Nathan’s mouth twisted. “Hardly. Celia is a vampire Kiefer and I hunted together years ago. If she is involved in this, it…well, it would be very bad.”
“How can she be involved?” Jessica wondered. “If you guys hunted her down, doesn’t that mean she’s dead now?”
Nathan shook his head. “We did not kill her.”
“Why not?” Jessica asked pointedly.
“Because Celia is a master,” he replied. “As I told you, masters are extremely difficult to destroy. Set them afire, and they will survive. Most blades will not even penetrate their skin. If one is somehow dismembered, it will either knit itself back together, or simply retreat into hiding until it can regenerate a replacement body part.”
“Even a head?” Dara wondered, wide-eyed.
“Even that,” Nathan said grimly. “Or so the legends say. However, the legends have also taught us that if one starves a master long enough—many years at least—they may become weak enough to be harmed, perhaps even killed. Kiefer and I managed to trap Celia years ago and bury her in concrete. We intended to check on her in the future and see if she could then be dispatched.”
“Concrete?” Jessica said. “Then how could she get out?”
“That is a very good question.” Nathan’s eyes were troubled. “She would have needed help. I think perhaps that is what Kiefer was attempting to warn me of with his message here.”
“Bingo,” a croaky voice affirmed from behind them. “You got it, buddy.”
Everyone turned around to look at the body, which had, impossibly, begun to move, the arms and legs jerking as it attempted to sit up.
“Kiefer!” Relief vibrated in Nathan’s voice. “Thank goodness. I thought you were dead!”
“Dead?” Kiefer groaned. “Did you even check?”
“Of course I checked. I did not detect your heartbeat.”
Kiefer snorted. “What kind of vampire can’t find a pulse?”
“You know what kind,” Nathan tossed back drily, and Lucy was surprised to see a smile touching his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah, one that doesn’t eat people,” Kiefer said.
“And who imbibes sense-dampening potions—which you provide.”
“What can I say? I’m good at what I do. Maybe a little too good.” When Nathan cast a dubious look at him for that comment, his friend broke down and admitted, “Okay, so I was just messing with you. It was a spell.”
“To make you appear dead?”
“I was tired of getting beat on,” Kiefer said, spreading his hands. “Figured if they thought I’d croaked, they’d let up.”
“You did a good job,” Nathan told him. “Very convincing.”
“Evidently. Anyway, I guess your falling for it explains why y’all decided to just stand around yapping instead of taking me to a hospital or anything.”
Nathan crouched beside his friend again, helping him into a sitting position. “You do not need a hospital.”
“Sure I do,” Kiefer countered with what Lucy was beginning to notice was a rather thick West Texas accent. “Saint Nathan’s Cure-all Clinic. Ah! Hey, careful, careful, pretty sure my leg’s busted. In more than one place.”
“What does that mean?” Jessica asked, her eyes bright. “What’s the cure-all?”
Nathan took a folding knife from his pocket and pulled up his sleeve. “You ladies may want to avert your eyes from this,” he cautioned.
But of course they didn’t. They all watched with avid interest as Nathan sliced the blade across his forearm and pressed his wound against his friend’s battered lips. Kiefer sucked down several mouthfuls of the vampire’s blood and, as he did so, his injuries miraculously healed.
When Kiefer broke away from Nathan’s arm again, only a few seconds later, he was still covered in blood, but his face was no longer mangled. The swelling around his eye had faded away, and Lucy saw that his irises were light brown, the color of caramel. He wasn’t ethereally handsome, like Nathan, but then again, nobody really was. There was still something about him that sent a warm feeling vibrating through Lucy’s heart and made her hand flutter up to rest at the base of her throat. She was struck by the idea that, outside the glare of the vampire’s rarefied beauty—and without the blood caked all over him—Kiefer would be notably handsome in his own right. At the very least, there was something undeniably endearing about the cocksure grin he offered everybody as he jiggled his restored leg.
“Yep,” he said, slapping Nathan’s shoulder, “all good. Take a bow, Saint Nathan, ya still got it.”
“Whoa,” Lucy breathed, her eyes wide as saucers behind her glasses.
“Neat trick,” Dara chimed in approvingly.
Nathan ignored the remarks. The cut on his arm, Lucy noticed, had already started to heal. “Who did this to you?” he demanded of Kiefer. “It could not have been Celia. She would not have left you in one piece.”
“Nah,” Kiefer said. “It was just a couple Snacks I’m guessing she’s put to work for her since she woke up from her dirt nap.”
“They were looking for me,” Nathan said, not questioning, and guilt flashed across his face.
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell them anything,” Kiefer assured him. “Just before the spell kicked in, and I was lying here with my eyes closed, they thought I’d already winked out. I heard them start going through everything, trying to find a clue, but you know I don’t keep anything down here that could’ve helped them.” He rubbed his eyes. “How long was I out?”
“More than twenty-four hours, I would guess. I last spoke to you yesterday morning, just before sunrise. It is Friday evening now.”
Kiefer nodded, grimacing. “I need to fine-tune that spell. It was only supposed to last for a couple of hours. Anyway, right after I hung up with you, I went home and mixed up the elixir you asked for. Then I came back here to wait for the call you said I’d be getting. The stuff you’d said about vampires possibly being on the prowl in Vintage Meadow Lake had me kinda wigged out, though, and I got to thinking about our old pal, Celia. So I checked the surveillance cams on her latest resting place, and what d’you
