Blood and Black Suits (Briar's Daughter Book 1) Read online

  “Richard saved me, and she transformed.” I told him what she’d looked like, what happened to the door, and everything. I really wanted to tell him that I’d made Richard drink some blood from me, too—I didn’t want it to be a secret, a wedge between us that might come back to hurt us later—but I just couldn’t seem to bring myself to say it, and my hair covered up the bite mark enough that no one would see it if I didn’t want them to.

  “Thanks,” Dad said, without even looking at him.

  “He did wait a little while though,” I said, remembering the terror I should have felt when he hadn’t come out right away. “What was up with that?”

  Dad’s eyes glanced at Richard’s and then back to me. “He wanted to hear what she had to say. He needed to gather information.”

  I had been asking Richard, not my dad, and I wanted to believe this wasn’t really Richard’s reason, but he didn’t speak up to defend himself.

  I guess I should have known it was something like that. I mean, I know how it goes. We all put our lives on the line every day to be a part of the hunting community, so I tried not to let it get to me. But after a few beats, the words just came out of my mouth, “So I was bait.”

  “Yes,” Dad said, with a little hint of anger in his voice as well.

  “I was right there,” Richard said. “I was ready to leap in before it got too serious.”

  For some reason him trying to justify it made me more upset. “Oh? And when would that have been?”

  “It takes a while, okay?”

  “What, getting the life sucked out of you by one of those things?”

  “Yes.” he said. His pupils had gone ruddy and they shone with reflected light like a cat’s. Dad was up in a flash, his chair smacking against the wall and a half-eaten slice of pizza landing face-down on the dining room floor.

  I got up fast too and backed away while Dad said, “Okay, Richard, time for you to go. I can take it from here. See you tomorrow.”

  Richard was still sitting, both hands clutching the table edge. He was experiencing an emotional frenzy. It’s something vampires go through sometimes. Or rather, his darker side was trying to make him frenzy, but he was fighting to keep his cool. He huffed deep breaths and didn’t take his blood-red, glinting eyes off me. Slowly, in measured inches, he got to his feet.

  He didn’t say anything else—no apology, explanation, or argument—as he turned and left out the door my dad had come in through. And then he was gone, melted off into the night somewhere.

  I was happier than ever that he’d sucked my blood instead of someone else’s, because if he hadn’t he might have gone off to make some unsuspecting civilian’s night a whole lot worse.

  XXI

  I didn’t really realize how rattled I was from my brush with death the evening before until about halfway through home period the next day. Don’t ask me why my psyche waited until Miss Pearson put up a cell-structure slide to truly face the fact that I’d almost died the night before, but it did. What I hadn’t been able to process fully the night before suddenly became a reality in my mind.

  I had almost died.

  My pulse picked up and my breathing got a bit labored. It wasn’t actually thinking about the creature that had me spooked—maybe it would have been had I been the one she was attacking at that moment instead of Richard—but more the thought that I’d been so willing to pour our family’s secrets into that woman just because she’d asked me.

  Of course I realize there was a lot more to it than that. It was supernatural. I wasn’t really to blame. But anybody who’s been compelled supernaturally to do something they wouldn’t normally do can tell you how little consolation that really is, unless it’s the kind of thing you just don’t remember later.

  And what if Richard hadn’t been there…?

  I’d be dead right now.

  Now I could understand why my dad had wanted us to move, and maybe on the logical level he’d been right. These black suits were so weird, so creepy and dangerous. Add on to that that it seemed their ultimate goal, at least as far as Campville was concerned, was to destroy the whole town? Not fun. Not safe. Not smart to stick around.

  I wandered like a ghost to my next class, thinking the one thought every half-competent hunter I’d ever met tried to avoid: We really might not beat these things.

  Of course, there was a practical element to a thought like that, but it was also the kind of thinking that got people killed. To be a good hunter, you have to defy odds. You have to believe there is a way. Without that hope, the fear alone will do you in, not to mention the moment you start thinking about your “chances” is the moment you get more focused on failure than on finding real solutions. It’s much better to act like you had to win, like there simply wasn’t another option, because that’s when you got creative.

  By lunch I’d calmed down a bit, and my appetite had even come back. I’d spent the last group activity in English class not being super helpful—sorry, groupmates!—but going through the mental gymnastics needed to convince myself my dad and I were going to be alive by this time next week.

  For some reason I only really found myself focusing on the two of us, despite the fact that the whole town was in danger. Maybe it’s because I could actually conceptualize the loss of two people but thousands of deaths were simply beyond me.

  Becca wanted to sit with a group of our friends, but I pulled her to a squeaky table in the corner that was almost always empty. It was the only one that was round, and it was obviously from another era from the others. What trick of fate had kept it from being thrown away decades ago?

  I set my tray down and said, “We’ll sit with them in a second. I need to ask you something.”

  She looked uncomfortable, but she still sat down.

  “How did you see me and that boy on Monday?”

