“I want everyone on the Council to feel as though their dreams can be invaded at any moment.” He perches on a stool next to me. “Then, if you have enough power, we can dive deeper into the suspects.”
“You don’t think it was Eduardo, Colton, Kit, or Nina who killed Gemma?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. Just do as I say.”
I swallow a less-than-polite retort. “Sure. By the way—and this is mere formality—can you tell me what you were doing when Gemma was killed?”
He doesn’t blink. “No problem. Use your power to clear me of suspicion right away, so you can speak to me more openly about the case.”
“I will—though it could mean I won’t be able to set up links with everyone on the Council today.”
“Fine, fine. Can always leave people with strong alibis for later.” He gets up, takes a blood bag from the fridge, and tosses it into the microwave. “It’d been quite a day. An insane werewolf from one of the Otherlands arrived at the local airport and attacked the humans there. We had to kill him and glamour hundreds of victims to forget the incident.”
“Wow,” Felix whispers.
Indeed. I wouldn’t want to be an Enforcer, that’s for sure.
“JFK airport?” I ask as the microwave beeps.
“That’s the one.” He takes out his snack and returns to his seat next to me. Ripping open a corner of the bag, he takes a big gulp from it.
I suppress my instinctive disgust at the sight of him consuming someone’s bodily fluids. “Can you tell me something about the event that makes it memorable?”
“How often do you think insane Cognizant show up on this world?”
“No idea. Not often?”
“This was the first incident I’d been involved with. Newcomers such as yourself usually keep their heads down. They know that without the Mandate, they can be killed without due process just for being here.”
He downs the rest of the blood bag, no doubt to illustrate what would happen to someone with yummy blood in such circumstances. If it’s a threat, it works well.
I force my voice to stay steady. “That’s enough detail.”
“Good.” He slides down from his stool and extends his hand. “Come with me.”
I look at his hand, the very one that only a second ago held a bag containing someone’s blood. He gives me a look that seems to suggest the handholding isn’t optional. Inwardly cringing and making plans to use a whole bottle of sanitizer later, I limply take his hand and let him lead me deeper into the apartment.
Oh, puck.
The last room we enter is his bedroom.
A vampire’s bedroom, or what passes for one, given that they don’t need to sleep.
My heart rate skyrockets. This place looks too much like the dream room where I do Ariel’s exposure therapy. Instruments for erotic and not-so-erotic torture glitter and gleam everywhere. The bed itself has iron rings built into the headboard and the base, clearly to make it easier to chain people for nefarious purposes.
On Gomorrah, everyone thinks vampires are kinky, and this one is playing right into that stereotype.
Kain lets go of my hand and looks between me and the bed with a strange expression.
I loudly swallow.
Is he hungry… or worse?
Chapter Eighteen
Can’t be hungry. He just drank that whole bag, and why ruin his appetite before dinner, right? Which means—
Before I can complete this thought, Kain climbs onto the bed.
Does he think I’ll follow him? Not in a million years.
He sprawls on his back, his pale eyes intent on my face. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m a little uneasy about what’s to come.”
Uneasy about what? Inviting me for an exchange of bodily fluids?
He swipes at his forehead, brushing back a string of limp brown hair. “I haven’t slept for decades. I can’t remember the last time I dreamed at all, and now I’m about to do it with a witness.”
I blink as everything clicks into place. He wants me to clear him of wrongdoing right now. Whew—that makes more sense. Damn sleep deprivation is making me paranoid.
“I’ll be invisible as you dream,” I say as soothingly as I can with all that adrenaline in my system. “There’s also a good chance you’ll forget the dream when you wake up.”
He nods and closes his eyes. “Give me a few seconds.”
I’ve seen this before. Vampires don’t need to sleep, but when they want to, they drift right off, no mooft counting required. Before long, Kain’s breathing changes, and a few minutes later, I see his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids in the telltale sign of REM sleep.
“Wow,” I mutter, “if only it were that easy with everyone else.”
Felix doesn’t reply. In fact, now that I’m paying attention, I hear faint snoring on the other end of our connection. Of course, he has been awake all this time. Oh, well. I guess he’ll miss this.