Stakes & Stilettos - Michelle Rowen [44]
I thought back to the strange conversation I’d had with her after she told me she knew I was a vampire. I’d assured her that I was nice and normal and not a monster.
And she wanted revenge.
Oh, shit.
“She cursed me, didn’t she?” I said. “Maybe to be one of these nightwalker things?”
“I believe she cursed you, but since we don’t know that you have any more symptoms, we can’t jump to any conclusions. It does seem as though she is drawing on common vampiric myths in whatever she’s done to you, though.”
“And now I can’t go outside.” After the blazing heat of the outdoors—and being that it was actually minus-ten Celcius in February, that wasn’t a good sign at all—what else was wrong with me? “Am I going to be stuck here until the sun goes down?”
I glanced around the room, which now felt like a badly decorated prison cell.
“We must go back to the city.”
“You go.” My voice was shaky. “I’ll stay here.”
“No, I won’t leave you here like this. We’ll return to Toronto and then we’ll locate the witch and have her break the curse. It’s as simple as that.” He sounded so calm and confident that I wanted to believe him.
He stood with his back against the door. He didn’t attempt to come any closer to me. I couldn’t say that I blamed him much after what had happened last night. Or maybe he was afraid that I’d go supernova and spontaneously combust.
I take it back. This was definitely worse than being turned into a toad.
I sat on the edge of the unmade bed. “But how can I drive back to Toronto with you? Your car is covered in windows. I’ll be like a microwavable bag of popcorn in there.”
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s simple. We will put you in the trunk.”
My eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“No. I was attempting humor again to help lessen the gravity of this situation.”
I blinked at him. “Don’t quit your day job.”
He approached and stroked the side of my face gently. “Don’t worry, Sarah. There’s a simple answer to this. We’ll find the witch. I’m confident that I’ll be able to convince her to help.”
I felt the weight of those words. Yeah, Thierry had a way of making things happen when he wanted to. Master vampires could be very convincing.
“So that’s the plan?” I asked. “Find Stacy? What if you can’t find her?”
“I will find her. When we return to the city our first stop will be Barry’s. He’s lived through a curse before. He may be of assistance to us in this matter.”
Thierry made another call on his cell phone, and I called my parents from the motel phone to say good-bye. They were vaguely apologetic for their reaction to Thierry yesterday, feeling that they might have overreacted, but they just wanted me to “be happy.” I assured them I was happy, and I said it with as much conviction as I could muster. It seemed to work. Luckily, they didn’t ask for us to stop by on our way out of town, which was good because I didn’t want to have to tell them that they’d be answering the door to a great big ball of fire.
Half an hour later, Thierry’s solution to our trip back to the city arrived. A rented cube van. So, wrapped very tightly in the tacky paisley comforter from the bed, I ran to the back of the van and threw myself inside. The door slammed shut and I was plunged into darkness. I felt the vehicle start moving and I counted down the minutes until we got back to Toronto.
The front door was open and waiting for me at Amy and Barry’s place. I could see it from the back of the van.
“As quickly as possible,” Thierry said tightly.
With blanket in place I headed with him directly for the door. Amy was there, and she beckoned to me with a wave of her arm. She looked concerned. Possibly because of the ugly stolen comforter I had wrapped around me like a large paisley cocoon. The inside of their house looked so dark, so cool and inviting, that