* * *
After a long afternoon of waiting, now everyone had things to do. It was all very exciting. It would have been more exciting if Truman’s plan involved Joel being near the danger rather than safely at home. Joel watched Mitchell’s taillights fade and wondered what he was missing. What the vampires were doing. How Paddington was defying them and telling them what for.
Joel thought about all these things as he sat in his apartment eating microwaved instant noodles. That was when they came for him, just like last time: the same three vampiresses in dresses that seemed proper and modest until Joel actually looked. Then he noticed the low necklines and the glint in their eyes that promised no neckline at all if he played his cards right.
Joel had double-checked his balcony lock tonight and left the light on. Rather than step in with mystery, he could see them trapped on the tiny landing. Two of the vampires eyed him seductively; the other one was bent down picking the lock. She worked quickly and was through it before Joel could do more than look down her top. Not that he’d meant to, of course. That would be debasing to her, and disrespectful, although presumably she was in the low-cut top for his benefit. Well, mostly in it. Some of her was escapi—
Oop. Vampires.
They were in the room now, gliding toward him hypnotically. It was like a trick of the light, like they weren’t even walking, just… getting bigger and closer. Growing in his consciousness, taking up his world.
This time Joel hadn’t bothered with a stake.
One of the vampires spotted the pistol in his hand. “Do you mean us harm?”
“Is that your answer?” asked another.
“You reject us? You don’t like us?”
Wow they could make their eyes big. That didn’t make this easier. Joel had never said no to a girl – because that would have required some level of interest from one – and saying no to three girls… three willing girls… who looked like that…
“I like you,” he said. Maybe he could bluff his way through; tell them he was on their side without giving away any information.
“Do you?” asked the light-haired one. She seemed the sharpest of them.
“Well, maybe not ‘like’,” he said. “I don’t dislike you. I haven’t done anything with you, or against you, or to you.”
“So we’re nothing to you?” The young one with the dark hair had made her way onto his bed again. He kind of wished she’d stop doing that, but he also kind of didn’t.
“You’re something. I just haven’t decided what to do about that. I’m not ruling out any possibilities, you understand; I’m keeping my options open.”
“You’re helping them,” said the blonde. “You’ve been with them all day.”
“And I’m with you now,” Joel said. “Doesn’t mean I’m with you.” He stopped. “I mean, I am with you – we’re in the same place – but I haven’t allied myself with you.”
“We’re not simple,” said the brunette.
“And I wasn’t implying you w—”
“You weren’t implying anything,” she pressed. “You were simply making noise. Delaying your decision. Are you with us, with the Lord?”
“You mean the count?”
A new passion flared in her eyes. “I mean the Three-God: Idryo, Enanti, and Tipote in their unending dance. Are you with us or do you defy Them? This is no hard choice.”
“This is all new to me!” Joel said. Jesus, why did everyone want his allegiance all the time? He’d reported potential vampire activity; someone else was supposed to take over from there! “I don’t know you and I don’t know them. I’m sorry that you have some battle going on, but the less it has to do with me the happier I’ll be. I only called them because you were drinking the blood of my townsfolk, which they tell me you don’t do. So tell me, who do I believe?”
A moment that passed between the vampires when they decided whether to lie to him again or tell him the truth.
“We drained their blood,” said the blonde. “But didn’t drink it.”
“Eucgh, no,” said the raven-haired one on his bed.
“Then why bite them?” Joel asked. “Why hospitalise them? And if you didn’t drink it, what did you do with their blood?”
“We donated it to the blood bank, having anaesthetised them and drained it according to the relevant safety and hygiene regulations.” The blonde sat on the chair at his desk. It seemed out of place: this beauty, ageless and gorgeous, sitting on a plastic swivel chair in front of a desk he’d put together himself with a little screwdriver and a lot of swear words. “It is the act they consider important: that they are bitten, that their blood is drained. That is what matters to them. What happens with the blood is irrelevant to them, so why should someone not make use of it?”
Well that was… coldly logical. Also creepy.
“Tell me about the prophecies.”
“What do you wish to know?” asked the brunette.
Joel didn’t have a chance to answer, because of the loud bang and the brunette flying backward, her body curling inward toward her stomach, suddenly covered with some sort of net or webbing. It was only when Joel looked around in panic for the source of the noise that he saw Mitchell standing on the balcony reloading what looked like a grenade launcher attachment on the underside of his rifle.
Another pair of bangs came from Joel’s right: his door flying off its hinges and Skylar firing her grenade launcher. The youngest vampire, who had been struggling to climb off the bed, toppled back to the sheets encased in the same netting.
The blonde vampire was most of the way to the balcony doors. Mitchell stopped reloading and raised his rifle, but the vampire swept it upward and Mitchell’s bullets hit the ceiling. By that time, Mitchell had already dropped the rifle and was drawing a knife from its sheath on his flak jacket, but the vampire had slipped behind him and wrapped a hand around his throat.
“Drop him!” Truman said. Joel hadn’t even seen him enter.
“Oh how I would love to just snap your neck,” she said.
“Last thing you’d ever do,” Truman said. “Now put him down!”
She didn’t get a chance. Mitchell stabbed backward just to the right of his torso. The blonde had to release him to avoid the blade. In the moment it took Mitchell to spin around, knife flashing out once more, she’d leapt off the balcony.