“It’s amazing,” she looked up at me. “Colin, do you eat real food?” It looked like she already knew the answer to that question, yet she asked it anyway.
“Sometimes.”
“Vampires are able to eat?” Her brow furrowed, as though this information wasn’t at all what she expected to hear.
“Of course, we can eat.”
“I thought vampires couldn’t eat.” Her fork hovered above her plate. She was completely still as she looked at me.
“Someone’s been feeding you a line.”
She watched me carefully and cocked her head, confused. Then she turned back to her food and silently ate a few more bites. She ate more slowly this time, as though she wasn’t just digesting the food, but the information, as well.
“You seem lost in thought.”
“I’m just surprised.”
“About the food thing?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked. “Does it bother you? We can eat what we like. It just doesn’t satisfy our hunger.”
“My brother told me vampires only drink blood,” she said, looking back up at me. “He was very insistent about it. I’m not really sure what made me ask you about it now, but you’re the first
one I’ve heard who said otherwise.”
“Your brother was wrong.”
“He was certain,” she said. “In fact, he made a very big deal about it. He said that was how you could tell someone who wasn’t human. If they never ate around you, it was because they were already full on blood. Well, or they were about to be.”
“I’m sorry you lost your brother,” I told her. “Losing someone we love is a terrible feeling. That doesn’t make his comments true, however.”
“Okay,” she whispered, and she kept eating. I wondered about her brother. That was a strange thought, really. Why had he lied to her about vampires? That really was a bold-faced lie. If he had been some ordinary, boring human, that would have been one thing, but she’d said he had died in the battle last year. Not many people died. As far as I knew, no humans did.
“What was your brother’s job?” I asked her, curious. Maybe that would give me an idea as to who he had been. Juliet was incredible when it came to managing the hospital and keeping everything in check. I was certain that her brother was probably just as efficient at whatever his job had been.
“He worked for Elizabeth.”
“My wife, Elizabeth?”
Now, that was surprising.
“Yeah,” Juliet nodded, looking up at me. “He liked his job a lot. He raised me, you know, after our parents died. He was 18 when we came here. I was smaller: only eight. He worked his ass off to keep me safe. He would have done anything for me.”
Apparently, he had. I knew who Matt was. I knew the man who had worked for my wife. I knew that he had died.
I also happened to know that he hadn’t been human during his employment.
I knew because I didn’t hire humans. I also knew because my wife had fed from Matt many times. Vampires couldn’t feed from other vampires for nourishment: only for pleasure. They had both enjoyed feeding from one another. He was one of her favorite vampires to work with. Unlike many of the other vampires, he hadn’t lived in the mansion with us, though. He’d insisted on keeping his own residence. He’d always been private about that, and I had respected his choice. Now, maybe I knew why.
I was faced with a choice that felt horrible. Should I tell Juliet the truth about her brother? I didn’t particularly want to. She probably viewed him as a human hero. Maybe she thought he was the kind of man who would risk his life for a vampire.
Maybe she thought Matt had died trying to save Elizabeth.
It was a lovely thought.
The truth was much worse. Elizabeth and her friends had been at an event in Darkvale. After the party ended, they’d been on their way back home when their vehicle was intercepted. Nobody knew exactly what happened to force them off of the road or why they had been pulled from the vehicle, but it had been a bloodbath.