Blood Relations - Chapter 7

Monday, August 4, 1997

Lucas settled into the passenger seat while Charles loaded another bottle into the ice chest in the back of the black Silverado. The ice chest was a refrigerator model that plugged into the vehicle’s electrical system.

Along with the second chest on the other side of the cargo space, the SUV had the capacity to carry thirty victims’ worth of full bottles. (A feat which required taking multiple donations from different pets of the same blood type.) The chests also kept the bottles chilled, allowing the vampires to take their time in making collections.

Returning to the driver’s side door, Charles dropped into his seat. As he shut the door, he noticed the distant look glazing Lucas’ eyes. He started the engine, and then he snapped his fingers to get Lucas to look up. “Maybe our next stop should be a snack for you instead of a collection.”

“No, breakfast is still holding me,” Lucas said. “I was just thinking that maybe I should tell Vicky that my father was a halfling. She has the idea that all of the hybrids died, so maybe she wouldn’t worry so much if she knew that someone came out all right.”

Charles snorted as he pulled the SUV away from the curb. “Lucas, how many other hybrids have you met?”

“None,” Lucas conceded.

“And your mother was bound in a straight jacket for most of her pregnancy, was she not?”

“Yeah, it probably won’t help.” Lucas was silent for a few seconds before he shrugged. “Now that I think about it, I guess my history doesn’t apply to Amber getting pregnant anyway.”

“Nope, she’s got a whole other mess to sort out.” Charles turned the Silverado onto the access road, sighing at an irritated thought. “Sometimes I wonder what goes through Claudia’s head.”

“Hormones,” Lucas quipped.

Charles laughed and nodded his agreement. “Yeah, that could be it. Still there’s something about Amber. Emil seems just as enchanted with her as Vicky and Claudia, and you and I are the only ones she hasn’t put under a spell.”

Lucas shifted uncomfortably in his seat, debating with himself on whether he wanted to broach the topic or not. He coughed and said, “Speak for yourself.”

Charles glanced over at Lucas and arched an eyebrow, his pale face filling with confusion. “I thought you were avoiding her.”

Nodding, Lucas grimaced with disgust. The expression was sincere, and he hesitated to speak only because he was repressing a physical urge to shudder. “Of course I am. She’s not the least bit attractive, so I’m never sure why Emil gets so excited around her. Personally, I think she looks like an underfed chipmunk.”

He paused while Charles guffawed and nodded his agreement. “Still, after I get home from making collections, the house is full of her scent. You’d think Emil was fucking her all over the house for how much the place hangs with her odor. I think that’s her spell. Her scent is simply too intoxicating for us.”

Charles nodded, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He too was avoiding the house to stay away from Amber’s scent. Amber didn’t look very good in her present, starved condition, but she might be prettier, if she put on more weight.

Her scent was attractive already, and just as Lucas said, her enthralling presence filled the house. Her pheromones mingled with the aromas of blood and sex, and if Charles stayed in the house for too long during the night, he found himself fantasizing about taking Amber.

It wasn’t like he could do anything with her. She was physically repellent to him, so he would have to close his eyes to play with her. She already had a partner, and she’d chosen Emil to mate with. Besides, Charles also had to think about an irate partner who might catch him sneaking off to play with Amber.

No, he thought. Claudia would have been willing to lend him to Amber if she chose him. Claudia was already under Amber’s “spell,” so she hadn’t asked Charles his opinion before making the offer.

He’d no sooner had the thought before he conceded that he didn’t mind. There was something alluring in Amber’s scent, a mixture of human and halfling blood that made her appealingly exotic. She joked about her dislike of feeding vampires, yet she let Emil and Claudia take small sips from her whenever they asked. Vicky didn’t, and Charles wasn’t sure how she’d managed to abstain from such a tempting offer for so long.

To avoid caving in, Charles had spent more time out of the house making collections with Lucas. The refrigerator was almost overstocked, but he kept working anyway. Otherwise, he might start asking Amber for a sample.

That was her power. If she offered him a small sip just once, she could walk all over him forever. The first hit is free, he thought, and then he shook his head to push the temptation away.

Charles turned on the radio, spinning the dial until he found a death metal song playing, Let The Napalm Rain.

Lucas smirked at Charles, though his expression was grateful. He wanted the conversation to die as well. It was best for vampires not to dwell on temptations left unexplored for too long.

They pulled up to a duplex in the middle of the block, their next destination to collect a bottle of O positive. The air around the subdivided house thumped with a steady bass beat from a techno song.

Their pet, Lucy, opened the door and grinned like a Cheshire cat as she waved them in. “I hope you don’t mind, but I invited some friends to meet you.”

Lucas stepped inside, his gaze moving across the living room, where a set of triplets stopped dancing to gape at his red eyes.

Lucy noticed his disappointed expression, and she went to the stereo to turn it down. Her expression became downcast as she asked, “What’s wrong? I thought you would like them?”

Shaking his head, Lucas explained, “Lucy, liking twins or triplets is a human quirk. For a vampire, drinking from triplets is like sipping the same brand of wine from three different bottles. If I’ve tasted one of the sisters, I’ve tasted all three.”

“Bummer,” the three sisters said in perfect unison.

Charles laughed behind Lucas, a deep rumbling sound that competed with the bass from the techno song. “On the other hand, if you’re only taking little sips, it’s like getting half a glass instead of a sample.”

Lucas laughed and asked, “But is the glass half empty, or half full?”

One of the sisters said, “The glass is very nervous.”

The two other women nodded their heads with faultless synchronization.