Avet waits a few seconds before he chimes in with a lighthearted, “Of course Keran is happy. He wouldn’t have left us for no reason only to hide himself away and do nothing with his life. That would be crazy.” He forces a jovial laugh that makes me cringe. “Keran’s a hermit, you say? I wouldn’t call him a hermit.” He dips his head in the fridge, muttering just loud enough for us to hear him. “Not to his face, anyway.”
Sargis closes his eyes. “I really hoped you were happy out there. Maybe I didn’t do such a great job at teaching you how to live without the job.” My dad reaches across the table, placing his hand atop mine. “That one’s on me, Son.”
He loves me too well. Better than I deserve.
I keep my eyes on the diary. “You all knew I would fail at being normal, but I had to give it a try.”
Sargis squeezes my hand. “You’ve never failed at anything.”
Such a dad thing to say. Not my birth father, of course. But my dad of choice. Sargis loves me for no reason and is impressed with me even when I am unremarkable and hide myself away.
It’s a solid five minutes of Sargis frowning at his computer and me leafing through the diary before Sargis interrupts the silence. “A girl from their sorority went missing last year. Looks to be the same sort of thing. Took up with an older man, and shortly thereafter her name never found its way off the missing person’s list.”
Avet swears with a bit too much venom in his angst. He is kicking himself right now, I can tell. He tried to track down his sister with only half the facts in his back pocket.
My fist tightens. Not even the sour perfume stink coming from the kitchen can distract me now. “I knew there was more to the story than this. It was shocking enough to learn that Cher had tried her hand at seducing one of Bel’s creatures, but now this Taline person seems to have gone the same way. Her family also has trappers to educate her on the grim side of the underworld. I wonder if she was similarly seduced by a vampire and let him feed off of her.” I run my hands through my hair, messing it so that it stands on end. “Now there’s a third girl who’s been missing since last year. Vampires rarely hit the same place twice. A girl gone missing a few days after Cher is a coincidence that doesn’t track with what I know to be true of vampires.” I glance at the three in the room, feeling lost and out of my depth. “Has the game changed this much since I retired?”
“Changed overnight, it seems,” Sargis replies without looking up from his computer.
“Name?” Sevan inquires. “Who’s the girl who died a year ago?”
“Zagiri.” Sargis frowns, sitting back while he stares at his screen. “This is something, kids.”
“What kind of something?” Avet begins to pace beside Sevan.
Sargis’ cheeks puff before he lets out a long breath. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. It’s bad enough that one woman is being seduced by a vampire and kept alive, slowly poisoned so she can become a long-term meal who doesn’t fight back. I need more information on Taline’s disappearance.”
I grimace at the gruesome description.
My dad shakes his head. “What I can’t get over is that it might be happening with more than one woman. More than one vampire.” He shakes his head, combing his fingers over his short facial hair. “I need some time with this.”
Avet salutes Sargis with two fingers. “We’ve got enough to go on for now. We can drive to the sorority house and ask around to see what dots we can connect between Taline and Cher. There’s got to be something there. We can ask around about Zagiri, too.”
Sevan keeps her arms crossed. I can tell her frown has nothing to do with indignation, but more frustration that the puzzle now has more missing pieces. “What are we hoping to find? There’s no explanation that can force this to make sense. Vampires don’t behave like this. They don’t behave, period. Now we’ve got two missing girls who were last seen with older men, one of which was for sure a vampire, and the other probably a vampire, too. Both girls knew enough about trapping not to go near a creature like that, yet they were seduced by them? This is nuts.”
I tap the diary. “We don’t know what we don’t know. Now we’re not just dealing with one vampire gone off his rocker, but possibly two. Scene of the crime seems like the perfect place to start.”
Sargis pinches the bridge of his long nose. “Three, if Zagiri’s abduction matches.” He holds up his hands. “I’ll look into it while you’re looking into that.” He turns to peer at Avet and Sevan, his shoulders rolling back. “What do you think of the juniper cheese? Different, right?”
Avet flicks his thumb across his row of fingers on both hands, which is what he does when he’s lying. “Oh, so good. It’s so good, in fact, that Keran needs to try some.”
I hold up my hands, guessing that the sour perfume stench coming from the kitchen must be Sargis’ newest creation. He blew out his tastebuds years ago after testing out different types of health potions. “Oh, I couldn’t. I know how much work must have gone into something like that. Save it for the important guests.”
Sargis leans over and claps my shoulder. “Unless the queen herself stops by, there’s no one I would rather share it with than my boys.” He salutes Sevan. “And their lady friend.”
Sevan tips her head in Sargis’ direction while she scratches her elbow. “I had my fill. Absolutely delightful.”
Well, at least I know Sevan scratches her elbow when she lies. Good information.
I stand, taking a slice of the stuff with as much of a smile as I can muster.
The things I do for the man who taught me how to fight the monsters under my bed.
14
HOW WE GOT HERE
I grimace, complaining aloud not for the first time since we left the Trapper’s Paradise. “My fingers still smell. I washed my hands twice, but I still have the stink of the juniper cheese on me. It’s going to make the steering wheel smell, which is going to make the whole car reek like a sheep who ate a bottle of old lady perfume.” I glance at Sevan, who has taken up residence in the passenger’s seat.