“Good plan,” he said.
“Thanks. Worked on it for all of thirty seconds.”
Peter grabbed the microphone. “Yeah, great plan, bitch. Well, we’ve got more than one way to kill you pieces of shit. This was just a small part of it. You’ll all be dead in the next couple of days, and you’ll never even see it coming.”
“Now, how are you going to kill us in your current position?” I asked him sweetly.
“I’m not.” Then he laughed and it sounded just this side of insane. “You’re already killing yourselves. Just being here. Just drinking here. It’s so simple, too. You’re all so stupid to not see it coming.”
I felt Thierry’s hand on the small of my back. I looked up into his eyes; then he turned his gaze on Peter.
“Do you mean how you’ve poisoned the blood supply?”
A gasp went through the club.
Peter raised an eyebrow. “Very smart. Yes, all your blood has been tainted. My idea, might I add. We’ve had the Blood Delivery Guys working with us, under duress, for more than a week. By now, you all have enough poison in your systems to drop dead in agony within days. And there’s no antidote.” He laughed.
I stared at Thierry. Oh, my God. Poisoned blood? Everyone I was aware of got their blood by buying it. Nobody got it the old-fashioned way anymore—it just wasn’t done. Even after finally standing up for ourselves, we still were all going to die.
Thierry nodded. “It was a brilliant plan. However, I recently stopped using the Blood Delivery Guys. I now use the Blood Drivers—a little more expensive, but well worth it, don’t you think? Perhaps the shared uniforms I arranged threw you off a bit. No, the Blood Delivery Guys haven’t personally made a delivery in over a week. Everyone in the city has also made the change. I personally made sure of it.”
Peter’s face had gone a medium shade of crimson. “You knew. How?”
“Perhaps you are not the only one who has informants.”
“Zelda,” I said under my breath to draw Thierry’s attention away from Peter. “Zelda’s the informant. Well, their informant.”
“I know.”
“You do? What are you, like freaking Kreskin?”
He smiled at me. “No. Simply a good judge of character. Also, she stopped drinking the blood that was delivered here. She’d brought her own supply in and kept it under the bar.
Little things say a lot.”
“Where’s Zelda now?”
“In my office.” He paused. “With Veronique.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Poor Zelda.”
“Indeed.”
“Shut up!” Peter screamed. “Both of you. Shut up! I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care how many of you there are. Do you know my kill count? Neither do I, because it’s so bloody high! I can take half of you out tonight with my eyes closed.” He glanced at his friends. They were all looking a little less sure of themselves than they had when they first got there. But each hand held a sharp weapon. A weapon meant to slice, to dice, to kill. And they had the power of desperation and rage fueling them.
Peter leaped out at the audience that rose to meet him. Then all hell broke loose. It was one thing to say to the vamps that they could hold their own, but when push came to shove, a lot of them bailed and ran to the exits, pushing past the petrified, overpowered hunters who blocked their way. I got swept up with the crowd and pulled away from Thierry and Quinn. I tried to fight my way back, but I was pressed on all sides. People were going crazy. Either fighting against the dozen hunters or trying to get the hell out of Dodge. A hand reached out from beneath a table and pulled me under. It was George.
“Just stay here,” he said. “It’ll be over soon.”
“But Thierry—”
“Thierry wants to die. Everybody knows that. Save yourself, sweetheart.”
He didn’t mean to be cruel. He was trying to be helpful, and I knew it. I grabbed him and kissed him hard on the cheek.
“Don’t get stabbed again.” I slipped out from underneath the table.
“I’ll try,” he said sadly. “You too.”
I tried to find somebody I knew, but I was surrounded by unfamiliar faces that were filled with rage or fear or confusion. Where were Quinn and Thierry? Why couldn’t I find Barry and Amy? Did Veronique even know what was going on? I had to get to the office and warn her. I was close to the bar at that moment, and I used it to pull myself along through the crowd going in the opposite direction. I ran down the hallway and opened up the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind me. I looked around.
Zelda was right in front of me, smiling sweetly.
“Hey, Sarah.” She backhanded me across the face. “Glad you could join us.”
White stars exploded in front of my eyes. I fell to the floor and tried to scramble away from her, stunned by the pain from the blow. What just happened? I thought Veronique was looking after her. I looked up. Veronique was sprawled on the sofa, unconscious. There was a wooden stake protruding from her ample chest; her designer dress was ruined, and one expensive shoe was off, the heel broken and flung across the room. I crawled along the floor until I got to Thierry’s desk. Using it, I pulled myself up to my feet. My ears rang from the hit I’d just received. I never knew girls could hit that hard, but
Zelda wasn’t a girl. She was a three-hundred-year-old vampire with a chip on her shoulder. We weren’t the only ones in the room. Peter emerged from the corner and smiled at me.
“Nice little scene out there, darlin‘. Didn’t see that coming.”
“Yeah, well, I guess you don’t see much coming these days.” I noticed the familiar taste of blood in my mouth. “At least not out of your left side, that is.”
His smile vanished and was replaced by a scowl.
“Got anything to say to me?” Zelda asked.
“Nope.” I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of getting any more of a rise out of me. “Not a damn thing.”
She almost looked disappointed. Then she shrugged.
“Okay, Peter, I’m leaving now. I’ve done everything you’ve wanted.”
He stared at her. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful. Although, I can’t say that I’m too thrilled about how this night is going so far.”
“Not my fault. So, how about my payment?”
“Your payment?”
“That’s right,” I said. “After all, our dear little Zelda only wants what’s coming to her.”
I almost felt that Peter and I shared a moment, but that was impossible because he was a psycho and the last time I checked—I wasn’t. A wide smile spread across his face.
“She wants what’s coming to her, does she?”
“Come on,” Zelda said impatiently. “I don’t have all night.”