BloodWise

Chapter 7

The streets were mostly empty by the time he reached his the apartment he rented under an assumed name. He took the elevator up. When he walked in the front door, he noticed that the hall light was on. He moved carefully down towards his bedroom and pulled his pistol from his pocket with his free hand. As he reached the doorway, which was part-open- he leaned against the far wall and glanced inside.

Reyna was there. In his bed. She already had her top off and her short, dark nearly hid her eyes. She stared at him.

"We have to stop doing this," he said. He put the gun away.

"This is only the third time," she said.

He pulled off his jacket and shirt and sat on the end of the bed. She helped him remove the rest of his clothes and the engaged each either, starting at their lips and moving down. This time they weren't fierce, like they had been the first time, and they weren't slightly removed and sarcastic as they had been the second time. This time they were tender out of respect for his new wound. They moved slowly. A few drops of blood-infused sex and sweat made their way down their bodies and stained Winston silver-hued sheets. After she had her last orgasm, she lay down beside him. "I have to tell you something. I lied earlier- Winston- when you asked me about the truck bomb. I did see something. Just on thing. One small thing."

He looked at her.

"It was an Alabama license plate. I didn't say anything because Fitzgerald would have gone nuts. He's already angry that I even followed up on the bombing."

"That doesn't make sense, Reyna. Why would he try to hinder my investigation? He put a lot of time and money into the blood bank."

She closed her eyes and was quiet for a long time. For a moment, Winston thought she had fallen asleep. Then she opened them and said, "He blames you, Winston. He blames you for not doing enough to hide the blood bank from our enemies, and it's like he wants to punish you by making you do all the work yourself, but please don't tell I told you."

Winston took a moment to register what she'd said. Fitzgerald was trying to teach him  a lesson. It was a side of Fitzgerald he hadn't seen before. He wondered what else he didn't know about Fitzgerald's personality.

"Stop thinking about him," she said. "Think about me for a moment."

Winston sighed. "You know I don't love you Reyna."

"I don't love you, Winston. We're vampires. I don't think we're supposed to love each other. But I love your ideals. I love the fact that you're trying to find a way to get blood without hurting people. But I agree that this can't keep happening. Fitzgerald wouldn't like it."

"It can't happen again," Winston agreed.

Then they made love again.

Afterwards, Winston said, "An Alabama plate?" He let the question hang out there, in the space between them, but dawn was coming now and Reyna was already fast asleep.

He studied her round face a few moments and took some hope and happiness from it.  She was the only vampire with whom he'd ever slept.  Then he sat up, and went to the computer. He turned it on and watched as greenish words and symbols populated the tiny black TV set that had come with it. He accessed the few notes he had kept about the Longknifes. Thre wasn't much to go on. The Longknifes weren’t powerful enough to challenge anyone, so they owned and ran fair grounds in the least populated sections of various counties in the South, and they traveled a nomadic circuit from Texas to Maryland,paying small royalties to bigger houses for protection. Winston had been told that traveling houses had once once been common, but modern technology had rendered them lifestyle obsolete and houses like the Longknifes were increasingly rare. Their leader, Marlo, was known be somewhat strange and eccentric and not above some underhanded treachery. Nevertheless, they seemed like an unlikely culprit for the truck bomb, but they had been mentioned by Skinner Preston, hadn't they? And how could he account for the letter? Winston's task for tomorrow was clear; he'd have to keep Noah's confrontational tendencies in check while getting a reading. He turned off the computer and turned on the bedside lamp. He studied Reyna's face, Her closed eyes like resting moths. Then he read from his philosophy journals until the sun came.