"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.
"So do I have the job?" I asked, still forcing myself to ignore the weird feeling.
He glanced at Heather. "What do you think?"
"I think it'll work out perfectly." She smiled and kissed him. "Just like we planned."
I swallowed. The strange feeling of dread that had taken up space in my gut from the very first interview question began to spread through the rest of my body. "Can we talk about
Vamp International now? Do I have the job?"
Heather stroked Josh's face, before kissing him on his lips, and she turned her attention to me, her smile as bright and shiny as it had been all evening. "Okay, Sarah, I don't want you to be mad, but there actually isn't any Vamp International."
I felt a rush of disappointment. "Then what exactly is this interview for?"
She pushed the wad of money in the center of the table closer to me. "It's four hundred dollars now, and another four hundred once it's done."
I eyed her suspiciously. "Once what's done?"
"You need to sire my boyfriend," she said simply.
"I need to what!" My heart began to pound hard enough for me to hear in my ears. "What the hell are you talking about? I thought I was here to interview for a full-time job."
Her smile faded slightly around the edges. "Well, I knew you probably wouldn't immediately jump at a siring opportunity. I wanted you to meet Josh and see how awesome he is and how happy I am with him. And we are paying you for your services."
"For my services!" I repeated. "This is completely ridiculous."
"Please." Josh leaned forward. "I love Heather. I want to be a vampire so we can be together forever. Heather told me that you were a romantic. That you'd understand."
"Oh, I understand perfectly," I said, feeling the seething annoyance building up inside me.
"You want to be a vampire? Then why don't you just get her to sire you?"
He shook his head. "She's the last in a long line. The strength in her blood is way too diluted. If she sired me I'd be too weak. But because of your connection to two master vampires your blood would make me strong, even as a fledgling. You have to sire me."
"Forget it." I shook my head. No way. That would require biting him—possibly on the neck. Something I've never done before nor did I plan on starting tonight. Gross. I'd have to drain his blood while keeping my fangs in long enough to transmit the vampire virus that had changed me from a normal, everyday twenty-eight-year-old into a friendly neighborhood bloodsucker.
Hell no.
Now, I did require blood to live. I was a vampire, after all. But that was why there were vampire bars. Vampires went to these places to get their blood—blood that was available in kegs delivered by companies that got the red stuff from paid donors. It was a business.
The rarer the blood type, the more the blood cost. It worked very well and nobody I knew had a problem with it, especially since it meant that we didn't have to get our blood from the original source. That would be wrong on too many levels to count. No humans were harmed to meet the requirements of my daily nutrition. Amen.
Although, even drinking blood from a keg, knowing I wasn't hurting anybody, had been a hard thing to accept. However, if I didn't want to die in agony—which I didn't—some aspects of being a vampire couldn't be avoided.
"I'm out of here." I stood up from the table and grabbed my coat, ignoring the money completely, and I left the café to emerge into the chilly night without looking back.
Honestly. Some people. What had they been thinking? And lying to me about a fantastic new job? So not cool.
Pay me to sire her boyfriend. Did they think I was a vampire prostitute, or something? I wasn't biting anyone for money. I didn't care how broke I was.
Dammit. I was disappointed. Obviously a job that sounded too good to be true was just that. And to think that I'd trusted Heather—even thought of her as a friend. Talk about adding insult to injury.
I heard two sets of footsteps behind me but I ignored them.
"Sarah, wait!" Heather called after me.
I ducked into the little snow-covered park across the street from Haven. Through the park, up the street, down an alley and I'd be back in the club.
"Please, just listen to us." There was a pleading in Heather's voice now.
I stopped and turned around to face them. "Look, I understand that you two are in love.
That's super. Really. But I don't like being lied to and I don't want to bite anyone. Like, ever. So let's just forget this ever happened, okay?"