Embraced by Blood. Laurie London

I reverting back to the Old Way? Yeah, I guess you could say I’ve moved beyond the occasional slip-up.”

      “Well, good for you,” the male said. “Got any kills under your belt?”

      Alfonso shrugged. More than you’ll ever know.

      “You’re in luck,” the male continued. “Me and Sigred—” he indicated his partner with a jerk of his chin “—are settin’ up shop here in Bellingham. We can save you the trouble of having to come out on a night like this looking for a little substinex.”

      The blonde leaned toward her partner. “Sustenance,” she whispered.

      “Don’t go fucking college on me,” he said through clenched teeth. “I know what I’m talking about. As I was saying, we’re gonna save reverts such as yourself a lot of time and offer a delivery service of sorts. You call us, place your order, and we’ll figure out where to meet. No more embracing the elements, if you know what I’m saying.”

      Sigred produced a plain white card with a single phone number printed in black. “As far as I know, no other Darkblood cells are offering this special service. Not even those fancy big-city ones. In Seattle or Vancouver, you go to them. You traipse through the clubs and alleys looking for a seller if you’re in the mood for a little substinex. That, or take it off the hoof. We know most reverts aren’t comfortable doing it old-school, at least when they’re starting out. But here, we come to you.”

      Forcing another smile, Alfonso took the card and tucked it into his pocket, where he crushed it into a tiny ball. “You know what they say—you get better customer service in a small town.” That got a hearty laugh from both of them.

      “Since you found her first, how about we’ll do her to save you the trouble and give you a couple of freebies.” The male pulled out an empty syringe and displayed it with his pinkie lifted as if he had class. “Sound like a plan?”

      Alfonso rubbed his forehead under his cap to make them think he was considering their offer. Maybe if he stalled them a little longer, the girl would leave and they’d all go home empty-handed. He glanced over, but she was still there on the far side of the square. Jesus, how long was she going to fight with her boyfriend anyway?

      “I don’t know if you’ve done it much,” the male was saying, “but feeding off the hoof is a little tricky, although you did choose an excellent locale—dark, private—and your subject is alone. But the instant you strike and you taste the rush of fear in the blood, it can freak a guy out if you’re not expecting it. If you’re not good at mind manips, you feel what the human feels the entire time their life energy is waning. Not sure if you’d be into that or not.”

      Did he look like a youthling fresh out of puberty? Most of their kind did feed from live donors, just not as often as these losers did. Suggesting an alternate memory of events during a feeding was one of the first things a youthling beginning his Time of Change was taught. This is perfect. They think I’m younger and less experienced than they are.

      He tried to keep the satisfaction from showing on his face, flashing them a nervous smile instead. “I wasn’t planning to drain her dry.”

      “Old habits are hard to break.” Sigred patted his arm. Although his first instinct was to jerk away, he didn’t flinch, instead rubbing the pad of his thumb on the rope grip to control the impulse.

      “Personally,” she continued, “I adore it. Blood tinged with fear is sweeter than most. In fact, I love scaring them right before I strike for that very reason. But many reverts are uncomfortable with it at first. And we understand that. That’s what we’re here for. You can have your cake and eat it too. It’s a service we’re happy to provide. What do you say?”

      A perfect regurgitation of the DB playbook. “How long have you been here? Any more D—Darkblood cells here in town?” He’d almost slipped and used Agency slang. He’d been out of practice too long.

      “Not yet,” she said. “But with the Night of Wilding less than a month away, we’ll probably have a few new groups moving into the area. The new sector mistress is planning a huge event.”

      The pair started toward the girl, brushing past him a little too close—their stench always made him nauseous.

      “So where’s the party this year?” he asked, trying to stall them.

      Originally, the holiday had been an all-night festival of eating and dancing as family and friends celebrated the longest night of the year, but for the past few decades Darkbloods had been using it as a means of attracting and recruiting new members. It had devolved into little more than a costume party of debauchery and violence, often held in a macabre location. The few humans invited rarely left alive.

      “Keeping it secret for now,” Sigred said as she watched the girl, eyes narrowed and focused like a predator. “Do you play HG?”

      “What?”

      “The online game, Hollow Grave?”

      “No, I don’t.” He recalled some of the Darkbloods talking about a new online game, but that had been almost two years ago.

      “As long as you’re a registered user and get to Grave Crawler status, you can log in at noon the day before and the location will be posted in the forums. There’ll be plenty of time to get there between sundown and midnight. It’ll be on one of the islands this year.”

      Wasn’t that interesting? He knew the Alliance was working on some new ways to attract the younger generation of vampires, but since that hadn’t been his area of expertise when he was inside, he had no idea what they were up to. Online gaming? They must be using it to promote their agenda by romanticizing the violent past of their kind.

      He fought to keep his expression blank as he recalled being a youthling in a Paris gaming house centuries ago, where less than candid recruiting methods had been used on him with devastating results.

      “We should have an ample supply of Sweet by then.”

      How were they planning to get more? Last year he’d helped thwart the Alliance’s plans to breed sweetblooded humans and had seen to it that all their research had been destroyed. Had he missed something? Were they starting up operations again?

      There was a huge market for the extremely rare, highly addictive type of human blood—the street price was astronomical. Sweetblood, Sangre Dulce, Devil’s Elixir—it was all the same. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they would be trying other methods to get their hands on it. If there was one thing he’d learned while spying on them from the inside, it was how tenacious they were. Like mongrels on a steak dinner.

      “How does the mistress plan to get it?”

      Sigred snapped her attention from the coed to him, her gaze narrowing slightly. Shit. He’d asked the question a little too quickly, or maybe the tone wasn’t right, or maybe he shouldn’t have been so confident in how he’d referred to the sector mistress.

      Alfonso gave her his best sheepish grin and rubbed the back of his neck. Hopefully, her bullshit meter wasn’t set too high. “I mean, isn’t it difficult to find Sweet? I know if I had some, I’d have a hard time saving it. You guys must have some serious willpower to keep from draining a sweetblood.”

      “You got that right,” the male replied. “Last time I ran across one it was with my old partner. Let me tell you, he had to pull me off the bitch because there’d be nothing left to sell. I went like fucking mad for a while—like a feeding frenzy—I couldn’t stop.”

      Maybe he’s the one who’s new. Most DBs got pretty good at capturing their victims, bringing them back to their dens, then draining their blood there. This one’s impatience and lack of control suggested inexperience.

      The male continued. “The sector mistress is turning a Tracker from the Agency to help find ‘em. Guess those guys can smell one from miles away. All we gotta do is follow the nose.”

      It was a sucker