The Librarian's Vampire Assistant, Book 5 Page 11

  I nod.

  “Even if it means you are more vulnerable?”

  I nod again.

  “I have never been one to argue when a woman has her mind set.”

  “Good. Because I don’t plan on changing it,” I say.

  “I respect you, librarian. I truly do.”

  “But?” I feel a but coming.

  He reaches out and pokes me right on my lady’s apple, or whatever that spot is called in a woman’s throat. The pain feels like a hot metal spear down my spine all the way to my tailbone. My butt cheeks pucker, and I push my hands to my throat, gasping for air.

  “Do not worry, librarian. You don’t actually need air to live. Not for a few days, anyway. You’ll get over it.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Just relax and allow your king to do his job.”

  He collapsed my airway.

  I start blacking out and tip over. Motherfuc…

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When I wake, not only am I still in my black evening dress, but I’m in a freezing-cold jail cell. Nice is a few cells over, sniffling like a three-year-old.

  I prop myself up by the elbows on the narrow cot and inspect the concrete and steel enclosure. Seriously? Why the hell would Michael put me in here? All because I wouldn’t go along with his supreme agenda? He could have just said he wanted me to come back to Cincinn—

  Oh, wait. Never mind. I wouldn’t have listened.

  Still, that’s no excuse!

  I hop to my feet, intending to let my jailer, King Jerkface, know what I think of him. “Hey! Vandersuck!” I grab one of the steel bars—“Ow!”—and snap my hand away. It’s electrified. “Michael! You SOB! I don’t care if you’re king, I will murder you for this!”

  “Mommy?” Stella appears at the end of the hallway, holding Michael’s hand. No, wait. That’s Freddy. He’s dressed in all black and doesn’t have the look of someone who’s about to die. (Because I’m going to kill Michael for this! Jerk!) Stella is dressed in red overalls with little yellow daisies. Her honey-blonde hair is braided into two neat pigtails.

  “Baby?” Just seeing her little oval face and rosy cheeks is an instant chill pill. “Oh my god. It’s so good to see you.”

  Freddy lets go of her hand and gives her a pat on the back. “It’s okay. Go to her.”

  “Careful. Don’t touch the bars,” I say. “Some loser made them really hot.”

  “Sorry about that. I just had them turn it off.” Freddy walks up behind Stella. “They’re safe to touch now.”

  “Tell that Vanderhorsssthst I weeeeel have his head for diss! He is a dead man!” Nice howls from his cell. “I do not care if we had mouth sex or not!”

  “Mouth sex?” Freddy arches a smooth dark brow.

  “Michael was passed out. He didn’t even enjoy it,” I say.

  “He loved it! Our lips were one!” Nice yells.

  Freddy’s face crinkles up like he just smelled a fart. “When did this happen?” he asks me.

  “Yesterday. Michael lost a lot of blood and—never mind. Just ignore him,” I say. I do not want to rehash last night.

  “You’d better not ignore zee Nice, because I am coming for you, too, Miriam!”

  I roll my eyes. “Shut up, Nice. No one’s listening to your threats anymore.” I turn my attention to Stella, who looks nervous. I can’t blame her. Nice is her boogeyman. “Show him how strong you are by pretending he’s invisible. Now, tell me, how did everything go with cousin Freddy?”

  Her face lights up. “We had lots of fun, Mommy. We stayed in a really nice hotel with room service. And we dressed up like ponies. We baked sugar cookies and decorated them with sprinkles. We built a dollhouse and…” Stella goes on for almost five minutes about the fun she had, even though Freddy made her eat broccoli and go to bed by nine.

  “Wow. All that in just two days?” Freddy can sit for me anytime.

  “I like him, Mommy. Can we keep him? He’s way better than Daddy.” She snorts and looks up at Freddy, who doesn’t seem amused. Strange.

  “I will take it into consideration.” I glance up at Freddy. “Are you going to let me out of here?”

  “That’s why we’re here,” he says.

  I get to my feet. “Well, I’m ready.”

