***
We pull over for a few minutes to douse ourselves and the car in some wolfsbane oil I keep in a spritzer bottle. It should throw Uncle Devin and the others off our scent if only for a little while. Afterwards we drive to a small suburb a few miles outside of Austin and around seven in the evening, park the Corolla in an alley behind an abandoned office building awaiting demolition. Then we walk about five blocks with our luggage—Damian was able to transfer our suitcases—to a motel that looks like the set for a bad horror movie.
We slip a few bills to the fat, balding man at the front desk. His Hawaiian shirt is faded and stained with barbecue sauce and from the smell of him, I think he might do drugs. He casts Madelyn a leering grin with missing teeth and I think Damian seriously considers throttling the creep—I know I do—before toting our luggage up the creaking metal stairs to Room 26 on the second level.
In spite of the less than impressive reception, the room seems to be tolerably clean. There are two queen-sized beds with matching, patterned bedspreads and tan carpeting on the floor. The blinds to the room’s one window are open to allow the artificial light from the streetlamp below to bleed through. There’s a bathroom in the back and through the open door, I can see a minimalist shower and a white ceramic sink. While I can smell cockroaches and mice have been somewhere in the room, I don’t see any signs of them.
Damian flicks on the light and we shuffle inside.
My ribs are still sore and Madelyn, out of pity I suppose, carried in my Louis Vuitton suitcase. Though with a bit of the blood in the cooler, I should be fine in a few hours.
Madelyn kicks off her sneakers and flings herself down on the bed closest to the door. She buries her face in one of the pillows and exhales an exhausted sigh.
Damian piles the luggage in a semi-organized heap and flops down next to her.
They don’t touch, but I still find myself fidgeting. Though I can’t rightly expect everyone to practice chastity, I find myself wishing my brother would.
Trying not to look at them, I open the cooler and place it inside the small refrigerator in one corner of the room. But the door won’t close with the cooler inside, so I take all the blood pouches out and store them on the racks.
I take one and put it in the bathroom. Then I go to my luggage and fish out a clean change of clothes before going back inside. I pile my clean clothes on the corner of the sink and shut the door behind me.
If Madelyn or Damian wants to shower, they can have theirs after me. Considering I was the one that was in a fight today, I tell myself I’ve earned it. I pull my turtleneck over my head first. In the mirror, I can see my torso—a dark purple patch where I was punched. I tilt my head back and survey my neck in the reflection. Once more, I wonder if these marks will fade in time for spring.
I glance to the pouch of blood. I fed yesterday, but feeding again now will speed getting rid of my bruises and help heal my knuckles. I raise the plastic pouch to my mouth, I can see the thick, scarlet blood moving inside. Would Madelyn disapprove of me stealing from a hospital? Probably. But it wasn’t like I took a rare blood type. The bag reads O-Positive.
Just like a human mouth waters, my fangs slide down. I punch them directly into the plastic and draw the sticky stuff into my mouth. It flows down my throat rich and sweet as I drink. Blood is even better warm and without the noxious aftertaste of anticoagulants, but since I found out just how much a vampire’s bite hurts, I haven’t had the heart to hunt humans. I have never killed anyone and most hosts don’t even remember it, but it’s one thing to know something hurts and another entirely to experience it. Unluckily for me, a vampire’s venom doesn’t work on other vampires.
Damian will probably avoid feeding on live humans from now on, too. At least around Madelyn and at least when it can be helped.
Once I’ve sucked the pouch empty, I toss it in the trash can. I doubt medical waste is something that will bother the staff here. I strip off my remaining clothes and step into the shower. The water reeks of chlorine, but at least it’s heated. I scrub away the dark grime sticking to the bottoms of my feet from walking on asphalt and rinse off the blood that ran down my chin and neck.