to me. I cleared my throat. “I didn’t get a good look before Kett sent me to Pearl. But yeah, something bloody and bleeding in Jade’s forehead, and the skinny, creepy elf … controlling her.”

  “She’s not controlling her all that well.” Mory smirked, full of satisfaction, as she tapped the sheaf of pa
pers on top of the turtle’s hard shell. “The elf, that elf, is trying to make Jade fix some sort of magical device. I think that’s what’s shorting out the camera. I don’t actually get any audio through Ed, like maybe he doesn’t pick up vibrations the same way I do.” She turned her gaze on Rochelle. “When you texted, Liam wanted to continue mapping. But I wanted you to know firsthand. Jade’s alive.”

  The sorcerer crossed his arms belligerently. “You’ve barely covered a third of the footprint.”

  “You know I can’t get Ed up the stairs,” Mory snapped over her shoulder.

  The dark-haired sorcerer sighed. “I meant barely a third of the main floor. You could have texted this information.”

  “I need breakfast. And a nap.”

  “Fine.”

  “So what do you think the elves are up to?” Beau asked, speaking for the first time since I’d entered the room. “Did you get any sense of … any plans? They waited two days to come for Rochelle, when coming the night they showed up at the club would have been a smarter tactical move.”

  Liam shook his head. Then he paused, thinking. “They’re hurt. Or they were. Badly. In the first battle with Jade. They could barely walk when I saw them retreat into the stadium, carrying the others. And, like Mory said, they’re having trouble controlling Jade. That’s got to be draining resources.” He glanced at the map, eyeing the glowing stadium. “We might actually have a window of opportunity to help them.”

  “And what about the dragons?” Beau asked, throwing the question out to all of us. “Drake was supposed to go to Jade’s father.”

  “But Drake also said that the warrior … and the healer had been called away.” Mory looked at me for confirmation. “After the elves showed up at the dance club.”

  I nodded. I’d heard Drake tell Jade that as well. “The guardian of North America is down. Jade’s been taken. And if the guardians haven’t responded, there’s a reason. Let’s hope that reason isn’t that the rest of the world is going to hell at the same time. I died nine months ago, and I’m not a fan of doing so again any time soon.”

  Mory snorted a laugh.

  I grinned at her. Trust a necromancer to like undead humor.

  “So it’s up to us then.” Mory turned her intense and eager gaze on Rochelle, then me. “There must be something we can do to help Jade!”