  “First,” says Freddy, “you need to promise you won’t run off to hunt the assassin. Not until you’ve heard Michael out. He’s waiting upstairs.”

  I narrow my eyes. He knows I don’t have a choice. “Fine. Agreed.”

  Freddy turns his head and nods at the camera perched up in the corner at the end of the long hallway.

  My cell door pops open, and I step out, immediately scooping up Stella and hugging her. “My sugarplum…” I twist from side to side, and her little legs flop around as she giggles. “God, I missed you.” I smother her soft cheek in kisses.

  She doesn’t say she missed me back, but it actually makes me happy. She was having too much fun to worry about my return.

  The three of us leave the jail, and Nice is completely silent, staring with the sort of seriousness only a vampire who is planning his enemy’s demise gives. Once we’re somewhere private, I need to ask Michael about how he plans to keep Nice locked up. For good this time.

  We pass three sets of steel security bars, and I turn to Freddy and whisper, “Please tell me you have a plan to make sure Nice never gets out.”

  He bobs his head of perfectly combed dark hair at the concrete floor. It’s almost like he’s trying not to look at my dress. It is pretty skimpy. But I’ve never met a prude vampire.

  “Good. Because he means business.” I grab his arm and squeeze so he knows I, too, mean business. But when I press my fingers down, it’s like clawing granite. “Wow. You been working out, vampire?” I ask.

  Freddy shrugs. “Not really.”

  But I was made by Nice, and Nice is supposed to be the oldest living vampire in existence. Michael is a second-generation vampire, so that makes Freddy a third-gen.

  What’s my point?

  I don’t know all that much when it comes to the particulars of vampire superiority, but I do know our lineages should make me and Freddy relatively equal in strength. Yet he seems much stronger.

  So strange. I make a mental note to ask the real Michael about it later. Right now, I have bigger vamp puzzles to solve.

  The three of us pass several more checkpoints. I notice there are zero decorations, plants, or signs anywhere on this floor. Plain white walls. Plain white tile floor. Lots of locked doors made of steel. On the way to the elevators, we pass two men armed to the fangs with crisscrossed swords on their backs and automatic rifles in their hands. Whatever Michael keeps down here must be important.

  We step into the elevator and ride it up to the top floor. Freddy has to punch in a code to get the doors to open. We step out into another long hallway, but this one has gray carpet and two sets of cameras. Apparently, they take security very seriously around here, but not interior decorating. I guess it’s not a surprise, considering the king is about as feng shui as a razor blade.

  We enter Michael’s office, which has a wall of floor-to-ceiling books on one side, an antique desk and chair, and two more leather armchairs facing it. No windows.

  “Good morning. How are you feeling?” Michael asks, standing next to his own desk, wearing a crisp white shirt, black slacks and a black vest that looks like it’s part of a three-piece suit.

  I walk up to the real Michael. “You are in serious trouble. How dare you make me come here against my—”

  “But I am Freddy, ma’am,” he says with a sly smile.

  Hold on. My head whips back and forth between the two men. I glance at Stella. “Sweetie, which one is Daddy?”

  She shrugs. Even she’s not sure.

  “Right here, little one.” The man dressed as Freddy pats her on the head.

  She giggles, clearly enjoying the game: Guess your daddy.

  As for me, I’m annoyed. “So you’re the real Michael?” I say to the man dressed in al
l black.

  He nods. “I used Nice as a test. If I can fool him, I can fool anyone.” He looks back down at Stella. “My apologies for the ruse, child. I assure you I had good reason.”

  “I like ruses. What’s a ruse?” she says.

  “It means to pretend you’re awesome when you’re not,” I reply, looking directly at Michael. “Wait. Which one of you went with me to Miami?”

  “I did,” says the real Michael. “Freddy needed to remain here, working in the lab.”

  “Okay. So will you tell me what is going on?” I just don’t understand why Michael is pretending to be Freddy all of a sudden.

  Michael gestures for me to take a seat in one of two leather armchairs.

