Page 26 of Missing Piece
“She wouldn’t dare,” Vincent said as he motioned for Marcus to follow him.
Marcus laughed. “You still have bats in your attic?”
“Yep, they’re very noisy during mating season, which is about now.”
“What did you do to make her pull that stunt?”
Vincent shrugged. “It was around the time I told her she might want to consider dating to blend in with her peers,” he said. “She didn’t like that suggestion, I suppose.”
“I’ll say.”
As soon as they crossed over the threshold into the kitchen, Ophelia thrust two beverages in their direction. “Your neighbors are super dead.”
Vincent took the glass from her. “Which neighbors?”
“The old couple. The Whitmans,” Marcus said as he accepted the drink from his daughter. He moved over to the small table near the back door and sat down in the chair, running his finger along the rim.
“And the Kilanowskis a few plots over. And the Bishops,” Ophelia added, hopping onto the kitchen island. She swung her legs as she took a sip from a third glass she produced from behind her.
“Hey, that has blood in it. And alcohol,” Marcus said, shooting her a glare.
She took a longer drink before setting it down. “I’m aware, there’s only one reason some savage would put a good Cabernet Sauvignon in the fridge,” she shrugged.
“That’s cannibalism and I raised you better than that.”
“Technically it’s hemophagy, not cannibalism. I guess if you blended someone into a smoothie that would be like a drinkable cannibalism, but that’s not what’s happening here,” Ophelia retorted. “Wait, are you more concerned about the blood or the alcohol? I’m confused.”
Marcus began swearing under his breath, rubbing his temples.
“Okay, as delightful as this debate is, I’d like to know why you two are out here just because a few farmers are dead,” Vincent interrupted.
Marcus gave him an incredulous look. “You don’t think a sudden string of murders near your property has something to do with being on the radar of a cult?”
“To be fair, I didn’t know about the murders until a few minutes ago, but go on,” Vincent said as he took a sip. Ophelia was right, refrigerated cabernet was a bit of a crime against the varietal, but they had pre-mixed the blood in days before and didn’t want it to go bad.
“I got a call from Matoskah after the second bloodless family showed up in the morgue.” Marcus paused, his amber eyes focused downward. “They had three kids, Vin, and one of them is missing.”
Abominations, his beast grumbled somewhere in the back of his mind.
“What are you implying? That this cult turned a kid? Even I’m not that fucked up,” Vincent said pointedly. “What about the rest? How did they die?”
“Early exams from the coroner show each of them were drained, and with foreign blood in their stomachs,” Ophelia said without looking up from her phone. “Mat said the DNA on the ingested blood was sent out for additional testing because the coroner couldn’t identify it as human.”
Vincent looked from Ophelia to Marcus, who was throwing back the full amount, his brow pinched as he did. “Are you telling me they tried to turn all of them?” Vincent asked.
He already had an intense dislike for those who harmed children, but he couldn’t think of anything viler than turning a child. It was already a gamble to attempt it on a full-grown adult. Any maker knew the risks, which was one of thereasons most of the vampires in town had never attempted it. He liked companionship as much as the next guy, but it was too risky. He had heard different statistics thrown around over the years. One in twenty would survive. One in fifty. One in a hundred.
Better to let a human companion die of old age than take those odds.
“It appears that way, yes,” Marcus said. He got up and grabbed the bottle off the counter while snatching Ophelia’s drink from her hand in one smooth motion before he settled back down at the table.
“Hey!” She glared at him.
He waved his hand in the air as though to dismiss her.
“So what do they want? This supremacy cult? I’ve heard of cult-like dens, but I’ve never dealt with others dumb enough to follow some ideology,” Vincent asked. He drained his portion and pushed the vessel in Marcus’s direction.
“When I lived in the South, I heard whispers of a group. The Order of the Sun. They were trying to infiltrate the local government and get a vampire on the city council,” Marcus said as he refilled the tumbler. “I don’t know why they thought doing that would help their cause. I just knew it was a dumb plan. Even in places like Baton Rogue and New Orleans, the city officials conducted business during the day.” He paused to take a drag from his cigarette. “After that, they tried to convince others living in the area to join them, with the ultimate plan of getting the wealthy vampires in the area to take control of small sections of town where they could rule.”
