"Give me an alternative, Conrad. What should I do?"
He was clearly at a loss.
"The one newspaper I was able to snare on the drive has been read. The house is empty of insatiable newlyweds or teenage thrill seekers with spray-paint cans, so I've no one to ogle or to frighten away. But I'm here now, so what did you want?"
Seeming not to know what to say for several moments, he opened and closed his mouth twice.
"Nothing?" she asked airily, waving him away. "Very well, have a good - "
"Stay!" he bit out. "I want you to stay."
"Why? Because you find me more stimulating than watching the paint peeling above the bed?"
He shook his head. "Want to talk to you."
With her chin up, she nonchalantly crossed to the window seat and floated atop it. "Perhaps I'll stay if you agree to answer some of my questions."
"Like what?"
"I overhear your brothers talking, but a lot of times, I have no idea what they mean. You could explain some things."
As though put out, he gave a short nod.
"What do they mean about your memories?"
"If a vampire takes blood straight from the vein, it's live, laden with a lifetime of memories. The memories have accumulated, until I can't control them. I can't tell them from my own."
"Every night Murdoch returns with more information about you. He said you have all kinds of people who want you dead."
"True."
"He also said he suspects you played with your victims before you killed them."
"I did only what I was paid to do."
Chapter 7
"Did you get paid to behead people while you drank them to death?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Drinking another gives you his memories. Drinking another as you kill him also gives you much of his strength, even some of his mystickal abilities. And beheading is one of the only ways to slay an immortal."
"Have you killed women and children before? Or humans?"
"Why would I bother to?" He seemed genuinely perplexed.
Somewhat reassured by his answer, she asked, "How did you become a vampire?"
His face was drawn with anger. "Nikolai decided to drip his tainted blood down my throat just before I died."
"He didn't have to bite you?"
"That's only in the movies," Conrad said. "Blood is the agent of the transformation, and death is the catalyst. It's this way for any species to be turned in the Lore."
"It's that easy to become a vampire?"
"Easy? It doesn't always work. And if it doesn't, you die."
"Who did it to them?"
"Kristoff, a natural-born vampire - and someone I have no intention of speaking about. Ask something else."
"Very well. Can you still eat food?"
"Yes, but I have as much interest in eating food as you would have in drinking blood." When her expression screwed up with distaste, he said, "Exactly. Though I do enjoy a good whiskey."
So had she. She had a stash of it in her studio. "What about your teleportation, your tracing? How far can you go?"
"We can cross the world - not just the living room of a haunted manor." She pursed her lips at that. "But we can only travel to places we've previously been or that we can see."
"And the Accession?"
"Phenomenon in the Lore, every five centuries or so. Families get seeded and immortals get sowed. Fights break out, and factions war. Lots of immortals get to die."
Néomi had heard these uncanny men speak of the Lore, as if it was a separate sphere of beings. She'd heard them talk about Valkyrie, witches, ghouls, and the "noble fey." There were werewolves and wraiths - and apparently all these beings... interacted.
"Are mermaids real?" she asked.
"Yes."
She gave a wide-eyed gasp, unable to hide her excitement. "Have you seen one? Do they have big tails? With scales? And what about Nessie? Is she real? Does she bite, and is she actually a Neddie - "
"How old were you when you died, ghost?" he interrupted with a patronizing mien. "Did you reach any level of maturity?"
She straightened her shoulders. "I was twenty-six."
Brows drawn, he murmured, "How did you die so young?"
How to answer? She couldn't very well admit that she'd been murdered without going into details. And the details made her sound weak. But then, being murdered was the ultimate weakness, wasn't it? Only someone who'd succumbed could understand.
This male would understand, her mind whispered. He would comprehend like no other the pain she'd endured. "I was murdered," she eventually answered.
"How?"
"What do you suppose?"
"A jealous wife shot her husband's pretty mistress."
"You think me pretty?" When he gave her an impatient look, as if they were retreading old ground, she felt a flush of pleasure. "I was never with a married man."
"A spurned lover pushed you down a flight of stairs."
"Why do you assume it was a crime of passion?" she asked.
"A feeling."
"Then your feeling's right. My ex-fiancé... stabbed me in the heart." Saying the words out loud sent chills racing through her. "He did it here. And I woke up trapped on the property, unable to leave, unable to feel."
The vampire's red eyes... softened. His voice a rasp, he asked, "Why would he do that to you?"
"He couldn't accept it when I broke it off with him." Louis had told her again and again that he would rather die than live without her, that nothing could make him let her go. "He turned the blade on himself right after me."