  I sit, and Stella goes straight for the bookshelf to start perusing Michael’s reading selection. It only takes her a second to find something interesting. She plops down on the gray carpet and starts flipping through the pages.

  Michael and I both smile proudly.

  “She will be a great reader,” he says and goes to lean against the edge of his desk.

  Freddy stands next to him in his suit, and my mind still can’t handle seeing two Michaels.

  They exchange glances.

  “Well?” I push.

  “I cannot keep the truth from you any longer, especially considering that we will require your assistance tomorrow.”

  His verbal setup makes me nervous. “Okay. What is it? What’s going on?”

  “As you may have guessed, librarian,” Michael says, apparently still unable to say my name, “Freddy is not my cousin. He is a four-hundred-year-old vampire, just as I am. He is my twin.”

  Michael has a brother? But the news is so shockingly obvious that I feel a little ridiculous. Of course they’re twins.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother?” I ask. “And how did he end up a vampire?”

  “Ah, well. It is a very long story,” says Michael, “but in short, after Clive turned me, I was convinced I had been made into an unholy servant of the devil.” Michael shrugs. “Different times, you see. Anything not human was deemed to be evil.”

  “You’re not evil, but you are a massive dick.” Freddy smiles.

  Michael narrows his eyes.

  Now I can definitely see they’re brothers. The putdowns are a telltale sign.

  Michael goes on, “Anyway, my mother and father could not agree which boarding school to send us to, so we were separated in one final act of bad parenting before they left for the New World. I went to England, and Freddy was sent to France, and we grew up completely apart. Many years later, right after I was turned, I went to find him and say farewell because I very much planned to end my new unhallowed life. But Freddy knew something was off—very off—so I told him what happened.”

  “You’re taking too long with this story.” Freddy looks at me. “He got hungry and ate me. Then he felt like shit because I was dying, so he turned me.” He shakes his head. “Such an asshole.”

  “How much longer do I have to say I’m sorry?” Michael grumbles.

  “A few centuries should do it, but no promises.”

  Michael sighs and continues. “As you can see, librarian, Freddy is one to hold a grudge.”

  “Where have you been this whole time?” I ask Freddy, thinking that surely someone would notice two Michaels running around. As far as vampires go, he’s a celebrity. And handsome. Not the kind of guy you easily forget.

  “In the Alps at a monastery,” Freddy replies. “The monks there are great at keeping secrets. They don’t talk much. I also protected them from several massacres. Kings in those days didn’t just go after the monarchy when they tried to take over.”

  I find it so very interesting that a group of monks would knowingly keep a vampire on the premises. “Why didn’t they try to burn you or stake you or something?” I ask.

  “They understood that it was my dick of a brother’s fault I’m like this.”

  “I said I am sorry. Drop it already.” Michael folds his arms over his broad chest, shaking his head.

  Freddy smiles with satisfaction. He seems to like aggravating his brother.

  Michael grumbles for him to shut his mole hole and then continues, “I knew where he was, but after what I did to him, I put him out of my mind, like he never existed. He said he never wanted to see me again, and I figured the least I could do was leave him be.”

  “Then the Uprising happened.” Freddy picks up the story. “I started hearing stories of wild animals attacking the nearby village, and I knew. It was vampires. So I hunted the group down and killed them, but before one died, she called me Vanderhorst and said Clive would make me pay. After much prayer and reflection, I decided to look for Michael and tell him his maker was trying to kill him.”

  “We started talking, and then, after I told Freddy about everything going on—the Uprising, the threats to humans—he asked how he could help.”

  There’s a loud knock on his office door. Everyone freezes and goes silent.

  “Vanderhorst,” says a female voice, “I have an urgent call for you.”

  “It’s Gretta,” Michael says.

  Gretta? “I don’t think I’ve met her.”

  “She’s an old friend. Trustworthy. One of the very few.” Michael goes to answer the door, and I see her through the crack.