  “Up on the hill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well…” she bit her lip. She had kind of luscious lips, and even though I tried not to compare myself to other girls—I learned a long time ago that’s the fastest road to feeling like something you’d rather scrape off your shoe than an actual human being—I couldn’t help but think about how thin mine must look next to hers.

  “Out with it,” I said.

  “Look, it’s not what you think.”

  “What I think?” I asked. “What the hell do you think I think? I don’t know what to think. Well, other than that you’ve been following me around. Is that what’s going on?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  This was just getting weirder and weirder. I mean, I guess I have a pretty high tolerance for weird, but I measured Becca on a different scale than, say, the ask-you-questions-slit-your-throat-oh-yeah-and-I’m-kind-of-a-weird-dog-thing woman because Becca was, well, just a natural human.

  “Do you?” I said. “Do you follow me around?”

  “I guess,” she said and met my gaze. “Is that, like, super weird?”

  “Um. Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. Well, why do you do it?”

  She squirmed, and I almost felt bad. I had the definite impression she was hedging the truth a bit in her mind, but I still just waited for her response. “I think you’re really interesting, Cath. I’ve never really met anybody like you.”

  The thought crossed my mind that Becca might be, like, coming on to me or something, but I was pretty sure that’s not what she was getting at. There was this uneasy feeling in my stomach that touched upon a much bigger issue.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is going to sound really weird, okay?”

  “We’re already there,” I assured her.

  “But I know you have a secret.”

  My blood turned to dishwater, but I tried not to let it show on my face. Being part of the hunter world is kind of like being a felon on the lam; there was always a whispering little part of you that was certain any moment you were going to get caught. I mean, I guess I’ve never been a felon o
n the lam, but I’m guessing it’s a lot like being a hunter.

  I said, “Tell me what you think this ‘secret’ is.”

  A lot of times when people are lying—like say, the way I was lying to my only real buddy in the world every single day by letting her think I was just a normal girl—they get defensive and angry when people broach that lie. But I had too much guilt for that. Or maybe guilt is why people get defensive, I don’t know, but for me the guilt had another effect. I don’t really like being less-than-truthful, so when Becca pinned me like this—“I know you have a secret”—my anger went inside, at me, not lashing out at her.

  “I have no idea,” she answered. “That’s part of what makes it so exciting. I only know, for sure, that you’ve got one.”

  “Let’s say you’re right,” I said, knowing this was not the party line the Association wanted us spouting, but not knowing what else to say that wasn’t an out-and-out lie. “You trying to ferret me out?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, narc on me? Get my secret out there?” And then, to lighten the mood a bit, I added, “Some people call it tattling?”

  “What? No!” she insisted, taking both of my hands in hers for emphasis. “I just want to know what it is.”

  “So you follow me around? Why didn’t you just ask?”

  “I…” she laughed. “This is going to sound really crazy.”

  “Try me.”

  “I was kind of… testing something… A theory I have.” Then she met my gaze and said, “And anyway, it was more exciting this way. I meant to tell you. I really did.”

  I just looked at her. I mean, sure, it’s not like I’ve known Becca for years or anything—actually just a few months—but she hadn’t moved in that much sooner than I had, and I probably knew her better than just about anybody aside from her family. But I never would have expected that. She had a wild streak in her? Straight-A Susanna longed for a little adventure in her life, enough that she’d actually follow around her best friend in the dark?

  Maybe we had more in common than I’d thought.

  “So how many times have you stalked me?”

  “Come on!” she said. “Don’t say it like that!”

  “Okay,” I had to laugh. Sure, I was kind of creeped out, but there was something fun about it too, learning something new about this girl who I thought I’d had pegged before this. “So, just how many times have you ‘followed’ me?”

  “Not a lot! Like, maybe, five times?”

  “And one of those times you saw me with Richard?”

  “Yeah. Is he your boyfriend?”

  Interesting question, but I guess I had to say, “No. He’s not.” I wanted to say something about how he had sort-of made out with my neck and sucked some of my blood—you know, normal boyfriend stuff—just because I wanted to see her reaction, but of course I didn’t.

  “What else have you seen?” I asked. “Like, when you were ‘not-stalking’ me?”

  She shook her head, and I couldn’t read her expression at all. Something like… disappointment? “Nothing else happened the other times.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  She shrugged. “Interesting stuff. That’s all.”

  “Well, sorry I can’t be more exciting when I go on my evening walks.”

  “I’ll forgive you. This once,” she said.

  We didn’t end up sitting with anybody else. I didn’t mind though. I liked our other friends, but it was nice to just hang out with Becca like this. It reminded me of when Abby still lived at home and how much I missed seeing her all the time.

  XXII

  It was a few days until I saw Richard again.

  I ended up thinking about him a lot. Big shock, I know. But I wasn’t just thinking about him as a boy, I was thinking about what it must be like to become a vampire. This wasn’t really a new topic for me, of course.

