Page 73 of Blood Magic

Chapter Thirty

I took the time to stop at a strip mall to pick up some t-shirts, jeans, and shoes for the two vampires, guessing at their sizes. I was being extremely optimistic, but I hoped like hell Axton had told them to rebury his brother before they’d gone too far. He liked to torture him, but surely he wouldn’t kill him. I could only hope.

Sixten was waiting when I pulled in behind him at the meeting place, leaning against his car with his ankles crossed. He lifted a hand in greeting, shot a lingering glance at Joe, then turned to pop his trunk. When he made deliveries, he drove an unassuming drab green car that was about fifteen years old, but I’d once seen him in a much more expensive ride.

“Who the hell,” Joe asked, “is that?”

I couldn’t help but grin. Sixten was six feet eight inches tall, and his braided black hair, piled on top of his head, added five or six inches to that. He was slender, pierced to within an inch of his life, and wore a colorful leather overcoat that reached his ankles. “I’ll tell you about him when I get back,” I said, and left him in the car as I went to meet Sixten.

“You’re as pretty as a summer morning,” Sixten said, when I approached. He pointed at the satchel in his trunk but didn’t take it out and hand it to me, for fear our fingers would touch. Sixten didn’t like to touch people.

I pulled a check from my jacket pocket and placed it into the trunk for him to retrieve later, then grabbed the satchel. “Thanks for coming through for me, Six.”

“Honey, anytime.” He gave me a wink, slid on a pair of enormous, bejeweled sunglasses, then slammed shut his trunk. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Take care, Sixten.”

“You too, Sugar.”

He got into his battered car, somehow folding his tall frame into the front seat, then drove off, leaving exhaust fumes hanging in the air.

I hefted the satchel, then climbed into my car and handed it to Joe. “Keep your fingers crossed, Joe. If the vampires are dead, I have no idea how to get to Rick.”

“You know what?” He placed the satchel on the floor at his feet. “If Bastien is dead, you’ll figure it out. You will save the detective.”

I gave an abrupt laugh. “Yeah. I will do that.”

And strangely relaxed, I drove us to the graveyard. It took me twenty-three minutes to get there, and five minutes to get out of the car.

“Kait?” Joe asked, after a while.

“I just have a bad feeling.”

He opened his door, then tossed the satchel—now heavier with the weight of the clothes and shoes—to the correct grave. He strode to the hatch and opened it, grabbed the shovel, then peered in at me. “You want anything from your kits? Come on, Kait. The longer you sit there, the more time Axton will have to torture the detective.”

And that was finally what pulled me out of the car. I couldn’t have said why I was so reluctant. My gut was screaming at me, but it did no good to sit there thinking about it. I’d seen how tortured Bastien and Farrow were. I wanted to help them if I could. But my gut was screaming at me to run far away.

I took off my coat and left it in the car, and the cold night air immediately soothed my overheated skin. I buckled a belt over my chest and one around my waist, filled the loops and sheaths with goodies, then dropped a silver chain over my head. I squeezed the cross. Bastien had been so burned by the sun that he might not even notice any burns he’d get from my cross.

Joe pulled a pair of gloves on, then reached me a pair. We’d dig for a while, but some of it would be done by hand lest we chop them up with the sharp shovel. A healthy vampire’s sleeping aura repelled a digging tool, but neither Bastien nor Farrow were healthy.

“You’re scared of them,” Joe realized, a little amazed. He fastened the straps of a light around his head, then clicked it on.

I slammed the hatch shut and walked with him to the recently dug grave. “I’m scared of what he might do.”

He frowned. “What can he do? Even if you do heal him, you saw the state he was in. His flesh was melting off his bones, Kait. He’s not going to hurt you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not afraid he’s going to kick my ass, Joe, for God’s sake.”

“Then what? You’re afraid he’s going to kick mine?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get them up.” I reached for the shovel, hoping to expend some of my nervous energy by digging, but he looked just a little insulted and refused to hand the shovel over.

Once he started digging, I crouched and pulled the bag to me, opening it up and pulling out its contents. I put the clothing in a neat pile, then pulled out the bags of blood and the hypodermics. The needles were just to get them started.

Their jaws were likely locked, and I’d need to slip the funnels between their cheeks and teeth and pour the blood into their unresponsive bodies. But with the damage they’d sustained, the two bags might not be enough.

I absolutely didn’t want to kill them if they came after Joe or me to get the hot, pumping blood they needed. If I did, I’d lose the detective.