Fangs for Freaks (Book 2: Half-blood vampire series)

Chapter Twelve

Yes, Carl could easily take Piper’s place if the need ever arose.

I filled him in on the Lance situation, which he insisted on relaying to Thomas. They spoke on the cell phone while I blatantly tried to pretend like I was ignoring the conversation when I was secretly eavesdropping, but I couldn’t hear Thomas’s end of the conversation at all. Why is it that super hearing was the one vampire trait I didn’t get? How fair was that?

Carl hung up and announced that Thomas didn’t like our plan for using me as bait to trap Lance.

“So that’s that?” I said. “Thomas says no and you go all girly? He’s not the boss of me.”

Carl smiled at my petulance. “No, but he is the boss of me.” I pouted in silence and after a moment, Carl said, “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

I snorted, with my hands folded across my chest, and said, “Whatever.”

Carl ignored me and continued. “Yep, you sure don’t see nights this nice all the time. The weather is mild, the stars are bright. It’s the perfect night for a walk in the park.”

I straightened up a bit when I finally caught on to what Carl was insinuating.

“You know, I was feeling a little hungry. It would be a shame to waste such a nice evening.”

He nodded in my direction. “I could feed.” I nodded to him as well. “Sure, so could I.”

We didn’t say another thing for the rest of the drive. Carl parked his car in front of Psi Phi House and got out. I scrambled to join him and we both turned toward the university instead of the House.

“You know, Colby,” Carl remarked loudly, “I’m worried what a toll this entire Tina thing is having on you. You look positively awful.”

I was about to tell him to keep it down, I wasn’t deaf, when it occurred to me he was being loud on purpose. “Uh, oh yeah. I barely have any strength with the stress of this job and all.” I winked at him to show him I was on board with the subterfuge but he rolled his eyes at my playacting ability. Well excuse me, I guess I missed drama class on account of I had a life.

We walked down the middle of the street for the few blocks it took to get to the park. Once we arrived, Carl immediately led me down the tree-covered trail. Gee, wasn’t I attacked here before? The thought flashed through my mind.

Carl reached his hand out to stop me. I could smell the change in the air and turned to face the direction of the wind. Walking toward us were five vampires, all dressed like they wandered away from the beach and couldn’t find their way back.

Each head possessed sun-kissed locks and their shirts were open at the chest. I noted the leader’s cargo shorts and I wondered if Lance had been changed in the eighties and just never updated his style. Or maybe he was going for the retro look.

They stopped in front of us, not making a move to attack. Lance was a few steps ahead of the group so I shrugged at Carl and took two steps forward.  We were eye to eye.

“You must be Lance,” I said. “I’m very sorry about what happened to Tina.”

Lance seemed surprised by my sincerity. Hey, I liked Tina and was sorry she died. I knew Lance loved her, in his own perverted way. If he didn’t kill her then he was probably hurting right now.

“You took her away from me.”

Though technically that was true, I believe he was implying that if it wasn’t for me she would still be dating him. And that was a crock so I said as much.