  It shouldn’t really surprise anyone to hear hunters are way more likely than normal, everyday people to become vampires, but there is an irony to it, too. I mean, they’re also way more likely to kill a vampire than a normal person. That said, they usually get changed because they’ve gotten mixed up with vampires and not, as Richard had so bizarrely chosen to do, because they asked.

  All vampires, even sunners, have tempers and other mood swings. It’s one of their most defining attributes. A really easygoing person in life is still going to be more easygoing than most vampires when they get turned, but they’re never going to be able to unwind the way they did in life.

  It’s kind of like this: Let’s say a regular person is a guitar string. Getting turned into a vampire is like having the tuning knob tightened an extra few turns, only instead of this wearing them down over time like it would to a regular person this added tension seems to make most vampires stronger and stronger as the decades and centuries go on.

  Emphasis on most, though; there have definitely been a few driven to insanity or self-destruction by the new condition of their emotions. Every vampire is impulsive, it just depends on the specific vamp to tell how impulsive. And, as my father has told me more times than I can count, every vampire is dangerous whether they’re one of the “good guys” or not.

  As much as I like some of them, I know you really can’t fully drop your guard around them. To me, it’s not a matter of trust, though. Take Victoria, I trust her intentions as much as my own dad’s, but she’s like a trained tiger or something. She could go off, and I’d pay the price just like some animal trainers do. It doesn’t mean she’s bad, it’s just a part of her nature to be dangerous.

  So when Richard did come around again, a weeknight that Dad was actually home, trying to figure out what to do with the black suits and their freak master lady, I wasn’t exactly surprised by the cold reaction my dad gave him. I couldn’t hear the exact words through my closed door, but I could hear Dad’s tone.

  Moving to the door, not quite pressing my ear against it, I made out the next thing my dad said though: “Go ahead and knock on her door. You know which one it is.” I was surprised he was giving Richard that kind of permission. It had to be because Richard’s mom had been such a great hunter.

  When he knocked, I opened the door and let him in. I didn’t know what Dad would think of this, but I closed the door behind him. We didn’t really have any specific boy/girl rules at our house, mostly because neither Abby nor I had a track record of dating a lot, but I could guess that Dad would rather me leave it open. But I wanted Richard to be able to speak his piece without a vampire bigot listening to every word.

  He sat on my bed, which I thought was an interesting choice, so I took the rolling computer chair at my desk and wheeled it kind of close to him.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  He gave me a lopsided grin, and looked at the floor.

  Whoa. This was… not a look I would have associated with Richard, who was usually Mr. Moody Revenge. His dirty-blond hair fell over his eyes, casting a little shadow there. Right now I would have believed he was fifteen instead of nineteen. He looked like a kid, younger and more innocent than I was, even though I knew he wasn’t. He had kind of broad shoulders considering his slighter frame, but he was hunched in a way that made him look weaker than he really was. I’m sure he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it made him look oddly vulnerable, and something in me responded to that.

  Then his smile dropped and he got serious. Like I said, typical vampire. And—typical stupid Catherine—that is one of the things I actually like about hanging out with them. It’s that little bit of fear I crave, that little interesting extra something. All vampires give me that thrill, because, it’s like, you never know what’s going to be happening with them ten minutes from any given moment.

  “I’m really sorry about the other night.” he said.

  “What, saving my life? I think I can get over it.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  But actually, I didn’t. If someone were really trying to beat themselves up in R
ichard’s situation, they could probably find more than a few things to apologize for. There was only one I cared about, but I didn’t think he was saying sorry for using me as bait.

  “I’m sorry that I lost my cool at dinner.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course it would be that. I’ve heard it said more times than I can count that guys have a tendency to be really dense sometimes. My dad wasn’t like that, so I hadn’t ever given the stereotype much credence. But this wasn’t helping the male sex much.

  “You couldn’t help it. It’s not like you really even did anything. You just got upset, which, believe it or not, even happens sometimes to non-vampires!” Okay, so my tone was a bit acrid. I just really wished if he was going to come here and make a big deal out of saying sorry that he’d broach the one subject that had actually hurt my feelings.

  Even with vampires—maybe especially vampires—I’m not really the kind to walk on eggshells. I said, “Do you mind telling me what got you so worked up at dinner?”

  He could have gotten upset all over again—which maybe I was kind of hoping for?—but he didn’t seem to have a single ruffled feather, and I had to give him some points for that.

  He said, “It’s about how my mom died. She was questioned by those things, those black suits, as your dad calls them, and then they slit her throat. I saw it.”

  Wow. Okay so maybe I felt a little bad about trying to push his buttons with my question. I hadn’t really expected that, though it made sense in retrospect. That’s why he got upset with me talking about how they kill.

  “I’m really sorry, Richard.”

  “Me too. Sorry I couldn’t stop them then. I got away though, and they left town. I think they were going to wipe the whole place off the map, like your dad says they’ve done to a few other towns, but they left because they knew I was there.”

  I was impressed. “You must know a lot about hunting, too, then.”