Page 31 of Secret of the Vampire
“No,” I admitted. “I did not.”
“Then you were, indeed, encroaching.” Though she scolded me, her blue eyes were filled with concern. “And how is Kenya?”
Beautiful. Intelligent. Sexy. Innocent and sultry all at the same time. Scared to death of me. “She’s good.”
We reached her house and stopped at the foot of the driveway that ran alongside. “Would you like some tea?”
This was her way of saying the conversation wasn’t finished, so we might as well go in where it’s warm. I glanced up at the one-story house, small and compact, but with four white columns holding up the roof over the front porch. In the dark, with the gathering fog coming off the water and the low-hanging tree covering one corner of the front yard, it all looked a little old and creepy, even though it was a newer home. But I knew inside it would be light and bright. And if I refused, we would stand right out here on the sidewalk until she got what she wanted to know. “Sure. Thanks.”
She nodded, pleased I’d made the right choice and headed up the drive around the house to the back door. She opened it without a key and walked into her white kitchen, flicking on lights and calling to her cat, Ted Danson, that she was home.
Ted, a gray tabby with the same blue eyes as the actor he was named after, looked up from his place on the back of the couch, flicked his tail in greeting, and went back to watching whatever had caught his interest out the side window.
Judy filled the tea kettle and set it on the stove to heat. While she did that, I took off my coat, laid it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and made myself at home.
When she turned around and saw me sitting there, she smiled. “It’s been a while since you’ve come over.”
She was right. It had been. “I’m sorry,” I told her earnestly. “I’ve been preoccupied.”
“Yes, let’s talk about that.” Getting two cups down from the cabinet, she readied the tea bags and set them on the counter until the water boiled. Then she joined me at the table.
“I’d like to know about my father,” I told her before she could start bombarding me with more questions.
“I never met him.”
I stilled. “Marcus told me he’s the descendent of the daughter of his brother. But I’d still like to know about him. Mom would never tell us anything.”
The kettle whistled and Judy got up to get our tea. “Honestly, I don’t know much about him either, other than the fact that he broke your mother’s heart.” I waited for her to come back to the table and sit down before I asked her to go on, but she only said, “I’m sorry, honey. Your mom showed up here shortly after me and Lizzy’s mom came down here from Washington. She was in tears and pregnant with you and your sister. She wouldn’t talk about it much, and at first we were scared that something terrible had happened to our sister after we’d abandoned her on that damn mountain. But, after a while, we figured out that wasn’t the case at all. She was heartbroken though, until you two were born.”
“So, no one knows anything about him?”
“Not that I know of. But that brings me around to the part of the story I wanted to tell you about. Which is the reason we left our home and moved way down here to Louisiana.”
I’d already guessed. “Marcus.”
She nodded, then sipped at her tea. “He came back. This was in the early 1980s. He killed your great-grandparents and took over the coven. Shortly after, a large group of us escaped, scattering all over the world. Your mom didn’t want to come with us, and I didn’t understand why at first, until she showed up here in the condition she was in.”
“Why did you pick New Orleans?” I asked out of curiosity.
She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I always had a thing for Cajun food, so there was that. And, at the time, I figured there wasn’t much chance of vampires settling here what with the hot summers and sunshine and that.” She laughed quietly. “Imagine my surprise to find them already here when we got here.”
“It’s not the 1800s anymore,” I teased her. “We have technology now.”
“Oh, hush.” Her mouth twisted and she rolled her eyes as I laughed. Listening to me, she got serious again. “I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a long time.”
She was right. For the last few years, I’d felt more angry than joyful. But I was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t anger at all, but just me trying to deal with this shit inside of me that had finally grown tired of lying dormant. At least, it had been until I’d shoved it into Kenya to remove the curse. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” I admitted.
Judy’s eyes met mine. “I think you’ve done all you can, honey. I imagine the reason you were in The Quarter tonight was to warn Kenya about Marcus?”
I nodded.
“And did she believe you?”
“Yeah, she believed me. But that’s not what I was talking about.”
She sat up in her chair and wrapped her hands around her cup. “Oh. That.”
I leaned forward, setting my own rapidly cooling tea to the side. “Tell me what I should do,” I pleaded. Because I honestly didn’t know. I felt like I was standing at the end of a road that veered off in two different directions, and I had no idea which fork I should choose because either one of them would take me away from this life I knew now, one way or the other.
