“Yes. Why?”
“Well, if someone was rendezvousing with her fairly regularly, enough to keep her under their control, then that same person could’ve been infecting the bags of blood she was taking to Bo.”
“Oh,” I gasped. “I didn’t even think about that.”
Such ruthlessness, such impossible blackness. The person who could plan and carry out such a heinous deception would have to be evil incarnate.
“Who would do something like that? Who could do something like that?”
“Someone like an elder probably, someone powerful beyond imagination.”
“You knew many of them, right?”
“Well, I knew of them. I’m not that old. The elders walked the earth long before my time.”
“Any idea which one could’ve done something like this?”
“That, I’m not sure of, but I intend to find out.”
“Do you think this could have anything to do with Heather?”
Just before Bo “died,” he’d asked me to pass a message along to Lucius, the name of someone he believed to be connected to his father’s death. That name was Heather. No last name, no other information—just Heather.
“I suppose it’s possible, but there’s only one way to know for sure.”
“Find Heather.”
Lucius nodded. “Find Heather.”
“Well, where do we start?”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that? You have a life to live. Besides, lass, I’m much more… resilient than you,” he teased with a wink.
“I’d like to help if—”
“I know you would, and if there’s something that you can do, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Somehow I doubted that, but I really had no other choice but to let him do his thing. I had no idea where to even begin to look for a vampire named Heather, much less how to do it without getting myself killed in the process.
“What about Bo? How do we go about finding him?”
“That’s up to Bo, lass. He’s staying away for a reason. My guess is that it’s to protect you.”
“From what?”
“More like from whom. If Bo’s thinking the same thing I am, he knows that the vampire we’re dealing with is trouble with a capital T. Very dangerous. That’s not someone he’d likely want you involved with.”
“But I’m already involved. He can’t un involve me.”
“No, he can’t do that, but he can surely try to keep you well-hidden from here on out.”
“Well-hidden? But I’m not hiding.”
“To a certain extent you are. The less contact you have with Bo—the less you are exposed to his blood—the less likely it will be that any other vampire can identify you, at least not without a very close encounter.”
“But he doesn’t have to stay away from me to accomplish that. All we have to do is not drink each other’s blood. That shouldn’t be too hard,” I said. But then, when I remembered that Bo would no longer have the poisonous vampire blood softening his thirst, I reconsidered. “At least not for me.”
“Even if Bo’s thirst is not an issue, it’s still not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not my place to tell you that. Some things, you need to hear from Bo.”
“Well Bo’s not around so—”
“He will tell you in his own time and that’s all I will say.”
Both his tone and his expression brooked no argument.
“Isn’t it my decision anyway, whether or not to endanger myself?”
Lucius merely shrugged.
I wanted to rant and rave and bluster, to tell Lucius that nothing mattered except being with Bo. No risk was worth being apart from him, but I knew arguing would do me no good. It wasn’t his decision, wasn’t his fault. It was all up to Bo. I had no choice but to wait for him, wait for him to decide the time was right to come back to me.
Disgruntled and aggravated, I stood.
“Well, I suppose I’d better get to school. They’re watching attendance more closely than ever since all the recent disappearances and accidents.”
That’s what all the vampire activity had been labeled by both media and law enforcement—“disappearances” and “accidents.”
Lucius rose as well, walking with me to the door.
“Please do come back and visit, Ridley. I’d like to keep in touch, especially if you hear from Bo.”
I was perturbed. Lucius had irritated me. He was supposed to be the one giving me answers, telling me that Bo was alright and how to find him, not the other way around.
I nodded and smiled, a gesture I knew was tightly polite. I wasn’t feeling particularly warm at the moment.
********
My conversation with Lucius plagued me for several days. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right, if Bo was some kind of prophecy-fulfillment that had been colossally duped. The only thing I knew for sure was that I needed to see Bo, needed to talk to him, and the only way I knew to do that was to catch him visiting me. So, one night I went to bed, determined to stay awake long enough to nab Bo as he came into my room.
As I lay there, listening vigilantly, I began to fantasize about seeing Bo again
—touching him, talking to him. I thought of his silky dark hair, his nearly-black walnut eyes, his perfectly-carved lips. It gave me cold chills just to think of feeling those lips on mine and hearing his voice again.
I hadn’t had any contact with him since the night he’d come to my room after his supposed death, an incident that I was more convinced than ever was not a dream. But I remembered every detail about him as if I’d seen him only hours before. They were permanently etched into my mind, onto my heart.
From the night he’d visited me after his “death”, I’d awakened at some point every night since with his indescribably soothing tangy scent swirling in the air around me. But there was never any sign of Bo, though. Each time, I’d cut on the lights and walk the room, looking for him, reaching out with all my senses. The neighbors probably thought I had insomnia. But never, not once, did I find any trace of Bo, no evidence that he’d been there except for the smell in my nostrils and the ache in my heart.
Tonight, however, I was determined to stay awake, all night if need be, until he visited. I wanted to catch him red-handed. Even more than I wanted answers, I wanted, no needed, confirmation that he was alive. I needed to touch him, to feel his cool skin beneath my fingertips. I needed to know that he was out there…