Chapter 20 20
On the outside of my house I floated around all the points of entry to my house. Only the bathroom window had any scents around it. After checking the grounds for further clues, I floated back into my bathroom window. Dressing quickly in leather pants and a cotton tank, I headed downstairs to where the boys were waiting.
"Any sign our mystery guest got inside?” I asked from the couch where I was shoving my feet into my motorcycle boots.
“Not that we could see.” Connor was looking from the boots to my clothes with concern. I was in my ass kicking clothes. Boot stomping the fang boy that tried to swirl thru my bathroom window seemed like an appropriate response.
“Maybe Bask scared them off.” The three of us looked at Bask sleeping on the chaise lounge beside me. Connor and I both snorted at the pup’s words.
“His snores are pretty terrifying. But, he only gets off the couch twice a day to eat and do his business and then he goes back to the couch.” I loved that lazy dog but, I had no illusions on his usefulness. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’d ever even heard him bark.
“That’s not true. If it’s a nice day sometimes he lays on the deck instead of the couch.” Connor had a point. Maybe Bask wasn’t as lazy as I thought.
We drifted into the kitchen to find some lunch. I had a sense of déjà vu as I stood at the microwave waiting for my lunch, listening to the guys discuss what they were going to have. After much debate they went for pizza today. Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting around the pub table enjoying our meals.
“Is blood the only thing you eat or drink?” Tristan asked around a bite of pizza. Someone really needed to teach him not to talk with his mouth full.
“Blood is all I need.” I wrinkled my nose at their pizza. The grease soaked bread looked unappealing.
“Living beings eat a variety of food. We can taste the difference in blood type. You guys drink alcohol. We drink blood infused with alcohol.”
“Infused? Like you mix booze into the blood before you drink it?”
I laughed. “No, as in the blood is….let’s go with donated, from a person who has been drinking. The higher their blood alcohol level is, the more potent the infused blood is.”
The rest of the meal was spent on small talk. Possibly the discussion on drinking blood was hard on their appetites. Oh well. I learned a few things about my new roommate. He’d attended human schools and graduated in the top of his class in high school. Then, defied his father and not gone to college. Instead he had spent a year in Mexico working as a bartender at a swim up bar in a resort. Surprisingly he had kept taking the wolf bane potion while he was there. The potion was the reason he returned to the US. Two months ago the witch he got it from moved away and he couldn’t find anyone else to make it for him. Talk about irony. If he’d gone off the potion, he could have sniffed out someone who could have made it for him. A month ago he had moved back to his parents and had been looking for a job when we showed up.
After we had finished our meal we split up. Tristan was settled on the couch with my laptop doing more research on Cyrus, paying particular attention to his voting record. Could be he was killed for the way he voted on something. Connor was at the table with his laptop looking to see if any other marbles of death had been found out there in the world. I popped back to my lab. My task was to work on a locator spell. Well, two spells actually. One to find the creator of the marble and the other to find the soon to be boot stomped vamp.
Standing in my lab I took a few minutes to enjoy the absolute silence. I had been around people for too long the past few days. I loved Connor like a brother and Tristan was growing on me, but, a girl needed her own space sometimes. Moment over, I plugged my IPod into the speakers and sung along while getting my supplies ready.
It took some time, but, I worked my way through all the locator spells I knew. None of them had any affect. Sitting in frustration with my head in my hands, I tapped my fingers to the beat of the song currently coming from the speakers. I didn’t have anything the people I was looking for had physically touched. Why couldn’t that damn vamp have touched anything? Even a single blade of grass! I wouldn’t need a spell to find them. A wave of my hand would have lit up their trail. But no, stupid vampire had to stay in mist form.
A glance at my phone showed I’d been down here for several hours. No wonder I was starving. I popped some blood in the microwave then straightened my lab while I waited for the ding. Hoping the boys had found something; I took the container from the microwave and ripped a portal back to my place. I smelled Chinese food when I stepped out on my front porch. Huh. Guess the boys didn’t call me for dinner. How rude.
Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum were in the living room watching a documentary on rock bands from the 70’s. Empty Chinese containers were scattered on the coffee table in front of them. I flopped down on the couch and drank my dinner. We sat there mindlessly watching the TV. Tristan was the first to break the silence during a commercial break after they had been talking about disco music.
“Cole, you were around in the 70’s, did you dress like that?” I think that was the first time he called me by name.
“Not really. My wardrobe was mostly what you would call peasant skirts and tops. I never got into the disco scene.”
Connor snorted “Ask her where she was when Elvis died. Or when Nixon was impeached.” I gave him a look that should have caused him to burst into flames. Tristan’s eyes bounced between us.
“Cole doesn’t remember the 70’s. Or the 60’s for that matter.” I wondered if my partner knew the only thing keeping him alive was I didn’t want to break in a new partner. He was finally trained and I was too old to start over. Damn. Why did Tristan have to ask why I didn’t remember? Of course my soon to be on fire partner was more than happy to respond to him. “Remind me Cole, why don’t you remember major events from those two decades?”