Page 62 of Wicked Thirst
I didn’t have time or patience for this. We were here to help Grayson, and with barely two days left, I felt seconds ticking by. When I glanced back at the others, they all seemed to read my mind. Zinnia gave me a single nod while Astrid smirked and gave me a wink. Tuck and Beckett took up positions at the back of our little group, acting as lookouts.
I lifted my hand and let my blood magic flow from it to land on her in a fine, misty cloud. “We want to go in now. Let us in.”
“I’m going to let you in.” She reached under her desk and pressed a button.
The lock on the door on the other side of the room buzzed, and I moved toward it, pulling it open. Beckett gave a dark chuckle from right behind me. “That little power of yours really comes in handy.”
“For now.” I marched through the door and into a huge, open warehouse. I paused, trying to get my bearings.
There were mattresses spread in perfectly even rows one after the other over a space the size of a football field. White machines with robotic arms all hovered next to each mattress, and they were testing everything. To one side, a bowling ball was being dropped on a mattress repeatedly. In another row, tiny robots jumped up and down on foam-topped mattresses with glasses of wine sitting on them. Some remained pristine while others spilled instantly. I kept walking, trying not to get too distracted by how weird this all was.
“So, he quality-tests mattresses?”
Tuck groaned. “Yeah, but that’s not all.”
“What else is there?” I turned down a row of waterbeds and froze. “Wow.”
All those robotic arms held long, sharp blades, and they repeatedly stabbed the waterbeds. In the middle of the aisle stood Morpheus. He was taller than expected, with broad shoulders and long muscles. He had one of those travel pillows wrapped around his neck and wore silky baby blue pajamas with sleeping pandas all over them. Bright-pink water shoes finished out the outfit, and I found myself staring at him.
Just then the bed he was standing at the foot of popped from one stab and water sloshed over the floor and onto his shoes. “Damn it! The lack of quality is astounding. Honestly, how is anyone supposed to hit the REM cycle with utter crap?”
He turned away from that disappointing bed and moved to the next. I startled at his bat-like wings and couldn’t look away. It appeared he had knitted covers for each wing that had black feathers sewn on to them. When he swung around, feathers fell to the floor around him and floated in the puddles on the floor. He marked something off on his clipboard and shook his head with a disappointed sigh.
I lowered my voice. “Should I just go up and talk to him?”
“Give it a minute.” Tucker crossed his arms over his chest.
“Why do you know this guy so well?” This whole time Tucker did not seem thrilled to be here or to be dealing with Morpheus, and the curiosity was killing me.
“TUCKERRRR!” Morpheus boomed in our direction. He spread his arms wide, and his wings extended out, the motion littering the floor with more of those feathers. “What brings you here to visit me?”
Tucker motioned to me. “This is Piper, and she needs your help.”
He looked me up and down, then turned away to walk in the opposite direction from us. “I don’t have time for vampires.”
“Umm, why not?” I followed behind him as he moved toward a door at the back of the warehouse. I was trying not to be offended by the fact he was straight-up rude and said no based solely on the fact that I was a vampire.
“Talk to your girl, Phoenix. Nighttime waits for no one, and I have things to do.” He opened the door and walked down a long hallway with windows lining it on each side. I tried not to look in them as we passed, but it was kind of like walking down the hallway in a hospital. I couldn’t help but look through and see what was going on. In each room there was a person lying in bed with those electrodes strapped to their heads. The wires ran from their heads over the edge of the bed to a machine that seemed to be tracking something and scrawling on paper. It reminded me of a lie detector.
Tucker took big steps as we followed behind Morpheus. “He thinks vampires don’t dream enough. Hence the saying, sleep like the dead.”
Morpheus whirled around on us. “That’s right. You’re boring. I find most vampires to be so. Their dreams lack . . . imagination or anything fun. They hardly rest. Tell me this, as a human, how many hours a night did you sleep?”
I glanced around at the others. “Umm, I don’t know? Maybe six or seven hours I guess?”
He made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “You know women need like ten to twelve hours. If you want your mind to function, sleep matters. Stupid mortals really know how to ruin my fun.”
“Really? I thought it was eight hours?”
“I’m not impressed with your friends, Tucker.” He rolled his eyes. “That ridiculous study was conducted by men and only on men, when in reality, women do so much more throughout the day, so they require more rest . . . which means more time with me. Which means more fun. Which means better REM sleep.”
“Oh, umm, good to know. I’ll make more of an effort to sleep?” I shrugged, not really sure what to say or how to get back on topic. I wasn’t here to discuss sleep or how much I needed or how it worked. The way I saw it, I wasn’t going to be sleeping any time soon anyways, at least not until Grayson was back to himself, safe, and with me.
“We’re not here for that,” Tucker snapped at Morpheus. “We need your help, and we need it now.”
“Of course you need my help. Look at the bags under your eyes.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “Everyone needs my help.”
“Greeks,” Beckett muttered like it was a vicious curse.
