Stakes & Stilettos - Michelle Rowen [6]
Would it be rude if I shoved the cash into my pocket right away? Probably. “Shoot. My life is an open book.”
“How long ago, precisely, were you sired as a vampire?”
I frowned. “That’s kind of a strange question for a job interview, isn’t it?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is, sort of.”
Heather laughed, too, and reached across the table to pat my hand reassuringly. “Josh is just trying to get to know you. Besides, the company does cater to vampire clientele.”
“Oh.” I relaxed a bit. “Well, okay. It was exactly ten weeks ago yesterday.”
“Ten weeks.” He nodded. “And you’ve adjusted well?”
“As well as can be expected, I guess.”
“I think you’ve done very well.”
“I try.” I took a sip of my coffee, cringing a bit at how bitter it tasted. I reached over to grab a few packets of sugar, tore them open, and stirred them into the dark depths.
“And since you were sired, do you notice having any special abilities now?”
I thought about that. “Well… I’d say that my senses have increased a bit, but nothing too crazy. Like my hearing’s improved. And I can smell really well. Seeing in the dark is a little clearer. Do you mean things like that?”
He nodded. “That’s helpful. And do you have any prophetic dreams?”
“Prophetic dreams?”
“Dreams that seem to foretell the future.”
“Uh…” I frowned again. “Actually I did have a dream a few weeks ago that sort of told me that trouble was coming. And a few more that have been rather vivid. Would those count?”
He nodded. “Any other uncanny psychic abilities?”
“I won twenty bucks on the lottery last week.”
“Increased strength?”
“Maybe a little, but I’m not signing up to be a professional wrestler yet.” My frown deepened. “Listen, these questions are making me a little uncomfortable. What does this have to do with the job?”
“I’m human,” Josh said, “and I’m hiring vampires. I need to know these things. It’s important.”
I glanced at Heather, but she looked completely fixated on Josh and not in the least bit frazzled by his vampire-related interview. I brushed away my sense of weirdness about the situation and took a sip of my now too-sweet coffee. “Okay, if you say so.”
“So…” Josh continued. “There’s a rumor that you’ve drunk the blood of not one, but two master vampires. Is that true?”
I grimaced. Another rumor. Just what I needed.
Well, there was Thierry, of course. He’d saved me when my original sire was slain by vampire hunters before I’d had the proper fledgling nutrition to keep me breathing. I got to ingest some of his supercharged vampire blood—apparently the older the vamp the more potent his blood was. Since master vampires rarely, if ever, shared blood or sired fledglings, this caused my vampire side-effects—namely losing my reflection and developing my fangs—to happen months if not years before they normally would have. Becoming a full vampire apparently took time.
And I guess Nicolai was a master vampire, too. Or was, anyhow, until he’d ended up on the wrong side of a wooden stake. As one of the elder vampires in the Ring—the international vampire council—he’d stopped by Toronto three weeks ago to investigate my Slayer of Slayers reputation. Unfortunately there was some major bad blood—no pun intended—between him and Thierry. When he found out Thierry and I were involved, the insane vamp tried to kill me to seek his revenge. Before I’d learned about his ulterior motives, I’d had some of his blood by way of his wrist stuck in my mouth when I was near death. A girl can’t be too choosy in situations like that.
“Sure, two master vamps,” I said after a few moments of silence. “I guess I’m popular. Why do you want to know?”
Josh studied me without saying anything. From my dark brown shoulder-length hair, currently tucked behind my ears, to my eyes, nose, mouth. Then along my neck to my white camisole tank top, and, if you ask me, lingered a little too long for comfort on the boob area. My black winter coat hung behind me on the chair.
“I think I have all the information I need,” he said.