Her eyes snapped up to meet mine.“When too many vampires live within a confined area, and especially within more than one coven, there isn’t enough wealth to go around. This leaves us to seek out other, baser ways of sating our hunger.”
“Blood,” I said, almost tasting the word as it left my mouth.
She bared her teeth, putting her fangs on full display.“We still have the equipment.”
I ran my tongue along my upper teeth. They still felt the same as they had before Fluffikins provided me with my new vampire magic.
“You don’t have them yet,” Connie said, watching me closely. “But if the change remains permanent, you will. They only take a few months to grow in. It gives new recruits the chance to learn our new way of feeding and helps curb what would otherwise be a frenzy.”
“Wow,” I said and sucked a deep breath in, even though I know my lungs didn’t need it. “So we really do need to get Vanessa to leave Beech Grove.”
“Yes, and seeing my peaceful attempts at negotiation failed, we now must prepare for war.” Connie’s words came out dispassionate as she sighed and shook her head. She seemed tired, battle-weary before the war had even truly begun. Did she mean she was afraid? And if she was afraid, what did that mean for the rest of us?
“Have you been in a vampire war before?” I asked gently, hoping she may actually open up to me. “It sounds really scary.”
She laughed dryly.“Vampire strength mixed with human weakness, what a joke.”
“Have you?” I insisted. I’d seen that flash of despair, regret, fear, something—and I needed to know why.
“Many times. Where there is hunger, there is also greed. Some vampires aren’t content with their current resources and seek to claim other towns. They must be stopped, swiftly and permanently.”
“You mean…?” I took a deep breath and held it inside me.
The elder vampire reached down and grabbed a short branch from the forest floor, pointing it at my chest plate.“Stake to the heart. It’s the only way to kill us, after all.”
“You saidus.” My heart would have warmed if it had still been beating.
“I didn’t meanyou. I’m talking about the real vampires,” she corrected with a growl. Oh, good. I’d offended her. That would make it easier for us to work nicely together.
“Then why did Fluffikins give me this armor to protect my heart?” I challenged, raising a hand to my chest.
She chuffed.“I don’t know why he gave you that ridiculous collar, but it’s not for the reasons he said.”
“You think he lied to me?”
“I know he lied to you.”
“But why? What’s he hiding?”And what aren’t you telling me about your own past?
“I don’t know. I haven’t been paying enough attention to catch on to the big secret you and he have been going on about. I also don’t care enough to go digging.”
Well, that made sense with everything I knew about Connie so far. She’d never liked me, and she never would. She couldn’t. That was her curse, and for a short while, it was also mine.
She hurled the stick so hard I couldn’t see where it eventually landed. Once the projectile flew out of sight, she looked over her shoulder at me and said, “Now can we please go back to base and start preparing for our battle? I’m going to need a lot more than you as backup.”
Connie didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she fled deeper into the woods, leaving me no choice but to run after her.
12
Mr. Fluffikins sat waiting for us at the edge of the forest.“Well, what’s the report?” he asked as soon as we stepped out onto the lawn behind HQ.
“Time for phase two,” Connie answered before setting her mouth in a firm line.
Fluffikins rose to his feet at once.“I’ll gather the team.”
“Leave the angel out of it,” Connie snarled, her expression growing dark in an instant. “She’s never liked my methods, and she doesn’t hesitate to say so, either. If we’re going to create a strong team, we need no dissidents.”
The cat nodded.“Very well.”
“What now?” I asked Connie as Mr. Fluffikins trotted back toward HQ.
She stared after him rather than shifting her gaze to meet mine.“Now we form a plan and practice until I’m reasonably assured you won’t fail.”
“How to fight a vampire one-oh-one?”
She smirked.“Something like that.”
Fluffikins worked fast, so it wasn’t long before the others joined us at the edge of the forest.
Parker immediately rushed over to stand at my side.“Tawny, are you okay? What’s going on?”
I shrugged and shook my head. I didn’t fully know the answer to either of his questions.
“All eyes on me, please,” Connie shouted at us. “You’re here to learn how to dispatch an unwanted coven in the area. I’ll formulate a plan and then teach each of you how to execute it.”
The old guy in the suit lowered himself to the forest floor, struggling for breath. If his waist-length white beard hadn’t given away his age, then his complete lack of physical fitness would have sold him out. I still didn’t know his name, and at this point, it felt rude to ask. I did know that he was the head of Cemeteries, which was the most cringey job of the bunch. Seriously, though, what good would such a feeble old man be when it came to violent hand-to-hand combat?
Connie cleared her throat to draw everyone’s attention back to her and continued. “Clearly, we are at a disadvantage here with our hodgepodge group of supernaturals, a normie with magic she doesn’t know how to use, and a teenager.”
“Hey!” Melony and I cried in unison.
“I’d know how to use my magic if you’d just teach me,” I shouted at Connie.
“And I’m eighteen. That makes me an adult!” Melony protested.
“If you say so,” I muttered loud enough for her to hear.
“At least I come from a line of powerful magicks!” she shot back.
“At least I save lives instead of trying to take them!”
“Well, at least I—”
“Enough!” Connie yelled so loudly her reprimand shook the trees.
Melony and I immediately stopped our bickering and crossed our arms over our chests. Again in perfect unison.
If you thought that my saving her life last week would have turned her to my side, then you’d be wrong. She was still bent out of shape about our first encounter a few days before that—the one where she and her grandpa tried to kill me, but I survived and managed to help foil their evil plans. It didn’t matter that I’d gone all the way to Maine to free her from some weird magicalhostage situation. She still hated my guts. The brat.
“Vampires are stronger, faster, and smarter than all of you put together. They’re also much harder to kill,” Connie continued.
“Wait, why isn’t Greta here?” Buckley, our head of Agriculture, asked.
“You know how I feel about the angel,” Connie answered stonily.
Tension rolled off Connie in thick, angry waves, and we all averted our eyes to keep from upsetting her further.
“So as I was saying, under normal circumstances, none of you stand a chance against a vampire. That’s why we have to make sure the circumstances aren’t normal.” She paused to let that sink in.
“The temp and I went downtown to meet Vanessa Vane this morning, and she mentioned her restaurant would be opening tonight. If there are more in her coven, I have no doubt they’ll turn up for the event. What we don’t know is how many outsider vampires we’re actually dealing with. We can’tknow, which makes it that much more important to be prepared for anything.”
Mr. Fluffikins, who had been uncharacteristically quiet up until the point, hopped onto a low tree branch to address the group.“For this assignment, Connie is lead. I expect you to give her the full measure of respect you’d normally give me.”
I began to snicker under my breath but quickly covered it with a cough.“Sorry,” I mumbled, bringing a hand in front of my mouth to hide the smile that lingered.