Marcus straightened from collecting the empty cotton candy cones and disposable drink glasses that had been dropped carelessly around the Tilt-A-Whirl and smiled wryly at Chapman. He was often called kid, son, or young man by people in their forties or fifties and up. He was no longer surprised by it, but it still felt like he was being talked down to and it rankled a bit. “Thank you. Glad you are happy.”
“Happy? Hell!” Chapman shook his head and spat into the dirt. “How would you like a full-time job and come with us when we leave here?”
“What about Stan?” Marcus asked mildly.
“Stan,” Chapman murmured on a sigh and scrubbed the back of his head with agitation. “Seems that scrap Stan got himself into in town wasn’t a fight so much as a shoving match. He shoved harder, the other guy fell back and broke his neck on the bottom rung of a bar stool. Dead before he hit the floor.” He let his hand drop wearily to his side. “Stan’s been charged with manslaughter. He ain’t gonna be available for a while.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Marcus said quietly. He’d seen too many stupid accidents like that happen over the centuries to be surprised by it.
“Yeah, so am I,” Chapman said quietly, staring at the ground and shaking his head. “Stan’s not a bad guy, and from what I hear the other guy started it. Didn’t like a carnie talking to a local girl and decided to intervene, started shoving Stan around and when he shoved back—” He shrugged. Straightening, he shook his head again as if shaking off the thought of Stan’s fate and turned away. “Well, you think on it. You have a job if you want to travel.”
“I’ll think about it,” Marcus murmured, watching the man walk away looking tired and defeated. The sound of a screen door opening drew his gaze to the side to see Divine ushering a young woman out of her RV.
“Thank you so much,” the brunette was saying earnestly as Divine walked her down the steps.
“You’re welcome,” Divine said solemnly, pausing at the foot of the steps. “I hope everything works out for you.”
“Thank you,” the woman repeated, and then hurried away. Divine watched until the customer was halfway up the darkening midway, and then turned to pick up her A-frame sign.
Marcus frowned as he noted how pale she was, and that there were lines of pain around her mouth and eyes. It reminded him of the blood he’d found in her RV and the dried blood she’d had on her clothes and in her hair earlier. She’d obviously been injured at some point in the night, and judging by the amount of blood that had been in the RV, badly. She might even yet still be healing from it; he couldn’t be sure. But he was quite sure she was in serious need of blood . . . and she didn’t have any. He’d gone over that RV from stem to stern and not found anything but a small bar fridge with some old cream in it, presumably for those occasions when Madge came by for coffee.
Moving to the nearest trash bin, Marcus disposed of the garbage he’d gathered while waiting for Chapman to come tell him he could knock off. He then headed for the back lot where his SUV was now parked. He’d moved it there on his break. Finding the blood in her RV and seeing it on her had convinced him that it might be best to be close at hand, at least until he found out what had happened. Which meant he’d be sleeping in his SUV. It was probably for the best, he acknowledged. Staying at the hotel might raise suspicion among the carnies. No one on their wages could afford a motel room let alone a hotel. He wouldn’t get any information at all if they were all suspicious and leery about him, so staying here had seemed the better choice.
Several people called out greetings as he passed and Marcus responded politely, but didn’t slow. At his SUV he made sure no one was looking, then climbed in the back, unlocked the built-in fridge, and retrieved several bags of blood. He stuffed them inside his shirt, grimaced at how obvious it was he had something in there, and then tugged on the leather jacket he’d used as a pillow last night. It was too damned hot for the jacket, but the leather at least made the bulge in his shirt less obvious. Still, he moved quickly as he locked up and left the SUV, sticking to the shadows as much as possible on his way back to Divine’s RV.
He knocked once on her door, but—afraid she’d turn him away—Marcus didn’t wait for her to answer. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, barely ducking in time to avoid the mop that came swinging at his head.
“Whoa. It’s me,” he said quickly, holding up a hand as he straightened. Good thing he did too, or he would have taken the mop in the face. Damn, the woman was fast. “Divine, it’s me, Marco.”
“And what the hell makes you think that makes it okay to break into my RV?” she asked dryly, this time doing the unexpected and ramming the end of her mop into his groin.
Marcus’s breath left him on a sound he didn’t think he’d ever made before. It came out a whooshing “eeeee-iiiiii-owwwww” and ended on a howl. He also dropped the bags of blood in favor of cupping his screaming genitals with one hand while grabbing the mop with the other to ensure she didn’t do that again. He needn’t have worried, Divine’s hands had gone lax on the mop, her attention fixed on what he’d dropped.
“What the devil is that?” she asked with dismay, staring at the clear bags of dark crimson fluid lying on the floor of her RV.
“They’re for you,” Marcus muttered through gritted teeth. Damnnnn, the woman had nearly unmanned him . . . and the blow had hurt enough that he’d nearly passed out. He still might do so. Immortal women were stronger than mortal women, or mortal men for that matter, and she hadn’t held back. It was all he could do not to cross his legs and hop around continuously howling like a sissy boy. Alternately, he wanted to rip his pants down and see if his balls were still intact. He suspected she’d crushed at least one of them with her blow, popping it like a balloon in his jeans.
That thought made Marcus cast a reluctant glance down. He groaned when he saw the blood beginning to blossom at his groin. Dammit, the woman had unmanned him.
“Well, what on earth do you expect me to do with these?” Divine asked, bending to pick up one of the bags and peer at it with distaste.
Marcus snatched it from her hand and slammed it to his mouth almost before his fangs had finished extending.
She stared at him wide-eyed as the bag quickly began to shrink. When the last drop of blood had been sucked up through his fangs into his body, he pulled the shriveled bag away with a gasp of pain and turned away to bang his forehead against the wall and then lean there trying to ignore the new pain now centered at his groin as the nanos in his blood began to make repairs. Damn, the fix was almost worse than the damage had felt when she’d hit him. Correction, he thought grimly, trying not to gnash his teeth. It was worse, because the blow had taken only a moment and the repairs were going to take much longer.
“Crap,” Marcus groaned, pressing his forehead harder into the wall to try to distract himself from the pain in his lower regions. He followed that up with a lovely string of curses in both Italian and English that ended on an “Ah hell,” when the world blurred around him and he felt himself sliding toward the floor and unconsciousness. It seemed the cure was going to knock him out where the actual blow hadn’t.
Divine watched Marcus sprawl on her floor and sighed with exasperation. She really needed to control her temper. While she’d been annoyed that he would enter before she’d given him permission, all she’d managed to do was make more work for herself.
Clucking under her tongue, she shook her head, set aside the mop, and then squatted to turn the man over. He was white as a sheet, she saw, but didn’t understand why until she gave him the once-over and noted the bloodstain around his groin.