  Wow. She looks even younger than Michael—maybe seventeen—but I suspect if Michael says she’s an “old” friend, she’s far from being a teen. Also, she’s dressed like a woman who knows what she wants: jet-black hair straightened to a flat sheen, tons of smoky eye makeup, and no shirt or bra under the blazer. Kind of a chic dominatrix.

  “What is it?” Michael says to her.

  “Sir, I need to talk to you for a second. It’s urgent.”

  Michael steps out into the hall, closing the door behind him.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Freddy. It had better not be about Nice.

  Freddy shrugs.

  Michael pops his head in. “Freddy, a moment, please?”

  Freddy leaves, and I hear a bit of mumbling on the other side of the door. Then Michael says, “Do another sweep. I want to be absolutely sure our friend isn’t planting explosives again.”

  Both men return, and Freddy looks a little concerned. Not Michael though.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “One of the alarms was tripped. Gretta is handling it. We are perfectly safe, I assure you,” Michael says in his usual overly confident way. “So where were we?”

  Freddy chimes in, “He was about to tell you that I thought my brother was a monster, but now I believe Michael was turned for a reason: to protect human life. Now I believe it is my calling, too.”

  “Okay. I guess I understand,” I say, “but why lie to everyone? Why lie to me? Just tell everyone you have a twin.”

  “Because,” Michael replies, “thanks to all of those ridiculous teen vampire shows, the vampire world actually believes in things that are not exactly true. Doppelgangers? Really? Even you bought it, librarian.”

  Oh. I guess he’s right.

  He goes on, “In the public’s mind, Freddy is my weak, useless cousin, a newbie vampire, who was given a job out of pure nepotism. And after tomorrow, he will have no value to anyone whatsoever,” Michael says.

  “You lost me there.”

  Michael flashes a disapproving look, like I’m daft for not divining his master plan. “As everyone knows, I am no longer the vampire you fell in love with. I am cold, heartless, and cruel. So you are going to fall in love with my weak, foolish cousin and run off with him right after I administer the serum to both of you.

  “No one will attempt to come after you or use you as leverage against me, the king, because I will disown you both for your betrayal. You will live out your human lives in peace and raise Stella. Mr. Nice will remain here as our prisoner. We all end up exactly where we should be.”

  My mind spins. Is Michael saying he planned all this so I can be free of this vampire world?
I thought he didn’t care. Have I been wrong this entire time?

  “It’s not entirely a horrible plan,” I say. “Only one big issue: I’m not going to run off with your brother.”

  Michael lifts a brow and looks at Freddy. The two exchange knowing glances.

  “Freddy is going to take my place on the throne. I want out. But more importantly, I want you and our child to be safe, and that is impossible unless you are of no value to anyone. As for me, I believe being human again and raising our daughter is right.”

  “I don’t understand, Michael.” I lower my voice for Stella’s benefit. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with us.”

  Michael scoffs. “I have no feelings, librarian. But that does not mean I do not care. I am still a vampire, and I protect what is mine.”

  “I’m not yours,” I point out.

  “But you are. You always will be. And after I take the serum with you, I am very confident that my human cells and body will be perfectly capable of having all those weak, sappy human emotions I loathe. Also, I no longer feel the burn of hot peppers as much as I used to, so there would be that added bonus.”

  I could have the old Michael back? The one who laughed and charmed me? The one who loved me so much, it blinded him to everything else? My heart flutters with excitement.

  It’s funny how before he changed into the man standing in front of me, I saw his emotions as a liability. He always put me first, ahead of his people, ahead of our world. I was raised to always serve the greater good and looked down on that. I thought his love kept him from making the right choices. But now, I miss him so much, my heart aches in a way that I wonder if it will ever feel right again. I don’t just want him back. I need him back. And now he wants to give up the throne just to be with us. I blink away the threat of tears. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Michael’s phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He slides it out and looks at the caller ID. He silences it, but then it starts buzzing again.

  I raise a brow.

  “It’s Lula,” he says. “She’s been calling nonstop since we returned.”