them.
Damien tossed the bag into a biohazard container when he was done, then settled at Chloe’s desk to read the parchment manuscript Alika had entrusted to him. Caro settled as far away as she could get on the couch and resumed reading her grandmother’s journal.
He could smell the anger around her still, along with the remnants of desire. He spared a moment to try to recall if ever in all his centuries he had relied on a human’s anger to protect him from his own loss of control.
No. Never. He’d have been amused if it weren’t so troubling.
He made up his mind then and there to return to Cologne the instant this matter was resolved. It had been a long time since he’d felt a need for self-preservation, but right now it looked like it might be necessary. The danger of a claiming hovered at the edge of his awareness, a folly he had managed to avoid for millennia. The fact that such a thought even edged toward consciousness was warning enough.
Sometime later, Caro closed her grandmother’s book with a snap. “This is no help.”
“Why not?” Damien asked.
“Because my grandmother was all about using power for good. All she says about misusing it is a big warning to never do so.”
“There’s often a price,” Damien agreed. “What people these days call
“Yeah, that seemed to be Grandma’s view, too.” She cocked a brow at him. “Did you never misuse yours?”
“I never called on dark powers. Ever. But I’ve known some who did.”
She leaned forward a bit, sensing deflection. “Never?”
He shook his head. “There are many ways to use power, Caro. Views of right and wrong change with culture. But this I can say with absolute certainty—I never called on dark powers. But this thing that is haunting you—I don’t feel it’s a dark power. It might have been summoned with a dark wish, but the power is neither good nor evil. It just
“Elemental? As in just a force?”
“Just a force. I feel as if I’ve encountered this particular one before, but I can’t place it. At any rate, there are plenty of these forces around us. They have no mind, they have no intent or thought. But they can be directed by a mage.”
“The bokor that was mentioned. Except I’m having trouble with that. I was scanning a book on voodoo...well, actually
“It is. It’s a combination of animism with Christianity for the most part, and most practitioners intend no ill. But like any belief, it can be twisted and misused. Animistic religions have one advantage over the mainstream— they believe in elemental powers, and call on them. Variants of vodoun, from Santeria to hoodoo, call on elementals. And anyone, if they get angry enough or feel threatened enough, could turn to one of these elementals for protection. Even for murder.”
Caro thought that over, trying to recall anything her grandmother might have said about elementals. Well, maybe she had spoken of them, in terms of nature spirits. More of the stuff Caro had found so hard to swallow. “If you’re a mage, why can’t you just cast a spell to shut it down? And if it has no mind, why would it follow me?”
“First, I’m not absolutely certain it’s an elemental, although I’m inclined to think so. Second, I don’t know what summoning was used or for what reason. All of those things matter if I’m to be effective against it. As for why it would follow you, my guess is that it was simply ordered to leave no witnesses. Or it may be that the mage or bokor who summoned it was using his power to watch what it did and then attached it to you. Do you see the difficulty here? Until I know exactly what we’re dealing with, I have no way to counter it. Take those youths outside the store. I could cast no spell against the force driving them because I don’t know what it is or its purpose. I’d have had to resort to physical action.”
That did nothing at all to brighten Caro’s mood. Apparently there was a cliff on the edge of reality, and through no fault of her own, she had tumbled over it and was now in free fall, her every attempt to avoid this notwithstanding.
She looked over at the vampire who had done his own part to toss her into the abyss, and she hated him. But even as she hated him, she wanted him. How messed up was that?
To be fair, though, she had to admit she was the one who had wanted to “settle it,” and she had achieved exactly the opposite. She almost blushed when she remembered being pressed up against a wall, supported only by it and by the hand he’d so expertly used on her most private of places.
She hadn’t thought herself capable of such things. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye, she wondered how much more she might have in her to do. He certainly brought to mind things she’d never really thought about before.
Then she blurted, “What happens when you drink someone’s blood?”
He looked up from the parchment pages he’d been reading so swiftly that they seemed to be blown by the wind. “In what way? To a human? To a vampire?”
“I didn’t realize it was so complex.”
“That depends on how much and what you want to know.”
She hesitated, half-sorry she had brought this up but filled with curiosity anyway. Short-term, at least, she had a relationship with this vampire. Understanding was always useful for getting along, and for self-protection. While she mostly believed that Damien wouldn’t physically hurt her, there were other ways he could harm her. Best to be prepared and informed.
“Start with threats to me,” she said bluntly.
“Ah.” The pages had stopped turning, and now he rested one hand on the open book. His eyes seemed to darken, and she made a mental note to ask about that, too.
“Threats to you? None that are serious. I may want to share sex with you and I definitely want to taste your blood, but I wouldn’t take as much blood as you’d give as a donation to a blood bank. So, as you see, I wouldn’t debilitate you in any way. The only danger to you is one I believe Jude exaggerates.”
“Which is?”
“Some people enjoy it so much that they become addicted.”
Addicted to having your blood drunk. “That’s possible?”
“It is. I have seen it. An unscrupulous member of my kind would take so much and give so much pleasure while doing it that the experience becomes like cocaine. There are people who have become so addicted from a single encounter with a vampire that they haunt the vampire clubs seeking another such experience. Unfortunately, they become victims of the unscrupulous, who take but don’t return the pleasures.”
Caro was aware of more than one vampire club around town. “Most of those clubs seem relatively harmless—people just getting off on a fantasy.”
“Most of the time that’s all it is. They play little games and pretend.”
“It bothers me that some of the people pretending to be vampires actually drink blood, though.”
He lifted a brow. “Why, if it’s by mutual consent?”
“Because I can’t imagine a normal person wanting to drink blood.”
“Ah.” He thought about that. “The world is full of kinks, isn’t it? But for me this isn’t a kink. It’s reality. Blood repels you?”
“In and of itself, no. But I know I couldn’t drink it without getting sick.”
“I suppose that would be a common reaction among humans.”
Then she snapped back to what she had originally been trying to understand, and it wasn’t how some humans could drink the blood of another. She understood enough about the range of kinks from her job. She had seen far more dangerous ones than simply allowing someone to poke you or give you a minor cut to drink a few sips of blood. Worse than wanting to drink blood or give blood to someone who did, some fetishes were absolutely deadly.
“So the only way you could harm me is to make me addicted to you?”
“Not the only way. But I’d get no pleasure from having you addicted. I’d regret it. So far I’ve managed never
